Free Claimed by the Elven King: Part One by Cristina Rayne

CHAPTER ONE
    It was the middle of the night when they came for me. Even now I can’t
be sure of the time, whether they waited for me to have been asleep long enough
to ensure that I would be super confused if accidentally awakened, or if they
had waited until after midnight when my roommate usually headed out for her
graveyard shift at the hospital. I can’t even be sure if all the fantastical
things I experienced afterwards really happened or was the mother of all
delusions that is still ongoing. A small part of me has never been able to let
go of that small fear. All I know is that it sure felt damned real to me that
night.
    Being a light sleeper, I immediately awakened, at first not certain
why. I felt them that night. I know that now, but back then it was like I had
awakened straight into a nightmare. I didn’t even have time to blink the sleep
from my eyes before the shadows of my room seemed to come alive, forming into
human-like shapes and surrounding me as silently and ethereally as fog
approaching a coastline.
    Before I could make a sound, I felt the shock of several cold hands on
me, lifting me from my bed, and it was suddenly like the chill of their touch
entered my body in an abrupt, shocking burst that washed completely through me,
making my lungs seize painfully and leaving me unable to breathe for a few
terrifying seconds. As I gasped frantically for air, the little sight I still
possessed in the darkness abruptly winked out until all I could see was a
blackness so absolute it was as if I had suddenly gone blind.
    What was happening to me? Yet, for some reason, it never occurred to me
to scream. Maybe it happened too quickly; maybe I was in shock or thought that
I was still dreaming. I didn’t even struggle.
    I could feel their hands binding my arms like living manacles, others
holding my legs like I was a log to be carried away between them. Then there
was a sensation of traveling very rapidly, of wind blowing in my face like I
had just stuck my head out the window of a car going seventy down the
interstate, though I could almost swear none of us had actually moved. I still
couldn’t see, and at that moment, that was more terrifying than the realization
that I was being abducted.
    Then the wind abruptly ceased, and it was over. Just like that, between
one breath and another.
    The shock of feeling something solid, smooth, and cold on my bare feet
was akin to being doused with ice water. I had been set down on my feet, it
seems, and had the shadow hands not have still had a firm grip on my arms, I
would have surely collapsed.
    Only then did I find my voice, but all I could manage to ask was,
“What?”
    I still can’t believe that I had been so brainless at such a crucial
point, but I guess I’m as human as the next person after all. I had always
fashioned myself the type to think quickly on my feet and always ready to react
to whatever crisis life would throw at me, but it turns out I’m just as prone to
freeze in the face of danger just like the majority of people. A major blow to
my ego, for sure, but in my defense, the possibility of waking up still very
much existed because what was happening was just too crazy to believe.
    Adding insult to injury, my kidnappers didn’t even bother to answer my
confusion. I was simply forced to walk forward, the hands imprisoning my arms
gently, but insistently, pushing me onward.
    Blinded, I saw no gain in resisting, so I walked for what seemed like
hours before the hands holding my arms pulled me to an abrupt halt that nearly
sent me to my knees. My captors still didn’t speak or make any sound. I
couldn’t even hear any audible breathing, which completely creeped me out and
made me begin to wonder whether I was still even alive.
    I heard the creak of a door swinging open, and I was once again urged
forward. I immediately noticed the sound of running water, but I had no time to
contemplate what this meant before I was thrust into the hands of others, and I
felt