Free Bound to the Prince by Deborah Court Page A

had
not succeeded in diverting his thoughts from the human. Igraine. He whispered her name, testing how it sounded on
his tongue. It felt like a sensual sigh.
    Damn. What had she done to him? He hadn’t
been able to stay away from her. Every night he was lying awake in
his huge four-poster bed, oversensitive to the soft caress of the
black silken sheets on his heated skin. He couldn’t help but think
about the angry, rebellious look on her face when she had attacked
him, or about the fact that she wanted him to take her. Oh yes,
she’d tried to hide it from him, but she just couldn’t hold back
the passion he saw in her eyes. They were such a lovely, deep green
that he thought of his forest in the spring, when young leaves grew
on the newly-revived trees.
    Somebody, probably a human lover, had hurt
her so badly he sometimes could feel her intense pain. It tugged at
his heart. He didn’t want to feel this, especially not for a filthy
human. Especially not for this particular human with her voluptuous
body and soft wavy hair that fell like a dark cloud over her
shoulders when she moved. To be honest, she wasn't even filthy. Her
fresh, sweet scent drove him crazy with need. But she didn’t
consider herself beautiful. Were the men of her world dumb and
blind? How could the one that had hurt her have ever considered
letting such a precious jewel go?
    Elathan had intentionally brought her clothes
that were a little too tight for her, so he could secretly admire
her curves. He wondered if she had noticed, but her body had
changed, becoming stronger every day. It was not only caused by the
spartan food and hard training, but also by the ancient magic that
permeated these underground caverns. Since the mortal woman had
ceased to despise herself, her body had begun to change, adapting
to the way she thought of herself while her soul gradually
healed.
    Since his youth, a very long time ago,
Elathan had been a warrior, and everything he ever touched was hard
and cold - the shining steel of his sword, his heavy armor, the
walls of these caves he now called his home. In his youth, he had
slept on the bare stone floor of his father’s stronghold ever since
he had reached the age to be trained as an elven knight. This was
deemed to prepare the youngsters for the strenuous times of war
lying ahead. They shouldn’t grow up as weaklings. Even the bodies
of the elven women throwing themselves at the prince were not soft
but slim and flexible, almost too breakable. They fulfilled his
carnal needs whenever he wished to be satisfied, but he had never
really desired one of them.
    Nobody knew that the prince had a secret
passion for soft things. He’d loved to roll around in the golden
autumn leaves covering the forest floor when he was young, laughing
with glee, but only if he was sure that nobody watched him. King
Bres would have personally whipped his son to near death had he
seen the prince’s undignified behavior. Elathan liked to caress a
horse’s velvety nose, to touch rose petals with his lips. He loved
to hold out his finger for a butterfly to rest, tickling his skin
with its delicate wings.
    But all these simple pleasures had been lost
for him when he went into exile so long ago. Long before the
Devil's Society claimed these caves for themselves, the trolls had
carved the chambers out of the womb of the earth. The world was
still young and at peace then. Later, the trolls had moved deeper
down into the underground tunnels, never to emerge to the surface
again. They, too, were tired of fighting the treacherous humans who
threatened to destroy their underground realm.
    A vibrant trade relationship had been
established between trolls and elves. They gave the elves
everything they took out of the earth – gold, silver, diamonds,
magically enhanced stone to build their strongholds, the secret
knowledge of making steel. In return they wanted the lovely things
the elves created with their skillful hands, clothes woven from
pixie dust so