Kinked by Thea Harrison Read Free Book Online Page B

whited out. Gods, she wanted to claw at him. She whirled to face him just as Dragos’s door opened.
    Her gaze clashed with Caeravorn’s. His blue eyes were narrowed, catlike on her. He had dressed all in black. Black jeans, black T-shirt, and a worn, black leather bomber jacket; and like her, he carried a backpack.
    “Come in,” said Dragos.
    Somehow, Aryal made herself obey, maneuvering her own body around as though it were a marionette. Every nerve ending on her skin was aware of Caeravorn gliding bonelessly into the room behind her.
    Once they were inside, Dragos shut the door.
    He turned to face them and said, without preamble, “I’m going to send you to Numenlaur.”

FOUR
    N umenlaur.
    The name resonated in Quentin’s marrow. His emotions roared as he heard Dragos say it, a single outcry of the soul.
    Numenlaur was the first and oldest Elven land, the fabled birthing place from which all others had come. The Other land had been closed off from the rest of the world for millennia.
    Once upon a time, he would have been filled with curiosity and wonder at the chance to see Numenlaur, and he would have given anything to go. Now he still felt the echoes of that same compulsion, only it was underscored with dread and grief, for Numenlaur had become a wasteland, emptied of the Elves who had once lived there.
    As if from a distance, he heard Aryal ask, “Why do you want us to go?”
    Dragos’s expression shuttered as he looked from the harpy to Quentin. He assessed them both, his golden gaze moody and calculating. He said, “Ever since the battle at Lirithriel Wood, Pia has been keeping in close contact with her friends in the Elven demesne. They remain completely overwhelmed with what happened.”
    Quentin had no idea what his own expression might reveal. He turned abruptly, putting his back to the other two as he struggled to get in control of his feelings.
    “Overwhelmed” was a massive understatement. Two months after the battle in Lirithriel Wood, the Elven demesne in South Carolina remained devastated. One of the ancient Guardians of Numenlaur, Amras Gaeleval, had apparently gone mad and enslaved all the Numenlaurians in a Powerful enthrallment, driving them to attack the Elven demesne just outside of Charleston.
    Gaeleval had tricked his way into Lirithriel then tried to enthrall the Elves there as well. He did not manage to capture everybody, but he drove those Elves he did enthrall to attack their own people. Friends cut down friends, and families were decimated. Gaeleval had set fire to Lirithriel Wood, killing its spirit in an attempt to drive the High Lord Calondir and those Elves he had not managed to capture over the crossover passageway to their Other land, where they would have faced extinction at the hands of Gaeleval’s army had not Dragos, Pia and the Wyr become involved.
    For the first time in decades, Dragos himself had called the Wyr to war. In a confrontation in the Elven Other land, Dragos killed Gaeleval and broke the enthrallment. In the process, Calondir, the High Lord of the Elven demesne in Charleston, had also been killed. So had at least a third of the Numenlaurians.
    Of those who had survived, a significant number were still catatonic. Others failed to recover. They were lethargic, distant and without appetite, and many were physically malnourished and ill from a multitude of problems that had occurred through long neglect and lack of proper shelter.
    The surviving Lirithriel Elves that Gaeleval had captured ended up faring better overall than the Numenlaurians. They had been enthralled for only a short time, and they were physically healthier and more robust. Even so, many struggled to reconnect with life. A few, unable to cope with losing so many friends and family, had committed suicide.
    Quentin had lost friends and family members too. TheHigh Lord Calondir himself had been his uncle by marriage. The Elder tribunal had deployed a Peacekeeping presence to Lirithriel, setting up a