Within the Sapphire Forest

Chapter 20

I stood silent for a moment, waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was no way in hell this elf just wanted to keep me as a guest in his home. Douglas didn’t move either, and I couldn’t tell if he was waiting for me to do something, or giving me time.

I glanced up to see him watching me. He offered me a soft smile and held out a hand to me, but I wasn’t comfortable taking it.

“I’m sorry for everything that has happened to you, but I really do want to help. Why not come with me, and we can talk?” he suggested.

I nodded and he dropped his hand. He led me to a giant room with a canopy bed and gorgeous balcony view of the pathways below, and the light streaming through the leaves above. It looked like the night sky with how dark it was, but how glittery the light was.

“Tell me, Dove, how did you come to wear that collar, and how did you join the company of that werewolf?” he asked, gesturing for me to take a seat on the bed while he sat in the chair at the desk.

“Well, it’s a really long story,” I said.

“I have the time, and I really want to know.”

I sat, and I told him everything that had happened to me since meeting Caden, from healing him, to saving his pack, to getting kidn*pped and abused. I didn’t leave anything out, and when I finished, I just sat there in silence.

Douglas took a moment to reign in his thoughts before saying, “You’ve had quite the adventure in the past six months, haven’t you.”

“Wait, six months? What month is it?” I asked, suddenly very afraid.

“It’s October, the eighth if you're wondering.”

“Two months, I was a prisoner with him for two months,” I said.

My emotions finally broke free, and I sobbed. I couldn’t remember the last time I really cried. I didn’t cry while I was Nathan’s prisoner, I was afraid of appearing weak. I couldn’t remember crying when I lived at Caden’s pack, I was so happy there. So, all of that repressed emotion exploded out of me in watery tears and gross snot. I tried to calm myself down, but once the dam broke, there was no stopping it until I cried it all out.

For his part, Douglas did a fantastic job of handling me. He didn’t try to step in and calm me, which I was so thankful for because it probably would have only made the crying worse. He just sat there calmly, letting me get it all out of my system.

When I finally stopped crying, Douglas handed me a tissue.

“I’m so sorry that all happened to you. Why don’t you get some rest, and we can talk more in the morning. There’s a private bathroom through that door,” he pointed and I followed his gesture to see a door I’d totally ignored on my first glance, “and clean clothes for you to use. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

He left without another word, shutting the door behind him. I dragged myself to the spacious, simple bathroom to shower. The shower wasn’t a typical shower, but branches that seemed to break up a stream of water and cause it to rain down softly over an area of smooth stones over branches, so the water ran over the rocks and through the branches. Where it went, I had no idea. I just wanted to shower. I stripped and stepped into the warm water, rinsing the dirt and nastiness off of my body. I also found some very nice soaps and shampoos that smelled like Lilacs, and I used way too much to make myself smell better. 

Then I towel dried with the softest towel I’d ever had the privilege of touch and rummaged through the closet for clothes. They were all dresses of one form or another, short and loose to long and tight fitting, but I managed to find a soft nightgown and put it on before crawling into the most comfortable bed I could ever imagine. I wasn’t sure if it really was the most comfortable bed, or if I was just so used to really stiff, awful beds, that my body felt like it was sleeping on a cloud. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

The next morning, or at least I thought it was morning, but I couldn’t actually tell, I was awoken by a knocking on the door. I rolled carefully out of bed to answer the door and discovered a tall brunette woman on the other side.

“Good morning. I’m sorry if I woke you up, but King Douglas has requested you join him for breakfast, so I’m here to help you get ready.”

“Oh, okay,” I replied, still confused and half asleep.

She quickly entered and hurried to the closet, and pulled out a gorgeous blue dress. She helped me strip out of my nightgown, and she thankfully didn’t say anything about the scars on my back. She laced up the back of the dress, fixed my hair, gave me some matching blue boots, and ushered me out the door.

I followed her to a small room with wide open windows, and a small table with two chairs. It was empty, but the woman assured me that Kind Douglas would be arriving shortly. I took a seat and stared out the window, enjoying the sparkle of light that streamed through the leaves above.

“It’s a beautiful place, isn’t it?”

I spun around to see Douglas standing behind me. He took a seat opposite me, and I straightened up, feeling a little awkward to be in the presence of a king.

“Yes, it is. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so beautiful,” I responded.

“I once visited a colonial tree in South America that had several different trunks that all twisted and looped around each other. That was a very interesting place.”

“It definitely sounds like it.”

We sat quietly, and awkwardly for a few minutes, until the woman who collected me appeared with a bottle of something that glittered strangely. 

“This is an elvish drink, that I assure is absolutely delicious. Please, try some,” Douglas offered.

I nodded and she poured some in a crystal cup and handed it to me. I took a sip and was surprised at how good it was. It tasted sweet, and fruity, but it didn’t taste like anything I knew of.

“You’re right, it’s really good,” I said, setting the cup down.

“What would you like for breakfast? Truthfully, there isn’t much we don’t eat so you have your pick,” Douglas said.

“I was under the impression that elves didn’t eat anything that they had to kill for, like any kind of meat.”

“You were misinformed. Elves have a close bond with the earth and everything that lives on it, but that doesn’t keep us from enjoying what the earth has to offer. We eat all kinds of meat, so long as we kill it ourselves and it lives within our territory.” 

I nodded and requested eggs and bacon and toast. The woman nodded, and after Douglas ordered some crepes with fruit, she disappeared back through the door.

“I wanted to discuss some things with you,” Douglas said, drawing my attention back to him. “I understand before you were in Nathan’s company, you lived in another pack, with the alpha, Caden Matthews.”

“Yes. As I said last night, we fell in love and decided I should move to his home, where I would be safer and I could help his pack grow.”

“I was curious about something. You said he thought you were mates, but you don’t show any mating marks, so what do you think?”

“I don’t know,” I responded, shaking my head. “I know I love him very much, but you’re right, I don’t have any mating marks, and last time I saw him, he didn’t have any either.”

“So, is it possible you two aren’t mates, that he only wished for it so badly that he deluded himself into thinking it was true?” Douglas asked.

“Truthfully, I have no idea. I’ve never heard of an instance where a witch encountered her soul mate, so I wouldn’t even know what to expect if I did find mine.”

“I think that’s a witch’s greatest gift,” Douglas mused. “You don’t have to wait around for your mate to find you, you have the opportunity to decide for yourselves who you want to spend the rest of your lives with. I envy that.”

“Have you found your mate yet?” I questioned.

“No. I fear my mate is lost already. I met someone a couple decades ago who I believed was my mate, but she died, and I never found out if I was right. I never met anyone afterwards that I loved as deeply, so I stopped looking for a mate, and started looking for a queen, someone who could rule by my side over all of this,” he flung his arm out to gesture to the whole tree. “Even without your magic, you have such amazing intelligence and leadership skills that I would love to take you as my bride.”

I blinked in shock. He wanted me to marry him?

“I know this isn’t the most romantic proposal, and it may be difficult to wrap your head around, so please, take your time in deciding. I don’t want to make you feel pressured, I’m just throwing the offer on the table for you to think about.”

I nodded and took a shaky sip from my glass.

Breakfast arrived shortly after and we ate quietly. The food was amazing, the best I’d had in ages. The bacon was a perfect mix of crunchy and soft, the eggs perfectly cooked to dip my golden brown and perfectly buttered toast in. I was disappointed when it was all gone, but I knew if I ate too much too fast, I’d get sick.

The same woman hurried to clean up our plates, and Douglas stood and held his hand out to me.

“At least let me show you what I have to offer. I understand if belongings aren’t high on your list of suitor requirements, but I do have some things that might interest you.

“Okay,” I agreed, taking his hand.

He pulled me gently to the ground floor of the tree, where the hallways expanded to become magnificent paths that looked straight up through the branches and weaved around the inner trunks of the main living quarters. At the very end of the path, Douglass pulled me down a spiraling walk way into the earth.

Before long, the path into the earth widened and clear windows appeared on either side of us. Douglas stopped me in front of the first window.

“This is what makes my colony so special, so much more powerful than any other elf colony, or wolf pack, or vampire flock. If anyone were to try to attack us, I would unleash this upon them.”

He snapped his fingers, and the space beyond the glass lit up to reveal a white room with a deep pool. A frog head poked its way out of the water, and I saw a divet in its head where it held water.

“Is that a kappa?” I asked, shocked.

“Yes, since becoming king of this colony, I’ve spent the last couple of decades tracking down and capturing creatures to use as weapons against those who would hurt us.”

I felt my heart clench as I noticed there were several other kappas in the water, which was far too small to house them all comfortably.

Douglas dragged me to the next window and with a snap of his hands he revealed a giant two headed dog held by chains. The orthus looked scared and hungry.

Douglas dragged me down the hall, showing me all sorts of creatures that he captured and held in horrendous conditions. Thunderbirds with no space to fly, a grootslang with nothing for it to hide in, and worst of all, the carbuncle, a fox-like creature with a gem in its forehead, was chained in a sterile silver room. Carbuncles were nature oriented creatures, and though their gems allowed them to connect with and heal humans, they desperately needed to be free and feed off natural magical energy.

It all made me so sad. These poor creatures were essentially being tortured. I knew creatures like the bunyip were too dangerous to be released back into the wild, but they deserved better than a tiny pool for all six of them.

“As queen, you would have your pick of a pet, and the rest would be used in your protection. You would never have to worry about being in danger, or kidn*pped ever again,” Douglas preached.

I shook my head slowly, horrified.

“I can’t be a part of this,” I told him, which earned me a hard scowl. “You are imprisoning harmless creatures, and killing others in these cells. This is barbaric, and I could never be with someone who thought this was okay. So, no, I won’t even consider your offer further, I won’t marry you.”

Douglas took a deep breath, and with lightning fast reflexes, he pushed me against the wall.

“I don’t take being told ‘no’ very well, and I want you as my queen. So, maybe you need a little more time to think about it, in isolation.”

He picked me up in his arms and raced at speeds I couldn’t comprehend back up the path, through the hallways to the other side of the tree, and down through another path into what I gathered was their version of dungeons.

The magical roots of the trees acted as cell bars, and I figured they were far stronger than any man made prisons. Each cell was also packed with at least five elves, and each of them looked underfed and nearly dead.

Douglas set me on my feet in front of what looked like an empty cell. He opened it with a wave of his hand, and the roots separated to form an opening big enough for him to shove me through. He closed the opening before I could get back out but I turned so fast that I was face to face with him, and seething mad.

“This is ridiculous, you can’t do this just because I don’t agree with you!” I yelled.

“I can do whatever I want, dove. I am king!”

Douglas turned and walked back the way he had come.

“You are a moronic f**k bucket with s**t for brains!” I screamed.

The rustling of chains behind me froze me in my next anger induced insult. I turned slowly to the darkness where I heard the chains, but I couldn’t see anyone.

“Hello? Is someone there?” I asked softly.

With a flash, something leaped at me. I screamed and fell back against the roots, throwing my hands up to protect my face, but nothing happened. I peaked out from behind my hands and saw an insanely tall red haired elf man, wearing only trousers, and silver shackles around his wrists.