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“I’m proud of you.”
Ilana looked up at Loramus’ looming figure, surprised.
He had always seemed to be towering over her, or everyone, really. He used to be tall even for an elf, but she couldn’t seem to get used to his new appearance, no matter how much time she spent with him when he was in control – and he was in control quite a lot, which was both extremely impressive and even more heartbreaking.
“What for?” she asked after a moment, looking back down at her glaives and getting back to sharpening them.
Muramas seemed to be slightly throbbing under her hand and the whetstone, its power calling to her in the way she had learned it always did after a good bloodbath.
“What you’re doing with us. Lord Illidan will be proud when he comes back. He was right to choose you.”
“I’m doing my best to not disappoint him and progress in our campain against the Legion.”
“I know,” he said in this tone of his he only ever used for her.
Her eyes flickered up to him for a second before she was looking back down at her weapon, a strange pinching sensation in her chest.
She missed him dearly, all the time, and it was somehow always worse when she was spending time with him, as strange as that was.
“You’re doing great,” he added, fidgeting a little in his prison to get just a little bit closer to her. “I wanted you to know that, Ilana. You’re doing great and I’m proud of you.”
“And I of you,” she replied, heart pounding in her ears as he gave her a smirk that had her fingers curl over Muramas’ hilt.
Then she abruptly got up, grabbed her second glaive and left without a glance backward, a million and one feelings battling in her chest, making her want to scream and let go of the demon inside of her.
***
Loramus’ skin was barely darker than the giant mushroom they were laying on and he playfully bit her shoulder when Ilana told him so.
“I’ll show you what a mushroom colored elf can do!” he warned before rolling on top of her, ignoring the way she was laughing to nip at the sensitive side of her neck until she was gasping for breath and squirming under him, laughing loud enough that people so far down on the ground could surely hear her.
He only relented in his attacks because she grabbed his hair and pulled gently, rolling back next to her, close enough that their arms touched.
“We should get back,” she sighed after a moment, turning on her side to face him and tangling her clawed fingers in his hair instead of getting up.
“What are you doing then?” he asked, lips curling.
“I’m making the best of the few seconds we still have.”
She wasn’t wearing her blindfold, although Loramus had put his back on at the same time as his clothes, once the afterglow had started to vanish, and she couldn’t help but let her eyelids flutter closed when he cupped her face between badly calloused hands and pressed his forehead against hers.
Moments like that were rare. They didn’t have the time or intimacy to do any of that at the Black Temple and Loramus was always sent on missions a lot more complicated than Ilana’s. He had been a demon hunter for longer and excelled at it like he always excelled at everything, because it was just the way he was. Unfortunately, that meant that the few times they managed to be free at the same time, they either had to make sure that they had several hours to be able to travel all the way to Zangarmash to get some privacy, or they had to content with spending time with each other without being able to be as close and intimate as they wanted to.
It wasn’t that Illidaris couldn’t get into relationships – it was impossible to keep elves from being sex beasts, especially blood elves – but Loramus and Ilana had history, and too many people knew for it to be safe for them.
They both knew that having a real relationship, like they had before the Legion took everything from them, was too dangerous and could damage their success during missions, so they only let themselves have a few stolen hours here and there instead of trying harder to be together.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t always so easy and for once Ilana wanted to make the most out of it.
She reached up slowly and took his blindfold off for the second time that afternoon, looking without really seeing his familiar face.
The scars running across his face, from one temple to the other, weren’t as large or visible as hers, and while she couldn’t speak for everyone, she was pretty sure Loramus was one of the elves who had physically changed the less when becoming a demon hunter. Even his skin color had more of less stayed the same, he just looked like he had spent too much time in the sun.
Now, like before, he was perpetually scowling, looking displeased for no apparent reason, but Ilana had learned pretty early on that it was his normal expression. He didn’t smile often, and when he did it mostly looked unnatural, but she liked it all the more.
His face grew softer when she thumbed at the corner of his mouth before quickly pecking him on the lips, her horns lightly bumping against his bare forehead as she did so.
“I love you,” he murmured.
“I know,” she smiled before kissing him again, coaxing his mouth open with her tongue and using every trick she knew until he was softly groaning and gripping her hips hard. “I love you too,” she said against his lips once they were both breathless, “and I’m proud of you.”
“And I of you.”
She kissed him again, one more time, just because she could, before they finally got up, grabbed their weapons and started flying back to the Black Temple.
***
It was Kor’vas and Belath who told her.
They did it while everyone else was too busy moving from their little floating island in Dalaran to the Fel Hammer, and for that Ilana was glad. Still, it didn’t change the fact that when they told her, she had to clench her teeth and fists and take a long minute to breathe deeply in order to keep her inner demon in control. It wouldn’t do to leash out and have to be put down now that she was their new leader.
“Where is he?” she asked through her teeth, unsuccessfully trying to relax.
“Allari just finished moving him to the Fel Hammer,” replied Belath. “You should go see him anyway, he has much to teach us.”
Ilana nodded, just once, and crossed the portal that would take her to their new home in long strides, feeling worse with each steps that she took. She had done her best to not think about him the entire time they had fought their way out of the Vault of the Wardens, worried that she hadn’t found him in a crystal like the others, worried that he had perished at the Black Temple, like so many of them had.
Now though, she wished it had been so easy. Being dead was better than whatever he was now, she was sure of it.
Once she got to the other side of the portal, almost everyone was staring at her and they had all cleared out a path to the lower floor of the Fel Hammer, as if they already knew that she wanted to see him.
She sighed, clenched her teeth harder, and started walking, ignoring all the gazes turned in her direction.
The lower floor was thankfully empty except for one towering presence, which unfortunately left Ilana no choice but to face him – not that she could look away once she met his eyes, because the shock was too much and she couldn’t help herself but stop right on her spot and gap.
“Ilana,” he murmured, his voice hoarser than she remembered, more gravelly and resonating strangely in the empty space around them.
“No,” she breathed in answer, taking an involuntary step back, not believing her eyes as the nathzerim tried to hold his hand out to her and was stopped by the barrier of the prison around him.
She blinked, something burning being her eyelids, although she knew that her lachrymal glandes had been burnt off a long time ago, and tried to take control of her emotions again, tried to reign in the terrible feeling of having her chest splint in two as the demon in front of her murmured her name again, his entire face crumbling when she refused to step closer.
“I was gone for so long… Please, Ilana, I have so much to say.”
“What happened to you?”
The demon opened his mouth to speak again, but hesitated for a second, his lips quivering and his shoulders tensing before a sick grin spread across its face.
“I will slowly kill each and everyone of you for the glory of my master Kil’jaeden for I am Razelikh!” he yelled in a deeper voice as Ilana reflexively grabbed her glaives and got into a fighting stance. “Stop!” – this was the voice she knew, the one that hurt to hear. “Stop, demon! You will obey!”
Then his eyes turned to Ilana, Loramus back in command, and she decided that it was too early for her, so she sheathed her glaives back on her back, turned around and left, telling herself that she had absolutely nothing to regret when Loramus tried to call her name one last time.
***
Ilana had met Jace when they were both teenagers. She liked to spent all her time running around in nature and hiding in the trees while he was focused on studying the Arcane arts and becoming a powerful mage. It was a noble cause, not that Ilana spent any more time looking at books than she had to, but she liked Jace’s quiet intensity, and when he rarely spoke, it was always to make either a ridiculous pun or throw some hilariously sarcastic comments about something or someone.
Their friendship was an odd one, but it had survived through years and distance and he was, ultimately, the reason she met Loramus – not that they ever talked about that since meeting for the second first time at the Black Temple, so many decades after their real first meeting.
As a rule of thumb, demon hunters didn’t talk about their lives before becoming demon hunters, not ever.
***
Ilana had known Altruis for a while now, and while she was absolutely disgusted by his actions and the fact that he had gone against everything that the Illidari stood for, she needed him, and the Cause was more important than her personal feelings towards the elf.
That didn’t mean that she acted friendly to him. Quite the contrary.
When she met him that morning, she did as usual and went straight to business, reporting some of the things her Illidari had noted of importance, while he did the same with what he had witnessed. He was an asset for her because he never set foot in Azsuna, knowing that this was where most of the demon hunters were stationed, and while he traveled all over the Broken Isles, he never stood at the same place for an extended period of time, which helped Ilana track the Legion’s doings all over the regions and helped her coordinate missions where she only sent a small team of her bests to stop the demons.
She finished their meeting by mentioning that he probably shouldn’t step too much on the western coast of Highmountain – Marius and that crazy undead he took everywhere had set up a small camp there, not that she disclosed that many details to the Sufferer – and she spread her wings, ready to leave him and go back to her usual business, when something absolutely crazy happened: he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
Ilana managed to keep a firm hold on her instincts and didn’t immediately cut his head off with her glaives, but it was close, and when she turned toward him to send him a glare hard enough to have him shake in fear, she discovered with surprise that his entire face and body language was open, and he was doing something strange with his eyebrows – something that looked like pleading, which was simply impossible.
“What.”
It wasn’t a question. It was impatient, and she wanted him to know that she had no time for his betrayer’s games, but thankfully he still knew her well because he immediately let go of her arm and took a step back.
“I just...” he started, before pausing and wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. “I know you probably won’t tell me, but I still need to ask.”
“Ask quicker,” she spat, which had him draw in a long breath and stand taller, as if he was bracing himself for something.
“How is Kayn doing?”
For one, surreal second, he just stared at her, face open, eyebrows pleading for an answer, and Ilana almost laughed, but then she remembered having to hold Kayn close all through the night as he pretended to not be shaking the first time reports had come in that some Illidari had been killed by Altruis, one of their own, and all humor left her.
“You’re right,” she replied, barring her teeth in disgust, “I won’t tell you, because you don’t deserve to know anything about him, you filthy traitor.”
And with that, she took off, cursing him internally and forcing herself to fly faster than usual. She didn’t want to say close to him for one second longer.
***
The day she had met Kayn, Ilana was sulking, and so was he, and since then she always swore up and down that it was because of this that they had become friends.
However, their friendship hadn’t been built on a shared love for sulking – in fact, it had been built on a strong foundation of both trying to impress Lord Illidan, and pinning after elves who had better things to do. Not that Kayn would ever admit to that second reason, but Ilana knew him well, and there was no mistaking the look in his eyes he had been supporting every time he had crossed path with a certain blond blood elf.
Unfortunately for him, it had ended badly – not that Ilana was any better off, but at least the one elf she had been pinning after was, for one, pinning after her too and, for two, still on speaking terms with her and the entire organization they had joined. Kayn didn’t have such luck.
(She also felt guilty whenever she caught him staring at her glaives. It couldn’t be easy to know that the man he loved had betrayed and killed them and would now die for the very thing they were all fighting.)
Still, Kayn and Ilana were friends, very good friends, and both trusted each other with their life, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t disappoint her – she just hadn’t been expecting something quite so crazy from him.
She watched, white hot pride and the bitter taste of fel and regrets clinging at the back of her throat as Varedis, who had once been an inspiration and a guide to all new Illidari recruits, fell down on the ground after her last attack, dead.
She used to look up to him, and his death had been a terrible blow to every Illidari at the Black Temple, but he was now corrupted, fighting for the Legion, and she couldn’t forget that day they had all ran out of the Wardens’ prison to see him up in the sky, picking them off like flies.
He had killed so many of them that day, she couldn’t help but feel like he should have suffered more.
Not a sound could be head for a second after he fell down on the ground, and Ilana looked up at all her Illidaris around her, some still in metamorphosis, all with their glaives bloodied, and just as she was opening her mouth to yell victory while Varedis’ soul started leaving his body, the unthinkable happened.
Kayn stepped up, raised his hand to grab his soul in his palm and, just as Ilana was realizing what was happening and getting ready to attack him, put all the fel energy he was capable of into his hand and pushed Varedis’ soul back into his body.
The ground shook, everyone except Kayn and Varedis was catapulted away, and Ilana knew at her very core that it was too late to undo what had just happened. It didn’t mean she didn’t rushed to Kayn and Varedis as soon as she found her bearing again and brandished her glaive in their face – because she was supposed to be the leader here, damn it! He couldn’t just do shit like that.
“What have you done?!” she yelled, watching with horror as Kayn cradled the other elf closer – other elf who had lost most of everything the Legion had given him since his first death.
“Like you wouldn’t have done the same!” yelled Kayn in reply, showing his fangs and hugging Varedis even closer.
Varedis’ blindfold had fallen during the fight and his eyes moved behind his pupils for a second before he opened them, fel light coming off of them for everyone to see.
“Kayn!” he choked, grabbing Kayn’s forearm in a tight grip and starting to shake like a leaf.
“I’ll kill him again if I have to,” hissed Ilana.
“You’ll have to kill me too,” Kayn hissed back, before pressing a kiss to the crown of Varedis’ head and softly shushing him.
***
“I don’t know what else to do,” murmured Ilana, looking over her shoulder to make sure that no one was listening in – but Kayn was still pouting with his back turned to her and Tehd was talking loud enough to drown out every single other sound in a ten meters radius.
“You made the right decision,” replied Marius in the same tone when she turned back to him. “I’ll keep an eye on both of them and make sure Varedis really is himself again.”
“And you’ll tell me if he isn’t,” she said, the threat barely hidden in her voice.
“Of course,” replied Marius, who was proving once again that he was the better choice for a right hand man, but of course Ilana had to choose Kayn that first day back. “I’ll keep you updated, and if anything happens...”
“Your warlock will take care of it, I know.”
Marius scowled a little at that, but he nodded so Ilana knew that she had nothing to fear from the undead man Marius had somehow taken as his mate.
“I’ll send someone to get them in a while.”
Marius nodded and stepped back as she spread her wings, but she took a second to turn back to him and thank him.
“I mean it, Marius. I don’t know what I would do with those two without you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he replied, managing one of his extremely rare smile.
***
“Are the rumors about Marius true?”
“Yes,” said Ilana, nodding but not taking her eyes off the documents she was holding and trying to read.
The light was low on the lower floor, which didn’t help her already poor sight, and the pulse of shadow magic against her back where she was leaning against the prison was not helping her focus, especially since she knew Loramus was reading over her shoulder, but she still had work to do and couldn’t, in good conscience, just hang out with him for no reason at all.
She had a world to save and an organization of unorganized demon hunters to manage, she didn’t have time to just nicely sit next to Loramus and chit chat.
“Is it also true about The Hair, then?”
“Yes,” replied Ilana, nodding again. “And the fact that his jaw is almost falling off is true too. But he’s nice, and I’ve seen him kill a lot of very big demons so I’m not worried about it.”
“Besides, if the warlock tried something, the Illidari would retaliate, right?” he added, sounding a little rueful.
Ilana didn’t turn to look at him on purpose this time, because she could still clearly picture the half smirk he used to give her when using that tone, back when they were just night elves living a peaceful life among the trees.
Fel, he had been giving her the same one even after becoming a demon hunter, and she didn’t think she could have watched him do the same while being in a demon’s body.
It was just too hard.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she said instead, keeping her eyes firmly turned to the parchments between her hands.
“I’m listening.”
“You remember Lidya?”
“Of course.”
“She thinks she can get Razelikh out.”
A ringing silence followed, and Ilana, who had hoped for him to say something first, was forced to put the parchments down and turn around to face him.
He was sitting down in his prison, probably to be closer to her since she was sitting on the floor, and the look on his face was way too vulnerable for someone with a nathzerim’s face.
She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t, because the tiny flicker of hope in his eyes was something that she hadn’t seen since she had first thought that he was dead, an entire lifetime ago.
“Do you believe her?” he asked, sounding a little breathless.
Ilana shrugged, fingers curling until her claws were biting into her palms.
“I’ve seen her do crazy things, and she brought you back once already, right?”
He nodded.
“She says it’ll be hard and there’s a huge chance it won’t work, which could potentially make things worse than they already are, but...”
“But it could work,” he finished for her, slowly raising his hand to press it against the prison.
Nodding, Ilana hesitated for a moment before pressing her hand against the prison’s barrier too, wishing, not for the first time, that she could do more.
“I’ll do it,” he said, before adding in Darnassian, “I’ll do it for you.”
Heart squeezing painfully in her chest, she closed her eyes and nodded.
***
Ilana was at the Black Temple, standing on one of the numerous terraces with Loramus, who was supposed to go on a long and perilous mission back on Azeroth.
“Don’t be long,” she said, “or Jace will come whine about your absence to me again and I’ll get angry at you.”
“Alright,” nodded Loramus, his hands on her waist.
“And don’t bring a new scar back.”
“Alright.”
“And stop saying alright.”
He smirked and leaned down to kiss her right between the horns.
“I’ll be as quick as possible, like I always do, and I promise that I’ll try not to die.”
“Good,” she replied, wrapping her arms around his hips and plastering herself against his chest, cheek pressed against his warm skin. “I know I always say it, but I want you to come back, and I mean it.”
“I know,” he replied, arms going around her shoulders, “I want to come back to you too, as crazy as that sounds.”
She snorted and squeezed him tighter, like she always did before he left on long missions, having no idea that it was the last time in a while she got to do this.
***
Ilana had a total of one friend outside of the Illidari, and that was Archmage Lidya Appleton, a fire mage with a “fuck this” attitude that Ilana found absolutely charming.
Coincidentally, Lidya was also the reason Loramus was still alive and battling with a demon possessing his body every second of his existence.
“Hey,” gently said Lidya as she sat down in front of her at their usual table in A Hero’s Welcome, eyeing the numerous empty bottles lined in front of Ilana but not commenting, “what are you doing?”
“Thinking about friendship and the meaning of life,” darkly replied Ilana.
She wasn’t really in the mood for a friendly chitchat – hadn’t been for a while now – and while she was supposedly sitting there by herself with alcohol to celebrate finally finding Illidan’s soul, she had to admit, at least to herself, that she was just feeling sorry and having a pity party.
Judging by the few face movement Ilana could see, Lidya wasn’t having it.
Maybe the fact that Lidya, who had just been rescued from the Legion by Ilana herself, was getting tired of her shit should have been proof that her pity party was stupid, but the elf was past caring.
“I talked to Loramus,” she said after a while. “He’ll do it.”
Lidya nodded solemnly.
“You won’t regret it,” she promised, putting her warm hand on Ilana’s.
Ilana nodded, looking down at their hands instead of her eyes, and tried to remember when was the last time she had had a friend so dedicated and nice.
***
Lidya arrived at the Fel Hammer with Tehd, Marius’ undead lover, and two priestesses. One of them was her little sister, and the other was specialized in ending demonic possession – or at least that was what Lidya said.
Ilana had made sure to get as many people out of the Fel Hammer for the night as she could and had only let Allari stay, in case it didn’t work and they needed to kill Razelikh.
It started normally, with the two priestesses praying and lighting candles and doing their magic. Tehd then asked them to let Loramus out of his prison and started casting a spell that had Loramus groan in pain and fall to his knees as soon as it was done, and if it wasn’t for Lidya holding her back, Ilana would have killed him a second time right there and then.
Allari was tense next to her, murmuring something in Demonic that Ilana didn’t pay attention to, her entire focus turned to Loramus, who was now on all fours, groaning even louder, Light and fel magic like ribbons wrapping all around him.
It felt hot to the touch even though Ilana was standing far from it, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine how much it must have been hurting him.
“Come on,” muttered Lidya as a flash of Light illuminated everything for a second, Loramus’ screams of pain echoing in the empty space.
Come on, thought Ilana, something scared and soft filling her chest when there was a second flash and Loramus screamed louder.
Her eyes were burning – and not only because of the flashes of Light – and for a moment, as she watched her husband be agitated with convulsions and scream himself sore while the chanting from the priestesses and Tehd grew louder, everything disappeared and all she could see was Loramus, standing before her like the day they had met.
She held her hands out to him, dark purple skinned and scarred and clawed, and he grabbed them with his soft hands only ever used to hold books and quills, his blue eyes as clear as a frozen lake and a frank smile on his face.
“Ilana,” he said.
“I’m right here love. Always.”
He gave a small nod, and just as quickly as this vision had appeared, it was gone, leaving Ilana back at the Fel Hammer, the flashes of Light now preventing her from seeing Loramus, who was still screaming and, judging by the noises, clawing at the floor, and she started walking to him with more confidence than she had ever felt in her entire life, except maybe for the day she had married him.
She shouldered Lidya’s hands away when they tried to grab at her, and walked until Loramus was at her feet, screaming and kicking and moaning in pain, and she knelt next to him, touching the nathzrim’s skin for the first time as she put her hands on his shoulders.
“We made a deal Loramus,” she said, Darnassian rolling off her tongue without any effort, “we live together, and we die together, and I know you don’t want me to die yet, so you better make it.”
He raised a hand and put it on her thigh, squeezing hard enough to hurt, and despite every single instincts she had telling her to get away and kill the big demon hurting her, Ilana pulled him closer to her and let go of one of his shoulder to cup the back of his neck.
“Come on, don’t make me kill you.”
The Light, still flashing and directed at Loramus was burning her skin and it was starting to be hard to breathe, but Ilana gritted her teeth and pushed the pain down and far away, thinking of soft skin and clear blue eyes and murmuring encouraging words.
“Ilana,” grunted Loramus, the hand on her thigh squeezing hard one last time before letting go.
“Don’t you dare!” she exclaimed right before the biggest flash of all, this one lasting for at least a minute and cutting off every single one of her senses, engulfed the entire floor.
Her sight and touch came back first, and she didn’t even pay any attention to the other people in the room, who were all looking at her, or the fact that most of the skin on her arms was badly burned – she threw herself at the blue elf laying face down on the floor next to her, flipped him over, every single one of her limbs shaking in fear, and felt herself start to sob when he blinked up at her, fel energy coming off his eyes and a pair of horns that hadn’t been there before almost poking her in the forehead when she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him as close and tight as she could.
She only realized that she was still sobbing and rambling in Darnassian a few minutes later, when her hearing came back.
“I’ll never leave you again,” she was saying against the crown of his head, Loramus’ hands on her back and his shaky body practically on her lap. “I’ll never let you out of my eyesight.”
“Ilana,” he murmured, sounding like he was sobbing too.
“Never again.”
He nodded and buried his face against her shoulder, shaking harder.
***
“How is he?” murmured Lidya, although there was a door separating them from a sleeping Loramus.
“He looked a little better after eating something,” she said, still not totally feeling like herself.
She hadn’t thought that it was possible for someone incapable of producing tears to cry so much, but it seemed like that night was full of surprises.
“I’ll leave you to it then,” said the Archmage, offering her a smile. “You have your hearthstone to come back and there’s enough food for a week. Go to the village if you need anything, just tell the people that you’re one of my friend and they’ll help you.”
Ilana nodded. “Thank you for lending us your farm.”
“It’s nothing.”
She started to cast a teleporting spell, but Ilana stopped her by putting a hand on her shoulder and looking down into her eyes.
“Thank you for what you just did.”
“You’re welcome.”
Ilana wanted to add something, anything to express how thankful she felt, but words were escaping her and she was this close to starting to cry again from sheer happiness, so she just nodded again, stepped away from her friend and watched her go.
***
Loramus was different than before, and while Ilana had been expecting it, it still hurt a little.
“Do I look different?” he asked, squinting at the dirty old mirror on the wall, “I can barely remember what I used to look like.”
“What you looked like before this or before the Black Temple?” asked Ilana, sat back on the bed and watching his back closely.
He looked at her over his shoulder before turning back to the mirror and replying.
“Both.”
She rolled her eyes but felt a familiar amused smile pull at her lips.
“You look exactly like you did at the Black Temple, you just finally have horns like the rest of us and your skin might be a little darker, I can’t be sure we’ll have to ask Belath.”
“Still handsomer than Jace then.”
“Always,” she replied, smiling frankly this time as he turned around and joined her on the bed, sitting down so close that they were plastered to each other – and she wasn’t unhappy about it.
“What now?”
“We take a few days to make sure everything is good, and then we go back to work.”
“And if everything isn’t good?”
“We make it so.”
He smiled and nodded.
***
People cheered loudly when Ilana and Loramus strode in the Fel Hammer five days later.
Ilana had to admit that a smile was pulling at her lips despite her best effort and she watched as Jace literally threw himself into Loramus’ arms and started sobbing loudly.
The two of them were childhood best friends and, for a second, as she watched them, a strange sort of tenderness pulled at her heart, leaving her breathless, because those two? They were all she had left from her life before the Legion destroyed everything, and she would sacrifice everything she had left just to see them like that: gripping each other like they were going to die if they left a breath of air between their bodies.
“Jace will be even more annoying now,” muttered Kayn to her left.
Ilana looked away from the pair to look at him and while his ears were drooping a little in shame still, he met her eyes and smiled.
“I’m happy for you,” he said.
Ilana gave him a nod. “I’m happy for you too, you know that right?”
Kayn nodded.
“I’m punishing you because as your leader I can’t let this go without doing anything, but I’m sincerely happy for you.”
“I know,” he said. “We both do.”
“Good. How is he?”
“Better,” he replied, eyes turning to Loramus, “just like this one.”
Chuckling, Ilana punched him in the shoulder and rolled her eyes when he took her in his arms as retaliation – but she did hug him back, rolling her eyes again when people started wolf-whistling them.
***
Ilana was checking on the traps she had installed the night before although she knew that it was useless. It had rained all day long and didn’t look like it would stop anytime soon now that the night had fallen, and while she was out there completely soaked and covered in mud and fallen leaves, she knew the animals were a little smarter than that.
She didn’t like the rain much, especially when it was pouring like it was. It slowed her down and covered some noise and every time she had ever gotten hurt during a hunt had been on a rainy night.
That night was a little different however, because when she finished hiding her trap and looked up, she didn’t come face to face with a predator but a big prey.
The elf blinked at her, seemingly frozen in place, one of his hand on a tree trunk and the other hanging limply at his hip – he hadn’t even reached for the wand at his belt.
He was as soaked as her and his stupid mage robes looked painful to move in when wet, but there was something about the way his blue hair stuck to his face that kept her form looking away.
She knew she wasn’t at her best in her hunting clothes, with her long hair mostly free from the braid she had put it in several hours before, and she had mud all over her from when she had slipped off a branch and fallen down into a puddle, but she also wasn’t blind and could perfectly see the way his eyes were sliding all over her face and body.
He liked what he was seeing, and while pretty boys like him had never been her style, she had to admit that she was intrigued.
Deciding that the only way to see where this was going was to act, Ilana slowly got up to her feet, the leather of her pants squeaking weirdly in the noisy forest.
The elf blinked, opened his mouth and immediately close it and swallowed when she started walking to him, and she smiled when she arrived right in front of him, having to tilt her chin up to keep looking him in the eyes.
“What’s taken you so deep into the wilds, pretty boy?” she said, smile growing broader when he blushed.
“Jace sent me. You must be Ilana.”
She nodded. Jace was supposed to come back from the Academy so it made sense, but it didn’t explain who this man was and why Jace had sent him.
“It’s dangerous out here for a mage,” she said, “he shouldn’t have let you come alone.”
“He said to scream if something happened to me and you would come to my rescue.”
Snorting, Ilana flicked over her shoulder the three pathetic little strands of hair that had stayed braided and clasped his shoulder, making sure to feel the muscles under his robes.
“He’s right, but it still doesn’t tell me who you are.”
“Loramus,” he replied, looking down into her eyes with a kind of intensity that had her heart feel heavier in her chest. “My name is Loramus Thalipedes.”
“Nice meeting you,” she replied with a smile, her hand sliding down from his shoulder all the way to his hand, “I’m Ilana.”
“A pleasure,” he said, intertwining his fingers with hers.
He finally smiled, and she knew he was it.