Addiction

Six days had passed. In those six days, the elf had slowly recovered from her fall, lying on the only bed in the strange pod-like housing that the draenei called home. Six days of being coddled by said draenei, who did not seem to wish her harm, instead carefully feeding her when she was unable to do so herself, applying bandages to the wounds he was unable to heal, all the while watching her with quiet, gentle, and unnerving eyes of bright blue. Six days to think, and think she did.

He had surprised her, that first day - she'd expected him to kill her as casually as he'd killed the deer that he prepared and fed to her after she'd awoken a second time, but instead he seemed intent on healing her. His reasoning she did not know, and his language was as strange to her as the language of the night elves, but he insisted on 'talking' to her as he went about his business in the lonely pod, his voice oddly reassuring as he left for whatever it was he did during the day. He'd had ample amount of time to get rid of her, but seemed content with making sure she was comfortable and fed and taken care of - and he made no effort at all to restrain her, although with the severity of her injuries that was hardly necessary.

Two days passed, and she felt as though she could leave, possibly, and she tried - her ribs on the other hand had very different ideas and ached painfully when she tried to stand, so she remained on the bed, watching him warily and observing him while she thought he wasn't looking. He was tall - big as a tauren really, his skin an exotic shade of blue that seemed more vibrant than that of a troll - his hair was dark, and he kept it pulled back out of his face - suitable for a fighter, really. The strange tendrils that seemed to pass for facial hair on his kind were odd to her, she couldn't determine if they were just extra bits of flesh, or if they were appendages, or some third thing...and the thoughts that lazily circled her mind as to what that third thing could be were erotic enough to make her blush.

The reason she stayed, she told herself quite firmly, was that it was the easiest way to complete her mission - observe the enemy, they told her, and observe it she would, from a much closer standpoint than she thought she'd be able to obtain. So far, it seemed as though there was little to report, the creature didn't seem to wish her ill, and she wondered if it was because he and his kind didn't hold the same animosity toward her kind as the horde held toward them, or because he was as indifferent to the wishes of his people as she was to her own. Or...some third reason.

It was over the course of the next three days that she pondered this third reason, the one that made her body tingle deliciously when she thought about it, both from guilt and from the haunting memory of his hands dancing over her body. She hadn't expected him to try and heal her, she'd expected him to smash her head in with the nearest blunt object, and his hands...

...that light...

She frowned, tilting her head and staring fixedly at the walls. She'd been healed before, many times over by many different people, but when he'd touched her - he hadn't touched her really, it merely felt as though he did, but when he healed her, the sheer amount of energy coursing from him to her was overpoweringly sweet and vivid.

Her kind was addicted to magic. They craved it, they needed it to survive. Kael and his followers had gone to the wretched ruins of Draenor to seek a cure for it, for those that progressed too far into the siren call were warped into echoes of themselves, bodies twisted into a horrifying mockery of the noble creatures they once were. She'd encountered some of them near Silvermoon, and their caustic cries and sheer focus on one thing, and one thing only - the magic, the arcane, the sweet torrent of power rushing around and through them, remained in her mind, the memories far too distressing to simply forget about. A magic user she was not, it was a path she steadfastly refused to follow, but it still called to her, and she still had to answer to it, and she did - feeding off of the most insignificant of creatures, draining them of the energies they carried. She hated it, hated being dependant on it, but she needed it to survive. She would not succumb to the madness, she would not become one of those creatures that roamed the ruins of Silvermoon.

And at the end of the fourth day that she felt the pang, the need to sate the hunger within her. Her body was still not up to the task of moving, so she quashed the craving, attempting to ignore it, and concentrated instead on getting well enough to get out of there. Once she could move, she could leave. It was only a matter of time.

Time was working against her.

On the sixth day, she lay on the bed, sweat-drenched and pale, trembling with weakness. Her body had betrayed her, the call of magic loud, insistent, insidious, and she was no longer able to simply ignore it, nor was she able to move enough to find something to sate it. And it was with the knowledge of what she would become, the memory of those warped creatures vivid in her mind's eye, that sheer desperation drove her to near madness, and drove her to doing the one unthinkable thing that she never wanted to do.

The draenei approached her as always, calmly uttering soothing words in that strange language of his, and stared at her with obvious concern. She stared up at him blankly, half-mad with confusion and weakness, her green eyes flaring wildly and unfocused. Here was not her rescuer, here was a vessel, brimful of that arcane source that she craved, and as he leaned closer, placing a gigantic hand on her forehead, she reacted. Her hands moved in an impressive blur of speed to clutch at his head-

-and his free hand snapped up reflexively, catching both her wrists and holding them above her head. She twisted in anger, teeth clenched and body thrashing, but he merely removed his hand from her forehead, wiping the sweat away and shaking a finger at her with a gentle smile and shake of his head.

It was all too much, and she collapsed, weeping as the knowledge of her fate loomed over her. She barely had the energy to do that.

~~~~~

He shook his finger, then his head, drawing back. He knew about her kind, and expected her to try something like this when he came in and realized what had happened - of course she hadn't been improving. He felt stupid for forgetting, in the pleasantness of the past few days, about the basic needs of her kind. The elf surprised him by falling limp, dangling above the bed where he held her firmly by the wrists, and bursting into quiet and angry tears. The sobs were heartbreaking, and he stared at her unhappily. He couldn't let her do what she wished. Perhaps he could restrain her and find her something she could use, distasteful as the notion was to him. Shuffling uncomfortably, he placed his hand to her cheek again, eyes glowing with concern, and leaned forward to place a reassuring and consoling kiss on her forehead, like a father with a fitful daughter.

Well, he had meant it as reassuring and consoling. Her reaction was anything but daughterly - she drew a sharp breath, staring up at him, sheer wonder on her features, her eyes wide and hungry, then slowly her lids dropped as she arched her back, reaching for him - and it seemed only natural that he press his lips to her pouting ones, only natural that their tongues dance together, only natural that his free hand fall to her side, caressing her curves...

And as he felt that stirring from deep within once more, he thought to himself that there was a much better way, a simpler way to feed her craving than hunting a creature down and giving her that.

The lusty look in her eyes agreed with him.