Noah (36 page)

What if…

And she realized how right he was. It was a road best not taken, because all that would lie down that path were endless twists and bends that led nowhere but back upon themselves. He would rather live with the regret of a hasty choice than live with wondering how to change the unchangeable. He knew this because of experience, she now understood, because he had allowed a single what-if to plague him for over two centuries.

Kestra’s heart clenched with a terrible fear. Oh, he was too good a man. Too noble. Too wise. Too intelligent. Too easily able to love anyone he deemed worthy. So much personal pain and loss over so many centuries. Making choices that ended lives. The years of futility in search of peace. And yet he loved. How could he bear it? How did he willingly give away pieces of his heart, knowing they could be wrenched away so violently? This, over six centuries of life?

When she hadn’t survived two
decades
with the ability to love intact.

Kes turned her eyes onto the burning flames in the fireplace, letting the glare burn at her retinas and blind her. Destroying this exterior sense drew her back to the dilemma facing Noah. She gasped aloud when glass shattered and bodies fell; she felt the swell of rage in the King of the Demons as he gave chase.

“It did occur to me that there is more Nightwalker blood than remembered by most. So glad am I to see it so readily available.”

The voice came from close by, not from her place in Noah’s thoughts. She leapt to her feet, instinctively cutting herself off from Noah when he needed to focus on his quarry. It was no different to her than shutting off a microphone to conceal her location.

She was blinded by huge spots of changing color in the center of her vision, an effect of staring too hard into the fire. But she heard the soft slide of a sole on marble, the whuff of an eager breath of triumph, and even the rustle of clothing.

Kestra suddenly realized that they hadn’t followed the logic far enough. They hadn’t considered a two-pronged assault. They had not realized that there were multiple targets, and she was one of them. But how had rogue Vampires learned of her existence?

“Actually, my dear, it was just happenstance. I was looking for a random target. But a Druid…now, this truly is a prize.”

Kes felt the clutch and throttle of her heart hammering beneath her breast as a familiar sensation of helplessness washed through her. Vampires had telepathy. He had a direct line into her soul.

No!
She was no victim any longer! That girl had died over a decade ago! She had paid her dues with lack of love and affection, with no one to touch her and no one who would care if she lived or died. She had perfumed herself in gun oil and lived in backwater barracks filled with the most terrifying men on the planet just to prove she didn’t fear them and wouldn’t fear any again. She’d sacrificed pompoms and proms, girlfriends and love.

And lovemaking.

Lovemaking. A lesson only begun, under large hands that wielded fire in so many ways, yet expressed more tenderness than she could ever truly bear.

No. Nightwalker or no, she would be no one’s victim. It was time to put her money where her mouth was. She’d told Noah she knew her enemy, and she would prove it.

“So you have come to lay siege in the castle of the Demon King?” she asked softly, blinking so that her vision would clear more rapidly. “You’re ballsy, I’ll give you that.”

Her adversary laughed, and like radar she used it to home in on him, place and position. Ten feet across the room, northeast, facing slightly away as he perused his surroundings, his voice echoing tellingly into the higher corners of the ceiling.

“Your mind is unusual. It fades in and out of my perception,” he mused, as if it were an amusement to him. “You are young, barely fledged,” he accused, and by then Kestra could see his handsome pout.

Boyish, slim, and very beautiful, he was an artful deception of looks. However, she could see the avarice in his eyes and knew great strength was hidden in his lean frame. He had hair like silken chocolate, a forelock falling rakishly over his brow. His eyes arrested her, and she was again struck by the lustful greed within them. She was used to that. She’d felt it many times from men of a different kind of power.

She knew this greed.

She cocked a hip, linking her arms behind her back as if she were bound. It was submissive, and it allowed the fullness of her breasts to push tightly into the girlish gingham dress. She paced with him as he moved to peruse Noah’s belongings, keeping the same distance between them as he moved and turned, occasionally looking at her as if she were a fascinating dessert on a tray. Whether it was her blood or her sexuality that tempted him, she didn’t care. Still, she allowed her hips to sway softly with every step.

“You are not afraid of me,” he noted with surprise. “Why is that?”

“Because of who I am,” she said, giving a careless shrug. That time she saw his eyes flick to the rise in the hem of her dress as she made the gesture.

“And who are you? Who leaves you here unprotected on a night as dangerous as Samhain?”

“I can protect myself.”

He looked at her again, silent, and she imagined he was trying to rifle through her mind for information. His consternation reflected on his face. “What is your power?”

Good question, she mused. She had no idea what her power was or what it would be.

But she thanked him for reminding her of it.

She blanked her mind from his sporadic insights into her thoughts, moving fluidly around the room until she was at Noah’s desk. She casually slid onto it, her bottom gliding into the exact spot where Noah had last begun to make love with her. She leaned back on her hands, letting the memory be the only thing guiding her mind as she leaned back on her hands, her fingertips curling softly against a silver letter opener.

“Ah! You are the King’s woman!” Her companion chortled with sudden glee as he popped the plum from her mind.

“Yes. Hence my lack of fear.” And the reason she’d replayed the memory of their interlude.

“Mmm, true…you must have great power to be the woman of the Demon King.”

Kestra crossed her legs, her skirt riding up along with the corners of her lips. He was coming closer to her, and she was thinking of anything other than what she would do next.

Noah chased the twice-cursed crow as a ball of pure flame, a meteor streaking through the sky, scorching tree braches and anything else that got in his way. He was going to burn the bastard’s feathers off one by one. He was going to stick a spit right up the middle of his miserable carcass and light the roasting fire himself. The midday sun would seem balmy compared to the fire of his fury.

Within minutes he was toying with the frantically flying Vampire, literally hot on his tail. There was no escaping him now. He would burn all the woodlands in a heartbeat if need be.

The Vampire seemed to grasp that he was defeated in his stolen Mistral form, and with a clumsy change to his natural form, he crashed to the snow and leaf debris in amongst the ever-present bits of shale broken from the Romanian mountain. The fiend of fire that was the Demon King landed with the utmost speed and grace as a wall of flame caged them both in a perimeter so tight that the Vampire cried out and hurried toward the furious King in a last effort to escape its heat.

“Please! Do not kill me! I have…I have information!”

Noah’s flame-coated hands lowered to his sides, burning the entire while, and like any flames they attracted the Vampire’s attention.

“I have all the information I need,” Noah said carelessly. He raised his immolating hands.

“No! You do not! If you did, you would not be here! You would be protecting your home!”

The panicked remark sent a chill through the Demon King like nothing else could, powerful enough to quench all the incendiary ability in his body and soul.

“Speak,” he said hoarsely. Then a violent roar. “Quickly!”

Even as he made the command he sought for Kestra, suddenly realizing she had left him. How could he not have noticed? Had his thirst for vengeance so blinded him to her? Had she called for his help, his volatile need to satisfy his rages suffocating the breath of her cries for him?

“My brother infiltrates your castle even as I infiltrated Damien’s. He sought you, great King. A worthy adversary. He did not expect you to come to Damien’s aid yourself.”

“Fool!” Noah spat the word, unsure who he aimed it at. “It was what was intended all along!
You fool!”

The woodland exploded in outraged flame.

Jacob hit the deck, barely in time to cover the Princess as a wave of flame roiled out of the tree line just far enough above their heads to keep his hair mostly unsinged. He had felt that one coming, and after it passed he flung his head up to try to see why such a display had occurred. Sweat flew from his hair as he rose onto his knees, straddling the Princess protectively. His hand still plugged her wounds, though Noah had almost cauterized the bloody thing just a moment ago. The Earth Demon could see nothing, feel nothing except the earth as he absorbed the screams of the natural life all around him. Noah’s abuse had caused great damage to flora and fauna alike, and Jacob was impacted enough to feel a fury toward Noah he had never felt before.

He whipped his head around, sending another spray of perspiration arcing out like a liquid halo as he searched amongst the lightly toasted scrub for what he wanted. His black eyes fastened on a promising plant and Jacob called it to himself instantly, forcing it to ride a rippling wave of earth so he did not have to leave his position.

The natural coagulants in the roots of the plant would help save Syreena’s life. He shoved several in his mouth, chewing the dirty bulbs until the juice broke free of the roots. He spat the dubious salve into his hand, then spat again to rid his mouth of the foul taste that remained even as he smeared the concoction over the gaping flesh of Syreena’s throat. How she would survive such a wound was beyond his comprehension. Even now he was watching her eyes slip closed with increasing frequency.

“Syreena, do not close your eyes. If you succumb, Damien will never survive. Come!” He slapped her face, making her jerk back to consciousness. She tried to speak, but could not, her damaged throat refusing to work. But by the fire in her eyes, he guessed she would have cursed him pretty efficiently had she the voice. Over the centuries of the war between their peoples, some pretty fine epithets had arisen from the lips of Lycanthropes in regard to Demons, and the reverse was also true. “Yes, yes, I know,” he sighed, “I am the foul son of a hunchbacked Demon whore.”

His self-deprecating humor made her laugh, another step toward consciousness despite being little more than a wheezing breath and a sparkle in her eyes.

“Strange, I was just about to say the same thing,” a deep voice mused. “Enforcer, would you mind telling me why you are lying over my naked wife?”

Jacob and Syreena both twisted to see behind Jacob, whose body was blocking Damien from seeing the state Syreena was in. Damien caught the painful relief in the Demon’s eyes, and then the flat-out pain in his wife’s. Jacob went flying as Vampire strength shoved him out of the way without heed for anything save Syreena. Damien grabbed her up, a hoarse sound of fury gurgling from his throat when he saw his wife’s wounds up close.

“Sweetling,” he whispered. “Oh, love, what have you done to yourself?”

It was a rhetorical question. He was already in her mind, mining her memories, learning the truth. Her eyes went wider, and she knew it took a monumental effort for him to tamp down the need to vocalize and act on the outrage that would have blinded him to everything else…had she not needed him so badly.

She brushed weak fingers against the least damaged side of her throat, her eyes speaking where her voice could not.

“No, Princess, I cannot. You are too damaged.” But even as he held her he was watching precious rivers of blood run down her naked skin, pooling and soaking into the soil. Jacob’s actions had eased the flow, but there was massive arterial damage. He was afraid the spurting had stopped only because there was no longer any blood to power the force of it.

He needed to stop the bleeding, but he could not bring himself to strike her on the neck where she had been so savaged already. Aware of the Enforcer looking on with wary, ready eyes, Damien chose the nearest access to the largest artery in her body. Laying her back down along the ground with infinite tenderness, he slid back to cup her knee in his hand, raising her leg as he bent to press a brief apologetic kiss on her kneecap. His fingers slowly pressed up along her soft flesh, the stroke having an intimacy to it that made Jacob turn his head and eyes to the side. Damien appreciated the gesture as he was compelled to lift Syreena’s calf to his shoulder, bending until her knee hooked onto his collarbone. He glanced briefly into her beautifully trusting eyes, their multicolored flecks glistening with tears for him because she knew he was afraid of hurting her.

Then he struck for the femoral artery in her thigh.

His canines flashed in and out of her flesh after a deeply bruising hit to the crucial blood pathway. Instantly she was bleeding, and he had no choice but to seal his lips to her skin and let the sweet warmth of her blood fill his mouth. What he sought to do was to trigger the age-old instincts of the workings of his body. Only by striking and feeding sufficiently would his body produce the urge to strike again. When he felt himself reach that point, this was exactly what he did. A second strike, just as sure and deep, only this time a flood of coagulants and the antibodies of numberless diseases he had been exposed to pumped out of his teeth like venom from a snake. They would enter her bloodstream, rushing to all sites of torn tissue, and cause the immediate clotting and sealing of all wounds so that no more blood could be lost.

Jacob only looked back at the couple when his peripheral vision caught the Prince leaning over his wife so he could give her a kiss on her extremely pale lips.

“She needs blood and a healer,” Damien said, the command inoffensive because Jacob was used to both the majesty of the Prince’s position and his overriding demand to care for his mate. He knew that feeling all too well.