Noah (38 page)

Baby, you are going into shock. Try to concentrate
.

Noah and Jacob were streaking toward the closest sanctuary. Their only hopes for all involved were in the Lycanthrope court. It was distant, in the wrong direction—away from their mates, who were both in trouble—but they needed to aid Damien’s wife as well. The Lycanthrope court would hold all the answers. A Monk of the Lycanthrope’s much-revered Pride would be called on to heal Syreena. Legna could teleport him to the holdings in Romania after taking the image of the location from either Jacob’s or Noah’s mind. She was powerful enough to do that now.

Then Legna could send Noah, Jacob, and her husband, Gideon, to the English forest where Noah’s mate was closing in on death and Jacob’s was trying to purge herself of the evil taint of powers she had ripped out of the Vampire who had attacked Kestra, leaving him as weak and helpless as a kitten. A state that would probably kill him in light of his existing injuries at Kestra’s hands. No one could help Isabella to do the necessary purge, but her husband needed to be with her just the same. She had never before absorbed such pure evil, having learned to use her ability with great discretion because of the huge psychic consequences.

Noah felt Jacob’s fear as keenly as he felt his own. He had asked a great deal of his Enforcers when he had commanded Jacob to send Bella away from the festival and back toward the castle to help Kestra. Both had obeyed without question, loyal no matter what his crimes had been against them.

But even as he and Jacob streaked toward salvation, the only thoughts he could give true focus to were those sliding through the mind of his mate.

I
am
going into shock
, she mused with a mental chuckle.
And here I thought I’d forget what it felt like. It’s exactly the same. Right down to feeling so damn cold
.

Noah felt her shivering, felt her teeth clattering together, both so violent that her eyesight was blurred by the vibration.

You are going to be okay, baby. You are strong and a fighter and you are a part of my power now. That is not an easy thing to damage.
Noah hoped he sounded more convinced than his fear was allowing him to feel.

You mean I’m too stubborn to die.

Do not even speak the word, Kestra!
he commanded her with ferocity, as if his tone alone would stave off the Grim Reaper.
Do not even allow the option to ghost into your thoughts! I will not stand for it!

You know, we’re really going to have to discuss this whole “lord of the manor” thing you have going on. I don’t respond well to commands.

She was teasing him.

He was afraid for her life and the little wretch was having him on.

Kestra
, he warned, his tone so daunting she swore she saw the stormy smoke of his eyes. She sent back the mental equivalent of a derisive snort. She wasn’t impressed by his threats. Noah decided to change tactics.
Tell me how Bella fares.

Kestra had lost track of the woman beside her as she’d floated in her own world of semiconsciousness. Isabella was sitting with her elbows on her butterflied knees, her face buried in her upturned palms. She was muttering softly to herself, rocking back and forth so that her hair swung like a wild fringe of black silk. She sent the entire image to Noah, knowing it would speak far louder than her words and also knowing he wouldn’t care for false reassurances. Kestra suspected Bella’s muttering was a rapid-fire dialogue with her husband, one that escaped the privacy of her mind as distress ebbed through her.

What did she do? Why is she like this?

Bella has an extraordinary power. She can steal the abilities from another being and make those skills her own for a while. She has done this to incapacitate your attacker. Bella has never taken in so much corrupted power before. It has endangered her.

Kestra took in one of her small breaths, struggling to hold it in. She was used to risking her body, her life, and even sometimes her soul in the dangers she undertook, but she’d never dragged an innocent into the fray with her. It had always been one of her few true morals.

Hush,
Kikilia,
hush,
he soothed in the softest of tones, feeling and knowing her disturbance instantly.
She has come to your aid for her own reasons. One, because I requested it; two, because Jacob requested it; and three, because it is in her nature and in her power to help innocents who are in danger from darkness. This is what she was born to do, who she was born to be. Do not punish yourself because a stranger is merely fulfilling her own Destiny, and that Destiny just happens to cross with yours in this moment. Now hold a thought of me. I strain to maintain this distant contact while moving with such energy burning. We are near. So very near. Hang on.

Kestra didn’t understand how he could be too far and yet as near as he claimed. She looked back to the brunette, who she realized had far more understanding of these things than she did. Isabella lifted her head and smiled wanly. She looked terribly pale, a sickly pallor that was nowhere near whatever normal was for her, Kestra was sure. But she did have remarkable eyes, a bright lavender in the silver of the full moonlight. Kestra gasped for another breath, coughed, and didn’t even need to taste the blood in her mouth when she saw the expression that crossed the Druid’s fairylike features.

“Oh God,” Bella murmured, leaning over Kes with concern radiating out of every pore. She instantly reached to tear at her pretty blouse, untucking the silk from her jeans to do so. Kestra recognized the expensive designer blouse, and she wanted to laugh at the incongruity of it being paired with well-worn denims several years out of style. The fact that Bella tore into a six-hundred-dollar blouse without even flinching gave her more understanding about the woman than she’d gotten in all her conversation with Noah.

The small woman used the ragged patch of silk to dab at the blood leaking from the corner of Kestra’s mouth. It wasn’t even a patch to stanch blood usefully. Isabella had simply done the deed to keep blood from rolling down the sides of Kes’s face and into her hair. A gentle, useless kindness, like catching tears. It was meant to have no purpose other than to give comfort.

“Is everyone so nice?” Kestra hitched out the sentence as she reached to lay weak fingers on the arm reaching over her.

“Shh. Don’t talk,” Bella scolded. She took a moment to contemplate this woman who was dying so quietly on the forest floor. She bit her lip against a surge of emotions, then slowed it all down and sorted it out. There was a blackness of rage, envy, and covetousness that she knew had nothing to do with her own feelings. These were echoes of the Vampire’s emotions. She pushed them aside. Her own reaction was still one of anger first, even though she knew it wasn’t fair to blame Kestra for Noah’s actions. But love for these grand men in her life had already healed a great deal in a very short while. These negative sensations were merely ghosts of what had once been, fading as forgiveness moved to the forefront.

Noah’s mate was a gorgeous creature. What Bella would call a polished beauty. Beneath the battering, the bruises, and the debris of half a forest, Isabella could easily tell there was refinement and grace. It didn’t surprise her that Noah’s companion would be of this type. His sister Legna was this sort of woman, as was his sister Hannah. Destiny could give him no less than what would hold the most meaning to him.

There was a world of woman beneath that polished coating, though. Bella could sense it on a hundred different levels. Had she been too delicate, she would be whimpering, crying, and very likely dead by now. There were ferocity and claws beneath her perfect manicure.
Here lies a fighter
, Bella thought with surety. There was no luck involved with the precision of the wounds she had briefly seen on Kes’s Vampire attacker. She knew that now. Kestra had calculated and executed her attack like the coldhearted killer she’d needed to be in that moment in order to save her own life.

Well, good for her!

Bella smiled and recalled the question she had been asked, using it as a means to keep Kes conscious.

“There are no absolutes. Though we tend to be a little nicer than humans.” She watched Kes smile in response to the fair answer. Kestra was trying to reconcile herself to this new world and culture calling to her in Noah’s voice. She didn’t want pretty promises. She needed truth. “There’s danger in this life,” Isabella confided softly. “Though I believe it’s rather like cost of living from one place to another. Everything’s relative. If you earn more in power, expect to pay a higher price when pain comes.”

The Druid seemed lost in her own thoughts a moment, and she absently stroked Kestra’s snowy bangs. Kes found it surprisingly soothing. She was once again taken aback by how much she’d been touched since coming into Noah’s realm, and how easily receptive she was about accepting it. She found it bizarre that so delicate a creature, with her happy features and light touch, could speak so candidly about such deadly matters. Noah’s view on bringing her into his world was stilted by his emotions of need. He had not hidden his knowledge of the dangers she could face, but neither had he brought them under any emphasis.

She wished she could express her gratitude to Isabella for her truthfulness.

“Noah has waited a very long time for you,” Bella whispered suddenly, leaning closer to Kes as if she didn’t want to be overheard. “Believe me, I know the pressure that comes with that. But this path you’re on is one of inevitability. Don’t think you have a choice in the matter, because you don’t. Fate or Destiny or whatever it is has made up its mind about this one single factor in your life, and it can’t be denied. It’s designed so it can’t be denied.” Bella took a break, but continued when Kes’s eyes continued to pay rapt attention. “A greater power than us has created these wondrous, inexplicably complex men, maturing them in intellect and power until they’re at peace with almost everything in life. Their only disquiet is the yearning for the women who will be their complements, and who will begin to lead them on the next stage of their journey.

“So Destiny plucked you and me out of the cosmic soup and told us to be whatever we wanted, but it’d make this single demand on us that we must obey. We must love these beautiful men with all of our hearts.” Isabella’s voice became breathy and shaky with a rush of emotion, her fingertips coasting all the way through Kestra’s hair now. “I don’t think that’s so much to ask, actually. It’s sort of like commanding us to eat chocolate during PMS. You don’t exactly want to refuse a dictate like that.” She hushed Kes when she laughed painfully. “My point is, you have to resign yourself to the fate of being a Druid, of spending your life always connected to Noah. Not controlled by, not dependant on, not indebted to, or any of that feudal bullshit they can revert to every now and then, but a partnership with someone who’s been chosen to be your perfect complement. Course, they think
we
are
their
perfect complements…but it’s the other way around.

“When you accept that, Kes, then you find something better than chocolate. Better than life. Better than anything.” She sighed and Kestra saw joy illuminating her features, an expression unlike anything she’d ever seen on a woman before. “Imprinted love is love on a cellular level. It’s a matching of genetics, but it’s a weaving of souls as well. It isn’t even what humans think soul mates are. It’s beyond that. Beyond the ecstasy of the body.” She broke off into an aside. “Although if it stopped right there,
I
wouldn’t be complaining.” She traded a smile with Kestra. “There is peace in this life. As much as you see the warfare, the peace is just as powerful. I want you to understand…
to know
…how very, very lucky you are to have Noah.”

No sooner had she finished this statement than an enormous explosion of displaced air blew back weeds, brush, and debris, forcing Bella to curl her body over Kestra to protect her from the fallout. She looked up to see her King, her husband, Gideon, and Legna with Seth settled on her hip standing in a small clearing just a few steps away. She sat back, allowing Jacob to rush into her arms, hugging him so tightly that his breath compressed out of his lungs.

It wasn’t until Bella let out a sob that Kestra comprehended how upsetting the entire situation had been for her. She didn’t strike Kestra as the overly weepy type, so she had to admire her for her ability to hide her trauma. It touched her to know that the other Druid had put her own pains aside to take the time to reassure her about what it meant to join the world of Demons.

Trying not to get choked up herself, a condition she told herself was caused by her current state of injury, she turned to look up at Noah when he scooped up her hand and leaned over her, concern etched in every inch of his features. She was lost the moment she saw the expression in his eyes. The pain and regret, the guilt and tragedy…and most of all, his unabashed love for her.

Suddenly tears were welling out of her eyes, dropping into her hair, her repressed urge to sob causing agony to rip through her rib cage and lungs. Then she felt long, cool fingers sliding into her hair, the contact incredibly soothing. She blinked to clear her vision and looked up to see Gideon leaning over her from his position on his knees behind her head.

“Tears are not recommended, Kestra,” he chided. “You cannot breathe because you are bleeding into your chest and it has been slowly compressing your lungs. It will be healed shortly.”

She appreciated the information, but she’d already known that. She turned her attention back to Noah as she felt a tingle skip across her scalp. She squeezed his fingers in reassurance and then glanced over to Isabella and Jacob. A lovely woman with a huge braid of coffee-colored hair had knelt beside them and was handing a baby to Jacob. She then picked up Bella’s hands and closed her eyes as if concentrating.

“My wife.”

“My sister.”

Gideon and Noah spoke at the same time, drawing her attention. She found herself laughing on an easier breath as they exchanged wry smiles over her prostrate body.