Chapter 11

It was mid-dusk, so it was safe for Syreena to travel.

She was not familiar with the area, but it was easy enough to follow the human roads to the rather large town several miles down the shoreline.

It would have taken less time if she had not been forced to walk.

Damien’s marvelous ability to transform, like the Mistrals’, allowed his clothing to take shape with him or whatever it was exactly that allowed that to happen. Since Lycanthropes were not so fortunate, walking was Syreena’s only alternative unless she wanted to end up shopping in the nude. She did not wish to attract that kind of attention, of course. As it was, Damien had forced her to borrow something of Jasmine’s. The female Vampire apparently did not believe in wearing dresses. Syreena felt a bit confined in the silk blouse and kid breeches, not to mention the fact that Jasmine was quite a bit taller than she was.

With her health returned to her, including the additional bounce in her step, the Princess made fast work of the trip. Shortly after arriving at the booming seaside town, however, she recalled the reason why she avoided human dwellings and metropolises.

There were too damn many of them.

It was always overwhelming to her. That was probably because she had not moved about in an area of this type very often, so she did not get the chance to get used to it. Were she a Mistral, she would probably have a heart attack from fear on the spot. To a species who felt, literally, that three was a crowd, this would be a nightmare.

Considering how the human population had grown so rapidly in just her lifetime, Syreena could not fathom how any Nightwalkers were going to manage to remain in perfect isolation for much longer. Even the wild areas humans put aside for conservation efforts were swarming with scientists and tourists. The Monks had always believed that nature would find a way to create balance, but they had never been able to satisfy her points about extinction. Siena was more practical, as were Noah and Damien, she suspected. Siena had made certain the forest land the village and the majority of the royal Lycanthrope territory was situated upon had been purchased a long time ago. What they did not own belonged to communal parks or the government.

What will keep the Nightwalkers from going the way of those species now lost to the planet forever? she wondered. At least in Russia, politics and inhospitable winters had kept the tundra and other lands undeveloped. Even so, species like the Siberian tiger were fast fading from their lands. If something as beautiful as that subspecies of tiger could be so easily disrespected and senselessly murdered, what would prevent the same from happening to Nightwalkers humans deemed dangerous or somehow unworthy?

Humans obviously did not have the same regard for Nightwalkers as Nightwalkers had for humans. The hunters that plagued Damien’s and Syreena’s people were an example of that. The only defense Nightwalkers had were their enormous powers. Unfortunately, that was balanced with a weakness to daylight that could be too easily exploited. That was worsened by the centuries of folklore about them in human mythos. There were grains of truth in everyone of those weird and wild tales, as Damien had once pointed out to her. Enough truth to do terrible damage.

Why she was worrying about such things escaped her for a moment. As she entered the market, she realized it was because, for the very first time, she was considering what would happen in her personal future. Her world of concern had always been limited to what others wished of her. That circle had widened only slightly to include Siena’s interests and well-being fifteen years ago. In spite of helping Siena run their populace, she did not have the passion for it that her sister had. She used logic to best decide on things for Lycanthrope welfare as a whole. Siena used that and her vehement heart. Syreena had always been convinced that this was why she could never be the queen her sister was.

Now Damien and, she had to admit, others were making their mark on her and this was broadening her concerns. Because they were making themselves indelible parts of her emotions and psyche, how could she not begin to feel passion for things that would concern their safety? She was not a cold person as many thought; she was merely inexperienced with certain feelings.

Something she seemed to be making up for at a doubletimed pace, she thought with a smile.

Syreena scooped up a small handheld basket and walked the happy convenience of the market. The electricity and the refrigeration units were something she had grown to miss over the past years. Lycanthropes loved modern comforts and conveniences, even if they did live in caves, but ever since ambassadors from the Vampire and Demon courts had begun to stay in the Lycanthrope court, Siena had ordered everything be retrograded back to the gas lighting systems and other nontechnological conveniences. The chemistry of those two groups of Nightwalkers did not agree with technology on any level, really. Things had a way of blowing up, shorting out, or otherwise malfunctioning. Now that the Demon Elijah was a permanent fixture at the court, and considering that her new mate was a Vampire, Syreena supposed this was the closest she would get to electricity.

She made some quick choices, so ravenous for so many reasons that she had eaten two apples out of the pre-weighted bag before she even reached the register.

Money was an interesting concept to her. She was used to a royal lifestyle where everything was provided for her and money was just numbers on sheets of paper that listed household expenses and such. She handed over what Damien had given her and got strange looks when she actually laughed at the feel of cold coins in her palm. She was still inspecting their shape and design as she walked out of the market.

She had barely cleared the parkinglot when all of her senses suddenly flared with alert.

Someone was tracking her.

She wasn’t immediately alarmed. It was not Ruth’s way to track someone of her ilk, giving her prey the opportunity to become aware of her presence behind them. Syreena was suspicious, however, because she sensed that it was not a human who was slipping from shadow to shadow behind her.

Neither was it Damien. She would have known that immediately. He was fast becoming an extension of herself, so it would be like not knowing where her left hand was.

She dropped her coins into her shopping bag and absently ran a nervous finger along the waistband of the snug breeches. Fleeing from a loose dress was one thing; escaping these clothes if she needed to change rapidly was close to impossible.

So be it, she thought firmly to herself. She was no slouch at hand to hand, in spite of her failures with Ruth. She was not the first Nightwalker to have been harmed or even defeated by that Demon’s wicked power, and some of those who had met defeat at Ruth’s hands had been the most powerful creatures on the planet.

She let her pursuer follow her as far as he was going to. The closer she got to Damien’s territory, the better off she would be.

Just in case.

She felt him closing in on her—and it was definitely a male—just before she reached the borders of Damien’s property. Though it was still some distance into the acreage to the house, she marked the fact that she was being confronted before she could reach that specific border. It told her that whoever was behind her was aware of its significance.

She stopped short and turned to face her stalker. “I know you are there.”

He stepped out of the shadows instantly. He was tall and slim, pale and redheaded. Wild curling hair had been forced into a tail very much like Damien’s, only not as sleek or neat as the Prince managed. He was giving her a smile, holding out his palms in a neutral gesture.

“No harm intended. I was just watching out for you.”

A Vampire. She had never met him before, but she knew he was by his lack of heat and his classic Vampiric features. Plus, he had no discemable pulse.

“Damien sent you?” she asked calmly.

“Well, after a fashion. He would not tell me to do that, because I am certain you would take a bit of offense to the idea.”

“You would be correct. So you took it upon yourself to offend me?”

“Not intentionally,” he assured her. “I am just doing what any friend of the Prince would do when it comes to the protection of his … other friends.”

Syreena knew what he meant by “other friends.” Her brow furrowed in momentary consternation. Since no one but Damien and Jasmine knew about her relationship with the Prince—no one from his world that she knew of, at least—that would mean that Damien had run out and sent someone to tail her the moment she had left his home … or that Jasmine had done something similar.

Since Jasmine seemed to be a bit too cold toward her to care, Syreena was forced to assume Damien was responsible. It disturbed her to think that he did not trust her to take care of herself. Was that the impression she had given him? Granted, he had been forced to rescue her and she hadn’t given the impression that she was very good at making the best choices for herself, but she thought he knew her just a little better than that.

“Who are you?”

“Nicodemous. But everyone calls me Nico.”

“Well, Nico, I was curious as to just how far we were going to carry this charade,” she asked, watching him with a neutral expression, betraying nothing of her feelings of the moment.

He became instantly uncomfortable. “Charade?” he echoed.

“Yes. Do we walk up to the house boldly together, or do we pretend my Prince has succeeded in guarding me without my knowledge?”

“Your …” He relaxed, smiled boyishly and chuckled. “Your Prince would be a bit put out if he saw us walking up to the manse together.”

“Then I suppose you should get back to your skulking,” she said, giving him a dismissing wave as she turned to continue her journey.

“But!” he said quickly, reaching for her arm to pull her to a stop. “But I would not wish to lie to him.”

Syreena turned to face him slightly, looking down at his fingers with an expression of warning disdain that came with genetic royal birthright. He did not seem to get the hint, his hold around her bicep growing firmer. She smiled disarmingly, turned full aroundto face him, and smacked him in his nose with the heel of her palm so hard that she could hear it break. She dropped her bag, using the arm he held to wrap it around the one still clinging to her. She snagged him like a merciless python, twisting bone and muscle into opposing directions until he cried out a curse and buckled to his knee. She followed through by kneeing him in the throat.

She couldn’t make him gag for breath, and she had only won a slight show of blood from his nose, but she was quite satisfied when he fell back into the dirt. She stepped forward, putting her foot firmly on his neck and leaning at least half her weight forward onto it.

“Now,” she said calmly. “Keeping in mind I can remove your head from your shoulders with a single shift in weight if I wanted to, I think I should like you to tell me what you are really doing following me.”

“I already told y—”

She leaned forward onto her knee, cutting him off. She felt his hands closing around her ankle, but he was in for a surprise if he thought to overpower her.

“You just happen to be following the Vampire Prince’s woman, who you just happen to know about when no one else does, and then just happen to stop her twenty or so yards from the border of the Prince’s property and coincidentally putting me just out of range of his sense of telepathy? He could sense me, sense you, but not sense that you were endangering me. Not until I cross that little invisible line.”

He was turning whiter than normal, but he still managed to glare at her. “You are not human!” he croaked.

“Well … duh!” she said dryly. The remark made her realize he was probably too young to have the experience to tell the difference between humans and Lycanthropes in infrared. Youth often came hand in hand with ambition, not to mention rash stupidity. “Thought the Prince was slumming, did you? I am curious, though, what did you hope to get from me? Not the throne, I would hope. What were you going to do, beat him over the head with me?”

Syreena snorted in disgust at the impetuous Vampire who clearly had all ambition and no plan. “I am going to let you go in about ten seconds,” she told him. “If I were you, I would take a few factors into consideration. First, I can run twenty yards faster than you can get up and chase me, even if you are a Vampire. Secondly, if you caught me, I would not be this nice a second time. And lastly, if I bruised a single apple in that bag, I am going to change my mind and take your head off after all. If I were you, I would flyaway very, very fast.”

She did as promised, lifting up her foot and letting him scramble away. He turned toward her as if he was going to say something and she reached pointedly for her bag.

He ran, and then flew away from her.

“Children. You cannot live with them, you cannot kill them until they are older.”

Syreena whirled around at the deep-voiced comment, gasping a moment before a second Vampire reached out to seize her violently by the neck with a powerful hand. He was tall, taller than Damien even, and he was enormous. She knew because he lifted her feet off the ground as he raised her by her neck to his eye level. Syreena struggled, but she got the impression she was like a fly crawling over his skin that was merely an annoyance and hardly worth noticing.

This was no child. This was a well-matured Vampire of indescribable power and unfathomable age.

“You shall have to forgive my son,” he said to her, his dark mouth twitching with amusement as she was forced to stare into eyes as black as a moonless night. “He has his father’s ambition but is as weak as his mother was.”

The Vampire took too long a moment to inspect her. If not for the fact that she could hold her breath for a very long time, Syreena could have easily lost consciousness in that time.

“Clever of him to use his father’s name, however,” her captor continued conversationally. “Then when he fouled up you would run and tell Damien it was Nicodemous. Damien would come after me while my son ran off and cowered somewhere.” Syreena saw the flick of nictitating membranes for a second. “A Lycanthrope? Interesting choice for a mistress.”

Nicodemous jerked her closer, her legs knocking against him like those of a rag doll. He turned her head, inspecting her closely.

“Well, well,” he mused, “someone took a bite on the wild side.”

Syreena felt her time running out. She had no leverage in the air and she could not beat his strength any more than his son could beat hers. She tried to fight off panic so she could think about what she had been taught, what she knew.

“Yes. Do tell. What do they teach a Lycanthrope about how to kill a Vampire?”

Syreena cursed herself in her head. How could she have forgotten that he could get into her mind? She had to be more careful. If he could divine her thoughts, then he could manipulate them. She would not know which end was up if he decided to confuse her in such ways.

“In case you were wondering, I do not plan to use you to beat him over the head,” Nicodemous continued smoothly. “Only to lure him out of that house of his. Damien I can handle, Damien and Jasmine is an entirely different story. Unfortunately, every time I turn around, she is in his pocket. Either her or some Demon. I suppose I could have used Jasmine and spared you all of this, but she is hell in a bitch’s body. She would be too hard a fight if I expect to take on Damien right afterward. Besides, she clearly likes to ride the royal pony, so I imagine one Prince is as good as the next for her. I would hate to waste such a luscious opportunity. I bet Damien takes that opportunity every chance he gets—between passing fancies such as yourself, that is.”

Syreena wondered for a moment why it was that people loved to talk so much when they were trying to kill someone. Then she jerked both her feet up and used his chest as a push-off to walk herself into a back flip.

She took his strength out of the equation. No one with a fixed wrist could maintain a hold on a rotating object, unless they wanted to break their wrist. Since she was working against his function and not his force, her neck slipped easily out of his grasp. She landed on her feet, kicking up roadside dust as she finally drew in a breath. It took everything she could muster to keep from gagging as she sucked air through her swelling throat. If she succumbed to a coughing fit, she would be little protection to herself.

Since she had done him no damage, he was able to recover quickly from his surprise at her escape. She grabbed the nearest thing she could, her shopping bag, and spinning once around hard, cracked him in the head with the full force of five pounds of apples, minus two. It was like hitting him with a rudimentary mace, only no spiked extras included.

He staggered under the blow, clearly shocked by her speed and her strength if the look on his face was anything to judge by. The truth of the matter was that she had no hope of fighting him hand to hand if it came down to brute force, and less of a chance if he had the opportunity to play with her head.

So she ran.

She made sure to focus and use all of her speed. He could catch her easily once he recovered, but that would be fine so long as she kept in the right direction and avoided mental games that might send her elsewhere.

Just because she crossed into Damien’s range of perception also did not guarantee that he would perceive her. This Vampire could be strong enough to cloak her presence from him, or there could be a dozen other factors that could affect the outcome of the next few minutes.

Her pursuer did not hesitate to light out after her. Syreena tore at her blouse as she ran into Damien’s territory. She had no choice but to risk a change half clothed. She could feel Nicodemous reaching for her.

Her one advantage of skill was her ability to change on the fly, so to speak. There were few who could do so with the ease and speed she did. So when Nicodemous grabbed for her arm, all he caught was the tips of feathers. The Vampire stumbled in shock when his hands came up all but empty, but recovered fast and leapt into the air after the peregrine.

Being smaller and quicker, she gained air and distance in that short heartbeat of advantage. If he was as strong as she suspected, however, he would catch her soon enough.

Her right wing suddenly struck something, spinning her nearly out of the sky. Pain blossomed along the right side of the falcon’s form. Syreena realized too late that she had hit a tree. The Vampire had tricked her into believing she had cleared the treetops, so she had flown flat-out into a hard, stinging branch. She plummeted toward the ground precariously, and then finally managed to catch air with her uninjured wing. She reeled, spiraling down in a braking decent.

Nicodemous was hot on her heels as she struck the ground on running feet. Off balance and injured, she crashed to the forest floor, dead leaves and brush her only cushion as she skidded to a stop. The Princess did not even have a second to get off her back before he was on her.

He was not going to let her get even the slightest advantage this time. He bored into her with the blanketing fear that he could mentally drill into his prey. Her sister had the same gift in the form of the cougar’s scream, only even more intense than the natural fear that cry instilled. So did Syreena, but the chilling cry of the falcon had left with its form.

Syreena let the terror he was feeding her wash over her. She merely relaxed and gave in to it. Adrenaline and fearresponse chemicals burst into her blood, blinding panic overcame her every thought.

Damien swung around so fast as Syreena’s screaming presence of fright bombarded him that he sent a heavy statue crashing over. The marble immediately burst around his feet as his head blossomed with terror and pain so overwhelming he could not see straight for the first twenty seconds.

Realizing what was happening, he cursed himself for wasting those twenty seconds as he ran out of the house. He did not change form, his speed and skill as the raven still leaving too much to be desired. He did not need to. He was like a black streak of lightning as he crossed scrub and forestland in a matter of a minute.

What in the world had he been thinking? He had known they were out there!

He just had not thought they would bother Syreena since no one knew her significance to him. It was an underestimation Syreena was now paying for.

Damien plowed into the altercation powered by pitchblack rage.

He leapt over Syreena and drove the force of his body into the attacking Vampire. The two males tumbled clear of Syreena, which was Damien’s intention. Nicodemous tore over the ground on his back, the Prince driving hard into his chest so that when they finally braked to a halt, Damien’s knee crunched down into ribs and breastbone.

“Nico, you miserable bastard, I will kill you for touching her!” Damien snarled, his fangs flashing with a wild roar as he drove his fist into his enemy’s throat. His intention was to rip off the other man’s head with his bare hands, but Nico was too powerful to make it that easy. He threw off the Prince, sending him flying back a good ten feet into the trunk of a mighty tree. The crack of wood under stress filled the area, echoing off every distant point it could reach.

Nicodemous gained his feet and turned to advance on the Prince with his own mad gleam of huge, pointed teeth and a vicious vocalization to match. Before he could advance on the stunned Prince who was, in essence, the real focus of his intentions, he was railroaded by a speedball of gray and brown hair. Damien’s female was strong for her size, but what was more, she was smart. She went for his knees from behind, knocking all the support out from under him. He hit the ground, tumbling back over her. He instantly reached through his rage for the only thing he could see of her.

Her streaked hair.

His hand came away empty, save maybe two strands. Frustrated and in a fine rage, Nico turned his attention to Damien. The Prince had easily gained his feet, his bitch giving him the time he had needed to regain his equilibrium.

The larger male reached into his boot for a dagger and flung it at the advancing Prince.

Damien’s hand moved with imperceptible speed and snatched the dagger out of the air right before it would have pierced his throat. The blade cut his hand with the impact, but it was incidental damage.

Nico realized he had just very effectively armed the Prince. Hand to hand was one thing, but when weapons became visible, it usually meant that blood began to flow. Lose enough blood, and lose the fight. The aggressor had drawn the first blood, and he took satisfaction in that as Damien’s fingers dripped precious red fluid.

Nico reached for his second dagger, moving at Damien with a speed faster than even preternatural vision.

Damien felt the puncture of the weapon in his lower left side, but he took the damage in stride. He allowed the attack so he could wrap a powerful arm around Nico’s throat. The dagger drove deeper into his midsection as he used all the force of his body to pin Nicodemous to his injured side and plunged the other stiletto into his back. The blade glanced off solid ribs, then found a mark between two of them, slicing through muscle, lungs, and liver with the ease of a thrust through water.

Nico grunted in pain, but both Vampires broke apart with weapons in hand. Most people did not realize it, but the drawing out of a blade hurt more than the going in. It also did a hell of a lot more damage.

Damien felt his blood soaking through his shirt and the waistband of his black denim jeans. He ignored the wound, however. In a battle between Vampires, it often came down to which one gave in to the fear of losing too much blood. It was a distraction that disrupted battle skills, but it was also nearly impossible to resist.

Damien had not lived to be 974 years old because he easily gave in to such things. It was the uncanniest part of his power. He had no fear, no consideration, for the prospect of his death.

The Vampires clashed and passed again, both drawing blood before stepping away. Damien lowered his head as he crouched, his eerie blue eyes looking deeply into Nico’s black gaze. Manipulating the mind of another Vampire was an incredible feat of command. It was nearly impossible to do because they were always aware of the possibility of the attempt. Normally, neither could succeed in tricking the perceptions of the other.

But Damien was no normal Vampire.

Nicodemous charged Damien, but the Prince disappeared before his eyes. Sensing a trick, he whirled around, trying to break the illusion so he could seek his enemy’s true location. All he saw was that infernal Lycanthrope falcon flying above his head.

Nico suddenly felt his body exploding from back to front, unimaginable pain tearing through his chest wall and his heart. He looked down in shock as a ragged branch protruded with a burst of blood through his chest.

He whipped around, staggering as he yanked the opposite end of the limb out of the hands of his attacker. His eyes widened with astonishment when he saw the Lycanthrope bitch standing where he had just stood, his blood sprayed across her bare skin and remnants of bark falling from the arm she wasn’t favoring.

Nico whipped his head around to find the bird he had seen earlier. The deception exposed, he saw it for the raven that it actually was. Damien had used the bird to make him think he knew the location of the female, so she could attack him from behind.

Realizing he was defeated and in peril of losing his life, Nico went for a hasty retreat. The branch spearing his body struck just about every other tree branch on the way up from the forest floor and into the air above the canopy, the pain of it indescribable. Nico did not give it much thought, however. Wherever Damien had disappeared to, Nico could bet he would not let him escape with his head if he caught him.

He need not have worried. Damien’s first concern was what it always had been.

Syreena.

After a clumsy landing, Damien changed back into his natural form. Syreena watched him expand from the shape of the raven to the shape of a man kneeling at her feet. His hand went to the wound at his side automatically in an attempt to stanch the heavy flow of blood as he got to his feet and dragged Syreena up against his body.

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“Shh, yes, I’m okay … and yes, he hurt me. Not as bad as he hurt you, just a broken arm and few more lost feathers. I am so glad to see you!” She wrapped her uninjured arm around his neck, hugging him with all of her strength.

“Ditto,” he said with relief, exhaling with it now that he had heard her talk and felt her warmth. He glanced up at the treetops and sky. “It’s not safe here. It is not uncommon for a second Vampire to attack after he thinks the mark has been worn out by a first one. Let us return to the house so we can add Jasmine to our forces.”

“Okay. I think, for once, I am actually going to be happy to see her!”

Damien chuckled at that. He scooped her up and flew up into the night sky with incredible speed.

“Lois Lane, eat your heart out,” she sighed against his neck.

“Well, it is definitely broken.”

Gideon, an Ancient Demon of the Body and a healer without measure, moved his fingers gingerly over Syreena’s arm.

“As you know, I cannot yet heal Lycanthropes,” he continued, “but I can set it and let your natural healing abilities take over from there.”

“Damien, I am so glad you brought her home,” Siena said gratefully, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Well, with two out of three of us injured, I figured a change in venue was the best choice,” Damien explained, wincing as he shifted position in the chair he had pulled up to Syreena’s bedside.

“This is ridiculous. He’s hurt ten times worse than I am,” Syreena complained, trying to wave the Demon medic away as she sat up.

“And bled all the way from California to here,” Jasmine chimed in.

“Gideon stopped the bleeding already. Syreena is more important at the moment.”

“Damien, you need to hunt. Very soon,” Jasmine argued. “You are cold as death and weak as well.”

“After Gideon is done, we will have a hunt. I will not leave Syreena until then.”

“Damien,” she said in consternation. “She is not going to die if you leave her.”

“That is enough, Jasmine.”

Jasmine fell silent, clearly angry and put out by his behavior, which was so impractical and impossible for her to understand. The Princess had just staked one of Damien’s strongest enemies, literally with one arm behind her back. Though the myth of staking fell short of the instant death it was reputed to have, once Nico removed it he could bleed to death very quickly. Syreena had very likely killed him. It was not as if she were some frail flower of a woman or anything. She could not be so. That kind of woman would have turned Damien’s stomach in an instant.

Sacrificing his health to see to a mere broken arm was ridiculously illogical. For once, Jasmine was in agreement with the Lycanthrope.

“Very well, then. At least drink from me to sustain yourself,” she said, sweeping back her ebony hair and moving closer to him.

“Jasmine.”

Damien’s warning tone came only a second before a threatening, predatory growl erupted from the woman he sat near. Jasmine’s dark eyes snapped to the Princess, instantly reading the threat that had wired her entire body. She comprehended immediately that this was a territorial vocalization. If there was one thing she knew, it was the reaction of someone warning others off their property.

Her property.

How dare she interfere, Jasmine thought in outrage. Who does she think she is? I have supported and sustained Damien all of my life!

“Very well. Have it your way,” she snapped at them. Then, with that supernatural speed all Vampires were blessed with, she tore out of the underground Lycanthrope castle.

Once she was gone, Syreena turned regretful eyes to her mate. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

“I think you do,” Siena said consolingly. “I would do the same if a woman offered herself up to Elijah right in front of me. It was insensitive for her to do that.”

“No. She was only being practical,” Damien said quietly. “Jas is practical to a fault. You and she are more alike than you realize, Syreena. She sees me as someone worthy of protecting. She has been loyal to me all of her life, in the way that you would be loyal to your sister. Be patient with her. None of us understands the nature of what has happened between us, and it has been such a sudden thing.” Damien waved off the serious topic, turning back to Gideon. “Are you certain she will heal properly, old friend?”

“It is broken, not shattered. The bruising looks bad, I know, but I assure you it will mend once it is set. If you doubt me, perhaps you should gain access to one of the healer Monks.”

“I do not doubt you in the least,” Damien returned surely. “It was a question I am certain you would ask yourself were you forced to put Magdelegna’s health in someone else’s hands. We Nightwalkers are just very protective of our wives.”

Damien raised Syreena’s healthy hand to his lips, so he missed the delighted look Siena shot to her husband, who was leaning back against the wall of the room with casual ease as he observed all the personal dynamics unfolding before him. Elijah knew Siena was soaring with joy for her sister having found such apparent happiness, especially after the days of worry Syreena had put her through recently. The Warrior Captain was, of course, glad to have his wife in good spirits again. However, he would reserve opinion on the rest of the matter. If the joining of a Lycanthrope and a Demon had been incredibly difficult, Elijah figured that a union between a Lycanthrope and a Vampire would be damn near impossible.

Obviously that did not include emotions or physicality, he realized as he watched Damien’s intimacy with Syreena. For all their bangs and bruises, there was no mistaking their feelings and the tracks of themselves that each had left upon the other. That they were mated was unquestionable. That they were in love was also clear. But Elijah remembered the pause that had come after his similar experiences with Siena. The fact of the matter was that they were members of two completely differing societies, both with positions of great influence, responsibility, and obligations.

Elijah glanced back to his wife. He realized instantly that she was aware of his thoughts. Though she was pretending to remain focused on Gideon’s manipulation of her sister’s arm, her eyes were suddenly upset and disturbed. As were her thoughts.

She looked up at him briefly, her expression and thoughts feeding into him instantly.

Can our people ever accept two alien men as mates to their monarchs? They have barely begun to accept you, my love.

I know, kitten, he thought in return. What is worse, Vampires may very well try to slaughter their ruler if he thinks to take a Lycanthrope bride.

But Vampires hold no ill will toward us!

Vampires have very few rules in life. Siena, so those they do have are very seriously frowned upon if they are broken. For some reason, it is against their laws for Damien to feed from your sister. Add this to their greed for power and the position that Damien holds, and it bodes ill for their safety and well-being overall.

He could have tried to lie to her, to comfort and coddle her delusions of her sister’s potential happiness, but he was a leader of warriors and she a queen. Both required the hard practicality of reality in order to be of any use in their positions and to those who depended on them. Even if Siena had not been able to read his thoughts, she always needed to face the blatant truth of things. There were no coddling fairytales for a queen … not for a good one.

And his wife was an exceptional one.

So if they stay here, they meet with censure and hostility. If they stay there, they meet the same or worse.

Elijah looked down at the stone floor for a second, his wife’s anxiety almost too much to bear from across a crowded room where he could not get to her to comfort her without being terribly obvious to the objects of their concern.

If you touched me now, I would start to cry like a child, she told him.

I know. That is the only thing keeping me against this wall at the moment, kitten.

Siena turned her head, her golden lashes blinking rapidly as she felt the burn of tears anyway.

“Hey, babe, let’s leave these two with the doctor.” Elijah spoke up suddenly, moving across the room to fetch his wife from between Damien and Gideon with a single smooth pull. “Why watch the doctor when we can be playing it instead,” he teased, giving Syreena a sly look of mischief.

The Princess laughed at him as he swept her sister into the corridor without another word. Once outside the door, he drew his mate to the comfort of his embrace and all the shoulder she would ever need to cry on.

Damien reached to place a gentle kiss of pure affection on Syreena’s forehead. She was asleep, so the gesture went completely unnoticed. He was sitting on the bed next to her, or rather, half beneath her. She had fallen asleep in a semiupright position, her back nestled to his chest. He touched her hair, the living tendrils shifting beneath his fingers, some moving away, and some wending lightly over them.

He realized that he had some hard choices ahead of him.

Jasmine, for one. He could not be the rope in a tug-of-war between the two women who meant the most to him. He needed to find a solution as soon as possible. He mostly wanted to talk to Jasmine and make sure she understood there was nothing for her to be so afraid of. He was not going to abandon her, and he was positive that Syreena would not wish for him to do so, either. Territorial was one thing, jealous even another, but demanding that he choose between the person he considered his most valued friend and her? She would never ask it.

Jasmine, unfortunately, was not above such a demand. That was the nature of Vampire selfishness. He knew that, and he suspected even Syreena knew that. What he could not understand was why Jasmine would feel threatened all of a sudden. They had walked the world together for five hundred years. What on earth did she think was going to make that change?

He had also realized exactly what kind of danger he was exposing Syreena to. Nico’s aggressive actions against them had shown him that. Damien was used to battling for his throne. It was simply a fact of his life. However, he no longer had the luxury of being blasé about it. The possibility of meeting death had always been an incidental thought. He had always figured that it simply would not matter; that if it happened, it was meant to happen. It was the price he would pay for a millennium of life and for the privilege of being the longest surviving Prince in all of Vampire history.

Now he had other interests to consider.

Syreena’s interests.

He had only just found her, so he was hardly eager to lose her or to have her lose him. He could not bear the idea of causing her that much pain.

And there would be unspeakable pain.

He knew, without a doubt, that Syreena loved him. She had not spoken of it yet, probably not even to herself. He could accept that, considering how quickly everything had come about for her. What really mattered was that she felt it. Though unacknowledged, it was in her thoughts and it was in her spirit. He would have known it to be the truth even if he had no insight into her mind. He had understood that the moment she had sacrificed herself to Nico in order to warn him of danger.

Damien knew she could have found escape if she had only run a couple of yards in the opposite direction. The cliffside at the point where she had met Nicodemous was only that far away. It would have been nothing for her to leap off it and down into the water below. Whether or not she could change into the dolphin, she had every water-born instinct in her human form she would need to survive the plunge and swim out of reach of Nico’s grasp. He never would have followed her down such a treacherous fall. To him, it would have been suicidal; to her, it would have been like breathing.

Instead, she had run toward him. As promised, she had used every ounce of advantage and strength she had to try and return to him. In this case, to give him fair warning. Damien had fought Nico once before and, though it was a challenge, he would have defeated him with or without warning this time as well. Of course, she had no way of knowing that, really, so she had done what she thought she had to do to protect him.

Again, he was not used to others stepping in front of him in that kind of role, but he was beginning to become more tolerant of it, not insulted by it. Those actions, in and of themselves, only further proved to him that it was an act of deeply felt love for him.

The last thing to be considered was Siena.

He was telepathically sensitive himself, so he had known the basic nature of the exchange that had passed between the Queen and her mate. Siena feared for her sister’s happiness. Parallel to that, she was afraid of the displeasure of her people. He did not have to think too hard to figure out why. He had known what the possible consequences could be if Syreena, Siena’s only heir, chose an outlander for a mate. Syreena had known them as well. He had made certain that she did. Siena probably did not realize that this was the source of Syreena’s deepest conflict in the entire situation. He understood that this was what had kept her thinking, in spite of horrific sadness, for nearly three days. She had put herself and him through indescribable hurt just so she could make her choice with complete consideration.

“And now, sweetling, I must hunt. I will return to you warmed and hopefully at a better peace,” he whispered into her hair.

“No women,” she murmured to him, the response so sleepy she was barely awake.

“None whatsoever. I promise.”

Her only response was a sleepy sigh. He smiled against her and then gently eased himself from beneath her. He carefully arranged her and her injured arm so that pillows mostly took his place supporting her. He would not go far, nor would he be long. He could not manage it in his present condition in any event, and he wanted to be back by her side before she even noticed he was gone.

Every other concern was secondary to that.

Nicodemous kept up his flight for as long as he calculated he could. He realized soon enough that Damien was more interested in tending his harlot than chasing him, and he supposed he was grateful for that.

It did not keep him from being livid beyond reason.

If he ever got his hands on that devious, backstabbing little Lycanthrope whore, he would gut her with his best silver knife in an instant.

Unfortunately, he had to survive the removal of this cursed stick of wood first.

He landed awkwardly somewhere in the Nevada desert shortly after that thought. There was method to this particular place. It would hurt like being staked out in the sun, but sand was his quickest choice to fill the gaping wound the removal of the branch would cause him. At least within the area he had been forced to flee to. After packing the wound, he would find shelter out of the sun and the path of humans or animals and resign himself to torpor while his body healed.

It would help if he could hunt. He would never be able to in this condition, but fresh blood was always a Vampire’s best resource when it came to speeding the healing process. Since he did not have a choice in the matter, he would settle for torpor. At least he would be able to sleep and mull over exactly what it was that had gone wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but Nico was positive something strange was going on.

A Vampire bedding a Lycanthrope was strange enough, but Damien, the so-called Lawful Prince, had drunk her Nightwalker blood. More than once, by the look of the marks. There were a great many Vampires who, if they had only known about that, would take serious umbrage to it. Perhaps this would be something he could exploit at a later date.

But there was something else besides all of that. There had to be. He was too old and too experienced to not know when strange things were afoot. Damien was the best at playing mind games, but there was something about the whole trick of the falcon and the raven that was grating on his intellect.

Nico lowered himselfto his knees, bracing them far apart as he closed his hands around the branch.

This would be easier to do and survive if that worthless son of his had not turned tail and run off like a weeping woman, he thought angrily. He had known that Cyril was going to make an attempt at the woman, just as he had known Cyril was haunting the edges of Damien’s territory for the past few days. The idiot child got grades for ambition, but that was just about all he had earned in his father’s eyes. The rest had been sloppy and stupid and far outside of Cyril’s capabilities. Nico had no idea what his son had been thinking, trying to find a way to take on Damien.

At least Nico was smart enough to admit that Damien had been the longest reigning Vampire Prince because he deserved it. The Prince was no slouching figurehead, that much was certain. But each battle taught Nico a little bit more. If He survived this one, he would be more than willing to gamble on his success at a third try.

“Do you need some help with that?”

Nico looked up with a start. He was in so much pain and so drained of essential fluids, he had not even heard the approach of the stranger who addressed him. He looked her over with sharp black eyes. She was tall, excessively so for a woman, and she had the longest blond hair he had seen in some time. She was young in appearance and extraordinarily beautiful. Her darkly tanned skin told him she was no Vampire, but her matter-of-fact attitude about finding a man stabbed through his heart and still alive in the middle of a desert told him that she was not unfamiliar with Nightwalkers.

She leaned forward, her hands braced on her knees as she looked at him with cold, clear blue eyes. He saw fierce intelligence there, as well as a palpable fearlessness that immediately piqued his interest. She was gowned in sheer lilac panels of something like silk or chiffon, but the moon easily backdropped her figure through the material so that, in shadow, she might as well have been naked.

“I can help you,” she whispered to him, her eyes coasting over his wounded body with a sort of covetousness that, had he been a little healthier, would have delighted him no end.

“I expect you will want something in return,” he countered. “I can manage by myself.”

“I was not speaking only of this nonsense,” she said shortly, waving off his crucial injury as if it were merely a splinter in his finger.

“Then tell me what you were speaking of, and make it quick, will you, woman? There is a time issue to be considered here.”

“I meant that I could help you get what you want.” She smiled prettily when he arched a sarcastic brow at her. She leaned even closer, and he could smell the scent of clover, musk, and frankincense. Strangely, he found the mixture extremely pleasing. “I meant,” she purred softly as she touched his face with a hand as soft as kid gloves, “I can get you Damien’s head on a pretty platter. A silver platter, with a Lycanthrope heart sitting right next to it.”

Nico’s eyes narrowed on her and he looked her over once again. “Who are you?”

“I am the one who knows how Damien defeated you. I am the one who knows how to make you stronger than you ever imagined. I am your one true angel, Nicodemous.”

With that, she grasped the branch impaling him and jerked it clear of his body. Nico’s scream could be heard by every desert creature for miles. In agony and rage, he reached for the woman and dragged her down to her knees before him. Blood poured from his wounds and, since it was very likely that he would die no matter what, he was going to at least give her a good thrashing for taking him off guard like that.

She laughed at him even as his blood splashed across her dress. For a moment, he thought she was completely mad.

Then she laid her slim fingers over his torn flesh and began to whisper softly under her breath. The words were a mixture of Latin and Arabic and about three other languages that he could immediately identify. The rest of it was gibberish to him.

Gibberish or not, whatever she was doing, it was helping. It was as if he could feel his flesh knitting together on the spot, starting with his damaged heart and working its way outward.

“You are a Demon,” he accused her softly.

“Mmm,” she affirmed, those huge blue eyes of hers beautifully spooky with their depths and emptiness.

“You are using magic. A Demon who casts spells? How is it you are not censured for such a thing?”

Her response was a half-smile and pointed lift to her brow.

“Ahh,” he said with sudden clarity. “You would be censured … if they could catch you.”

Nicodemous was positively sucked in by this interesting bit of fortune. He realized from what she had said so far that she had some sort of vendetta against Damien or the Lycanthrope female. She had probably seen their earlier battle and had followed him this far in search of an ally. Apparently she had had no luck catching up with her target on her own either.

Perhaps together though …

Between her inborn skills, this magic she had acquired, and his own power …

Nico was dizzy with the possibilities.

“It is very likely blood loss,” she said dryly, responding to a thought he had not voiced aloud.

He chuckled. “I do not suppose hunting for blood would be another of your hidden talents, would it?”

“I have a better idea,” she whispered eagerly as her bloodstained hands fell away from his repaired body. “Would you like to know how Damien was able to trick you before?”

“Can it wait until after I eat?”

The beautiful blond moved forward suddenly, her hands diving into his fiery-colored hair and her mouth pressing to his. Nico was startled at first, but she was quite a warm and luscious handful of woman, so it did not take him long to get over it. He kissed the forward wench soundly, making damn sure she was gasping for breath by the time he finally released her. She pushed back into another kiss aggressively, her warm body wrapping around him with sinuous sensuality.

It was clear she knew her way around a man. It radiated in the way she moved against him, the way her hands roamed boldly over him. She was also assertive and brazen, which Nico very much liked in a woman.

“Okay, you win,” he growled at her, pulling her off his mouth by her hair. He wrapped a fistful of it around his hand and held her perfectly still while he appraised her face. “How did he do it?”

“Would you like to find out?” she asked breathlessly.

“I just said so, didn’t I?”

“Good.”

She reached to push back the remainder of her hair, baring her slender, appetizing neck to his starving eyes and craving body.

“Bon appetit,” Ruth murmured with a wicked smile.

Jasmine rubbed her chill arms absently as she walked around her room for the third time.

She was not one for material goods, so even though there was a small bag half filled with her clothing, she realized there was nothing else she truly wanted to take with her.

Beside the bag on her bed was the old book she had borrowed from the Nightwalker Library. She moved closer to it, touching its leather cover and the obscure title across its bottom.

It was in Vampyr, their most ancient language, and it simply said: Reasoning.

So modest a title for so profound a topic, she thought with more than a little dejection. She had done nothing but examine and reexamine her reasoning these past forty-eight hours. No matter what she did, she seemed to think herself into circles, logic seeming illogical after a while and everything sounding whiny and emotional in her head if she thought onit long enough. Half the time she felt like a child throwing a tantrum because another child had stolen her favorite toy, and some adult somewhere looming above her was lecturing her on the reasons why she should share.

Share, or have it taken awayfrom you forever. If you cannot share, you cannot play.

Jasmine stomped a foot against the floorboards, even if it did perpetuate the metaphorical image in her mind. She had shared Damien with his women before. Why was she having so much difficulty this time?

“Because she is not Vampire and she does not understand our ways,” she complained to the silent manse.

Did a Lycanthrope understand the way Vampires compensated for solitude and boredom with an intimacy of touch that had nothing to do with sex? What of the way Syreena had threatened her when all she had been doing was helping the male Syreena professed to care about? Would the little Princess be upset if Jasmine and Damien spent the entire day behind closed doors merely talking, as they often had before? Vampires were not insulted by being shut away from those who wanted privacy, just as they were not insulted when others behaved with explicitness in the presence of others.

Jasmine could imagine Syreena pitching a fit the first time she strolled in on someone having sex in the common room or saw someone walking naked through the house. The female Vampire was too angry to take into consideration that she had lived in the Lycanthrope court a few weeks here and there over the centuries, and it was a culture almost exactly like her own in that respect. Between the communal baths and the hot springs dotted through the castle, public nudity and sex were often just as frequent, if not more so.

After a few moments, Jasmine reconciled her irrational thinking. She turned and sat next to the compendium on her bed with a deep, dejected sigh.

Whose problem was this anyway? she wondered.

She looked down at her bag and then the book again, taking measure of both. If she packed the rest of her bag and left, who would that be hurting? Only Damien and herself. Syreena could not comprehend the depth of drama in such a change in the household dynamic, so how could it hurt her in any way? Unless she hurt because Damien would hurt. Which would mean she truly did have a serious concern for him.

Which Jasmine did not want to accept.

Jasmine groaned pitifully as she came full circle in her own mind yet again. She flopped back onto her mattress with a bounce. Her hand fell on the book again, bringing immediately to mind her second dilemma of action and consequence. Within the book lay the proof Damien had asked her to seek: the reasoning and consequences behind Vampires feeding on, or rather being inherently against feeding on, other Nightwalkers. Some of what she had read supported everything Damien had suspected and concurred with everything he wanted to hear. It would bind him all the tighter to the Lycanthrope, if such a thing were possible.

Some of it was also frighteningly deadly in consequence and, in her opinion, conveyed very supportable logic for why feeding on other Nightwalkers had evolved into the taboo it now was. In truth, it was such a cold and deadly piece of logic that it had the potential to drive Damien away from his supposed love and, with any luck, back into their normal, quiet routine.

Jasmine, however, was forced to remind herself how much she hated normalcy and quiet routine. A couple of weeks ago she had been ready to lie down in the ground for a century. Today, she was reeling with thoughts and choices and, she had to admit, the potential for adventure and the future risk of existence that so many Vampires like herself thrived on. But should she risk Damien’s well-being, possibly his life, for the sake of entertaining herself? Not that the danger was a definite. If it were, she would not hesitate to act. Because however she felt, whatever happened, she knew she would always put Damien first.

She would die for him.

These long-buried truths and dangerous consequences could die as well, Jasmine considered. Say, for instance, if the Library were to suddenly burn to the ground, the cursed book on her bed included. Was it so far-fetched an idea that a torch might come too close to one book, accelerating a catastrophic obliteration of all these secrets that should have stayed in their musty tomb? What would they really be missing out on if such a thing happened? They had survived this long …

Merely survived.

Jasmine never would have thought herself capable of it, but she could not turn her back on the tempting idea that this volume, so full of information, could lead to something so much more vital and beautiful than bare survival alone could ever compare to.

Bang. She was back at the beginning again. Circle complete.

Jasmine took her hand off the book so she could slap herself on her aching forehead. This was ridiculous! For all her age, wisdom, and experience, she could not sort out what to do with a stupid book and one short woman? If Damien married Syreena, she would become Jasmine’s Queen! Jasmine would become the subject of a twit who had no clue as to what benefited the Vampire race!

And, if Damien did marry her, he would need Jasmine more than ever. Leaving him would make him domestically vulnerable. Stephan, head of Damien’s organized fighting forces, was fine when it came to dealing with other races and human hunters, but Jasmine didn’t think he had what it took to kill his own en masse should a civil war break out. And even if they managed to avoid internal strife of that magnitude, it would still invite a wave of challengers to his throne. There was no way Damien could ever survive such an onslaught. Not alone. Not without someone who did not care who she killed for the sake of protecting him.

Someone who would not get their little twiggy arm broken at the first flick of an enemy finger, then lie around crying about it. If Jasmine stayed, though, it would mean she would have to give them both her support, including Miss Twiggy.

She would rather run across a desert naked at noon on a bright, sunny day.

And once more, back to her own start she went.

Why was this so hard? Why couldn’t she just kill the bitch and end it all?

It was just then that Jasmine felt an acute, throbbing sparkle skip across her senses so suddenly that her head and sinuses flared with sharp pain. She sat up quickly, gaining her feet and becoming instantly alert to the fact that there was an intruder in the house.

It was no one she knew, and not a Vampire. She would have felt a Vampire coming the moment they crossed into the territory, no matter how distracted by her own thoughts she had been. Besides, Damien was the one who attracted that sort of trouble, not her. Anyone who wanted to challenge the Prince would not want to come up against her first. The wisest thing would be to wait until Damien was on the premises without her being present.

Jasmine turned toward the door just as the air pressure in the room snapped in violent displacement. She flinched as her sinuses were abused once again by the pressure change. By the time Ruth turned to face her, however, Jasmine was flashing a serious set of fangs and hissing sharply in threat, crouching at the ready.

“Hmm, scary,” Ruth remarked, giving Jasmine a theatrical shiver. “Down, girl,” she ordered as if speaking to a dog, pointing a commanding finger to punctuate the insult. “I am not here to hurt you.”

“Not that you could,” Jasmine spat, her fingers curling slightly until they were hooked into ready claws.

“If you insist.” Ruth waved the matter off, conceding as if it did not matter in the least. “I am only here to deliver the littlest bit of a message to your Prince, his bitch, and all the rest of the little dogs back where she comes from, including the warrior who murdered my child. Youtell them that things are going to change from this moment on. If they thought I was trouble before, wait until they see what I can do now. My power will continue to grow, I promise you. Just as my rage and my thirst for vengeance grows. Truly, Jasmine, it is quite an extraordinary thing. But you would know all about that now, would you not?”

The Mind Demon appraised Jasmine for a moment and then suddenly exploded into the Vampire’s mind. Shocked, Jasmine staggered under the force of it. She was powerful in her own right, but all of her barriers and resistances were like dust compared to the presence that stormed through her thoughts.

“I know your mind, poor, troubled girl,” Ruth said softly. “Those shapechangers are quite the nuisance, are they not? But why struggle so? You know what you want to do in your heart. I can show you how to get him back, you know. No one would ever be the wiser. I could …”

Ruth suddenly looked down at the bed, her pale blue eyes widening.

“Where did you get that?” She spoke with awe as she reached for the volume with eager hands. Jasmine instantly went to stop her, but found she was rooted in place. Shocked that her body would fail to serve her, she became enraged. But it was Ruth who began to shout. “A Library? A Nightwalker Library? That was supposed to be my treasure! All those months of digging in that frozen wasteland!” Ruth’s head snapped up as she narrowed evil eyes on Jasmine. “You have seen the Black Tome. I knew we were close! I could feel it!”

Jasmine had a feeling she knew what Ruth was talking about. There was a book in the Library, a centerpiece set on its own pedestal, with black covers and page after page of magic spells in every language imaginable and, like the other books hidden within the Library, even some that were unimaginable.

Jasmine felt her stomach clutching with impotent anger; at Ruth, yes, but mostly at herself. Her mind had become a diamond mine for the Demon, and Ruth was excavating its priceless treasures with such ease, as if Jasmine were five, not five hundred. She should have been powerful enough to push away the intrusion of a Mind Demon.

“Ah, but I am no ordinary Demon. Or hadn’t you heard? In fact, I think it is safe to say that I am not really a Demon anymore. And why would I want to be, I ask you? All that hypocrisy and holier-than-thou preaching they do … it turns my stomach. You know”—she turned back to Jasmine, brightly smiling—“I believe I have the answers you are looking for, Jasmine. Since you have been such a delightful resource, I don’t see why I shouldn’t share in return.

“So many questions spinning in your head, Vampire. You could have peace and have the exciting life you have always craved. I tell you, every day I learn something new. I see things you would not believe. The world is my oyster, and you could not possibly begin to consider what little pearls like this,” she rubbed the leather of the volume as she hugged it to her chest, “can do. But the biggest pearl, the Black Tome, what we could do with that!

“I have grown wiser about magic, Jasmine. All along I kept looking for a human necromancer powerful enough to join with me and be an effective partner. Now I realize there is no such thing! That is why we always defeat the human necromancers. Magic was never meant to be theirs, it was meant for us! That is why they always turn evil. It is too much for them to manage. It was meant for Nightwalkers.”

Ruth moved closer to Jasmine, reaching to touch the paralyzed woman’s cheek as she looked deep into her stormy, dark eyes.

“I know how powerful you are. Even now, your struggles against me are wearing me out. But imagine your power tripled, or even raised to the tenth power. There are no limits. Not once you shed all these mortal limitations we all seem to have picked up. Come, Jasmine,” she coaxed eagerly, “I already have my first, my right hand man, so to speak.” She giggled like a girl with a crush. “But you can be my left hand. You can take my daughter’s place. You would never want for anything at my side. I would never abandon you for another. I am not like a fickle male. I will not make you weak with pain. I will fill you with the strength of power! I know you are thinking about it. I feel you thinking about it. Come, let me show you the truths that make lies of everything you have been told to believe.”

Jasmine could not speak. She was breathing hard with emotion, something she had not done in over a century. She closed her eyes, thinking of Damien and everything they had shared for the past five hundred years. Who would she be without him? Who could she be without him?

Jasmine was dismayed to realize she was trapped once more in another, never-ending circle.