Chapter 13

Damien led Jasmine out of doors where they could be assured of a private discussion, which Jasmine had requested.

“Damien, I have a terrible confession to make to you, one that may make you very angry with me, and justly so. But I have to tell you because there is so much at stake now.”

“Very well,” he agreed, sitting halfway on a stone wall that lined the courtyard they had entered.

“Ruth took the compendium I was reading with her when she left.”

“I see. But she will have just as much access to all the others in the Library, if Anya does not stop her beforehand.”

“The difference is, I am ignorant of their importance. I have been aware of the importance of this volume for quite some time now and I cannot ignore the damage it can cause.”

“Explain,” he encouraged her quietly.

“You set me to the task of finding a precedent for your relationship with that—with Syreena,” she corrected herself in time, smiling sheepishly when he lifted a brow at the obvious self-omission. “Well, I found it within the pages of that book.”

“How long ago?” he asked, his tone still level, and thereby far more unnerving than anger might have been.

“Days. Since Jinaeri became librarian. But you had already reconciled with the—with Syreena.” Jasmine exhaled in frustration. “I told myself you no longer needed the information, but it was wrong ofme no matter how you look at it. There are things, terrible and wonderful both, that you should know.”

“Let us get to the heart of them, then, shall we?” he said directly.

“Very well. There is precedent for this relationship. In fact, there are ceremonies within this book strictly for the marriage of Vampires to foreign Nightwalkers. Apparently, thousands of years ago, it was a commonplace occurrence. As you suspected, this is where those myths of Vampires changing into different forms originate, because they are the truth. If a Vampire and, for immediate example, a Lycanthrope are attracted to one another and are compatible in their souls, they can engage in a practice called the Exchange. The Exchange is the first step in a ceremony called the Bonding. A wedding, in other words. The Exchange is exactly that. The Vampire feeds from his intended mate. By doing so, he absorbs an aspect of that mate into his makeup forever.”

“The raven, in my case.”

“Yes. But there is more to it than that. It is a full circle. She must drink of you to complete it. Once that circle is complete, she absorbs an aspect of you. I do not know which one, but it is something that our ancestors were impressed by enough to be more than a little nervous about it.” She waved her thoughts off. “I get ahead of myself. I also found out that there is a very good reasoning behind the taboos we have inherited over the ages. While there can only be one Bonding between a Vampire and Nightwalker, there can be a dozen Exchanges. Thousands of them. Do you understand? Your heart will be Bonded to this woman for all eternity once you let her feed from you. Nothing, no force on the earth can change that, save death. The same is reciprocated for her. She is Bonded to you, till death.

“But the terror comes from the Vampire, Damien. The Vampire who feeds on Nightwalkers can gather their powers like a child gathers toys, adding to his inventory over and over again, taking on aspects of them all until he finally holds them all like a complete collection. Do you understand,” she breathed fiercely, “what I am saying? A Vampire can become indestructible. Nothing, no power on all the earth, could ever stop him if he decided to obtain all of that power. The choice to stay away from feeding on Nightwalkers was a moral one. Our ancestors gathered together and swore to teach their children to be terrified of taking the blood of Nightwalkers. They made fables and stories and scared them out of their wits. They controlled future generations because they had seen what had happened when it was allowed to be common knowledge.”

“Damn,” Damien uttered hoarsely, shock clearly written over his shadowed features. She heard the striking apprehension in that single word, and knew the feeling well.

“It was a sacrifice, Damien, with ramifications. Yes, they succeeded in what they wanted, but I have come to realize that this is why we are the way we are. When they took away that special joining from us, they robbed us of the love and depth of emotion that comes with it. They bred out of us the opportunity to have what I see you now have with this woman you have chosen. This is what saddens us, Damien. This is why we cannot stay aboveground for unbearable loneliness; this is why we do not wed. We eliminated our mating pool, threw away the switches that would turn on our greatest emotions. A sacrifice made to keep us from destroying innocents and others if we decided to become monsters of power.

“This is why we have so few children. It takes great depth of love and desire to want to raise children. We have children, but we never raise them. They just … sort of grow up. We have sex, but no love. No true pleasure, though we seek it constantly with indiscriminant sensuality. We seek, we yearn, we want, but never knew what we longed for all of these centuries. We”—she swallowed painfully—“we threw away our happiness right along with our fear.”

“Just like the Demons did when they destroyed the Druids,” Damien murmured.

“Except they did not know what they were consigning themselves to. I think our forbearers did. I am not certain,” she added when he looked at her for clarification. “There were a lot of couched euphemisms. They wrote down the history, however, with the hopes that one day we would be mature enough as a species to handle the responsibilities again. To mate without opening up the opportunity to criminal exploitation. Youdid this thing, the Exchange, by accident. Can you imagine if others knew what they could do on purpose?”

“Jas, do you know what you are asking me to do here?” he demanded roughly. “You are asking me to make an impossible decision!”

“I know that! Why do you think I kept this to myself for so long? I did not want to do this to you! But now that Ruth has that book, I have no choice. If she reads it …”

“If she finds a Vampire she can lure to her side,” he added painfully.

“Then we will have much more to deal with than an insane Demon who uses magic. And then there is the matter of the rest of the information at stake.”

“Yes, I know,” he snapped bitterly. “Do I watch my people continue to walk this world suffering the trouble and pain of hearts that can feel loneliness and agony and desperate need without the relief of love and joy and satisfaction? Do I give them the freedom to know the love I have been blessed with? How can anyone man be allowed the right to make that kind of choice? How can I decide the fates of so many?”

“That is your duty as Prince,” Jasmine said.

“No, it is not! A government has no right to dictate the pursuit of happiness to anyone! And this is not just my people we are talking about anymore, Jasmine. The people of those leaders in that room we just left are affected as well. How many times have we heard about the loneliness and solitude of those Nightwalker species outside of our own? What if that dreadful, despairing condition is because they are deserving of Vampire mates who will not come anywhere near them?”

“Demon mates who will not come near them,” she added thoughtfully, clearly thinking of Elijah and Siena.

“Jasmine.”

Damien could say nothing more for a moment, just her strangled name. The ramifications of these findings were endless and extraordinary. This was not the first hint they had gotten that the separate races of the Nightwalkers had once, long ago, belonged together as one. The Library was the largest hint of all. A combined effort between clans that had been notorious for collaborating on nothing. Then he thought about the Shadowdwellers behind them, the leaders of a race that they had believed to have no political structure to speak of, sitting in representation.

“Jas … do you realize …” He paused to swallow in nervous reflex. “Do you realize this is the first time in all of my life that none of the Nightwalkers have been at war? There was always something. Someone always fighting someone else. Since Siena was crowned, the only war we could claim was a cold war between all the races and the Shadowdwellers. There has not been an overt hostile action from them that I can remember in several decades, but we all have suspected them of this and that, of covert mischief and tactics. But I look at their Chancellors and I realize that they may have been scapegoats for too many things. Too many other explanations that were too hard to figure out when so easy an explanation was available.”

“Do not jump so far ahead,” Jasmine scolded gently. “What is your point?”

“That maybe it is time we stopped making things Vampire business, Demon business, and Lycanthrope business, and started making things Nightwalker business.” He looked at her with serious eyes. “This thing you have told me is not Vampire business, Jasmine. It is Nightwalker business. It affects all of them, as well as us.”

“Damien!” she whispered harshly. “You cannot be thinking of walking in there and telling them something like this! They could see us all as a potential threat when you tell them of the part about the Exchange and the power we can get!”

“Perhaps. And perhaps they would be right to do so. Just as they have the right to see if we are hiding the hearts of desperately needed and sought-for mates, Jas. I know you couldn’t care less, that you find all of this emotional stuff to be a bother and a weakness, but I promise you, it is not. It is a strength. It is a mighty power to be loved and to love.”

“I see. A mighty power that makes you want to toast yourself in the sun like a Pop-Tart?” she said with bitter sarcasm.

“Or drink poison in the family crypt, or betray the King of Camelot, or trade feet for fins and watch your love marry another. Yes, Jasmine, all of those terrible things and more. But when it works, when it is given the chance to be completed, you get the Imprinting, you get the Bonding, and you get marriages that last from one life to the next. Partnership, friendship, laughter and tickling and lovemaking.” He had reached for her hand with the passion of his speech. “You get to stay above the ground, Jasmine, and learn something new each and every day so that it never gets boring. You are able to protect and care for something so much more than yourself, and so much more worthy, too. Would you never want to know what that is like?”

“I would never again want to know the pain I have experienced this past week when I knew I was losing you, Damien! Can you imagine if I had to suffer being in love and going through that? I cannot bear the thought!”

But there was something about the way he spoke about his newfound love, the passion and the truth and the confidence he exuded, that made her long to know what he was speaking of. She suddenly wished to know what it was that she was missing.

No.

Not suddenly.

Always. Every day of her life she had known something was missing. She more than others, more sensitive than so many others, falling into that dark despair over and over again and never knowing why.

What if this was why? She had said so earlier, but she had not truly considered what it would mean. She had not realized what could be gained. She had been too afraid of it as she had watched Damien move away from her.

What was more, she had been jealous of it.

“Damn you, Damien,” she whispered, throwing off his hand and moving away.

The Prince watched her back for a moment, knowing what her conflicts were. He had run that gauntlet himself several times this past week. There was only one truth to all of this, as far as he was concerned, one thing that it all came down to.

He would go to the ends of the earth to see Jasmine as happy as he was now.

He would risk everything for that.

“I would risk Syreena if it meant you would be happy,” he said softly.

Jasmine turned quickly at that, her arms folding defensively beneath her breasts as she faced him. “No, you would not. You would die before seeing anything happen to her.”

“It would not be the risk you are talking about, Jasmine. I meant, I would risk going public with her. I would dare to set her on my throne beside me for everyone to see, making an example of her, taking on every threat in our world and others, if it meant giving you and the others I am responsible for the happiness that I now know. I mean that there is no choice here, Jasmine. I was right the first time. I have no right to choose for others. All I can do is speak the truth and let others decide for themselves what will happen next.” He took a breath. “My responsibility will be to check those who would do evil with this knowledge. I will have to set the precedent among us that the Demons have set for themselves. I will have to select someone to enforce those who would abuse the privilege of the Exchange.”

“Damien, that is an impossible task!”

“Not for the right person,” he argued. “Not for someone with the right senses, the proper skills.”

“Jacob and Isabella were born with the senses needed to constantly monitor their own. We have no one like that.”

“We all have that. We have the skill to sense those of us who have power,” he countered.

“Hunting after the fact. After an Exchange has already taken place? That is deadly work.”

“I never said it would be easy. Between that, however, and education, perhaps this will be conceivable.”

“It is madness,” she muttered, “but …”

“But?” he encouraged.

“Perhaps,” she said thoughtfully, “if it was not just one of us. Not an Enforcer per se. There should be a leader; however, it should be like … like Stephan,” she said suddenly, the idea forming quickly. “Damien, Stephan has an entire army of us at his disposal. Since we are no longer at war with anyone, perhaps we should give them a new purpose. Or a dual purpose.”

“Go on.”

“We cannot leave ourselves without an army, just in case this peace thing you are so gung-ho over does not work out. However, since peace has prevailed, they have languished with nothing but training on their schedules for decades. For centuries, really. Frankly, I think they have gotten lazy. Giving them domestic duties might just give them something to do. Something that will also keep more of them out of trouble. You know the best Vampire is an occupied Vampire. Stephan has always chosen his soldiers very carefully. Dedicated, honest, excellent fighters. If we spread them out over selected territories, Vampire, Nightwalker, and human, it would be like … like …”

“A sensor net,” he supplied for her. “A monitoring system spread out to catch unlawful Vampires before they go too far.”

“Better than that. Unlawful Nightwalkers in general. Of course, we would not want to harm foreigners, but we could alert their homeland government.”

“You see? This is what I am talking about. If all six Nightwalker species brainstormed like this, together, we could easily protect ourselves and each other from the Ruths ofour worlds. Frankly, there is probably a version of Ruth, or several of them, from each one of our societies. The one who always manages to stay out of range of our usual policing methods.”

“Like Nico. You were fortunate, Damien, that he was the one killed in that fight.” She smiled slowly, her eyes lighting softly in the moonlight. “Keeping these warriors around you domestically might not be such a bad idea, either. I realize you have always been capable of taking care of yourself, and that it is not our way to keep an official court, but perhaps it is overdue. This game of King of the Mountain we play for your throne is due for a change. Maybe you should keep a court, with all the appropriate protections, discouraging those who would harm you … and Syreena, for that matter. They will use her to get to you.”

“I know. They will be in for a surprise, because she does not lie down easily. But I would prefer to eliminate exposing her to that kind of grief. Especially if …” He broke off and looked at the ground, kicking at a stone as he smiled sheepishly. “Especially if we wish to start the family I know she longs for.” He looked up at Jasmine, his pleasure and gratitude very clear in his eyes. “Which I now believe is possible, thanks to you, Jasmine. I would hardly think weddings outside of the species would have been as acceptable as you claim they were if children were not possible.”

“That had not occurred to me,” she admitted, a smile of her own appearing. “But then again, I do not have the motivation you do to consider these things. You surprise me, Damien. You have never had children.”

“Neither have you,” he pointed out.

“We were not the parental type. I still am not.”

“So long as you allow the opportunity for that to change, Jasmine.”

“Pregnancy?” Jasmine shuddered theatrically. “Perish the thought. Save it for yourself. Or rather, her who will play dam to your sire.”

“And what of falling in love?”

“Again, for you and the poets, not for me.” She paused a beat before relenting. “At least, not soon. I have an enormous task ahead of me, if you recall. I have to help Stephan set up a police force, and I have to coordinate efforts with our ambassadors. Then I have to help advise you on ambassadors for the Shadowdwellers court, as I know you are thinking of sending one. That will leave us with choosing someone to live among the Mistrals. Someone mentally strong enough to overcome the charm oftheir voices, perhaps musical so they will enjoy their post, but quiet and demure. Well-behaved and shy. Someone who says little, but when they speak has much to say.”

“I am glad I am getting a domestic security in place. I think someone is vying for my throne,” he teased her, reaching up to chuck her under the chin. “Does this mean you will stay with us, Jas?”

“I will stay at a court,” she corrected. “I think you should seat yourself in Romania, Damien. Our homeland. Your holdings there are more than large enough to expand your household in the way you must, and yet has enough distant wings to afford privacy to yourself, me, and any guests you might have. Besides, it is closer to your future bride’s homeland. She could fly home for a visit very often that way.”

Damien laughed at her sly smile when she made it clear that the more often Syreena flew off, the better it would suit her.

“Promise me one thing?”

“That depends,” she responded in true Vampire fashion.

“That if Syreena should prove herself to be adequate to sit by my throne, you will afford her the respect she deserves?”

Jasmine thought about it for only a short moment.

“I will promise you this much. In public, I will always treat her as you wish me to. In my own head, however, I will very likely continue to think of her as a twiggy little twit. It is the best I can do.”

“Very well.” He chuckled.

“And I have never been shy about arguing my opinion, whether anyone liked it or not.”

“I would expect you to continue to do so. An advisor is no good to me if she cannot contradict me.”

“Or your Princess. But I will contradict her with great respect,” she said with magnanimous charm and a flourishing bow.

Damien laughed at her, then opened an arm and gestured her forward with the flick of two beckoning fingers. Jasmine submitted to the show of affection he wished to give her, and stepped into his hug. She sighed with great relief in spite of herself when she felt him stroke his fingers through her hair just as he always had, as if nothing between them had changed, as if nothing ever would.

It was two hours before dawn when they finally received word of what had happened at the Library. The time passed with unbearable sluggishness for Siena, in spite of the fact that they had been sharing an overwhelming influx of information and ideas thanks to Damien’s revelations about the Vampires’ history and possible future. Siena did not know if she would have been so readily forthcoming about her domestic problems, but she was quickly understanding why Damien had felt it necessary. The Vampires had always been the first to break ground in issues of peace; at least, once Damien had decided war simply bored him to death. Offering an ambassador for the Shadowdweller court was an astounding risk, but what was more astounding was that they accepted. Siena was just beginning to realize that Malaya and Tristan would be a very interesting pair to get to know, when the airborne messenger from Anya arrived.

Her name was Nita, and Siena recognized her instantly as she transformed from her form of an owl to the pretty, rounded figure of Anya’s most favored lieutenant.

She sketched a courteous bowto her Queen, and then again to all the other dignitaries, never once blinking an eye at the remarkable nature of the collection of Nightwalkers before her.

“My Queen,” she began immediately, “I have news of the Library.”

“You may tell it now.” Siena gave leave impatiently, though grateful Nita had given her the opportunity to choose whether she would have preferred to hear it in private.

“By the time we arrived, it had been completely ransacked. Jinaeri reports that—”

“Jinaeri lives?” Siena asked abruptly. She had been tormenting herself for hours for putting such a close friend in such terrible danger.

“She was the lone survivor,” Nita admitted regretfully. “It was her form of the lemur that saved her. She could climb to a safe place where she hid herself. She is not a fighter, as you know, so it made sense for her to stay out of the way. The Monks, however, and the others were not so lucky.”

“Kelsey?” Damien asked sharply.

“Dead. I am sorry,” Nita said softly. “There were four guards, three Monks, and a Mistral besides. I am so sorry for you all.”

She waited for several moments as the silence of grief fell over the room.

“Jinaeri tells us that Ruth was not alone. There was a—”

“A male,” Jasmine interjected bitterly.

“A Vampire male,” Nita corrected.

“A what?” Damien exploded, his calm vanishing completely as he lurched to his feet. “How does she know?”

“Because he overcame the Mistral and tore open her throat, leaving her to bleed to death. Only a powerful Vampire could overcome the Mistral’s song and then display fangs in such a usage. They teleported in, attacked, and then ransacked the Library. There was no trail we could follow. That is all we know.”

“I can follow her. I am going to kill that—”

“No, Damien. You could not stand up to Ruth alone, never mind Ruth and a Vampire. It is as you said just a few hours ago,” Noah argued, “this is something we must handle in a joint effort.”

“Ruth and a Vampire is a deadly combination,” Jasmine reminded them all. “The more time they have, the worse it will be.”

“It is a risk we have to take,” Noah said grimly. “This knowledge is too new for any of us to use against her. We have no preparations or skills in place. If we go forward without taking the time we need, we will only be consigning more of us to death. I will sacrifice no more of my people on that psychotic woman. And it is my people who will be in danger from this Vampire the most, if what you say is true. Yes, we are all at risk, but Demons hold the variety of powers the Vampire would desire. The further away we stay, for now, the better. Our time is better spent getting the warning out to each and every member of all our societies. We are so disparate and so dispersed that it will be like lambs to the slaughter to leave them out there with no warning.”

“Agreed,” Siena said quietly. “My people are easier to contact because we live in groups in dens and packs, but not until hibernation is ended.”

“’Dwellers still tend to live in clans as well, but they also love to bicker and it will take some time to get them to agree on actions,” Tristan said.

“Common danger has a way of bringing such people together,” Jasmine noted.

“One can hope,” Elijah said. “Noah is right, we have so many personal upheavals within our own species to handle on top of this threat. And the Mistrals are the most vulnerable. Windsong, your people depend on the stun of your voices to protect you, but this is a Mind Demon and a Vampire, and they are both able to defeat that protection.”

“Depending on the skill of the Mistral, yes.” Siena spoke up for Windsong, knowing that was what she would wish to get across if she could speak without stunning most of the room into a daze. In the future, they would have to set up a telepathic interpreter for the Bard and the Siren so they could communicate better without risking putting everyone into limbo. “There are very few ofus who can defeat the charm of someone of Windsong’s skill. Damien … maybe Jasmine, though I do not know her skill level as a telepath.”

Damien began to pace the room in uncharacteristic impatience as they spoke, drawing Syreena’s worried gaze along with him over his repetitive path around the backs of their chairs.

“I cannot tolerate inaction for the amount of time you are speaking of,” Damien said suddenly. “It would be unconscionable to let this opportunity slip away when she can be traced, now … today.”

“Traced and then what? Battle her immeasurable power as well as that of an unknown Vampire? A power that just murdered seven Nightwalkers in one sitting, four of whom we know were excellent fighters?” Siena made a sound of equal impatience. “I feel as you do, Damien, but I have lost too many good people to this sick bitch just as Noah has, and I am learning quickly that chasing after her on impulse never gets us anywhere.”

“It got rid of Mary last time,” Syreena said.

“Almost at the cost of your life not a week ago, Syreena,” her sister retorted. “Personally, my vote is for Damien’s original idea. Cast out a well-trained net of people. She is not a subtle creature. She will trip over us eventually.”

“Hopefully before she gains enough power to slaughter us by the hundreds,” Damien said sarcastically. “Or a larger following. My idea was meant for future occurrences, not for ignoring the present.” He stopped suddenly, a single brow lifting in sudden thought. “But let us say for a moment that we wish this sort ofcollaboration to work in the future. What better way to prove it to our followers than if we, all in this room and those who are most powerful that we know, go now to take care of Ruth once and for all?”

“And risk the one group of leaders in several millennia to manage to find peace with one another? If anyone of us dies, Damien, the ramifications will ripple back through an entire people, and I hate to say so, but this calm is too young, too immature to survive that right now.”

Damien looked at Syreena with cold eyes as the sound argument came past her lips. It had been a knee-jerk reaction for her to say what she was thinking no matter how it might be received. She had gotten into the habit of speaking her mind against even Siena’s authority. It wasn’t until she was on the receiving end of his displeasure that she realized how he might take such a thing from someone he hoped to get support from. But she could not bring herself to rescind any part of the remark, not even for love of him. There was too much at stake, and she had faith that even he would know that eventually.

At some future time when he was not feeling the death of Kelsey and the defection of another so keenly.

“Meanwhile,” she continued more gently, “we should take the other actions we discussed, as well as a few others. The Library must be relocated, what is left of it. It is a trove in which there is sure to be treasures we still do not know anything about. Ruth was looking for only one book, but in her usual shortsightedness left thousands of others behind that may mean just as much, if not more. That is how we must protect ourselves right now. Wemust guard that knowledge for the sake of our future generations who may one day have as great a need for it as we are learning we have.”

“So we have an agenda,” Malaya said firmly. “A very large one. First, we must all learn to perfectly police our own to the best of our ability. I speak, of course, for the Vampires and us ’Dwellers mostly. Weare the ones who fall short there.”

“Second,” Tristan picked up, “a full ambassadorial exchange in all courts so we learn about one another. The truth. Not speculation or prejudice.”

“Third, the protection of the Library,” Syreena said. “A communal place, so it will be a location where it can be shared with ease and peace, but one that is a hundred times better protected by all of us.”

“Fourth,” Damien said at last, his resignation all too evident as he conceded to the majority, “the alert of all our members to the threats we face, and the formation of the multicultural net based on Jasmine’s idea of domestic Vampire policing. A Nightwalker version of the United Nations, I suppose you could call it.”

“Policing, preparation, protection, and peacefulness,” Syreena alliterated with a small smile.

“Let us add ‘propaganda’ to that,” Noah suggested. “A regular gathering of this very kind every month, in the open, well publicized, so that those who follow us understand what our goals are. This time, I intend to do everything I can to see that Nightwalkers remain on speaking terms all around.”

“Agreed,” Siena said quickly.

“Agreed,” Tristan and Malaya echoed.

All the others agreed at exactly the same time, and it was vibrated into them by the musical pitches of the Mistrals’ voices.

Syreena walked slowly down the empty hallway of the old Romanian compound. Damien’s homeland holdings were enormous, by aboveground standards. There were catacombs as well, which only added to the maze of stone, both natural and built up, rather reminiscent of Siena’s holdings in their turning and twisting confusion of pathways.

Jasmine had gone back to the California manse and would return the next night. Damien had left to hunt quickly before dawn arrived. He had first guided Syreena to this place and told her to wait within the walls, that she would be safe there.

She was, unless she could be threatened by cobwebs, of which there were plenty. The main house, a cross between a castle and some kind of institutional rectangle of endless rooms, was not in any disrepair. It was clear that Damien did not neglect his property, even when he spent decades away from it. Still, it had not had a two-legged visitor for quite some time, by the look of it. If not for her still-healing arm, she would have turned into the falcon and flown the centers of the looping hallways, under and over the webbing that seemed to reach out and cling to her from everywhere at once.

The arm would be perfectly healed in another day or so, and a few cobwebs were not going to hurt her. Besides, she would never admit that the things just gave her the willies.

She had an image to uphold, after all.

“Oh yuck,” she complained as she ran face first into one of the silken traps. She pulled it from her face and hair, frantically trying to shake it from her fingers.

“I think you have a spider in your hair.”

Syreena gasped, reaching for her hair as she spun around to face Damien. “Where?”

“Right behind that part of your head that likes to contradict me in front of half a dozen or more visiting dignitaries,” he said dryly.

“Damien!” She slapped his shoulder, very hard, forcing him to take a step back for balance as he chuckled at her. “That is not funny!”

“The big bad former Monk trained to kill with her bare hands being afraid of spiders?” His smirk told her he thought otherwise.

“It is my job to contradict overinflated royal egos, especially when they want to run off and get their heads chopped off,” she retorted tartly.

“I never realized you had so little faith in my abilities,” he said.

“Yes, actually, you did. You told me yourself that you would never take on Ruth by yourself.”

“When did I say that?” he demanded.

“The minute you rescued me,” she pointed out.

“Explain that, if you please. I seem to recall you being unconscious at the time.”

“Answer me this, then,” she countered. “Why didn’t you face down Ruth then and there? You had opportunity, time, strength, and all of your power. Why not take care of her once and for all?”

“Because I was busy saving your impertinent, ungrateful backside!”

“One life in trade of the dozens of others you would have been saving?”

“One very important life,” he argued, although a bit more gently. “Very important to me.”

“Good. Remember that the next time I contradict you in front of half a dozen visiting dignitaries.”

Damien sighed deeply, reaching to rub at his temples. “Remember, or regret?” he asked blandly.

“Ha. Ha. Ha.”

He smiled at her, unable to help himself. Even when he was angry with her, she delighted him.

“I have a feeling,” he said, reaching out to brush a remnant of webbing off her hair, “that this thing we have might actually work out in the long run.”

“I am glad you think so,” she said, giving him an impish grin.

“Provided I do not kill you before then.”

“Good provision,” she agreed.

Damien was silent for a moment, and then he grasped her wrist, using it to tug her closer to him.

“Will you be happy here?” he asked as they mutually settled her against the fresh warmth of his body. “Will you be happy away from your home?”

“Goddess, yes,” she breathed, as if with relief. “I have outgrown the Monks, and Siena does not need me any longer. Perhaps my absence will help her get over her fear of having children, when people start looking at her even more closely in search of an heir.”

“Siena is afraid of children?”

“Terrified. She just does not realize it yet. She thinks she is doing it for convenience or because her marriage is too new. Lucky for her, her husband is pretty much a huge chicken about fatherhood, too. Though I suspect he might come around faster than she will.”

“Elijah as a father,” he mused, his humor at the thought evident. “He is used to getting them from someone else, fostering them as Siddah after the age of eighteen or so. He will not have a clue what to do with a baby.”

“I know,” she giggled. “Come to think of it, I am quite glad I will not be there for this. They would exhaust me.”

“Their children?”

“No, the parents!”

He laughed. “And what of our children, sweetling?”

She tilted her head and looked up at him with arched brows. “Do you want children, Damien?”

“It is one of those more important questions we have not gotten to yet, is it not?”

“Yes. It very much is. I am not certain if you know this, but I have always wanted to have a lot of children. To fill the house.”

“Not this house, I hope,” he chuckled.

“No. Definitely not enough to fill this house.” She flashed a grin. “I guess we’ll have to get a bigger house when the time comes.”

“Very cute,” he said, reaching around to pinch her bottom in punishment.

“Stop that!”

“Then be serious. Tell me what you really want.” His tone became serious to make her understand it was important to him that she put her taunts aside for a moment. “I want to know what you want.”

“I want to be happy,” she said simply. “One day at a time. One discussion at a time. One baby at a time. Life is too volatile to plan too far ahead. Especially now.”

“I understand your point. But at the same time, I do not want us putting our lives on hold because of fear of what Ruth will do next.”

“No? But we can run off at the drop of a hat and risk our lives? That is okay?”

“Syreena …”

“I’m serious, Damien. I do not understand your distinction. Safe some of the time, reckless others? You want me and children, yet an hour ago you were contemplating something tantamount to suicide.” She shuddered. “I don’t expect either of us to sit idly by while others risk themselves for us, but I do expect you to remember you are not the only one you have to consider anymore. Don’t you know that you take my heart with you everywhere you go?”

“Just as you take mine,” he assured her softly, bending to kiss her forehead gently, his eyes sliding closed. “You are right, and I am sorry. I promise I will take more care for your feelings and thoughts in these matters in the future. I was upset earlier. I am still adjusting to this new depth of emotion I find myself privy to all of a sudden.”

“You have always felt strongly. You could not be the leader you are if you did not.”

“Yes. But now it is even stronger still.”

“Damien, do you trust me?”

“What kind of a question is that?” he asked abruptly, pulling her head back so he could look down into her odd-colored eyes.

“I was just wondering if you were ever going to complete the Exchange with me,” she said directly.

“Why would I not?”

“Because it is daunting, to give away a part of yourself without knowing what it will be.” She reached to stroke warm fingers over his cheek. “I did not know what I was doing when you first received the part of me that makes you the raven. I did not have a choice to make.”

“Do you regret that?”

“Actually, I don’t. I am glad things happened like they did. I might have been too hung up to make the choice myself. Remember, I was not very good at deciding things for myself then. I still am not.”

“But you are improving,” he noted.

“Yes, I know,” she laughed.

“Do you want to complete the Exchange, Syreena?”

She hesitated a moment, knowing his expectant gaze was on her face the entire time she considered the question. She had only known about this thing for a couple of hours, and the information on it had come from Jasmine, a source that had proven to be untrustworthy when it came to complete disclosure. It was not that Syreena was squeamish about the act of drinking blood, either. She was mostly an animal, when it came right down to it. She had dined on an omnivorous selection all of her life. The main concern was what an added power might do to one of her design.

Then again, what was she if not a guinea pig? Her entire existence was the result of an experimentation in the combination of Nightwalker abilities. When she had been ill as a child, Windsong had Spirit-sung Syreena back to life, sharing her spirit with Siena’s and Syreena’s own spirits. Syreena now suspected that this was where her avian half had come from. Mistrals only became birds. It could not be a coincidence that one of her forms was a falcon. With all of those spirits in her at once in that moment of near death, anything could have caused her to become the combined soup she was, the split being that she was.

Now a whole because of Damien’s spirit linking it all together at last.

It would only be fitting to truly add his blood to hers in such a way, also adding whatever part of himself that seemed to belong mixed in with the rest of her soup.

“You make it sound like minestrone,” he teased her softly.

“Would you rather I used a mixed-nuts metaphor? With you being the biggest nut of all? Stop nosing around in my head.”

“Sorry. I could not resist. You looked like you were working so hard at your thoughts. Curiosity got the better of me.”

“So now you know my answer.”

“I do.”

“Yes. I do.”