Chapter 7

It was an hour into the dark by the time Elijah and Jasmine finally set their feet onto Windsong’s property.

There had been no trail; everything was a jumble of confusing paths and directions. In fact, it was too much of a jumble. Elijah and Jasmine had agreed that someone was trying to hide something, and it had not taken Elijah long to add up the pieces of the puzzle that was relatively rudimentary, provided you knew all the players involved. There was history between Syreena and Windsong. Damien had known Windsong for centuries. It only made sense that she would be the one he would turn to if Syreena was wounded.

Elijah turned to look at Jasmine. Her eyes were closed and she was concentrating. Her smooth brow furrowed as she tried to piece together what she was sensing.

“I think … I think they are here. Can you detect them? Usually if I am this close to Damien …”

She shook her head, very obviously vexed by her confusion.

“I have a better idea,” Elijah said, lifting a brow as he strode quickly up to the door.

He knocked.

“How … succinct of you,” Jasmine said dryly.

“Whatever works,” he said with a shrug.

Windsong answered her door immediately and without any caution. It was as if she was expecting them.

The Mistral did not speak, a courtesy to the Demon who would not be able to circumvent the thrall of her voice. Instead she used a gesture of her hand to usher them inside and across the main rooms. Knowing exactly why they were there, she cracked open the bedroom door and let them both have a momentary peek at Damien and Syreena.

Jasmine gasped when she saw the Prince was not awake and moving about by that hour. She knew Damien chafed to be up and about come the night. Instead, he was sleeping peacefully well beyond darkness, and he was using a diminutive Lycanthrope female for a blanket, his arm settled securely around her shoulders as he held her to his chest.

When Jasmine went to move into the room, Windsong immediately stepped into her path. The sharp look she gave the Vampire female was coldly pointed and clearly nonnegotiable.

For Elijah’s part, he was satisfied that Syreena appeared to be alive, somewhat well, and in relatively one piece. Through the bonding he shared with Siena, the moment he knew these things, she knew them. For the first time in days, they both were able to sigh in relief.

“Siena thanks you,” he said in earnest to his hostess a heartbeat later. “She says that if you ever need anything—”

Windsong raised a hand to silence him. She knew how far and in what ways Siena’s gratitude could serve her, just as Elijah knew there would probably come a day when the favor would be called in. The warrior was content. He immediately took a comfortable seat in the little living room that made him seem even more of a giant than he normally appeared to be to those around him.

Jasmine was not so easily satisfied, but she did not see that she had much of a choice.

Personally, she would not be happy until she saw Damien walking and talking like normal. She did not like the idea of him behaving out of the norm. Not that he could be called predictable, but she just knew him so well.

She supposed his protective behaviors had rubbed off on her after all.

Jasmine folded her arms tightly to her midriff and stepped away so the Mistral named Windsong could close the door. She was flooded with questions and the need to know what had been happening all of this time. For a moment, she resented the warrior’s presence. Were he not there, she would be able to speak to the Mistral and get the answers she craved.

And what she wanted to know, more than anything else, was how she could be standing a room away from Damien and yet still feel like he was not even there.

Syreena felt a tickle along the ends of her hair, and it stirred her out of her deep sleep.

She opened her eyes, a long exhale shuddering out of her as the tickle caused a chill to steal down the back of her neck. She tilted her face upward and looked into midnight blue eyes and a half-cocked smile. Damien had her hair wrapped softly around one finger, the tickle she had felt, and was absently running his thumb over it. When he noticed her looking at him, his smile grew exponentially.

“Hello,” he greeted her amiably.

“Hello?” She lifted her head and her eyes widened incredulously. “Is that all you have to say to me? Hello?”

“It is a traditional start,” he pointed out.

She growled at him in a pique of temper, shoving herself off him and the bed so she could stand and glare at him with her hands curled into fists.

“Damien! What in the world is wrong with you?” she demanded to know. “Do you have a death wish or something? Why didn’t you tell me … Why did you let me …”

The serene lift of his brow only infuriated her further.

“You are a total psycho, do you know that? You’re just like those crazy humans who play with snakes they know could strike them dead in a heartbeat!”

“Syreena …”

“Don’t you Syreena me! Don’t lie there with that obnoxious patience of yours and act like I am getting hysterical as if I was some … some frail, missish thing who saw a mouse scurry across the floor! Damn you, Damien, you need a keeper!”

Damien stopped trying to speak. She was not going to let him do so, and he could actually understand her fear-driven outrage. The Prince could not defend his misactions any more than she could, and she was probably right in any event. It had been a very stupid thing to do. But it had been his fault and his responsibility from beginning to end, and he would not let her take any part of the blame.

Syreena suddenly stopped scolding him, her head cocking with that certain sharp attentiveness that he was so familiar with.

He turned his attention to what she was sensing.

“Oh, this is just great!” Syreena threw up her hands and they landed back at her sides with a slap on each thigh.

“Did you expect your sister to just sit and wait for you to reappear?” he asked.

She told him quite succinctly what he could do with his logical remark.

She crossed over to the empty bed, ignoring him completely from that moment on. She stripped off the nightgown she was wearing, giving Damien’s appreciative eyes an excellent rear view of her athletic little body. The next moment, she hid it again, this time under the borrowed blue dress.

She turned back to face him as she gingerly freed her hair from the neckline of the dress.

“I don’t want Siena to know about this. Do you understand?” She put her hand to her throat, fidgeting with the slim gold and moonstone choker that indicated her rank in the royal household. Between twisting out the kinks in that and carefully arranging her hair, she was able to conceal the marks on her neck caused by his most recent taste of her. The others had already faded to small pink dots of freshly healed skin. “There are rules in our society, taboos and laws and superstitions, and we have broken so many of them it makes me dizzy.”

“Blood loss makes you dizzy, Syreena. Breaking the rules scares you to death.”

“I’ll tell you this much,” she snapped back. “You could use a healthy dose of fear, Damien! You are a menace to yourself. I’m just glad I am going to be very far away while you trot off somewhere else and self-destruct.”

With that, the Lycanthrope Princess marched out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

“Kitten?”

“Hmm?”

“Kitten, you are wearing a hole in the carpet.”

Siena stopped pacing back and forth and looked at her husband, who was lounging in their bed looking like he did not have a care in the world. It made her want to smack him in the head.

“I heard that,” he warned her, chuckling.

“Are you sure? I mean really sure?” she asked for the tenth time that night.

“Siena …”

“Oh, I know,” she said with a frustrated sigh and a wave of her hands. “What I want to know is how she does it. How does that conniving little bitch just slip away into nothingness? Our best hunters have tried tracking Ruth, mine, yours and Damien’s, and none of them can seem to hold her trail. Not even Jacob! He is your Enforcer, designed to hunt down renegades from your species, and even he is baffled! I want to know how she does it!”

“She does it with her considerable power,” Elijah reminded her gently. “We could be standing on her head, but she can manipulate our minds into thinking she’s a thousand miles away. I’ll tell you exactly who will be able to catch her one day.”

“Who?” the Queen asked, sounding terribly eager and avaricious in spite of herself. Siena had reached the end of her infinite tolerance. Ruth had attacked her family once too often, and like the fierce lioness that she was, Sienna would protect her family with her own life if need be.

“My money lies on Damien or Magdelegna. Legna is the only Mind Demon powerful enough to beat Ruth at her own tricks.” He sighed in tandem with his wife as she finally climbed into bed with him. “But she cannot risk a hunt until after she gives birth.”

“What of Damien?”

“Damien is … Damien is immune to her trickery when he is paying attention for it. He is also the best damned hunter I have ever seen, next to Jacob.”

“And yet he has had no luck in the year since this all began. The closest he got to her was when he rescued Syreena. Damn, I wish I had sent more people with you. They could have at least tried to track her.”

Elijah encircled his wife’s shoulders, drawing her delightful body very close to his. He kissed the curling hair at the arch of her forehead with affection. “You know they would not have had any luck. Don’t fret, Siena. I promise you, Ruth’s days are numbered. She will turn up again.”

“That is what I am afraid of. She is up to something. Something to do with the Library and now being in Mistral lands. I don’t like it. It gives me a chill thinking she is running around loose out there.” Siena snuggled deeper against him, trying to ease the chill in her body that had nothing to do with the cold of the cavern castle bedroom they shared. “It is you she hates, Elijah. In her twisted mind, she believes you killed her child. I am afraid of her catching you unprepared and hurting you like she did—”

“Siena, that is not going to happen. Not again. I made a mistake, I know, and nearly got killed for it. But you can bet there won’t ever be a repeat. Don’t be afraid of her. That is what she wants. She wants you to be afraid for me, afraid for Syreena.”

“I won’t be afraid of her … not after I rip the little bitch’s heart out.”

Elijah laughed at that, the rich timbre of it echoing down several cavern corridors. “That’s my girl,” he said, just before capturing her mouth and starting her on a path full of completely different topics.

Syreena got up from kneeling in front of the prayer altar she had been meditating in front of for the better part of the past twenty-four hours. She was not allowed to fast as she continued to recover from her ordeal of a week ago, and she wished the Monks would relent on that issue. She was fine, really, her blood supply quite back to normal. Perhaps if she fasted, her attempts to meditate would prove more useful. It had always worked in the past.

There was no use speculating about it, Syreena thought with a defeated pout. Besides, the food that was or was not in her belly had nothing to do with why she was having such a hard time focusing.

She was wondering how Damien had fared after all he had gone through. Because she had not been forthcoming with her sister, Siena had seen no need for more than the usual inquiry about his well-being in the aftermath.

But Syreena knew better.

She also knew that she had shown him damn little appreciation both for what he had done for her, and for her part in the second incident. Why she was so testy and volatile around him, she could not say. There was simply something about him that put her on edge or stirred her up. One or the other.

That thought brought back far too many highly sensitized memories for Syreena’s comfort, and she restlessly began to pace the halls of the monastery of the Pride.

Having grown up in the enormous underground monastery, she knew it better than she knew the royal castle. In a sense, these caverns and rooms carved through the massive Russian mountain The Pride was located in were more of a home to her than her birthplace. At the same time, there was no fond love and affection to be found in these halls. Lectures, professors, and discipline, yes, but nothing quite resembling kindliness.

Not that she had been abused or truly deprived. She had thrived in every other way imaginable. She had benefited from an education beyond measure, and the knowledge of how to settle her soul when it was most disturbed.

Well, usually.

Syreena had come to lick her wounds in this place because at least here she could be assured of no one taking overmuch interest in her emotional well-being. The Monks would think her quite capable ofmanaging herself. Siena would not be so easy about it. Though the Queen would mean well, wanting to be a sister, Syreena did not think she could bear up under too much scrutiny at the moment.

Again her thoughts turned immediately to the Vampire Prince.

She felt herself flushing and absently raised a hand to cover the telltale blush of her cheeks.

She had never felt anything like the wildly precarious things he had managed to create within her. Perhaps it was because he was so terribly dangerous, both to her and to himself, that made it so. She had never been a thrill seeker before, however. Outside of her position in the court, she led a rather mundane lifestyle. While living in the monastery she had been required to be celibate; as a Princess she was required to remain so until she found her mate for life. Between the two, she had long ago become used to it not being a factor of interest.

Damien was the first to ever shake that particular tree within her.

Although it had been more of an earthquake than a shaking. Everything that had happened in the wake of it had been a testament to why breeding across Nightwalker species was so strictly frowned upon. Siena and Elijah were the exception, and it had not been an easy adjustment for everyone to make. In fact, the court and Siena’s people were still adjusting to it. Some far better than others.

But at least they did not cause harm to one another. They were both clearly thriving and robustly happy. Such a thing was clearly not possible between Damien and Syreena. It had been foolish of her to even attempt to think otherwise. More foolish of him, considering he had already been aware of the painful ramifications of playing with that fire.

Syreena made a frustrated sound and stopped to lean back against a cool wall for support as she rubbed at the ache in her temples. No matter what she did, she could not stop herself from thinking circles around this issue. Why could she not convince herself that this was simply the end of a string of bad choices? Why, in spite of everything, did she still have this overwhelming craving to seek him out?

Footsteps approached her and she quickly resumed her walk. She passed a pair of Monks and they nodded to her in polite acknowledgment. She nodded back, using great mental effort to not cover the bare patches along her ragged hairline when their eyes fell onto it. She wished she could tolerate wearing a shawl or scarf over it to guard herself from such observation. But where all Lycanthropes balked at confining their hair in any manner, she found she was even more repelled by it than before.

It would take years before it became unnoticeable again. And it would never all match in length again. There was an ironic humor involved in it as well. Until her hair reached a certain length again, the dolphin would be forced to lie dormant within her. It was almost as if she were being cosmically punished for her resentment of her two halves. Now that it was out of reach, she suddenly wanted it back with all of her heart.

The Princess self-consciously reached to comb fingers through her soft brown hair, arranging it to cover the bare places. The effort was obvious, considering the even part that was normally there, but it was better to look like a zebra than a victim. At least there were those who naturally had striped hair color in their society. Those who did not know her would not look twice at it.

Unfortunately for the Princess, there were few people who did not know her.

Still, it was better than nothing.

The Vampire Prince was brooding again.

Jasmine sighed softly as she spied on him from the balcony of the mansion. The turn of the tables was unnerving. She was supposed to be the moody one. However, she did not have that luxury any longer. She was too overcome with concern for Damien.

He was walking the darkened gardens sprawled out just below her, heading toward the cliffside where he would no doubt spend another collection of endless hours staring out at the Pacific Ocean.

Jasmine assumed it was toward Russia which he looked.

She did not assume this because he had confided in her about anything that had occurred. She had been left to her own devices of deductive reasoning on that matter.

The Princess could possibly manage to hide the truth of things from her sister and their people with tricks of hair and jewelry, but a Vampire could not be fooled in such ways. The bite of a Vampire was something like an animal rubbing up against a tree, a marking that outlined territory and pronounced the power of the beast within its borders.

A Vampire could always sense when another had been before it. Since they were so territorial by nature, that was how they managed to keep from treading upon each other’s toes.

So anyone who crossed close enough to the Lycanthrope Princess would know that Damien had been there before them.

Besides that divination, Jasmine had been quite shaken by the simple sight ofthem sleeping together in the Mistrals’ home. Damien went to bed with his women, but he did not sleep with them. She imagined it was because he did not trust any of them as far as he could throw them. Or perhaps it was because the intimacy of it was too potentially misleading. Damien did not like for his enjoyments to form attachments to him. He preferred to keep that in accord with his own wishes. Infatuated females were too much work and headache if he did not want them to be infatuated with him.

It had taken four years for him to show any affection for Jasmine, though she had been aware of it long before the expression of it. Even now, it was a part of how they functioned that she would always protest any need of him. Neediness was unattractive to Damien. In truth, while they were deeply friendly and caring of each other, she did not need him in any overtaxing way. She certainly did not claim a dependency on him. They had never been lovers, though she had contemplated it once. She had decided long ago that she would rather have his unending interest in friendship rather than his passing fancy in bed. Jasmine believed this was what had kept them side by side through the centuries.

Damien was also not forthcoming about what effect his little marking of the Princess had had upon himself. Jasmine knew, however, that there had very much been an effect. This knowledge was what had prompted her to send all the others who shared their home, friends and servants alike, away to another of Damien’s households for the time being. She had conjured up an excuse about diplomatic obligations and traveling, something they were used to. Whatever happened, the others must never be made aware of any changes in Damien. Change was often viewed as a sign of weakness in their society. Weakness, even among friends, had a way of causing huge amounts of trouble and danger.

They would quickly be able to sense what she had sensed about Damien, that there was indeed a difference. The Prince could not have been ignorant of it, either. It was impossible. If she could sense the differences in him, then he could feel them in himself. However, there was no way she could get a true sense of the nature of the change so long as Damien was actively blocking her. Only his invitation would allow her evaluation of what alterations there had been.

It was all too disturbing. Which was why, she supposed, the Prince kept sitting at the edge of a cliff looking toward impossible things night after night.

Jasmine was as silent as the grave she purportedly slept in. If a single whisper of these events got out, it would be like blood in the water. Ambitious Vampires would be sniffing at Damien’s heels in search of his crown, seeing all of this as a weakness to be exploited.

Part of Jasmine wanted to go out and see to it that all who knew of it remained just as silent. Permanently. Anything to protect him, as he had always protected her. But considering who the parties were, she would end up setting everyone involved at war, more or less.

Besides, Damien would probably frown on the indiscriminate assassination of heads of various Nightwalker provinces.

Oh well.

Jasmine was not a very patient creature. It was probably why she so easily grew weary of the world around her. She stretched out her arms and rose up into the air, the breeze fluttering through her long, loose hair. She could smell the salt of the ocean on the wind, even though they were set back a distance from the water. She skimmed the treetops in a position perpendicular to the ground, following in Damien’s wake, the tips of her booted feet smacking an errant leaf here and there as she went. Her ankles were crossed, a preferred position when she flew that made for less wind resistance and effort against her legs.

She set down on the gravel path with a gliding walk that made an obvious crunch. Damien had already taken his seat on the stone bench just steps from the edge of the cliff.

He turned at the sound of her feet.

Damien had been expecting the confrontation eventually. He knew Jasmine was not the sort to beat about the bush when she had issues to discuss. “Jasmine, why can you not just let it be?”

“Very well. If you will stop mooning about the manse, I will not ask a single question.”

“I do not moon about,” he said shortly, turning back to the dark sounds of the ocean tides.

“Moon, mope, melancholy, pout … call it what you will, but you are most certainly doing so. Do not think you will pull the wool about me, Damien. I know you too well.”

“And not at all,” he said sharply.

“Yes. Even after five centuries. Although I do know enough to know that this behavior of yours could lead you to risk everything important to you.”

“Perhaps what I viewed as important before is not now.”

Jasmine was certain that had she a heartbeat, it would have skipped in tempo just then. This was beyond mere moodiness, she realized. It was not like Damien to question his goals and his rather steady ideas ofwhat he wanted from the world.

She moved to his side, sitting on the cold bench and leaning into the warmth of his body as she often did when they spoke of serious matters.

“Damien, I am your best friend. Why will you not tell me what is hurting you so?”

Damien turned his head to look at her as she rested her chin on his shoulder. Jasmine rarely pulled this particular ace on him. Professing her understanding that she meant so much to him was something spared for cataclysmic events. For the first time, he saw himself as she must be seeing him. Altered. Forever changed. A stranger she did not know and was afraid of meaning nothing to. This was how she expressed her love for him, and he immediately regretted pushing her to it.

He reached around her shoulders to hug her close to himself. “Do you remember 1562?” he asked her, whispering his words softly into her hair.

“The French uprising?”

“Before that.”

“Ah. The freckled queen of England.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It was just before I found out she had contracted smallpox.” He smiled against the silky strands of midnight pressed to his lips. “It was the last time we were all together.”

“Simone, Racine, Lind, Jessica …”

“Dawn,” he added.

“Silly chit. Getting herself killed on a French battlefield, of all things. Turning a feast into a funeral.”

“It was a mistake. We all make them. Unfortunately for Dawn, hers was a fatal one. If you recall, we had a rash of mortal mistakes within that group over the next century.” He released a melancholy sigh, reaching to rub at the spot between his brows, as if he had a headache. “Anyway, I had turned her away that night in England. I always thought there would be time.”

“Damien, she warmed your bed, not your heart.”

“No. I know. But she is the example of all those I always thought I would get back to later, yet never again had an opportunity to.”

“Why are you talking of this now?”

“Because there is something I need to get back to. Not tomorrow, not a week from now. This very instant.”

“You mean the Lycanthrope Princess, I take it,” she said softly, not believing what she was hearing. “Damien, she means nothing to you.”

“Are you so certain of that?”

Jasmine lifted her head to look into his eyes with surprise.

“I am no longer certain of anything about you anymore, I am discovering. Who is she to you? Just tell me what happened. I want to understand. I cannot support you if I do not understand. And believe me, if you are thinking what I think you are, you are going to need my support.”

Damien paused for several beats, the fingers of the hand around her back stroking against her shoulder absently as he reconciled his thoughts for her.

“Do you know why we do not wed for life, Jasmine?”

The question seemed out of left field, but she played along. “Because we need variety too much. Because we do not believe in silly old practices of that kind like Demons and Lycanthropes do.”

“Or because we do not do what we need to in order to find that type of partner.”

“I do not understand you,” she confessed.

“I am the longest-lived member of our species, Jas. In all that time, I have never seen a Vampire fall in love, wed, or mate for life. I think I have figured out why.”

“Damien …”

“Because we do not feed from Nightwalkers.”

She laughed out loud. “I do not understand what that has to do with—”

“Perhaps,” he interrupted her, “we will find something about it in the Library. The Library goes much further back injoint Nightwalker history than even we have conceived of. Perhaps it will know the truth about why we forbid ourselves to drink the blood of Nightwalkers. Think about it, Jas. Think ofhow we are, of all that is missing. Why don’t you love me, for instance?”

“Damien, that is a ridiculous question.”

“Is it? We have known each other all of your life. You became a part of my household five hundred years ago. We are very likely the two closest Vampires on this planet. I have never met anyone with our friendship, our companionability, in our culture. So, though we have lived side by side and, as you pointed out, been the best of friends, why did love not follow? I mean outside of my clear regard for you.”

“Because love does not work in such ways,” she reasoned.

“Then how does it work, Jasmine? Have you ever been in love? How can every other intangible feeling and state of being that exists for every other species, Nightwalker and human, exist for us, except love? And do not tell me love does not exist, because I have seen proof with my own eyes that it does.” He reached for her chin and made sure she met his gaze as it bored into her. “Do you know any Vampire capable of being in love?”

“No, Damien. We are too selfish for—”

“How convenient we make that excuse,” he argued irritably. “What a pat little rationale for walking away from those grapes we cannot reach. Even humans, who think they are in love and change their perception of it later on, thought they were in it. We never even mistake it. We simply say we are not cut out for it.” He shook his head. “You said just a moment ago that I never loved Dawn. As if, were it someone else, you thought it was possible. Yet now you say it is not possible. Which is it?”

“You are confusing me, Damien, and talking yourself in circles. Are you trying to justify your desire to go back to the shapechanger?”

“If it were just desire, I could ignore it, you know that. It is obsession. I think of nothing else. I want for nothing else. My mind repeats certain incidents I shared with her over and over again.”

“That sounds like infatuation.”

“A convenient adjective those who are afraid to feel with this kind of passion use to justify themselves and their behaviors!” Damien could not sit a minute longer. He stood up and paced away from Jasmine before turning back. “But I have felt infatuation. I know what it is. It is not what this is.”

“Then what is this?”

Damien halted, turning to look at her. His hands, which always moved in gesture with his speech, settled onto his waist.

“This is what happens when a Vampire takes the blood of a Lycanthrope into his body.”

“And what is it? Love?” She laughed in spite of herself. “Do you know how ludicrous this sounds?”

“Can you be so quick to argue me otherwise? For Demons, all it takes is a touch to turn on that connection to their soul mate. For Lycanthropes, it is the act of lovemaking. Even Mistrals and Shadowdwellers have comparable triggers. What is it for us?”

“So you think it is taking the blood of a Nightwalker? But we do. We drink of each other. The strong who bring blood to the ill from within themselves, mothers who bring to their young, and, of course, during certain levels of sex.”

“But never from other Nightwalkers. Never. None of us. Even the most reprobate, reckless, and feckless of us have always seen that as the ultimate taboo, the line even they will not cross. But not because we are afraid it will kill us like the black poison of magic user blood will. So where is the fear? How was it bred into us?”

“You are asking all these questions for a reason, Damien. What is your point?”

“I am not sure. I have no proof, no logic. Only supposition.” He turned to face the cold wind blowing off the ocean, letting it sweep over him, as if to cleanse himself, for a very long minute. “I only know of two ways we can find out.”

“I have a feeling one requires you to pursue a certain Nightwalker Princess.”

“I do not deny that.” He cocked his head back in her direction. “She has become a part of me, you know. I have fed from others, and yet her blood remains deep inside of my systems. This I have proof of, at least.”

He reached for her hand, pulling her to her feet and drawing her close. He laid her head on his shoulder with the pressure of a gentle hand. “Tell me what you notice,” he whispered to her.

Jasmine closed her eyes and reached out into him with her every natural and supernatural sense. She had been wanting to do so for too long to refuse the invitation.

Her eyes flew open in shock a second later.

She could smell the scent of the Princess on him. No. Not on him. Inside him. He was actually still there, that strong woodsy, male scent that was so uniquely Damien and as compelling as he was. However, she had spent three days tracking them both, so she knew the fingerprint of the Lycanthrope just as well.

“How is this possible? We never carry the mark of prey. They carry the mark of us.”

“Who preys on the predator, Jasmine? Who are we in danger from?” He laughed as he let her step away. “I think it is different for everyone. For me, I think it is a female with eyes of different colors half the world away from here.”

“Did it never occur to you that it is just because she is a mutation? She’s abnormal, Damien. She is poison to you! I saw you when we arrived at the Mistral’s home. I have never seen you so ill. I am stronger than you were then even when I have fallen into torpor.”

“Necromancers are poison to us. Poison is something that kills. I am yet alive.”

“Merely a different sort of snake,” she insisted. “Some just kill you off a little at a time with necrosis.”

“What of that which makes us stronger, Jasmine?”

“In what way are you stronger? I see only insecurity, fancy, and weakness, and so will everyone else! I warn you, Damien, there are those who will kill you if they hear you speaking in such ways.”

“I think not.”

The sentence was left hanging in the air between them as, right before Jasmine’s eyes, Damien winked out of existence.

She gasped, horrified and frightened for a moment. Then she felt something fall against her cheek. She snatched it up and turned toward the moonlight.

Lying on the tips of her fingers was the feather of a raven.

That was when she heard the beating of wings.

She whipped around just as the raven soared over her head and came in for a clumsy landing on the bench behind her. Again, there was a shift in her sight, and Damien sat in place of the bird.

“My landings leave something to be desired,” he said softly, “but I believe with time and practice it will change.”

“That … that is not possible! That is a Mistral’s trick!”

“Or the trick of Lycanthrope blood in the body of a Vampire,” he told her pointedly.

Jasmine could not speak. Her voice would not work, even if she could formulate a single thought. The condition lasted for many harrowing seconds.

“What is the other way?” she asked hoarsely at last, swallowing hard as her head spun with what she had just seen. “You said there were two ways…?”

“The Library, Jasmine. For which, I am afraid, I will need your cooperation.”

“Damien,” the female Vampire said, still half in shock after watching his thrilling and terrifying transformation, “you are asking me to look for a Holy Grail; a treasure you only hope and suppose is out there. What if it is just as impossible to find?”

“I expect it will be. But it will be more possible if one who reads our ancient tongue is there. One who has a vested interest in researching our part of it. I know you were curious and compelled before, but now I want you to be driven. If not for the potential importance to me, then to the effect it could have on so many others of us.” He raised an elegant hand and beckoned her forward. She obeyed automatically, moving closer to the bench until he could reach to take her hand. “It changes everything, knowing what my hopes and speculations are in this matter. Not for me, but for you. You will be tempted to shy from this. You will want to fear anything that threatens you with potential for commitment. I know, because a week ago I would have reacted the same way.

“Unfortunately, you will not have the song of the blood of another inside you luring you toward acceptance and spurring you into action. Your instincts will scream at you to lie to me, to burn evidence I need to support my theory and to do anything you possibly can to avoid the idea that there could be a way of tying yourself to a complementary being irrevocably, day after day after day, for the rest of your existence.” Damien had to stop as he fought off the chill that walked his spine, the cold dread of it a remnant of similar feelings that faded as the time apart from Syreena grew longer and more strained.

“Why?” She struggled on the question, realizing he was terribly correct. “If I am not meant to feel this way, then why do I?”

“I do not know. I am hoping this is what you can tell me.”

“I …” Jasmine broke off and sat beside him, her fingers feeling numb and cold in his grasp. “The anxiety building inside of me,” she explained her knuckles pressing against her solar plexus as if she were experiencing pain. “I am afraid of so little, Damien, yet this thing terrifies me out of proportion. This is instinct. I am used to embracing instinct.”

“So is this,” he countered, indicating the feelings within his own body. “You have to trust me. One of these instincts is natural. The other is somehow not. You need to tell me which it is. I need to know before it drives me mad.”

“You have felt as I do for nearly a millennium, Damien.”

“The time spent on a pursuit does not matter if it turns out to be a false path in the end. All you can do is seek backward until you pick up the true path and can follow it instead. It is an old hunter’s philosophy, sweetling. One I know you can grasp. There is only one true path here. Let us find it together.”

Jasmine sat in silence for a minute, the fine tremor that shivered through her body betraying how rattled she was. Damien, however, was counting on his knowledge of her. Jasmine thrived on intriguing ideas and thoughts. For a Vampire, the more dangerous the stakes, the more diverting and delightful the prize of success was.

Life was not worth living if you were not willing to risk it.

This, he realized, was why they shorted out so easily. There was so little for them to fight for, to defend and crusade about. Without things like this to drive them, they became like Jasmine, constantly growing depressed and bored, so lost for lack of having a purpose that all they wanted to do was sleep.

“Very well,” she said so softly that he would have missed it had he no supernatural senses. “You are right. Something is not right here. But I warn you, Damien, I do not agree with the idea that the way we have lived and related for so long is the wrong one. My goal is to seek proof, even if it is proof against your desires.”

“I expect nothing else,” he assured her.

“And I will act on my findings, Damien,” she warned him a bit more ominously. “I will do everything in my power to separate you from the Lycanthrope forever if I find out she is the wrong choice here. If she is the poison, I will administer the antidote. I would rather kill her and risk ages of war than lose you to something that will eventually destroy you. We need you too much. I need you too much.”

The statement did not rattle him as it was meant to. She was baiting him with her threat to harm Syreena, but even more, she was trying to push his buttons about neediness. Jasmine apparently did know him very well. Such statements were a quick way to get dismissed from his company, because they made him uncomfortable and the strings attached caused too much inconvenience.

At least, it had.

Before he had demanded to know what it was a female with bicolored eyes and the contrary heart to match had needed.

And now everything was different.

“What of you, Damien? Are you going to run off to Russia and profess love to a total stranger?” Jasmine could not bear the idea of him behaving so irrationally.

“No. I am not saying I am in love with her. But I am going to find out if I can be.”