Chapter 10

Gideon turned to look for Legna the moment he materialized inside the manse. She was not in the immediate area of the parlor, and he moved into the hallway to search for her. Instinct told him to head up the marble staircase, and he did so, taking three steps at a time. He headed straight for his bedroom, moving into the open doorway and spotting her at last.

She had chosen the comfort and quiet of the window seat beneath the largest of all the stained glass windows. She sat with her legs curled beneath her and her shawl draping carelessly off one shoulder. The moonlit colors of the window flashed over her bared skin. A large tree just outside the glass swayed wildly in the wind. The moving branches played tricks with the moonlight outside, sending the color into an illusion of movement that looked like little tinted fairies dancing over her skin.

Legna turned her head to look at him and directly moved to her feet. Her shawl dropped away completely, clearly the last thing she felt needed her attention. She hurried over to him, plainly lighting up with the satisfaction that she would have her arms around him in barely a moment. The sound of silk and beads disrupted the momentary silence of the room, the creak and rush of the tempestuous wind outside almost drowning the simple sounds of her approach.

She was eager elegance as she threw her arms around his neck and allowed herself to be dragged up into his embrace. For an endless minute, her body clung to his at any and every contact point they could collaboratively manage. Gideon buried his face into the sweet curve of her neck, breathing deeply of her warm, living scent as he tried not to hug the breath out of her.

To his consternation, she only allowed him to hold her for a moment before she pushed back and squirmed out of his grasp. She reached for his left hand, using both of her hands to pry his fingers open even though he put up no resistance. The gold and moonstone ring resting in his palm was plucked from its place and tossed carelessly across the highly polished wooden floor, the sound of the bauble skidding far into the darkness seeming to satisfy her.

"You will wear nothing of hers," Legna told him, her tone brooking no argument.

The dictate amused him. He had no intention of wearing the ring. It was for whomever Noah chose as an ambassador for Siena's court, and that most certainly was not going to be him.

"Jealous, Neliss? " he teased her as he ringed a hand around her neck and pulled her closer once more. "It is not like you to indulge in such petty emotions."

Legna frowned at him, tensing against his efforts to draw her nearer to him.

"You think my feelings to be petty?" she demanded of him. "Is it just my jealousy you see that way, or all my feelings?"

The temperamental heat in the question gave the Ancient pause. He had not returned home looking for another fight, even if this, too, ended up just being an exercise of his wits. He had not thought he'd have to face such silly possessiveness from Legna. She was usually so well balanced with logic. It was her intellect above all else that made her so compatible with him.

"Oh, I see," she hissed suddenly and softly, her entire body going stiff and resistant against his. "And I suppose all of this seems childish and irrational to you?"

"Of course it does," he said with impatience. "If it were me acting this way, would you not think me foolish and irrational?"

"Foolish! Now I am foolish to you?" Magdelegna wrenched free of him, twisting out of his reach. "I understand," she breathed hotly. "Even after all of this, after everything we have said to one another, you still think me a child! To you, this is all just some temperamental little tantrum!" Her quicksilver eyes were burning and furious as she ran her gaze down his length with unconcealed contempt. "Well, at least I have emotions! At least I am normal and real and have a live and beating heart that feels its way through life!"

"You mean you let yourself behave recklessly because of the whims of your feelings," he countered sharply. "A moment ago you could not wait to hold me, now you reject me … all because of emotional caprice. Tell me, Legna, what benefit you find in that. Can you not see that this, what you are doing now, is how wars start? A simple surge in temper, and before you even realize it, everything snowballs out of control. Wallow in it for yourself if you must, but do not wish it on me!"

"You pompous, self-righteous ass!" she uttered, her face flushing with a beautiful fury that almost distracted Gideon from the point he wanted to drive into her. He understood that she could not help her emotionalism to a degree. After all, she was an empath and emotions were what empaths primarily dealt with, but she needed to learn control of herself or this would never work smoothly between them. "Of course," she said with drowning sarcasm in response to his thoughts, "the fault must be mine. I am the child and you are the Ancient You could not possibly be wrong about this."

"Legna," he warned tightly.

"Let us test the theory empirically, shall we?" she countered in a rush of breath and furiously intent eyes. "Show me. Show me the great benefits of this almighty control of yours, Gideon. The ability to share my heart has given me close family, dear friends, and the spirit to help others in desperate need of me. Have your cold, unfeeling ways given you these things? Where is your family? Where are your friends? Oh, you help others and wield a mighty power, Ancient, but do you care if you succeed or fail? Do you care if your patients live or die?"

"Of course I do!" he growled at her, his body surging up instinctively to intimidate hers as she hammered away at the tender spots in his psyche. "Do not dare accuse me of insensitivity when it comes to my patients, Magdelegna. You know nothing of what I—" Gideon broke off before he could finish the temper-driven sentence, his fingers curling into his palms as he tried to take a deep breath to steady himself.

"Feel?" she finished for him regardless of his checking himself. "You are damn right I know nothing of what you feel! You will not let me know it! You will not even allow yourself to know it! Tell me, Gideon, what do you see as the benefit of all this steadiness and flat affectation?"

"Things it is best you never come to understand," he returned stiffly.

"Sweet Destiny, do you even hear the condescension you are spewing?"

"It is not condescension!"

Gideon wanted to turn his back to her, to walk away and put distance between them, but he could not force his body to comply. Even as they fought, the pull of her allure remained steadfast and powerful inside of him. As strong as his desire was to push her away, the need for her was even stronger. If that weren't enough, she was taunting him with sins he had left long in the past. Oh, she was certainly ignorant of the fire she toyed with, and if he had any say in the matter, he was going to keep her ignorant Those sins would be kept deep in the past and had no place in the life of the man he had become as a result.

"Gideon." Her entire tone suddenly altered, from one of fury to something more coaxing and much more dangerous to his peace of mind. When Legna wanted to, she could use the power of her voice to lure others. It lured him even when she wasn't trying, so now he was doubly tempted to give in to her sway over him. "I see the gentleness in you and your tenderness when you heal. This tells me how very much you do care, even though you keep yourself so very still both outside and in. But why is it you feel this is so necessary?"

Legna moved closer to him, banishing her anger of moments ago and driving herself to get answers from him by any means she could possibly manage. She reached out to touch his chest where his leather coat hung open, her fingertips moving softly against the cotton of his shirt. She closed her eyes and openly tuned her empathic senses to him, seeking even the smallest reflection of how he felt when she came this near to him. She needed to know he felt something. Anything. Else, how could she possibly spend all the rest of her days with a man who refused to feel anything for her? For anyone?

But despite his cold, emotionless armor at present, she had felt those distinct cracks breaking through him and ebbing into her today. Emotions. Small shows of emotional surges that he always quickly managed or suppressed, but he had them just the same, despite his quick cover-ups. She had even thought he was enjoying them … enjoying her and her effect on his calloused demeanor. She had been a shadow in his mind for all of it. She couldn't be wrong about this!

With her hands slowly sliding up his chest, she purposely allowed him to fall victim to the spell that always overcame them whenever they touched. She used it to her advantage, working it as an avenue into the vault concealing everything he was capable of feeling, if only he would permit himself. She hooked her fingers over his broad shoulders and pushed, until she was urging them to shrug back. The leather coat dropped off his arms a moment later, but she caught it and stepped away slightly to fold it over the back of a nearby chair. She didn't remove her touch completely, however, letting her lingering fingers keep him connected to her whether he was aware of it or not.

Gideon did not understand what she was up to, but it was hard for him to remain tense or on his guard when the warmth of her touch was soaking into him. Still, he would not let her think she was going to overpower his arguments this way.

"You will never change my mind on this matter, Magdelegna," he said with soft heat as she moved closer to him once more. "You have to accept that this is the kind of man I am. I have been thus for twice your lifetime or better. To think of changing me, Legna, is an exercise in folly."

Legna seemed to ignore him for the present, moving her fairylike touch to his gloved hands, slowly working the material free as if time no longer mattered to her. She was completely immersed in every movement, every sensation, and every reaction her activities elicited. It seemed strange that such a simple task would feel so erotic, but it was exactly that.

"Just because you have been unchanged and unmoved for so long," she said quietly, "does not mean it is the way you should stay."

After dropping his gloves onto the chair where she had placed the coat, Legna came around to face him head-on, her eyes stubborn and challenging him in such a way that he found her wickedly seductive. A deep, instinctual part of him bucked and reared at the way she boldly confronted him, demanding he prove his worth to her. Gideon shook his head, trying to regulate his focus and the reflexive rushing of his breath and blood as she tempted him in soft, minute movements and ideals that he knew from experience were flawed. Gideon held himself as still as he could as she moved slowly around him, her hot, thorough eyes scanning every inch of his body before her fingertips slid around the lower strap of his left thigh sheath. The way she freed the joined buckle was nothing unusual, but when she finished and curled her fingers so that her nails glided up the inside of his thigh as they traveled to the upper strap, Gideon's entire body and soul flexed with instantaneous arousal.

Legna heard him utter an oath beneath a guttural sound of stimulation. A sly, knowing smile touched her lips. She dropped the freed sheath on top of the rest of his discarded objects. Then, purposely allowing her hand to trail over his lower back from one hip to the other, she passed behind him to come to the thigh on the opposite side. She did the same thing she had with the first, but it still sent an unimaginable shock of stimulation through him, as if he had not been expecting it.

As she discarded the last weapon with one hand, the other remained on the tightly flexed muscle of his upper leg. He stood so still, flexed so hard with awareness, his attention riveted on every movement and every touch she made, and she knew on a deep, primitive level that she had his desires and attentions literally at her fingertips.

"Think for a moment, Gideon, about the positive and rushing delight the best of feelings can bring to you. You cannot see those that are negative and denounce the whole lot of your emotions because of the harm they can do. Think of what you are feeling now, in this moment. Would you throw this away so easily?"

"This is lust, a-a physiological state of arousal caused by our compatible chemistries …"

"Oh, is that all?" she asked him provocatively as she drew her lush and warm body up close to him, ignoring his stiff resistance and cuddling up to him warmly so she could rub her face against a pectoral muscle with kittenish pleasure. "Then why do you not control your body, Gideon? A Body Demon of your age and skill surely has the power to stop reacting to any of this … physiological state of arousal … even in spite of the Imprinting. Why do you not stop the racing of your heart, the burning of your skin …" Legna let her fingertips ghost down over his belly and then dipped below his belt to caress the hard and heavy erection that strained behind the soft fabric of his trousers. "Why not ease away these tattletale signs that tell me you are far more engaged than you wish to admit to me?"

Gideon snapped. There was nothing else he could call it. One minute he was struggling to breathe and staring down the knowingly seductive squint of her eyes, and the next he had his hand around her throat and was heaving all of his weight against her. He forced her to step back in rapid retreat from the power of the raw strength and the fury of emotion surging out of him. Legna had no chance to react or even catch her breath until he had driven her down onto his bed and was nose to nose with her while his quicksilver eyes burned with his rage.

"Do not play with me, little girl!" he hissed into her face as he threw a leg over her and boxed her in beneath his weight. "Your beauty and your seductions of my body and my mind will fail! You should crave that they fail, because I promise you that you do not wish to meet my unfettered temper, Magdelegna! The last time it saw the light of day I screamed for the heads of an entire race! Stop trespassing in this territory, I warn you!"

"This is my territory," she countered with a heated rasp as she grasped hold of his wrist where it was secured against her throat. "As an empath and as your mate, this is my territory! You are my territory! Mine! Ugly or beautiful, raging or passionate, you are mine for the rest of our existence, Gideon, just as you claim I am yours, and I will not let you feed yourself to me in select little bites and bits! I will have all of you or I will turn my back on you and take nothing at all! "

"Do not threaten me, you insolent girl!" he roared into her face. But Legna felt the clench of terror that gripped him inside and out. It was the reflexive emotion she had been seeking … needing. She needed to know that he couldn't easily go on without her. She needed him to know it, too. He had to realize that his world had to change to accept her. He could not keep on as he always had, with her as a lonely little satellite that served his purposes only when he thought to make use of her.

"Are you of so little faith in yourself, Gideon, that you do not think you have learned from those terrible mistakes you once made?" she asked him, her voice so suddenly soft in the echoes of their shouting that it fell harder against him for it. "Because I have always seen in you a man of unparalleled confidence in himself. I never thought you were the sort who would let his past mistakes paralyze him in such a way."

"I am not paralyzed," he rasped out on rapid-fire breaths. "I am in control, Magdelegna. I need to be in control of myself! You do not understand what I have the power to do. You do not conceive of the responsibility my position in this society calls for."

"Yes, I do," she countered gently. "Do you forget so easily how I was raised at the knee of our King? All of my life I have seen him struggle between his natural-born temperament, the one his fiery element sets so deeply within him, and the responsibility he has to all of our people. I have known for a great many years that it was your lessons most of all that taught him to control what he felt so he would never harm anyone in his anger. But, Gideon, it was my lessons that taught him to indulge his passions safely and with pleasure. I taught him how to love deeply, despite the losses he has suffered. I guided him to the ways of indulging his fiercest emotions without any harm coming to him or anyone else. Do you not trust me to do the very same for you?"

"You are asking me to destroy a dam centuries in the making, Legna," he said hoarsely, a fine tremor rolling through him that she felt like a vibration. "One created to protect lives and our culture."

"Lashing down what you feel never protected any of us," she said as she reached to caress his face with tender touches. "It was learning right from wrong, coming to the understanding that you had made grievous mistakes, and the actions you took to guide this society into a moral rightness that saved our people from themselves. Now I am sent to you by Destiny to guide you back to those feelings you have denied yourself for too long. Did you think you could have this Imprinting and not give your heart to it? To me?"

"I …" Gideon swallowed as he realized she was right. He had, at most, feared she would not come to love him, that someone as sensitive as she was would shun him for all his mistakes. Never once had he considered his return emotions and her need for them.

Never once had he thought she would make him feel … so much.

Gideon stared down at her, the hand held around her neck long since eased into absent tracings of her jaw and ear. He realized he was memorizing her, by shape and by the feel of her, mapping her point by point so he would always know every special nuance she bore. He became aware then that he'd left the marks of his fingers in the soft skin of her throat. Instantly his heartbeat stuttered and he was awash with renewed dread for the havoc his uncontrolled temper could wreak.

"Only if you constantly cork it up, stuff it away inside you, and turn away from it. Pretending your anger does not exist is a flawed plan," Legna counseled him as her fingers sank fiercely into his hair. "Not to mention every other volatile emotion you try to ignore. You need to find a safe release for all your passions, Gideon."

Legna watched him carefully, so she easily saw the sly change that swept through his expression and then felt the bent of his mind as he focused suddenly and sharply on her features: the shape of her lips, the curve of her jaw near her ear, and the length of her throat. He smiled just a little, his fingers gliding up over her lips so he could gently toy with her mouth.

"Will you be my release, Neliss? " he speculated aloud. "Will it be this mouth that devours my hottest desires? Can such delicate ears tolerate the fury of my cries? Will your pulse beat in sympathy with mine whenever I am in need?"

"Yes," she whispered readily, her heart already pounding out a hard rhythm. "I will be whatever you need. All that you need. Just so long as you feel your need, Gideon."

Gideon knew then the full scope of his need for Legna. For the first time he truly allowed himself to feel what had been growing inside of himself from the moment he had first grabbed hold of her in her brother's gardens those years ago. The whiplash effect of the desire and longing rushing through him was overpowering. He balked at it, but she grabbed at him tightly and drew him down until their lips touched.

"I do not want to hurt you," he breathed into her mouth, his blood rushing in his ears and burning hot in his veins. "We were overwhelming together even when I was keeping myself in check. What if…?"

"Do not ask questions, Gideon. Simply feel your way to the answers. And I know, in my deepest heart, that you could never truly hurt me. Not unless you denied me."

"I cannot. Not anymore."

Legna felt the raw truth of that. Protective restraints and exercises in discipline crumbled and fell to the wayside inside of him as he slowly began to invite the possibilities. Then he let it all soak into him, like a rapidly filling sponge. She became dizzy with the sudden and powerful rush of it, his emotions so untried yet so pure and potent. There were so many waiting to be exercised, but there was no denying what came raging to the front of it all, demanding first attention.

"Yes," she moaned softly against his damply stroking lips. "I feel how you need me now."

"Need? How paltry a word for what I am feeling," he said a bit dangerously. His broad, strong hand ran in a sharp and sudden line down over the center of her body. It sought the hem of her skirt and found access to her bare skin beneath it Legna gasped raggedly as his fingers burned a path up the inside of her leg, skimming up the flesh of her inner thigh. "I am going to devour you, Magdelegna," he promised her, the darkness of his cravings coming to bear on her fully at last "You wanted to know my passions? Allow me to introduce them to you."

Legna was so focused on the approach of his stroking hand between her legs that she barely heard him. But when she felt the sudden nip of his teeth against her lip she looked up into his smelted, liquid mercury eyes.

"My first desire, Nelissuna, is to see you natural and nude. Then I will feel you natural and nude … beneath my hands, my body, and, most especially, my mouth."

He sealed the invitation with a crushing kiss, a cross between wild heat and a desperation that transcended the demands of his body. What he described was wholly physical; however, what he wanted to derive from it was purely emotional satisfaction. He wanted to make her his. His primitive side demanded he mark her in every way imaginable, but more than that he would heavily stamp her with the feelings she had demanded from him.

Legna's head was spinning from stimulus and psychometric devastation. Some sort of defense mechanism made her grab hold of him, and she sharply rolled her weight until their positions were reversed and she was above him as he lay on his back. The assertive move made her heart leap with eager and anxious anticipation, her blood hurrying hotly through her as that dominant woman inside of her surged forward to take control once more. She nipped at his lips again and again, then devoured him in one wet, burning kiss after another.

Now both of his hands had found their way beneath her skirts and he gripped her strong thighs as she sat astride his hips. Gideon tried to lie very still, with the exception of a fine tremor that vibrated through his entire body, because if he moved he was going to start ripping away her clothing and he didn't want to delve into that raw place just yet. He wanted to save it and savor it for when he was claiming her with his longing and desperate body. He withstood the feel of her fingers as she unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and then rapidly worked her way down to the waistband of his breeches. She parted his shirt, her hands moving the cloth aside with bold strokes, her torso rising so she could fix her gaze with great longing on the expanse of his chest Her eyes slid closed as she braced herself against his warm flesh and bent to taste his skin with a lengthy flick of her tongue.

It was a wonder Gideon didn't explode apart on the spot. He had never felt such an overwhelming sensation of pleasure from so slight an action in all of his vast life. He groaned deeply, savagely, as her moist tongue slipped over one flat nipple and then the other.

Gideon sat up suddenly, sending her sinking into his lap as he hastily shed his shirt for her. That was when she first saw the remaining lividity of the bruises across his ribs. She reached to touch him over the injured place, her fingertips gliding with gentleness over him.

"Why do you not heal yourself completely?" she asked him.

"Because it is not necessary. My natural processes will remove it by dawn. What is natural to your body is sometimes what is best for it."

"Oh. I see," she said with a softly cunning smile.

Her curious touch was killing him. Not because he was in any pain, aside from the agony of her seductive and thorough exploration, but because he had never needed anyone or anything so much in all of his life the way he needed her. And it was the tenderness and concern of her probing fingers that affected him most deeply. He was completely unused to having someone care for him. Someone who showed concern over his well-being instead of assuming that since he was an Ancient and powerful healer, he had no need of concern or compassion. Legna's eyes lifted to his as she felt the loneliness and sadness of the thought that was drifting through him, understanding that it was her actions that had stirred them and her actions that would dismiss them.

Her mate was beginning to understand an emotion she had always taken somewhat for granted, the one she had grown up with and maintained all her life. He was coming to realize the soothing balm that having someone to come home to could have on a soul. His psyche was warming, slowly but surely, and all because of her Imprinting on him. She was teaching the Ancient, the one Demon whom she had always thought of as knowing more than even history itself did, in her one true area of expertise. She was guiding him into the realm of his abandoned emotions. Just as he was trying to teach her the advantages in the balance between predatory instinct and civilization, she was showing him how to temper his feelings when he had to and how to abandon himself to them in order to have an existence of color and light and life.

"My light. My life," he insisted aloud, his hand slipping beneath her hair and around her neck, coaxing her forward until she was once more cuddled up against him, her mouth turned up in order to easily accept the kiss he was bringing to her.

The intensity of the kiss, and the emotions pouring from him and into her, brought tears to her eyes. She surged up into the touch of his mouth, bringing him deeper and closer with her lips, tongue, and soaring feelings. She filled him with her compassion and her understanding, her trust and her absolution, and, most of all, she poured her heart into his, the part of her that was starting to love him, no matter what his sins and flaws might be.

The deluge of her emotions flooding into him packed a punch more powerful than halberds and Minotaurs ever could have. Gideon felt a sound of raw emotion vibrating within the joined haven of their mouths and realized he was the one to utter it. The depth of it brought tears to Legna's eyes, and he felt as though his heart was about to tear itself into shreds because it had no idea how to handle what she was pouring into it. She was so wrong, he thought to himself. She had claimed that one day he would possibly become her hero, her savior.

But it was she who was saving him.

Legna was the one to finally break the soulful kiss, gently touching her bruised lips over his jaw, his cheekbones, and even the dark brush of his lashes.

" Nelissuna, " he said, his voice throaty and soft.

"I am here. I will always be here," she soothed him sweetly, meeting his gaze when he brushed a finger under her chin to tilt her head back.

"Promise me, Neliss, " he said hoarsely. "I have heard those who speculate that I am indestructible, but I swear on my soul that it will kill me to ever lose you."

"I will always be here," she reiterated as strongly as her heart could manage.

He reached to caress her face with warm, tender knuckles.

"Do not leave me, Neliss. " He was pleading with her, unashamed of the need and emotion his voice reflected. "Sleep beside me today and all the days to come."

She nodded silently, feeling the relief that sang through him so keenly that it made her throat ache with compassion. He was a creature of such enormous power and indomitable will, but her words now had the power to save or destroy him. It was an awesome realization and a profound responsibility, but she accepted it without reservation.

It was the last consideration she would give to responsibility.

Her entire focus, as well as her body, was flung down beneath Gideon's once more. He loomed over her, his bare, tanned skin hot to her touch as she clung to his shoulders. Before she even realized where his hands had gone, he'd unzipped her gown, loosening the bodice dramatically. He peeled silk and beading away from her skin, exposing her to air much colder than the temperature of their excited bodies. Her nipples tightened under the stimulus as well as beneath the avaricious stare of her lover.

"Ah … see, I knew you would be this way," he confessed in a barely audible whisper. "Not just that you are so easily responsive to me, but this color …" He reached out to gently stroke the darkly tanned tips of her breasts, first with his fingertips, then with breathy touches of his lips. "Do you feel how this excites me, Neliss? "

Legna understood that he wasn't referring to his physical response, although there was plenty of that. He meant the raw surge of possessive craving for her and her alone. She connected with him as no one else had since he had been an unrefined fledgling. Oh, he'd been forced to relent to instances of physical lust before, the Hallowed moons demanding it of him as they did everyone else, but every touch he shared with her made his heart and soul ache with emotion. The unexercised feelings tumbled and jumbled against her, but then his mouth or hands would close around her and they would find focus and set themselves in clarity.

He loved her, everything about her, and he had done so for more years than he might ever admit to aloud. As Gideon stripped away her delicate dress, he worshipped every inch of her revealed skin with kisses and caresses made partially of fiery craving and mostly of devotion. Legna stretched out beneath him, blinking back the rush of tears wetting her eyes as she finally began to learn exactly who he was … and how he felt. Who ever would have thought a male so potent and so confident would deem himself unworthy of a girl like her? This understanding made her realize that despite the hundreds of referrals to her youth, she had long ago impressed herself on him as a lady of quality who deserved only the best their race had to offer. So he had never dared come close to her, despite the fact that he was considered the most esteemed of their breed. Deep within himself he had thought that if they'd only known the truth, the Demon people who so highly respected him would shun him as he had expected her to do. He thought a thousand-year-old crime was just as unforgivable now as ever.

Not one of us has the right to judge you, Gideon.

You have every right to judge me, love.

He raised his head to meet her gaze, turning slightly to nuzzle against the hand she held against his cheek.

"You are my one and truest mate, Neliss. If I am going to be the same to you, I must earn my place beside you."

"But—" Legna broke off with a gasp when she felt him surge forward against her, driving his hips between her thighs until he had situated himself tightly against her, his broad torso hovering over her so she felt cast beneath his shadow. Unlike her, he was still clothed from the waist down, but there was tremendous suggestion and blatant need in the hardness of the body nestling against hers.

"Shall I do it this way? Through your body? Shall I gain every inch of progress with every cry of pleasure I elicit from you? I know it in my soul now that only through your love will I find my absolution. Perhaps I have known it all along and that was why I was forbidding myself to reach for it. But I have waited so long, Magdelegna. So very long."

She did not need to be an empath to hear the pain breaking in his voice.

"Is it my body that will give you succor? It is yours to take, then, Gideon," she whispered to him, pulling his head down until her lips brushed gently against his ear. "You are already in my heart."

She felt the start that jolted through him and readily met his doubting look when he sought her expression for confirmation. He must have seen what he was searching for, because she felt a fine shudder run through him. She felt his hands clenching into the bedclothes at her shoulders as his eyes slid closed. Unsure if he was arguing for or against what she was trying to give to him, she reached to stroke confident hands over his shoulders and down his back. Her fingertips then glided over the tight cut of his backside and clung hard to him, drawing him deeper into the embrace of her legs as she wound them around his.

"Legna."

Gideon was amazed he'd managed to get the word past his lips. Everything inside of him felt as if it had become petrified, seized with the solid rigidity of an arousal beyond anything that should be possible. She was past beautiful. She was an inconceivable perfection. There were no words in any of the languages he knew to voice what he was thinking and feeling as he watched her turn a knowing little smile on him, as if she were flaunting her total power to captivate him with just her existence.

"I am waiting for you," she said, her voice low and sultry and as tempting as the beckoning curves of her body.

Gidon recovered her hands, catching them in his and pinning them to the bed, his body lurching roughly against her as he seized her lush mouth in a kiss. She was caught between the bed at her back and the unforgiving steel of his hard male body. His unchecked aggression delighted her and she made a noise of appreciation low in her breast. She laced her fingers between his, holding his hands tightly in the implausible event that he might try to withdraw them.

He was bruising their mouths with the ferocious need that burned through him, but she gave as much as he did to the erotic twist of lips and tongues. Her teeth scored his lip again, making him pull back and look into her face with an animalistic intensity. In an instant he crossed her arms high above her head, pressing her hands back against the bed and leaving her bare body vulnerable to him.

He switched his hold on her hands so they were both trapped beneath only one of his. Legna was breathing so hard with the anticipation of his next decision that she became a little light-headed. Then his freed hand was slipping over her belly, a bold, masculine caress that scorched her soft skin. He rested his mouth on the curve of her neck that blended into the crest of her shoulder. She felt his hand coast up her rib cage to embrace the full weight of her breast.

She cried out from the stimulation, her body jolting in response. Legna felt wild, liquid heat pour down her body, the rush of it dampening her thoroughly between her legs. He made another territorial vocalization, making her shudder when he released the hold of his mouth in order to push past her hair and whisper into her ear.

" Neliss, " he murmured, his hand sliding away from her breast, down her ribs and belly. "I can smell your scent," he told her, his breath as hot as the meaning of his words and the path of his hand.

Legna dropped her head back, feeling his hand pressing her back into the bed as it traveled to the southern regions of her trembling torso. His palm was pressed flat against her as he reached the center of the span between her hips.

"Gideon!" she gasped as his touch feathered half an inch closer to her heat and the moist scent that had lured him there.

"Darling," he corrected her, making very sure she felt him withdraw slightly.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trembling so hard she couldn't understand how she was still breathing. She understood him perfectly, but instead of complying, she pushed up and into his body. The slow movement rubbed her suggestively over the unmistakable bulge still trapped within the confines of his clothing. Instinctively his hand moved around to the lower curve of her spine, using the counterpressure to keep her against the uncontrollable surge of his hips.

He swore through gritted teeth, giving her a much better idea of what the word meant now that she was hearing it in context for the second time. She laughed, a low, breathy chuckle that reflected her recognition of her power over the desires of his flesh.

Gideon released her hands, his bold touch caressing her breasts, rubbing and pulling gently on the thrusting tips until she moaned and shuddered with the spears of arousal that lanced through her entire body. She reached to slide her fingers into his hair, holding his mouth and tongue to her neck, which he was feasting on in slow and purposely erotic ways.

Approaching the vee of her hips once more, Gideon could feel the edges of the pool of liquid heat that lay just beyond his fingertips, and he craved the feel of the exotic fluid as well as the sensitive, soft flesh it bathed. He was locked into the excruciating hold of his urgent body, feeling like he had never known such a wholly riveting need. He felt her in his thoughts, felt her analyzing everything he was feeling to adjust the way she rubbed against him, until it was driving him insane.

Suddenly she caught his ravenous mouth with her own, then she moved from his mouth to his neck and throat, learning with delight that the feel of her wet lips in those areas was an incredible stimulant. She felt the swell and pulsing urgency of his erection, so close to her own heat. It sharpened her own hunger, the need to have him deep within her body gripping roughly through her.

Gideon felt her release him from the touch of one hand and was even aware of the slight jerk of her arm. But he was still unprepared for the strange jolt that accompanied that skillful twist of her wrist. They materialized a half a second later in the center of the bed, her body and his still connected as they had been before the teleport, only this time he was as nude as she was.

That brought him to be unexpectedly sliding through the liquid heat of her aroused sex, making her gasp as he rubbed over sensitive flesh and heightened the cravings of her body for his joining thrust. He uttered a sound of pure primal desire, his hands moving to grip the fabric of the coverlet as he threw back his head and curved back into a full arching of his tormented body.

But he did not give her what she wanted, in spite of it taking every last ounce of control he had left. He moved away from that unbelievable haven she had tempted him with, rising up on his knees in order to do so, pushing her thighs farther apart as a result.

He was wracked with the pulse of his need as he looked down on his irresistible mate. He shook his head in wordless disbelief at her cunning tricks to overpower him. And they had worked, every one of them. Not to her satisfaction, perhaps, but it completely convinced him that he had been wrong when he had assumed sex was too commonplace an act to hold the attention of a creature with a centuries-long life.

And he was feeling the error of his thoughts keenly. Still, he would not deny her equal time. She meant too much to him. It was in her nature to give so wholly to the needs of others before indulging needs of her own. But he was not like others, and he would not be satisfied in that way.

He leaned a little forward, looking straight down into her curious and questioning gaze.

"I want you to say my name," he commanded her, his voice guttural and powerful. "And if you do, I will give you a gift very similar to … this. "

He was suddenly diving past her eyes and into her body. The feedback of the sudden rush of his power entering her, combining with her very own aura, made her struggle for breath. The sensation fired wild chills down her breasts and belly and thighs. He insinuated himself into the rush of her blood with astounding speed, enhancing and altering the chemistry of her physiology until she was bursting with an intense rush of adrenaline. Then there was the awareness of her most sensitive erogenous zones being filled with the hot pulse of fresh blood and stimulating nerve impulses.

He sent increasing heat through and through her, finishing and beginning again, all the while watching her wide eyes as she rasped for breath. She couldn't focus on him any longer, her vision blurring as she felt herself falling over backward into a black hole of his artful creation.

Legna exploded, the crystal finally shattering as he hit the perfect pitch within her. She screamed out, her body seizing with her pleasure, her entire being wrenching with indescribable pulsations beneath him.

And he had not even touched her.

She was drawing wildly for breath as she finally dropped from the outrageous crest he had pushed her to. She was finally able to focus on the hotly satisfied look in his eyes.

"Come now, sweet, and say my name," he continued to urge her in that superior and coaxing tone. "You are strong enough now to keep it as well as I do." He lowered his mouth to her breasts, laving each nipple with torturous patience and then scoring her across the right one, exactly as she had marked herself on him.

It was like putting a high-voltage current through her, forcing her to arch up off the bed. He took advantage, dragging his mouth over her raised belly, dipping his tongue into her navel as if pushing a magic button inside of her that released a spill of hot liquid over already soaked flesh.

"Say my name, Nelissuna, and I will give you so much more," he murmured against her skin as his lips moved, lower and lower.

Legna wondered how he expected her to say even her name when what he was doing had her throat locked into a perpetual sound of pleasure. The push of his thighs against the backs of hers left her completely exposed as he rose up and replaced his mouth with the touch of his hand.

This time there was no teasing. His fingers slipped into the wet silk at the juncture of her thighs, touching, exploring, and finding in a heartbeat the way to stroke her into new awareness and heightened response. She bucked, crying out as her hips rose and twisted. She felt him slip his touch inside of her, a skilled intrusion that showed her everything a man was capable of learning about a woman when he had a millennium to do it in.

He already knew her from the inside out, and he made good use of it. As he railroaded her with increasing ecstasy, he continued to ask her for his name. He promised her more, but she could not have even tried to imagine more. When he slid down her sweat-drenched body to taunt her with his mouth, he used the link of their minds to continue the request and the promises of reward.

Legna felt herself wrench into an explosion of forcibly parting molecules, a feeling parallel to how she had felt the first time she had ever teleported. The rush was magnificent and heartbreaking all at once. Wonderful to feel, tragic to leave behind. Tears coursed down her face and into her hair, a sob tearing out of her throat as he pushed on relentlessly.

If she thought him merciless, she was wrong. He was wholly selfish, her untamed pleasure arousing him to phenomenal heights. She was the cruel one, refusing his one request even as he pleaded sweetly with her, using her delicious body as his begging bowl. He covered her from head to toe with the attentions of his hands and mouth, feeling her squirm beneath him in such wholly erotic movements that it took all of his willpower not to thrust himself deep inside of her and damn everything else to hell.

Demon couples did not share their power names, as a rule, mostly to protect one another from being used by outside sources to betray that precious secret that protected their beloved mates. But he already knew hers, having learned it five months ago when he had heard her former mentor spouting it left and right for all to hear.

So now, she would have his. It was the most profound gift he would ever be able to give her, symbolizing a trust that had to stretch beyond the reasonable. But he would have nothing that she gave him unless he returned it in equal measure.

He rolled over, dragging her with him until she lay heavily over him, her thighs straddling his hips. He reached out to enclose her hips between his solid hands, and, with purposeful movement, slid her intimately up the length of his lethal arousal.

Legna reared up onto her heels, her head thrown back as she cried hoarsely to the heavens. He gritted his teeth as the burning center of her body called to him, promising a haven like nothing he had ever known.

"Say it, Legna," he begged her, moving her hips again until he was poised so close to the entrance to her body that it would take only one movement to join them.

Suddenly her head came forward, her eyes flashing with fire and intent and the determination of all the decades of her life. Her hands shot to his shoulders, pinning him back onto the bed as she released a savage sound of intent. She locked herself right where she was, refusing to allow him to move her in any way. He felt her tilting her hips so slowly, using all of her strength to fight his staying grip.

"Legna!" he gasped, feeling himself pushing into her, losing his control and his reason as she forced dominance out of his hands. She leaned over, eye to eye with him as droplets of perspiration fell from her body to his. He felt himself being surrounded further and further, the pace excruciating, the hot silver fire in her eyes taking everything away from him.

And then with one last undulation of her body, she gave it all back. She took him into her silken sheath completely, gasping out a triumphant sound of pleasure as he filled her to her borders. She stretched to accommodate him, and it had to be the most incredible sensation of their mutual lives.

And then she closed her eyes, a tremor shivering up her curving spine as she touched her mouth to his, and finally said his name.

"Pentangelo."

It was a powerful name, a name of protection and high expectations. Just as hers was. Indirianna meant "Companion of the Heavens," and Pentangelo meant "Angel of Endless Time." The power of the names was clear enough, if at the very least in how their meanings so perfectly suited the creatures they had become.

And as they made love for the first time with all the power and intensity of the proud species they came from, they became completely lost in each other. They tumbled across the bed again and again, first Gideon driving deeply into Legna, and then Legna coaxing her hot body against Gideon with breathless, sinuous friction. They became tangled in her hair, the tendrils trapping them together into one endless being just as their thoughts melded in the same way. Gideon was capable of manipulating Legna's body into an aria of immeasurable pleasure, but Legna was capable of thrusting the sensations right back into him in the form of raw emotions.

"Legna!" he cried hoarsely, everything about him screaming into her that he was too lost to do anything but feel the amazing summit they had formed together.

Legna's breath came in short, quick moans that began to rapidly turn into higher-pitched exclamations. She was beneath her mate, feeling him as he thrust into her to depths that transcended the physical.

When Gideon climaxed, it was with a primal roar of ultimate masculine ecstasy. The final thrust of his body and the burning rush of his seed pouring into her sent Legna into a volcanic release. It rode out of her on the back of an exultant shout. She tightened around Gideon like a passionate vise, milking him with dynamic thoroughness, leaving the most powerful Demon in all of history without a single ounce of strength.

Gideon dropped onto his mate's damp body with a final sound of contentment. He listened as they both gasped for breath, loving the sound of it for reasons he couldn't even think of.

In fact, thought was beyond them both. Gideon gave a moment of concern to the weight of his body on hers, solving it by simply rolling them over so she was sprawled across him. After that, there was nothing but bliss and the mated pair that basked within it.

Love?

Yes.

Gideon chuckled.

Why did you say yes like that?

Oh, I thought you were asking me a question.

I see.

Then he truly did see what she meant, and his heart flipped over in his chest.

Darling?

Gideon smiled at the warmth the endearment flooded him with.

Yes, Neliss?

Oh, nothing. Just fulfilling my end of the deal.

T he deal?

Yes. You made me a deal.

You lost me, he sighed.

Legna lifted her head, propped an elbow up against the pillow of his chest, and settled her chin in her palm so she could look down at him.

"You said that I would get something very special if I called you that."

"Did I?" he asked, his eyes brightening with speculation as he thought back on it. "Actually, I think you have that confused with the deal about saying my name."

"I like your name," she said with a smile. "I always thought mine was awful snobbish. But yours has me beat hands down."

"My name is one of the finest and oldest names in all of our history."

"That's only because you have lived to be such an old tosser."

"Tosser?"

"British vernacular, luv."

"What are you, my dialect coach all of a sudden? Is this your idea of post-coital pillow talk?".

Legna giggled, apologizing with a clinging kiss on his lips. It clearly calmed him, making him smile in a very cat-versus-canary way.

"Is there something you would prefer I say?" she asked compliantly.

"That yes a few sentences back was great. Short, sweet, to the point."

"Yes," she agreed.

"Yes?" he asked, arching a brow.

"Oh, yes," she assured him, her own brows doing a little lecherous dance.

"Mmm, yes," he murmured as her mouth lowered to his.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Legna?

Yes?

Do not talk with your mouth full.

No?

No.