Chapter 11

Isabella stirred in her sleep, her cheek and nose rubbing against the smooth, warm skin of her soon-to-be-husband's neck where she had slept with her face pressed against it the entire day.

The rub of her lips sent stimulation winging down her mate's spine, stirring him out of his rest as well. She lay at his back, the entire length of her petite body plastered to the back of his, including the leg insinuated between his thighs and the swell of her belly that was nestled into the lower curve of his spine.

Jacob reached for the hand that dangled against his chest, attached to the end of the arm that draped over his. He drew her fingertips to his lips, letting her feel his kiss and his smile.

She smiled against the warmth of his neck in response.

Feeling better? he asked, using their mental connection first because he had missed the feel of her in his mind. All he had been able to do was content himself with her dreams as she had slept and healed.

Much better. I missed you.

I missed you, too.

She pulled her hand free so she could touch him, her fingers drifting softly across his skin, drinking in the missed feel of him.

"Next week is Beltane," she reminded him. "Do you suppose we will make it through the wedding this time?"

"Not if Gideon says you cannot get out of this bed," he countered sternly.

"Absolutely not!" she burst out, making him wince and cover the ear she'd been too close to. She immediately regretted her thoughtlessness, making a sad sound before reaching to kiss the ear she had offended with quiet gentleness.

Jacob extricated himself from her hold enough to allow himself to turn and face her.

"Okay, explain what you meant," he said gently.

"I refuse to wait another six months. We are getting married on Beltane, come hell or … necromancers … or … the creature from the Black Lagoon. There is no way Corrine is going to be allowed to get married without me getting married, too. I refuse to listen to her calling me the family hussy for the rest of the year."

"What does it matter what she says?" Jacob sighed as he reached to touch the soft contours of her face. "You and I are bonded in a way that transcends marriage already. Is that not what is important?"

"No. What's important is the fact that I am going to murder the sister I love if she doesn't quit. And she will not quit until I shut her up either with a marriage or a murder weapon. Understand?"

Clearly, by his expression, Jacob did not understand.

"Thank Destiny all I have is a brother," he said dryly. "I have been inundated with people tied into knots over one sister or another for the past weeks."

"You mean Legna. Listen, it's not her fault if everyone has their shorts in a twist because of who her Imprinted mate is! Frankly, I think she and Gideon make a fabulous couple. Granted, a little too gorgeously ‘King and Queen of the Prom' perfect for human eyes to bear looking at for long, but fabulous just the same."

Jacob blinked in confusion as he tried to decipher his fiancée's statements. Even after all these months, she still came out with unique phraseologies that totally escaped his more classic comprehension of the English language. But he had gotten used to just shrugging his confusion off, blaming it on the fact that English wasn't his first, second, or third language, so it was to be expected.

"Anyway," she went on, "Noah and Hannah need to chill. You saw Legna when she came to visit yesterday. If a woman could glow, she was as good as radioactive." She smiled sweetly at him. "That means," she explained, "that she looks as brilliantly happy as you make me feel."

"I see," he chuckled. ‘Thank you for the translation."

He reached his arms around her, drawing her body up to his as close as he could considering the small matter of a fetal obstacle. He kissed her inviting mouth until she was breathless and glowing herself.

"I thought I would be kind to you," she explained with a laugh against his mouth.

"You, my love, are all heart."

"And you are all pervert. Jacob!" She laughed as she swatted one of his hands away from intimate places, only to be shanghaied by another. "What would Gideon say?"

"He better not say anything, because if he did that would mean he was in here while you are naked. And that, little flower, would probably cost him his vocal chords in any event."

"Oh. Well … when you put it that way …"

Isabella stopped speaking so suddenly that it got Jacob's instant attention. She blinked once, her gaze going suddenly blank and her body going rubbery in all-too-familiar ways. Jacob instantly dismissed his playful mood, rising up on his knees as he waited for Bella to come back around.

It didn't last long, and she sat up with a hand on her belly the very instant her vision cleared.

"Get dressed," she told him, moving to get out of bed herself.

"What is it?" He reached out, circling her arm with a strong hand and forcing her to remain in bed where she belonged. He moved around to sit beside her and see into her eyes. "What did you see?"

As much as he was privy to all of her thoughts, the only thing he could not touch were her premonitions. That place in her mind was blank to him, at the most giving off residual sensation of emotion. Right now, he could feel her confusion, and an underlying sensation of anxiety that accompanied it.

"I don't know. I …" She shook her head numbly. She was nowhere near mastering this power. She could barely handle the energy drain that had begun to come with it. Interpretation was completely ambiguous, and at other moments like this, absolutely cryptic. "I saw red. Nothing but this color of red. It seemed magnified, you know, like those pictures people take of ordinary objects and you have to try and guess what they are, but it's hard to because they are so distorted?"

"I think I understand. So why do you feel you have to get up?"

"I … don't know. Jacob, I just do. Please, I won't understand this if you don't let me follow my instincts."

"No, little flower. Gideon said you are not to move from this bed, and you are not going to disobey."

"Jacob," she snapped, losing her temper. "I have a bad feeling about this. I won't sit here and be coddled while something terribly important … or terribly dangerous might occur. What if this is a warning? I have a responsibility—"

"To what?" Jacob asked sharply. "To run around blindly like a chicken with its head cut off trying to find something red? Can you not see how ridiculous that is? As well as dangerous for you and our child?"

Bella wrapped angry arms across her chest, her fingers grasping hard at her upper arms in frustration.

"I hate this! Six months ago I was the strongest I have ever been in my entire life. Stronger even than the most powerful Transformed Demon. Now I can't even get out of this bed when I need to! All in a matter of a few days!"

"Stop this. You were attacked. You are not responsible for that."

"No? And I suppose you were? If you can give yourself the guilts, Jacob, then I sure as hell have just as much of a right—"

She ended the argumentative statement with a gasp. Her head was thrown back violently, her body locking and seizing with brutality. Jacob barely managed to catch her up against himself before she slid from the bed and struck the floor. Instead, he was able to lower her with a modicum of gentleness to the carpeting.

"Bella?!"

He shouted at her as the glassy expression overtook her once more, but this was like nothing they had experienced together before. She was wracked in violent spasms of her body that could only be called a seizure.

Jacob grabbed for pillows, protecting her as best he could, thinking at a frantic speed about how to get help. He closed his eyes and reached out into the night, soaring out into nature and the things within it that he could manipulate. He touched the mind of a wolf. The Earth Demon charmed the animal, coaxing it to go against its natural instinct to stay away from man-made habitation.

Before long, the wolf was loping over the manicured lawns of Noah's home.

Noah looked up from his studies when the sound of scratching came from the door. He reached out, sensing the energy of the animal outside, his brow furrowing in confusion. He got up and moved to the door, opening it to the wolf, who sat on the doorstep looking at him expectantly. There was intelligence behind those sharp blue eyes, an intelligence beyond what the animal itself had. Noah immediately sensed the residual energy of an Earth Demon in the animal's aura.

"Damn it!" he swore as he realized he had been so absorbed in his work that he had not even felt the spike of fearful, tormented energy taking place in his own home. The Fire Demon twisted into a column of smoke and flew like a tornado up the main stairwell.

"Kane?"

Corrine moved into the next room, searching for her mate with growing consternation.

"Kane, if you are trying to exercise our telepathic connection again, I will murder you once I find you," she complained. "This is not fair."

Corrine had woken up to an empty bed, feeling heavy and disappointed at heart because of it She enjoyed that feeling of waking up, snuggled against her lover, feeling the weight of his embrace even as he slept They had come so close to losing each other without even knowing what they would have missed. And as she had healed, she had learned what it meant to love and be loved with a depth that no one who was not a part of an Imprinting would ever truly understand.

It helped that her mate was a little dangerous, a lot irreverent, and playfully unpredictable at the moment. Hopefully their mental connection would continue to improve as she recovered from the damage she had initially suffered. If it didn't, she was going to be the butt of these impromptu hide-and-seek sessions for the rest of her life, a life that was considerably extended now that her Druid genetics had been awakened.

Corrine was walking through the kitchen when she felt that terribly distinctive pop that accompanied the arrival of a teleporting Demon. She grinned, rounding the corner quickly.

"No fair teleporting!" she sang out to her cheating mate. She was laughing as she ran into the living room. She stopped short when he wasn't there, frowning and putting her hands on her waist in vexation.

She sniffed the air, looking for the sulfur-and-smoke scent that her fledgling mate always left behind in great quantity, looking for a clue as to how far away he might be in the house.

That was when she was struck violently from behind and shoved face first into her own floor. She landed with a grunt as the carpeting burned across her chin and elbows. The force of the strike bruised her nose forcefully, and as her breath left her in shocked release she sprayed blood over the sky blue fibers.

She knew with sudden dread that it was not her lover who did this to her. He would have killed himself before harming her even accidentally. No, this was an attack, one of vicious malice.

"So, little Druid," a soft, feminine voice of deceptive beauty purred into her ear, loud and clear as her accoster's weight came down hard into the center of her back, forcing what little was left of her breath out of her. "Where is that spawning little whore of a sister of yours now that you need her?"

Remembering what had happened to Bella, the one who had been blessed with remarkable fighting instincts and skills after her Druidic awakening, Corrine suddenly felt the most intense terror of her life. Whatever skills it was she would develop, none would be as powerful as her sister's. If these were those who had attacked Isabella when she'd had all those defenses at her disposal, what chance of survival would someone weakened by a retarded access to her powers have of defeating such an enemy?

"Oh yes, you should be afraid," that singsong voice of threat cooed to her.

The last thing Corrine remembered was being dragged off by fistfuls of her long, red hair.

Legna awoke with a start and a deep, indrawn gasping breath as she propelled herself into an upright position. Gideon, who had been sleeping with both an arm and a leg securely across her, was awake and alert only a second later.

" Neliss ? What is it, sweet?" he asked, his worry and concern pouring over her highly sensitized emotions.

His attentive feelings helped soothe her, bringing her respirations down to a more manageable level. Legna reached up and pushed back the heavy fall of her hair as she blinked and oriented herself to where she was. She was still not used to waking up in Gideon's home. But what did she expect, after waking in her own bed without fail for almost all of the nearly three centuries she had lived?

She was, however, definitely getting used to all the sweetly achy places she woke up with. Gideon always offered to soothe any of her sore places, and although she knew he was privy to her thoughts and feelings, she always responded with "What sore places?" making him laugh and grin with a purely male smile of satisfaction.

However, those loving feelings they had engaged in for the past days were close to dormant in that moment. Instead, her heart was gripped with an inexplicable sensation of fear. He moved to face her, close enough that they pressed thigh to thigh as they sat facing each other on the bed. He cradled her head and face in the width of his gentle hands, making her look up into his concerned eyes.

"Tell me," he urged softly.

"I … cannot. I do not understand. Maybe … just a bad dream."

"And does this happen often with you? Just like this?"

She mutely shook her head, tears welling in her eyes as the alien fear continued to claw at her.

"Listen, love, things are not the same for you anymore. You will never be like an average female Mind Demon again. My power inside of you changes everything. I do not know how exactly. That will show itself in time. But remember that it will tend to frighten you as you first begin to figure it out." He paused to kiss her trembling lips, the connection warm and soothing in ways his words could never be. "You have to think calmly. It is just like when your natural abilities first revealed themselves. You have to examine what is happening, accept it, and try not to be afraid of it."

"How do you know that's what it is? New power and ability?"

"I can feel it, Nelissuna. I have been feeling it for days now. So have you, but you do not want to acknowledge it."

Legna exhaled heavily, scattering stray strands of hair.

"Thank you for the timely warning," she said dryly, giving him a dirty look far too much like the ones she used to give him. But this time it made him chuckle softly.

"If you like, I can leave and let you figure this—"

Legna grabbed his arm at the bicep when he made a strong movement to get up off the bed, jerking him back down definitively.

"Absolutely not! You did this to me; therefore, you get to enjoy the fallout."

"You make it sound like a punishment," he remarked, his eyes dancing with silver humor. "There is nowhere I would rather be than in my bed with my beautiful mate."

He leaned forward to engage her mouth in a tender kiss, their lips clinging together as if reluctant to release. Finally, he sat back, leaving her warm and happily flushed.

"Charmer," she accused him without malice.

"Siren," he countered, pulling them back together and into a deep kiss that left them both longing for breath.

"Mmm, what about the nightmare?" she asked absently, her lips brushing back and forth over his, her tongue flicking out to lick against them temptingly.

Gideon pulled back a half inch, arching an inquisitive brow.

"From just a ‘bad dream' to a nightmare? What do you remember?"

"I think …" She stopped, swallowing hard. "I had this terrible feeling like I was losing Noah, that he was fading away from me."

"Like a Summoning?"

"A little, but it was not a Summoning. Somehow, I knew he wasn't in that kind of danger, but I could not escape the feeling that I would never see him again. Gideon, it broke my heart."

The tears spilling down her cheeks confirmed that emotion, and he leaned forward to kiss them away.

"So, just an average nightmare after all," he mused.

"How do you know that?" she sniffed.

"Because, love, Noah is going away from you, just as you are going away from him. It is very likely an anxiety dream, brought on by your move out of your childhood home and the comfort of the reach of your family's love and protection." Gideon reached to stroke her hair soothingly. "I am only surprised it has not happened sooner."

"Are you sure?" Her nervousness was clear, but she was truly relaxing already.

"Yes. And so are you. You know everything there is to know about psychology, you tell me what you think."

"But you thought it was this … new level of ability."

"And for the first time in a millennium my diagnosis is wrong. I do despise it when such bothersome things occur. Now I shall have to start the ‘No Mistakes' clock all over again."

Legna giggled at him, which was of course his intention. She swung her arms around his neck, hugging him warmly.

"You smell so good," he murmured against her ear a long minute later.

"I smell like sex," she argued.

He nodded, making a loud noise of appreciation as he sniffed and nibbled her neck.

"You smell of very good sex," he amended with a voracious growl and an eager mouth moving over her bare skin with bold appetite.

"Gideon!" She squealed as he went straight for her waist, knowing she was ticklish there. The playful flicker of his tongue and the scrape of his teeth drove her mad, and she twisted as she screamed for him to stop.

When he tickled her she absolutely could not use her classic escape method. She could barely catch her breath, never mind her concentration. He replaced his mouth with his fingers, making her yelp as he reached to draw one pert nipple into his sucking lips, his hands perpetuating the torture that made her squeal with laughter.

She tried using her legs to push him away, but only succeeded in giving him the opportunity to grab her thigh in his free hand and push her open to the approach of his body. He stopped tickling her the moment he thrust deep into her.

Legna's head pushed back, a silent cry locked in her arching throat as her back came up off the bed. Gideon was done with tricks and ploys, and, drawing his lip between his teeth in purposeful concentration, he proceeded to play the interior of her body like the fascinating instrument it was. Nothing would ever equal her abandoned sounds and expression as she met thrust after thrust, her reaction so profound each time it was as if he achieved perfection just by moving. She made him feel like he was a flawless lover, but he knew it was Legna who was the perfect one.

She was meant for passion, for touch and kiss, and for each and every movement that brought them tighter and closer together. Gideon felt her around him, a cocoon of conditions meant to tend to him, created just for encouraging growth and sensation and the remarkable release of rebirth.

She pulled him down to her mouth, knowing that it drove him mad to feel her cries of pleasure vibrating over his lips and tongue and face. It always spurred him on, even when no encouragement was necessary. She met his rhythm with both her reaching hips and her vocalizations. He plunged into her mentally as well as physically, doing all those things to her chemistry that made her go ballistic with mindless bliss.

It was when they both saw starbursts of silver and gold behind their eyes that they broke, a throbbing explosion that made them shout release against each other's lips. He felt her shudder hard around him again and again, the pulsation of her muscles a sweet, sweet torture.

Gideon refused to relinquish his mate's mouth or her body. He needed to cling to her just as he was, soaking in the heat and aftermath of her release. She smiled against his mouth, kissing him again and again with all the emotion in her tender heart, allowing him to stay where he was until he was ready to leave.

"Who said I was ever leaving?" he murmured against those soft, sweet lips he would never stop craving.

"Well, not to sound like Jacob, but … Mother Nature?"

He laughed, rolling over until she was once more lying limply over his body. He liked to feel her weight like that. No matter what position they began in, afterward he rolled her onto him as if she were a living blanket. Actually, considering the mass and fall of her hair, it wasn't such a far-off thought.

"I will be right back."

She disappeared instantly, leaving him feeling terribly chilled. It was a mental perception, of course, because he could regulate his body temperature perfectly. But he was happy to prefer the imperfection of a chill so long as it encouraged Legna to blanket his body.

Gideon was smiling with the thought when a surge of energy skimmed over his senses. He sat up just as Legna rematerialized beside the bed, clad in a burgundy dress that had formerly been in the closet.

"Noah is coming."

"I thought so," Gideon said dryly. "It felt like him."

"Get dressed," she urged, rubbing her hands together nervously.

"Legna, do you not think he knows what goes on in this house?"

"Gideon, do you not think you better not make me lose my temper?" she threatened. "Please. Please, will you get dressed?"

She popped out of the bedroom instantly.

Destiny forbid her brother should see her coming from his bed, Gideon thought with a sigh. It was so … non-Demon, the way she thought about these things. Legna herself had run across Noah with a partner more than a few times over the centuries, but it meant nothing to her and she accepted it. Now here she was with her future husband, her Imprinted mate, and she was afraid of her brother realizing they had just been having sex?

Stop criticizing my motives and please come down here.

Love, do you not think your brother felt the energy of our lovemaking from miles away?

I hate you.

Perhaps, but only for the moment, he chuckled.

The beautiful catamount circled the house slowly, her muzzle to the ground every now and then as she tried to make sense of the scents she was picking up. The door was wide open and, with slow steps, the mountain lion progressed into the dwelling. She picked up blood scent immediately and made a beeline to it. There was a stain on the carpeting, still wet with freshness.

The wild cat licked at the spot slowly, unable to resist the lure of the aroma, never mind the taste. She had never tasted anything like it before, its composition so alien it left her confused. There was a touch of power in it. Nothing strong, but enough to indicate it did not belong to just a human.

The room was full of the scent of Demons, and the cat flicked wary golden eyes around herself. She smelled the odor of residual fear, the scent of hostility. Something violent, predator versus prey, had taken place in this dwelling, and suddenly the cat understood that she should not tarry there in case others arrived and mistook her intentions.

She turned to lope out of the door, but was frozen in place when a sudden flash of sulfur and smoke blew into the room with uncontrolled violence. The Demon that rushed out of the cloud stopped short once he saw the catamount dropping into a sudden, defensive crouch upon seeing his approach.

Kane had felt his mate's distress for all of a second, and when the minuscule whisper that was her presence suddenly vacated its home in his mind, he became instantly fearful. It had taken him some time to calm down enough to concentrate on his teleport home, his fledgling status making him raw with the knowledge that had he been just a little older, a little stronger, he would not have been so unschooled as to allow his feelings to interfere with his ability.

But now, as Kane looked from the mountain lion to the spot of red sprayed over the carpeting, he was blinded by rage and pain. The scent of the blood was that of his mate, and he knew with every fiber of his being that she was injured and in severe danger. His hands curled into fists, his dark eyes, so much like his elder brother's, flashing with intent and emotion as he advanced on the cat.

She backed up, the hackles on her back rising as she looked for escape. She made her decision quickly, understanding that she could never outrun a teleporting Demon. The cat began to shake, the jingle of the collar around her neck giving the Demon pause. It was incongruous that a wild cat would be wearing a collar. It bought the cat time as she continued to shake, her fur beginning to peel away in long, fist-thick coils of gold.

Moments later, Kane found himself looking into the golden eyes of a woman. Nude but for her collar, she rose to her natural height, which was quite significant. The drift of her hair hid most of her nudity, but the Lycanthrope female was uncaring of that. Her entire focus was on the startled Demon before her.

"I am Siena, Queen of the Lycanthropes," she introduced herself softly, keeping her rich voice warm and compelling as she spoke. He was a Mind Demon, resistant to her suggestive abilities, but it wouldn't hurt to soothe him just the same. "I will let you into my mind and you will see, Demon, that I am not the one responsible for this."

The Lycanthrope Queen? In his house? Kane almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of such a claim. But he knew that collar well enough. Imitation it might be, but he had heard of the complexity of it, seen drawings of it. It was supposed to be so unique that it could not be counterfeited. But how was he to know the difference between even a bad counterfeit and the true necklace?

She had, however, given him the perfect solution. Despite his ingrained distrust of the Lycanthropic species, he narrowed his eyes and ventured into her mind. She put up no barriers, allowing him freedom that could be very threatening to a woman who ruled an entire species. Had he wanted to, he could have had access to any number of secrets. But he respected her offer to him and stayed on the path of her short-term memory.

Siena had found this scene just as he had. Being a male Mind Demon, he could have known instantly if it was a fabrication, but it was not. She was telling the truth, the evidence in her thoughts.

"What brings you to my home, Highness?" he asked with automatic politeness, an impressive courtesy, considering his emotional upset. "What do you know of what has happened here?"

The golden-haired Queen reached to pull an afghan off the chair closest to her, wrapping it around herself as she moved to sit down in a nonaggressive pose.

"I was tracking a group of necromancers. I had no idea this was a Demon dwelling until I entered it, apparently too late, and for that I apologize. Had I known they were going to attack a member of your household, I would not have remained in the tree line." Siena crossed her legs, sitting as if she were clad in a gown of gold and a crown instead of a well-worn afghan Kane's mother had made long ago. "As it was, I saw about four of them, all women, gathering around outside. None of them entered, but they waited for several minutes. I see now they were keeping guard while someone else entered the dwelling. How they did so without my knowledge can have a multitude of explanations. What I do know is that no one with black magic entered this dwelling."

"Then how…?" Kane ran a troubled hand through his hair. "Hunters? They don't use magic, and Corrine is not strong for a Druid, so it would have been easy to overcome her."

"Ah! A Druid! This makes more sense now. I could not recognize her scent. I have never known the scent of a Druid. I do detect the strong thread of human scent; however, it is clearly mutated. I suppose this means your Druid is half human, is she not?"

"Yes. And you weren't able to recognize what she is?"

"My apologies. The combination is too new to me. However, I would venture a guess that your intruders are not in the dark about who and what she is."

"I have to go. I have to find my brother," Kane said anxiously, moving back a step as he tried to shed his overwhelming fear and concern for his adored mate. Siena felt his distress keenly, her empathy with animals allowing her a peek into the animal instincts that Demons blended with their veneer of civilization.

"I will remain here and see what more I can discover," she assured him, the soothing spell of her voice helping him center himself. "No one else will pass this way without answering to me."

Her reassurance helped him. Settled with determination, Kane teleported to Noah's home.