Chapter 7

Legna appeared in the third-floor parlor, in the suite of rooms she knew housed her friends, with her newly habitual pop to announce her arrival. She turned as the male sitting behind her put aside his book and rose to his feet.

"Legna, it is good to see you up and around," Jacob greeted her.

"Thank you. It feels good. I wanted to find out how Bella is."

Jacob moved to the bar across the way and retrieved two glasses and a decanter of a creamy, yellowish milk.

"She is sleeping a lot. I suppose that is to be expected." He turned and moments later was handing her a glass full of the rich beverage. "I did not get a chance to thank you. You have my undying gratitude, Legna. If ever you need anything, just ask."

"Thank you," she said again, taking a delicate sniff of the contents of her glass. "Hmm, very nice. Giraffe?"

"Very good," the Enforcer complimented. "Many confuse it with zebra."

"A rather spirited choice first thing in the evening," she remarked. "Are you all right, Jacob?"

"I will be, once this crisis has completely passed." He swirled the milk around in the glass for a long minute. "I have this image burned into my head of Bella lying in her own blood … and I cannot …"

Jacob broke off, clearing his throat and looking up at the ceiling as he drew a deep, unsteady breath.

"It will pass with time," Legna said soothingly, instantly adopting the calming, centering pitch she used to ease others. "Just remind yourself that she is safe and will be well again soon."

"I know. But I have to admit, I am having a hard time leaving this house even with all of the guards posted outside, even with Noah a shout away. I did not feel that she was in danger until it was almost too late. I just do not understand it. She's here in my head 24/7. How could I not even notice when she was being brutally attacked? When she dropped from consciousness and was suddenly no longer there?"

"Jacob, you are being too hard on yourself."

"I should have known when she said she was not feeling well that it was a premonition of some kind. Even with this pregnancy, Isabella is not a nervous person by nature. She always takes so much in stride, so easily. She has premonitions all the time now, and I should have known that they are commonly the cause of such strong agitation as she was experiencing when I left her. I do not know why I did not think of it. And I do not know why she did not understand it herself."

"Premonition is the most obtuse ability in the world. You know that, Jacob. She has only lived with the ability for five months. She has no idea how to always distinguish them or how to interpret them. And for that matter, what makes you think you should be able to do so any better than she does? You are a tracker and a hunter, not a soothsayer."

Jacob resumed his seat on the couch, sighing deeply and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. He looked exhausted and Legna could feel the knots of emotion he had tied himself into. She took a seat beside him, reaching to lay a comforting hand on his knee.

"You are not responsible for this, Jacob. And if I know Bella, she will be quite colorfully upset if she catches you blaming yourself. How do you expect her to heal and remain calm and peaceful if her mate is in turmoil? She may be sleeping, but she feels you. I know that for a fact."

Jacob looked at his monarch's pretty sister, his keen eyes missing nothing as he scanned her from head to toe. He reached out to touch her gently beneath both of her altered eyes.

"Now I understand," he said suddenly. "You are the reason why I keep feeling Gideon even when he is not around."

Legna drew her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded in affirmation.

"You carry his scent … but not yet completely." Jacob tilted his head to study her more closely. "It has been a very long time since I have seen two Demons Imprint on each other. It is a remarkable gift, Legna. You are very lucky."

"You know what," Legna laughed softly, "you are the first person to have anything positive to say about this. And that includes Gideon and myself."

"I take it Noah had the equivalent of a meltdown?"

"Apropos analogy for a Fire Demon, would you not agree?"

"Noah is remarkably even-tempered for a Demon of his ilk. The only one who really gets him hot under the collar regularly is that prolific sister of yours."

"I know," Legna chuckled. "I suppose I ought to count my blessings. I can count on one hand how many times I have truly ticked Noah off."

"That is because you are the baby sister, and for all of your life you could do no wrong in his eyes. I hate to say it, Legna, but you are spoiled rotten."

"Is that so? I should like to see you try being the household diplomat for two Fire Demons for nearly three centuries and then tell me how easy I have had it," she challenged.

"Thanks. I will pass on that honor."

They toasted each other, trading chuckles.

Legna materialized in Gideon's parlor about an hour later. He was sitting in the shadows behind her and she turned to him with curiosity.

"Gideon?"

When he did not respond, she stepped closer to him. That was when she realized that, in essence, he was not truly there. His corporeal form was sitting in a large chair, but his astral self was somewhere unseen. It was the strangest feeling, she noted, that he was physically close, spiritually distant, and also being kept in a quiet corner of her brain at the same time. He was utterly unaware of her intrusion near his body, his focus completely dedicated elsewhere. She took advantage of the moment to look him over once more.

She moved to stand before him and then began to circle the chair, studying him from all profiles. She did not know why she always felt this compulsion to survey him like this, but it did not keep her from doing it. After one revolution, she stopped in front of him again. He was alone, wherever he was. It almost seemed as though he was out on some sort of solitary, spiritual walk. Mind Demons were experts in meditation, so she sensed this with her experience and power as well as her connection with him. She remained quiet in his mind, though, as she knelt between his feet, settling her hands on his thighs. She moved her palms up the corded length of the long muscles and then traversed back again with the edges of her fingernails.

The stimulation made Gideon stir. She was purposely breaking the concentration he had fixed on his projection, perhaps just to see if she could. He was incredibly focused, and she knew that, so she pulled out all the stops and leaned forward between his knees until she could touch her mouth to his.

The kiss brought him back with a jolt.

Gideon immediately reached for her, his hands gently cradling her head. Legna felt his thighs tense against her sides as he took over the kiss and turned it into a desperate, nearly brutal thing. His mouth punished hers, and she accepted it willingly, payment for her disruptive teasing. His fingers tunneled through her heavy hair, gripping her with a pure hunger for the feel of having her within his grasp. He broke away from her bruised mouth, pressing his forehead to hers as they both tried to catch their breath.

"Mine," he said roughly. He wanted to deny the possessiveness, knowing how ridiculous it was, but he simply could not do it. The need to stake his claim on her was rubbed harshly raw, more and more every time he let her slip away without making her his. "You are mine, Magdelegna, and it is so hard to let you go as you wish me to, even for those short spans of time."

"I know," she whispered, pressing her soft lips to his mouth once more. She kissed him with all of her heart, and he clearly felt the sincerity. It served to soothe him greatly, allowing him to loosen his hold on her enough to bring his hands forward over her ears, his thumbs stroking her flushed cheeks gently. "It is so hard," she complained softly. "How do you remain an individual when you are also part of so powerfully driven a pair?"

"Irrational or justified, it is what it is." Gideon was realizing the logic of that for himself even as he spoke the words. "Perhaps, in time, it will be less acute. I have no desire to rob you of your individuality, nor do I wish to lose my own. It is difficult for me as well … I have been so solitary throughout my lifetime, and now, to be suddenly given such riveting company … I fear I cannot do you the justice you deserve. And for you it will be worse; with the influx of power you are beginning to experience it will be taxing, to say the least."

"I know." Legna reached up and splayed her palms over the dark silk covering his chest. "I suppose at some point, if I start to go crazy, you are going to have to knock me out or tie me up or something."

"Hmm. The latter has possibilities," he mused with a growing smile that erased the tension in his face.

Legna laughed, giving him a shove.

"Gideon, you are nothing but an ancient pervert," she teased him.

"And this is an issue because…?"

"You are horrible!" She pushed away from him, gaining her feet.

He reached to take her hand, pulling her closer once more and continuing to do so until she had nowhere else to go but his lap. She took the seat, her voluminous skirts spreading over them both.

"I will forgive you, this time," she conceded.

"Thank you," he said with honest graciousness. "Now, my beauty, tell me what you would like to do to get to know me better. I find myself looking forward to your discoveries."

"Well, I did not think of anything specific. I imagined time would fill itself."

"That is dangerously liberal, sweet. If you leave it up to the natural course of things, I can tell you exactly what we will end up doing."

Legna giggled, blushing because she realized he was right. Even just sitting in his lap and talking as she was, she could feel the mutual awareness that sparked between them, constantly simmering and waiting for just a little more heat to bring them up to the boiling point.

"Very well, I am open to suggestions," she invited.

"Again, too liberal," he teased, his eyes twinkling with mischievous starlight.

"You are incorrigible. I never realized you were a sex fiend, Gideon."

"I am now," he amended, drawing a finger down the slope of her nose. "Have I mentioned that it has been quite some time since I have found myself attracted to a female?"

"If it is anything under a thousand years, I do not want to hear about it," she warned.

"Did I mention I was a virgin?" he edited himself innocently.

"That is just wonderful, darling," she cooed with satisfaction, giving him a approving pat on the cheek.

Gideon threw back his head and laughed. She delighted him to no end and he could not remember ever feeling so light-hearted. It seemed sometimes as though he had been born too serious for his own good, and that he had been straitjacketed by it for centuries. It was a balm to his soul to be able to banter with his beautiful intended.

"I never suspected you had a sense of humor," she mused aloud, studying his face as if he were a fascinating puzzle to be figured out. "See? Hardly ten minutes into the night and I am already learning fabulous things about you."

"Imagine what will happen in an hour," he said.

"That sounded suspiciously liberal to me," she rejoined slyly, reaching to wind her arms around his neck. "Did I mention that you look like you just stepped off a pirate ship? This outfit is very … roguish."

"Roguish?"

"‘Roguish' is a word from the English language," she lectured. "It means … to be like a rogue. In your case, to be in the style of a rogue. Roguish."

"I know what it means, Neliss. I do not believe I have ever heard myself described in such a way before. I shall have to take your word on that." He reached up to push back some of the heavy fall of her hair. "You always wear dresses like this, and almost never bind your hair. Do not take this as a complaint, but I was wondering why that is."

"I like dresses. I never quite took to the idea of skirts above the ankle. I guess I am an old-fashioned eighteenth-century girl."

"I see. And just when, exactly, should I begin to look for those pigs that will be flying by?"

"You know, you sit there and accuse me of having a smart mouth?"

"Well, you were wondering what part of you was going to show up in me," he rejoined.

"Oh. Ha ha. Your stellar wit has charmed me straight to my toes," was her dry reply.

"In any event," he continued, ignoring her sarcasm, "your style suits you quite well. It suits me as well."

Gideon reached out with a single finger to trace the cream silk of her neckline slowly. The dress was a heavy sheath from shoulders to upper thighs, after which it flared out in a skirt and train of enormous folds of glimmering, iridescent material. The neckline, however, was the antithesis of the otherwise demure style of the gown, cut deep enough to allow his light touch to skim over the very tops of her breasts, taking her breath from her in an instantaneous rush.

"I cannot explain to you, Legna, how much you affect me," he said, his voice filled with the fascination reflected in his eyes as they devoured her beautiful flesh, from her neckline to the obvious thrust of dark nipples beneath the light fabric. He leaned forward slightly, bowing his head until his mouth brushed the line of her breastbone. The erotic kiss played havoc with her equilibrium and she clutched his shoulders for an anchor. His lips drew hotly over her silken skin, upward in a line that brought him to her extraordinary throat. She was shuddering with wave after wave of stimulating chills of pleasure as he nuzzled her throat and neck, paying great attention to the smallest touch and the effect it had on her. When he pulled back, she made a petulant sound of protest, making him chuckle softly. "Be careful what you purr for, little sweet. You are too tempting a delicacy for me to resist for very long."

"So I see," she said softly, her warm eyes meeting her mate's, barely a nose length away. "What you do to me seems so simple and harmless, if watched from an outside perspective, but when you are inside … it feels like fire and magic."

"Mmm, I promise, Neliss, this is only the beginning of the fire and magic you will feel from your … inside perspective."

Legna's face felt as though it had suddenly caught on fire as she blushed over his purposeful twist of her words. Hearing him say such things turned her completely inside out, setting her imagination on curious tangents that were remarkably vivid and blatantly lacking in decorum. With him sharing her mind, she was positive he was aware of every last one of them. It made her worry what he might think of her, and she wished she could make those parts of herself less obvious to his exploration through her psyche.

"Legna, your imagination delights me. I would be hard put to try and ignore it," he explained in response to her private rumination. "Never be ashamed of anything about yourself, Neliss. Never feel you must apologize for your experiences or curiosities. You lived a full and varied life before me, as I did before you. Neither will I be like Jacob, frantic every time a male enters your sphere. We are for each other. This cannot change, and I have faith in that, as well as trust in you." He soothed her bristling nerves by rising to his feet, setting her on her toes in front of him. He held her close, his hands circling her shoulders like a cloak, cradling her against the incredibly warm length of his body. "In your thoughts I find enough adventure and stimulating inquisitiveness to last us another millennium, and I will relish every experience you wish to explore."

"Even though you have probably done everything twice already?" she countered.

"I have done nothing with you. Nothing but these two days past, in truth." He reached to run smooth knuckles down the length of her throat. "There is no experience in my life comparable to the way your kiss makes me feel. Even this simple touch against the universe's softest skin is new and breathtaking. You know these are not just pretty words, Legna. You can feel it as I feel it. You can enter my perspective and know I speak the truth. Do not shy from my age and wisdom. It is all for naught when it comes to experiencing you."

Truth. The truth was, he never lied. Everyone knew that, and now she knew it as fact as well as faith. The only time he was capable of deception was when he was deceiving himself about the emotions and feelings he guarded so heavily. All of what he was saying now was an absolute truth, though. He had lived the centuries since the wars in seriousness and reservation, never once risking himself to the inevitability of loss, never allowing emotion to cloud his judgment or actions.

Until now. Now he suddenly decided to invest himself without reservation in her. Or was he really? He seemed so accepting, but was he truly accepting even the deepest nature of what the Imprinting would mean to them both? For that matter, was she?

"I think I am ready to choose an activity for us," she told him, once again forced to clear the persistent catch in her voice that appeared whenever his tenderness did.

He did not respond. He was too absorbed in the touch he was running over her skin. It had expanded to her face, shoulders, and, once more, the length of her exposed breastbone. He clearly could not resist these temptations. It was as if he was so lost in the experience that he did not even realize he had escaped into the sensual tangent.

It was safe to say, standing as close to him as she was, that she was very aware of the rise in his aroused sensuality. Even if his hand had not been burning across her skin, the unapologetic hardness of his body pressing with erotic familiarity against hers would have told her how very much lost in his need for her he was. Gideon had to be the most sexual creature she had ever encountered. And yet, only a few short days ago, if she had been asked her opinion on that particular subject, she would have made suppositions that were quite the opposite. Was he telling her the truth when he said it was because of her?

"I never lie, my beauty," he murmured, reminding her of her own understandings about that. His lips against her hair, just beneath the back of her ear, were warm and smiling even as he kissed the thrillingly sensitive spot. "And even if I were just a dirty old man, Neliss, " he whispered like the warmth of sunshine in her ear, "it would never account for the tenderness you see in me even now." He tightened his hold on her, drawing her so close that he burned hotly against her. "And you would have been in my bed, beneath the press of my body, open and inviting me in by now."

The raw observation and the aggressive heat of his body made her gasp, a mix between shocked sensibilities and excited delight. Legna looked up into his famished eyes, licking her lips with a hunger all her own.

"If we do not find something to do, we will end up in bed together," she reminded him with her heart pounding so obviously against his chest.

"Yes. Perhaps without the intention of rousing until Jacob and Bella's Beltane wedding," he mused, the pleasure of the speculation quite evident in his expression.

It was an attractive thought to Legna as well, especially as his mouth dipped beneath her hair to continue to tease the sensitive skin of her neck. But just the same, she took matters into her own hand, so to speak, and teleported out of his grasp, reappearing all the way on the other side of the room. Finding his arms so abruptly vacated, Gideon gave her an eloquent look. She was going to pay for her little trick one day, and his eyes promised it to her as thoroughly as a worded threat.

At the moment, however, she had to direct their energies elsewhere if she was ever going to have enough time to think straight about this situation. He was far too threatening an allure for them to chance too much flirtation. He was an alpha male, coded by genetics, experience, and a knowledge of the ages that told him how to get his way whenever he wanted it, that he deserved to get his way because of his superiority of health, strength, and intellect. He was to be the male of their particular pack who was deferred to as the most powerful, the most beautiful, and the one whose wishes were paramount to all others.

And she was to be his mate.

The alpha female, the huntress, the mistress and mother, the disciplinarian and the comfort of nurturing and stability. Legna realized that it suited her all too well. Even the huntress. Though only newly introduced to this part of herself, she knew it was well matched within her, that she had taken too much pleasure in her brief appearances to try and deny it now. That did not mean it did not frighten her to learn this about herself. She was a diplomat, the peacemaker and peacekeeper in both her family and in her brother's court. It was so alien to her nature of over two centuries to embrace violence and aggression. But this was what would be, an inevitability. As Gideon had said, she had made her choice. The problem was reconciling herself to it, finding joy in it. Could she ever be happy with such an alteration in herself? Could she be what he needed? Even now she could not give him what he required from her. She knew he restrained himself with pain, knew it fed the canker of loneliness he had lived with for so long, to be kept from the haven she could supply for him.

It was only his concern for her that kept him from taking what in essence was very much his, just as he was very much hers for the taking. But just as he was the gift, she could not yet comprehend how she could be a worthy recipient. There was then the deeply entrenched fear of him that had been instilled in her for so many years of her life. She had been molded to feel this, the respect of his unknown and immeasurable power, the wonder and responsibility of age and wisdom that would come to any who sought for it as Gideon had. How was she ever going to circumvent that fear? How would she even feel herself an equal, as Noah had almost always made her feel, in his house?

"With the help of your chosen mate," Gideon answered from across the room. "Legna, allow me to show you everything you fear as closely as I am able, as close as you are willing to come. Familiarity will help to wash it clean, will allow you to replace it with all you will need to walk beside me for our life. I can introduce you to your growing power, and I can also assure you that beneath all of mine I am no different than Noah or any other male Demon among us. I can also show you the advantages and the enjoyments that come from embracing not only the more instinctual side of yourself, but the same side within me."

"I do not doubt that, Gideon. That is just the problem. I do not know if I want to embrace it."

"It is fear of the unknown that holds you in conflict. You are driven by impulse and by nature in these moments and it frightens you, and I can understand that. You are far more comfortable with the idea that you are an intelligent being of high moral standards and civilization. This is how you have become the genteel and valuable creature that you are in your brother's realm. But in all things there must be balance. You cannot control these impulses when they happen, because you need savagery just as much as you need sensitivity. It is time for you to integrate the huntress with the diplomat, Legna. You do not have faith that your mind will eventually learn to regulate itself, choosing appropriately in the situations of the future. You persist in thinking that to explore the baser side of your nature would mean a total loss of control. This is the heart of your fear.

"You have not changed in essentials, Legna, and I cannot conceive that you ever will. The predator with intellect and morals will choose her battles very carefully. No true hunter hunts in excess of its needs. This is what makes the difference between a sophisticated assassin and a ruthless killer. You will bring your weapons of conscience and tolerance with you. The cold killer leaves them behind. You have perfected the cultivation of your morals and they will not abandon you. Nothing of any import will be lost in the process of nurturing the huntress. You will lose nothing, and gain so much more."

"You sound so certain," she said wearily, turning to look out of the window she stood near. "But lemmings are chock full of animal instinct, and look what happens to them."

"You are forgetting that you are an intellectual being, quite capable of realizing it is a pretty bad idea to run off a cliff," he scolded gently, slowly approaching her from behind.

She was aware of his advance, but then again, he did not hide it in any way.

"If what you say is true, then why do I feel as though I cannot stop this urge to run off a cliff and straight into your bed? It burns and beats at my every last cell, springing into this high-strung awareness every time you come near me as you are doing now. With each step you take, the fire grows, taunting me, urging me to throw morals and caution out the window and just"—she turned to face him, her eyes burning with intensity, her breath coming quickly—"just devour moment after moment with you."

"It feels reckless, Legna, I know. It is not normally in you to want to expose yourself in such ways to a male who, for all intents and purposes, seems a total stranger to you. You forget to take into account, Nelissuna, that this is no normal binding between us. The nature of the Imprinting is older than time, meant to drive those who are genetically compatible together in order to perpetuate the species's evolution and continuation. It is what drives the wolves to make hierarchy in the pack where only the alphas are allowed to reproduce. The bucks of a hundred different types of animals are propelled do battle until the strongest and most magnificent of the males is chosen to lead and propagate the herd. Like these long-lived examples, we are also compelled to perform these rituals of joining.

"The difference is that we have a special intelligence that sometimes attempts to countermand nature's plans for us. It is perhaps just one more battle that needs overcoming in order to satisfy Nature herself that we are as compatible as she would have us be. You and I are two of the finest examples of our people, Legna, so it is no surprise that we are biologically compatible. However, it is our vast intellects, our abilities, and our consciences that also dictate whether or not we should carry the privilege of Imprinting between us. This is why it is my belief that we are not so much unacquainted as you may think."

"In what ways?" she asked, moving to the fireplace to warm herself, coming closer to him in the process.

"Well, in Demon ways, for one. I may have come from a more barbaric age than everyone else around me, but who do you think pioneered the strong ethical and moral codes the youth that came after me would follow? The laws that govern you and the respects you hold in your moral code are of my origination and my making. Your beliefs, and mine, are the same. So in this way we already know one another at the heart."

He paused then, a tangible cloud of troubled emotion skidding over him suddenly. It was powerful enough to make him turn his face away from her, as if he were ashamed of what he was feeling. She could feel him struggling with something very dark and extraordinarily heavy inside of himself, but as usual he held it tightly concealed within himself, even her special access into his mind proving not strong enough to see behind the walls he erected against the world around him.

"I never wanted to see a repeat of the Druidic Wars in my lifetime, Legna. I had to do everything in my power to change what we were. How could any being of conscience, however late in coming that awareness may have been, do any less? The way the Druids were massacred, locked up from their Demon mates by those of us who were unattached … it was a cruelty I pray you will never see the like of. We who knew nothing of how it felt to be Imprinted could not even begin to understand what a horrific hell it was to sentence both halves of the mated pair to such an inconceivable torture. The Druids were left to starve to death from the deprivation of the energies of their Imprinted Demon mates, and the Demons were driven completely insane because—" Gideon broke off, this time turning his back to her as if he wanted to look out the window she had just abandoned. But this time, it was futile for him to even bother trying to cover his emotions with actions. The guilt and the shame washing through him were almost suffocating.

"Gideon."

He started when her hands suddenly were on his back, stroking him in a gesture of comfort. The soothing heat she was sending into him like soft pulses of compassion steadied his pounding heart and provided a balm to ease its ache. It was such an overwhelming gift in the face of what he was telling her, and he felt as if he should not accept it. But he had hurt for so long …

Then Gideon recalled that it was just that he should hurt He deserved to live this long with the weight of his sins upon him. He could never allow himself to forget how he had allowed the passions of hatred and prejudice, anger and fear, to cloud his judgment once. For him, it was not stories of people long dead told in detached history lessons in Demon classrooms or a lesson taught to instill moral belief in the young. For him the names and faces involved had been alive and touchable. He had been the fosterling of the Demon King, Jonas, who had been so brutally murdered by the deceptive and demented hand of the Druid monarch, Isere. And in just a single moment of trust extended in an undeserving direction, it had all come to an end. It was a moment that had started a war; an instant that had given birth to a millennium of regret and guilt, and, as of last Samhain, he had come to realize it had caused ages of suffering for all the Demons who had so desperately needed their obliterated Druid mates. What would she think of him, his beauteous mate, if she knew he had been one of the loudest voices screaming for Druid heads? Sensitive and sweet as she was, how could she ever forgive him for that?

"Tell me the rest," Legna requested, unaware of the questions haunting him but, nonetheless, using her voice as a coaxing instrument of absolution. She knew what he needed, even if she didn't understand exactly why.

"You tell me the rest, Legna," he said hoarsely. "The irony of it is astounding. Here I stand, Imprinted on a mate of unparalleled beauty, compassion, and strength, after all these centuries. Would that I could believe I deserved such a treasure, but whether I believe it or not …"

"It is what it is?" she said in soft echo of his earlier words.

Legna moved around Gideon until she was standing in front of him, looking up into the face he tried to avert from her. She caught his head between her soft hands, making him look down into her compassionate expression and forgiving eyes.

The problem is," he said in a rush of soft words, "aside from my trouble reconciling myself to the idea that I actually deserve you, Nelissuna, I am quite rusty in matters of affection and romantic emotion. I am afraid I have no idea how to go about earning your trust and your good opinion, never mind being what you need … beyond that."

"Well, you can put your mind at ease on one score, Gideon. You already have my good opinion. I know"—she stopped his protest with a raised hand—"I know I was very hostile to you this past decade, but we both know that was wounded pride. Now that I understand your thinking in your behavior toward me, I can look on you much more fairly. For instance, now I can see that it takes a good and honorable man to sacrifice such a genetically empowered urge for the sake of someone else's feelings and needs, as you did for me … and, I believe, for Noah. You were protecting his relationship with you in as much as you were protecting me, Gideon.

"You even faced great condemnation and shame because of your efforts to protect me, and I can find many reasons to find you worthy of my good opinion in those actions alone. Add to that the way you give so selflessly to those I love when they are so traumatically injured, saving them from death as no other can, and it is a very firm step on the road of one day becoming my savior. My knight in shining armor … roguish garb aside." She smiled, a dimple in her cheek flashing as she did so. "But we shall not tell Noah about that because it would devastate him to think he had been unhorsed from his position as my one true hero in life."

"I swear to you he will not hear of it from me," he promised her, his eyes shining with bright, starlit hope as he looked down on her, drinking in the curves of her luminous face. He followed the touch of his eyes with the touch of his fingertips. "Legna, I have lived so long, and there is so much you do not know about me. You may find yourself faced with a desire to change your opinion of me once more."

"Before I make such a rash choice as I did nine years ago, I promise we will discuss the matter together before forming a judgment."

The promise comforted him greatly; she could both see and feel it as he relaxed just a little bit more. She was aware that anyone as long-lived as he was had to have made quite a share of errors, but the atrocities of war belonged where they had taken place, far in the past. Gideon was clearly capable of punishing himself much worse than anyone's outside retribution could.

"Now," she continued, reaching for his hand and folding it between hers as she tangled their fingers together, "I think it would be nice to walk in the gardens. Afterward, I might enjoy a game of chess, if you are so inclined."

"Hmm." Gideon smiled as he followed her firm lead. "I have always been curious as to where you got your penchant for gardening," he mused. "I will have to turn the sun patio into an arboretum. It does not get use because of the sheet glass and it will provide a great space to work in."

Legna felt her heart dip and flutter at the insinuation that they would one day be living together. She knew, of course, that it was inevitable and that was why Gideon spoke of it that way, but still it turned her flighty stomach over with immediate anxiety.

"I hear your thoughts, my beauty," he whispered into her ear suddenly, making her stop at the threshold to the back porch in order to meet his eyes. "I cannot console you on this point. You will be mine one day soon, and you will join my household. I know it. You know it. Fear me if you must, but do not fear the inevitable. You will make a home with me long before you will feel you have come to understand me. Perhaps even before you trust me."

Legna knew he was right, and immediately the logic settled her ruffled nerves. She moistened her lips with the soft slip of her tongue.

"I am sorry. You are right, of course." She fiercely protected the boomerang thought she had, a worry over Noah being left alone, over leaving her childhood home and all that it would mean. It could mean so much happiness for her, and so much pain for others. She regretted that pain already.

"I can oblige you your walk in the gardens," Gideon was saying as he led her into the vast wilderness of his half-tamed gardens. "But chess is such a rudimentary skill for you. In fact, it will be impossible to play fairly with each of us able to read the other's intentions."

"Ah, but therein lies the challenge, Gideon. He or she who learns how to master the blocking of the other's thoughts will soon become the victor." She smiled, but Gideon did not feel the irony she felt behind it. "I say it is an excellent challenge."

"Since you put it like that, I find myself inclined to agree."

Gideon stopped his progress abruptly, the ripple of it moving up their joined arms, tugging her to a halt that reversed her momentum and sent her bumping into his tall frame with a little grunt of surprise. She blinked to clear her disoriented sense of direction, looking up into his determined gaze as his hands came to cradle her face once more. He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with timeless tenderness, the usual lust for one another that sprang between them being held firmly at bay.

He wanted to her to know that the only part of his body engaged in this moment was his grateful heart, and this was the only way he could tell her.