Jasmine fell silent, clearly angry and put out by his behavior, which was so impractical and impossible for her to understand. The Princess had just staked one of Damien’s strongest enemies, literally with one arm behind her back. Though the myth of staking fell short of the instant death it was reputed to have, once Nico removed it he could bleed to death very quickly. Syreena had very likely killed him. It was not as if she were some frail flower of a woman or anything. She could not be so. That kind of woman would have turned Damien’s stomach in an instant.
Sacrificing his health to see to a mere broken arm was ridiculously illogical. For once, Jasmine was in agreement with the Lycanthrope.
“Very well, then. At least drink from me to sustain yourself,” she said, sweeping back her ebony hair and moving closer to him.
“Jasmine.”
Damien’s warning tone came only a second before a threatening, predatory growl erupted from the woman he sat near. Jasmine’s dark eyes snapped to the Princess, instantly reading the threat that had wired her entire body. She comprehended immediately that this was a territorial vocalization. If there was one thing she knew, it was the reaction of someone warning others off their property.
Her property.
How dare she interfere
, Jasmine thought in outrage.
Who does she think she is? I have supported and sustained Damien all of my life!
“Very well. Have it your way,” she snapped at them. Then, with that supernatural speed all Vampires were blessed with, she tore out of the underground Lycanthrope castle.
Once she was gone, Syreena turned regretful eyes to her mate. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”
“I think you do,” Siena said consolingly. “I would do the same if a woman offered herself up to Elijah right in front of me. It was insensitive for her to do that.”
“No. She was only being practical,” Damien said quietly. “Jas is practical to a fault. You and she are more alike than you realize, Syreena. She sees me as someone worthy of protecting. She has been loyal to me all of her life, in the way that you would be loyal to your sister. Be patient with her. None of us understands the nature of what has happened between us, and it has been such a sudden thing.” Damien waved off the serious topic, turning back to Gideon. “Are you certain she will heal properly, old friend?”
“It is broken, not shattered. The bruising looks bad, I know, but I assure you it will mend once it is set. If you doubt me, perhaps you should gain access to one of the healer Monks.”
“I do not doubt you in the least,” Damien returned surely. “It was a question I am certain you would ask yourself were you forced to put Magdelegna’s health in someone else’s hands. We Nightwalkers are just very protective of our wives.”
Damien raised Syreena’s healthy hand to his lips, so he missed the delighted look Siena shot to her husband, who was leaning back against the wall of the room with casual ease as he observed all the personal dynamics unfolding before him. Elijah knew Siena was soaring with joy for her sister having found such apparent happiness, especially after the days of worry Syreena had put her through recently. The Warrior Captain was, of course, glad to have his wife in good spirits again. However, he would reserve opinion on the rest of the matter. If the joining of a Lycanthrope and a Demon had been incredibly difficult, Elijah figured that a union between a Lycanthrope and a Vampire would be damn near impossible.
Obviously that did not include emotions or physicality, he realized as he watched Damien’s intimacy with Syreena. For all their bangs and bruises, there was no mistaking their feelings and the tracks of themselves that each had left upon the other. That they were mated was unquestionable. That they were in love was also clear. But Elijah remembered the pause that had come after his similar experiences with Siena. The fact of the matter was that they were members of two completely differing societies, both with positions of great influence, responsibility, and obligations.
Elijah glanced back to his wife. He realized instantly that she was aware of his thoughts. Though she was pretending to remain focused on Gideon’s manipulation of her sister’s arm, her eyes were suddenly upset and disturbed. As were her thoughts.
She looked up at him briefly, her expression and thoughts feeding into him instantly.
Can our people ever accept two alien men as mates to their monarchs? They have barely begun to accept you, my love.
I know, kitten,
he thought in return.
What is worse, Vampires may very well try to slaughter their ruler if he thinks to take a Lycanthrope bride.
But Vampires hold no ill will toward us!
Vampires have very few rules in life, Siena, so those they do have are very seriously frowned upon if they are broken. For some reason, it is against their laws for Damien to feed from your sister. Add this to their greed for power and the position that Damien holds, and it bodes ill for their safety and well-being overall.
He could have tried to lie to her, to comfort and coddle her delusions of her sister’s potential happiness, but he was a leader of warriors and she a queen. Both required the hard practicality of reality in order to be of any use in their positions and to those who depended on them. Even if Siena had not been able to read his thoughts, she always needed to face the blatant truth of things. There were no coddling fairytales for a queen…not for a good one.
And his wife was an exceptional one.
So if they stay here, they meet with censure and hostility. If they stay there, they meet the same or worse.
Elijah looked down at the stone floor for a second, his wife’s anxiety almost too much to bear from across a crowded room where he could not get to her to comfort her without being terribly obvious to the objects of their concern.
If you touched me now, I would start to cry like a child,
she told him.
I know. That is the only thing keeping me against this wall at the moment, kitten.
Siena turned her head, her golden lashes blinking rapidly as she felt the burn of tears anyway.
“Hey, babe, let’s leave these two with the doctor.” Elijah spoke up suddenly, moving across the room to fetch his wife from between Damien and Gideon with a single smooth pull. “Why watch the doctor when we can be playing it instead,” he teased, giving Syreena a sly look of mischief.
The Princess laughed at him as he swept her sister into the corridor without another word. Once outside the door, he drew his mate to the comfort of his embrace and all the shoulder she would ever need to cry on.
Damien reached to place a gentle kiss of pure affection on Syreena’s forehead. She was asleep, so the gesture went completely unnoticed. He was sitting on the bed next to her, or rather, half beneath her. She had fallen asleep in a semi-upright position, her back nestled to his chest. He touched her hair, the living tendrils shifting beneath his fingers, some moving away, and some wending lightly over them.
He realized that he had some hard choices ahead of him.
Jasmine, for one. He could not be the rope in a tug-of-war between the two women who meant the most to him. He needed to find a solution as soon as possible. He mostly wanted to talk to Jasmine and make sure she understood there was nothing for her to be so afraid of. He was not going to abandon her, and he was positive that Syreena would not wish for him to do so, either. Territorial was one thing, jealous even another, but demanding that he choose between the person he considered his most valued friend and her? She would never ask it.
Jasmine, unfortunately, was not above such a demand. That was the nature of Vampire selfishness. He knew that, and he suspected even Syreena knew that. What he could not understand was why Jasmine would feel threatened all of a sudden. They had walked the world together for five hundred years. What on earth did she think was going to make that change?
He had also realized exactly what kind of danger he was exposing Syreena to. Nico’s aggressive actions against them had shown him that. Damien was used to battling for his throne. It was simply a fact of his life. However, he no longer had the luxury of being blasé about it. The possibility of meeting death had always been an incidental thought. He had always figured that it simply would not matter; that if it happened, it was meant to happen. It was the price he would pay for a millennium of life and for the privilege of being the longest surviving Prince in all of Vampire history.
Now he had other interests to consider.
Syreena’s interests.
He had only just found her, so he was hardly eager to lose her or to have her lose him. He could not bear the idea of causing her that much pain.
And there would be unspeakable pain.
He knew, without a doubt, that Syreena loved him. She had not spoken of it yet, probably not even to herself. He could accept that, considering how quickly everything had come about for her. What really mattered was that she felt it. Though unacknowledged, it was in her thoughts and it was in her spirit. He would have known it to be the truth even if he had no insight into her mind. He had understood that the moment she had sacrificed herself to Nico in order to warn him of danger.
Damien knew she could have found escape if she had only run a couple of yards in the opposite direction. The cliffside at the point where she had met Nicodemous was only that far away. It would have been nothing for her to leap off it and down into the water below. Whether or not she could change into the dolphin, she had every water-born instinct in her human form she would need to survive the plunge and swim out of reach of Nico’s grasp. He never would have followed her down such a treacherous fall. To him, it would have been suicidal; to her, it would have been like breathing.
Instead, she had run toward him. As promised, she had used every ounce of advantage and strength she had to try and return to him. In this case, to give him fair warning. Damien had fought Nico once before and, though it was a challenge, he would have defeated him with or without warning this time as well. Of course, she had no way of knowing that, really, so she had done what she thought she had to do to protect him.
Again, he was not used to others stepping in front of him in that kind of role, but he was beginning to become more tolerant of it, not insulted by it. Those actions, in and of themselves, only further proved to him that it was an act of deeply felt love for him.
The last thing to be considered was Siena.
He was telepathically sensitive himself, so he had known the basic nature of the exchange that had passed between the Queen and her mate. Siena feared for her sister’s happiness. Parallel to that, she was afraid of the displeasure of her people. He did not have to think too hard to figure out why. He had known what the possible consequences could be if Syreena, Siena’s only heir, chose an outlander for a mate. Syreena had known them as well. He had made certain that she did. Siena probably did not realize that this was the source of Syreena’s deepest conflict in the entire situation. He understood that this was what had kept her thinking, in spite of horrific sadness, for nearly three days. She had put herself and him through indescribable hurt just so she could make her choice with complete consideration.
“And now, sweetling, I must hunt. I will return to you warmed and hopefully at a better peace,” he whispered into her hair.
“No women,” she murmured to him, the response so sleepy she was barely awake.
“None whatsoever. I promise.”
Her only response was a sleepy sigh. He smiled against her and then gently eased himself from beneath her. He carefully arranged her and her injured arm so that pillows mostly took his place supporting her. He would not go far, nor would he be long. He could not manage it in his present condition in any event, and he wanted to be back by her side before she even noticed he was gone.
Every other concern was secondary to that.
Nicodemous kept up his flight for as long as he calculated he could. He realized soon enough that Damien was more interested in tending his harlot than chasing him, and he supposed he was grateful for that.
It did not keep him from being livid beyond reason.
If he ever got his hands on that devious, backstabbing little Lycanthrope whore, he would gut her with his best silver knife in an instant.
Unfortunately, he had to survive the removal of this cursed stick of wood first.
He landed awkwardly somewhere in the Nevada desert shortly after that thought. There was method to this particular place. It would hurt like being staked out in the sun, but sand was his quickest choice to fill the gaping wound the removal of the branch would cause him. At least within the area he had been forced to flee to. After packing the wound, he would find shelter out of the sun and the path of humans or animals and resign himself to torpor while his body healed.
It would help if he could hunt. He would never be able to in this condition, but fresh blood was always a Vampire’s best resource when it came to speeding the healing process. Since he did not have a choice in the matter, he would settle for torpor. At least he would be able to sleep and mull over exactly what it was that had gone wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but Nico was positive something strange was going on.
A Vampire bedding a Lycanthrope was strange enough, but Damien, the so-called Lawful Prince, had drunk her Nightwalker blood. More than once, by the look of the marks. There were a great many Vampires who, if they had only known about that, would take serious umbrage to it. Perhaps this would be something he could exploit at a later date.
But there was something else besides all of that. There had to be. He was too old and too experienced to not know when strange things were afoot. Damien was the best at playing mind games, but there was something about the whole trick of the falcon and the raven that was grating on his intellect.
Nico lowered himself to his knees, bracing them far apart as he closed his hands around the branch.