And then the more serious reality and realization struck her. Damien and Jasmine had gone off to do exactly what he had promised her only hours ago that he would not do. He had claimed to understand how irrational an act it would be to risk himself in such a way, and had sworn to think about her needs and feelings before making such reckless choices ever again.
Syreena felt a sense of betrayal on top of a deeply driven fear. She wanted to believe that he and Jasmine could care for themselves, but how could she trust that when she could not even trust him to keep his word on so important a promise? How could she live the rest of her life with someone who double-talked her, then waited until her back was turned before doing exactly what he wished anyway? How could she securely believe anything he said if these were the things he would do?
It hurt to think he would do something like this. She had so wanted to believe him, had found it so easy to do so once she had made up her mind about where she belonged. Had she so misjudged his character? Had they all? Was her judgment so poor all of a sudden?
No. She had to try not to be that hard on herself and on him. Damien was passionately disturbed by the idea of a traitor amongst his people. He was used to them being somewhat untrustworthy, but only in certain matters and up to a certain point. Anything beyond that certain point, well, it was clear that he took such a betrayal very personally. Syreena knew Siena’s reaction would very likely be quite similar in passion and strength had this sort of thing occurred in her court.
However, Syreena would have advised caution to her sister, and her sister would have listened to her and obeyed, trusting her wisdom on the matter, or she would have put her foot down without giving opportunity for arguments. Siena would not have made a pretense of agreeing with the Princess, and then snuck out behind her back like a naughty child dodging curfew.
Syreena would be damned if she was going to let Damien think he could be this capricious with his promises to her. She could accept his Vampiric ways, from boredom to the need for strange relationships and amusements, but she would never accept duplicitousness.
It only took her a few minutes to conclude where they would have started the kind of hunt they were on. She ran through the stone rooms until she found one with a window that opened outward into the cold night.
She leapt over the sill instantly.
Syreena winged her way toward the cavern Library with all speed. They had a good head start on her. She had no idea what she was going to do when she caught up with them, if she was even able to do so, but she was working on an impetuous flood of emotion and determination that dictated her actions. She would take this journey one leg at a time, deciding her actions on the fly.
Syreena’s sister was the huntress of the family, and as such was the more skilled tracker. The Princess’s forms were more for speed and visual acuity needed once a target was already achieved. Syreena was debating whether to recruit her sister into this venture even as she alit outside of the entrance to the Library.
She immediately became aware of the silence and the mess scattered from the interior room into the outer caverns. The Library was lit by little more than a single smoldering torch, and from what she could see, it had been hastily excavated of all the rest of its inventory, the furnishings as well. What had once been ancient orderliness and craftsmanship marred only by touches of must and mildew was now torn and tattered chaos.
She could smell blood, all kinds, all of it bearing great power even in its spillage. She hesitated on the threshold of that place now that it had seen such violent death. It was not because she was squeamish, but because it felt as though it should be treated with respect. There was a feeling like the place had been raided, a tomb pilfered by grave robbers.
Of course, that was not truly the case. It was little more than her imagination and the remnants of the battle that had stolen precious lives.
Outside of the taint of the dead and the awesome amount of variety left by the Lycanthropes that had plundered the Library, there was the fresh scent of Vampires.
One of whose aroma was as familiar to her senses now as her own was.
Damien.
She had almost been hoping Lucia had been mistaken, hoping she would not find any trace of them having been there, but of course it had been a foolish pipe dream to think so. Damien was passionate about his people, apparently even more than he was passionate about her.
She pushed aside her disappointment and crouched down in the darkness to seek out his path.
She was not looking for anything with actual use of her eyes; it was more like a visualization of a trail made by the collection of small pieces of data through her varied senses. Syreena discarded the extraneous information, including Jasmine’s notable trail, and focused on her mate.
They had walked out of the caverns together.
That was all well and good, but would she be able to track them in flight?
It was the strength of Damien’s trail that made her believe that she could. Either he was making absolutely no effort to conceal his actions, or she was developing a knack for sensing where he had been. Add that to her natural affinity for detecting things while airborne, and she might very well be in luck.
She quickly set out after him.
It turned out that tracing Damien and Jasmine was far easier than she would have ever expected it to be. Of course, they really had no reason to hide their trail even if Ruth or one of her cohorts decided to backtrack them for some reason. But then Syreena realized that if Ruth backtracked them, it would mean she was the victor in whatever contest was taking place, and it was quickly an unbearable thought. It made her fly all the faster after him.
Syreena’s advantage was that she was following a fresh trail, unlike Damien and Jasmine, who were tracking one nearly twenty-four hours old. It made her able to travel much faster than they had. She prayed it was enough to get her to them before they got themselves into any trouble.
Her heart began to pound with anxiety as she realized they were once again heading toward France and Mistral territories. It was understandable that she was apprehensive, she reasoned with herself, because she had experienced so much pain and trauma the last time she had been in the area. However, her self-psychoanalysis did little to soothe her frantic heart or her mind. The idea of Damien exposing himself to the dangers of that psychotic woman was near devastating.
Syreena watched more carefully now, flying low to the ground, skimming over and under treetops in whatever manner would keep her best concealed. She knew she was nearing Brise Lumineuse. She also realized the trail would end very soon. Ruth had a recent motivation, whatever it was, for skulking around in Mistral lands, and it was very likely she was still there in pursuit of her purposes.
That is, provided the information in the text she had stolen from Jasmine had not redirected her passions. Ruth had already recruited a Vampire and been to Vampire territory. What was to say that she would not end up there again, quite soon, pressing for more Nightwalkers as followers?
Syreena was making herself sick and a little bit light-headed with such thoughts. She lighted onto a branch for a moment, nervously shaking out feathers and rearranging them while she gathered a couple of breaths and some new fortitude.
She was close now, she could tell that. Very close.
Syreena was suddenly afraid to move any closer to the two she tracked. She was not stupid, after all. Jasmine and Damien had mental abilities that would protect them from Ruth’s detection. If she flew into that situation and the Vampires were hiding or using stealth for some reason, she would give them away by her thoughts alone.
She realized then that she was just as guilty as Damien was for not thinking this through. It served to make her even angrier with him. If he needed assistance, how would she know? How would she be of any help to him like this? If they made it out of this situation in one piece, she would kill him herself.
She closed her eyes and tried to calm her thoughts and her breathing. If she kept on as she was, she would broadcast her presence to anyone skilled enough to sense her. Of course, as the falcon she was impossible to discern from other animals, unless anyone got close enough to see the collar around her neck that was half hidden in feathers.
When she was quite a bit calmer, she was able to use logic and her own refined senses to make the most of her vantage point. She peered through the darkness in the direction of the Vampire duo’s paths. She took off from one branch and glided through the shadows and leaves until her talons caught another. The change in position was perfectly noiseless, and the bare branch of her roost was hardly disturbed by her careful landing.
Her silence of movement was what allowed her to hear the unmistakable sound of wings pushing through air. The little heart in the falcon’s breast picked up in tempo immediately and she used her sharp sight to pick through the trees, branches, and night sky. The glide of black wings in relief against the glow of the moon was perhaps one of the most valuable sights she could ever remember seeing.
The raven spiked down from the sky, diving toward her with impressive speed and markedly increased accuracy. One day soon he would attain a level of skill that would make him indiscernible from Lycanthropes or Mistrals who were partly birds for all of their lives. However, the slight wobble to his glide as he aimed for the same roost she sat upon told her that there was no mistaking the inexperienced Vampire.
He buzzed her, wing tips flapping over her beak and eyes in clear pique and admonishment. She jumped off the branch, winging down to the forest floor, half-human by the time her feet touched the ground, and fully so before he had even alit beside her.
Damien’s form unfurled from the raven’s and she was immediately relieved to see him in his usual perfect health and strength.
“Are you mad?” he demanded.
“I was about to ask you the same question! What in the Goddess’s name are you doing here, Damien?”
“Later,” he barked sharply, silencing her with a sharp hand gesture. “You are too close to Ruth. If I can sense you, she most certainly can. You need to leave before—”
“Before I get to watch her break your idiot neck?” she cut in with a snap. “Before I really lose my temper and kill you for her?”
“This is neither the time or the place for this, Syreena!”
“Precisely my point! But if you truly agreed with me on that, you would not have come here after we purposely discussed how stupid and foolhardy it would be to go after her!”
“I am only here trying to find out who the traitor from my people is. I have no intention of getting into a battle with Ruth, but if you do not leave now I may be forced to do that very thing!”
“Don’t you dare blame this on me! You made a promise to me, Damien, and now I find you breaking it! You are a liar and an inconsiderate ass!”
“Damien, shut her up or I will do it myself!”
The feminine hiss from the darkness of the trees was all too familiar to Syreena. Her face flared with heat and color as outrage roared through her. Her small hands clenched into fists and her teeth ground as she clenched her jaws together tightly. Her multicolored eyes flickered with the violence of her emotion as Damien’s cool blue gaze remained on hers with dispassionate wintriness.
“I am unaccustomed to reporting my actions to someone as if I were a child, Syreena, and I am sorry if that disturbs you but, as I have said repetitively, this is neither the time or place for an argument about it.”
“Very well,” she said. “Go and skulk about in dangerous territory with that troublemaking woman if it pleases you to do so, but if you think to find me waiting in supplicant domestication for you when you return, you are sadly mistaken!”
Syreena moved to pass him, but he grabbed her about the upper arm and forced her back around with a whirl of her own momentum.
“Think before you threaten and act in haste, Syreena,” he warned her on a heated whisper.
“Oh, you mean like you have done?” she shot back. “Do as I say and not as I do? What are you mistaking me for, Damien? A child? A puppy in need of training so you may bring me obediently to heel? You craved my independence of thought and action all this while, but now when they run counter to your own, it is undesirable? I will not be brought to heel by you or anyone else ever again!” She shook him off her arm with impressive violence of strength. “I came to you for my freedom, and you offered it to me with blessings and pretty words, on an imaginary silver platter. I will be your equal and your respected companion, honored and trusted and given nothing less than full disclosure and truth where it matters most, or I will be nothing at all to you, do you understand?”
Syreena whirled around sharply, surprising Jasmine, who had been coming up behind her. “If you touch me, Vampire, I will rip out your treacherous heart with my bare hands, I promise you!”
“If you do not shut that shrewish mouth of yours, I will be happy to test your abilities, Princess, but it will be up against Ruth and her partners that you will be forced to do so. Can you get that through your head before she pops up in the middle of all this?”
“Let her come! At least she is honest in her motivations!”
“I thank you for the compliment, Princess.”
Syreena felt both Vampires jerk when Ruth spoke just off to the right of them, but she was surprisingly calm as she turned with a single step, bracing her feet apart. Her small hands curled into tight fists as her heart began to pound.
“I owe you,” she whispered softly to the Demon, who was smiling at them as if they were guests at a party.
“I imagine you do. Come, girl, and get your pound of flesh if you dare.”
“Syreena!”
Damien’s shout and grasp were both completely useless as the Lycanthrope Princess lunged for the Demon necromancer. Syreena changed form midleap, wings and talons of human dimensions sprouting out with awesome speed. Ruth had not battled either of the Princess’s Wereforms before, and seeing the harpy streaking toward her with a vengeful fury of speed was startling enough to give Syreena the advantage.
With disruption of concentration, Ruth could not teleport. However, she could still react and move like the warrior she had once been. Nonetheless, in spite of a skillful dodge, the blond Demon still caught the brunt of large talons across her left shoulder, clothing and skin ripping audibly under the rend of them.
Damien and Jasmine moved to react, but were brought up short by an explosion of thick, black smoke that appeared between them and the two fighting women. The smoke billowed up in clouds with all speed, immediately revealing a figure in the center.
“Nico,” Damien hissed.
“It figures,” Jasmine added a little more dispassionately.
“In the flesh, so to speak,” Nico agreed. He spoke a single phrase, rapid and sharp, a flick of palm and fingers gesturing toward his enemies.
Jasmine and Damien both made sounds of surprise when the forest floor suddenly came alive beneath their feet. Tree roots burst out of the soil, slapping around the Vampires’ ankles and calves, effectively tying them to the spot.
Damien’s solution was quick. The raven came with speed, making him small enough to slip free of the magical trap. Jasmine was less delicate and artful about it. She reached down with bare hands and a growl, grabbing at the restraints with a violent ripping motion. The flesh and pulp of the roots went flying everywhere as she tore into them like a vicious little animal on the attack.
Damien flew at Nico’s head, and then purposely changed form mid-momentum. He used his clumsiness to his advantage as his full body weight plowed into the traitorous Vampire. Both men drove down into the rotting litter on the forest floor, but when they skidded to a stop, Damien was on top, his hands clutching the other Vampire’s clothing across his chest as he showed fangs and snarled in his enemy’s face.
“Here it is, Nico. The moment you have been waiting for. Let’s see who deserves my throne.”
Jasmine finally freed herself, stumbling away from the fresh uprooting of tendrils that the continuing spell sent after her as she escaped. She flew up into the air far enough to remain out of reach of the snare, and far enough to give her a rounded view of the struggles below her. Damien could handle Nicodemous for the immediate moment, and she was not worried about him. At first glance, the Princess had made her mark, having an upper hand over the Demon female as well. However, Jasmine knew that surprise had been her advantage, and from that point on the Princess was going to be seriously outgunned.