Noah (35 page)

So much pain and abuse, so much horror, and he couldn’t bring himself to purposely expose her to more. Expose her to beings of corrupted power and their perverse propensity for toying with their food before killing it? No.

Never.

Noah knew it wasn’t fair of him to hold her responsible for his inability to cope with his fear of her being harmed. After all, she’d survived a very long time, most of it unscathed, as a Marine, a mercenary, and extreme sports fanatic. She had gleaned so much information in so short a time, had managed to so easily slip into a military intelligence mind-set, able to grasp strengths and weaknesses of Nightwalkers enough to reach high levels of conceptualization and reasoning.

She was right. He knew very well she was well versed enough in the ways and means of Nightwalkers, able to plot out intelligences for and against them, to decipher and profile their logic. She was completely aware of what she would face should she end up face-to-face with any Nightwalker with enemy intent. But even he didn’t fully understand what he was going to be facing this night, the unpredictability of the rogues making this an exceptionally hazardous venture.

Her comprehension of their enemies wasn’t the issue, and she was right to call him wrong for trying to make it one. But it was more than just his fear of her coming to harm, although that in and of itself was enough to compel him to lock her up like the chauvinist she’d just accused him of being.

Noah was a being who sought peace above all else. This mission was about protection and redemption. It was about removing a threat. An unwelcome and distasteful task, but a necessary one.

Kestra was just hungry for a conflict. Yes, she understood the morals of the situation and was on the proper side of the issue. However, while her morals might be sound, her motivations were skewed. She was thinking only of a woman in jeopardy at the hands of males and the opportunity for retribution. She wished to play the role of an avenging angel. She didn’t realize her own motivations, or how dangerous it would be to indulge in them.

“Kes.” He swallowed hard, searching for words that usually came so easily for him. Where was his effortless diplomacy when he needed it so badly to ease his way with her? Truth. It was so hard to speak the truth. “Yes, I fear for you.” He reached up and palmed the nape of her neck until he had drawn her forehead to touch his. He sighed deeply with the contact, feeling relief for some reason. “I fear your being hurt. I disapprove of your vengeful motivations for wanting to be a part of this. And in spite of your exquisite intelligence and unquestionable skills, you are not up to this. Even I am uncertain of everyone escaping this conflict with their lives.”

She was silent for a long minute and he lifted his head so he could see her eyes. Her mouth was set in a grim line, her eyes averted from him, a tense muscle stretched taut in her jaw. Then her sharp, cool eyes flicked up to meet his gaze and he saw acceptance seated firmly within their breathtaking facets.

“These are arguments that I can accept and understand, Noah. I’m not happy that you feel the need to insulate me from danger, but I can understand it and I can also work with you on it. As to the rest, your reasons are sound and logical. I only wish you had been this honest to begin with and saved us argument and misunderstanding.”

“I must apologize,
Kikilia
,” he said softly, “for my behavior. My emotions have the better of me lately.”

“I know,” she said gently, wrapping her arms around his neck and settling against him. He automatically reached to hold her snug against himself, drinking in her scent and vitality. “I’m trying to remember that. Everything is so volatile lately. My head is buzzing with it all.”

Her mouth drifted down onto his and his entire body lurched with excitement even before he felt her lips. Heat crawled up his neck and face, warming both their mouths as he met her kiss with a tangle of tastes and tongues.
This
, he sighed,
is what I should be doing today
. It was Samhain, and he should be doing nothing more than slowly drinking in the flavors and the heat of his mate.

“I am Fire, Kes,” he said in a fierce whisper against her lips, “and it is Samhain. It is the worst time even for
me
to consider battle. I would rather be here, focusing these passions inside me toward making love to you all night until you begged me to stop. But I cannot do that.”

“Well, of course not. I would never beg you to stop,” she countered, licking his lips teasingly when he laughed at her. She sobered softly, though, meeting his turbulent eyes. “And I could never enjoy such a thing knowing another man could lose his wife because I selfishly kept you by my side. I’m not that type of woman. I’m not one who would beg you not to risk yourself.”

“I never thought you were,” he assured her. “I only meant to point out that with the volatility of Samhain upon me and my element, I will be capable of emotions and brutality none of my kith and kin have ever seen. I have but one anchor in this world to keep me to my senses and hold me to the code of honor that means everything to me, and that is
you
. I need you here, connected to me and within my mind.” He touched his forehead briefly and then drifted a finger through the bangs on hers. “Your clarity, your logic, and your intellect will guide me back to my peace of mind if I overstep my emotions.” His hand engulfed the back of her head and he pulled her close until her ear was beneath his lips. “You,” he breathed into her soft hair, “are my tether to this world now. I have waited for you for a hundred lifetimes, praying to Destiny for a woman of strength and courage who would one day temper my soul, ease my way in this world, and She has finally answered my prayers.”

Kestra tensed briefly in his grasp, but then sighed with acceptance and absorbed his fevered feelings. He had such faith in her, and she couldn’t bring herself to shatter that faith, no matter what her fears might be.

“I know you fear dependence on me.” Noah laughed low in his throat and she heard the harsh sting of irony. “The truth is that
I
am dependant on
you
, Kestra. I hope this is not an added source of fear for you. I know it is a hard responsibility.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she murmured softly into his ear. “You may keep trying, but it won’t work.”

“But I am afraid of me,” he said heatedly. “Of me without you. I would not have borne many more holy moons without destroying myself, baby. I know it as surely as I know how sweetly you smell, taste, and feel. My life was half lived before you came into it.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “And now that you are Imprinted upon me, my life will end a heartbeat after yours. It has to, Kestra, because nothing and no one could ever bear the violence of my grief if it did not. Do you understand,
Kikilia
?”

Kestra’s heart was lodged so tightly in her throat that she could only nod against his cheek. Her chest felt as though it was going to burst apart. She was greedily soaking up the ambient heat of his fervent emotions. He tightened her to his body in a snug hug that sealed them together.

“You’re just saying that because I’m so good in the sack,” she choked out on an emotional laugh.

Noah laughed softly at her tension-defusing humor, but hugged her tighter, eliciting a pleased grunt from her as the air rushed out of her body.

“I hardly have enough data to make that a truthful supposition,” he taunted her quietly. “Something we will work on when I return.”

She pulled away from him, glancing down at the small group on the first floor awaiting their King’s pleasure. She looked back at him, reaching to draw his face between her soft hands.

“I can’t believe I’m going to kiss you and send you off to battle like some antebellum romance heroine.” She sighed when he smiled, and leaned forward to kiss him softly. Noah immediately drew her closer, needing to take her flavor deeply into his mouth, sweeping her into his senses so he would carry her with him and remember what he would be fighting for, and what he needed to return to more than anything else.

When she finally drew back, flushed and breathless, she reached to tap his forehead.

“Knock, knock,” she whispered.

Instantly, Noah opened his mind to her, connecting them as firmly as he could, sharing everything so she would be with him fully in spirit. Then he turned and descended the rest of the stairs, moving to meet his companions in this endeavor.

Stephan was focusing too hard. He could tell because he was starting to feel overwhelmed by all the presence and power milling about the citadel. Everything was becoming a steady, indistinguishable buzz, with no definition or clarity. He telepathed instructions to the guards on the lower levels and quickly moved toward the nearest exit. The moment he stepped out into the cold Romanian night, into the darkness and atmosphere of his homeland, he shook off all sense of the indoors and drew in a deep breath of cleansing refreshment.

He took long strides away from the din of celebration. All was well inside, all protected, and he was due to scan the out of doors anyway. He had to confess that he had a partiality to this side of his duties. Air. Darkness. The life of stars and mountains breathing into him. Mostly, if he sectioned away the court and castle and all that social nonsense, there was the peace of solitude.

And the tremor of trespass.

Stephan’s attention snapped to with a crack of neck bones as he whirled about and into a low crouch. There was an intruder on the Prince’s territory. One deemed an enemy. The eddy of evil and tainted power fluttered into him like the wings of a swarm of dragonflies. The Vampire launched into the air, flying with ferocious speed away from the citadel, casting soft but firm warnings to the guards left behind him.

It was a single being, one Stephan was more than capable of defeating all on his own, but it did not hurt to keep the others alerted to the trouble. The blond Vampire raced toward the enemy with an enormous surge of excitement flushing through him at the prospect of battle. Life rushed into him, as did power.

He saw his target instantly, a skulk in the shadows. A child’s trick. Stephan landed boldly in the open.

“Rubio,” he commanded, his voice booming and full of the compelling fear that all in the Vanguard could project, but none so well as Stephan. “Come forth, coward, and meet your fate.” Stephan had barely finished the statement when a vile odor wafted through the crisply cold air. It was the stench of corruption.

He saw shadows flutter and he narrowed his glittering eyes, watching for tricks but not concerned enough to go in after Rubio. The weaker Vampire who thought to defy the throne and laws of their people would come crawling out to him.

“There will be order in our world,” Stephan said, his voice pitching low, compelling, and seeking the weaknesses in the enemy’s spine. “Your taint must be washed away.” He beckoned softly, like a priest to a penitent child. “Come and be cleansed.”

There was a hiss and a rustle of bushes and Rubio stumbled out of the shadows. The compulsion in Stephan’s commands had proven too strong for him. As Rubio stepped closer, a small flock of birds startled, flying up between the two Vampires and then settling somewhere beyond their battleground.

“You think you are so special, so powerful,” Rubio growled, struggling for composure amidst fear and the compulsion to kowtow to his sentenced fate. “Even the Vanguard can fall!” he declared.

“The Vanguard will never fall,” Stephan intoned. “Strike me dead and another will blossom and grow, using my blood to feed his soul for the hunt.” It was the motto of the Vanguard, known by heart for all his centuries, and probably the only truth he felt passionately about.

“I’m so glad you feel that way.”

Stephan whirled with shock at the sudden voice at his back. A Vampire, whom he had no sense of, stood there. Suddenly another appeared and another, until half a dozen surrounded him.

The birds
, Stephan realized.

Rubio had been but the bait, and the birds the camouflage used to squeeze him between the teeth of the trap.

“So be it,” he whispered before the six leapt for him.

Syreena was quagmired in the depths of her sleep. She had spent the first century of her life growing up in a monastery, where everyone went to bed late after a hard night of work, and woke early to greet the dusk. She had learned to sleep hard and sleep fast. Damien had often teased her for her ability to remain nearly comatose once she had committed herself to sleep. He had threatened to see if he could actually make love to her while she slept through it. So far, he had been unsuccessful.

So when she suddenly felt herself being pulled toward consciousness, she only partially resisted it. Syreena was confused, of course. Damien had clearly needed a good hunt and was inclined to disengage himself from her insatiable appetite whenever the opening arose. She was completely understanding of that. He wasn’t of her species and wasn’t drawn so overwhelmingly at these times as she was. Although he had no problems keeping pace, he also enjoyed his respites when the opportunities presented themselves.

Syreena was lying facedown in her bed, the heavy cashmere blanket barely pulled up over the swell of her backside. She was cold, the tower off their suite making drafts as others entered and exited. It destroyed the valiant efforts of the fire Damien liked to keep burning. She wasn’t cold enough to bear the icy touch that fell across her back and backside with a bold sweep, however, and it shocked her into wakefulness with a gasp. It was one of the meanest tricks in Damien’s arsenal that he used to wake her, the chill of his hands prehunt on her naturally hot Lycanthrope skin.

But even as she jerked awake and rolled over to throw off the offending hand, a small clang of warning went off in the back of her head. She knew Damien’s touch. She knew it like she knew how to breathe, and this wasn’t right somehow. She cranked open her heavy eyelids only half a second before a weighty hand sank into her hair, wrapping it into a fist so tight the sensitive strands cringed and she cried out in pain. A second hand slid over her mouth and she had the violent sensation of being lashed to the bed, hands and feet, until she couldn’t move, could barely breathe, and the hold on her hair was forcing her visual range in a single direction only.

Her heart raced in panic. She was helpless. With her hair bound, her Lycanthropic forms were lost to her. In four-point restraints, her fighting abilities were few, if not nonexistent. The only thing she had at her disposal was her young ability to cast illusions…and Damien, wherever he was. She was able to see down to her hand on the right side, shocked to see that it was lashed with some kind of thick mist. In fact, the entire floor was covered with a pea soup fog. It was a phenomenon she had seen her sister’s husband perform. As a Wind Demon, Elijah had control over all forms of weather.

It was unlikely he would pull such a heartless stunt. He knew how she felt about being bound and helpless, ever since the Demon Ruth had used Syreena as a means to revenge herself on Siena and Elijah. As she was trying to formulate a logical supposition, she felt the heat of a fetid-smelling breath rushing up over the web of her neck and her throat. Her heart gave a jerk at the scrape of canines over her skin. She had been bitten by Damien more than once, and it had always been an ecstatic experience, but this was such a foul sensation that it made her skin crawl with terror. In the blink of an eye she understood. She knew why this attacker had come.

They wanted what Damien had had. They wanted the power of her blood.

“Such a smart girl,” a voice whispered beneath her ear, spilling more of that vile-smelling breath across her senses. “One of the best parts about how easy this was is that you have no telepathy. You cannot even call out to him, can you?” He laughed halfheartedly. “So unfit a mate for our Prince. But to each his own. It matters not any longer. And as much as I would love to play, Princess, we must be going.”

Where were the guards? What of Stephan? How was it possible that this enemy was able to get into the citadel, never mind able to put his hands on her?

“Dead, Princess. All dead. And even alive they would not sense us anymore unless we wished them to. Come. Time to go for a little ride.”

A frightening sensation flowed over Syreena’s flesh, as if she were coming physically unraveled, becoming a part of the mist that entrapped her. There was an explosion, then another, a force of air being blown out briefly, then sucking back with a pop that sent the fog in the room swirling madly. Suddenly she saw powerful legs standing in front of her eyes, and she looked up the length of the body until she could see the face of the Demon King.

He said nothing, only reassuring her with a brief glance before a ball of fire exploded into his hand, a tidy round projectile that held meteoric chaos in its center.

“You will back away from her instantly,” he commanded, his voice as cold as the fire in his hand was hot.

Noah was horrified to see the Vampire who was phased half in and half out of a mist form. Either way, he was a breath away from the Princess’s exposed throat. Mist was lashing her into paralysis, the Vampire’s hand tightly seizing her hair. The Vampire chose a form, returning to a solid state, knowing that Noah could harm him either way if he chose to, but that he could best harm the Princess in his more easily powered form.

I will rip out her throat if you even blink, Demon King.

The telepathic voice rang through Noah’s brain gratingly, and it infuriated him that the Vampire would invade him so easily. This was an Old One. One who held pure Vampire power of great maturity. Now more power than ever flushed his paled body as he had farmed abilities from unfortunate others.

To punctuate his point, the Vampire leaned a millimeter closer to Syreena, his canines puncturing her skin just enough to cause two dark trickles of blood to roll slowly down her neck. Syreena’s eyes slid closed, an attempt to hide her agonizing fear, useless as two large tears escaped her lids. Noah could practically taste her impotent fury. It swelled with volcanic proportions as she felt the Vampire’s tongue sampling her blood, a gift meant only for her mate, tainted with violation now.

For Noah it was like suddenly dancing on the oldest, deepest question within his pained heart. What would he have done if he had been there, in that room, when his mother had first been seized by her murderer? How would he have delivered retribution if her fragile life had hung in the grip of an unbalanced mind? Here fate had dealt him that wished-for hand, and now all he wanted was to wish it away; anything to erase the anguish written across the Princess’s features.

“I will deliver you to justice, or I will deliver you to hell,” Noah warned one last time, the hoarseness of his voice telling enough to make the Princess open her eyes and look at him with wide, charcoal-gray pupils. To his unending agony, he saw forgiveness flashing in those eyes. Syreena was forgiving him, in case he should fail.

“You cannot touch me,” the Vampire swore.

And like that, he vanished, the Princess with him, the fog suddenly dissipating around the King’s ankles. He clenched his fist, breaking up and reabsorbing the fireball as he quickly sought for the trick. His mind and thoughts whirled through information and experience. It was like dealing with a half dozen Nightwalkers at once, a powerful and frustrating puzzle. At least with a single breed there came a single expectation, a specific set of rules by which these games must be played. This Vampire and those like him who had chosen to corrupt themselves were maddening wild cards.

Noah sought for energy, somehow certain that what he did
not
see was a glamour, that both were still in the room in spite of his inability to see them. He saw the imprint of the Princess’s body heat on the abandoned bed. He even saw the shadow of the Vampire’s energy as he had leaned over her. But these were ghosts of the past, and there were no shades in the present. He searched for heat, for energy, and nothing in the dark room, not even a light, showed power.

Materializing out of the dust, Jacob finally took form across the room from Noah. They had teleported in from opposite sides, Jacob maintaining a dissipated form so he could have the advantage of surprise should the occasion call for it, and also to minimize discomfiture for popping up in the Vampire Prince’s boudoir should the situation be a more embarrassing one, albeit one they had hoped for.

Seeing Noah floundering, he knew he needed to relinquish himself to solidity. Noah nodded to the Enforcer, a silent signal, and the Earth Demon closed his eyes, his spirit settling softly into the center of his body, his focus leaving the confines of all things man-made and reaching for the beauty of the natural. He spread this awareness into the room and into the nature around the citadel tower, slowly expanding in radius and intensity.

He suddenly jerked to look at Noah.

“Quick. Light the room. Bright.”

Noah reacted without thought, his entire body bursting into flames so blindingly bright that no corner of the room was left dark, forcing Jacob to throw up a shielding hand and to flinch regardless. There was a scream of pain and Jacob and Noah watched as the protection of the shadows was torn away from the Vampire who had now dragged the captive woman to the very edge of a windowsill, only the deeply colored glass preventing his escape. He had been using his stolen Shadowdweller power to become shadow with the Princess in the darkened room. Unfortunately for the devil, it also made light extraordinarily painful to him. He had absorbed the weakness along with the ability. It was a useful piece of information that was taken note of by both Demons.

Noah lit all the torches in the room, dispersing the flames around his body, robbing the Vampire of any further useful shadow. Rows of needle-sharp teeth were lying fully against the skin of Syreena’s throat now, as if the Vampire would feed even at the risk of getting caught or losing leverage. His wide eyes shifted warily from one Demon to the other. Noah heard glass cracking as the Vampire leaned his weight against it.

Threats aside, Noah couldn’t burn the vile creature while he held Syreena so near. She would be just as badly burned. Unless he was somehow closer to her, he couldn’t protect one from flames and destroy the other with them at the same time. His first instinct was to keep the Vampire from gaining the air, from leaving the room, but if they found their way out over the earth, Jacob’s abilities would come into play and could make a great deal of difference. The Earth Demon could manipulate gravity, making Syreena far too heavy to lift, but that would only enrage her captor.

Noah felt himself reaching out for the comforting touch of Kestra’s thoughts. She was thinking as hard and fast as he and Jacob were, working on even less information than they had, and she had nothing to offer. She settled for sending him supportive thoughts and her confidence that he would prevail.

Jacob, stuck in the same quandary, was examining the enemy more closely, with totally different senses. The Vampire reeked, a stench that Nightwalkers associated with corrupted souls, vile in odor to those with clean spirits. It was a mark of having gone against the natural order of their species, murdering their prey…murdering
Nightwalkers
for power. Jacob’s kind had always been sensitive to this taint. Jacob knew Noah could smell it, and as a hunter, he knew it would make the Vampire easy to track should he escape the room.

A small pane of colored glass popped out of its leaded frame as the Vampire leaned harder and harder against it. The dark colors were meant to block out all light, but now the pane was missing, and the silver wash of the light of the full moon could be seen. Jacob contemplated demolecularization, of either the enemy or the hostage, and knew that without the benefit of touch, the transformation would take too long to prevent any damage the Vampire could do in that brief interim.

Suddenly the Vampire snarled and clamped vicious teeth into the Princess’s throat. She screamed behind the hand that bound her mouth. Then, as if she had been planning it, waiting for the necessary moment, she dragged her weight forward just enough to touch the flats of her feet to the floor…and then launched back with all the strength in her willowy frame.

Syreena pushed just hard enough to send their combined weight back into the window, shattering glass and leaded threading and sending herself and the greedy Vampire over the sill and plummeting down toward the rock outcroppings at the base of the citadel. Noah and Jacob burst out of the room after them, rushing to see the Vampire struggle for a minute to keep his prize before realizing it was folly. In a blink he went from Vampire to bird, shocking the Demons with the transformation.

“Mistral,” Jacob shouted to his King, and they both understood there had been a murder they hadn’t yet heard about. Only a Mistral could change to a bird in such ways, with such speed, excepting the Vampire Prince himself, who had earned the nimble aspect from the blood of his beloved Lycanthrope wife.

Noah broke from Jacob and gave chase to the dark crow that zipped into the cover of the Romanian mountain forests. Jacob speared toward the tumbling Lycanthrope. She streaked too far and too fast ahead of him to be caught, but even as he reached to alter her relationship with gravity, her now-liberated hair streamed out over her skin, finally free to do its natural calling, and she burst into the form of the falcon almost too fast for the Enforcer to perceive. She swooped, defying a craggy death by mere inches, but Jacob knew instantly that her danger was not over. The bird lofted, tumbled, and hit the ground rolling. By the time the tumbling stopped, the Princess was in human form and lay across the shale ground gasping for breath, blood pumping from the gap in her throat.

Jacob landed next to her with a skid of his boots, kneeling quickly to press his hands to her throat in an attempt to stem the flow of blood.

Kestra had been seated before the fire in the Great Hall, feet drawn up under the seat of her bottom. All of her focus was turned inward, helplessly watching Noah struggle to find advantage in an untenable situation. She felt every moment of his agony, the pulse of pain from his memories of his mother throbbing in her throat and belly. It was the first time she’d ever heard those two words enter his thoughts or his actions.