Authors: Jacquelyn Frank
“I never wanted to hurt you. You must believe me, Bella,” he said quietly.
“Jacob is telling you the truth. Something happens to our people at this time of year that makes our instinctive urge to mate very difficult to control,” Noah explained. “We police ourselves strictly, but sometimes it gets the better of us.”
“Wait. Wait a minute.” Isabella threw up staying hands, shaking her head as everything she was learning tumbled around inside of it. “This is a very imaginative story, but how am I supposed to believe any of it? I mean... you all look so normal. Disgustingly good-looking, but normal.”
Jacob felt his lips twitch. This woman constantly made him want to laugh out loud. At himself, at their habitual solemnity, at everything he felt he had been taking far too seriously for far too long. Instead, he reached down and took both of her little hands in his, enjoying the way she curled her fingertips between his fingers, trusting him regardless of all she had learned.
“Do not be afraid,” he murmured.
Isabella opened her mouth to ask him why she should be afraid, but a sudden sensation of lightness washed over her and took her breath away. She watched his strange eyes as her feet lifted effortlessly from the floor, her body following his lead as he drew them up into the air together. She threw her arms around his neck, her heart pounding with disquiet and adrenaline as they went higher. He felt her entire body tremble, like the quick flicks of a cat’s tail.
“Destiny has made me of the Earth, Bella,” he whispered softly in her ear. “I can manipulate gravity, communicate with all living things, and move tectonic plates against one another if I so choose. I can grow a seed to maturity with a thought and cause it to wither and die with another. I am able to feel the life forces of every living thing born of the Earth. I can hunt anything that travels the paths of this world with all the heightened senses of the most accomplished predators. I am Nature, and She is me.”
Isabella exhaled a soft “Oh,” watching now as they climbed higher away from the others who watched them, until they reached the rafters. It wasn’t until she was looking down on everything that she realized they must be in a castle. It was the only thing they could be in that would match the walls, floors, and ceilings of the enormous room they were in.
After a moment, Jacob slowly lowered them back to the marble flooring, holding her protectively against himself as their bodies grew weighty once more. She saw worry in his eyes and his urge to be her protector. Even more, she felt it. She realized that she was developing an attunement with Jacob’s emotions and thoughts. She didn’t know how it was happening, but how could she ask that in the face of the fact that she had just flown around the room in his arms?
As she tested this newfound ability, she felt something telling her that his desire for her was merely curbed and controlled, not gone as she had begun to suspect. For some reason it gave her a sense of relief. Reckless though it might be, there was a very powerful part of her that did not want to be just a passing primal urge to him.
She stepped out of the circle of his arms and looked at Elijah.
“The wind?” she asked.
“Destiny has chosen me for the Wind,” he said in resonant tones as he swept out his hands in a showman’s gesture, even while he winked at her. “Atmospheres, temperature, air, these are mine to beckon.” And he did, sweeping a breeze through the room just strong enough to make Legna’s gown ruffle. Suddenly, without even a flash of light or warning, Elijah’s form dissipated into thin air, becoming the air. His voice swirled all around her as he playfully lifted her hair up from her shoulders, drawing it into a banner that fluttered high above her head, making her laugh. “The weather sways to my will, the tempests and pressures of it mine to manipulate. I can infuse a place with life-giving oxygen or remove it completely. The Wind is the breath of life, and She breathes through me.”
“Elijah,” Jacob snapped out, a dark glare of disapproval tinged by a perceptible gravitational shift meant to add to his warning. He didn’t like Elijah playing with her, and he was making it very clear.
“Destiny has chosen Fire for me,” Noah injected as Elijah’s form faded back in and the breeze died down, shifting focus back to the disclosures. The way they spoke, with such pride and reverence—Isabella was thrilled by the energy of it. She gasped when Noah’s powerful body turned hazy and then swirled into a column of smoke. He lingered in this form for a moment before becoming solid once more. “I am the lava that pulses deep in the Earth’s core, the conflagration that burns away the old so that the new might be born in its wake. I am that which boils and seethes and is volatile and explosive. I am the warmth of the sun, the manipulator of all energies. Fire burns in me and for me, and She is all that I am.”
“Fire and Earth Demons are among the rarest of our breed, the most powerful of our kind,” Jacob said. “Noah is King. Our leader.”
“But fire cannot live without air,” Elijah remarked, an impudent gleam in his green eyes.
“Air cannot be purified without the Earth,” Jacob countered.
“Gentlemen, please.” Legna spoke up, sighing in exasperation. “Shall Bella and I leave the room so you can measure each other on the tabletop?”
Isabella laughed outrageously. Legna had dared to say such a thing to these men of phenomenal power! Then it occurred to her that males of the species might not be the only ones with abilities of such magnitude.
“What about you, Legna?”
“Destiny gifted me with the Mind,” she admitted quietly. “I am illusion, that which is created and real only in the Mind. I am the embodiment of empathy, logic and reason, impulse and desire. I desire to be somewhere, and there I will appear.” She gave an example of that by exploding into a cloud of smoke heavily scented with sulfur. A second explosion brought her reappearance behind a gasping Bella. Unable to help herself, Isabella laughed and applauded the feat. “I am seduction, charisma, and pacification,” Magdelegna finished. “These are the true powers of the Mind, and She shares them with me.”
“Wait a minute, Fire, Earth, Wind, and... Mind? What happened to Water?”
“Not in this room, but I shall call for a Water Demon if you desire,” Noah offered graciously.
“So that means there are five different kinds of Demons? One for each element? Although the Mind element is new to me.”
“Actually”—Jacob smiled kindly—“it is true, humans only believe there are four elements. Currently we have six. Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Mind, and Body.”
“Currently?”
“You never know what the future holds. Mind Demons only appeared about four hundred years ago. It is evolutionary.”
“I see.” She glanced at Legna, her brow knitting in thought.
“You are curious about something?” Legna prompted.
“Yes. I’m sorry, but it seems like they can come into a room and blast things away, but what you have is more... benign?”
“Female Demons are very different than their male counterparts. Our abilities tend toward, shall we say, the more insidious nature of our elements. Those parts of all elements that have potent effect but are not noticed outright until it is too late. For instance, a female Fire Demon. She can manipulate temperature to a small degree when held in comparison to a male like Noah, but temperament is where her true Fire is found. Fire burns in all of us, in our rages, our passions, our jealousies, and so forth. Imagine the ability to manipulate such things. Passion alone has changed the face of the world.”
“Luckily, we only have three Fire Demons in existence,” Elijah joked, elbowing Noah in the ribs in amusement.
“One of which is Noah and Legna’s sister, Hannah,” Jacob explained sotto voce.
“Also,” Legna continued, clearly warmed to her topic, “there are shared abilities, ones that cross not only sexes but elements as well. For instance, Elijah can become the fog, a weather condition, but so can a Water Demon, because that is what fog is. Both male and female Mind Demons can teleport, but only males are telepaths and only females are empaths.”
“I get it.”
And she did. Somehow, it all made sense. To have such power at one’s fingertips, she thought, was a daunting prospect. It had the potential to corrupt so absolutely, as the saying went. Yet not this proud, self-censuring race. There was comfort for her in that, because she needed something to counteract the unnerving understanding that things like werewolves and vampires were actually real. She also saw very clearly why they kept themselves a secret from her race. If humans ever found a means to entrap Demons, they could be used and perverted in the extreme.
That was when the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.
“What happened to Saul? You said he was Transformed. How? You were hunting him,” she added, turning to look at Jacob. “That’s why you asked me if I had seen anything. And when we found him, that bluish light... the other man... tell me, Jacob. What happened?”
“He was captured. We call it Summoning. There are certain humans, known to us as necromancers, who long ago learned a secret method of Summoning a Demon, entrapping him, and bringing his powers under their domination for a period of time.” Jacob’s jaw tightened grimly. “With every command the magic-user makes, a transformation begins, advances, and eventually, a Demon becomes what you saw—a mindless creature without control or a sense of right and wrong. It is our worst nightmare.”
“Oh my God.” Isabella brought a hand to her mouth, her eyes expressing her horror. “You mean that could happen to any of you?”
They all nodded in grim unison and Isabella felt her stomach turn over in protest. These beautiful creatures? Their grace, vigor, and determined sense of right and wrong, destroyed? Perverted into one of those drooling, mindless gargoyles?
“Why are you telling me this? Aren’t you afraid I’ll somehow endanger you? Why do you trust me? I mean, for heaven’s sake, I’ve killed one of you. Oh!” She gasped in horror. “I didn’t mean to! I swear!” Tears leapt into her large violet eyes and Jacob could not resist the urge to enfold her in his arms. He drew her to his chest, cradling her head in one large hand, soothing her with soft sounds as she shuddered in revulsion.
Noah was fascinated by Jacob’s tender gestures with her. These were not the actions of a Demon bent solely on an act of lust. The more he watched, the more the Demon King saw that something was connecting Jacob to the little human, something he couldn’t quite fathom yet. “Isabella,” Noah addressed her, “we look on what you did as an act of mercy. Saul was far beyond our help. If you did not destroy him, Jacob would have been forced to.”
“It would have been worse for Saul to survive as a monster, harming anyone of any race he came across,” Legna pointed out gently. “Isabella, if you had evil intent, if you meant to harm any of us, I would know. I would feel it in your emotions. As it is, all I feel is honesty and remarkable courage.”
“We are telling you all of this because it is our belief that you are somehow a part of our future.”
My future.
Jacob fought the urge to personalize it. “You displayed some uncanny abilities last night, Bella. I believe that Destiny chose to cross our paths, even to the point of throwing you out of the window.” She laughed shakily at that as he rubbed warm hands gently over her shoulders and arms and explained himself. “Being creatures of the elements, we believe in Destiny and all things inevitable. The change of the tide, the altering face of the Earth, life and death. These are natural destinies. Individuals have special destinies, things we will do that Destiny has designed for us to do. You have joined our destiny for a reason, and we wish to find out what it is.”
“Why?” she asked, her voice hitching sensitively in the query as she tried valiantly to push back her tears. “I mean, so far all I have done to your people is kill one, beat the tar out of another, and drive you to—” She broke off, flushing. “Why the hell would you want anything to do with me after all that?”
“I wouldn’t say you beat the tar out of anyone,” Elijah spoke up, his chin jutting out belligerently.
The comment compelled Isabella to laugh through her tears. She cast a sideways look at Legna. “I see some things are a constant between the males of both our races.”
Legna chuckled and nodded in response. Elijah grumbled under his breath.
“So what do we do now? I mean, how do we find out how I fit into the whole destiny thing?”
“History inevitably repeats itself, becoming the template for the future,” Noah said. “Perhaps I am wrong when I say no human has ever killed a Demon before. Researching history may shed some light on this unique situation. Since it has been a century since we last saw a necromancer, we ought to reexamine the components of a Summoning and the recorded details of a transformation. Perhaps it will lend us a clue as to why at the same time as these magics are renewed, so did you appear. We will go to our library. It is quite vast and contains a complete history of our people.”
Isabella’s head came up sharply, her eyes gleaming with sudden avarice.
“Did you say
library
?”
Her surroundings were eerily quiet, bereft of activity and life. She wasn’t wearing a watch, but she suspected it was close to ten or eleven in the morning. It was so strange to be in full daylight in a castle that was reputed to be the center of a culture, and yet there was not even a hint of activity. Her breaths seemed to echo in the rafters of Noah’s home. Stone loomed all around, and while there were pieces of fine furniture in the Great Hall, everything was very simplistic in its way. It was the sparseness in so much space that gave the feeling of stepping back in time. That and the fact that there was no electricity. However, the important stuff was compensated for in one way or another. There was gas lighting, fairly modern facilities, and every amenity she could think of—except a phone.
The library itself was a database, most of it sectioned into its own fascinating logic of reference. The system was impressive, as was the sheer antiquity of the recorded data itself. The Demons were dedicated historians, and there were thousands and thousands of books and scrolls for every century, every era. Noah, she had discovered, was a scholar like herself. He was unspeakably proud of his library, eager to share it with someone new who appreciated its value as much as he did. The labyrinth of books, shelves, tables, and cases stretched beneath the entire foundation of the enormous castle—beyond that, even, Noah had confessed to her. There were vaults that continued on at all four compass points. These, he had told her, held the very oldest and most delicate works. There were things in those vaults, the King had told her, that even the longest-lived Demons had never seen or heard of. The library, he promised, was so vast that it would take far more than even a Demon lifetime to ever know everything it held. In the present, Demon scholars were recording as faithfully as their predecessors had done before them. The world was growing by leaps and bounds, and they were scrambling to keep up with it.
But the King, the scholars, and all other Demons were in their beds. The business of their lives hung suspended until the shadows of dusk began to fall. Isabella looked up and around herself. There were windows everywhere and the Great Hall was full of light, except none of it was plain. Every inch of glass was stained. The pictures were breathtaking, an artistry like nothing Isabella had seen before, depictions of everything from mythology to a clever reproduction of Monet’s
Water Lilies.
The effect was light, but in brilliant rainfalls of color.
Isabella stood in the center of the room, splashed with a kaleidoscope of warm daylight. From what she had been told, and what she had even more recently read, this was what made daylight most bearable for Demons. The direct onslaught of the sun acted like a fast-acting narcotic. Unconsciousness would come with overwhelming speed to the unprotected Demon who found himself caught out in pure daylight. Even these sprays of muted color were so powerful in effect that a Demon could do little more than curl up for a contented sleep within it. The sun, Noah had told her, did not harm them as it did most other Nightwalker species. It made them vulnerable to harm. It was nearly impossible to resist the pull to sleep, making it difficult for all but the most powerful Demons to master any semblance of function during the cycle of the sun. Isabella was pleased the sun did not actually cause harm to Demons. At least they could see the sunrise, provided they had that level of power. From her understanding, most other Nightwalker breeds would burn to a crisp if they even thought about attempting it.
Isabella suddenly sensed she was no longer alone. Jacob watched as she turned her head quickly, her fall of hair fanning out like a black, fringed shawl for a moment before settling with a silken swish against her back and shoulders. She moved her body into the turn as well, the flexible lean of her figure all curves and shapeliness, her back and waist arching as she tried to find him. He felt the throb of his own pulse, deep down the center of his body, the innate response just from watching her move.
She was a mimic, he was realizing. She picked up scents wherever she went and either made them a part of herself or became in sync with them. Mixing with her own clean scent was the odor of books and dust from the library and the soft aroma of ash from the fireplace that remained always burning in Noah’s Great Hall. She smelled enticingly of home and wisdom, earth and familiarity, and an innocence of sensuality that was deeply tantalizing. It was, he realized, the essence of nature that she wore. These were Earth’s trademarks, and to Jacob, a Demon of Earth, it was ambrosia. It tugged at him, beckoning, whispering of how very much it suited him, until every fine hair on his body was stirring with electric interest.
Jacob stepped out of the shadows of one corner of the Great Hall, his long, lean body filling the vast hall with its quiet but commanding presence. Isabella nervously rubbed her hands along the denim on her thighs, erasing the sudden moisture that coated them at the simple sight of him. Her heart doubled in beat, lurching against her ribs as if it were frustrated to be imprisoned away from him. Even knowing all that she knew, even though he himself had warned her she should have a healthy fear of him, her body practically sang for him when he entered the room. Everything about him beckoned her interest. His assured and authoritative aura was a palpable thing, his dark clothes wrapping around his fit body with sexy sophistication and telling tales about the physique they concealed. He wore expensive slacks, the material a brushed silk that matched his shirt in quality and color. The black dress shirt was worn in a relaxed manner, the first couple of buttons undone beneath his tanned throat, the cuffed sleeves rolled halfway up his fit forearms, exposing the dark dusting of hair on them. No watch or adornment of any kind, the simple silver buckle to his slim leather belt the only hint of decoration. He stood a room away, his legs braced apart as if he were rooted to that place in the marble floor, but still she felt his energy and his warmth. It was as if he stood at her back, close enough to exchange body heat, his head bowing so his breath stirred her hair.
Isabella shivered and licked her suddenly parched lips, unaware that his keen hunter’s eyesight became riveted on the action. “I need to speak with my sister,” she said after what felt like ages of silence. “I know Noah sent a male Mind Demon back to New York to ‘implant’ her with the impression that I would be gone for several days so she wouldn’t wonder where I disappeared to, but I want to talk to her on the phone just the same.”
“There is no phone here,” he replied.
Then he was moving toward her, his ground-eating stride like the stalking of a grand jaguar, graceful and calculated and a rippling symphony of muscle. It made the large room seem suddenly very small. His dark eyes were restless for the whole of the journey, moving quickly and succinctly, yet all of this rapt observation remained focused forward, limited only to the space in which she stood. When she realized that those black, bottomless eyes were fixated on her and her alone, when she could feel the rough, possessive urges behind them that he was struggling to hold in check, her heart insisted on pounding hard enough to burst her rib cage. She was practically panting for breath by the time he reached her.
Jacob stood toe-to-toe with her, disregarding all sense of personal space. He reached out, hesitating briefly as he searched her eyes. Satisfied with whatever it was he saw, he brought his fingertips to the rise of her cheek. She could feel them vibrating with his intensity. He caressed her, drifting like her own hair against her, shaping her face with a soft reverence that made her throat ache with response.
“I will take you to a phone. You can even go home if you like. I do not want you to feel that we expect you to neglect your life.”
The sentiment was in earnest, Jacob reflected, but it was followed quickly by the sensation that he should not allow her out of his sight. He could not understand this grasping need he had to keep her close, especially when he was so aware of how dangerous it could be. He was obsessed with the craving to touch her, even if it was just this simple caress he was indulging in now, the tracing and learning of her lovely pixie features. It made him feel sublimely grounded, a singular relief after the oppressive tension that he suffered whenever he was kept too far away from her.
He watched her constantly, day and night, even while the sun dragged at him and demanded his obedience in sleep. He was exhausted, yet here he was again, midday, sitting in the shadows above the library just so his senses could feel her movement below his feet and listen to the soft litany of her mind as she studied and reasoned out the information she was absorbing.
“
We
will take you to a phone, Isabella.”
Legna, who seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, delivered the correction. Isabella felt Jacob bristle instantly, a sensation of prickling discomfort skipping down the nape of her neck as she absorbed it from him. He took a slow, decided step back from her, giving her room to breathe, but somehow her breath seemed to strangle in her chest at the separation. She shook her head and glanced from one to the other. Legna’s countenance was as serene as always, though it was very obvious that she had been disturbed from her day’s rest. Jacob’s features, however, were a dark storm of energy and emotion. His forehead creased with frown lines and his brown-black eyes radiated something bordering on hostility. Isabella’s entire chest tingled with the rush of it, his prickling emotions popping like fireworks in her brain.
“Thank you, but I am sure I can manage on my own,” Isabella insisted, her feelings torn between her upset that Legna had been disturbed from her rest and that Jacob was just plain disturbed. All she wanted was for everyone to be calm and to go about their normal routines.
“Isabella.” Legna spoke again in that soft, compelling voice of a diplomat, which Bella had discovered was Legna’s role in her brother’s court. “Though we do not wish to curb your freedom, Noah has expressed great concern at the thought of you leaving our circle of protection. Please consider, knowing all that you do now, the dangers that might present themselves to you. Until we know the nature of your significance to us, and ours to you, we would feel much safer if you were to remain here or remain protected by allowing for a Demon escort when you travel.”
“Legna... ” Jacob warned, the threat in his voice coming through with sheer masculine authority. “We have no right to ask such a thing of her.”
“Actually,” Isabella spoke up, cutting off the female Demon’s retort, “I wasn’t planning on leaving. I just wanted to talk to my sister, touch base, say hi. You know, boring stuff like that. It’s a pretty mundane task and certainly not worth all this concern. Honestly,” she said, looking down at her dust-covered hands and rubbing them together, “you’ll have a pretty hard time getting me out of that library of yours. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. So complex, so... ” She looked at Jacob, meeting his eyes even though their intensity so overwhelmed her. “Your culture is fascinating. I can’t even begin to fathom how far back these records go. The dedication it must have taken to build that archive is incomprehensible. You couldn’t drag me away if you tried.”
Isabella took her eyes away from the compelling depth of the black gaze he had fixed on her so raptly. She was a conundrum to him, and she knew it. She could sense that his reaction to her mere presence was an overriding confusion and a moral storm within him. She felt the urge to retreat back to the library, to place herself at a safe distance from him. Not that she was afraid of him—actually, to be honest, her surprising lack of fear in the face of such fearful prospects was what disturbed her. She was not using discretion in her thoughts or the impulsive reactions of her physiology when he was near. Like all things, wisdom came with experience. She had nothing to draw on for guidance when it came to the way she felt around Jacob.
“You do not owe us so much of your time, Bella,” Jacob said, extracting her from the circle of her thoughts. “In fact, we are the ones who owe you. Why do you make our trouble your own so willingly?”
“You said it yourself,” she replied quietly, not even realizing that her feet were taking her toward him, closing the gap between them of their own volition. “I’m somehow a part of all this. Somehow my destiny has become linked with yours.”
Legna might as well have not been there for all they were aware of her in that moment. The King’s sister was overcome by a sensation of connection, an electric joining between the two of them that was blatant as well as ignorant of the forbidden borders it toyed with. As an empath, Legna was a conduit for the sexual and emotional tension in the room. She was flushed with it, her skin misting with warmth. These were permissible feelings, in spite of the fact that they were the most intoxicating collection of desires she had ever felt as an empath.
Noah had made her duty clear. She was to monitor the Enforcer. At the slightest hint of uncontrolled behavior, she was to summon the King with all due haste. But she sensed no threat, no rampant moon-fed lust. She had felt it in the past in men and women brought to face Noah by Jacob’s hand of justice. It was a wild, ferocious thing. It clawed away at common sense and respect, shredding away even the smallest thought of consideration or control. Control was the key here. The Enforcer’s emotions surged like a wild, dark tide within him, yet there was still control. Jacob practically vibrated with it, clearly using every resource he owned to manage his impulses and desires. She would not call out to Noah until she felt the first crack in that formidable mental fortress. Jacob was a proud creature. If she called for interference without cause, he would be hurt and embarrassed, and she could not bear the idea of causing him that pain.