They were barely finished closing the doors before she yanked them open so hard they ricocheted off their stops and shut on their own shortly after she had passed through them.
“Syreena! Anya! Attend me this instant!” the Queen bellowed down the echoing stone corridor, making many a servant start with unaccustomed shock.
The Princess and the Elite General were shrewdly within immediate reach, popping up behind Siena as they headed for the cold and quiet inner throne room that Siena had continued to keep empty. As soon as the doors were closed, she turned to them. Her only family. For the first time in days, she met their curious eyes, making them both react with expected surprise.
“No comments,” Siena said sharply, shedding her overdress and stepping out of it, breathing a sigh of relief as she shook out her hair and adjusted the simple dress she had worn beneath it.
Syreena had been expecting the revelation, but upon seeing Siena’s bared throat, Anya’s eyes grew wide. She looked as if she were fighting the urge to drop her jaw open, but to her credit succeeded in resisting the impulse.
Siena rapidly filled them in on what had occurred, all the while pacing with the sharp, marching energy of someone itching for a fight. It was, of course, for Anya’s benefit alone she did this. Syreena kept a neutral countenance, even when the half-breed’s black eyes narrowed on her with suspicion.
“I have decided to fight this so-called inevitability. Syreena, you will go to meet with The Pride. Surely those great scholars can find a way to reverse these effects. Legends and Imprintings aside, it all cannot be in the hands of storytellers and this Destiny the Demons are so proud of. Tell them they have only four days. Make it clear to them that I would very much prefer a cure to this disastrous turn of events. I imagine they will be quite compelled to agree when they realize exactly who it is that will become their King if they fail. Do not return until you have exhausted all of their intellect.
“Anya, your duty is to fetch the female Mistral named Windsong and bring her to me. She lives in a Parisian suburb called Brise Lumineuse, and you should find her there. She is something of a xenophobe and will not want to travel away from her homeland, but you must beg her attendance in my name. She will come for me.”
The Queen hesitated long enough to rub her temples. It was clear the turmoil she was wrestling with was causing her a painful amount of stress, a condition she was not familiar with in the least. Siena had always handled her reign with the ease of confident surety and instinctive clarity. Stress and doubt were never a part of her decisions.
Not until now.
“I don’t understand,” Anya said, confusion etched across her features. “What would you possibly want with a foreigner? What could a Mistral do about any of this?”
Siena turned cold gold eyes on her Elite General.
“Yours is not to ask why, Elite. Yours is to obey me un-questioningly. Go and go now, or I will choose another more capable of executing my commands!”
Anya had never heard such harsh temper from the Queen in all of her life. Had she not been seasoned in reacting to orders automatically, she might have hesitated in a way that would have been damaging to her career. Instead, she moved immediately to do the Queen’s bidding, no further question on her mind. She would leave the handling of Siena to Syreena, the only one who could not be banished from the court at a temperamental whim.
Syreena turned to her sister as soon as the other woman had left.
“Siena, I do not need to go to The Pride and you know it as well as I do. No matter what the circumstances, they will not break a trust that is thousands of years in their keeping.”
“That may be, but you will go and you will try.”
“And when I do, that makes them aware of what you have done. After they refuse me, they will demand you take your mate to ascension, Siena, no matter who he is. You will run out of time.”
“If I don’t solve this before Samhain, I will run out of time anyway.”
Siena suddenly seemed to deflate, covering her face with both hands as she tried to blink back the sting of emotion in her eyes. She tried to take deep, steadying breaths, suddenly moving to her throne and sitting in it because she couldn’t stand a minute longer.
“Sweet Goddess, what have I done?” she said hoarsely, clasping both shaking hands between her knees. “Syreena, I can’t do this. I can’t be ruled by a man. And such a man! He is warrior from blood to bones! His entire world is nothing but battle and intrigue.”
“As is Anya’s,” Syreena pointed out. “And yet she holds a special place in your life, your trust, and your heart.”
Siena laughed humorlessly, nodding in agreement as a single tear slid down her face.
“And do you think for a second I could find such things in the arms of a Demon? It is my treatment of Anya that has helped remove the stigma attached to half-breeds, will it be the same if I take the warrior into my bed, possibly my heart? Will this,” she pulled the necklace from her pocket, “make the choice of who I should love for me? Will gold and moonstones and cursed magic dictate who will rule this land should I die? I want it to be you, Syreena. A woman. A woman’s heart must lead this society into the future. It was always meant to be that way. This is why the throne is passed to eldest daughter, not eldest son.”
“No woman can truly know everything she needs to in order to rule a country if she has never known what it means to love. To care for a child. To honor a mate as her equal.”
“I am doing just fine so far,” Siena snapped.
“Have you? You have a singular way about you when you deal with the law and the court. You curse Father for his bigotry, condemn our people for the same behaviors, but do you not see your own?”
Syreena moved to seat herself at her sister’s feet, taking her cold hands from between her knees and holding them between her warm ones.
“I have seen your bias in the courts, siding more often for the woman’s side of an argument over a man’s. When it is two males involved, you are not so patient and attentive. You try. I know you try,” she soothed when Siena looked away from her, unable to meet her truth in her sister’s eyes. “Your need for fairness is so powerful. But you are a product of your life as much as any of us are. You are, for want of a better term, only human.”
For some reason, that made Siena laugh.
“Sometimes I think I wish that were true. I tell you, Syreena, I envy Anya at times. She is the true meaning of the blend between the animal and the woman. She does not struggle so with her two halves…three halves…” She laughed again when her sister did.
“Five halves?” Syreena offered.
“Yes,” Siena agreed, leaning down toward her sibling and bringing their joined hands to her lips. “Yes, that is true. I complain so much in this moment, but it is true when they say there is always a problem worse that your own that afflicts someone else. You have endured all of your life, spilt between multifaceted sides of yourself.”
“I endured them in a glass house, Siena. The monastery is not the world. You lived in this world, dodging our father and all the things about him you grew to abhor, including assassination attempts after he learned your feelings about the Demons, and how they so differed from his. We cannot say who has had the harder life. It is like comparing apples and oranges.”
“Cats and dogs,” Siena agreed.
“Demons and Lycanthropes,” Syreena pressed. “Though I suspect from all I have heard from your own lips that we are not all so different as we might hope to be. And if there is one person who can close that gap, it will be you. You are adored, sister mine. Remember that. You have never made a secret of your open mind and attitude toward the warrior’s people. They may perhaps surprise you, our people, with the level of acceptance they are willing to take from you.”
“I may believe that, if only I were capable of acceptance myself. If it is this difficult for me…”
“There is more to this for you than the race of your potential mate, Siena. Much more.??
?
Siena nodded, too honest to lie to anyone other than herself.
“You are right, of course. Do me a favor, Syreena?”
“Fetch Anya back and tender her your effusive apologies?”
Siena laughed, nodding.
“And the Demon ambassadors?”
“Oh…damn…”
“Do not fear, My Queen. I will see to that as well. And your guards will not gossip. They are not the sort to do so.”
“Have they even followed my orders, do you suppose?”
“It would not surprise me to find them dragging their hooves, waiting for their unusually temperamental sovereign to come to her senses. But I will see to it first. My suspicions are that Anya is dawdling over her packing in any event.”
Syreena stood up, bending to kiss her considerably calmer sister on the cheek before releasing her hands.
“We will find a solution to all of this, Siena,” she promised. “The three of us together. Just like the Goddess’s trinity. Wisdom, Strength, and Nature, blended together in harmony.”
The Princess turned away and moved to see to her duties, leaving Siena in the solitude of her throne to try to further reconcile all she had to consider from that moment on.
“Okay, Elijah, if this is one of your jokes, you had better come forward immediately.”
Elijah raised dark, brooding green eyes to his King, making certain Noah knew this was no joke with a simple look.
“I was afraid you weren’t going to say that,” Noah sighed, sitting down and rubbing his once again pounding temples. “Siena. Of all the women in this wide world, it has to be Siena!”
“Funny, that’s what I thought too,” the warrior remarked, setting the glass of exotic tiger’s milk on the table, turning to look into the fire he had watched Noah stare into for hours when in search of clarity.
“You will break about a half dozen laws if you do this.”
“Are you planning on setting Jacob on me?”
“No. But I will have to tell him,” the King noted. “And then I will have to tell the Council.”
“How did I know you were going to say that,” Elijah asked with a sigh. “I love the idea of my personal life becoming fodder for Council discussion.”
“Be thankful you have many friends on that Council. And with Jacob, Gideon, and myself in your corner, it will not become an issue. However, it would be considered favoritism if I were to make the choice on my own, and I will not have griping Councillors harassing you over this matter any more than you are yourself.” Noah gave the warrior half a smile. “And if I have learned anything about Siena in our short acquaintance, it is that she can be quite stubborn in the face of great odds. You, my friend, have something of a battle on your hands.”
“Then I suppose it is a good thing I am your most skilled warrior, is it not?” Elijah returned, a wolfish smile of his own twisting at his mouth.
“You know, I have a feeling part of you is going to enjoy this,” Noah said suspiciously.
“You know, I do believe you are correct,” Elijah returned. “And in more ways than you will ever know, Noah.”
“Mmm, somehow I do not doubt that. She is…a remarkable female.”
Noah did not say anything more than that. If he did, he would potentially risk his neck for making too bold a supposition about another man’s mate. If he had learned anything this past year, it was the powerful nature of the possessiveness that sometimes came with the Imprinting. And friend or not, Elijah was not a man whose bad side he wanted to get anywhere near.
“Now,” he added quickly, “let us discuss the matter of these rogue females and what exactly you intend to do about it.”
“I? It is Jacob who polices our own. Jacob and Bella.”
Noah was not fooled by the warrior’s casual dismissal of the question.
“And I suppose it never occurred to you to get back at them just a little for what they did to you?” the King asked knowingly.
“Now that you mention it…”
CHAPTER 9
Siena paced the halls of her castle slowly, stone walls and subterranean ceilings all around her carved with stonecutters’ artwork that had been there for ages. Every new monarch took a new wing and had it immortalized with artwork they felt was representative of themselves and their reign. The process took a lifetime to accomplish, but it was fascinating to watch the carvings advance as the years passed.
It was a gratifying tradition. It meant she did not have to sleep in the same chambers that had seen her mother’s death and her father’s twisted dreams. Not that he had spent much time there.
Now it was her own dreams she was trying to escape.
Dreams of the blond warrior who had somehow branded her body, mind, and soul with his touch.
It had been two days since she had blown up so uncharacteristically in the faces of her friends, family, and confidantes. She had yet to visit Gideon and Legna and apologize for her behavior. Frankly, she couldn’t even focus on that for the minute it would take to formulate a proper apology.
No. She was too sick for that.
Sick was the only term she could content herself with when describing the way she was feeling. She was run down, lethargic. Sensations so alien to her that she was made dizzy by them. And those were the symptoms she was willing to acknowledge.
What she refused to acknowledge was the burn beneath her skin, the sporadic rushes of adrenaline that surged through her, followed by maddening impulses to run. To run and run until she was wrapped up in arms of steel and cradled in calloused hands. And it grew worse with every passing minute. Syreena said it was because she was not meant to be segregated from her Demon mate for so long, but Siena refused to believe herself capable of such needy behaviors.
And somehow, she felt as if he was constantly whispering into her thoughts.
She remembered that Gideon and Magdelegna shared a mental bond with each other, and that Gideon had once told her that it was common for all Imprinted pairs to be intimate in that fashion. But the idea of someone being privy to her every thought was appalling to her.
Appalling and irritating.
She had found herself angrily warning him from her thoughts, just in case he truly was there. And sometimes she thought she could hear the lilt of damnable confident male laughter echoing in her mind in response.
Samhain was two nights away.
And she felt it down to her last molecule.
She touched her throat, the comfort of the collar being returned to its rightful place the only thing that soothed her soul. It had, of course, cost her the sacrifice of facing The Pride and airing her rather soiled sexual laundry. They had agreed to rejoin the puzzling links of her collar, and had also agreed that they all should take time to consider the ramifications of what was occurring before opening it up for debate by the general public.
But Siena already knew their take on the matter.
The collar had proved in their minds that, as unlikely as it seemed, the Demon warrior was indeed Siena’s one true mate. She would not have been sexually attracted to him otherwise. She would not have surrendered her maiden status to him. And he most certainly could not have unlinked the enchanted collar if he were not this mate she was destined to be saddled with.
Siena moved to lean her weight against one of the subterranean “windows” carved into the hallway she was currently navigating. The castle was rumored to be miles wide and to have more rooms and cubbies and passageways then one being could possibly walk in a single lifetime. That was saying a lot, considering how long lived her kind generally were. She couldn’t count how many times she’d been lost in these halls as a child.
These glassless windows, more like carved archways than anything else, looked stories down onto the outer houses of the castle. Those houses were also covered by the cavern ceiling, whose echoes reached down to the inhabitants below. It had been her only way of calling for help then. But once she had learned how to change and use her sense of smell to backtra
ck her own trail, she had never been lost again.
Not literally, anyway. Figuratively speaking, she couldn’t have been more lost.
A subterranean breeze blew over her, chilling her skin. She shivered, rubbing her arms and starting to move once more in order to warm herself.
She was very far back in the halls and hadn’t seen another soul for hours. She had waved off her guard and her ever-vigilant companions, who had remained available to her at any hour should she feel the need to confide her feelings of the moment. Anya and Syreena were truly special creatures, and she would reward them for that as soon as she had sorted out this predicament she was in.
So she was indeed quite alone and surprisingly comforted by that knowledge.
The cold of another breeze rushed up from behind her, blowing at the brief skirt of her dress and whipping through her hair. It surrounded her, engulfed her, forcing her to come to a halt just as muscled arms appeared around her waist.
Siena sucked in a startled breath as the cold vanished, replaced by the warmth, the heat, of a familiar male body. She was drawn back against his chest, his hands splaying out over her flat belly and pushing her deeper into the planes of his hard body.
“Elijah,” she whispered, her eyes closing as a sensation of remarkable relief flooded through her entire body. Every nerve and hormone in her body surged to life just to be held in his embrace, and she was light-headed with the power of it all.
He put hands on her hips, using them to spin her full around to face him. The warrior dragged her back to his body, seizing her mouth with savage hunger just as she was reaching for his kiss. She could not have helped herself. Not after the deprivation of all these days. But still, the weakness stung her painfully, leaving frustrated tears in her eyes.
It was all just as she remembered it. The vividness of the memories of their touches and kisses had never once faded to less than what it truly was. It was all heat and musk and the delicious flavor of his bold, demanding mouth. His hands were on her backside, drawing her up into his body with movement she could only label as desperation.