But he was clearly wrong. And even though this was Gideon’s area of expertise, even the medic had never seen anything like Bella’s abilities before she had arrived a year ago. This was new to all of them, and none of them should underestimate these hybrid powers. So it was with caution that he tried to soothe her. But he realized quickly that his power to charm had been stolen along with everything else, and all he was left with was the connection of soul mate to soul mate.
Elijah moved to Siena’s now totally lax body, hastily scooping her off the ground and out of reach of the unpredictable danger the situation might provide. Bella had achieved her goal, however, and Elijah knew it on some inner level of his spirit. Siena was horribly ill, but the little Druid’s brave act had effectively halted her vulnerability to any further damage.
The Warrior Captain met Jacob’s eyes briefly, apologetically, and then he turned and hurried back toward Gideon’s home with his limp burden, leaving Jacob to handle his altered mate. Without his powers, there was nothing Elijah could do in any event. It was best to leave them alone. Powers or no, Jacob knew more about dealing with animals than anyone else among them.
Noah was perhaps the only one who could have found Legna in her present state, and the only reason he did was because of her residual body heat. But she was already mostly cold to the touch as he scooped her off the floor. He knew immediately that this was Gideon’s doing. He could sense the tracks of the Ancient’s residual energy in her. And he also understood he had done it in order to try and protect her, to keep her from sticking her neck out into the situation that had clearly been desperate and dangerous to the degree that it had killed even the Ancient as a result.
Noah also knew his sister was dying. He felt what remained of her life force fading as he rushed out of the room and down the stairs to find medics. Unfortunately, there was only one at present, and he had his hands full working on Gideon.
Noah commanded a Mind Demon to fetch more help, then laid his sister on the ground outside of the charred house. He tried to focus, pushing aside the fear clawing at his soul. He covered her heart and her solar plexus with his hands, seeking her fading source of life and energy. He began to feed the depleted supply, slowly, careful of the also-fading spark of life within her child. Perhaps it was because he was of her own blood, or merely by force of their stubborn wills, but she began to warm, to flush with energy, if not true signs of life. His momentary relief was profound. At least he could maintain the stasis. Though he could not reverse the effect, it was enough until he could find others skilled enough to do so.
Elijah shouted for help, earning the attention of several warriors who rushed to his side, eager to be of any assistance.
“I need a medic!”
Elijah pushed into the house and for the first time he saw the destruction that had been wreaked upon it and its inhabitants. He had given chase to the assailants who had fled the scene, never once considering that Gideon couldn’t handle his end by himself. Seeing a medic leaning over the Ancient took the Captain’s breath away.
The younger medic looked up at his superior, then stood up and rubbed his hands nervously as he approached the Wind Demon.
“Sir, there is nothing we can do for her,” he informed cautiously. “Not even Gideon knows how to heal a Lycanthrope.”
“Don’t tell me that,” he commanded with a bark, gently laying his mate down in a dark corner before turning to confront the other man harshly. “You have basic skills, something that can cross species, and you will do what you can.”
“Elijah…”
His name, spoken hoarsely through a rasping, gurgling sound, brought him around with a sharp turn. He dropped to his knees, scooping up her hand automatically as her throat worked to help her speak.
“What can I do, Siena?” he asked, his golden brows rippled with worry and distress.
“Do not let me die.”
“No. You won’t. We will help you.” His tone was angry and frantic, outraged at the very idea of the suggestion.
“Do not…”
“Shh…” Elijah soothed.
“…let me die…until I have killed that Demon bitch.”
“You and I both,” he promised fiercely as Siena slipped away from consciousness once more. “You and I both, kitten love.”
Once Elijah and Siena left the immediate area, Bella was deprived of her continuous source of their power, her ability to absorb them no doubt having been left on as she was ruled by little more than animal instinct. It was practice and concentration that allowed her to shut it off, and as a wild cat, she was not likely to have that focus.
So it was over several gradual minutes that her husband felt her senses returning to her, and several more before her body began to realter itself into its natural formation. Silky black hair pulled away from skin as the power she had absorbed from Siena bled away. The act had cost Bella, Jacob could feel that as she reverted to her natural form and dropped into the thickly grown cushion of grass, panting for breath. But it had allowed Elijah the time needed to get Siena out of the sun, and Jacob knew that was all that would immediately matter to Bella.
So when she opened her eyes and saw him leaning over her with clear concern and barely repressed anger, she knew she had succeeded, in spite of not remembering any of it.
“It worked,” she sighed.
“Yeah, you could say that, if you really stretch it,” Jacob said, his tone clipped because he was unable to help himself. His heart was still pounding violently from his fright of seeing her so brutally altered and affected.
Jacob reached to pull her clothes closer, drawing her up into a sitting position so he could slip her T-shirt back over her body. Her head rested on his shoulder as he did so.
“You have a daughter, Bella,” he said, his voice hoarse with pent-up emotion. “You cannot do these reckless things, risking yourself like that without taking her into consideration. She needs you, even more than I do, and you know how much that is all on its own.” He exhaled, his breath shuddering as he did so, his dark eyes sliding closed with tight pain. “I ought to wring your neck.”
“And would you have wanted Siena to do less if it could save my life?”
The question stung, sobering his anger with its brutal truth. His frantic motions to clothe her stopped, and with heat burning behind his eyes, he turned his face into the black silk of her thick hair, inhaling her fragrance deeply, gratefully, as he covered the back of her head with a warm, possessive hand.
He did not answer verbally, but the language of his gestures and thoughts were all the answer she needed. She wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly.
“Now,” she whispered, “we have some tracking to do, my beloved. We can’t let these people continue to hurt us.”
“We will. Soon. Right now, we need to get back to the house so I can help Noah and Elijah, and so you can recoup some strength.”
She didn’t argue. She knew they could pick up the trail later on, and she also knew he was right about how tired she had made herself. The downside about such a rush of power was the letdown that followed immediately after.
But as she had noted a few days ago, she felt as if a part of the Lycanthrope Queen was now stamped onto her mind. She pushed the understanding aside, however, not wishing to upset Jacob any more than she already had.
Upstairs in the castle the Demon King called home, Noah was leaning against the window frame of Legna’s bedroom, the one she had occupied for the three hundred years spanning from her childhood to the day she had married Gideon six months past. The King was staring blankly out at the gardens stretching on and on just below him, his memories of those years of her graceful influence tumbling through him like an undertow, dragging at his heart with painful repetition.
His sister was surrounded by medics, but he could tell from their whispering voices that they were still as befuddled over her condition as they had been for an hour now. If not for his ability to maintain her stasis, Legna would have
been dead by now. What in hell had possessed Gideon to choose such a dangerous masking method? Surely there were other ways—ways that would not have left her in such danger!
Noah closed his eyes and exhaled.
He knew that was unfair. The moment Gideon became unconscious or died, any other glamour to mask her would have died with him and would have left her just as vulnerable. In fact, she would very likely be directly dead if not for the fact that he had forced their enemies into resorting to the randomness of a fire, hoping that it would eventually get to her wherever she was secreted so effectively from them.
Noah pushed away from the window and moved one of the medics aside with an almost ungentle push of one hand on the man’s shoulder. He glanced up briefly at the midwife across from him who was monitoring Legna’s baby closely, and she instantly backed away. All it took was that frighteningly authoritative look on their usually casual King to make them respond quickly. They all knew that there was no one more precious to Noah than his youngest sister.
Noah leaned over Legna, wrapping one elegant hand around her pulseless neck as he pressed his lips to her forehead and began to whisper to her.
“I forgave you for leaving me six months ago,” he murmured, reaching with his mind and his heart for her, using all the focus and strength of his long lifetime and the mental familiarity with her that he had achieved under her patient tutelage over the centuries of her own. “I will not allow you to do so again. Not this way. Come, little sister, and wake for me. You have his power inside you. You have his child inside you. I cannot believe that means nothing to your safety.”
Noah’s eyes slid closed and he lowered his forehead to rest beside her head on the pillow, speaking softly into her ear.
“When Mama died, I swore you would live to be an Ancient, little girl, and I will not tolerate breaking that promise. Come back to me. I…”
He had to stop as emotion overwhelmed his voice. He tried to breathe, but no matter how deeply he drew, it was not enough. He was starving for oxygen in that moment, and like any flame, felt as if it would extinguish him.
“I need you,” he said at last, his voice hoarse and breaking. “If Gideon survives, he will need you. The babe…all of us. You are now the eldest female Mind Demon among us. Who but you will teach the young?” He again tried to inhale a deep, painful breath. “Who else,” he said, softer than ever, “will continue to teach me what it is I am missing by not knowing the love you share with Gideon? The day I live without you to teach me as you always have is the day I will forget how to truly live.”
Do not leave us, he begged from all the resources of his mind, pouring his emotion into her. Gideon will die without you. He will never be able to bear knowing that while trying to save you both, he became the instrument of your death. Do not leave him with that legacy.
Noah had no fact to base his attempts to reach her on, so had no proof they would be successful in aiding Legna in any way. But he continued on, tirelessly, feeding her energy and emotion and every compelling reason he could think of to draw her back.
Syreena and Anya stood at firm attention on both sides of the door to the room Siena was being tended in. Elijah stood back far from the bed, hidden in the dark shadows the pulled shades provided while keeping out the sun. The female attachés were flicking eerily aware eyes from Queen to Consort to the two members of The Pride, their most accomplished healers, trying to treat the Queen for her sun poisoning.
“She is beginning to blister,” one informed them softly.
It was not a good sign. It meant she had received the equivalent of a lethal dose of radiation. The Monks of The Pride would be hard-pressed to help her recover without long-term effects of the damage.
“You will do your utmost,” Syreena reminded them, her voice that of a monarch for the first time in her life.
The command was stolen right out of Elijah’s mouth, so he speculatively narrowed pale eyes on Siena’s sister. His voice would no doubt have little influence in this room. He had not earned any authority or loyalty from them as yet. He’d not even had the chance to do so. It made him relax a little to see Syreena advocating so powerfully where he could not. That was when he understood these women loved Siena as deeply as he loved Noah, and for all the same reasons.
“What a waste…over a Demon.”
Anya went stock still, her eyes widening when the words passed the second Monk’s lips. Remarkably, it was not Elijah who reacted to the offensive remark. Instead, it was that moment that Anya truly learned how fast the Princess was.
And how volatile she could be.
Before anyone could twitch, Syreena had leapt for the Monk, doing the unthinkable by grabbing his entire weight and body off the bed with a single hand around his throat. He squawked in shock as she slammed him brutally into the nearest stone wall. The resounding smack of his head making Anya wince and gasp with shock.
Syreena’s harlequin eyes bored into those of the dazed man who had once been one of her mentors.
“Speak thusly ever again in your lifetime and you will find yourself taking an involuntary vow of silence for the rest of your existence.” She tightened her grip on his throat to make certain she had his unwavering attention. “I swear it, Monk. I will have your tongue should you ever do so again. Siena has sacrificed everything for peace, and I will never tolerate anyone belittling her efforts in such a disrespectful manner. Am I being understood?”
“Child, you will release your brother,” the second Monk commanded her, pulling that tone of authority that parents used with disobedient young.
All Anya could do was watch with queer fascination. She would never in her life have even considered laying hands on a member of The Pride. In fact, by law, it was pretty much a capital offense. She had not thought Syreena capable of such a thing until she saw it happen right before her eyes.
The Pride was so old, and so powerful, that they were considered even by other races to be the ultimate scholars and the most learned fighters. They knew techniques for fighting that were ancient and deadly, handed down amongst them as well-guarded secrets for generation upon generation. To challenge one was akin to suicide, or so she had always been told.
And apparently Syreena had paid close attention to her lessons in the more deadly categories.
Until then, Anya would have labeled the Princess a pacifist, more interested in her studies, her meditations, and her position as Counselor than in fighting or joining in the training programs the Elite held in a rigorous manner on a daily basis. Now it was quite clear it was because she did not need the practice. And clearer still, by the look in the eyes of the Monk trapped beneath her grasp, was the fact that even this learned man of The Pride was not willing to fight her, not even to protect himself.
That gave Anya a chill down her spine.
Everyone fears the lion, but what does one feel toward something that frightens even the mighty cat that tops the food chain?
Anya’s glance flicked once more to the glimmer of light green eyes watching the actions of the Princess with a remarkable, dispassionate calm. Anya’s respect for the warrior hiked up a few notches as he let Syreena deal with their own without interfering. She had assumed he would be pushier, more volatile, and begging for altercation opportunities. It was frighteningly enlightening to realize you were in a room with two creatures of power you clearly knew too little about.
“He is no more my brother than you are, Konini.”
Syreena turned to look at the other Monk with frigid eyes, and Anya was once more shocked by what she saw in the expression of the Princess. It was the unmistakable temper that the royal family had been tragically famous for during all these generations. Siena controlled hers remarkably well. Apparently Syreena did as well.
Until now, at least.
“Heal her, or answer to me,” the Princess hissed.
“I do not perform to threats,” the Monk said serenely, clearly not understanding that his pious ways were only getting him deeper into trouble.
“You will cease this foolish violence, sister.”
Before Anya could blink, one Monk was released to crumple to the floor and the other was between Syreena’s fingers in a peculiar grip the Elite General had never seen used before. Syreena used the leverage of the hold to force Konini’s face close to his patient’s blistering countenance.
“What you see before you, Monk, is a true sister. My only sister. My only brother. At my heart, my mother. You had best save her, because if I become Queen, you will know not only my wrath, but I suspect the wrath of her husband’s people as well.” Syreena glanced up even as the Monk did, his eyes widening with fear as he looked at the only feature of the still Demon male he could see.
Those pale eyes glowing in the darkness.
“Remember, Monk, that even without his fury there are ways I can destroy your precious Pride.” She leaned closer to whisper more harshly to him. “I beg you to recall just how good and thorough a student I really was, Konini. And I know you know what I mean, brother.”
She let go of him after that cryptic remark, and he fell onto the bed awkwardly, gasping for breath until his purple face began to change back to normal. To Anya’s further amazement, he argued no further, threatened no punishment. Konini dragged his compatriot healer to his feet, slapping away his hands when they went to touch the cut the wall had left on the back of his head. He glanced worriedly from harlequin eyes to jade with clear trepidation and disquiet.
Anya watched Syreena march back into her guarding position with two steps and an about-face that would have put most of the General’s fighting corps to shame.
“I noticed you left the room for a few minutes just now, half-breed,” she remarked coolly, not even looking at the other woman.
“I…” Anya cleared her throat. “I was thirsty,” she agreed, knowing full well she’d rather dehydrate than ever leave the Queen unprotected. Just as much as Syreena knew it. “Anything…uh…unusual happen while I was…um…”