Читать книгу Elijah - Jacquelyn Frank - Страница 10

Night turned to day again and Elijah’s grumbling nurse disappeared, no doubt to get some sleep. Meanwhile, he had been doing little else but sleeping. Now, set so far back from even the slightest touch of sunlight, he found himself fairly wide-awake. He was feeling stronger with every passing hour and every bowl of the aromatic soup she pushed on him. She had even begun to feed him the thicker rabbit stew.

He was amazed to realize the Queen was no slouch at the fire. One would think such skills were below a member of royalty, but apparently not. It reminded him of Noah. The King stood on very little ceremony and was quite willing to serve his guests himself.

Elijah pushed the comparison aside stubbornly. He didn’t want to find any more similarities between her and anyone else he respected. He was having enough trouble as it was from everything else he had been mulling over.

It had been much easier just to blindly hate and distrust all of her kind.

Still, at one point when she had returned to fetch his empty bowl, Elijah had reached out to take hold of her arm. She had turned a dark stare on him, lifting a filigreed brow in mock curiosity. Wordlessly, he had reached for the short hem of the black silk minidress she now wore, sliding the loose fabric up slightly to examine her damaged legs. As she had assured him, she had healed as remarkably fast as he did. The skin had become a soft pink color, the color of newly emerged, healthy flesh.

Satisfied, he’d let go of her. When he looked up at her again, she had seemed perplexed, the sardonic lift of her brow gone. But she did not say a word as she turned to enter the other room.

Elijah had his fill of lying in bed several hours later. He had no company because she was keeping her distance, and he was thoroughly bored. By all accounts he should have been sleeping soundly during sunlight hours, but he’d had enough of sleeping as well. The warrior found a towel under the stack of sheets nearby and wrapped it around his hips since he was unable to find his clothing. He walked out of the room on bare feet, out of habit making as little sound as she did.

He found himself in the middle of a Spartan but tasteful parlor. It had everything it needed, nothing more, nothing less, and everything was very well suited to the environment. He noted the comfortable couch nearby that had a distinct impression in it. No doubt this was where she had been sleeping, but she was not there at the moment. He had always thought Lycanthropes as severely affected by daylight hours as any other Nightwalker, so it surprised him she was not dead asleep. Then again, he was not exactly acting par for the course of his species either.

A breeze blew gently into the room and his head immediately picked up so he could take it in with a deep breath.

All Demons had an innate connection to the base element their powerful abilities came from. He was of the Wind, all of Her properties, temperatures, and volatile ways his to command and enjoy. The Wind filled him down to every last cell of his being, called to him with a lure that was almost unparalleled. And with the crisp, clean scent of Her whisper blowing around him, Elijah realized he had been indoors for far too long.

With a single-minded thinking, Elijah followed the breeze to its source. He strode up the cavern steps, then up the slope of the floor with eager expectation. He was so focused on his goal that it took him a full minute to realize he was approaching a lake of water within the cave, and that standing in the center of it, covered only to her hips with the liquid, was his wayward Lycanthrope nurse.

Elijah stopped dead in his tracks, his entire body tensing from head to toe with a mixture of utter shock and that sharp, brutal sexual awareness she inspired so effortlessly within him. The Queen had her back to him, the long, beautiful line of her spine gracefully exposed as she bent forward to swing her hair through the water she was using to wash it. The water lapped flirtatiously at the site of her tailbone, drawing his immediately riveted attention to that beckoning female curve of sleek waist blending into voluptuous backside. Her skin glittered with water, both real and reflected, hundreds of beads of the liquid sliding down to rejoin the surface of the lake. With her hair swept forward for washing, her long, arching spine was exposed, a palette of perfect, golden skin. She was shaped like a sculpture depicting the epitome of womanhood, strong, curved, and lush with the impression of fertility.

Elijah completely forgot about where he had been headed, his fingers curling into fists in reflection of the inexplicable desire instantly coiling throughout his body. He should have looked away, turned away, run away. He should have done any one of a thousand things except stand there gawking at her like some pubescent boy who had never seen a naked woman before. Though the initial breeze he had been following had picked up, he felt as if there wasn’t an ounce of oxygen in the room. He could not explain or control the effect she had on him. All he could do was struggle to breathe, and continue to watch every alluring movement the siren in the water made as her flawless body sang its riveting, seductive song.

Even the wind betrayed him, he realized a heartbeat later. It skimmed over her wet body, full of October cold, and he saw it ripple over her unblemished skin in an ever-expanding carpet of goose bumps. It worked down from her shoulders, along that length of feminine spine, until it was sprawling over her bottom and meeting the waterline.

Siena turned slightly, throwing back her heavy head of hair, releasing an arc of sparkling water from it all the way up into the air where it almost touched the stalactites reaching down from the cavern ceiling above her. She turned a little farther, her hand trailing in a playful pattern over the surface of the water, her breasts swaying gently with the motion of her reaching arm. Elijah’s smallest remaining breath escaped him as his darkened eyes burned over her bare form. Siena’s muscular fitness might have made some females look too masculine, but the smoothness of the curve from hip into waist, from waist back out to rib cage, and continuing on up into full, perfectly lush breasts, spoke of a creature who was made to be the most pristine of feminine lures to any male with a pair of eyes in his head.

Elijah’s gaze became riveted to the dark definition of her nipples, a blended rose and tan color that was boldly offset by the golden color of her skin. They were crested into an attractive thrust from the chilled temperature of the water and air, the effect eddying out into gooseflesh that crept over both breasts. Outside of those little puckered pores, her skin was immaculate and looking every inch as satin soft as he knew it was. She was unbelievably perfect, so well formed, and so beautiful she had the power to literally stop his heart. His chest hurt with the sensation, but not as much as the sudden, blinding urge to go to her did. He could smell her, feel her as every hair on his body became erect, making him feel as though his very skin was reaching toward her. Every sense and natural device for sensing demanded more input.

In the water, the Lycanthrope Queen went still very suddenly. Her head cocked to one side in awareness, her nose twitching as she scented the air in order to identify what exactly it was that she had already begun to intuit on other levels as being amiss. Siena had just identified the familiar scent of masculine musk when she heard the abrupt sound of water splashing behind her.

She whirled around just in time to spin into the warrior’s arms.

Siena gasped as Elijah hauled her up against his body with one powerful arm, seizing her by her hair with his opposite hand. His mouth was on hers in an instant, giving her no time to even anticipate or react. Having lived a life of protected privilege and marked reserve when it came to any kind of physical contact, Siena had never been seized in such a manner. No one with an ounce of sense would have dared to do such a thing. She would have thought her initial reaction to such an action would be something in the nature of a definitive, violent slapdown.

Instead, it was great shock that caused her to inadvertently accept his kiss. The warrior was demanding, just shy of being brutal, and reflecting to her every feeling he had been inundated with during his unnoticed moments of observing her. Siena came to life an instant later, finally trying to push away, her hands going to the enormous wall of his chest. But she felt the bulk of the bandage that yet remained over the most serious of his wounds and instinctively resisted any pressure that would potentially reopen the healing flesh. Even to save herself, for some reason, Siena could not bear the thought of causing him harm. She was not that noble a creature in general, and certainly not when she was feeling threatened, so the impulse to protect him left her baffled and disoriented.

By the time she had finished curbing her escape impulse and contending with her feelings of confusion, she was being swamped by a thousand other sensations and emotions.

All of them were centered around heat.

So much amazing, delicious heat. Heat from his body burning its strength and form into hers as if she were a soft putty meant to take the impression of his fit into the memory of her own shape. They were like a puzzle. Two pieces cut apart but always meant to be perfectly reunited at some future point. They locked together like the flow of nature, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, and breast to breast. Even the water running down her steaming skin could not come between that perfect seal. There was heat from her body burning into his, blazing in places she had never felt such intensity before. The sensation was so baffling as it ran along her entire body, even the incongruous places like the small of her back, under her arms, and the soles of her feet, that it was just shy of being ticklish.

She could not laugh at it, though. She was far too engaged by his kiss to even consider it. His mouth was like a demanding and wet fire, his velvet tongue thrusting past her teeth to demand reciprocation from hers, leaving more licking flames in his wake as he went. Had she ever thought his lips to be almost feminine? He was nothing but male, the fit of his lips skilled and aggressive and very, very masculine in their flavor and force. He was drinking from her mouth in long, satisfying drafts, until Siena could hardly catch her breath. She felt her body bowing backward. She was being held so tightly that her body was forced to fit into the aggressive lean of his embrace. Her hair skimmed through the water, the ends recoiling in shock at the contrast of the cold in the face of all that heat. The very same cold she had been enjoying only seconds ago.

Elijah did not know what was propelling him to do what he was doing, and for that blissful moment he didn’t much care. Her sweet mouth, her feminine body, her increasing warmth—all suited him with inexplicable precision. She was passive with her shock at first, but it faded rapidly as her senses and sensuality were held in rapt attention by his actions. It was only a matter of a minute before her long, deft fingers were weaving deeply into his hair, sending chills of erotic awareness down his spine as she held him to her mouth and commenced an aggressive seeking of her own.

Siena’s tongue slipped over his, slinking across his taste buds and into his mouth with astounding womanly demand. She was just as curious, just as dominant in her nature as he was. The warrior groaned as her sweet, erotic flavor filled his senses, her bold, sweeping tongue forcing every nerve in his body into a clutching clarity of sensation. She tasted like cinnamon and honey, spice and sweetness. It was a confection of flavor and feeling he could not remember ever knowing before, or imagine ever feeling again. She made a small sound, then an aggressive one that sounded like a growl as it radiated past his lips. What that simple sound did to his body was purely indescribable. Like molten iron it burned through him, scorching him, an agony, a heat of pain and pleasure that hardened every muscle, every plane of his body.

Elijah’s hands were suddenly surrounding her face, cupping it between his palms as he pulled her away from his mouth. It took an entire minute to accomplish the separation, the delight of her mouth impossible to part from as much, it seemed, as it was for her to part from his. Their mouths glistened with the passionate exchange of flavor, each now residing on the other’s sense of taste for what seemed to be all time. When he finally could look at her face, the sound of her rapid breath and the sight of her flushed skin were damning. But they were nothing compared to the liquid, golden desire in her dilated eyes. Had she not looked at him as she was doing in that moment, he might have convinced himself that he was prepared to back off from her. It was a self-deception no matter which way it was viewed, however, because his entire body was gripped by opposing desires, none of which intended on going in any direction other than toward her.

They remained separated for all of a few heartbeats, and then he dragged her back to his mouth and into the dominant planes of his hard body, seemingly just as she lunged back into him to imprison him with her own needs. She made one of those primitive sounds that made his blood boil in his veins, urging his hands to her supple back in order to seal her to himself as tightly as the lick of a tongue sealed an envelope.

Elijah felt her on so many levels. Her body, so lush and aroused, locked tightly against his so that he felt every curve, every beat of her heart, and every swell of her breasts as she drew for air. Her eyes were wide open, bold and brave and mesmerizing as they locked with his. He had never realized how arousing, how enthralling such a simple thing could be. She was the purest art of courage, clearly blanketed with awe and delight as she absorbed his taste, his scent, and the press of his urgent, hardened body. Her fingertips slid with silky elegance down the length of his back, all the way from his shoulders to the edge of the towel slung low around his hips. The return trip up his spine bludgeoned him with sensation and a shaft of heat that clutched brutally down his belly and into his groin.

Elijah jerked his mouth from hers, gasping as hard as she was for that broken moment, but then she was being dragged up high against his body by his hands, her knee hooking over his hip in sensual aggression, her bruised and beautiful mouth already opening for him as he understood she was not in any frame of mind to tolerate his doubts, if indeed he had any, any longer.

It was beyond the fact that she tasted so fine, so sweet. It was how she boldly stroked and played with him. It was the way her essence seemed to become branded upon him. It was also the clarity with which he came to understand that it was exactly the same for her. Somehow, he was as perfect for Siena as she was perfect for him. In all those ways, and so many, many more.

Elijah ravaged her full mouth like a man starved for breath after nearly drowning. He took everything about her kiss deeply into himself, feeling it scorch through his body like wildfire.

It was utter insanity.

Siena should have been the last woman on earth he would have touched. She should have throttled the bloody hell out of him like he was very aware she could. Instead, she had burst into willing flame, her heat licking over and through him until he thought he would become only ashes in her hands. Ashes she could blow away with the softest puff of cinnamon-sweet breath. Elijah learned how to feel an entirely new level of arousal. He was hard and heavy with it, the sensation a raging demand that would brook no denials, no refusals. He felt the message urgently. There was only one way to be satisfied, only one woman who could accomplish it, only one refuge that would be home to the throbbing hunger clawing through him. Elijah knew she was aware of his state of appetite. She moved like liquid need herself, her body rubbing against his with blatant suggestion. She reminded him of her nudity, of her heated nearness, of how easy she was making it for him to simply shed any remaining barriers between them and find his heaven deep, oh so deep inside her.

Elijah could feel her hair coiling around his wrist and forearm, the erotic, living strands caressing him like thousands of tiny hands. Her actual hands were sprawling over the expanse of his chest, his shoulders…down his back and over the muscles of his backside. The touch made him shudder against her and he felt her sound of satisfaction vibrating into his mouth. She slid those seeking fingers down to his thighs, then reversed course back over his buttocks, this time beneath the heavy weight of the saturated towel slug so carelessly around his hips.

This time he was the one uttering a primal growl, accompanying it with an abrupt burst of movement. The warrior broke his kiss and hauled her up out of the water with one arm around her waist. He heard her release a short, delighted laugh that was pure sexual invitation. She wrapped her hands around the back of his head as his actions brought her breasts to the level of his mouth.

“Yes,” she said, the word a hiss of demand and urgency.

He smiled wickedly with his own dominant satisfaction before touching his tongue to one rigid nipple. She threw her head back, sounding out with more encouragement, almost begging him between her needful sounds and twisting body. At last, Elijah drew the crested peak of her nipple into the warmth of his mouth. Fire burned over his tongue, against her skin, flashing into both their bodies with a rage of demands. Siena arched wildly in response as he laved and suckled her, her cries echoing through the cavern in a way that fiercely contented the male animal within him. He was Demon. He was elemental to the earth within which they now sheltered. He was the very breath of life, every gasp of passion, every moan of pleasure. Wind. Breath. Tempest. All of it. And he made her feel it, the thoughts pushing out of him with an almost violent intent, like the fury of nature’s storm.

Her fingers gripped convulsively at his hair, pulling it in a way that might have been painful under other circumstances, but only served to deepen the rage of need that flowed so violently between them. He tasted and caressed her without mercy or moderation, holding her to himself with a single arm so he could feel her opposite breast fitting into his palm. Wind poured into the cavern, as if in attempt to cool down the fire that had burst to life within the lake. Siena’s hair whipped about them both, blending with his own as the long, loose waves flowed into the demanding breeze.

Siena was blinded by the pleasure his touches and tongue sent streaming through her brain. The entire cavern felt as if it were spinning madly around her. Could a touch truly evoke this much sensation? How could anyone bear so much of a thing without going completely insane? If she were not experiencing it firsthand, she would never have believed it. Even so, she wondered if she had not completely lost her mind, if this was not, perhaps, all a wondrous, riveting hallucination.

She felt herself sliding over his skin, the perspiration that sheeted them making it a slinky, damp slide of flesh and moisture. He somehow managed to hold her to himself with the ease of his impressive strength and yet make her feel as if she was being inundated with his touch. His skillful hands and determined mouth were surrounding her so that every moment was a new experience of fiery arousal and irrepressible sounds of pleasure.

Siena’s legs had linked around his waist, and Elijah could feel the ready moisture and urgent heat of her body pressed low to his belly. He caught the heady, precious scent of her as he pulled her up even farther, his mouth trailing kisses and licks of his tongue down her breastbone to her quivering stomach. He was overwhelmed with pounding desires. His head was full of his need and hers. It was almost as though he could hear her begging for a certain touch from him, more pressure from his sucking mouth, the urge to feel him intimately between her grasping thighs.

It was too much to be borne, and Elijah was urgently in need of responding to it all. He swung her full around and surged through the water to put her on her back at the edge of the pool. She gasped at the coldness of the stone, then at the fire in the touch of his hands as he stroked them up the insides of her thighs, over her hips, waist, and breasts, and then just as boldly reversed his path.

Siena felt him grip her hip, sliding her toward him over the slick floor. Her heart beat violently with a combination of arousal and natural fear. She had never known such intimacies as she was experiencing in that moment. Indeed, she had spent a lifetime avoiding anything that would even remotely bring her thoughts to such a point, never mind her body. She had never expected to know this. She had never suspected it could be like this. His touch was wicked, purposeful, stroking over her flat stomach, her hips, through the soft, golden curls that had never, ever known the touch of a man.

He bent over her, a hand pressed to the stone to bear his weight slightly as his divine mouth drifted over her belly, licking a soft trail that echoed the one he’d left with his hand. Siena felt the silky invasion of skilled fingers, stroking, parting wet, feminine flesh that barely understood why it craved such a touch so very much. She heard him exhale harshly against her skin as he sought gently for…what, she could not guess in that numbing moment. Strangely, she imagined she knew his thoughts in that instant. He was astounded by her heat, wild about how easily his touch slid over her pliant, welcoming flesh. Siena released a throaty cry as his contact evoked yet another sensation unlike anything she had ever known before. It was strange and strong, deep and light, all these sensations at once. But above all else, it was pure pleasure.

For that single, astounding moment of nothing but completely overwhelming awareness, Siena understood that she wanted this powerful man with every fiber of her being. She wanted to feel the rock-hard press of his muscled body over hers, wanted to sculpt with her hands the stony sinew he had built on centuries of battlefields. Every instinct in her screamed for her to grasp for his hips, to guide him up to where she burned so badly for him. Her thighs ached to cradle him; her empty body ached for it even more. Though her body was far ahead of her, her mind at last comprehended what was happening. She was moments away from a mating that promised to be beyond anything she had ever imagined, and she knew she had never wanted anything more in all of her life.

That was the very same realization that, only a moment later, made her cry out with a sound of pure, unadulterated fear. Panic suddenly overwhelmed her, breaking through the haze she had been entangled in since Elijah had first seized her. The terror was virginal and primal, triggering every defensive instinct within her. Before Siena could comprehend it for herself, she was suddenly shape-shifting into the catamount. She screamed out with her misery and her pain, starting out with the sound of a tormented woman, ending with the wail of a frightened cougar.

The warrior Demon suddenly found himself touching smooth fur and leaning into the center of wicked, flailing claws. Elijah leapt away from the sudden feel of feline sinew, his shock erupting in a vocalized announcement just as loud as hers as he suddenly realized what had happened. He fell back into the frigid water as he lost his balance, but reemerged quickly, shaking water back from his hair with a single, sharp motion of his head and hands.

The gold cat scrabbled to gain its feet, claws skittering madly over the smooth stone surface as it bolted into a dark corner of the cavern, leaving white scrape marks in her wake. Elijah could see her cowering, hunched over, clearly terrified out of her senses. The magnificent creature shook with such violence of fear that he could not even distinguish the blur of her whiskers.

He braced his hands on the stone floor, bowing his head as he drew in deep breaths to try and cleanse himself of the sexual high he had been running on so blindly, a high that even his rude dunking into frigid water had not swayed. He was trying to force himself to make sense of her and of himself. After a painful moment in the chill water, he hauled himself out of the shallow pool, gaining his feet slowly as he kept his eyes on the great feline whose fur was spiked out in all directions from ruff to tail tip. He could see now that her whiskers were full forward, ears laid back as flat as she could get them, her enormous eyes wide and alert, oval pupils expanded in the darkness of her corner.

Elijah ran a thoughtful hand over his slicked-back hair, going over everything he knew about her and her kind as well as what it was he thought must have frightened her. He wasn’t at all sure about the latter, guessing only that she had come to her senses where he had not. But the former told him she was likely to be more animal than woman at this moment, and he had best choose the right course of action, or there would be quite a brutal hell to pay for it.

There was nothing more deadly than a cornered cat, and he would be the first to admit that he did not have it in him to survive an attack in his present state. If the beast even so much as pinned him in a fit of rage, it would go right for the gaping wound in his chest, happily finishing the job of ripping his heart out.

Elijah slowly dropped to one knee, everything forgotten except the desire to rectify the situation of the moment. He began by looking down at her paws and not directly into her large eyes. The crouch was giving her an open invitation to attack him, but he hoped his next actions would belay that recourse.

The warrior blinked very slowly and lowered his head in a motion of broadcast submission. He realized in that painful instant that his pride meant very little in the face of seeing a creature so brave suddenly scared out of its courage, its grace, and its beautiful spirit. He would not have seen her thus for all the victories in the world, and he felt it keenly. It was an empathy he had not realized himself capable of until that very instant.

Elijah was not looking directly at her, so he had to use his other senses to their utmost in order to understand her reactions. He could scent her high level of fear, feel on his skin the wary, adrenalized prickles of it. He could hear her move ever so slightly and it made his heart skip a beat in anticipation. Her claws scraped over stone as she settled low onto her belly, the first movement in the dance that would follow.

The catamount spent a minute in the position, pretending to be relaxed when instead she was quite alert. The next step in the ritual was when she rose onto all fours and walked slowly away. The more she pretended he was unimportant, the bolder she became. It was a dangerous dance, for all the posturing involved. The most deadly moment would be when she was in striking distance. She would make the choice to bat his head from his shoulders with the swipe of one powerful paw or choose a different form of aggression to put him in his place. By the time she got that close to him, Elijah was beaded with perspiration and fighting a serious bout of fatigue. The ritual had taken a great deal out of a man too soon from his sickbed. But he still did not budge, wanting with every fiber of his being to make up for whatever part of this was caused by his unthinking behavior.

The mountain lioness was so close now he could feel the warmth of her breath and see the gleam of her collar out of the corner of one eye. She extended one paw in a long, tentative reach. Her claws were sheathed, which was an awfully calming piece of information. Still, he could not move. She had not judged him completely.

She sprang so suddenly that Elijah tensed involuntarily. It took every ounce of control he had not to protect himself, instead rolling with her as her powerful jaws clamped onto his neck. His chest heaved with his heightened breath, but he let her continue. All she needed to do was tighten her grip a fraction of an inch and she would puncture his carotid artery or break his neck.

But the hold was meant only to send a message. This was her territory and she was in charge. He would never frighten her again, the grip communicated to him, and if he did, the grasp she had on his neck would not be so harmless next time.

Siena let go after a very long minute, settling back on her haunches as the pupils of her eyes began to round out. The huge cat shook her head and began to change into the woman once more. Elijah sat up slowly once she had reformed completely. Siena remained sitting crouched before him on all fours, eyeing him cautiously. Her hair was wound around her protectively, concealing her bare body in a defensive gesture. It disturbed him because he knew Lycanthropes were rarely shy of parading around in a nude state. The idea that he had terrified her into second-guessing the habit did not sit easily on his stomach. He did not blame her at all, though.

Siena looked at the Demon with wide, cautious eyes, trying to make sense of everything she was feeling. He finally met her gaze, but remained as silent as the grave. His eyes were a swirl of numerous shades of green, the chaos of color reflective of how she was feeling.

How had she let this happen? Why had it happened? Demons and Lycanthropes were as different as cats and dogs. At least, that was the common view in both their societies. If that was true, then how had this been able to occur? They should not have been chemically compatible, never mind the fact that mentally they were in some ways still at war with one another. There was no denying, however, that they had been more than compatible, chemically and otherwise. Her body still, after all this passed time, burned with the memory of his touch and the depth of his passion. What was more, it boiled with her reciprocation of it, of the very clear message that it was perturbed with its unsatisfied yearnings for him. She felt hollow and unfulfilled, felt as though he had vacated her very soul when he had been forced to pull away in defense of himself.

The Queen rose to her feet, turning her back on him and padding quickly into the next room. She felt better once she had dropped another of the loose baby-doll dresses over her head, this one as green as his eyes had been when he had kissed her. She brushed the backs of her fingers over her mouth, feeling the bruises and memory-provoking soreness of her lips. She felt him approaching, her thoughts swirling with a confusion of what she was feeling and what she imagined he was feeling. She was grateful when he did not stop to talk to her, instead retreating into the bedroom. When he was gone, she sank down into the nearest seat and exhaled silently.

Siena could not believe what she had almost done. If things had gone much further, her entire life would have changed dramatically, provided there was such a thing as a life after a mistake of such incomprehensible proportions. She was the sole ruler of her people, no mate, no children, and had never wished for either. The ruling class of her people had one distinctive trait, and that was the fact that when they mated, it would be for life. There were several species that carried this trait, such as wolves and swans, just as there were the polygamous animals, like horses and deer, who changed partners not only year to year, but sometimes moment to moment.

But no matter what the form the ruling monarch took, he or she was driven to mate once and for always. One mate for all time. It was historically believed that this was in order to assure the fidelity and purity of the royal line. The royal’s mate would also succumb to this loyalty to monogamy. How this was accomplished, no one knew for certain. They suspected it was a genetic virus of some kind, rather like the one that caused a Demon to trigger the birth of power in a specific Druid. Perhaps one day they would know for certain.

This was why Siena had chosen to remain absolutely celibate, letting no male anywhere near her in a way that would tempt her. She did not want a mate, and she absolutely refused to share her reign with a man who would become her equal in her monarchy just because she had taken him to her bed. In fact, she actively despised the notion of mating with a male who, in the event of her death, could potentially gain her throne.

If Elijah had taken her body in that one wild moment, he could very well have written out both their executions. Fourteen years of peace was not enough of a base on which to lay making a Lycanthrope King out of a Demon. As adored and lauded as she was, the chances of rebellion and overthrow of her reign would have been an unfathomable and inexcusable risk.

The next thing of importance after that would be the very concept of being forced to spend the rest of her life as part of a pair. Part of a pair that included a male who didn’t trust a single thing about her. Bad enough to be forced to bear the lifelong company of any male, but this Demon warrior? He had sent so many of her people to their deaths during her father’s war, and, even though she had learned to be wiser than her male parent, the families of those the warrior had slain would have disemboweled her as a traitor to her kind, seeing to it her carcass was dragged from here to the original Russian province they had hailed from for daring such an abomination.

How had she ended up in his arms? Why had he even pursued her? True, they had never personally battled each other, but they were the harshest representatives of their people, who had done so for centuries. The idea of kissing, of wanting such a man in any way?

What in the nine hells had gotten into her? Into him?

And why couldn’t she erase the feel of him from not only the front of her mind, but the entirety of her body, both inside and out? Her skin was humming even now. Also, she could feel something else, a depth in her body and in her thoughts she had never known existed. She now could name this hollow, clawing sensation for the hunger of desire that it was. Had she not been paying attention to her own thoughts? It was utter insanity to go on feeling such a thing for even one second more! She should be shamed that she had allowed him such intimacies with her body, not continue to crave them.

The Queen rose to her feet, no longer able to sit still. She absently rubbed a palm over her flat stomach as she began to pace the width of the room. She felt as if he had somehow embedded his presence into her, staining her permanently. They had not mated, so why then did she feel as if his very essence was already swimming inside her womb? She was confused, taunted by his scent on her body, struggling with both the human and feline memories of the past days in his presence.

In spite of herself, she was impressed by the way he had handled the cat in its frightened state. She was aware of it now, now that she had changed back, but in those minutes she had been nothing but the puma, more likely to snap his neck in two than anything else. By all rights, she should have been so threatened by him as to gut him on the spot. But instead, the cat had run away. Hidden. Just as the lions in the wilds would do when threatened by anything they deemed more powerful than themselves.

But then to approach him once more and use such a low-aggression mode of punishment for frightening her into the change?

Siena loped up the stairs as her emotions threatened to overwhelm her, hurrying as far from him as she could without exiting the cave. However, it was no better for her in that place near the pool. The room reeked of pheromones and the scent of sexual arousal. Hers and his. It seemed no matter where she turned, she could not escape him. And the sunlight streaming through the trees outside prevented her from bolting into the comfort of the forest.

The Queen bit back a sob, twisting her hands together violently and biting down hard on her bottom lip. She would not do this weak, feminine thing called tears. She had never once cried in all of her life and she would be thrice damned before she would do so over a Demon male. Still, she could not escape the feelings of confinement that rushed through her, the rampant emotions, the confusion of thoughts that seemed permanently tainted with impressions of his.

Siena suddenly, blindly, leapt for the entrance to the cave. She was barely six yards into the sun before Elijah’s arm hooked around her waist and hauled her back against his rigid body. She screamed, kicking and struggling against his hold. She would have made it impossible for him to hold her if not for the quick effect of the sun on her physiology.

The light bored into her with astounding speed. In that moment she was susceptible to it in a way she had never experienced before. Had even this changed about her? she wondered with despair as he swung her up into his arms and strode back into their shelter. By the time she was safely shielded, she was already quite nauseated from her exposure. He took her straight back to the bedroom and laid her in the bed, pressing a cool hand to her burning face.

“Are you insane?” he asked softly, the phrase void of the reproach it should have held. It was the brimming concern that was in the question and in his touch that finally broke her. She sobbed once, hard, and then burst into full-blown tears.

Shamed, she tried to turn her face away, but he cupped her cheek in his palm and prevented her from doing so. Elijah, the ruthless Demon warrior, then proceeded to catch each and every tear with his calloused fingers, hushing her softly under his breath, reaching to take her hand in his.

“Siena, please,” he begged softly, his fingers moving faster from one cheek to the other to catch the saltwater misery. “I am so sorry. More sorry than you will ever know. I did not mean to hurt you like this. Please, kitten, you are killing me. Please, stop.”

But the gentler he was, the more it seemed to hurt. And she had no idea why. After a moment he gave up on keeping her tears out of her hair and, with a strong tug on her captive hand, he drew her up into a comforting embrace. He pressed his hand to the back of her head, holding her face in the curve of his neck, her cheek pillowed on one broad shoulder. She felt his hand move over her back, rubbing gently, soothingly, in one direction only.

How did he know that it would be the most comforting way to touch her? Like a cat who could only bear its fur being stroked in a single direction, she was filled with a powerful sense of comfort and relaxation. She felt the change flushing through her as he petted her so perfectly.

“Siena, listen to me,” he said softly. “You are done here. Your duty to my King is done. Come dark, I will leave this place and return home. You will not see me again. I swear to you…”

“No. You are not yet well enough,” she protested, pulling back to look directly in his eyes. “I committed myself to your care and I will see it through. I…I am just…” Siena shook her head, unable to find words as she pushed away the last remnants of her weak tears.

“You have to realize what’s behind all of this,” he urged her quietly, touching fingers to her chin to lift up her eyes. “Samhain is only a week away. Your species is as afflicted by it as mine is. Demons are cursed by the moon of this month to desire nothing more than to mate, however misdirected it may be, with any beautiful humanoid that catches their eye.”

Elijah took a deep breath, looking away from her golden eyes and the liquid lure within them that still tempted him. As much as he was forcing himself to believe his own explanation, he couldn’t escape the haunting feeling in the center of his gut that whispered with sinister amusement that there was far more to it than that.

“Yes,” Siena agreed, latching on to the explanation with gratitude. “Yes, you are right. I had forgotten about how it affects your kind. The effect is not the same for my people. Not exactly. But our animal sides become very dominant during this time. Instincts such as mating are so overwhelming that…that they disrupt normal good judgment.”

“Then you understand that, if I don’t leave, this will potentially happen again?” he asked.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not now that we are aware of it. Regardless of this…this trouble, you cannot leave. I know enough about Demons to know that you cannot shift form while you are this badly injured without risking your life. I will not have you ruining all my hard-won efforts to mend you.”

Feeling relieved and exhausted all at once, Siena rested back into the pillows of the bed, ignoring the urge to rub her cheek over the pillow so heavily scented with him.

Elijah could see she was ill, despite the fact that she was still trying to act like his nurse. Her dash into the bright fall sun, none of it blocked by the bared branches of the autumn trees, had done significant damage. The Lycanthropes called it sun poisoning. He had seen it up close before, and the effects were unmistakable. She was pale, her skin faded from its usual golden luster, and her usually springy hair hung limply around her.

“You’re bleeding again,” she murmured, reaching to touch the bandage over his chest wound. “The water disturbed the bandage’s seal.”

“It will dry. Don’t worry about it.” Elijah reached to take her hand from him but found he was unable to release it once he had it in his palm again.

He forced himself to let her go by standing up and walking out of the room. He returned shortly with a cup of water, but she had fallen asleep during the time it had taken. He sat back down on the opposite side of the mattress, exhaling long and slow. He turned the cup around in his hands, an idle occupation as he tried to settle his thoughts.

Siena might not know it, but Elijah had broken several laws the moment he had laid hands on her. Demon law was very specific about such things. Frankly, he was amazed the Enforcer wasn’t already descended upon him, determined to see him punished as he ought to be. It would be just his luck that the one time he needed such intervention, Jacob was busy with his wife and newborn.

Elijah’s entire body ached. And, he realized, it wasn’t all from the pain of his healing wounds. Somehow, she had gotten under his skin, this hauntingly beautiful creature. He would be lying to himself if he tried to convince himself it was all about physicality. There was something in her spirit, in her manner, that beckoned to him. It had been doing so since the day they had met six months back.

He had never believed Gideon’s plan to imprison himself in the Lycanthrope court would come to anything but the medic’s swift demise. But the results had surprised him, even as he continued to mistrust them. Even after the Queen had declared an end to the war, he had walked around waiting for the other shoe to drop. The shoe that would kick them back into war just when they were beginning to relax. However, since he had met her, he’d known she was unlike any changeling he’d ever encountered before. He had even begun to feel more confident in this peace she had so artfully finagled out of her aggressive people.

Exhausted, Elijah set the cup aside and dropped back onto the pillow beside the one the Queen rested on. He turned his head to look at her. All he saw was the delicate fronds of gold lashes against her paled cheeks. For some reason he fixated on that elegant detail, finding himself curious over how fragile they seemed. As if they could break under the slightest touch. He had never thought to equate her with anything delicate or breakable. She was a woman of formidable strength, and he would be a fool to think of her in any other manner. But there was an underlying innocence within her.

It had nothing to do with the fact that he was aware she had never taken a lover. He knew the condition that came with that, and knew that was why she had been so terrified of what had almost happened between them. But it was something deeper than just the physically virgin state of her body.

Perhaps at some point he would understand what it was he thought he sensed, but it was likely never going to happen. Once they parted from this place, the only time they would ever see each other would be during functions at Noah’s court that would include her. If he had anything to say about it, they would not meet even then. He was determined to keep his distance from that moment on. He was a warrior, trained in the utmost forms of discipline, and he could easily do this.

Elijah’s eyes drifted closed, making him more aware of the confection of her scent. What was most compelling about it, he thought as he drifted into sleep, was that it blended so well with his own.