"The Imprinting is not something you can resist or avoid, so if it has happened, you can hardly be held to blame," Gideon remarked. "If you recall, there are a great many laws we have needed to rethink over this past year. If we have learned one thing this annum, it is that our ancestors tended to interpret prophecy the way they wanted it to be interpreted. We may not be the dogs to her cats, Elijah. She is a powerful Nightwalker female. She is intelligent and just as prone to her animal instincts as we are. She may have different traditions, but her people celebrate the exact same holy days we do. It may turn out that we were never any more different from one another than we allowed ourselves to be."
"But Jacob…"
"As I recall, there was a night about a year ago where you stopped Jacob from making what, by law, was an enormous mistake. That law has since changed. Elijah, our world as we know it is in flux. None of us who are your friends will beat you with criticism. This is a time of temperament and change. A time of special destinies. You would do well to remember that."
Gideon lowered his head and lifted a corner of his mouth in a smile as his wife's praise for his uncommon tolerance whispered through his thoughts.
"I would, however, make a point of speaking to Noah relatively soon," he added. "It would be better coming from you as soon as possible…before someone else figures it out."
Elijah turned to look at the Ancient. After a moment, he simply nodded.
CHAPTER 8
Gideon approached the locked doors of the Queen's inner sanctum, giving the guards a smile that dared them to gainsay him. The Minotaurs had fought Gideon once before, though not truly in earnest, but it was enough to make them understand that the Demon was not only not to be messed with, but also allowed privileges to the Queen that no one else would have dared to assume. Not only that, but the medic could astral project into the chamber if he wanted to. It would be like trying to capture a ghost.
Gideon rapped his knuckles against the door and waited for a response. He ignored his wife's voice in his head as she cooed to him about how pleasing it was to see he had at last learned the concept of knocking.
One does not do otherwise when royalty is involved, he remarked dryly.
Oh, and no one else but royalty deserves the courtesy? she argued.
Foreign royalty, he added.
Ah, yes. A sense of privacy is not the Demon way, she mocked him with another of her light, pretty laughs.
"Come," came the resigned call from inside, the locks tumbling as someone inside freed them.
Gideon put aside his playful mental argument with his mate and focused on the task at hand.
Siena was seated at her loom, her hands deftly shooting the shuttle back and forth at a speed and degree of precision that only someone with supernatural reflexes could manage. She did not look up, and Gideon suspected he knew why. There were two waiting women in the room, but it was clear they had been ordered to a fair distance from the moody Queen and were more than happy to obey.
"Leave us," the Queen said without looking up, sending the servants scurrying out into the hall as Gideon closed the door. "Do you think it wise to attend the Queen in her bedchamber in the plain sight of all her subjects, medic?"
"Better to do so openly than in astral form. Tongues would wag then for sure, and I am not certain my wife would hold her significant patience for very long should she overhear such gossip. Ambassador or not, an insult to you of this inference would also be an insult to me, and she would not likely stand for it."
"Yes," Siena agreed. "I have come to know Legna quite well. She is not one to bear an unjust incident in silence. It makes her a good ambassador for your people, and her patience makes her a good one for mine. She and thee have changed many stubborn minds these past months of your residence among us." The Queen's shuttle continued to fly between her threads. "But I do not imagine you came here to discuss your wife or court gossip trends."
"No. I did not."
"Then speak, medic."
"I should first like to ask at what point it was that I changed from 'Gideon' to 'medic,'" Gideon queried archly.
The shuttle stopped, held in the Queen's hand for a long, thought-filled moment.
"My apologies," she said softly, setting her work aside and turning to look at him. When he stepped closer, however, she turned her gaze to the floor and to the right, her hand gathering together the material of her collared gown around her throat.
"Siena, my powers may have very little effect on you, but I have eyes in my head and a sense of smell as good as most of your kind. I know the scent of the man you now carry as well as I know my own, and when I went to heal him three days ago, I recognized your mark on him. It does not take a genius to notice how you are concealing yourself beneath these clothes, surrounding yourself with half-bred Lycanthrope handmaidens whose senses do not include a heightened sense of smell."
"You are too shrewd, med-Gideon," she said, her voice distinctly hoarse. "Hopefully shrewd enough to tell me how to get out of this predicament."
Siena looked up, releasing her hold on her clothing, and Gideon drew in a soft breath of shock. He had been not been expecting to see Siena's bared throat. He had never seen her without her collar of office and had lived at the court long enough to know the significance of the legend and mysticism that accompanied the thick piece of jewelry.
He had been correct from the moment he had entertained the idea of this unusual Imprinting, but it was still quite something else to see the evidence of it growing in such leaps and bounds right before his eyes. A Demon Imprinting on a Lycanthrope? It should have been impossible, and yet, here it was, plain as could be, flickering with emotion between both sets of the Queen's golden lashes.
Gideon advanced on her, looking into her with his power as best he could, sorting through her alien physiology. He could not affect her much as far as the ability to heal was concerned, but he had lived in the court of the Lycanthropes for five years once before, and during that time had learned how to read enough to distinguish the normal from the abnormal.
Elijah's stamp was all over her. Being apart from each other these three days was clearly taking its toll on the beautiful Queen, just as it was taking its toll on the warrior back home. She was paler than usual, clearly out of spirits, and though she fought it, clearly yearning for her inconceivable intended.
"Gideon, if you owe me anything for the kind treatment I gave you when my father imprisoned you all those years ago, you will repay me by stopping this."
The request was as desperate as the uncontrollable tone of her voice.
"I am powerful, Siena," he said softly, "but no one is powerful enough to overthrow Destiny. From what I have seen of Elijah, and now of you, she has made her choice and it will simply have to be accepted."
"Simply?" The Queen surged to her feet, beginning to pace in a way that set her long, silky gown into a float around her calves and bare feet. "There is nothing simple about this and you know it as well as I. A Demon ambassador is one thing, and that alone hard enough to get my people to accept, but a Demon King for the Lycanthrope throne? Elijah and I would be slaughtered on the spot if I ever dared force such an abominable union upon my species. Not to mention the fact that I am aware it breaks about half a dozen of your people's laws as well. And I cannot even begin to tell you my personal outrage over the entire mess or I will drop dead from a stroke!"
"What you fail to understand, Siena, is that every law has its exceptions. For my people, the Imprinting supersedes all else because it is a demand of nature in its purest form, and unlike law, not open to interpretation."
"Imprinting?" The Queen stopped pacing, a numb laugh jumping out of her as her hand went to her bare throat. "A Lycanthrope? Imprinting is a Demon condition. A Demon hell, if you ask my opinion about it. No offense to you and yours, Gideon, but I would rather spend the rest of my life as a fungus than be so much a part of another being!"
"What you are neglecting to realize, Siena, is that you do not have a choice in the matter."
"Oh, as long as there is breath in my body there is a choice!" the Queen snapped, marching up to Gideon with fire in her glowing eyes. "It may be irresistible to you Demons, but I am a Lycanthrope of incredible power and I will use all of that power to fight this thing! Imprinting? Ha! Try imprisoning. I have seen you and your mate, Gideon. How can you bear it, this constant need you have to be in each other's presence?"
Siena paused, color flaring into her cheeks as she rubbed an absent palm over her stomach. The sky blue material of her dress tangled around her legs as she turned to continue pacing once more, but she strode through the confinement.
"I have been on my own since the day I was born," she hissed, not even aiming the comments at Gideon anymore. She was looking up to the ceiling, and it was more like she was crying out in rage to her Goddess. "My father wanted nothing to do with children. War was his legacy. My sister was ill so often as a child that I was never allowed near her. After the genetic virus that altered her, she was sent to The Pride to be trained. My life was this court. After Mother died, I was left to tend the court while Father traipsed around the world trying to hunt down your people and pick fights with them. No rhyme, no reason that I ever knew of. Just hatred and prejudice.
"So my life has seen thousands of people constantly moving in and out of it, but none coming too close. Every moment of every day since I was a child has been this way. This court and every single soul that passed through it. I was a Queen, even when I was only a Princess. So I have, in a sense, ruled my people all on my own for one hundred fifty years. I will never take a mate, no matter what you and your Imprinting think to force on me! I will never force my people to accept such a blasphemous insult to our throne.
"Even if they could accept a Demon for their King, do you think that they would ever accept the man they refer to as the Demon Butcher? The peace we have worked so hard for will be destroyed instantly. Frankly, my people did not truly enjoy the idea of their Queen getting into bed with Demons figuratively-they most certainly will not accept it literally!"