"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 backtrack 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.