Damien (9 page)

Damien hesitated when he heard his name, turning to focus on the new target. He realized immediately that he recognized her. “Windsong?”

“Yes, Damien.”

He remained frozen in place for two beats as his mind tried to reconcile all the information it was receiving at once. It was difficult to do, not only because of his shocky state, but because Windsong’s voice was a natural hypnotic. The dazing lure of a Siren’s voice was half pure beauty and talent; the other half was a trick of the mind. A Vampire of his skill and age was immune to the mind manipulation, but there would always be an effect of a Mistral’s voice that he could not overcome. Not so long as the Mistral’s intentions were well meant.

“Sorry,” he murmured to the girl he had frightened before lying back with a sigh of immeasurable relief.

Safety. At last.

He remembered it had been intentional, setting down in the woodlands near
Brise Lumineuse
. He had intended to seek shelter there if and only if he had to. Apparently, Windsong had known he had become unable to reach her himself.

Windsong somehow always knew those sorts of things.

“My apologies, Lyric,” he said again, this time far more sincerely. He glanced at Windsong and then turned studying eyes on the compact little dark-haired girl. “Your apprentice this century, I take it?”

“Yes,” Windsong said. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” he responded automatically. Then he realized that was very much the truth of it. He could not remember the last time he had actually felt weariness like this. This was not the weakness that came from too long a time between feedings, something he experienced with much more frequency, if frequency was the appropriate term. This was a tiring like…well, like it had been when he had once depended on circulation, oxygen, and a beating heart to power himself.

Like all Vampires, however, he had ceased to need those support systems around his one hundredth year. Now any use they got was purely habitual, like blinking or breathing. It was this lack of expected function that had started the myth that Vampires were the walking dead. In truth, it was merely that, as they matured, their bodies learned a new way to conserve nutrition while at the same time magnifying the energy it produced. It was an evolutionary efficiency and it was why they had become so prevalent as a species. Their brains functioned at higher levels, allowing for higher sensory abilities, the power to influence the minds of others, and the capacity to levitate and fly by the sheer command of thought. Not to mention the quick healing that all Nightwalkers enjoyed the benefit of in one form or another.

Apparently he had survived his deadly experiment with the ingestion of Lycanthrope blood, his remarkable ability to heal himself of almost any damage being his true saving grace.

However, he would not be repeating the act anytime soon.

He could still remember the pain and knew it would haunt him for quite some time. Like a child, he did not need to touch the flame twice to learn his lesson.

He felt leaden and heavy, but there was no hunger that needed attending, so he knew that was not the reason why. His body was nowhere near finished coping with whatever damage had been done. It made him feel helpless and he hated that. What he would not give for a good Body Demon medic in that moment.

“Syreena?”

“She is resting,” Windsong assured him, resting a hand on his arm to keep him lying in the bed when his instinct was to get up and see for himself. He would be responsible if anything happened to the Lycanthrope Princess, and he would rather lose his head to a dull blade than see that happen.

The passion of the thought surprised him for a moment, so much so that he actually laughed aloud. It was out of place to the two women near his bed as well. He could tell because they exchanged curious glances. “Will she live?”

“Thanks to you,” Windsong said, letting him know she was aware of what he had done to attempt to save her.

“Thanks to luck,” he corrected her with a long, heartfelt sigh. “A lot of luck.”

“Then we shall have to give thanks for your luck in our prayers before we sleep this morning,” Windsong said.

“How long until dawn?” he asked. Normally, his body clock warned him when it was close to dawn, but he was not surprised to realize he was a bit dulled to some of his usual internal sensitivities.

“It is past dawn,” the little apprentice said, her surprise that he did not know that all too evident in her sweet little voice.

“Thank you, sweetling,” he said, his eyes drifting closed for a long minute. He did not see her blush at the intimacy of the endearment. “Right now, I think I would be mid-suntan before I realized that.”

Lyric burst out in a surprised laugh, covering her mouth in shock at herself as she drew his attention back to her. He gave her a charismatic grin as he casually tucked one hand beneath his dark head.

“So you are studying to be a healer?” he asked. “You will be learning from the best. The woman you saved today would not have lived into adulthood if not for Windsong.”

Lyric’s eyes widened at that piece of information. “We mostly do herbal medicines together. Windsong will not take me to more serious cases.”

“Because you are a long way off from learning those skills. One day at a time,” the elder Siren lectured firmly, her large blue eyes sparing a knowing twinkle for Damien alone. “Is it not amazing how eager the young are to get themselves into hot water?”

Damien laughed and nodded. He had known far more than enough precocious Vampires with that very same trait. Jasmine had been one of them.

“Now, Lyric, resume your seat and your mending song,” Windsong instructed her pupil, using her hands to guide the awestruck girl into her chair. “Lyric has an exceptional voice, Damien. I expect she will help you to sleep in no time.”

“I do not doubt it in the least,” Damien said.

He relaxed as much as he could in the bed, closing his eyes and trying to ignore the residual echoes of extraordinary pain that still lived in his memory and the nerves of his body.

As promised, Lyric began to sing to him. After a few unsure quavers, she fell into the familiarity of the mending song she had practiced over and over and over again; always waiting and hoping for the time she would first use it. She was amazed and honored that her first serious patient was the very powerful Prince of the Vampires. She could hardly wait to tell Thrush about the wild experience of the entire night. He would never believe her! She hardly believed it herself.

Lyric’s voice flowed over Damien like a breeze that first rushed, and then lingered. The song itself was filled with soothing imagery, of fields and fresh air and moonlight that shone down on the wings of the moths flitting by. He allowed himself the luxury of being cocooned by this special form of magic. So long as Windsong was there, they would remain safe.

Damien drifted into a contented sleep with that thought.

When next he woke, it was to the bright sound of song coming from a distant room.

He recognized the raw talent of Lyric’s as yet untempered voice. Give her a few decades of intense study at her mentor’s hand, he thought, and she would sound as easy in skill and as devastatingly beautiful as the voice that chimed in suddenly in chorus.

He lay quietly listening for long minutes. In spite of himself, they easily drew him into that half-hypnotic state that soothed even the harshest of souls. There was even a music in the way they carried out their tasks, which he came to understand was cooking their first evening meal. The heat of the kitchen and all its rich scents drifted on the notes their voices stroked and toyed with. Windsong’s coloratura was a masterpiece in sound, Lyric’s gentle soprano like the sweet crystalline tinkling of bells.

Damien sat up, running his fingers through his hair, trying to absently smooth it into a semblance of order as his eyes drifted over to the second bed in the room, situated perpendicular and to the right of his own. He assumed the beds were Lyric’s and Windsong’s own, surrendered for the well-being of their patients.

Patient.

The word did not sit well on a man like Damien, and he moved to get out of bed. He hesitated when he realized his bloody clothing had been stripped from his body, leaving him nude beneath the covers. Mistrals were not at all like his race, being far more conservative and reserved in all things except goodness and song. While Windsong was several centuries old, he was certain that Lyric was not used to such things.

He smiled to himself, even laughing under his breath. It had been a while since he had needed to think like a gentleman. He found it refreshing all over again.

He pulled a sheet with him as he rose to his feet. He was a little hungry, which was a good sign, and feeling incredibly light of heart. He realized, as he wrapped the linen fabric around his hips, that it was probably an effect of the song being tossed about with merriment in the distant room.

The Vampire Prince moved to Syreena’s bed, leaning over her and touching gentle fingers to the bandages swathing her hairline. He sensed the strong and steady rhythm of her pulse, smelled the herbs that had been used to treat and bathe her. She smelled strongly of lavender, strangely enough a favorite of his. It compelled him to sit beside her on the bed, taking the time for a closer inspection.

She was bruised darkly across her face, but mostly on her throat. Her blood loss was retarding her normally quick healing or they would have been mostly gone by now, just as most of his damage had seemed to have healed over the daytime.

He noticed her hands were heavily bandaged and it surprised him. He lifted one from the handmade quilt she was bundled under, and unwrapped the gauze and strips of cloth in order to find out why. What wound had he missed there?

He made a soft, angry sound deep against his vocal cords as he realized she had several wounds penetrating through and through her hands.

Bad enough the sick bitch had plucked the unfortunate Princess’s feathers, but she had effectively clipped her wings as well, although the wounds would probably not last a tenth as long as the memory of their acquisition would.

Damien laid her palm gingerly onto his own upturned one, his fingertips of his opposite hand moving softly and gently over the wounds on the back of her hand. He heard her heartbeat alter and he looked up to her face quickly.

Her calico eyes were open, regarding him through half-raised lids and puffy, swollen flesh.

“Welcome back,” he greeted her quietly.

She did not respond. Instead, she flicked her mismatched eyes over her surroundings in a quick, succinct inventory. “You came after me?”

Her voice was hoarse, her throat bruised by burst vessels from within, a result of the strangulations she had suffered.

“Once I realized what had happened,” he told her.

He was instantly curious. Windsong and Lyric were still singing robustly in the background, yet she did not seem affected by it like she should be. It was a possible mark to her own mental discipline, but he found that hard to believe in her weakened and battered state.

“I thank you,” she said on a sigh, closing her eyes and trying to shift herself slightly. She winced, a wholly slight response considering the magnitude of the pain she must be feeling.

“There is no need for you to move,” he said soothingly. “You are being well cared for. Wait until you have healed some more before attempting to do so.”

Her eyes opened again, this time a little wider, her awareness of him and her other surroundings clearly increasing.

“Where are we?”

“
Brise Lumineuse
,” he told her, knowing she was familiar with both the place and who lived there.

It had been Windsong who had saved Siena from severe sun poisoning a little over a month ago. He could tell by the expression in Syreena’s eyes that the Princess understood she was now doubly beholden to the generous Mistral.

Her eyes flicked down to the hand he held, and he followed her gaze. Damien realized with surprise that he had continued to stroke her softly as they spoke. He felt an incredible sadness as he looked at the wounds once more. He met her unusual eyes, not caring that she could probably read his emotions within his own.

“I am sorry,” he murmured softly, his fingers replaced by the warm press of his palm.

“For what?” she asked.

“For taking so long to find you,” he said.

He had nothing to apologize for, Syreena thought as emotion ravaged her features. Such tender sensitivity and concern from so unlikely a source stirred up the turmoil she had kept under tight control since this ordeal had begun. She could not stop the tears that leaked out of the corners of her eyes, but she turned her face away from him as she tried to regain control over her feelings of fear, anger and…and so many others she could not even face.

“Do not do that,” he said suddenly, his fingers reaching to turn her face back to him. “Do not be ashamed of what you are feeling.”

“This from one whose species feels very little and expresses even less?” she retorted, a bit of the fire he was used to snapping into the remark. It made Damien smile.

“This from a woman who has met a total of two Vampires in her entire lifetime?” he countered. “What you know of us from your Monks and your books varies greatly from what we truly are,” he informed her.

Syreena was already beginning to realize that. But she did not like feeling so vulnerable and exposed to so utter a stranger. It had been a knee-jerk reaction to try to irritate him. She could deal with the barbs they tossed between them better than she could this wellspring of concern she had never thought him capable of.

Then she finally took note of his state of dress, or rather undress, and it occurred to her that he might be hurt as well. She recalled that there had been an explosion and the backlash of a great deal of magic when he had arrived for her. It must have been an extraordinarily painful ordeal, one that only someone as powerful as he was could possibly survive.

Her searching eyes roamed the handsome planes of his face, the long, loose length of his blue-black hair, and his bare flesh over the span of his shoulders and chest.

“Are you well?” she asked at last when she saw no visible signs of harm on him. In fact, he looked far too healthy for a man who had been through so much in one night. She envied him his quickly healed body and the clearly robust health accented by his precisely defined musculature.

“So far, so good,” he responded rather cryptically.

But the mystery of the comment disappeared in the next instant as she was flooded with sudden memory.

Syreena sat up so suddenly that she took him by surprise. She pulled her hand free of his and reached to take hold of his shoulders. The Princess repeated her scan of him, trying once more to find some sort of damage.

“Damien,” she uttered in a voice full of shock and comprehension. “
Are you well
?”

He immediately understood the difference between her first question and then the repeat of it. He reached to take her hands from his shoulders, a soothing sound clicking off his tongue.

“Yes, I am well,” he assured her, urging her back into a resting position.

She shrugged off the attempt, her pupils radiating her disbelief in his statement. “Why would you do such a thing? You could have been killed!”

“But I was not,” he reminded her.

“You risked your life for mine as if you had no responsibility to an entire race of people! It was a foolish and ridiculous thing to do!”

“It would have been my mistake to make,” he countered sharply. “I am not used to people criticizing my actions, Syreena.”

“Well, perhaps they should! I would never have allowed Siena to do such a foolish thing!”

“Oh, really? Just as you prevented her from almost dying for the sake of her husband?”

It was a twisting knife in a very tender spot for her, and he knew it instantly by the expression in her eyes. It was only then that he realized she did indeed blame herself for her sister’s near encounter with death that recent October.

“Was I supposed to let you bleed to death, Syreena?” he asked quietly, trying to take back the pain he had caused her with the balm of his words. “Why are you so eager to value my life above your own?”

“Because I am not so special that an entire people should be deprived of their monarch for my sake!”

“Lucky for you, I disagree with that assessment.”

Damien understood, however, that there was baggage beyond her statement other than the immediate disagreement. Still, it did not measure up for him. She had never struck him as the type who devalued herself.

She looked at him as if he were completely insane for a long moment, her confused eyes searching over him for an answer and a logic that just was not within grasp. Then, without knowing why, she leaned in and kissed him.

Damien was shocked for a moment at the forward and illogical act, his hands reflexively circling her arms as her warm mouth pressed gently to his. Her unbandaged hand came up to lie against the side of his face, her contrary eyes sliding closed for a long, painful moment.

He felt, and then tasted, the salt of her tears.

She pulled away, only a couple of inches, her body trembling beneath his hands as he looked into her eyes with a confusion of emotions and sensations struggling through him.

“Why did you…?”

“Because,” she interrupted with a sob catching at her words. “Because it is a fairy tale, Damien. And in a fairy tale, the Princess always kisses the Prince who rescues her.”

It was an enchanting and ingenuous thing for her to say. She was a woman of great learning, amazing strength, and a sense of logic that negated any illusion of naïveté, yet she was willing to expose herself as a hopeful idealist in order to express her gratitude. He realized that it was a preciously protected streak in her makeup that very few people were allowed access to. It subsequently meant more to Damien than the most profuse and eloquent words of any language.

“Syreena…” He paused to clear the coarseness in his throat. “I am no hero,” he told her with rough quietness. “You should not make me into one.”

She defied the statement by forcing it into silence with the cover of her mouth.

This time Damien saw it coming, but it made him no better prepared. This time it was not a quick and simple expression of impulsive gratitude she was reaching to express. This was a little different, and on an instinctive level he knew it.

Completely in spite of the soundness of reason that rang stridently in his head, Damien allowed himself the luxury of the feel of her lips. Caught less off his mark and having had a moment to think about it, he returned the intimacy with equal warmth and measure. From one heartbeat to the next, his hands found their way into the hair at the back of her head, his fingertips sliding with careful languor, mindful of all she had suffered and been through and in no way wanting to cause her even a moment of additional pain.

Syreena was also sliding her fingers into a position that held his head to her, just in case he thought to argue with her any further about her desires in this matter. His darkening eyes were looking directly into hers, seeking for things beyond both their comprehension. She met his searching gaze with eyes full of surety and strength. She knew what she wanted, amazingly enough without a single doubt or second thought. This moment, those fascinating eyes messaged to him, was to be precious for them both. The next moment would come soon enough. But this moment…

This moment was for thanking, for gentleness, and, most of all, for feeling something that had no pain, struggle, or immediate ramifications to it.

It simply would be what it was.

A kiss.

A kiss between a man and a woman.

Not Nightwalkers. Not a Prince and Princess. Not a Vampire and a Lycanthrope.

Simply a man and a woman.

Damien’s eyes closed as the keen purity of that ebbed into him. He seemed to suddenly realize that her mouth was a soft, heated fullness that had nothing to do with bruised tenderness. That she had flavor, in both bouquet and taste, and it was like tasting heated syrup. She was liquid and soft solid and every other essential that was natural to life.

At the same time, he understood that she had never kissed a man before.

Never in all of a century of life.

I have lived in a cloistered setting, forbidden any opportunity to form attachments or affections outside of a student-teacher relationship. What I was starved of at first, I was soon too complacent and numbed against after so many years of deprivation. So I never sought it.

These were her thoughts, easily read even if he had not been able to study them.

So the kiss was also an act of total bravery. A baring of her soul and her vulnerability because of her inexperience. It ought to have been awkward, but it was not. She moved against his mouth in delicate increments so that there would be no clumsiness on her part. As with all things she had taken on in a lifetime of being a student, she gave an exemplary performance of her quick ability to learn and adapt.