Elijah (17 page)

Siena knew the answer to that already. She had discovered it on her own as she had become older and wiser. Ironically, her father’s coldness and lack of attentiveness had propelled her into becoming the very opposite of what he was. The only reason she was such a powerful fighter in her own right was because it was the only skill he had demanded of her and had supervised himself. She had dared not fail to impress him, and if she satisfied him he would be comfortable leaving her to reign in his stead as he warred.

So she knew what it meant to blend these seemingly incongruous parts of oneself. He was as comfortable with himself as she was, just as arrogant, just as wise when it came to what he should or should not let others see. But they had both lowered their formidable defenses in order to allow for this union of the moment. It was so out of character, so outrageously dangerous, and so incomprehensible in origin.

It was so magnificent and so very revealing.

Siena had never doubted her femininity or her womanhood, always a clear product of her confidence, but her sexuality had been little more than a tool for intrigue and manipulation.

Otherwise, it was to be denied. Here, closed off from the world, centering herself on his body and in his hands, she now understood so much more than she had ever suspected.

She now understood what that slink of her spine was made for, what the lowering of lashes over smoky eyes could truly do, and what power there was in the tiniest, softest little sounds her throat could make. She began to truly understand what every shrug, every shift, and each soft, curvaceous slide could truly earn her in return.

She looked down on Elijah through her lashes, her amber eyes smoldering with the reflection of all her need, of all she was wanting and determined to get from him in that moment. She was straddling his hips, knowing that to him, she looked bold and beautiful as she entrapped him within her determined body. He actually had his hands folded beneath his head as if they were having a discussion about the weather, pretending the way she was moving over his rigid body was having little effect, in an attempt to taunt her.

Siena was not fooled. She felt his burning emerald eyes on the sway of her breasts as she moved.

She felt the pulse and growth of the hard shaft inside her body every time she closed her muscles around him like a vise. She knew that his jaw ticked at its hinge because his teeth were clenched with the pleasure she made him feel. She had powerful legs, unparalleled flexibility, and she was stubborn as hell. He would lose this contest of wills, though it would make winners of them both in the end.

She braced her hands on the bed beside his shoulders, leaning over him so that her nipples brushed his chest with every exhibition of her spine’s reptilian ability. She dipped forward against him, her breasts brushing his lips and nose, allowing for both temptation of taste and the musky scent of her perspiration-coated skin. She knew he was crazy about how sweet and sexy her skin smelled. Crazier still for the taste of her.

Before long his withheld hands were on her body, molding and cupping the full flesh of her breasts, drawing her toward his mouth until she was just as tortured as he was by her seductive libido. He was groaning under the relentless undulation of her hips, yet unable to drown out the
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sexy grunts and gasps she made as she pleasured herself with his body. He did not touch or guide the work of her pelvis. She had proved a quick study, and an uninhibited one. She had no qualms about finding her way over him herself. She also had very little mercy when she was ready to drag him into her world of climax. She spoke to him, low, soft, and sexy, verbally contemplating how she could make him lose control. Elijah could have told her that control had gone out of the window ages ago, but it would have spoiled her wicked little manipulations, and he would be the last to rain on her parade.

She drove him nearly insane, though. She was so hot, and she was learning how best to burn him very quickly. Her fingertips were always searching his body, looking for those places that were so erotically sensitive to her touch. When that did not work, or work fast enough for her liking, she employed the use of a sizzling tongue. She drew wet maps over his chest, taking paths over both nipples in order to avoid his bandage of her hair, and traveled to his neck and throat. She slid up over his jaw until she was devouring his mouth.

Hips, hands, and lips combined in a blissful barrage of sensation. She felt his building torment, and it echoed back to her. Still she gasped hot whispers of need and feeling into his mouth. The detailed accounting of how she felt as she rode him so relentlessly blinded her with her own pleasure. Siena cried out into his mouth, lifting away a second afterward and arching back, flinging her hair behind her until it fell heavily over his thighs. Now he grasped her hips, holding her to the rhythm as she convulsed violently around him. He pushed her and pushed her until she was screaming and he was obliterated by the vise of hot, velveteen muscles. He joined her release with a roar of agonizing gratification.

When she finally fell across his chest, trying desperately to catch her breath and bask in the afterglow of her amazing level of pleasure, Elijah became aware of the fact that he was in a great deal of trouble. He knew she intended to part ways with him after they left this place. She planned on defying this condition to her crown that she deemed a curse, this sentence that declared she take only a single mate in her lifetime who would reign as her equal on a throne she had suffered and struggled long for. She was giving everything to the now because she refused to devote anything to the future.

But in spite of the fact that he was repeatedly breaking about a thousand natural laws himself, Elijah felt a desperate sensation in his gut that warned him it would not be so easy to extricate himself from her golden embrace. He felt entangled with her in a way that was far more intricate than the grasping tendrils of her determined hair. He also knew that if he made the slightest suggestion about that, she would shut down and all of this would come to a crashing end.

He pushed back the dark cloud that came with his thoughts for just a little while longer. With a single movement he hauled them both off the bed. She complained and laughed all at once, but obediently circled his neck with her arms and his hips with her legs. He walked them to the mineral pool and tried to coax, and then pry, her off him.

“No, it’s cold,” she argued.

Elijah just grinned and lofted their weight sideways off the edge. Siena was screaming as they hit the frigid water on their sides. She pushed away from him, leaping up with the shock of the water. When he surfaced laughing, she gave him a very hard shove that sent him back under.

“Damn it!” she hissed, rushing through the hip-deep pool as fast as she could to reach the side.

But of course he encircled her with a single arm and dragged her back into his body before she could haul herself out.

“What’s the matter, kitten? Don’t like water?”

“That was low, even for you, warrior,” she said sharply.

Her verbal daggers fell on deaf ears. He was nipping at the sensitive side of her neck in the way he had come to learn melted her completely. Before she knew it, her hands were deep in his hair and their mouths were deeply enmeshed.

It took them almost a full minute to hear the very distinct sound of a throat clearing.

Siena whirled around suddenly, almost knocking Elijah over. To her shock and utter despair, her
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sister stood in the cave entrance, leaning her back casually against it and raising a very curious eyebrow at the couple in the pool. She sensed Elijah’s impulse to lay hands of comfort on her waist, and she let him steady her as the entire world began to spin.

“Your Highnesses,” Syreena greeted them politely.

“Hello, little flower. You look better,” Jacob greeted his wife as she came down the central spiral staircase, her nightgown trailing lazily behind her.

She smiled at him, moving into his embrace the minute her feet touched the same floor he was on.

Legna and an adult Mind Demon named Amos followed behind her. Amos had provided the buffer Isabella had needed to catch her breath and heal. But it was clear the experience had taken its toll on the Demon. He looked exhausted and excused himself quickly after turning Isabella’s care over to her husband and friends. Legna would continue to monitor Bella and would notify them if they needed to fetch further assistance, but at the moment, Jacob’s petite mate looked rosy and healthy. More so than she had in months.

“Are you okay?” Jacob asked, framing her face with his hands as he inspected her for the thousandth time since she had become conscious and lucid a day ago.

“I am now,” she insisted, reaching for his kiss and letting him feel how much she had missed being close to him.

She had always stirred him so easily. Kiss and body contact, these things would grab his attention on so many levels. However, all she truly had to do was look at him with those beautifully amused eyes of violet and he would be instantly under her spell. Of course, her response to the feel of his graceful touch and the intensity of his emotions for her left her similarly weak in her knees.

They had not been intimate in quite some time because of pregnancy and illnesses. The strain of the waxing Samhain moon was beginning to show in how deeply his fingers pressed into her soft flesh and how tightly hers tangled into his hair.

This was all part of the Imprinting between them. Their souls were forever deeply bound.

Because of this, everything would always come with great intensity to them. It would never change and, despite the moments where he regretted having opened her up to the danger and intrigue of his life, Jacob had been thankful for the precious gift of her every day since the moment he had first touched her. She eased his heart. She was the only one who could lighten the weight he often made himself carry on his soul.

For instance, early on, just after the accidental death of the Druid male who would have been the mate of Ruth’s daughter, Mary. Jacob was not truly to blame for something no one had understood the nature of until far too late. But he was a man of particular conscience. Taking such joy in his mate, the first Druid hybrid to become known to any of them, he felt Mary’s lost potential keenly.

However, he would never be able to convert that incident into a reason for the brutal acts of deception and violence that both women had perpetrated against their very own people.

Especially not after Isabella had suffered as a target of one of those attacks, nearly losing her life as well as the life of their daughter.

It had been his wife’s love and soft assurances that had helped him come to grips with his conscience in this matter. She was always there to halt him when he tried to backslide into those feelings of responsibility and guilt. Jacob could no longer remember what life had been like without her support and the way she made him feel when she sought his support in return.

Still, he sometimes feared the risks to the safety of his family that came with being an Enforcer.

He tended to forget that his mate was gifted with remarkable power, fighting skills, and a unique cunning that had come from her humanity and the life she had led before she had changed into her Druidic form. Jacob knew his disproportionate perception of Bella’s abilities was due to all the weakness and injury she had been subjected to over her enceinte term. It had been such a
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long, harrowing time of worry and he had pretty much forgotten how strong she could truly be.

But the flush of her complexion, the warmth of her body, and the robust energy of her embrace eased him into understanding that she was getting well quickly. She would soon be able to care for the needs of her family and the demands of her duties, just like he knew she wanted, the enthusiasm singing through his thoughts in a way that made him laugh out loud.

Bella slipped out of his embrace, her thoughts turning in the direction of her infant daughter. She moved to the cradle that sat beneath Noah’s hand and looked down at her daughter, who was finally sleeping after the proper breast-feeding she had longed for. Bella smiled at the King, leaning to kiss his cheek warmly, ignoring her husband’s tensing hand at her waist.

“She adores you, Noah,” she told him softly, looking down at how the King’s enormous hand blanketed the babe’s back securely.

“The feeling is quite mutual, I assure you,” he said. “She loves to be close to the fire. A girl after my own heart.”

“I see that. Noah, I have news for you.”

“Yes,” the King sighed. “Jacob said you would. I suppose it concerns Elijah?”

“Yes.” Bella moved to sit in the chair nearest the monarch. “I believe he was badly injured in a battle. A trap he was not expecting. But before I explain further, I want to tell you all that I think I am beginning to understand why some visions affect me so strongly and others do not.” She looked up at her husband and the others who were gathered around her. Legna had come to stand close to Gideon’s side as he stood with his usual firm efficiency near the fireplace. The medic relaxed instantly, however, when his wife leaned into his embrace. “Actually, Amos helped me with this understanding. I believe it depends on how close I have been to the person who is the subject of the vision.”

“How close? As in emotions, or proximity?”

“I cannot be one hundred percent sure, of course, but I believe it is proximity. A very specific kind of proximity. My power to dampen and then absorb the powers of other Nightwalkers, to be exact. I have absorbed Elijah’s powers repeatedly over the past year, and in a way, because of it I feel connected to him. Almost as if a part of him remains living inside me. The same is true of Legna, and Jacob, and you as well, Noah. Before I learned to control the ability as I do now, I accidentally took that part of you all within myself. I believe the reason the visions overwhelmed me while I was searching for Elijah was because he was equally overwhelmed with injury and pain.”