When Jasmine went to move into the room, Windsong immediately stepped into her path. The sharp look she gave the Vampire female was coldly pointed and clearly nonnegotiable.

  For Elijah’s part, he was satisfied that Syreena appeared to be alive, somewhat well, and in relatively one piece. Through the bonding he shared with Siena, the moment he knew these things, she knew them. For the first time in days, they both were able to sigh in relief.

  “Siena thanks you,” he said in earnest to his hostess a heartbeat later. “She says that if you ever need anything—”

  Windsong raised a hand to silence him. She knew how far and in what ways Siena’s gratitude could serve her, just as Elijah knew there would probably come a day when the favor would be called in. The warrior was content. He immediately took a comfortable seat in the little living room that made him seem even more of a giant than he normally appeared to be to those around him.

  Jasmine was not so easily satisfied, but she did not see that she had much of a choice.

  Personally, she would not be happy until she saw Damien walking and talking like normal. She did not like the idea of him behaving out of the norm. Not that he could be called predictable, but she just knew him so well.

  She supposed his protective behaviors had rubbed off on her after all.

  Jasmine folded her arms tightly to her midriff and stepped away so the Mistral named Windsong could close the door. She was flooded with questions and the need to know what had been happening all of this time. For a moment, she resented the warrior’s presence. Were he not there, she would be able to speak to the Mistral and get the answers she craved.

  And what she wanted to know, more than anything else, was how she could be standing a room away from Damien and yet still feel like he was not even there.

  Syreena felt a tickle along the ends of her hair, and it stirred her out of her deep sleep.

  She opened her eyes, a long exhale shuddering out of her as the tickle caused a chill to steal down the back of her neck. She tilted her face upward and looked into midnight blue eyes and a half-cocked smile. Damien had her hair wrapped softly around one finger, the tickle she had felt, and was absently running his thumb over it. When he noticed her looking at him, his smile grew exponentially.

  “Hello,” he greeted her amiably.

  “Hello?” She lifted her head and her eyes widened incredulously. “Is that all you have to say to me? Hello?”

  “It is a traditional start,” he pointed out.

  She growled at him in a pique of temper, shoving herself off him and the bed so she could stand and glare at him with her hands curled into fists.

  “Damien! What in the world is wrong with you?” she demanded to know. “Do you have a death wish or something? Why didn’t you tell me … Why did you let me …”

  The serene lift of his brow only infuriated her further.

  “You are a total psycho, do you know that? You’re just like those crazy humans who play with snakes they know could strike them dead in a heartbeat!”

  “Syreena …”

  “Don’t you Syreena me! Don’t lie there with that obnoxious patience of yours and act like I am getting hysterical as if I was some … some frail, missish thing who saw a mouse scurry across the floor! Damn you, Damien, you need a keeper!”

  Damien stopped trying to speak. She was not going to let him do so, and he could actually understand her fear-driven outrage. The Prince could not defend his misactions any more than she could, and she was probably right in any event. It had been a very stupid thing to do. But it had been his fault and his responsibility from beginning to end, and he would not let her take any part of the blame.

  Syreena suddenly stopped scolding him, her head cocking with that certain sharp attentiveness that he was so familiar with.

  He turned his attention to what she was sensing.

  “Oh, this is just great!” Syreena threw up her hands and they landed back at her sides with a slap on each thigh.

  “Did you expect your sister to just sit and wait for you to reappear?” he asked.

  She told him quite succinctly what he could do with his logical remark.

  She crossed over to the empty bed, ignoring him completely from that moment on. She stripped off the nightgown she was wearing, giving Damien’s appreciative eyes an excellent rear view of her athletic little body. The next moment, she hid it again, this time under the borrowed blue dress.

  She turned back to face him as she gingerly freed her hair from the neckline of the dress.

  “I don’t want Siena to know about this. Do you understand?” She put her hand to her throat, fidgeting with the slim gold and moonstone choker that indicated her rank in the royal household. Between twisting out the kinks in that and carefully arranging her hair, she was able to conceal the marks on her neck caused by his most recent taste of her. The others had already faded to small pink dots of freshly healed skin. “There are rules in our society, taboos and laws and superstitions, and we have broken so many of them it makes me dizzy.”

  “Blood loss makes you dizzy, Syreena. Breaking the rules scares you to death.”

  “I’ll tell you this much,” she snapped back. “You could use a healthy dose of fear, Damien! You are a menace to yourself. I’m just glad I am going to be very far away while you trot off somewhere else and self-destruct.”

  With that, the Lycanthrope Princess marched out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  “Kitten?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Kitten, you are wearing a hole in the carpet.”

  Siena stopped pacing back and forth and looked at her husband, who was lounging in their bed looking like he did not have a care in the world. It made her want to smack him in the head.

  “I heard that,” he warned her, chuckling.

  “Are you sure? I mean really sure?” she asked for the tenth time that night.

  “Siena …”

  “Oh, I know,” she said with a frustrated sigh and a wave of her hands. “What I want to know is how she does it. How does that conniving little bitch just slip away into nothingness? Our best hunters have tried tracking Ruth, mine, yours and Damien’s, and none of them can seem to hold her trail. Not even Jacob! He is your Enforcer, designed to hunt down renegades from your species, and even he is baffled! I want to know how she does it!”

  “She does it with her considerable power,” Elijah reminded her gently. “We could be standing on her head, but she can manipulate our minds into thinking she’s a thousand miles away. I’ll tell you exactly who will be able to catch her one day.”

  “Who?” the Queen asked, sounding terribly eager and avaricious in spite of herself. Siena had reached the end of her infinite tolerance. Ruth had attacked her family once too often, and like the fierce lioness that she was, Sienna would protect her family with her own life if need be.

  “My money lies on Damien or Magdelegna. Legna is the only Mind Demon powerful enough to beat Ruth at her own tricks.” He sighed in tandem with his wife as she finally climbed into bed with him. “But she cannot risk a hunt until after she gives birth.”

  “What of Damien?”

  “Damien is … Damien is immune to her trickery when he is paying attention for it. He is also the best damned hunter I have ever seen, next to Jacob.”

  “And yet he has had no luck in the year since this all began. The closest he got to her was when he rescued Syreena. Damn, I wish I had sent more people with you. They could have at least tried to track her.”

  Elijah encircled his wife’s shoulders, drawing her delightful body very close to his. He kissed the curling hair at the arch of her forehead with affection. “You know they would not have had any luck. Don’t fret, Siena. I promise you, Ruth’s days are numbered. She will turn up again.”

  “That is what I am afraid of. She is up to something. Something to do with the Library and now being in Mistral lands. I don’t like it. It gives me a chill thinking she is running around loose out there.” Siena snuggled deeper against him, trying to ease the chill in her body that had nothing to do with the cold of the cavern castle bedroom they shared. “It is you she hates, Elijah. In her twisted mind, she believes you killed her child. I am afraid of her catching you unprepared and hurting you like she did—”

  “Siena, that is not going to happen. Not again. I made a mistake, I know, and nearly got killed for it. But you can bet there won’t ever be a repeat. Don’t be afraid of her. That is what she wants. She wants you to be afraid for me, afraid for Syreena.”

  “I won’t be afraid of her … not after I rip the little bitch’s heart out.”

  Elijah laughed at that, the rich timbre of it echoing down several cavern corridors. “That’s my girl,” he said, just before capturing her mouth and starting her on a path full of completely different topics.

  Syreena got up from kneeling in front of the prayer altar she had been meditating in front of for the better part of the past twenty-four hours. She was not allowed to fast as she continued to recover from her ordeal of a week ago, and she wished the Monks would relent on that issue. She was fine, really, her blood supply quite back to normal. Perhaps if she fasted, her attempts to meditate would prove more useful. It had always worked in the past.

  There was no use speculating about it, Syreena thought with a defeated pout. Besides, the food that was or was not in her belly had nothing to do with why she was having such a hard time focusing.

  She was wondering how Damien had fared after all he had gone through. Because she had not been forthcoming with her sister, Siena had seen no need for more than the usual inquiry about his well-being in the aftermath.

  But Syreena knew better.

  She also knew that she had shown him damn little appreciation both for what he had done for her, and for her part in the second incident. Why she was so testy and volatile around him, she could not say. There was simply something about him that put her on edge or stirred her up. One or the other.

  That thought brought back far too many highly sensitized memories for Syreena’s comfort, and she restlessly began to pace the halls of the monastery of the Pride.

  Having grown up in the enormous underground monastery, she knew it better than she knew the royal castle. In a sense, these caverns and rooms carved through the massive Russian mountain The Pride was located in were more of a home to her than her birthplace. At the same time, there was no fond love and affection to be found in these halls. Lectures, professors, and discipline, yes, but nothing quite resembling kindliness.

  Not that she had been abused or truly deprived. She had thrived in every other way imaginable. She had benefited from an education beyond measure, and the knowledge of how to settle her soul when it was most disturbed.

  Well, usually.

  Syreena had come to lick her wounds in this place because at least here she could be assured of no one taking overmuch interest in her emotional well-being. The Monks would think her quite capable ofmanaging herself. Siena would not be so easy about it. Though the Queen would mean well, wanting to be a sister, Syreena did not think she could bear up under too much scrutiny at the moment.

  Again her thoughts turned immediately to the Vampire Prince.

  She felt herself flushing and absently raised a hand to cover the telltale blush of her cheeks.

  She had never felt anything like the wildly precarious things he had managed to create within her. Perhaps it was because he was so terribly dangerous, both to her and to himself, that made it so. She had never been a thrill seeker before, however. Outside of her position in the court, she led a rather mundane lifestyle. While living in the monastery she had been required to be celibate; as a Princess she was required to remain so until she found her mate for life. Between the two, she had long ago become used to it not being a factor of interest.

  Damien was the first to ever shake that particular tree within her.

  Although it had been more of an earthquake than a shaking. Everything that had happened in the wake of it had been a testament to why breeding across Nightwalker species was so strictly frowned upon. Siena and Elijah were the exception, and it had not been an easy adjustment for everyone to make. In fact, the court and Siena’s people were still adjusting to it. Some far better than others.

  But at least they did not cause harm to one another. They were both clearly thriving and robustly happy. Such a thing was clearly not possible between Damien and Syreena. It had been foolish of her to even attempt to think otherwise. More foolish of him, considering he had already been aware of the painful ramifications of playing with that fire.

  Syreena made a frustrated sound and stopped to lean back against a cool wall for support as she rubbed at the ache in her temples. No matter what she did, she could not stop herself from thinking circles around this issue. Why could she not convince herself that this was simply the end of a string of bad choices? Why, in spite of everything, did she still have this overwhelming craving to seek him out?

  Footsteps approached her and she quickly resumed her walk. She passed a pair of Monks and they nodded to her in polite acknowledgment. She nodded back, using great mental effort to not cover the bare patches along her ragged hairline when their eyes fell onto it. She wished she could tolerate wearing a shawl or scarf over it to guard herself from such observation. But where all Lycanthropes balked at confining their hair in any manner, she found she was even more repelled by it than before.

  It would take years before it became unnoticeable again. And it would never all match in length again. There was an ironic humor involved in it as well. Until her hair reached a certain length again, the dolphin would be forced to lie dormant within her. It was almost as if she were being cosmically punished for her resentment of her two halves. Now that it was out of reach, she suddenly wanted it back with all of her heart.

  The Princess self-consciously reached to comb fingers through her soft brown hair, arranging it to cover the bare places. The effort was obvious, considering the even part that was normally there, but it was better to look like a zebra than a victim. At least there were those who naturally had striped hair color in their society. Those who did not know her would not look twice at it.

  Unfortunately for the Princess, there were few people who did not know her.

  Still, it was better than nothing.

  The Vampire Prince was brooding again.

  Jasmine sighed softly as she spied on him from the balcony of the mansion. The turn of the tables was unnerving. She was supposed to be the moody one. However, she did not have that luxury any longer. She was too overcome with concern for Damien.

  He was walking the darkened gardens sprawled out just below her, heading toward the cliffside where he would no doubt spend another collection of endless hours staring out at the Pacific Ocean.

  Jasmine assumed it was toward Russia which he looked.

  She did not assume this because he had confided in her about anything that had occurred. She had been left to her own devices of deductive reasoning on that matter.

  The Princess could possibly manage to hide the truth of things from her sister and their people with tricks of hair and jewelry, but a Vampire could not be fooled in such ways. The bite of a Vampire was something like an animal rubbing up against a tree, a marking that outlined territory and pronounced the power of the beast within its borders.

  A Vampire could always sense when another had been before it. Since they were so territorial by nature, that was how they managed to keep from treading upon each other’s toes.

  So anyone who crossed close enough to the Lycanthrope Princess would know that Damien had been there before them.

  Besides that divination, Jasmine had been quite shaken by the simple sight ofthem sleeping together in the Mistrals’ home. Damien went to bed with his women, but he did not sleep with them. She imagined it was because he did not trust any of them as far as he could throw them. Or perhaps it was because the intimacy of it was too potentially misleading. Damien did not like for his enjoyments to form attachments to him. He preferred to keep that in accord with his own wishes. Infatuated females were too much work and headache if he did not want them to be infatuated with him.

  It had taken four years for him to show any affection for Jasmine, though she had been aware of it long before the expression of it. Even now, it was a part of how they functioned that she would always protest any need of him. Neediness was unattractive to Damien. In truth, while they were deeply friendly and caring of each other, she did not need him in any overtaxing way. She certainly did not claim a dependency on him. They had never been lovers, though she had contemplated it once. She had decided long ago that she would rather have his unending interest in friendship rather than his passing fancy in bed. Jasmine believed this was what had kept them side by side through the centuries.

  Damien was also not forthcoming about what effect his little marking of the Princess had had upon himself. Jasmine knew, however, that there had very much been an effect. This knowledge was what had prompted her to send all the others who shared their home, friends and servants alike, away to another of Damien’s households for the time being. She had conjured up an excuse about diplomatic obligations and traveling, something they were used to. Whatever happened, the others must never be made aware of any changes in Damien. Change was often viewed as a sign of weakness in their society. Weakness, even among friends, had a way of causing huge amounts of trouble and danger.

  They would quickly be able to sense what she had sensed about Damien, that there was indeed a difference. The Prince could not have been ignorant of it, either. It was impossible. If she could sense the differences in him, then he could feel them in himself. However, there was no way she could get a true sense of the nature of the change so long as Damien was actively blocking her. Only his invitation would allow her evaluation of what alterations there had been.

  It was all too disturbing. Which was why, she supposed, the Prince kept sitting at the edge of a cliff looking toward impossible things night after night.