There was no mistaking the heat and scent of a human, even through the door. It was not usual for Demons and humans to associate. Not full-bred humans, at least. Jasmine was already beginning to know how to sense the difference between usual humans and the Druids that were suddenly being resurrected into Demon society. She could be mistaken, as the talent was new, but she could swear there was nothing Nightwalker about the human she was sensing beyond the door. What was more, the mortal was not alone.

Now, this is interesting, Jasmine thought with delight.

One minute it mattered who and what they were; the next it didn't. The next instant was about nothing but chemistry, wanting, and gripping, starving needs that had yearned for this connection for far too long. The moment where Destiny demanded obedience.

Kestra's fingers slid into the crisp, curling hair at Noah's collar. She couldn't help herself. She had dreamed of him as often as he had dreamed of her. Whether she would admit to her needs or not, she craved the reality of him. The feel of his thick hair curling between and around her fingers was rich realism. Her opposite hand skimmed fast and hot over his clothing in search of far more carnal sensations. Kestra shaped him with her fingers and palm, down his chest, over his ribs, and around to his back, a thorough exploration of the musculature of his flank.

The Demon King responded, his broad hands just as alive and active over her long, sensual shape and fit contours. Her body was truly athletic, firm beneath the stroke of his searching palms, but it was easy enough to find the soft, feminine curves that were generous and delightful. His huge palms cupped her hips and bottom, stroking and drawing her into his body, making sure she felt their tight fit. He traveled upward, curving into her waist.

Noah's hands slid up her sides beneath her arms, only his thumbs breaching the curve of her rib cage, sliding up toward her breasts. Kestra was braced between his body and an equally solid wall. She lifted one stiletto-heeled foot from the floor, her knee drawing slowly up the outside of those soft breeches he wore. The fabric of his clothing was the only thing besides his hair that was soft. The rest of him was like granite baked in the sun, immovably hard and incredibly hot.

The moment they had entered the same room it was flint and steel, with the touching of their bodies becoming the major spark. Once he'd cornered her and kissed her, that was what had truly set her to burn. A single kiss. Just as he was kissing her now, hot and skillful, his tongue catching hers again and again until she burned from head to toe just from the fire of his mouth.

She'd needed this for so long. This wildness and heat and danger. A career of death-defying escapades, not to mention thrill-seeking hobbies that most men would shy from, and none of it had shaken her, stirred her, or brought her to understand the truth of danger.

Now it was here, all around her, invading every pore and flushing her with adrenaline as it pumped into all corners of her bloodstream. She knew that this was danger in its rawest form, this man and all the places within her he had the potential to reach. She had known it from the very first time she had fallen asleep and then fallen into the dream of his determined hands.

Hands that were now sliding up her body with ferocious intent.

She felt the stroke of his thumbs on the undersides of her breasts with astonishing sensitivity. He broke away from her mouth, using his hold beneath her arms to jerk her farther up between his body and the wall. Instantly his lips were burning trails of flame down her throat. Whirlwind emotions welled up in her. She didn't know how she had borne life without the heat of his mouth, hands, and body pressing against hers. The thought was surprisingly dependant for the fiercely independent nature of her soul.

Noah had learned her in dreams, studied her like he would any of his treasured tomes. But this was like a brand-new language. Soft beneath his hands, warm against his body, delicious against his tongue. She even tasted like candy, sweetly melting beneath his mouth as he stroked his tongue over the rise of her breast where it was exposed by her neckline.

Clothing suddenly seemed wasteful and clumsily hampering.

Kestra abruptly came alive, catching his dark head in her hands and dragging him up to her so she could devour his mouth. She needed that rich, masculine taste against her lips and tongue. She was starving for the reality of it. Even as she entrapped him with her kiss, she began pulling at his clothes. Noah reached out to catch on to something far steadier than himself, his fingers coming to curl around the corner of the stone wall. She managed to free one of the tails of his shirt from the waistband of his pants and her eagerly searching hand found his naked skin beneath it. He broke from her mouth and gasped, unable to help himself. Nothing could burn him, and yet her touch was like fire exploding over the entire surface of his skin, and this time he felt the singe of it soul deep.

Noah was truly hot to her touch. It was hardly a metaphor to say he scorched her palms as her left hand joined the right in her foray beneath his shirt. Instinct ought to have made Kestra pull away, jerking back just as she would if she had touched a hot stove. Mere instinct, however, didn't stand a chance in the face of the pull as base as evolution that now gripped them both.

"Months..." he muttered against her ear, following it with a soulful groan as her strong fingers glided up his back beneath his shirt, over his shoulders, and back down again.

Months. Kestra knew what he meant. There was a world of torture and agonizing frustration in that one word, a world she was all too familiar with. Like long-distance lovers reunited after too long a separation, each pushed past any and all simplistic needs. There would be time for all of that later, perhaps. Niceties were not what either of them needed or wanted.

Noah's hand pushed at the hem of her dress as hers fell on his waistband and fly. They alternately kissed and then drew for breath. Noah found the thin holster to her weapon strapped around her thigh and he yanked it from between her legs, the tearing of the Velcro fasteners sounding just as satisfying as the holster leather did when it hit the floor.

Noah heard her laugh briefly at his actions, the humor bracketed by murmurs of distracted pleasure and encouragement. Still it made an impact on him, skipping down every major artery in his body, flooding him with renewed fervor and need, though the initial emotions had never flagged.

"Don't stop," he heard her demand of him. Using the wall at her back for leverage, Kestra made sure he felt every inch of her burning body, broadcasting its message of hunger. The effect was like a heart attack, tossing the beat out of syncopation and stealing his breath away.

It threw him off stride enough to allow her to flip their positions against the wall. Stone bit into his bare back, making him realize she had freed him of his shirt entirely. He did not give it another thought, though, as she ran her hands down the front of his body, seeking out the details of his body's landscaping with bold, efficient fingers. Noah ground his back teeth together as she tested his patience and his sanity. She wasn't shy or hesitant, exactly as he would have expected, instead sliding down the entire length of his body as she investigated him strictly for the sake of arousing him. Her hands went first, her mouth following in a wicked little trail of expectant fire.

Need clutched at him, ferocious and violent in its anticipation. Her hands bracketed his waist so she could lick and nip her way down his belly. It was quick and thorough, meant to tease and succeeding famously. His hands locked into the white silk of her hair, the strands caught into his fists. He closed his eyes because it was unbearable to watch her. He couldn't keep his sanity if he watched her.

Kestra's hands slid down to his hips and without hesitation sought the feel of his straining erection through the fabric of his breeches. The sensation of her sure, strong hands went surging through him with volcanic force as she took in his form and heat, molded her fingers to the thickened hardness of him. She kept her curious, stroking hands against him but she came back up to her full height. She reached for his mouth, licking at his lower lip with a slow sensual stroke to get him to open his eyes. She made a deep, appreciative sound as she noted the hunger he couldn't keep at bay within his gaze.

"You feel so good," she whispered against his mouth, making him groan in response to her observations and touch. Kestra could feel the fine trembling that shuddered through his body. She liked having the power to do that to him. She had always liked it.

She pushed just a little further. Waiting. Wanting.

Kestra slid her fingers over the closures of his fly, releasing him from the strangling confinement of the fabrics. She closed her fingers and her palm around him. He was scorching hot, incredibly hard, and she could feel his pulse surging thickly through him. She went one step further, stroking a sly thumb over the very sensitive tip of him.

Danger.

She felt it explode out of him like nuclear fire. She gasped when he locked his fingers around her wrists, removing her taunting hands, and then reached for her. Both his hands were suddenly gripping her with bruising strength as she was hauled up off her feet. Her limber gymnast's body seemed to fly with the ease it took to bring them together, sex to sex, a burning massage of two pelvises communicating the intent of the same promise in need of fulfilling.

Kestra's hand flew out, bracing against the wall near his head as she threw back her head in a silent cry of overheated anticipation. He had hold of her hips even as the vise of her legs wrapped around him. He made damn sure she could feel the heat and raging hardness she had created.

The thong she wore gave way with a snap as he whipped it off her body. He immediately sought for her once she was exposed to him, his hand slipping between their writhing bodies. She cried out with a sense of shock as his fingers slid over her, searching through ready wetness and heat. Noah caught that cry against his tongue. Kestra felt the flick of a teasing thumb as a long, seeking finger slowly made its way into her body. Kestra shuddered at the unexpected pleasure of it, at how easily he riled her senses. He slid a second insistent finger into her just as his teeth closed gently around her nipple, right through the fabric of her dress.

"Oh!" she exclaimed breathlessly.

Then his eyes were locking with hers, his mouth hovering close to her aching lips. "In all these months," he said breathlessly, "one of the things I wanted most was to hear my name on your lips." But he didn't request it. He merely stated the desire and decided to let her do with it what she would. "I am so delighted you are ready for me, Kikilia," he murmured against her lips as he made tight little circles around her clitoris with his thumb, making her moan and arch into him.

Noah withdrew his touch abruptly, and she cried out something close to a rebuke. He made up for the deprivation when he dragged her against himself, wetting his hard shaft with the slickness of her eager body, and unerringly found the threshold he had wanted to cross for so long now. He had no patience, no care, and no sense of anything except the demanding passion of the fire inside himself. She had lit the fuse, and now she would feel the explosion.

Noah thrust into her in one scorching movement, dragging her hips to his with torrid command, and impaling her on himself with barely suppressed violence of need. She was unbelievably hot as she surrounded him. How was it possible that she burned him so fiercely? Her body welcomed him, grasped tightly at him with a voracious sucking of quivering inner muscles. It was heaven and hell, a relief and a torture. He could barely breathe with the onslaught of sensations and emotions the joining of their bodies evoked.

Kestra inhaled so hard she thought her lungs would burst. He was inside her at long last. After months and months of waking to the empty feeling of her hollow body, at last she was filled to satisfaction. Her entire body arched with the overwhelming sensation of fullness, her thighs and knees clenching around his hips like an aggressive, sinuous constrictor. His powerful hands held her suspended against him as she absorbed her initial pleasure.

Then her head snapped back up, showering him in white strands of snow as her mouth sought the fit of his and she began to move with a sensual rhythm in his hands and over his body.

"Months..." she repeated on a gasp into his mouth as she moved slowly and tightly over his superheated and hardened body.

Again, it was all understood. But as hot and erotic as taking her like this was, he felt deprived without his hands free. He reached to hook her thigh higher over his hip, making her breath catch as it opened her deeper to him. It also freed up one of his hands, allowing his hungry fingertips to run up her thigh, her hip, and on to her belly and breast through the tight fabric of her dress. He peeled back the teal Lycra, rather like opening a gift, until her breast was exposed, its very dark nipple pulled into a tight point of excitement. Noah cradled her breast in his palm, toying with the rigid nipple with skilled fingers, coaxing her into growing still hotter around him, bathing himself in her sensitive response to his touch. All the while, her agile body curved and wriggled against him.

The Demon King could bear no more. He had needed her for far too long and his body pounded with primitive male urges. He grabbed hold of her, turning and stepping with her until he was near his goal.

Kestra felt her backside skimming over a solid surface, though it was covered in lace of some kind. She realized that he had set her on a huge antique table she had seen as she had waited for him earlier. It only took her a moment to understand why.

He stripped her of her dress in one quick motion, completely lacking in gentleness as he did so. Kestra didn't even notice to care. He was laying her back along the table, allowing him to stand sturdy between her thighs. His hands went to her hips, gripping her tightly as he sank himself deep inside her in that ancient surging need of all dominant males. He repeated the thrust, shunting himself deeper and deeper, as if he wasn't yet satisfied with his depth within her.

Kestra could do little more than grasp his hands where they clutched at her hips. She looked up into his watchful, smoky dark eyes as he looked for her every response, sought every movement that gave her pleasure. Even though he was half wild, even bordering on abusive as he stroked violently into her accepting body, he was looking for her gratification.

Kestra allowed his taxing of her body because it was pure ecstasy to do so. She arched, cried out, and felt stark waves of raw rapture begin to envelop and overwhelm her. Before she could even acknowledge its approach, she flew into a thrashing orgasm, her entire being locked up so tight, inside and out, it was incomprehensible.

Noah said something low and vicious under his breath in his native tongue. He had to stop as she cried out and seized with her climax. She was clutching at him so tightly, bathing him in hot, melted sugar, and he refused to be taken by her. When she finally released, gasping for breath and trying to open her dazed eyes, he began again to move within her.

Kestra was so highly sensitized that she thought she would fly apart as he took that first long stroke deep into her already pulsing body. She felt instantly tight, ready, and needing.

"Hang on, baby," he warned her with wicked masculine confidence.

She couldn't begrudge him his arrogance in this situation. He was leaning over her, his body like magic as it plunged slow and deep this time. His mouth skimmed up over her ribs and sought the thrust of her nipple. He sucked her deeply into his mouth and it sent rivers of fire rushing down her body. She made a small sound, half anticipation, half fear, and he looked up to see her widening eyes. He felt the tension coming, felt her begin to tremble.

He felt her resist.

He pulled her up against his chest, bringing her ear to his mouth so he could whisper softly to her as he began to pick up the pace with which he pitched into her body.

"Do not be afraid," he said, his smoky voice swirling around her like a sensual fog. "Just let go."

She shook her head. Maybe it was less about fear and more about disbelief. It was almost painful, the tension he was sending like a coil through her body. How could he do this? Only through the dreams could he know how to touch her this deeply. No stranger could do this. No one could. Never.

"Kikilia," he whispered, his voice taunting sorcery. "I will help you if I must."

Kestra gasped, her heart pounding as she tried to figure out what more he could possibly do to her. He let her fall back onto the table gently, seizing her hip again, sliding relentlessly into her taut body. Then Noah reached to where their bodies joined, slid a sure thumb through wet, white curls, and touched her.

Kestra squealed. She couldn't help it. It was the only sound that could escape her as her body tension ratcheted up to the tenth power and beyond. Colors swirled around her vision; tears actually burned their way onto her lashes.

Then she detonated.

Noah absorbed her power with bracing agony and unrelenting hunger. She screamed out, and he devoured the sound with greed and pleasure. She was beautiful, hot, responsive as all hell, and she was his. Her body licked at his like a live flame and he was definitely burned.

Wait. Wait.

It was a brutal, demanding whisper in his mind, forcing him to hold back even though she threatened his very sanity with her voracious body and capacity for pleasure. So he held on while she whirled away and back again. He wouldn't allow her breath this time. He had need. He hungered. Like fire and flame, he would be relentless. And nothing would stop him now. It came over him savagely, the appetite of a building fire. He gave her no quarter, driving into her before she had fully returned from her last peak. Two wrenching strokes and she was rippling with orgasm again. She took his need and his hunger with equal appetite. Hard as he took her, as brutal as his ability to give her pleasure was, he couldn't exhaust her. She slid now with every thrust into her body as the cloth on the table alleviated friction, allowing him to manipulate her until she thought she would pass out from the pleasure.

The more he made her come, the more she cried out, the more relentless his pace. His touch was everywhere, toying with her, teasing, and setting her off until she was blinded to anything but ecstasy. Just when she reached that point of her personal threshold, she heard him make a low, predatory noise, saw the intensity of the storm in his eyes, felt the increasing thickness and heat deep within her until she thought she was on fire. Noah suddenly grabbed her shoulders, dragging her against his chest and seeking for her mouth with his. She felt the slickness of his sweat-drenched body all over her as his surges into her body became frantic. She fell completely apart, her body jerking with spasms of pleasure that seemed to grip deeper into her with every invasion. She was almost completely senseless by the time he surged hard into her for the last time, succumbing to an explosion of release that poured liquid fire into her again and again. He vocalized, a raw, masculine growl of intense satisfaction, and his hands clenched around her neck and thigh as he shuddered violently from the aftermath.

It was, by far, the wildest and most satisfying sexual experience of Kestra's life. She understood that even before she could breathe again. Every muscle in her body was abused by the tension of pleasure caught and released. Noah had done the impossible. He had made her feel the intangible. Kestra couldn't understand it, and part of her didn't want to try.

But it was also the moment she became aware that she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. She couldn't even begin to list everything that was wrong about this. She wasn't the type to regret her sexual choices, but she instinctively knew that there was far more at stake here than the well-being of her body.

Oh God.

They hadn't even used a condom.

Kestra's heart was already pounding at top speed, so even that frightening lapse in the protection of her body couldn't increase the beat. She was protected against pregnancy, so that she wasn't worried about. It was the million other variables that should concern her...but didn't. Come to think of it, she realized it hadn't concerned him, either.

Noah hadn't even stepped away from her, hadn't even released her in any way, and he could already feel the buzzing of her thoughts just outside of his awareness. He could easily imagine what someone of her personality would be thinking in a moment like this. Especially because she didn't yet understand that there was no such thing as casual sex between them, and there never would be. But he could let her be with her thoughts easily in that moment. The fact that he could sense the jumbled bustling of them was the first sign that the Imprinting was begun in earnest. She would change even more rapidly now, now that they were mated.

As he looked up at the wall and the table and the disarray of clothing around them, he could see the scorching and burns that had come with his increasing lack of focus on things other than Kestra. Handprints in stone. Burns on the table. Toasted doilies and scorched clothing. Luckily, he had pulled her close to protect her at those last moments, because a glance up at the ceiling revealed the remnants of his total loss of control, a blackened, billowing pattern, as if flame had been thrown up above them in a roiling cloud. As it was, he was hoping her healing abilities as a Druid had kicked in, or she was really going to feel the damage he had done to her body. She was red everywhere he had touched her, though none of it more serious than a sunburn. Still, it would make her uncomfortable. Over time it would no longer matter; she was designed to dampen power surges like those. Soon, he would never burn anything by accident ever again.

At least, not when he was with her.

"Wow. It's like a sauna in here."

Noah and Kestra nearly cracked noses, both whipping their heads around to see who had addressed them.

The tall brunette finished entering the room and flopped down in the nearest chair, kicking up her booted feet until her crossed ankles rested on the ottoman before her.

"Otherwise, I really like this room. It has a more feminine touch than most of the others. I'm going to guess your sister must have had something to do with that."

Kestra was shocked by the audacity it took for this woman to walk into a room with two clearly indisposed people in it, never mind the ballsy way she casually took a seat. She still had Noah standing between her knees, in her body, their bare chests against each other, and their arms still wrapped tightly about each other.

Noah released Kestra first, reaching for the lace tablecloth and using it as a wrap to cover her. He realized the fabric was smoldering at his touch, and he took a deep breath in an attempt to cool his sudden temper. It wasn't so much because Jasmine was being rude, either. Jasmine was a Vampire. Public sex and other such liberties were commonplace to her breed. This type of indiscretion truly would mean nothing to her had she come across it in any venue. However, Noah was certain she'd meant to cause mischief. There was no way someone of her years and skills could have been unaware of her untimely entrance.

Still, there was no way for her to know how deeply she'd just messed up his life. Of course, that didn't mean he couldn't find a way to punish her for her brazen troublemaking.

"Jasmine." He greeted her dryly, moving away from Kestra at last and going about the task of straightening his clothes and handing his mate hers.

Chapter 9.

Kestra was barely over the shock of what she'd done, not to mention about a thousand thoughts and emotions to follow. This man was a total stranger to her, she realized with a sensation of panic suddenly crawling beneath her skin. For all she knew, he was married to the sultry brunette who had made herself so clearly at home.

What in the world was I thinking?

That thought had come through to Noah loud and clear, probably fueled by the emotion behind it. He was also aware of the emotional defenses that slammed down over her. He could feel the shift, right down to the little hairs standing up on the back of her neck.

"Jasmine, I trust you have a damned good reason for invading my privacy," he said coldly, his eyes a world of threatening promises.

"I beg your pardon, my lord," she responded, her tone nowhere near as respectful as her words. It was clear she was having a great joke at his expense. "I had not realized you had taken up the human penchant for privacy."

Noah's eyes shifted to glance at Kestra from beneath his lashes. Someone as sharp as she was would not miss Jasmine's casual terminology even under the best of circumstances. He sighed heavily, running a quick, angry hand through his hair as he glared at Jasmine.

"Not another word, Jas. Wait in the Great Hall for me. I will be there shortly."

He could tell she was thinking about carrying on her joke for a little longer, but luckily she realized exactly how seriously pissed off he was. Unapologetic as ever, though, she dropped her booted feet, paused long enough to adjust the thin chain around her slim waist, and then finally stood up. Her dark eyes roved over them with merriment for a moment, and then she left the room, surprisingly obeying his command to keep silent.

Noah rested his hands on his hips, bowing his head briefly in order to cool his temper and gather his thoughts. He felt Kestra slide off the table and backpedal away from him, toward the remainder of her scattered belongings. When he sensed that she was dressed to a point of decency, he turned to look at her. To his surprise, she was moving toward him with his shirt extended in her hand.

"Thank you," he said, taking it from her.

"I need to go," she said in quick, apologetic excuse.

She reached to reattach her holster, and Noah didn't miss the fact that she turned her back to do so.

"Jasmine is an ambassador from another culture," he said quietly. "I will have to remind her of certain common courtesies."

"It doesn't make a difference to me," she said from behind the fall of her hair. "It's not the first time I've been walked in on during an indiscretion."

Noah flinched inside, but he had bigger fish to fry than her terminology. There wasn't even time to waste on the instantaneous flare of jealousy that her words inspired.

"Kestra-"

"Look," she interrupted him hastily, turning toward him with perfect posture and a practiced air of indifference, "I'm not the frail and fluttery type and I don't need promises or good manners when it comes to something like this. It was fun while it lasted, let's just leave it at that."

Kestra started to look for her gun, another convenient excuse to turn her back on him. Noah wasn't used to uncommunicative people, people who hid their emotions and refused his input or his every address. For a moment he was at a loss, trying to draw on his experiences with the others he knew who had been raised in human culture. Corrine and Isabella were hardly good examples, however. They were both outspoken and incredibly adaptable for their species. They almost never made a mystery out of their actions and their opinions.

Kestra found her weapon, but as she bent to retrieve it, she realized it was melted, even parts of it that were pure steel, into a ball of jumbled materials. It was as if it had been in an explosion or an extremely intense fire, but she had seen weapons found in the aftermath of such things and she'd never seen anything like this. She couldn't even begin to formulate a suitable question for him, however, so she didn't bother.

Noah, meanwhile, was struck with the overwhelming sensation that he had done everything wrong. It was a stark understanding and it filled him with fear like very few things could. Hadn't he read that fairy tale dozens of times over the years to the children in his family and others? The words in Sarah's mind when she had realized she was Imprinted upon a man she very nearly despised began to echo in his brain.