"You let me lead myself quite neatly into your little trap, did you not?" he accused softly, but without any real malice.

Corrine didn't pretend at ignorance.

"Noah, you're their King and you're unmated. If you won't come to me when you so clearly long to, so clearly need to, why would any of your subjects do otherwise?"

"Have I been that obvious?" he asked, his tone tight with his tortured feelings on the topic, his hand reflexively tightening around her jaw.

"I would have to say...only since your Warrior Captain married the Lycanthrope Queen. He was the last highly positioned bachelor you kept close to you. First Jacob; then Gideon and your sister; and then when Elijah fell in love with Siena, it wasn't long before you started grumping around the castle."

"Damn it," Noah cursed softly, releasing his hold on her roughly. He paced away from her, running an agitated hand through his hair.

Corrine was abruptly aware of her husband's telepathic presence flaring to alertness in her thoughts. He was protesting the way Noah was treating her, but she pushed him firmly away, scolding him to mind his own business, that her discussion with Noah was a private one. Kane backed off with impressive immediacy, respecting her desire to respect his King.

"You have to understand," Noah said at last as he stared out of a nearby window, "it has been a very long time since the Imprinting has become an issue any of us have had to give any true thought to. For centuries it has been as rare as...as..."

"A snowball in hell?" she offered.

This time Noah wasn't inclined to laugh or let himself be eased by her humor. His fingers curled into a fist that he pressed against the window frame. "Hell." He laughed mirthlessly. "The human concept of hell has always amused me, especially considering the fact that 'demons' are reputed to be its main occupants. I am forced to admit that there is some truth to that imagery today, Corrine. I fall asleep every day at sunrise, but I get no rest. This is because I visit my own personal hell, where agonizing beauty, pleasure, and a gluttony of satisfying emotions lie always just out of sight and reach. I dream of her. Every time I close my eyes, I dream of this woman you are meant to find for me. I have dreamed of her every single day for six months straight."

Corrine winced visibly as he imparted this information with such clear pain. She'd had no idea that it had come to this awful form of torture. To suffer the elusive dream of your perfect mate for half a year must indeed be akin to hell for a species who felt as deeply and powerfully as Noah's did.

"Why wouldn't you come to me sooner?" she finally asked him, knowing beyond any shadow of doubt that this was what had finally brought him there.

"Because I am a King, little Druid. You come from a culture where that no longer means as much as it does to us, but surely you have gotten a better idea of it as you have lived with Kane."

"I have. Enough to know that not one Demon under your rule expects you to remain single and alone for the sake of your reign." Corrine braced her feet apart and settled her hands on her hips. "In fact, every Demon I know would scoff at that notion. Don't blame this on your people, Noah. I may not be an expert on your society, but I do know that nothing would please them more than to see you give your heart into the hands of your Imprinted mate. So let's skip the bullshit and come to the real point of why you've lain in bed, day after endless day, torturing yourself rather than coming and asking me for help."

"Damn you, woman," he barked, banging the window frame so hard with his fist that the glass rattled. "Has your husband taught you nothing of how you should speak to someone in my position?"

"Oh, kiss my ass," Corrine blustered as her famous familial temper got the better of her. "If you're just going to spout the cloud cover of protocol and all that high-handed crap, then I would prefer you not waste my time!" She stepped closer to him, in spite of the fact that his temper had caused the air around him to heat up considerably. "If you were any kind of a monarch you would jump at the chance to set a good example for your suffering people. And they are suffering, Noah. The longer they remain unmated, the more likely it is they will cave to their instincts and find themselves breaking laws and putting innocents in danger. You're a remarkable leader and scholar. Where is your intelligence when it comes to this? Kane tells me you've hunted for centuries to find the cure for the suffering that overcomes your people on the Hallowed nights. Well, it's here, Noah," she said vehemently, thrusting her fingers against her breastbone. "It's inside me! Come to me. Make them come to me!"

"Corrine..."

"What? What excuse is it now?" she barked.

"No excuse," he assured her quietly. "Just confession. Confession of the one truth behind all of the questions you ask with such righteous merit."

"Which is?" she prompted.

"Fear," he responded with a sigh. "Pure and simple fear."

"Fear?" Corrine gaped at him for a beat. "What in God's name could you possibly fear from the Imprinting? Noah, are you blind? Haven't you seen the scope of the new love surrounding you these past three years?"

"Yes, yes," he said with impatience as he turned to look at her at last. "I have eyes and sense. I see you all, revolving around me like little planets, deep in your own little worlds made up in the space between your locked gazes and impassioned bodies. I watch until I am black-sighted with jealousy, Corrine!"

"Noah, please...forgive me," she begged earnestly, her pretty brow furrowed in confusion. "I don't understand. I truly want to understand, but I don't. What is it you fear? Why be jealous when I can give you our joy for yourself? You are so brilliant, but I see no logic here!"

"I am afraid..." He hesitated, the phraseology unfamiliar and bitter to his taste. "I am afraid I am too late."

"Noah..."

"She has suffered. She has been through some great pain and I was not there to spare her," he confessed quickly. "I do not know what it was, or even if she suffers still, because her emotions are always so volatile. I am afraid of bringing her to me, of thrusting her into this existence. Being my Queen is not an easy life, Corrine. She will be in danger-especially in light of recent events. She will become a target. Yes, she will be accepted by most, but those who do not accept can be brutal with their opinions, as you no doubt know from your sister's experiences. I ask you, how can I, in good conscience, bring an already tortured soul into my world for my own selfish needs, knowing all of this?"

"Noah," Corrine said with soft surprise. "Noah, you will bring her here so you can love her. There is no hardship in the world that can't be made better with the type of love the Imprinting can bring! You said yourself, you don't know if she is still suffering. Would you leave her there, will you let it continue, knowing you can stop it?"

Noah made a distressed sound and his eyes darkened to gray. The thought was unconscionable, and it tore through him like thousands of sharp, shredding tines. In a single sentence Corrine changed his misguided ideas of nobility to horrified realization. He was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that he had wasted time. Now he realized that time was a black enemy and he was in a deadly race with it.

"Tell me how," he demanded. "Corrine, help me."

The Miserable Princess A Demon Fairy Tale Cont'd...

As nice as love stories about the Imprinting sounded, Sarah was very practical for a Princess. She knew her father was looking for a miracle, just as she knew she was the one who would end up going mad from his desperation to fix the odds more in royal favor. At the moment, that meant propping her up prettily in her throne, displaying her like a frilly trophy to be won. It was like being set afloat on a raft in a sea of greedy piranhas, and Sarah was not stupid enough to dangle a single welcoming toe into the water, lest she get chewed up and spit out into a form nothing like herself. So Sarah set her mind to the task of being so cold and so disinterested that no one would dare approach her.

Just then the Enforcer walked onto the playing field.

An immediate chill rippled outward from the place where he entered the arena, both through the participants and the crowd in the stands above. It was clearly visible as it shuddered through them all, every adult and child, the murmur that buzzed loudly all around her. The hostility and, yes, outright hatred everyone felt for this powerful man who enforced the King's laws and extracted harsh, mortifying punishment for those who broke them was palatable.

Sarah shivered in spite of herself as she watched the Enforcer cross into the playing field, seemingly oblivious of the stir of emotions he was creating all around him. If she were going to be honest, she would have to admit that when she put fear and prejudice aside, she was still left intimidated by his prowess alone. Had he been a simple warrior, he would surely have made a glorious name for himself in battle, as well as prize competitions like this one. But his battles were fought against his own people.

He was the one true villain in the picture laid before her. The villain condoned by the King.

His name was Ariel, far too angelic a name for one who even looked the villainous part. He was bearded and mustached, though both were trimmed close with an almost single-minded perfection. Rough dark brows slashed above his eyes, and his hair was barely long enough to make the queue it was tied into at his nape. His hair was dark as pitch, but the sleek, silky shine of it was fastidious, showing off an almost navy tint of highlights in the too-bright moonlight.

Just then, thick, sooty lashes parted and revealed the icy blue eyes that so easily terrified everyone who faced off with the Enforcer. They were as glass, frigid and sparkling like shaved ice.

And they were looking directly at Sarah.

The Princess felt another chill blow over her, shuddering down her skin until she was covered in goose bumps. Her childish behaviors were forgotten in an instant and she straightened imperiously into the figure of a woman of her station. She could not tell clearly if that was a smile he was taunting her with, his whiskers in the way, but there was cold amusement in his eyes.

He boldly advanced to the stairs leading up to her viewing box, oblivious of the startled scramble of powerful Demons making haste to create a path for him, as well as adding a few steps more to ensure safe distance. Princess Sarah was afraid, too, her heartbeat wild and her palms becoming damp with it. But she clutched her moist hands around the arms of her throne and forced herself to smile at him, just to prove to him he couldn't intimidate her, even though she had never been as close to him before as she was apparently going to be in just another minute....

At first, all she could hear was the low, steady thrum of a heartbeat.

She lifted her cheek, felt the coolness that crossed it as she left a pillow of perfect warmth. The heartbeat became distant as she raised her head farther and blinked her eyes for clarity.

The next thing she was aware of was that haunting, sense-numbing smell. Every single time she closed her eyes it was there. The scent had temperature, if it was possible. Heated, but not overtly so. It was mellow on some levels, like gentle musk and flirting masculinity. On other echelons it was headier. Rich and smoky.

Yes, that was it.

Smoke. Softly burnt cedar, smoldering maple, and the sweet tang of apple wood.

It was his scent.

It was the same scent that had wrapped around her time after insane time for endless months. It haunted her constantly, sometimes in frustrating, imposing ways, and other times in a darkly passionate manner that made her crawl with frustration within her own skin.

He didn't like it when she moved away from him, and it always showed in the possessive sweep of his hands as they threaded into the straight fall of her hair. She knew by instinct alone that her hair fascinated him. He was always touching it, holding her prisoner by it, drawing it to the rub of his lips.

She was too tired to battle him. After six months of this blissful, exasperating torture at his persistent hands and stubborn nature, she had become too addicted to the way he could eventually bend her to his pleasure and her own. Before he had come, she had prided herself for her control of her own body. Gymnastics, martial arts, and marathon runs were her measuring stick, all of which she had excelled in at one point or another in her lifetime.

But it all went to hell in a speedy little handbasket the moment his fingertips touched her skin and his breath whispered against her ear. He spoke, she knew, but speech was wiped away into unintelligible whispers and hot clouds of increasingly excited breath.

She didn't mind so much, though. She couldn't see the features of his face, so she could tell herself that it was purely imagination and therefore safe to indulge in.

Then she would remember that her imagination had been fixated on this mysterious man as well as his alluring scent and feel without fail, every single time, and she would feel the quickening of her heart as she acknowledged on a very distant level that this was all more than just a dream. This was the thought that always panicked her into struggling with him, trying to fight him even though she knew how futile it was. He never had to force her to his will; he could do it well enough with the sweet skill of his touch alone, with the sweeping seal of his lips and mouth as he slowly devoured her resistance along with her kisses.

Kestra ripped out of sleep with a growl of annoyance, forcing herself awake just so she could make the audible sound of protest and denial. She lay in the dampness of sheets misted with perspiration, breathing hard and feeling her chest ache with the violent pounding of her heart. She pressed a palm to her rib cage.

"Damn you!" she cursed up to the ceiling, though she was unsure if she was cursing the dream man, God, or herself. No matter who it was, they were playing massive head games with her when she was asleep and at her most vulnerable. It was exhausting her, wreaking havoc with her concentration, strength, and equilibrium, all of which were her primary tools in her work. When James started noticing she was off her stride, then she truly knew she was in trouble. She needed sleep, but sleep brought him. When she tried to stay awake, she always failed miserably, falling irresistibly into unconsciousness and subsequently his unending thrall over her.

Kestra slid out of bed, walking her hot, damp body through the cold room. She paced in her thin, plaid boxers, rolled at the waist to better fit her trim hips, and white ribbed tank top, trying to shake off the kinetic restlessness these dreams always left behind.

She needed to get laid.

That was the only thing she could come up with at this point. It had to be the reason why she indulged in these highly erotic fantasies in her sleep, only to wake up more unsatisfied than ever. James would have laughed at the idea of her latest solution. He knew her well enough to know that blowing things up was her best form of release, not sex. But she'd just torched an entire dock of warehouses that previous night, and yet here she was again, dreaming the dreams of the deeply, deeply sexually deficient.

"I can't take this anymore," she muttered to the cold, empty room. "Something has got to change, and it better damn well do it soon!"

Chapter 3.

"Kane, you're supposed to be making yourself scarce," Corrine called from a distant upstairs bedroom.

"What does it matter where I am?" Kane asked stubbornly, switching instantly from voice to thought as he pressed his point. I am always with you anyway. I see what you see and feel what you feel.

"You're also a Demon of the Mind, more capable than others of distancing yourself from this Imprinted link of ours." She stopped shouting when she appeared at the head of the stairs, looking down at him where he leaned back against the enormous banister, arms folded firmly over his athletic chest. "We've discussed this as much as I'm going to discuss it. Noah will be here very soon and I want you long gone by the time he arrives."

"Noah isn't himself," Kane countered, "and I'm not at all happy with the way he treated you the last time he was here. I don't think I've ever felt you that angry before."

"That's because," she said as she began her descent, "the subject has been a sore spot for me for a very long time now. It wasn't the way I'd have approached it with him had I been prepared. Coming out of the blue like that, it pinched my temper before I could prepare a more diplomatic approach." She reached the bottom of the stairs, releasing the excess material of the caftan she wore so loosely before leaning her warmth into him comfortingly. "The end result is satisfactory enough. I finally have the opportunity I've waited for since this power of mine first came to light. Don't you see, Kane? Once I do this for Noah, once I find the female Druid who is destined to be his, others will finally come willingly to my door."

"And I know how important that is to you," Kane agreed softly, reaching up to cradle his wife's face between gentle, reverent fingers.

"So very important," she said with quiet vehemence. "I've been little better than useless to your people these past three years. I've just as much destiny awaiting me as any of you do, and I've longed to fulfill it."

"I know," he murmured, leaning to touch his mouth to hers. "I know how frustrating it's been for you. But won't you at least let me-"

"No, Kane. Please," she begged as she reached to brush back the errant curl of hair that fell crookedly over his forehead. "Respect my wishes in this."

"You know," he sighed, closing his eyes as she added a kiss to her coaxing plea and touch, "I'm powerless when it comes to you."

"It has nothing to do with me. It has to do with giving your respect to Noah's need for privacy and maintenance of pride. If the tables were turned, knowing the process I must go through with him to find his mate, would you want an audience? Would you want someone watching as you revealed the parts of yourself that feel the way you do for me?"

"I've never made a secret of my love or need for you, Corrine."

"But imagine, for a moment, if you had to show the world the loss of control, the pure drive of lust that first led you to try and capture me, even in spite of the law and the fact that your own brother would be forced to punish you should you get caught?" Corrine brushed soft lips and a softer whisper over his ear. "Remember that feeling, Kane, that you felt the moment Jacob did catch you? The shame attached to hunting down an innocent human while under the influence of the full Hallowed moon? Remember what you felt before you learned that it was okay for you to love me?"

"Sometimes," he sighed quietly, "I forget what life was like without you." He smiled against her lips as she tried to heal that injuring thought with her lush little mouth. "But I'll never be able to leave you if you keep kissing me."

"Mmm," she agreed, her lips rubbing enticingly over his.

The pressure of Kane's mouth suddenly disappeared, along with the support of the rest of his body, leaving her to stumble against the banister he had vacated as she waved frantically at the sulfuric cloud of smoke his sudden teleportation had left behind. She coughed just as a second cloud of smoke skidded into the foyer from beneath and around the cracks of the front door.

This cloud coalesced with a sharp twist into first a column, then the tall, sturdy figure of the Demon King. Corrine instantly hid her waving hands behind her back, smiling at Noah with hopes he would be a little too preoccupied to realize her husband had sensed his arrival with barely enough time to retreat.

"Good evening, Noah."

"Good evening, Corrine. Did you rest well?"

"Very well. Are you ready?"

"As ready as I may ever be," he assured her.

Corrine reached to take his hand and led him deeper into the house. She'd long ago set aside a room for this purpose, and though it had gotten very little use searching for Druids, she used it often in meditative practice. Noah followed with unusual silence and a forced serenity, but he couldn't help but admire the sanctum Corrine led him to.

It was draped in dark fabric, with no lights save the multitude of candles she had lit on every surface and in every corner. Each stick of light was settled on glass, filling the room with refracted prisms that changed and danced along every surface. The floor was covered with pillows, all shining with satin and velveteen colors.

The candles gave off a variety of scents, from simple to exotic, but he was also aware that small metal dishes of herbs had been set to smoke. They infused the room with a haze and a spiced scent as rich and pure as the Earth itself.

"Before we begin..."

He turned to look at her. "Yes?" he asked.

"You said you have dreamed of her."

"Yes."

"Is there anything specific you can remember that you think might help you to go back to her and what you already have sensed about her?" She smiled softly when he gave her a perplexed look. "You're not the first to dream of your mate, Noah. In my limited experiences so far, the people I'm questing for have always had a singular memory, a trigger that instantly brings them to that place beyond the waking state where they have met their soul mate. Simon, for instance, always heard music when he dreamed of Tirana. "Fortune, Empress of the World," to be exact. Not what I would call romantic, but that's not for me to judge."

"For what purpose must you know this?" the King asked, coldness lacing his tone.

"Noah, if you close yourself off on a simple detail like this, we won't make any progress. We'll just be wasting our time. Please," she said, softening her intent as she touched his arm and leaned closer to his personal warmth. "Trust me. I'll never reveal what happens here to anyone. Kane has even made remarkable effort to distance himself from me for this. You know we'd never dream of betraying you."

"No," he decided, "you would not. And I do know that. I meant no insult."

"Come on, I can tell there is something that makes you think of this woman."

"It will sound..."

"A little strange? Yes. I know. Three others before you have said that very same thing."

Noah laughed at that, shaking his head ruefully. "I should have known this would not be a bland experience. Very well." He cleared his throat and flicked stormy green-gray eyes up to meet her gaze. "Sugar," he said at last. "Spun sugar, to be exact."