"Why wouldn't they go after you?" Kes demanded.

"Imminent death and destruction?" Jasmine snorted. "That and Vamps don't gain power when they feed on each other. There would be no point. Except to gain the monarchy."

"That would be a reason, Jas," Jacob pointed out dryly.

"Then explain to me this: Why Samhain? There's no sense to doing it on Samhain. Vampires aren't weakened by it. Why not wait and gather more power if they are going after Damien's crown? We have a celebration tonight, too. The first festival for Samhain since Damien returned to the homeland. The place will be packed with Vampires. It would be suicide."

"Or the perfect cover for an assassination attempt," Kes mused. "Invite the enemy onto your territory."

"No. Damien knows these rogues. He's being very careful. He promised me. He could sense Cygnus and his bunch in a heartbeat if they entered the castle."

"Are you sure? Even with all this power gathering?" Noah countered her in return.

"It's Damien, Noah. Damien can sense any and every Nightwalker on the planet." She made a disgruntled sound at her perceived disparagement of the capabilities of her Prince. Kes was forced to wonder if she was too biased to see the truth.

No. She is right. Damien is not the kind you can sneak up on when he is on the alert.

"Provided he's on the alert," she argued with Noah aloud, her thought so irritable that she forgot all about telepathy.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kestra saw Jasmine stiffen suddenly. She jerked her head up when she caught the telltale reaction. The men noticed it, too, and Jasmine suddenly had all eyes on her as her face paled even more than it naturally was.

"Oh no. Oh, damn!"

"Jas!" Noah snapped when she made a move as if she wanted to take off.

She turned back, fury exploding in her dark eyes, fangs exposed as she snarled at the Demon King.

"They know I am here, and Damien is unprotected without me!"

"You just said-" Jacob protested.

"Add it up. Samhain leaves access to the castle; Damien thinks the rogues are headed here. And I myself put him on his guard and made him promise me to be careful!" Jasmine growled, ferocious black flames leaping in her eyes.

"Jasmine," Noah said helplessly, "I do not understand your point."

"I knew the Lycanthrope bitch would be the death of him!" The Vampire hissed furiously. "She's the one they're after, Noah. Low offensive, low defensive, you said, right?" Jasmine confronted Kestra. "Make noise in Demon territory and keep Jasmine far away from Damien. Kill the Lycanthrope, get her very extraordinary powers, extraordinary even among her own kind, and you get a two for one. Damien will never survive the anguish if something happens to...to..."

"His soul mate," Kestra whispered.

Chapter 16.

Damien didn't even want to breathe the sigh of relief he felt when Syreena finally fell into a fully exhausted sleep. He levitated gingerly out of their bed, floating over her to retrieve some clothing from across the room with all the stealth he, in all his power, could possibly muster. He had been through one of Syreena's heat cycles before, but it seemed like this time she was driven beyond even her own capacity. Frankly, he couldn't remember the last time his body ached so much. She was enough to wear out even an Ancient like himself, he thought, a fond smile and a repressed laugh lighting his eyes.

He slid on his trousers. Syreena was driven by multiple incentives: fear, need, and desire. The desire was for him, no more or less than it always was between them, just magnified in frequency perhaps. Her need was for a child. A child of their love, an heir for them both, each of them being in line with a throne of their peoples. A child she had longed for and, until they had met, thought she would never be privileged to know the joy of. Just as she had never realized her dreams of so loving a mate and marriage would come to fruition.

And the fear was the most obvious of all. She was terrified she would not have that compatibility of chemistry they needed. Not that he would be incompatible with her, he was beginning to realize, but that she would be incompatible with him. She was afraid that her singular genetics, the mutation she had suffered during her childhood, would prevent her from conceiving. She feared barrenness.

Damien tucked in a heavy linen shirt at his waistline as he cast a long look at his sleeping wife. She could very well be right, he realized, and he had to come to terms with that if it were true. But unlike her, he did not feel such a pressure to discover the truth of the matter. He loved her. He wanted children; right away was fine with him, but later was just as fine. He was not worried and did not see why she should put herself under so much pressure because of one failed heat cycle. It wasn't entirely unheard of, in spite of what she would have him believe. He had been affiliated with the world of Lycanthropes long enough to know that much.

For the moment, however, he had exhausted her for what he hoped was a good couple of hours. It was more than enough time for him to run a circuit of his territorial borders and then make a fairly decent showing at the Samhain festival downstairs, which his keen hearing told him was already well under way. She would be extremely peeved with him when she woke to find him gone. But as soon as she came searching for him, he would pull himself away and tend to any needs she might have, with more than enough love and attention to mollify even her spiky little temper.

He also needed to hunt. That meant leaving Vampire territory and seeking human holdings. Damien sought within himself to judge the time, even as he slid on his shoes and cinched his belt. It was early yet and he would easily be able to find prey. Then, as he combed his fingers through his hair, he scanned the interior of the citadel for specific energy sources. As expected, there were no hostile entities. He would have felt those immediately, no matter the holiday and the influx of Vampires. Then again, it was always the threat you didn't expect that was most dangerous. For that he had Stephan. The Vanguard leader was stalking the halls and the celebrations belowstairs with his usual brooding thoroughness. Though home defense was usually Jasmine's venue, she being far more willing than he was to make a merry fight with one of her own, Stephan was more than capable of facing any threat no matter what face it wore. Damien sent a brief telepathic warning to Stephan that he was leaving the premises and that Syreena would require a guard at her door until he returned. Once he had Stephan's acknowledgment, he slipped into the tower room and took flight out of the window.

To Stephan, nothing was more important in that moment than seeing to the protection of the Prince's woman. He knew very well how crucial she was to the Prince's well-being, and Damien's well-being was always his top priority, just as it was Jasmine's. The 6'5" Vampire made his way through the crowd slowly as he sent a telepathic order to one of his most trusted lieutenants in the Vanguard.

He attracted attention as he always did. Between his size and his sheen of blond hair, he was something of an anomaly amongst his own breed. They rarely produced blonds for some unknown reason and it made him a curiosity with some, attractive to others. Most remarkable was his size. He, like Damien, did not have that slimness and almost gaunt athleticism that was to be expected of his breed. He was bulky across the shoulders and chest; his muscular waist was thick and his legs were as long and dense as tree trunks. This was what he preferred to be noticed for. His overwhelming size was sometimes all the deterrent he needed when dealing with those who would contest him.

So it did not come as a surprise to him that a path opened up for him no matter what direction he headed in, no matter how thick the crowd in the common levels of the citadel. He considered sending a second guard to Syreena and Damien's quarters. There were a great many Vampires crowded together, a large cross-section of a very powerful population. Unsurprisingly, there were also Demons and Lycanthropes milling about. Not many, but more than had ever attended a foreign Samhain celebration in the past. He suspected it was a combination of factors: the recent exchanges in ambassadors that had opened up the cultures to one another, and the loosening of Demon cultural restraints that had them seeking the highly promiscuous newness of Vampire partners that hadn't been previously open to them. After a few centuries, Stephan supposed, the same faces over and over would definitely be cause for searching out new ones.

Frankly, if Syreena was anything to judge by, Lycanthropes had a fair sex drive themselves. On par with Vampires, if not-and he would never have thought to say such a thing-exceeding it. He had not seen so much as a hair on Damien's head for the past four days. Their telepathic contact a moment ago was the most he'd heard from him in all that time, except for a hastily prescribed instruction to take over the rounds of the territorial borders until otherwise ordered. He supposed they were taking advantage of Jasmine's absence. That woman made no bones about how she felt about Damien's marriage and the can of worms it had opened, but Jasmine blamed Syreena for the entire boatload, whereas Stephan was more inclined to lay the majority of the blame at Damien's doorstep.

Still, he could hardly complain. He'd been fairly bored up until Damien's marriage, even considering going to ground for only the third time in his life until a more exciting era came along. In all honesty, all of this peace was bad for a soldier's disposition and attention threshold. Sure, he could train and learn various war forms and run drills and all that, but he was 633 years old. Exactly how much could a person dedicate to the same calling, and for how long, with no one or nothing to exercise the skills upon? Sometimes he missed the eras of serious warfare. Human wars were amusing. Damien had always loved a good human war and would take along all comers for the party back in the day. But after a thousand years, Damien had grown tired of losing his companions on the battlefields and had become peace loving.

The best had been the war with the Demons. That had been an awesome century for battle. The Demons were extraordinary fighters and cunning strategists. Their keenest skill had always been the ability to reason out their enemy's movements and plans of actions-an impressive trick when the Vampires were fully telepathic and Mind Demons had barely begun emerging at the time.

Yes, he had loved warring with the Demons. He'd only been two hundred someodd years old at the time, just a minor soldier in the Vanguard, but that was how he had begun to make his name for himself back in the day.

This domestic protection gig was not his scene. This was Jasmine's territory, watching Damien's back. She was like a cat, able to sit and watch for prey for hours, just waiting for the bat of an eyelash to pounce. He found it boring, making the same circuit again and again. He longed to be out on the network. Sure, it meant hunting his own, but a battle was a battle, an enemy an enemy. No matter what, he would always be loyal to Damien. His area of expertise was in the defense and offense against those with Nightwalker powers, and if lawbreaking Vampires started accumulating these powers for themselves, he and the Vanguard were by far the best solution.

He decided to send an exterior guard up to the tower turrets to guard the exterior access to the royals' bedchamber until they saw or sensed Damien's return. He felt infinitely better knowing there was now extra protection for the Princess, and he turned his attention elsewhere.

Cygnus received the message the moment Damien crossed the border of his territory, heading out to hunt. The Vampire Prince wouldn't circuit his borders until he had been refreshed by prey, habitually choosing to not face any potential dangers without nutritional fortification first. It was what any Vampire would do. And therein lay their advantage.

Hiding from the Vanguard had been no easy trick, but Damien was the only true wild card. No Vampire could claim equal skill in detection of a threat as Damien. With the exception of perhaps Jasmine. She had an uncanny sense, that one did. But she was all the way in Demon territory, tromping over the Demon murder scene with the rest who had come to investigate it and to try to track him and his gang. His spy in Noah's lands had telepathed as much to him, and he had known it was soon going to be upon him to make his move.

The only significant risk at the citadel now that Damien was gone was Stephan. Even though the Vanguard leader was ensconced in the celebration on the first levels of the citadel, he would be on full alert and would instantly be aware of any and all intrusions. However, Cygnus's comrades were ready to cause a distraction that would lure Stephan elsewhere. Then the attack would take place, completely undetected, before Damien was even flushed with the heat of his prey.

"I don't understand!" Kestra fumed, stalking after him, running to keep up with Noah's hasty, ground-eating strides.

"That is just my point, Kes. You do not understand. If you comprehended the power of the creatures we were going to face, you would not dare make such an insane suggestion!"

"Will you stop and look at me!" she yelled at him, panting softly from their third circuit over the stairs to the second floor and back. Although it was more about being furious with him than it was about being winded.

Noah stopped midflight of stairs and obliged her, looking at her face, if not entirely into her eyes, his clouded gaze hooded by the length of his thick lashes. He finished tugging on a leather wrist sheath with its tiny knife tucked within while he waited impatiently for her to continue.

"Thank you," she managed to say, even though it wasn't quite the full attentiveness she'd wanted. She was suddenly learning that Noah could shadow his thoughts from her when he wanted to. His age, power, and experiences with a Mind Demon for a sister had given him an advantage over her. Now she couldn't even force him to reveal his true feelings.

"Noah, I think I have been in your mind thoroughly enough to know exactly what you will be coming up against. I'm not-"

"Reading a memory and accepting a concept is nothing like feeling the strike, feeling the supernatural power of a being in comparison to a human being, which, I remind you, you will always share fifty percent of a heritage with." He stepped up to her and finally made eye contact, his smoldering temper a breathtaking wall of hot emotion that she could feel against her skin and scalp. "You are not coming, Kestra, and that is my final word on the matter."

To her shock and outrage, he turned his back and continued to descend the stairs.

"Your final word?" She stormed after him, fury flushing her features. "Does this look like the damned Crusades to you?" she demanded. "Do you think I'm going to just sit here doing...doing embroidery or something while you wage war, praying you come home in one pigheaded, chauvinistic piece?"

She screeched to a halt when he whirled to meet her abruptly.

"Do not even dare to label me in such a manner!" he roared into her face, the blast of his emotions manifesting in a hot explosion of air that blew back her hair and clothes violently. "There is not a woman among my people who would dare, or have cause, to utter such a thing! How am I to believe you have even the smallest idea of the enemies we go to face when you cannot even master the simplest understanding of your mate's personality?"

"Oh, I don't know," she huffed sarcastically, hands on hips, head tilted, "maybe...mmm...gee, maybe because I've only been in your magnificent presence for a max total of three days? Only one of which I have had access into that thick skull of yours! You aren't even listening to me!"

"I listened to you, Kestra. Your input and logic were invaluable to me tonight, and I thank you for it with all of my heart." This at least he said with sincerity, but it didn't change the stubborn set of his mouth. "But you will not come with us to battle power-drunk Vampires. You have no defenses, no offenses, and would basically be little more than...than a walking blood supply! I will not watch you get your throat ripped out, and I will not be bathed in my Imprinted mate's blood!"

These last statements were the ones she had truly been after, and Kestra sighed as he finally confessed them. She reached out to slide a hand around his upper arm muscles, drawing close and ignoring how hot he was with his overflow of temper.

"Noah," she said softly, causing his eyes to turn instantly troubled as she looked straight into them from her position a step above him on the stairwell. "If it's fear of my death or of my injury motivating your actions or reasoning, then I would appreciate you saying so, rather than disparaging my capabilities to face and understand my enemy."

He looked into those stunning blue eyes of hers while his body shook in a fine shudder against hers. Agitation and terror fueled the tremor. He'd been doing too much soul searching since he'd come close to her, since she'd begun to share his mind. He was too recently inundated with memories of beloved women who had been victims of violence. Each time she begged him to take her with him, he felt the terror of losing her, of finding her with her pristine white hair lying in a sea of blood. Then there was that awful moment, the memory he couldn't banish, of her very own death. A gun muzzle shoved against her fair head, forcing her spirit explosively from her body as she went limp and fell into a lifeless sprawl on the penthouse floor. Worse still, the vision of a rapist thrusting a butcher knife into her womb.

So much pain and abuse, so much horror, and he couldn't bring himself to purposely expose her to more. Expose her to beings of corrupted power and their perverse propensity for toying with their food before killing it? No.

Never.

Noah knew it wasn't fair of him to hold her responsible for his inability to cope with his fear of her being harmed. After all, she'd survived a very long time, most of it unscathed, as a Marine, a mercenary, and extreme sports fanatic. She had gleaned so much information in so short a time, had managed to so easily slip into a military intelligence mind-set, able to grasp strengths and weaknesses of Nightwalkers enough to reach high levels of conceptualization and reasoning.

She was right. He knew very well she was well versed enough in the ways and means of Nightwalkers, able to plot out intelligences for and against them, to decipher and profile their logic. She was completely aware of what she would face should she end up face-to-face with any Nightwalker with enemy intent. But even he didn't fully understand what he was going to be facing this night, the unpredictability of the rogues making this an exceptionally hazardous venture.

Her comprehension of their enemies wasn't the issue, and she was right to call him wrong for trying to make it one. But it was more than just his fear of her coming to harm, although that in and of itself was enough to compel him to lock her up like the chauvinist she'd just accused him of being.

Noah was a being who sought peace above all else. This mission was about protection and redemption. It was about removing a threat. An unwelcome and distasteful task, but a necessary one.

Kestra was just hungry for a conflict. Yes, she understood the morals of the situation and was on the proper side of the issue. However, while her morals might be sound, her motivations were skewed. She was thinking only of a woman in jeopardy at the hands of males and the opportunity for retribution. She wished to play the role of an avenging angel. She didn't realize her own motivations, or how dangerous it would be to indulge in them.

"Kes." He swallowed hard, searching for words that usually came so easily for him. Where was his effortless diplomacy when he needed it so badly to ease his way with her? Truth. It was so hard to speak the truth. "Yes, I fear for you." He reached up and palmed the nape of her neck until he had drawn her forehead to touch his. He sighed deeply with the contact, feeling relief for some reason. "I fear your being hurt. I disapprove of your vengeful motivations for wanting to be a part of this. And in spite of your exquisite intelligence and unquestionable skills, you are not up to this. Even I am uncertain of everyone escaping this conflict with their lives."

She was silent for a long minute and he lifted his head so he could see her eyes. Her mouth was set in a grim line, her eyes averted from him, a tense muscle stretched taut in her jaw. Then her sharp, cool eyes flicked up to meet his gaze and he saw acceptance seated firmly within their breathtaking facets.

"These are arguments that I can accept and understand, Noah. I'm not happy that you feel the need to insulate me from danger, but I can understand it and I can also work with you on it. As to the rest, your reasons are sound and logical. I only wish you had been this honest to begin with and saved us argument and misunderstanding."

"I must apologize, Kikilia," he said softly, "for my behavior. My emotions have the better of me lately."

"I know," she said gently, wrapping her arms around his neck and settling against him. He automatically reached to hold her snug against himself, drinking in her scent and vitality. "I'm trying to remember that. Everything is so volatile lately. My head is buzzing with it all."

Her mouth drifted down onto his and his entire body lurched with excitement even before he felt her lips. Heat crawled up his neck and face, warming both their mouths as he met her kiss with a tangle of tastes and tongues. This, he sighed, is what I should be doing today. It was Samhain, and he should be doing nothing more than slowly drinking in the flavors and the heat of his mate.

"I am Fire, Kes," he said in a fierce whisper against her lips, "and it is Samhain. It is the worst time even for me to consider battle. I would rather be here, focusing these passions inside me toward making love to you all night until you begged me to stop. But I cannot do that."

"Well, of course not. I would never beg you to stop," she countered, licking his lips teasingly when he laughed at her. She sobered softly, though, meeting his turbulent eyes. "And I could never enjoy such a thing knowing another man could lose his wife because I selfishly kept you by my side. I'm not that type of woman. I'm not one who would beg you not to risk yourself."

"I never thought you were," he assured her. "I only meant to point out that with the volatility of Samhain upon me and my element, I will be capable of emotions and brutality none of my kith and kin have ever seen. I have but one anchor in this world to keep me to my senses and hold me to the code of honor that means everything to me, and that is you. I need you here, connected to me and within my mind." He touched his forehead briefly and then drifted a finger through the bangs on hers. "Your clarity, your logic, and your intellect will guide me back to my peace of mind if I overstep my emotions." His hand engulfed the back of her head and he pulled her close until her ear was beneath his lips. "You," he breathed into her soft hair, "are my tether to this world now. I have waited for you for a hundred lifetimes, praying to Destiny for a woman of strength and courage who would one day temper my soul, ease my way in this world, and She has finally answered my prayers."

Kestra tensed briefly in his grasp, but then sighed with acceptance and absorbed his fevered feelings. He had such faith in her, and she couldn't bring herself to shatter that faith, no matter what her fears might be.

"I know you fear dependence on me." Noah laughed low in his throat and she heard the harsh sting of irony. "The truth is that I am dependant on you, Kestra. I hope this is not an added source of fear for you. I know it is a hard responsibility."

"I'm not afraid of you," she murmured softly into his ear. "You may keep trying, but it won't work."

"But I am afraid of me," he said heatedly. "Of me without you. I would not have borne many more holy moons without destroying myself, baby. I know it as surely as I know how sweetly you smell, taste, and feel. My life was half lived before you came into it." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "And now that you are Imprinted upon me, my life will end a heartbeat after yours. It has to, Kestra, because nothing and no one could ever bear the violence of my grief if it did not. Do you understand, Kikilia?"

Kestra's heart was lodged so tightly in her throat that she could only nod against his cheek. Her chest felt as though it was going to burst apart. She was greedily soaking up the ambient heat of his fervent emotions. He tightened her to his body in a snug hug that sealed them together.

"You're just saying that because I'm so good in the sack," she choked out on an emotional laugh.

Noah laughed softly at her tension-defusing humor, but hugged her tighter, eliciting a pleased grunt from her as the air rushed out of her body.

"I hardly have enough data to make that a truthful supposition," he taunted her quietly. "Something we will work on when I return."

She pulled away from him, glancing down at the small group on the first floor awaiting their King's pleasure. She looked back at him, reaching to draw his face between her soft hands.

"I can't believe I'm going to kiss you and send you off to battle like some antebellum romance heroine." She sighed when he smiled, and leaned forward to kiss him softly. Noah immediately drew her closer, needing to take her flavor deeply into his mouth, sweeping her into his senses so he would carry her with him and remember what he would be fighting for, and what he needed to return to more than anything else.

When she finally drew back, flushed and breathless, she reached to tap his forehead.

"Knock, knock," she whispered.

Instantly, Noah opened his mind to her, connecting them as firmly as he could, sharing everything so she would be with him fully in spirit. Then he turned and descended the rest of the stairs, moving to meet his companions in this endeavor.

Stephan was focusing too hard. He could tell because he was starting to feel overwhelmed by all the presence and power milling about the citadel. Everything was becoming a steady, indistinguishable buzz, with no definition or clarity. He telepathed instructions to the guards on the lower levels and quickly moved toward the nearest exit. The moment he stepped out into the cold Romanian night, into the darkness and atmosphere of his homeland, he shook off all sense of the indoors and drew in a deep breath of cleansing refreshment.

He took long strides away from the din of celebration. All was well inside, all protected, and he was due to scan the out of doors anyway. He had to confess that he had a partiality to this side of his duties. Air. Darkness. The life of stars and mountains breathing into him. Mostly, if he sectioned away the court and castle and all that social nonsense, there was the peace of solitude.

And the tremor of trespass.

Stephan's attention snapped to with a crack of neck bones as he whirled about and into a low crouch. There was an intruder on the Prince's territory. One deemed an enemy. The eddy of evil and tainted power fluttered into him like the wings of a swarm of dragonflies. The Vampire launched into the air, flying with ferocious speed away from the citadel, casting soft but firm warnings to the guards left behind him.

It was a single being, one Stephan was more than capable of defeating all on his own, but it did not hurt to keep the others alerted to the trouble. The blond Vampire raced toward the enemy with an enormous surge of excitement flushing through him at the prospect of battle. Life rushed into him, as did power.

He saw his target instantly, a skulk in the shadows. A child's trick. Stephan landed boldly in the open.

"Rubio," he commanded, his voice booming and full of the compelling fear that all in the Vanguard could project, but none so well as Stephan. "Come forth, coward, and meet your fate." Stephan had barely finished the statement when a vile odor wafted through the crisply cold air. It was the stench of corruption.

He saw shadows flutter and he narrowed his glittering eyes, watching for tricks but not concerned enough to go in after Rubio. The weaker Vampire who thought to defy the throne and laws of their people would come crawling out to him.

"There will be order in our world," Stephan said, his voice pitching low, compelling, and seeking the weaknesses in the enemy's spine. "Your taint must be washed away." He beckoned softly, like a priest to a penitent child. "Come and be cleansed."

There was a hiss and a rustle of bushes and Rubio stumbled out of the shadows. The compulsion in Stephan's commands had proven too strong for him. As Rubio stepped closer, a small flock of birds startled, flying up between the two Vampires and then settling somewhere beyond their battleground.

"You think you are so special, so powerful," Rubio growled, struggling for composure amidst fear and the compulsion to kowtow to his sentenced fate. "Even the Vanguard can fall!" he declared.

"The Vanguard will never fall," Stephan intoned. "Strike me dead and another will blossom and grow, using my blood to feed his soul for the hunt." It was the motto of the Vanguard, known by heart for all his centuries, and probably the only truth he felt passionately about.