Jacob and Syreena both twisted to see behind Jacob, whose body was blocking Damien from seeing the state Syreena was in. Damien caught the painful relief in the Demon's eyes, and then the flat-out pain in his wife's. Jacob went flying as Vampire strength shoved him out of the way without heed for anything save Syreena. Damien grabbed her up, a hoarse sound of fury gurgling from his throat when he saw his wife's wounds up close.

"Sweetling," he whispered. "Oh, love, what have you done to yourself?"

It was a rhetorical question. He was already in her mind, mining her memories, learning the truth. Her eyes went wider, and she knew it took a monumental effort for him to tamp down the need to vocalize and act on the outrage that would have blinded him to everything else...had she not needed him so badly.

She brushed weak fingers against the least damaged side of her throat, her eyes speaking where her voice could not.

"No, Princess, I cannot. You are too damaged." But even as he held her he was watching precious rivers of blood run down her naked skin, pooling and soaking into the soil. Jacob's actions had eased the flow, but there was massive arterial damage. He was afraid the spurting had stopped only because there was no longer any blood to power the force of it.

He needed to stop the bleeding, but he could not bring himself to strike her on the neck where she had been so savaged already. Aware of the Enforcer looking on with wary, ready eyes, Damien chose the nearest access to the largest artery in her body. Laying her back down along the ground with infinite tenderness, he slid back to cup her knee in his hand, raising her leg as he bent to press a brief apologetic kiss on her kneecap. His fingers slowly pressed up along her soft flesh, the stroke having an intimacy to it that made Jacob turn his head and eyes to the side. Damien appreciated the gesture as he was compelled to lift Syreena's calf to his shoulder, bending until her knee hooked onto his collarbone. He glanced briefly into her beautifully trusting eyes, their multicolored flecks glistening with tears for him because she knew he was afraid of hurting her.

Then he struck for the femoral artery in her thigh.

His canines flashed in and out of her flesh after a deeply bruising hit to the crucial blood pathway. Instantly she was bleeding, and he had no choice but to seal his lips to her skin and let the sweet warmth of her blood fill his mouth. What he sought to do was to trigger the age-old instincts of the workings of his body. Only by striking and feeding sufficiently would his body produce the urge to strike again. When he felt himself reach that point, this was exactly what he did. A second strike, just as sure and deep, only this time a flood of coagulants and the antibodies of numberless diseases he had been exposed to pumped out of his teeth like venom from a snake. They would enter her bloodstream, rushing to all sites of torn tissue, and cause the immediate clotting and sealing of all wounds so that no more blood could be lost.

Jacob only looked back at the couple when his peripheral vision caught the Prince leaning over his wife so he could give her a kiss on her extremely pale lips.

"She needs blood and a healer," Damien said, the command inoffensive because Jacob was used to both the majesty of the Prince's position and his overriding demand to care for his mate. He knew that feeling all too well.

"Where can I find your best healer?" Jacob offered.

"We have none. Vampires heal themselves. Damn me, I should have considered this!" Damien cursed himself again, desperately trying to keep Syreena awake with the sweep of his hand over her hair. "She needs a Monk of The Pride. She needs a healer from her sister's court."

Kestra kept her eyes averted from the Vampire approaching her. She waited, wanting him to come closer before she allowed him to look into her eyes. She heard the soft compulsion in his voice, trying to soothe and lull her. It was layer and underlayer, the obvious and the subversive. This was something she had experience in. She'd always had a sense of the seditious. Sands had been an example, though a poor example, because she'd ignored her instincts that day.

So as the Vampire spoke and attempted to charm her like a cobra in a basket, she allowed herself to relax. She wasn't touched by his hypnotic coercion. This, she realized, was a strength. Druid or human, it didn't matter. It was an advantage and she'd use it to its fullest. The whys and wherefores were thoughts best left to later. Although she had to wonder. It seemed that this was the second power he'd used on her that, as soon as she was made aware of it, had become increasingly difficult for him to use against her. When he'd first arrived, he had read her mind in a snap. As soon as she'd realized he was doing so, it had become difficult for him to utilize the skill. Even now she could see the curl of his brow as he warred to hear all the thoughts he wanted access to so badly.

Yes. Of course. It was like setting charges. You find the supports first, and then go for the bang. Once you know what holds everything in place, it becomes an easy target for destruction. It suddenly made sense that some innate part of her would destroy all the advantages he'd have in an attack, one by one, weakening his position of power. If she kept blowing out his supports, eventually his advantage would collapse.

He was coming within reach. She tried to reconcile this handsome face of deception with human Vampire lore, though she didn't want to rely on anything she didn't know to be fact. She suspected he was capable of speed beyond her own, but he was moving leisurely as if he expected the Demon King to never come home. The thought sent an inexplicable wave of panic through her and she had the impulse to reach for Noah, to see if he was alive and safe. She tamped down the urge with all her might, focusing once more, telling herself it was ridiculous to worry about a being of such vast aptitude as Noah.

The Vampire closed in, and she could smell him, something foul, like he had rolled in sour trash. She tried not to wrinkle her nose in distaste. She appeared relaxed, and she knew that if she calmed her mind she would have as fair a chance against him as she could manage.

"What manner of man, I wonder, allows so pretty a lady to be here all alone, unguarded?" He asked this conversationally, as if the question itself weren't a threat.

"I believe there were guards aplenty posted outside."

"Those who are not at the Samhain festival, you mean? Well, one had a fairly eager girl on her knees behind a distant bush. They might be done soon, though. She seemed somewhat relentless." He leered in what she supposed was a further attempt at charm. "The rest are easily misled by shadows and the like. Besides, Vampires are not Demon enemies. We have shared the holidays before."

"I wouldn't know much about that," she said, hefting out a sigh. "Frankly, I find the whole thing boring. And I can tell you I don't appreciate being left behind like some...some mistress who sits around waiting for her lord and master's urges to fall on him. Somebody around here is living in the Dark Ages." She gestured pointedly to the castle.

The Vampire chuckled, a deep, pretty sound, also full of that coaxing compulsion to relax.

Wait...wait...

He came closer and she began to raise her eyes, saying all kinds of intense little prayers to herself.

Contact.

Their eyes clashed, the brilliant glitter of her pupils searing the unsuspecting Vampire to the quick, rendering him into shocked immobility. It was at just that moment that Kestra felt Noah flare to furious life in her mind. She ignored him, afraid of accidentally breaking off the tenuous paralysis she had over her target. It had worked, just as it had worked on the medic. Instantly his aura flared into her vision, and then his powers independently revealed themselves to her. She didn't understand all the hows and small details of this power she was wielding, and she knew it was dangerous to wield weapons without experience, but she had no choice. She didn't even fully understand the Vampire's abilities as they jumped onto her mental chart, but she wasn't actually interested in those details at the moment. It was the paralysis in and of itself that would serve her.

She knew from her lone experience with Gideon that next would come the Vampire's flaws, the weaknesses and back doors to circumvent each of his skills. Then she'd feel the urge to map down each power with the precision of the best cartographers. This was what had quickly exhausted her before, and she didn't want that to happen. She would need all of her strength, every ounce of it. She'd need to act, to quickly reseat herself into her own mind and body, and take action before he came around from his paralysis.

Weaknesses. She'd been armed with human mythology just as anyone who had seen a half dozen Vampire movies would have been, but there was no instant death from a stake in the heart for his kind. Even the sun didn't kill them all in a rush. It burned and smoldered them, like a low-temperature kiln, taking hours before it finally reduced them to ashes.

But Vampires could be forced into a torpor. It required a massive blood loss in a short period of time. If a Vampire lost too much blood too quickly, he would have to crawl beneath the safety of the ground in order to restore health, a forced death-like sleep that allowed him time to heal from mortal wounds.

Also, decapitation and cutting out the heart would suffice to kill a Vampire. But since she didn't see herself finding a butcher knife any time soon, she doubted she was going to find either of those routes to be plausible. She believed she'd have only a single shot, while he was unaware and in this stupor. She knew on some level that once pain became involved, the Vampire would break away from her captivity. She felt Noah, a small but powerful presence, waiting and watching, following her thoughts and holding his breath.

Kestra leapt off the desk and plowed into the Vampire in a single movement, dragging the dazed Nightwalker to the marble floor. His head cracked into the tiles with a sickening thud. He barely had an inkling of what was going to happen when he saw the firelight gleam off the silver-plated letter opener she raised sharply into the air. He thought, somewhat stupidly, that silver was a Lycanthrope weakness. Unless...

Unless the sharp object was thrust with unerring accuracy and shocking strength into his soft belly and used to bisect the aorta running down the center of his body. This was a most effective maneuver. He would not bleed to death within a minute or two like a normal human, because there was no heartbeat in him at his age to speed the process along, but he would eventually bleed out.

The trick for Kestra would be to remain safe until then.

The Vampire didn't scream until she'd already scrambled off his body, the deadly damage done. She ran as if the hounds of hell were after her, exploding out of the castle and into the gardens, feeling suddenly disoriented.

Go right, straight, to the left...now straight.

The instructions were crisp and commanding, a little breathless in reflection of Noah's fear, she thought. She didn't blame him. She was scared to death, too.

She suddenly felt the Vampire on her heels, running after her, not caring that he was forcing himself to bleed into his belly by exerting himself. His speed was unbeatable, but she had to try. She hurdled perfectly groomed bushes and hit straight lawn.

Suddenly she felt hands like talons catching roughly at her shoulders, and legs wrapping around her waist. She was soaring upward a second later and she had to quell the screams of fear rising within her, purely because she didn't want to give the creature the satisfaction. She felt Noah's heart leaping into his throat. His inability to hide his fear was terrifying to the point of calm. She watched below herself with fascination as the lawns flew away and the dark English woods cropped up with a rather apropos October boniness to the scraggly branches.

Branches!

Kestra threw up her arms barely in time to protect her face from the topmost branches of the old oaks and their hapless partners in the crime against her. At the speed with which the Vampire flew, her skin was flayed from her arms and legs, her thin dress instantly in tatters.

Noah!

Hang on, baby, help is on the way.

She had to believe him. What choice did she have? She needed to get the upper hand, but she could be killed if she dropped from this height. Then again, better this than higher. Or having her blood drunk out of her gaping throat.

I will never let that happen!

Noah's roar of conviction made her a believer. She could feel his heart pounding as hard as hers was, and she understood that he would find a way to help her if it was the last thing he'd ever do. Again that calm hit her, that confidence that his arrogant ways could infuse within her. It was the belief that only an individual of great power had-that he wouldn't be defeated, no matter what the enemy. This was his gift to her, and it was empowering.

Suddenly the Vampire pitched downward, and swallowing a scream as bark tore at her skin, Kestra acted.

She had never relinquished her weapon. With a wrenching movement to free her arm, she twisted her hips away from his bear hug on her and stabbed him right in the face. Kes was aiming for an eye, but she settled for a scream. Unfortunately the letter opener stuck and was left behind as she plummeted to the ground like a stone.

Until a branch not much thicker than an uneven bar zipped up the length of her body and she instinctively caught it. She swung; wood creaked and cracked, and then held. Unfortunately, her arms and shoulders had other ideas. The pain from the beating of the branches went shoulder deep and she couldn't hang on despite a dozen years of gymnastics training. She crashed down to the forest floor, catching more bark and bruises on the way, and finally hit years of leaf litter with a back-breaking crack and a grunt of expelled air.

She was aware of crashing and smashing off to her right.

And then her left.

It was like something out of Macbeth. To her starry eyes and pounding senses it was as though the wood had come alive and gone on the march. The noises were deafening, branches and stars duplicating in a macabre little dance of indecision. Then the night sky and trees were blotted out by the sudden appearance of a pixyish face and an enormous cloud of raven black hair. There was a very small woman leaning over her, hands on her knees as a brace, and she was smiling at her.

"Hi there. You look like you could use a hand."

"Noticed that, did you?" Kes wheezed.

"My name is Isabella. Noah sent me. You're safe with me."

This woman is a beautiful and trusted friend.

There was almost too much admiration in that sentence, and Kestra felt a nasty twinge of emotion in response.

Yeah. Thanks. I can see the beautiful part without the description from you.

I was speaking of her heart.

There was far too much smugness in that thought. Well, Kes hoped he was having great fun at her wounded expense, because she was going to smash his perfect white teeth down his throat later on. So maybe she'd been momentarily jealous. What of it? He'd been alive since forever, and she couldn't even bear to think how many women that meant.

Then she did think it, and instantly wished she hadn't. What the hell was she doing worrying about things like that when she was lying wounded in a forest with a Vampire out there somewhere trying to kill her? God, the man was turning her into mush.

"You're hurt pretty bad. Don't move at all."

"Vampire?" she whispered, shocked that she could breathe to speak.

"Oh, I, umm..." The brunette looked sheepish. "I wouldn't worry about him." Isabella suddenly staggered and dropped to her knees, her hair sweeping against Kestra's face. "Wow. What a rush," she murmured.

"Huh?" It was all Kestra could say, but she had a fine idea of what Isabella was talking about. She knew that look. The look that base jumpers and cliff divers and spelunkers got when they pitched off their ultimate goal in life. It was intoxication and adrenalization and a speedball high all banged into one. Isabella looked like she was ready to lie down on the forest floor beside Kes and contemplate the spinning stars for herself.

Noah?

I am coming as fast as I can, baby. Hang on until we get you some medical help, okay?

Oh, I'm fine. But I think your girl here is looped.

There was a significant pause, and during it, Isabella had taken, or rather fallen into, a cross-legged position by Kes's head. The brunette snorted a laugh, as if to some private joke, and muttered under her breath.

"Oh, bite me!" she finally said aloud, grasping her knees as her back straightened in irritation. "What was I supposed to do? Invite him on a damn picnic?"

"Are you okay?" Kes asked, breathlessness overwhelming her voice again. She was finding it harder to take each subsequent breath.

"Yes," Bella grumbled. "My husband is bitching me out."

That was the first time it truly occurred to Kestra that there were others who shared the same kind of bond she was developing with Noah.

Her husband.

Kestra gasped in a breath, wondering why she wasn't getting any oxygen. Maybe she was panicking again, or having an asthma attack. But hadn't Gideon said that would be unlikely to ever happen again? And she couldn't be panicking. She felt too calm. Relaxed, even. And the stars were damn pretty framed by the tree branches like they were.

Baby, you are going into shock. Try to concentrate.

Chapter 18.

Noah and Jacob were streaking toward the closest sanctuary. Their only hopes for all involved were in the Lycanthrope court. It was distant, in the wrong direction-away from their mates, who were both in trouble-but they needed to aid Damien's wife as well. The Lycanthrope court would hold all the answers. A Monk of the Lycanthrope's much-revered Pride would be called on to heal Syreena. Legna could teleport him to the holdings in Romania after taking the image of the location from either Jacob's or Noah's mind. She was powerful enough to do that now.

Then Legna could send Noah, Jacob, and her husband, Gideon, to the English forest where Noah's mate was closing in on death and Jacob's was trying to purge herself of the evil taint of powers she had ripped out of the Vampire who had attacked Kestra, leaving him as weak and helpless as a kitten. A state that would probably kill him in light of his existing injuries at Kestra's hands. No one could help Isabella to do the necessary purge, but her husband needed to be with her just the same. She had never before absorbed such pure evil, having learned to use her ability with great discretion because of the huge psychic consequences.

Noah felt Jacob's fear as keenly as he felt his own. He had asked a great deal of his Enforcers when he had commanded Jacob to send Bella away from the festival and back toward the castle to help Kestra. Both had obeyed without question, loyal no matter what his crimes had been against them.

But even as he and Jacob streaked toward salvation, the only thoughts he could give true focus to were those sliding through the mind of his mate.

I am going into shock, she mused with a mental chuckle. And here I thought I'd forget what it felt like. It's exactly the same. Right down to feeling so damn cold.

Noah felt her shivering, felt her teeth clattering together, both so violent that her eyesight was blurred by the vibration.

You are going to be okay, baby. You are strong and a fighter and you are a part of my power now. That is not an easy thing to damage. Noah hoped he sounded more convinced than his fear was allowing him to feel.

You mean I'm too stubborn to die.

Do not even speak the word, Kestra! he commanded her with ferocity, as if his tone alone would stave off the Grim Reaper. Do not even allow the option to ghost into your thoughts! I will not stand for it!

You know, we're really going to have to discuss this whole "lord of the manor" thing you have going on. I don't respond well to commands.

She was teasing him.

He was afraid for her life and the little wretch was having him on.

Kestra, he warned, his tone so daunting she swore she saw the stormy smoke of his eyes. She sent back the mental equivalent of a derisive snort. She wasn't impressed by his threats. Noah decided to change tactics. Tell me how Bella fares.

Kestra had lost track of the woman beside her as she'd floated in her own world of semiconsciousness. Isabella was sitting with her elbows on her butterflied knees, her face buried in her upturned palms. She was muttering softly to herself, rocking back and forth so that her hair swung like a wild fringe of black silk. She sent the entire image to Noah, knowing it would speak far louder than her words and also knowing he wouldn't care for false reassurances. Kestra suspected Bella's muttering was a rapid-fire dialogue with her husband, one that escaped the privacy of her mind as distress ebbed through her.

What did she do? Why is she like this?

Bella has an extraordinary power. She can steal the abilities from another being and make those skills her own for a while. She has done this to incapacitate your attacker. Bella has never taken in so much corrupted power before. It has endangered her.

Kestra took in one of her small breaths, struggling to hold it in. She was used to risking her body, her life, and even sometimes her soul in the dangers she undertook, but she'd never dragged an innocent into the fray with her. It had always been one of her few true morals.

Hush, Kikilia, hush, he soothed in the softest of tones, feeling and knowing her disturbance instantly. She has come to your aid for her own reasons. One, because I requested it; two, because Jacob requested it; and three, because it is in her nature and in her power to help innocents who are in danger from darkness. This is what she was born to do, who she was born to be. Do not punish yourself because a stranger is merely fulfilling her own Destiny, and that Destiny just happens to cross with yours in this moment. Now hold a thought of me. I strain to maintain this distant contact while moving with such energy burning. We are near. So very near. Hang on.

Kestra didn't understand how he could be too far and yet as near as he claimed. She looked back to the brunette, who she realized had far more understanding of these things than she did. Isabella lifted her head and smiled wanly. She looked terribly pale, a sickly pallor that was nowhere near whatever normal was for her, Kestra was sure. But she did have remarkable eyes, a bright lavender in the silver of the full moonlight. Kestra gasped for another breath, coughed, and didn't even need to taste the blood in her mouth when she saw the expression that crossed the Druid's fairylike features.

"Oh God," Bella murmured, leaning over Kes with concern radiating out of every pore. She instantly reached to tear at her pretty blouse, untucking the silk from her jeans to do so. Kestra recognized the expensive designer blouse, and she wanted to laugh at the incongruity of it being paired with well-worn denims several years out of style. The fact that Bella tore into a six-hundred-dollar blouse without even flinching gave her more understanding about the woman than she'd gotten in all her conversation with Noah.