The Vampire exploded. His ribs became projectiles that tore through the forest until they embedded into tree trunks with hearty thunks. The rest of him rained back down in a wide circumference. As far as debris went, it was mostly an issue of grossness as opposed to danger. Kestra surfaced, relatively blood and guts free for her trouble, gasping madly for breath.

Kestra had barely begun to breathe for herself when she felt Noah's distress. Her body and brain were pounding with the screaming need to breathe, even though she was sucking in oxygen by the ton. She fought to drag herself out of the water, still coughing and gagging as her swollen throat swelled shut. She swept back her wet hair, which had come undone, trying to free her field of vision so she could find Noah. How could he be in danger? Her mind could not conceive of it. He was too strong and far too clever.

As she swept back her hair, the motion drew apart the edges of the deep furrows the Vampire had sliced into her skin and blood streamed out, a reflection of the horrific pain that finally struck. The agony didn't even wait until her adrenaline high wore off. It burned like a vicious, raking brand. Blood blinded her in one eye and she tried to wipe it away as she trudged around the edge of the pool to find Noah.

Noah had to push aside the alarm bell of Kestra's sudden pain as it rang through his brain. Darkness was encroaching, and if he lost consciousness he would leave her to the mercy of these monsters. He would leave all Nightwalkers to the mercy of Vampires who would have drunk the blood of a male Fire Demon.

None of those options were acceptable, and Noah felt rage and indignation flare to violent life. He reached for his first target, using all of his focus to show him what real vampirism was all about. He sucked the energy out of the Vampire sitting on his head with such savagery that the creature hardly had the strength to blink in reflex as it took a header into the flooded forest floor. Noah tried to break the water's surface, but lying on his face with his hands and waist still secured made it impossible in the time it took for a knee in his back and a hand on his head to replace the fallen Vampire's.

Turn to smoke! He heard Kestra's frantic cry, felt her rushing to help him. He feared for her safety, knowing she wouldn't think about herself.

I cannot. The water...

Kestra hadn't known this about him. She had never scanned him for power and weaknesses. Somehow they had never gotten around to it. But now she knew that he couldn't turn to smoke or flame under a deluge of water. It went against the laws of the elements. She should've known that and kicked herself for not thinking logically about it sooner.

She came around the curve, splashing through the flood rushing down the small slope as the water overflowed the rim of the hollow Noah was pinned down in. She saw them, four Vampires. One was facedown in the water, clearly a casualty of their fight to control the Demon King. One was literally sitting on him at legs and waist, another standing on his hands, the third had a knee on his spine and a hand on his head holding him away from desperately needed air. A spout of water was bursting out of the hot spring and arcing to crash down on their prisoner.

Kestra's spirit screamed as she felt the darkness overcoming Noah, felt his fear of leaving her behind to deal with these creatures on her own. Her frantic eyes shifted to a fifth Vampire. Clearly the leader, he was set apart from the danger of dealing directly with the Fire Demon they had captured. He stood on a boulder a short distance away, watching the entire incident.

No. There was more. Kestra's eyes narrowed as she used every new sense she owned to understand how to act. Here was the source of the water. That Vampire, she realized, was controlling it while the others worked. Kestra felt infused with fury all of a sudden, caging her hands together to form a ball the size of a grapefruit as she let the feeling overwhelm her. She knew the frustration and impotence backing the power of her anger was partly Noah's, but she used it all the same, and she packed it into the orb.

Just as the Vampire looked over and saw her, Kestra pitched the ball to him. Then she ran through the shin-deep water toward Noah. Aiming for the lightest-built Vampire, a female standing on her mate's hands, she plowed into her, flinging her off with the power of her momentum. They landed with a splash. Kes grabbed her, and taking another breath, she rolled the Vampire on top of herself.

The orb exploded.

Half submerged, Kestra felt a series of jarring thunks striking the body of the Vampire she held over herself like a shield. When the splashes around her stopped, she shoved the body off. The Vampire had taken a tree branch right through her head, so she was satisfactorily dead. She knew the same was true for the Vampire on the boulder because he had been at ground zero.

Her only concerns now were Noah and the other two Vampires. She had left Noah unprotected from the blast, but she'd had very little choice. She had been forced to use a wide-range blast in the hopes it would even the odds. Shaking water and blood out of her eyes, she sat up and looked for the Vampires.

She saw three more bodies floating in the suddenly still water.

"Noah!"

She ignored everything except the body floating facedown in his fine formalwear. She scrabbled over to him, grabbing him and calling to him as she turned his heavy weight over and onto her kneeling thighs to keep his head abovewater. His complexion was gray, his natural tan lost under the water and mud streaked over his face and surrounding his nose and mouth where his body had finally forced him to breathe in the silt.

Kestra shuddered in horror, feeling the suddenly cold absence of his presence in her body and mind. His thoughts had gone utterly silent.

Her spirit had been left hollow and alone.

She acted with the speed of desperation, falling back on her rather ancient first aid skills, trying to clear mud and filth out of his mouth to free his airway. The results were pitifully inadequate and she knew she had no choice but to keep trying. There was no way she was going to allow a pack of greedy bloodsuckers to deprive a grand race of their beautiful leader. She screeched in a breath past her partially closed-off throat, placed her mouth on his, and exhaled to fill his lungs, praying she was doing it right, that her breaths were full and deep enough.

She couldn't lose him. Not when she was just getting to know him. He was the first person to love her since her parents. She'd accepted that. She'd delighted in it. He knew how exceptional it was for him to make her comfortable with his extraordinary love. As Kestra breathed for him again, she knew she'd held back from him for just this reason. She couldn't bear to love someone and lose them. To be the reason they died.

Kestra began to cry, tears only because she had no breath to spare on sobs. She was surrounded by water, propping him on her knees. She should have him on flat ground, but she dared not waste time trying to haul him over to it. She breathed for him again, cursing Vampires and Nightwalkers and greed and everything else she could think of. He had cheated death for her; why couldn't she do the same for him? She had to. There was no choice. She must make him breathe and live. There were so many who needed him. The Enforcers, their little one, and so many others. Sisters. Oh God, his sisters.

Me.

Yes, she thought with a ripping pain through her soul. She needed him. She needed to tell him how much he had changed her. Changed her life. And how much she actually appreciated it. She needed to tell him how much joy he had given to her in just these short weeks. He couldn't leave not knowing that. She'd been so guarded, trying to protect herself, selfishly nursing old fears and wounds when he had needed to hear how she felt!

With the next breath, water spewed from Noah's mouth, but he still didn't breathe on his own. What she wouldn't give to be able to call for help like a telepath! Surely the others would be close enough to hear. Even Damien! Anybody who could get a medic for him.

"Baby," she prayed against his lips as she drew breath for him. "Please."

She pushed in a deep breath, and more water and silt came up. She cleared his mouth and pressed on.

Please, she implored in her thoughts as she repeated the cycle again, please don't leave me. I couldn't bear it. I know I'm selfish as hell, but I need you to stay with me for a few more centuries. Please...

Oh God, he won't breathe! Kestra shook him in her frustration, shivering as she felt his warmth ebbing away second by second.

"Stop it!" she yelled, though it came out as a croak. "You can't leave me! You bastard! You can't make me love you and then just leave!"

Kestra sobbed hard but refused to give up, fury fueling her determination. She dragged them both upward, her arms circling his chest under his arms, and she hauled him away from the water, searching for flat ground.

As soon as she found it, she threw him back on it and wasted no time in straddling his waist so she could lean in to listen for his heartbeat. She then added chest compressions to her first aid, putting her full concentration on them as she counted and traded off with pushing breath into his stubborn lungs. She cursed him, her face heating up as she put everything she had into her actions and thoughts. Kestra was frantic, scanning her brain, trying to figure out what else she could possibly do.

Suddenly she stopped.

A wild thought occurred to her. What could it hurt? she reasoned. He was dead if she didn't try something.

"Okay, Kikilio, let's make history," she murmured to him.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. She prayed she could do this. Much of her energy had always come from him. She had only just begun to learn how to draw energy from outside sources under his guidance, and she had sucked at it so far. But she couldn't afford to screw it up. Not now.

She began to glow a healthy green, pulling in from the creatures huddled in the forest, the motions of the wind, and the energy of life itself. Her hands flared bright, but she did not shape her energy.

"Remember what you said?" she asked him roughly. "You said we are symbiotic. We are one, inasmuch as we are two. I am the right hand. You are the left. What I take in from you, I must expel. You made me feel the place within that connected to you. It will work in reverse, my love," she insisted softly. "What I take from that path, I can give on that path. Take what you need and come back to me."

She laid her hands on his chest and continued her compressions, at the same time sending a sizzling conduit of energy into him. She focused through her mouth, through the kiss of her lips, the place where they had first birthed her ability to connect with him. So her mouth glowed and sparkled when she breathed into him slow and deep. She pushed on and on, until the glow around her began to fade.

Noah suddenly sucked in a harsh, gagging breath.

He threw her off him, rolling over onto his hands and knees and expelling mud and water with violent retching. His black hair hung around his face lank with water and mud, and his body shuddered as he tried to take in an uncontaminated breath.

That was when Jacob and Isabella finally showed up.

They burst from dust to flesh in a heartbeat, scaring ten years off Kestra when they spoke up behind her.

"What the hell!"

Jacob rushed to the King, looking askance at Kestra.

"Vampires attacked us. He drowned. We need a medic," she croaked in short bursts.

"We know about the Vampires. Bella saw it in a premonition," Jacob said. "It took us a bit to track you."

"Here, sit," Bella urged Kestra while Jacob murmured something to Noah, who was still struggling to clear his lungs.

"Oh God, he's going to suffocate," Kestra said, tears stinging as they rolled over the slashes in her face.

"Jacob can help," Isabella soothed her. "Just give him a minute."

Kestra watched with wide eyes as Jacob leaned over his monarch, speaking softly to him. Suddenly, Noah was retching again, purging pure dirt and silt.

Then he took the first clear breath he'd taken in over fifteen minutes.

"Jacob is of the earth, remember," Bella explained. "He cannot heal, but he can draw out the silt and soil from Noah's lungs. No different than making dirt leave a hole."

All Kestra could do was nod vigorously in comprehension and sudden relief. Jacob helped Noah sit up and Kestra crawled over to him in a flash.

Baby. Are...you...okay?

His thoughts were as stilted as his gasping breaths, but at least they were there, back where they belonged, warm in her mind.

"Yes! Yes, I'm fine. You scared the hell out of me!" She switched to thoughts herself when her voice finally gave out. You should have warned me about the water! Why didn't you ever let me scan you? You almost died!

You are not going to hit me...are you?

Don't you dare joke at a time like this! She glared at him, daggers of ice in her faceted eyes. I will beat the crap out of you if you crack wise about this!

Finally, Noah recovered enough to drag her into his embrace. He was racked with coughing, covered in muck, but he knew she wouldn't care about any of that. He knew she needed to feel him alive and breathing...such as it was.

I am sorry you were scared. We are okay now. Try and calm down.

She couldn't calm down. She burst into hysterics.

"Post-adrenaline crash," Jacob murmured helpfully, trying to explain her uncharacteristic unraveling. "I am leaving Bella here and I am going to get help. Do not move and do not attract trouble," he dictated sternly.

The male Enforcer left and his mate rolled her eyes at his ridiculous commands.

Noah was fully focused on Kestra. She was tearing his heart out with her sobs, and his heart already felt as if it had been through a building collapse. He cradled her head to his chest, resting his chin atop it between coughing fits.

Hush, baby. All is well.

I thought I lost you! I was lost. I fell! Noah felt the disjointed swirl of confusion and hysteria running through her. I thought you were...I thought you were on the bathroom floor...in the garage...all alone...dying all alone!

Noah suddenly understood. She had relived the horror of losing a loved one all over again. Her worst nightmare coming true.

Noah stiffened abruptly.

A loved one.

Noah closed his eyes as a tidal wave of emotion cascaded over him, drowning him, only this time in a little death that thrilled him.

Yes! Oh God, yes. I love you, and I'm so sorry I was too stubborn to tell you. Too cowardly. I love you, Noah. She began to press flighty little kisses all over his face, heightening the suddenly disconnected and heavenly feeling the Demon King was floating on.

You were never a coward, baby love, he told her, squeezing her tightly to himself. No one can ever call someone a coward if they are brave enough to survive and love again. Never.

I love you. You're my soul and my heart. I feel it every time I breathe. I knew. I knew when every day went by and just got better and better. I knew when Samhain passed and you became more and more beautiful. Painfully so, Noah. I met you when you were at your worst, and I love you so much that I actually miss your worst! But I bless your best. You've changed me and my world, and everything is so different now. Just because you were brave enough to face down a royal bitch and give her a good wake-up call.

Noah chuckled roughly, setting off another coughing fit that jiggled her against his chest.

Ah yes, that was brave of me, was it not? More than you will ever know, he added more seriously. I think you will always confuse the hell out of me, baby. I fear I will never figure you out and I will be tripping over my feet and my tongue and my impulses for quite some time.

You know what, I can handle that. But only if you promise me one thing.

What is that, Kikilia?

Stay the hell away from water!

Chapter 23.

Damien crouched in the thick mud, rolling over the last Vampire's body as he inspected it with a grim expression.

"That is the last of the lot," he affirmed, standing up and swiping his hands against each other, more to remove the taint of evil than the mud. "At least this time."

"You sound sure that your people won't get the message," Elijah remarked, his humor somewhere far from the site that had almost seen the death of his King. "I think there is something to be said for a well-publicized ass-kicking."

"Mmm," was Damien's only agreement. After a moment he spoke, his tone dark and heavy with bitterness. "I have learned much in this past year, Elijah. I have learned how to love and how to fear, both with a depth I never knew. I have learned I have not done as good a job ruling my people as I once thought. I am certain, in fact, that ruling is a loose term. I presided over them. There is a difference."

"Damien..." Elijah protested, but the Prince held up a staying hand to cut him off.

"It is like running an orphanage of young children," he explained quietly. "You can manage the aesthetics, the accounts and feeding times, but if you do not control the children, even the best management is doomed to fail. They will have a limited environment, but they will run around like wild animals within that environment from the moment they wake until they collapse with exhaustion." Damien flicked a damaged gaze of midnight blue over his shoulder at the warrior. "I suddenly tried to impose rules on a madhouse full of wild children, and I am surprised they rebelled? It was a poor example of my supposed great wisdom."

"We have made worse mistakes," Elijah said cautiously, very aware that the Vampire was not in the mood for appeasement. "The wisdom comes in the rectification."

That got Damien's full attention, a brow arched in surprise.

"You are sounding suspiciously like a leader, Captain," Damien remarked, a twitch at the corner of his lips.

"I am one. Have been for some time," Elijah said with a dismissive shrug. "Managing unruly warriors with an itch for battle is no easy trick. Standing next to my wife as she presides over a people who hate the very sight of me has its moments, too," he added wryly. "But they are grudgingly forcing themselves to accept there is nothing they can do about it. One day, I am determined they will accept my command with the same ease of respect as they accept Siena's. But that day is long in the future. You, however, have the benefit of the majority. Your people love you, and they have been used to loving you for more centuries than I have even been alive. Those who don't love you will be forced to respect you. I do not doubt this. If I did, I could never reassure my wife that her sister is safe in your keeping. And if I couldn't reassure my wife, you would have a hell of a time on your hands." Elijah's look was pointed.

"I thank you for your confidence," Damien said graciously and without humor. "I think it is time for me to take some pages out of the Demon political handbook. Your system has worked, more or less, for some time, and I need to delegate in order to restructure such a structureless society."

"Keep in mind," Elijah warned, "the Council can be a damned nuisance as well as a help. Don't elevate anyone you can't trust, and don't give too much power away."

"Not to worry. I am Prince and will always be so. My wife has been itching for involvement and I see possibilities now that I am not going to fear the displeasure of my 'children.' And I must replace Stephan." Heavy sadness settled suddenly over him at the remark. "Jasmine will round out the beginnings of a new political structure. She will be pleased to be entitled. It may even keep her out of trouble for a while."

Elijah snorted with disbelief, making Damien chuckle.

"Look at it this way," the Prince said. "If I can reform her, I can reform anyone."