The girl let out a stark sob of relief.
And then she was gone.
Chapter 11
“Who do you think she was?” Adam asked.
It was the question on everyone’s mind as they sat in the main salon of Damien’s citadel, an impromptu after-the-battle party. Apparently Valera was something of a cook, a skill that was rather wasted in a household of Vampires. She was tickled to have someone other than her mate to cook for. She served them dishes and cocktails, urging them to eat and replenish their strength.
Adam felt something brush against his legs as he stood in his usual stalwart manner. He looked down to see a fat cat winding around his ankles. Since when do Vampires keep pets? he wondered.
Since we decided to have the Witch as our guest, Jasmine provided for him. She has three of them. And they communicate telepathically ... when they feel like it.
Truly ? What exactly does a cat have to say ?
Mostly, they like to explain how we are doing everything wrong, Jasmine thought with an internal chuckle.
“I think it is clear she was from the future,” Damien said carefully.
“Do you think she was sent here by my ... my niece? The same girl who brought me here? Can she send someone else through time without going, too?” Adam asked.
“Yes. That is how I obtained my bride.” Noah spoke up from the doorway he had suddenly appeared in. He nodded his dark head to Damien, his gray and green eyes full of unspoken emotion. “Is it true? Is Ruth gone? For good?”
Jasmine reached for the ball that sat on the table in among the plates of food, looking very much like the perfect centerpiece. She hefted it for a moment, then tossed it to Noah. The Demon King caught the thing and turned it over in his hands slowly, watching as that hated face flashed briefly into view while Jasmine quickly recounted the story of Ruth’s capture.
“Hmm. She looks pissed,” he noted. Then he smiled. “Do we destroy the thing and her with it?”
“I was rather hoping to keep it as a souvenir,” Jasmine said. “Or perhaps trophy is the better word.”
Noah nodded and tossed it back to her.
“You captured her; it seems only right that you be her jailor.”
Jasmine turned the ball around in her hand.
“That girl—whoever she was, she took small, precise steps, even went so far as to learn magic and poison herself with it, just so she could be there at that moment and influence events so this could happen.”
“She came and warned us to back you up,” Damien said.
“She also stepped in to rescue Corrine from attack,” Noah injected. “Corrine described her guardian angel very clearly. Those shifting eyes ... that black and gray hair.”
“She was not like any Demon I’ve ever seen before,” Jasmine said. “She had a strong mind, could resist telepathy ...”
“She made a short teleport while rescuing Corrine, if you could call it a teleport. Corrine’s description was quite ... odd.”
“If she came from far enough into the future, she could have been a new breed of Demon we don’t yet know about,” Syreena posited. “Or perhaps she was mutated somehow. Maybe by an Exchange?”
The room fell quiet and Adam, who had been distracted by the waves of his mate’s hair and was presently toying with the fragrant curl of it, became aware of many eyes falling on him. He felt Jasmine stiffen under the attention, felt her bristle suddenly under the implied expectation in the thoughts of those around her.
Hush, little Vamp, he soothed her softly. The only expectations that concern you are those of your Imprinted mate. And if you noticed, I have not made any demands of you.
And why is that? she wanted to know, turning to look up into his eyes and dismissing the rest of the room. You are pushy and possessive. Why would you not demand the Exchange of me? You would have me all to yourself then. I couldn’t back off or walk away. We would be joined forever.
Jasmine, have you not been paying attention ? We are Imprinted. We already are joined forever. Nothing else we do can ever change that. Death is the only thing that can break this connection.
“But I’m a Vampire,” she said softly, moving close enough to let their bodies touch. “What makes you so certain it will be the same for me as it is for a Demon?”
“Look at how you lean into me. How you touch me. Even when your mind runs with doubts and little resistances, you are still here. Still connected to me. Vampire or Demon, it does not matter, Jasmine. You are mine and I am yours. And nothing from the past or the future can ever erase that.”
Jasmine broke away from him, stepped back, unable to help the urge to defy the connection, even as the greater part of her was delighting in the understanding that he was hers, that he had added more feeling and color to her life in a single day than she had known for centuries.
“Excuse me,” she said brokenly as she stumbled away from the gathering, the crystal ball still in her hands.
Adam found her in her rooms only minutes later, and stood as unobtrusively as an Imprinted mate possibly could in her doorway as she leaned against her vanity, spinning the crystal ball like a top on its surface, over and over again.
“I’m going to make her so violently ill that she pukes up all over herself,” Jasmine said with a bit of a pout to her soft lips.
“I wonder if she even feels the movement of her prison,” he said.
“Don’t spoil it for me,” she insisted, giving the ball another spin. “Later, I plan to boil it in water. How about it, Ruth? Up for a long overdue disinfection?” Jasmine smiled a little at the idea. “I wish I could put it in an autoclave. Now, that would sterilize the bitch. Maybe see how it feels to have someone sterilize you for a change?” she shouted at the ball.
“I think Syreena will find it cathartic enough to burn the talisman.”
“Well, maybe I don’t. Maybe I think Ruth got off too easy.”
“Perhaps. But what purpose will it serve to torment her now?”
“You mean besides making me happy?”
“Will it? Make you happy?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe it will just satisfy me a little. Something.” She sighed and finally looked up at him. “Everything is changed. All in a single day. I’ve caught my white whale. I’m permanently glued to you. Now Damien and Syreena are going to start making babies.” She sighed. “It’s all different and I feel out of place.”
Adam laughed at that, shaking his big shaggy head, his fair green eyes alight with merriment. “I think I can safely say I know how you are feeling. Though I do not know what a white whale has to do with this, I can definitely empathize with your feelings of displacement.”
Jasmine had to grin.
“I suppose everything is relative, is it not? There is no one here who has a better claim to feeling displaced than you do.” She lifted her eyes, the malachite color of them unbelievably beautiful, so indicative of how enmeshed they were on a spiritual and physical level. Then her eyes suddenly widened and he felt the thought that streaked through her mind long before it ever reached her lips.
“I cannot answer that question,” he said hastily. “But as I understand it, there has been one other unusual Imprinting that crossed unexpected breeds. When Demon and Druid mate, the Druid becomes physically dependent on the Demon mate, but when Demon and Demon Imprint, that is not the case. Tell me, what of Elijah and the Lycanthrope Queen? Is she symbiotically dependent on him? If Elijah is killed, will she die of energy starvation?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think they even know. But I think they both realize that neither of them would survive for very long without the other. And yet ... I survived four centuries without you ... even after you had already touched me.”
“And you suffered for it the entire time,” he said gravely. “You said so yourself. Not from lack of energy, but because I woke something inside you and did not fulfill the promise of it. Not until today.”
“Today. And today is over. The sun is climbing outside of
the citadel. I can feel it. Sleep pulls at me.” She tilted her head. “You pull at me. In ways I’m afraid to be pulled. Your blood has been moving through my body like ... like ...” She didn’t want to say “poison.” She wouldn’t insult him like that.
“Like laudanum,” he supplied for her.
“But nothing so harsh or so dulling. Nothing so false. Instead it’s awakening everything. Things I didn’t realize were asleep inside me. I feel ... stronger. That battle went far more easily for me than it should have. I am old and I am strong, never doubt that, but I had advantages I never had before. I could sense things. Anticipate things. I think ... I think you gave me what it is inside you that makes you such a fine hunter. Makes you Enforcer.”
“That has less to do with my blood, I think, and more to do with the way our minds are connected. I could feel your every moment, and instinct joined my thoughts to yours, urged you to act and react. Just as I felt the same from you.” He moved into the room, coming up to her side and brushing gentle fingertips over the curve of her shoulder. Then he reached to touch the gash in her forehead that was already knitting and healing. “I am notorious for cracking my head into my enemy’s to throw off his senses.”
She laughed softly at that. She touched the spot as well, their fingers meshing gently. “I wondered where that came from. And to be honest, defanging a Vampire is akin to kicking a guy in the balls. Guys don’t kick other guys in the balls and Vamps don’t defang other Vamps.”
“Ah well ... perhaps that was a holdover from my Vampire fighting instincts.”
“Famous for defanging Vampires, were you?”
“Actually, Jacob was the best at it. I will never admit it to him, but I honed the technique watching him.”
“Jacob? Really?” She looked utterly stunned. “Mr. Do Good?”
“Well, you were asleep for the meat of the war, so you did not know his reputation as a Vampire hunter.”
Adam raised a brow. “My brother is a man who does much good?”
“He’s a stickler for the law. For peace. For doing the right thing at all costs. It’s a wonder he ever crossed the line and took Bella to mate. They were the first, you know. They were everything the rules said shouldn’t happen. But he did it. This Imprinting thing ... it changes people, I guess.”
Adam could feel her following thought. She didn’t want to be changed so much and enmeshed so much in someone else that she lost herself. The way she felt Damien had done with Syreena.
“But now that I look at it,” she said quietly, “the essence of who he is hasn’t changed. He is still the strong, implacable ruler I have always known. And yet ... he’s also more. There’s more depth to him. More contentment. More ... color.”
“Do you not want color?” he asked her, his thumb turning to drift against her cheek. Her skin was so smooth and his calluses so rough in contrast. He had a swordsman’s hands and she had the skin of a lady.
“You know I do,” she said.
Jasmine finally turned toward him, opening her body to his, opening herself to him in general. Not that she had much control over that. The pull of him was incredible. Her upper jaw actually ached with the craving to sink her teeth back into him. She wanted to taste that magnificent flavor again, to feel that extraordinary pleasure.
Her entire body went hot with the thought of his blood on her tongue.
“I will be happy to accommodate your cravings, little Vamp,” he said breathlessly as her thoughts and feelings swirled inside his brain. “But I was hoping we might discover more traditional pleasures.” Adam slid his fingers around the side of her neck, his thumb tipping her chin up so she was looking into his eyes. He paused a moment so he could casually trace his eyes over the beautiful curves and sweeps of her face, acknowledging just how quickly it had become familiar to him, essential to him. He watched how her lips curved in and out of a series of little smiles as she let him take his time studying her. “I like that,” he told her softly, his breath brushing the crest of her forehead a moment before he brushed a gentle kiss to it.
“The way I smile?” she queried.
“The way you smile because you know just how beautiful you are. You take pleasure in your power over my needs and senses. No doubt you are quite the accomplished flirt, enjoying the way you play men.”
She made a noise. “Humans were too easy. I never even had to use my Vampire power to coax and capture their minds. Well, almost never. There were, I admit, one or two with surprising strength and clarity of mind. It was those who truly engaged me. I would never lower myself, of course.”
“Of course,” he agreed seriously, although humor still flooded his mind.
“However, the game was entertaining. Their minds were surprisingly complex. For humans. Of course, they were still men and, in the end, it would all dissolve into their demands for the sexual. Demands I would never give in to.”
“And what of my demands, little Vamp?” Adam pushed back her hair near her neck on the right side and leaned in briefly to draw his lips and the warmth of his breath up along the length of it, from the crest of her shoulder to the point just below her ear. “What do you feel when I request things of you that you are not used to giving?”
Jasmine shivered, her hands coming out to grip at his clothing. The silk of his shirt made a crisp, crackling sound and she opened her eyes, recalling he had been injured and had bled heavily into the fabric. Even now there were wet edges around the hole the nail had struck through. Wounds of iron did not knit and heal well on a Demon without outside assistance. Objects of iron tended to rust, flaking off into the wound, where it continually poisoned and burned the Demon.
“You need a medic,” she noted.
“You need to face my question, Jasmine. You need to realize your thoughts skip away and you try to fly off whenever you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable with intimacy of any kind. But you do not have any escapes available to you any longer. I am in your mind, sweet Jasmine. My blood is in your body. I do not wish for you to feel trapped by this knowledge. I want you to embrace it. To luxuriate in it, like a creature that craves seductive pleasures ought to embrace it.”
“But it comes with so much ... baggage.” She made a frustrated noise even as she tilted her head and allowed him to travel the length of her neck in the opposite direction. The neck of a Vampire was a major erogenous zone. Clearly he had figured this out. Was it previous knowledge that allowed him to exploit her weakness, or was it the unprotected access he had into her brain?
“No.” He made a hard sound with his tongue and grasped hold of her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “This is not like the mental rape Ruth put you through, and I will not have you equate the two. This is something with pure intentions, open emotions, and a reciprocation that will never cause harm to either of us.”
“How can you say that? You will forever be a weakness to me now. I will always be distracted by you in a fight—”
“And you will always be fortified by me in that same fight. You will worry about me, and I will worry about you, but that will trigger each of us to lend the other our best strengths and skills. Just as we did today. I was wrong when I assumed Jacob was weakened by his mate. When I thought he had failed his duty when it came to Ruth. She was an extraordinary enemy. Look how many of us it took to capture her at last.” He reached out and pushed at the ball.
Jasmine stopped it just before it dropped off the edge of the vanity.
“I did not feel weakened by you today,” Adam said softly to her. “I realized today that you multiplied all my strengths. I could feel it like a fire in my soul. The only thing that burns more fiercely is the way I burn with need for you.”
He could be gentle with her, understanding and thoughtful, pussyfooting around her insecurities until the cows came home, but his nature and hers called for a more direct approach. Adam placed a hand on her back and jerked her up against himself. It was instantly like connecting two strong magnets. The sound that escaped him was low and primal,
coming from a place in himself he was only familiar with during the height of battle. But here it was, jumping between them, raw and fierce. And Jasmine echoed the sound, the ferocity of need it implied just as strong on her part as it was on his. Her hand curled into a fist, and it hit against his shoulder without real physical strength, but full of emotional protest. She hated that she couldn’t control this thing inside her, that she was as weak to it as he was, as so many men in the past had been weak to her manipulations of their needs.
“Look for the strength in it,” he said roughly to her. “See the strength in it.”
He moved his mouth against hers, inhaling the breath she suddenly exhaled, taking immeasurable satisfaction that he had provoked her into breathing. He tightened his hold on her when he felt her bristle against his thoughts. She was the one who was supposed to be taking satisfaction in the things she provoked in others, not the other way around!
“Then do what you do best,” he taunted her. “Make me weak to you. Show me your power.”
It took a minute, but the rigidity of her body slowly eased, a softened curve in her spine causing her gorgeous body to cling to his in ways he hadn’t thought possible. He knew then that he was going to suffer beautifully for the challenge he had thrown at her feet.
Jasmine tipped her head back, letting her hair slide down behind her shoulders, falling over the wrist and forearm that had caught her, letting the soft, smooth weight of it tickle the skin and hair on his arm. She exhaled that breath that so pleased him across the side of his face and beneath his hair, the sound of the most delicate pleasure teasing at his ear.
The motions were so simple and yet so complex all at once. It was pure artistry, perhaps because he felt it was less about challenging him and more about giving him pleasure as the impulses skipped through her thoughts. She might want to fool herself into thinking it was a battle of wits and will, but he knew it went much deeper than that.
She wanted this as much as he did. She had since the moment she had tasted his blood—since the moment she had met him, if she were clear and honest with herself. She had wanted to feel his embrace for four centuries, had felt its absence like she had never felt anything else. Jasmine had become an expert at repressing the need, at dismissing it from her daily world, drenching herself in the bitterness left behind and taking it out on every less-than-adequate male to cross her path since then.
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