Both Demons reacted in an instant. Jacob stretched out his arms and walls of earth shot up to meet the advancing fires. Elijah reached upward to the clouds, and as if throwing a spear, tossed a force of incredible wind at the back of the firewall to make sure it kept going in its present direction, and subsequently its demise, instead of possibly doubling back. The earth closed over the flames, dousing them instantly as it deprived them of oxygen. For good measure, Elijah stirred up a heavy rainfall, dampening everything in a matter of moments.
A heartbeat later they were soaring for Noah’s home at top speed.
Jacob noticed immediately that there were no safeguards protecting the home. He knew that if Isabella had begged Noah for shelter and protection it should have been nearly impossible for him to approach. He sought his connection with Isabella, fear clutching at his throat. He’d felt a powerful burst of terror from her a moment before the explosion. But now there was nothing but vacant silence where her warm thoughts should be.
Elijah and Jacob shot through the high windows as arrows of dust and wind, becoming solid again in half a millisecond as they touched the ground.
Horrified, Jacob realized that every last surface in the Great Hall had been scorched black.
And in the center of the blackness lay three bodies.
“Bella!” Jacob yelled, stumbling and skidding over the blackened marble in his haste to gather her unconscious form up in his arms. Through eyes blinded by moist terror, he began to assess her for damage. She was raw and blistered, clearly burned as if she’d been in the sun for hours. Her hair was singed and her clothes melted to her skin, the scent of both choking her mate with outrage.
“It’s Noah and Legna!” Elijah knelt beside the King and his sister. They were barely recognizable, their skin and clothes burnt nearly black, Legna’s beautiful hair long gone. Jacob looked up from his burden, seeing tears shimmering in Elijah’s eyes as he gingerly felt for a pulse in the throat of his monarch.
“Impossible,” Jacob said hoarsely. “Noah is immune to fire!”
“We need Gideon. Now!”
Jacob watched as Elijah stood up, his fists clenching, his consciousness reaching out with the most incredible display of power Jacob had ever seen the other Demon use.
Gideon sensed the disturbance approaching seconds before it struck with wailing hurricane force at the windows of his home. He put aside the book he had been reading and stood up, cocking his head thoughtfully. He was being summoned, and by the power of it he suspected he knew by whom. His brow furrowed at the peculiar prospect, but he wasted no time in opening his door and stepping out into the maelstrom of wind. A moment later he was transformed into a part of it and was hurtling through the atmosphere.
Ashes stirred up in a wild fog of remnants of destruction as Elijah dragged Gideon into the room with incredible force, rematerializing him in a heartbeat. The minute the Ancient Demon was solid, Elijah staggered backward and dropped weakly to the floor. It had taken every ounce of his strength to perform such an incredible feat from such a distance.
Then silver eyes were encompassing the trauma in the room around him. In a rare show of emotion, Gideon swore softly. “What happened?”
“We do not know,” Jacob responded. He quickly related what he and Elijah had seen as the Demon knelt by Noah and Legna’s inert forms.
He reached for the King first, touching the charred flesh of his wrist, sinking his consciousness into Noah’s body. His lungs were scorched from inhaling incredible heat, but other than that it was his skin and hair that had suffered the most. For a human that could have proved fatal, but it was a simple enough repair for Gideon to make. He started by shutting down all the pain receptors in the injured Demon’s body. He healed the lungs first and then urged them to work a little quicker, a little differently, so as to flood the King with a high concentration of oxygen. Then Gideon meticulously began to rejuvenate patches of skin, one cell at a time. It took fifteen minutes before healthy flesh became visible to the two Demons waiting with anxiously held breath nearby. Once Gideon had repaired 50 percent of Noah’s damaged skin, he broke away and turned to Legna. If he waited until Noah was completely healed, he would lose Legna. His fingers reached out to touch the female Demon’s formerly beautiful cheek.
He was unaware that he was whispering under his breath in tandem to the mental processes of reconstruction. Jacob watched with fascination as Gideon repeated the list of mental processes required in his reconstruction procedure. It was rapid and flawless. Legna’s natural skin tone began to flush over her limbs, her throat and her elegant face. She was once more pink and tan, soft and beautiful.
But still Gideon did not turn back to the King. He rested Legna across his thighs and reached to strip off his shirt. He gingerly slid it over her arms, covering her bare body carefully, smoothing long fingers down her thighs so that the tails went straight to her knees. Then he lifted the unconscious female higher into his arms, and brushing tender fingertips over the baldness of her newly repaired scalp, lowered his mouth so close to her skin that his whispered chant seemed like a kiss. In a minute, soft coffee-colored curls began to grow over the bare skin. In five minutes, they had lengthened to shoulder-length hanks. Gideon didn’t stop until Legna’s hair was pooling in its usual dramatic lengths over his arms and thighs.
Finally, he disentangled himself from the growth he’d created. He carefully laid her back along the floor, his fingertips lingering for a moment on the curve of her neck. Then, releasing a sigh, Gideon turned back to Noah. The powerful Body Demon was taxing himself with such an enormous undertaking, but there was no sign of that in the icy chips of his eyes.
When the replacement of Noah’s hair was the only task left to him, Gideon paused once more in his care of the King to cast assessing eyes over Isabella. Gideon rose, stepped over the sleeping bodies of the recently healed Demons, and then crouched down across from Jacob. Even though he knew Gideon would do everything in his power to help Isabella, Jacob couldn’t control the urgent request for help in his eyes. Gideon reached for Isabella, but hesitated before touching her skin.
“Jacob, I have to touch her to heal her.”
“I know that. Why do you hesitate?” The Enforcer couldn’t help the sharp impatience in his tone.
“It has been my experience that sometimes Imprinted mates do not respond well to members of the opposite sex touching their partners, no matter how innocently or well meant.”
Jacob frowned, his first instinct to deny the ridiculousness of him allowing some petty jealousy to get in the way of Isabella’s care. But he was reminded of the hostile surges of emotion he’d been struggling with whenever Noah had shown affection to her, or how when Elijah and Isabella had trained together these past few days, he’d sometimes been forced to leave so he couldn’t see him lay hands on her pretending to harm her.
He felt a humorless laugh bubbling past his lips.
“Heal her,” he whispered to Gideon, his voice hoarse with emotion.
Gideon nodded once, sharply, in acceptance. He concentrated on reducing the instinctive tenderness of his touch, making certain that nothing he did could be misinterpreted by the possessive Enforcer. There was no inner damage to Isabella at all, and she was by far the least damaged of the three. It was confusing and completely illogical. If anyone should have come through unscathed from this conflagration, it should have been Noah. The damage to Isabella’s skin was swiftly repaired, and Gideon searched over and through her for any clue as to why she was the least harmed.
It took only a passing thought for him to brush away the scorched ends of her hair and regrow the raven mass back to its original length and health. He cast a heavy healing sleep inducement on her, reinforcing it twice so she wouldn’t be able to wake herself from it. Then he straightened and walked away from the circle of Demons on the floor. He went over to a fourth body that neither the Earth nor Wind Demon had even noticed was there.
“Samson.” Gideon answered the unasked question
that was pending.
Elijah had regained a small amount of strength, and with it he moved to assist Jacob in bringing their charges to a safer, cleaner place.
“No. You rest. I will take them to my home…” Jacob began.
“No. You can’t. We still don’t know if other necromancers got a fix on your home because of that night.”
“Not the one in Dover. I am not an idiot,” he barked. Then he realized how his tone sounded and apologized.
“No”—Elijah raised a forgiving hand—“you’re right. You aren’t an idiot and you sure as hell don’t need me pointing out things to you that even the rawest fledgling would know. I’m sorry. I’m just tired and this whole business has terrified the hell out of me.”
“Follow me. I have plenty of room and you need to rest where it is safe,” Jacob urged, rising to his feet with Isabella’s limp body in his arms.
When Gideon entered the room, Jacob was seated in a chair beside Isabella’s bed, both of his hands clasped around one of her smaller ones. He was rubbing the tips of her fingers against his lips, speaking softly to her even though she wouldn’t hear him.
“When will you wake her?” Jacob asked, the question strained with his poorly suppressed emotions.
“I do not think she should be awakened for at least a couple of days,” Gideon informed him. “Jacob, what you are feeling is normal for an Imprinted mate. It is…difficult for you to bear the loss of her thoughts within your mind. It was just as difficult for her when you were unconscious.” Then Gideon ventured further. “Just as it would be deadly to her to lose you, it is often just as deadly for the Demon. Remember, we are the few that we are because of this. This is what it means to be Imprinted, and as time goes on, the connection will only grow stronger.”
“I know,” Jacob murmured, his face turned away, his eyes on the moon outside that loomed nearly full in the window.
Jacob would never have to fear the luring temptations of that Hallowed condition again, Gideon thought. Even now the medic felt the persistent clawing of talons of compulsion along the pathways of his mind. He wondered, for a brief moment, what it would feel like to live free of that disorienting threat to one’s sanity. The Ancient had spent the past years studying ways to keep his inner peace during these holy times. It could be pushed aside, averted, ignored even, but it would never fully be expelled.
The Imprinting was the only cure.
But there was a catch. On the nights of the Samhain and Beltane full moons, an Imprinted pair would be driven to each other in single-minded sexual need, a desperation that wouldn’t be ignored. This was why, historically, an Enforcer was forced to retire if he or she ever became Imprinted. How could they be vigilant on the two worst nights of the year for Demon madness when they were obsessed with their mate on those same nights? Even now Jacob sat and didn’t move to go from his mate’s side.
Gideon had maintained his silence on this matter, keeping it from the Council, thinking that by having a mated pair both as Enforcers, this might somehow work to their advantage instead, hoping that he’d not have to be the cause of robbing Jacob of everything that he’d lived for these last four centuries of his life.
“Jacob, you must leave here.” Jacob looked at the Ancient so quickly that Gideon heard his neck crack loudly. He met the level of censure that was instantly in the Enforcer’s blackening eyes. “She does not need your constant nearness this night. She is already completely healed, and natural sleep will suffice to replenish her energy stores until you return at the showing of the sun.”
The Enforcer didn’t respond. Instead he turned away again to simply gaze at Isabella’s prettily resting face.
“Jacob…” Gideon tried again. “Jacob, you cannot sit here until she wakes. You have other duties to perform this night.”
“The night is over,” Jacob said coldly.
“Three hours hence. You must make sure—”
“Do not presume to tell me what I must and must not do!” Jacob roared, lurching to his feet with fisted hands, kicking away his chair so violently that it was crushed against the far wall, splintering into little bits. “Do not dare tell me how and when I must perform my duties! You know well enough how I excel at my obligations, Ancient!”
Gideon’s chilled eyes didn’t even blink at the violent slapdown. The metallic gleam of his pupils drifted to the tattered remains of Jacob’s chair and then back again to its former occupant.
“You do not yet comprehend the intensity of the joining you have entered, Jacob. Fairy tales and long-ago memories of Noah’s parents cannot prepare you for knowing what it truly means to be Imprinted.”
“Really? Would you care to tell Noah that?” Jacob smiled, all teeth and no humor or friendliness. It was the smile of a predator snapping at its prey, distracting it until it frightened it into making a mistake.
“Noah knows all too well the fortunes and misfortunes of the Imprinting. Living with Imprinted parents is far different than watching it from afar. And yet, you now know more than he does, more than he may ever know, about what it feels like to be so entwined into the presence and the need of another’s existence. It is imperative that you remember I know more about the history of this than you do and that you must trust my advice. Isabella can never become more important to you than your work.”
Jacob responded with an ancient slur, one that told the Ancient medic quite clearly what he thought of his observations. “This of course coming from one who was so sensitive to this connection a millennium ago,” Jacob hissed.
This time the Enforcer’s strike made a deep impact. It was only then that it occurred to Gideon that only one so diplomatic as Jacob could possibly be so equally and adeptly cruel with words.
“There is a law, Jacob, that removes the Enforcer from his duties once he becomes Imprinted.”
Though more direct than cruel, Gideon’s information made measurable impact on the other male.
“I have never—” Jacob choked.
“Yes, and you have never heard of Druids being mated to Demons either,” Gideon said impatiently. “Jacob, we were once companions, and so I say this as one who regrets that ever had to change. I am not saying that this law will still be put into effect, nor am I saying that anyone will even discover it exists. I am hoping that it will not until enough time has passed for you…for you to prove that it no longer applies as a necessary thing.”
Jacob’s left fist uncurled, his fingers flexing and stretching in agitation.
“But if only one Demon slips past your guard now, if only one human is harmed, especially in the wake of the fast-spreading news about Druids, the ramifications will be swift and painful. Law or no, I do not think you could live with the guilt of such a thing. You have never failed, just as your brother before you never failed. Do not risk damnation when happiness is so close for you.”
“I never should have left her,” Jacob confessed in a sudden rush, his hand picking Isabella’s up blindly, clutching it against his outer thigh. “She should have been my first priority.”
“She was. Or were you and Elijah just joyriding up in the clouds when you left her?”
“Damn it, Gideon! You are really beginning to piss me off.”
“What an eloquent human phrase,” Gideon remarked. “I can see it has not taken long for her to influence you.”
“Influence me? Gideon, she is me. And every part of myself is her. But you do not get that, do you? If you had, you would have never been a part of the atrocity our people visited on the Druids.” Finally Jacob turned his eyes on Isabella, the moonlight striking his profile with power. “I pray I live to see the moment when you discover what it means to find the other half of your essence in a delicate and beautiful creature like my Isabella. I live for the moment you learn to regret the platitudes you so sanctimoniously try to inflict upon me.” Jacob tore his bottomless black eyes from his sleeping soul and looked at the medic. “Do you know what makes me Enforcer, and no other?”
“You were ele
cted so by Noah.”
“As my brother before me was. Elected, as my grandfathers and a dozen ancestors before me were. It is said that this is the only throne in the Demon world which carries a direct biological ascension. There is something in the blood of my family that predestines us as Enforcers. When Adam was elected, I thought I would never be called. I was quite…quite different back when he lived.”
“It was a long time ago, Jacob. We were all quite different then.”
“I was two hundred years old or so.” Jacob laughed once, very softly, as he remembered that. “I was my mother’s youngest, her baby no matter how old I grew. I was spoiled, bordering on indolent, and I believe I rather had a knack for practical jokes at the time.” The recollection made him smile with a one-sided grin that took the ages out of his eyes.
“We were at war with the Vampires,” Gideon added solemnly. “You became quite an impressive bounty hunter.”
“Thrills and glory,” Jacob explained. He smiled again, looking suddenly sly. “And women,” he whispered, as if Bella might hear him. “I was not yet tired of women then.” He sighed, his humor fading. “Then Adam was suddenly gone, without explanation, and we understood that he had died…and I understood that I would be asked to take his place.” Jacob came to his point and looked at the Ancient to make it. “I have never once missed a catch. I will never, as long as I live, let a Demon transgress against another species, and I will never allow one of us who has transgressed upon another of our own race to escape justice. This is my calling. It is all I know and all I will ever be suited for. Neither law nor love can take it away. Only death. My law, current law as we know it, says only death will separate this Enforcer from his anointed position. If you ever speak of this other law to another, it will give those who hate me on the Council, which is definitely a majority, cause to remove me. Kane is not ready, Gideon. Only he has those special instincts born into our family that make us succeed as Enforcers.”
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