Syreena winged her way toward the cavern Library with all speed. They had a good head start on her. She had no idea what she was going to do when she caught up with them, if she was even able to do so, but she was working on an impetuous flood of emotion and determination that dictated her actions. She would take this journey one leg at a time, deciding her actions on the fly.
Syreena’s sister was the huntress of the family, and as such was the more skilled tracker. The Princess’s forms were more for speed and visual acuity needed once a target was already achieved. Syreena was debating whether to recruit her sister into this venture even as she alit outside of the entrance to the Library.
She immediately became aware of the silence and the mess scattered from the interior room into the outer caverns. The Library was lit by little more than a single smoldering torch, and from what she could see, it had been hastily excavated of all the rest of its inventory, the furnishings as well. What had once been ancient orderliness and craftsmanship marred only by touches of must and mildew was now torn and tattered chaos.
She could smell blood, all kinds, all of it bearing great power even in its spillage. She hesitated on the threshold of that place now that it had seen such violent death. It was not because she was squeamish, but because it felt as though it should be treated with respect. There was a feeling like the place had been raided, a tomb pilfered by grave robbers.
Of course, that was not truly the case. It was little more than her imagination and the remnants of the battle that had stolen precious lives.
Outside of the taint of the dead and the awesome amount of variety left by the Lycanthropes that had plundered the Library, there was the fresh scent of Vampires.
One of whose aroma was as familiar to her senses now as her own was.
Damien.
She had almost been hoping Lucia had been mistaken, hoping she would not find any trace of them having been there, but of course it had been a foolish pipe dream to think so. Damien was passionate about his people, apparently even more than he was passionate about her.
She pushed aside her disappointment and crouched down in the darkness to seek out his path.
She was not looking for anything with actual use of her eyes; it was more like a visualization of a trail made by the collection of small pieces of data through her varied senses. Syreena discarded the extraneous information, including Jasmine’s notable trail, and focused on her mate.
They had walked out of the caverns together.
That was all well and good, but would she be able to track them in flight?
It was the strength of Damien’s trail that made her believe that she could. Either he was making absolutely no effort to conceal his actions, or she was developing a knack for sensing where he had been. Add that to her natural affinity for detecting things while airborne, and she might very well be in luck.
She quickly set out after him.
It turned out that tracing Damien and Jasmine was far easier than she would have ever expected it to be. Of course, they really had no reason to hide their trail even if Ruth or one of her cohorts decided to backtrack them for some reason. But then Syreena realized that if Ruth backtracked them, it would mean she was the victor in whatever contest was taking place, and it was quickly an unbearable thought. It made her fly all the faster after him.
Syreena’s advantage was that she was following a fresh trail, unlike Damien and Jasmine, who were tracking one nearly twenty-four hours old. It made her able to travel much faster than they had. She prayed it was enough to get her to them before they got themselves into any trouble.
Her heart began to pound with anxiety as she realized they were once again heading toward France and Mistral territories. It was understandable that she was apprehensive, she reasoned with herself, because she had experienced so much pain and trauma the last time she had been in the area. However, her self-psychoanalysis did little to soothe her frantic heart or her mind. The idea of Damien exposing himself to the dangers of that psychotic woman was near devastating.
Syreena watched more carefully now, flying low to the ground, skimming over and under treetops in whatever manner would keep her best concealed. She knew she was nearing Brise Lumineuse. She also realized the trail would end very soon. Ruth had a recent motivation, whatever it was, for skulking around in Mistral lands, and it was very likely she was still there in pursuit of her purposes.
That is, provided the information in the text she had stolen from Jasmine had not redirected her passions. Ruth had already recruited a Vampire and been to Vampire territory. What was to say that she would not end up there again, quite soon, pressing for more Nightwalkers as followers?
Syreena was making herself sick and a little bit light-headed with such thoughts. She lighted onto a branch for a moment, nervously shaking out feathers and rearranging them while she gathered a couple of breaths and some new fortitude.
She was close now, she could tell that. Very close.
Syreena was suddenly afraid to move any closer to the two she tracked. She was not stupid, after all. Jasmine and Damien had mental abilities that would protect them from Ruth’s detection. If she flew into that situation and the Vampires were hiding or using stealth for some reason, she would give them away by her thoughts alone.
She realized then that she was just as guilty as Damien was for not thinking this through. It served to make her even angrier with him. If he needed assistance, how would she know? How would she be of any help to him like this? If they made it out ofthis situation in one piece, she would kill him herself.
She closed her eyes and tried to calm her thoughts and her breathing. If she kept on as she was, she would broadcast her presence to anyone skilled enough to sense her. Of course, as the falcon she was impossible to discern from other animals, unless anyone got close enough to see the collar around her neck that was half hidden in feathers.
When she was quite a bit calmer, she was able to use logic and her own refined senses to make the most of her vantage point. She peered through the darkness in the direction of the Vampire duo’s paths. She took off from one branch and glided through the shadows and leaves until her talons caught another. The change in position was perfectly noiseless, and the bare branch of her roost was hardly disturbed by her careful landing.
Her silence of movement was what allowed her to hear the unmistakable sound of wings pushing through air. The little heart in the falcon’s breast picked up in tempo immediately and she used her sharp sight to pick through the trees, branches, and night sky. The glide of black wings in relief against the glow of the moon was perhaps one of the most valuable sights she could ever remember seeing.
The raven spiked down from the sky, diving toward her with impressive speed and markedly increased accuracy. One day soon he would attain a level of skill that would make him indiscernible from Lycanthropes or Mistrals who were partly birds for all of their lives. However, the slight wobble to his glide as he aimed for the same roost she sat upon told her that there was no mistaking the inexperienced Vampire.
He buzzed her, wing tips flapping over her beak and eyes in clear pique and admonishment. She jumped off the branch, winging down to the forest floor, half-human by the time her feet touched the ground, and fully so before he had even alit beside her.
Damien’s form unfurled from the raven’s and she was immediately relieved to see him in his usual perfect health and strength.
“Are you mad?” he demanded.
“I was about to ask you the same question! What in the Goddess’s name are you doing here, Damien?”
“Later,” he barked sharply, silencing her with a sharp hand gesture. “You are too close to Ruth. If I can sense you, she most certainly can. Youneed to leave before—”
“Before I get to watch her break your idiot neck?” she cut in with a snap. “Before I really lose my temper and kill you for her?”
“This is neither the time or the place for this, Syreena!”
“Precisely my point! But if you truly agreed with me on that, you would not have come here after we purposely discussed how stupid and foolhardy it would be to go after her!”
“I am only here trying to find out who the traitor from my people is. I have no intention of getting into a battle with Ruth, but if you do not leave now I may be forced to do that very thing!”
“Don’t you dare blame this on me! You made a promise to me, Damien, and now I find you breaking it! You are a liar and an inconsiderate ass!”
“Damien, shut her up or I will do it myself!”
The feminine hiss from the darkness of the trees was all too familiar to Syreena. Her face flared with heat and color as outrage roared through her. Her small hands clenched into fists and her teeth ground as she clenched her jaws together tightly. Her multicolored eyes flickered with the violence of her emotion as Damien’s cool blue gaze remained on hers with dispassionate wintriness.
“I am unaccustomed to reporting my actions to someone as if I were a child, Syreena, and I am sorry if that disturbs you but, as I have said repetitively, this is neither the time or place for an argument about it.”
“Very well,” she said. “Go and skulk about in dangerous territory with that troublemaking woman if it pleases you to do so, but if you think to find me waiting in supplicant domestication for you when you return, you are sadly mistaken!”
Syreena moved to pass him, but he grabbed her about the upper arm and forced her back around with a whirl of her own momentum.
“Think before you threaten and act in haste, Syreena,” he warned her on a heated whisper.
“Oh, you mean like you have done?” she shot back. “Do as I say and not as I do? What are you mistaking me for, Damien? A child? A puppy in need of training so you may bring me obediently to heel? Youcraved my independence of thought and action all this while, but now when they run counter to your own, it is undesirable? I will not be brought to heel by you or anyone else ever again!” She shook him off her arm with impressive violence of strength. “I came to you for my freedom, and you offered it to me with blessings and pretty words, on an imaginary silver platter. I will be your equal and your respected companion, honored and trusted and given nothing less than full disclosure and truth where it matters most, or I will be nothing at all to you, do you understand?”
Syreena whirled around sharply, surprising Jasmine, who had been coming up behind her. “If you touch me, Vampire, I will rip out your treacherous heart with my bare hands, I promise you!”
“If you do not shut that shrewish mouth of yours, I will be happy to test your abilities, Princess, but it will be up against Ruth and her partners that you will be forced to do so. Can you get that through your head before she pops up in the middle of all this?”
“Let her come! At least she is honest in her motivations!”
“I thank you for the compliment, Princess.”
Syreena felt both Vampires jerk when Ruth spoke just off to the right of them, but she was surprisingly calm as she turned with a single step, bracing her feet apart. Her small hands curled into tight fists as her heart began to pound.
“I owe you,” she whispered softly to the Demon, who was smiling at them as if they were guests at a party.
“I imagine you do. Come, girl, and get your pound of flesh if you dare.”
“Syreena!”
Damien’s shout and grasp were both completely useless as the Lycanthrope Princess lunged for the Demon necromancer. Syreena changed form midleap, wings and talons of human dimensions sprouting out with awesome speed. Ruth had not battled either of the Princess’s Wereforms before, and seeing the harpy streaking toward her with a vengeful fury of speed was startling enough to give Syreena the advantage.
With disruption of concentration, Ruth could not teleport. However, she could still react and move like the warrior she had once been. Nonetheless, in spite of a skillful dodge, the blond Demon still caught the brunt of large talons across her left shoulder, clothing and skin ripping audibly under the rend of them.
Damien and Jasmine moved to react, but were brought up short by an explosion of thick, black smoke that appeared between them and the two fighting women. The smoke billowed up in clouds with all speed, immediately revealing a figure in the center.
“Nico,” Damien hissed.
“It figures,” Jasmine added a little more dispassionately.
“In the flesh, so to speak,” Nico agreed. He spoke a single phrase, rapid and sharp, a flick of palm and fingers gesturing toward his enemies.
Jasmine and Damien both made sounds of surprise when the forest floor suddenly came alive beneath their feet. Tree roots burst out of the soil, slapping around the Vampires’ ankles and calves, effectively tying them to the spot.
Damien’s solution was quick. The raven came with speed, making him small enough to slip free of the magical trap. Jasmine was less delicate and artful about it. She reached down with bare hands and a growl, grabbing at the restraints with a violent ripping motion. The flesh and pulp of the roots went flying everywhere as she tore into them like a vicious little animal on the attack.
Damien flew at Nico’s head, and then purposely changed form mid-momentum. He used his clumsiness to his advantage as his full body weight plowed into the traitorous Vampire. Both men drove down into the rotting litter on the forest floor, but when they skidded to a stop, Damien was on top, his hands clutching the other Vampire’s clothing across his chest as he showed fangs and snarled in his enemy’s face.
“Here it is, Nico. The moment you have been waiting for. Let’s see who deserves my throne.”
Jasmine finally freed herself, stumbling away from the fresh uprooting oftendrils that the continuing spell sent after her as she escaped. She flew up into the air far enough to remain out of reach of the snare, and far enough to give her a rounded view of the struggles below her. Damien could handle Nicodemous for the immediate moment, and she was not worried about him. At first glance, the Princess had made her mark, having an upper hand over the Demon female as well. However, Jasmine knew that surprise had been her advantage, and from that point on the Princess was going to be seriously outgunned.
Jasmine streaked toward the battling women just as Ruth turned on Syreena with a cry of enormous fury. Syreena had struck first blood, and it seriously affected Ruth’s self-image of invulnerability. Ruth screamed out a spell, fueled by the power of her rage, and the entire forest exploded with a blast of percussion that centered from the Demon’s position. Syreena was struck full-on by the blast, as was Jasmine, and both women were catapulted back through the air before they slammed into trees. Too stunned to get her wings under her, Syreena plummeted to the forest floor with a mighty crash and a kickback of debris that clouded around her for a few fluttering moments.
Jasmine, however, did not need wings to keep buoyant. She recovered quickly because she had no breath to get knocked out of her. Stunning pain could be put aside for the moment, even though she was certain she had cracked a couple of ribs at impact.
Her immediate problem was how to shut Ruth up. As long as she could speak, they would never gain an upper hand. Her spells were too unfamiliar, unexpected and indefensible. But, Jasmine thought wickedly, she cannot cast spells if she gets her tongue ripped out.
Logically, she knew she would never get that close. She had to come up with an alternative.
Meanwhile, Damien and Nico had also been thrown by the magical blast, sending them rolling and skidding across the ground, each getting torn, punctured, and battered along the way. This time, Nico managed to gain the upper position over Damien. He pinned the monarch to the ground with the sheer power of his enormous weight, strong legs, and the deadly grip of his hand over the Prince’s throat. He reached for his dagger now that he had a better target. But as he stabbed for Damien’s heart, the Prince threw a forearm up and there was a clang as metal clashed with metal.
Nico tried to press through to Damien’s flesh, through the leather of the jacket he wore, but it was as though the Prince’s skin were made of steel. It was when he withdrew for a second strike, the action slicing away a strip of leather, that the gleam of the poniard up the Prince’s sleeve showed itself.
“Tricky, tricky,” Nico said breathlessly.
Nico realized that hand to hand was not going to give him an advantage over Damien, especially since the Prince had concealed weapons on his person.
The traitorous Vampire had not had much time to learn spells, not the way Ruth knew them, but there were some like the ensnarement spell that he had focused on because of their tactical usefulness in a fight. Since the Prince was on the ground, it made sense to use the advantage to try again. Now that Nico was on top of him, changing form would be too dangerous for the Prince.
Nico went to speak the spell that would trap Damien helplessly beneath him and his ready blade.
Syreena could not breathe for a long moment. Her lungs simply would not work as she knelt on her hands and knees on the forest floor. Finally she coughed and inhaled, her lungs expanding against bruised and battered ribs. She struggled to gain her feet, whipping around to try and seek her enemy even before she could straighten up completely.
What she could see was Jasmine. The Vampire was streaking toward a target. From her position, Syreena could not see what it was. On impact, she had reverted to human form. She hesitated as she tried to decide which winged creature would be best for the moment, when a loud clang of metal rang from just behind the grove of trees she had crashed into. She whirled and leaned around the nearest tree trunk. She saw Nico’s blade gleam in the moonlight as he withdrew for a second attempt at her mate’s heart. Then he thought better of it and she heard him utter a singular phrase in a language foreign even to her.
Roots sprang up from the ground around Damien, whipping out to lash him about the legs and throat, pinning and strangling him at once. Syreena felt immediate rage flood over her, and Ruth was completely forgotten. She flew with all speed from her hiding place as Nico reached back to plunge his dagger into her mate’s exposed breast.
Damien felt her coming, a speedball of charcoal hair and violent protective instinct. She struck his enemy with the force of her full weight. It was enough to move even a mountain of a man such as Nico. She tackled him clean off Damien’s body, and the two went tumbling off into leaflitter and underbrush. Damien immediately began to strain against his bonds of nature, using all of his strength as roots began to snap under the stress, one by one. Flat to the ground as he was, he felt like Gulliver, tied fast by thousands of Lilliputian ropes. When enough snapped loose to free a limb, the spell immediately revived and lashed him back down again. The trees around him began to list dangerously in his direction as their root system was torn away, altered and pulled out from under them.
Meanwhile, Nico was learning the true definition of a well-trained Monk of The Pride. As she had struck him, Syreena had reached for his blade and neatly disarmed him as her surprise strike tumbled them away from Damien. Without preamble, the moment they slid to a stop with Syreena pressing a knee into the Vampire’s throat on one side and groin on the other, she reached with both hands to commit to her strike.
The Vampire’s dagger sank into his flesh, cracked explosively through bone and through his heart.
Nico roared with pain and outrage as she once again stabbed him through that vital organ. The Vampire could not believe she had gotten him a second time. This time, however, it was much worse. She was able to withdraw the blade, unplugging the hole she had made, her updrawn arc spraying his blood across her thighs, breasts, and face. Before he could react, she was plunging into him again. Her eyes were wide and wild, her lips curled into a feminine snarl of wrath, and her hair swung in a dark gray cloud with her movements. She withdrew again, coming away with even more blood this time as the force of her weight, strike, and his contortions sent it spurting up over her.
It was all Nico could do to finally stop the chopping descent of her hands before she struck him yet again. She slammed into the catch of his hands instead of his chest, and it seemed to only infuriate her further. She struggled against his strength, which, in spite of his deadly injuries, was still quite enough to overpower her. He threw her off him with a powerful pivot of his body, sending her tumbling over. He tried to seal the gushing wounds on his chest with his palm as he scrambled to his knees and lunged after her. She had rolled up onto her feet, the bloody dagger still clutched in her small but clearly capable hand.
Jasmine diverted away from Ruth, perplexing the Demon for a moment. Then the Mind Demon realized that Jasmine’s nature was far too much like her own for Damien’s good. As long as Ruth did not threaten her directly, the Vampire would not be likely to risk her own neck for any purpose that was not solely her own. It was clear how much Jasmine hated Damien’s new mate. Why would she come to the Princess’s rescue?
Ruth teleported, appearing by Damien’s side. Seeing that the struggling Prince was no threat at the moment, and not wanting to risk Jasmine’s focus, she popped out and in again, this time appearing beside her injured partner and the Lycanthrope who had seriously wounded him.
“At least I will have you,” the Demon murmured with eager delight and intent.
As Nico was lunging for the Lycanthrope, Ruth reached to grab her by the hair that was as great a weakness, as it was her one true strength.
To the shock of both enemies, they passed through their intended targets, crashing hard against each other instead in a tangle of clothing and limbs. Ruth cursed Nico; Nico cursed Ruth, shoving her violently away as he tried to find the quick little minx who had somehow managed to elude them both.
When Ruth and Nico both finally located Syreena, they were shocked to see her standing side by side with the Vampire Prince, not ten feet away from them.
“Impossible!” Ruth hissed.
“It’s a trick! An illusion,” Nico growled.
“Impossible!” the Mind Demon insisted.
“Clearly not,” Damien remarked dryly.
Ruth struggled to her feet, making to lunge for the couple that had outfoxed even her considerable mental powers. She had barely managed to make it to her full height when her hair was grabbed violently from behind, tearing out in painful clumps, her head jerked back so hard it nearly sent her back to the ground.
Ruth screamed in pain.
Jasmine slapped her other hand over Ruth’s mouth, the thick handful of pasty mud she had mined from the nearest puddle filling the orifice thickly, sealing off all sound and ability to speak.
Damien reached for the poniard up his sleeve, and he and Syreena advanced on Nico with clear menace. Realizing he was outnumbered and too wounded to make an impact if he continued fighting, Nico closed his eyes and promptly disappeared in a roiling cloud of smoke.
“Damn him!”
“Apparently, Ruth figured out how to share her power with him,” Jasmine said dryly. “Did you not, dearest?” she asked, jerking the suffocating woman back against her body by her hair. “You would not want to tell me where my book is, would you?”
Jasmine looked up at Damien and Syreena with a flashing smile that was brilliant and surprisingly pretty. “Oops. That’s right. Speak no evil.” Jasmine wiggled one of the fingers sealed over Ruth’s mouth, forcing her to keep the paste ofmud within her lips.
“Do we kill her, or take her to Noah?” Damien asked.
“Kill her. Kill her before she can—”
Jasmine’s words and figure were lost in a sudden explosion ofthick black smoke. The cloud roiled up from between her arms as Ruth disappeared from her grasp. Damien and Syreena heard the Vampire woman scream with outrage and frustration as the smoke cleared to show her stomping her foot in fury, her hands empty of her prisoner.
Damien and Syreena exchanged a look and a sigh.
“Nico,” they said in unison.
For the most part, the mission had been a victorious one, even though Jasmine was still grousing over losing her captive. Syreena, however, knew that they had been the first in a long time to best Ruth to the point of nearly capturing her. And that was with the added threat of Nico included. It was something to feel very proud of, in spite of the undesirable outcome. She sensed clearly that Damien felt the same way. That did not change the fact that they were about to have a very difficult discussion.
Syreena sat on the bed where they had completed the Exchange only the night before. Damien walked into the room with a clean bowl of water, clean cloths, and bandaging materials.
Syreena obeyed, sliding aside so he could sit beside her. He placed the bowl on the night table, then, after wetting a cloth, turned to face her. He reached to cleanse one of the many cuts on her back, urging her to turn so he could better see.
He was silent for several long minutes before speaking.
“You have every right to be angry with me. In spite of everything I said, I do know that,” he said quietly. “I let Jasmine convince me too easily into doing what we did. I was itching for a fight because of Kelsey’s death and the idea of a Vampire joining ranks with Ruth. I am not an idiot, but I suppose to you, I was acting like one.”
She felt him lean forward and give her bare shoulder what felt like an apologetic kiss. “I don’t care if you are an idiot, Damien. I do care that you broke a promise only a few hours old. I have given you my complete trust in so many things and asked little in return, and the first time—”
“I know. I know,” he interrupted her with a fierce whisper. “It was bad of me. And worse to place fault in your lap. I was just taken off guard and I was afraid for your safety. Jas and I could go undetected, but I knew the minute I sensed that you were close …”
“And that, perhaps, was bad of me. It was certainly foolish. I know I could have gotten us all killed.”
There was quiet again as he gently cleansed her wounds. They were superficial, and she would heal by the next evening, but he wanted to tend to her in this way. It was part apology, part concern, and even a part gratitude. She had proven herself valiantly against enemies who had both bested her once before and had been a great source of fear and rattled confidence since. She was quite possibly the bravest creature he had ever met, and it made him quite proud to have her next to him.
When he finally set aside the cloth he had used on her, she immediately reached for another and turned toward him with expectant intent. He obediently shrugged out of his jacket and loosened his shirt. When he peeled back the dark blue fabric, he exposed numerous bleeding lacerations, but more importantly, ring after ring of livid bruising.
“Damien,” she breathed in obvious despair as she reached to touch light fingertips to the discoloration. The ensnarement spell had been powerful, and the roots of the trees had strangled him from head to toe. The damage looked profound and probably felt worse. “I am so sorry.”
“It will heal in a day or two.” He smiled at her. “It is worth it, because I now know who the Vampire is. I could not tell from a distance. In a way, you helped us find out exactly what we wanted to. You lured them out into the open.”
“Yes, well, I have come up with better plans.”
“Yet they were probably less effective,” he chuckled.
“It is not very funny,” she said, reaching to cleanse a particularly nasty abrasion on his shoulder. “It was a mess and we were lucky to get out relatively unscathed.”
“About that,” he said suddenly, reaching to stop her ministrations by catching her wrist. “Would you mind telling me how you managed to trick Nico and Ruth into thinking you were somewhere you were not?”
“I …” She gave a distinct blink of her dark eyes. “I don’t really know. I just had this instinct …”
“An instinct to cast an illusion of yourself while you escaped his target area.” Damien let a corner of his mouth curl into a smile. “Well, well. I think we can stop guessing what part of me you are going to achieve. I must say, it was a pretty powerful trick to play on two people of such mental skill. Especially for an amateur.”
“But you are not an amateur,” she reminded him.
“Yes, but you are a very skilled shapechanger and it is clear that I did not inherit that from you intrinsically.”
“Actually, perhaps you have. Not every detail, mind you, but it does take several decades before a shapechanger can change with the ease you showed only a day or so after discovering you could do so. Youare quite good at the changing skill, even doing it on the fly tonight, which very few can do. Behaving true to avian form, that is an entirely different skill.”
“So perhaps you can project powerful illusions, but you may need a great deal of time and practice before you can see through them yourself.”
“Exactly! Oh … really?” she asked, sounding instantly dejected. “They are two different skills?”
“I am afraid so, sweetling.” He chuckled. “But if you teach me how to land, I think I can teach you how to see through some pretty strong illusions.”
She smiled at that, taking her wrist from his hands and going back to her task as she grinned happily. “I think I will like this ability. For a while, I was worried I might sprout fangs.”
“Worried? I was hoping,” he countered, giving her a sideways look and a mischievous lift to his eyebrows.
“Pervert,” she chuckled. “Do you ever think about anything besides sex?”
“With you sitting this close to me naked? I hardly think it is possible.”
“Stop it,” she scolded him, slapping away the hand he started to slide up her thigh. “I am covered in blood and battle, not to mention the fact that I may very well still be mad at you. I have not decided yet.”
“What part ofbeing covered in blood is supposed to make you unattractive to a Vampire?” he asked teasingly.
“The part where it’s the blood of a corrupted Vampire using black magic,” she reminded him.
“Ah. Excellent point.”
Then he shoved aside her hands and in a single movement scooped her into his arms and rose off the bed. He carried her into the adjoining bath, ignoring her protests about his high-handed treatment of her.
“You are arguing as if you do not want to take a bath,” he pointed out, “when I know that you do.”
“Why do you always make it sound like you have divined some great mystery of my mind? I pretty much just said as much,” she said dryly, pushing away from him slightly when he set her on her feet and leaned over to start the water in the old claw-footed tub.
“Unfortunately, the water will be cold. The heating systems are in need ofrepair, I am told,” he warned her. “Though I imagine it will bother me far more than it will you.”
“I can have water boiled and brought up for you,” she said simply, stepping into the tub lightly, giving herself a moment to adjust herself to the promised chill once her toes had taken its measure. Syreena sat down and stretched out, allowing the clean water to creep up over her skin slowly as the bath filled.
Instead of leaving her, Damien knelt down beside her on the tiled floor, folding his arms across the near lip of the iron tub and bringing his gaze level to hers. The sound of the water splashing into itself was strong for a few minutes, and then he broke it.
“I am truly sorry if I worried you.”
Syreena sighed softly, drawing a lip between nibbling teeth for a moment as she thought a little before responding. Her habitual care in all her responses had become charming to him, and a strong reflection of who she was, so an inner smile blossomed beneath his skin as he watched her.
“That is not the point, Damien,” she said softly. “You broke a promise to me. That is what upsets me most. And I feel I need to remind you that I only asked you not to do something reckless, not that you could not approach me and tell me if you had an entirely new argument and purpose. I would not have been happy about letting you and Jasmine go, but I would have preferred to know than not. It would have saved all of us this trouble tonight if you had merely told me where you were going and why. You promised to consider my feelings, and all you considered was that if we discussed it, I would countermand your desires and attempt to keep you from doing what you wanted to do.
“In truth, Damien, I would have seen the logic behind it as well as the risk. I have always been able to see both sides of an issue. I do wish you would have thought, even for a moment, to give me credit for that. Instead, you snuck off behind my back.”
“As I said, I am not accustomed to answering to another,” he said quietly.
“It is not answering to me,” she said sharply, then reigned in her flash of temper with a breath. “I am not out to curb you or leash you into obedience, Damien. That would destroy the very essences of what attracts me to you, of what holds my heart captive. I only want this to be a fully reciprocal partnership. I know you are capable of it. I see it every time you and Jasmine bend your heads together. I also know it will take time for us to reach the same level of familiarity and comfort you share with her, but I expected you to at least remember the principle of trying from one hour to the next.” Syreena sighed, running damp hands back through her hair. “This is sounding like a lecture, like I am scolding a child, and I do not mean to make it that way.”
“I imagine that is because we are still learning how to communicate with one another, Syreena. I am taking no offense. You have a right to your frustration with me. You do not make an unreasonable request here. I know you would have shown me far more consideration than I showed you. Andyou are right; it took the breadth of a day before I acted against the decision we had made together. I owe you an apology for that as well.”
“And there is fault with me here as well,” she said, waving off the apology with an acceptance that would do the least damage to his pride. “I flew off half-cocked myself, giving in to my temper, heedless of the danger I was causing, just so I could say my piece.”
“That is very true,” he agreed with readiness that clearly bordered on humorous.
“Oh, hush up and help me wash this stuff off of me.”
She softened the command with a kiss on his nearby lips, smiling halfway through the exchange until she had to break off a giggle.
“You know, I may have created a monster,” he mused, reaching out to push back a strand of hair straggling over her nose. “You are beginning to get quite bossy about what you want.”
“Well, I am afraid you will have to live with that,” she informed him.
“I think I can manage that, sweetling,” he promised her.
“Then I think you are right, Damien. I think we may actually be able to make this work after all.”