Elijah (24 page)

It was a gratifying tradition. It meant she did not have to sleep in the same chambers that had seen her mother’s death and her father’s twisted dreams. Not that he had spent much time there.

Now it was her own dreams she was trying to escape.

Dreams of the blond warrior who had somehow branded her body, mind, and soul with his touch.

It had been two days since she had blown up so uncharacteristically in the faces of her friends, family, and confidantes. She had yet to visit Gideon and Legna and apologize for her behavior.

Frankly, she couldn’t even focus on that for the minute it would take to formulate a proper apology.

No. She was too sick for that.

Sick was the only term she could content herself with when describing the way she was feeling.

She was run down, lethargic. Sensations so alien to her that she was made dizzy by them. And those were the symptoms she was willing to acknowledge.

What she refused to acknowledge was the burn beneath her skin, the sporadic rushes of adrenaline that surged through her, followed by maddening impulses to run. To run and run until she was wrapped up in arms of steel and cradled in calloused hands. And it grew worse with every passing minute. Syreena said it was because she was not meant to be segregated from her Demon mate for so long, but Siena refused to believe herself capable of such needy behaviors.

And somehow, she felt as if he was constantly whispering into her thoughts.

She remembered that Gideon and Magdelegna shared a mental bond with each other, and that Gideon had once told her that it was common for all Imprinted pairs to be intimate in that fashion. But the idea of someone being privy to her every thought was appalling to her.

Appalling and irritating.

She had found herself angrily warning him from her thoughts, just in case he truly was there. And sometimes she thought she could hear the lilt of damnable confident male laughter echoing in her mind in response.

Samhain was two nights away.

And she felt it down to her last molecule.

She touched her throat, the comfort of the collar being returned to its rightful place the only thing that soothed her soul. It had, of course, cost her the sacrifice of facing The Pride and airing her rather soiled sexual laundry. They had agreed to rejoin the puzzling links of her collar, and had also agreed that they all should take time to consider the ramifications of what was occurring before opening it up for debate by the general public.

But Siena already knew their take on the matter.

The collar had proved in their minds that, as unlikely as it seemed, the Demon warrior was indeed Siena’s one true mate. She would not have been sexually attracted to him otherwise. She would not have surrendered her maiden status to him. And he most certainly could not have unlinked the enchanted collar if he were not this mate she was destined to be saddled with.

Siena moved to lean her weight against one of the subterranean “windows” carved into the hallway she was currently navigating. The castle was rumored to be miles wide and to have more rooms and cubbies and passageways then one being could possibly walk in a single lifetime. That was saying a lot, considering how long lived her kind generally were. She couldn’t count how many times she’d been lost in these halls as a child.

These glassless windows, more like carved archways than anything else, looked stories down onto the outer houses of the castle. Those houses were also covered by the cavern ceiling, whose
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echoes reached down to the inhabitants below. It had been her only way of calling for help then.

But once she had learned how to change and use her sense of smell to backtrack her own trail, she had never been lost again.

Not literally, anyway. Figuratively speaking, she couldn’t have been more lost.

A subterranean breeze blew over her, chilling her skin. She shivered, rubbing her arms and starting to move once more in order to warm herself.

She was very far back in the halls and hadn’t seen another soul for hours. She had waved off her guard and her ever-vigilant companions, who had remained available to her at any hour should she feel the need to confide her feelings of the moment. Anya and Syreena were truly special creatures, and she would reward them for that as soon as she had sorted out this predicament she was in.

So she was indeed quite alone and surprisingly comforted by that knowledge.

The cold of another breeze rushed up from behind her, blowing at the brief skirt of her dress and whipping through her hair. It surrounded her, engulfed her, forcing her to come to a halt just as muscled arms appeared around her waist.

Siena sucked in a startled breath as the cold vanished, replaced by the warmth, the heat, of a familiar male body. She was drawn back against his chest, his hands splaying out over her flat belly and pushing her deeper into the planes of his hard body.

“Elijah,” she whispered, her eyes closing as a sensation of remarkable relief flooded through her entire body. Every nerve and hormone in her body surged to life just to be held in his embrace, and she was light-headed with the power of it all.

He put hands on her hips, using them to spin her full around to face him. The warrior dragged her back to his body, seizing her mouth with savage hunger just as she was reaching for his kiss.

She could not have helped herself. Not after the deprivation of all these days. But still, the weakness stung her painfully, leaving frustrated tears in her eyes.

It was all just as she remembered it. The vividness of the memories of their touches and kisses had never once faded to less than what it truly was. It was all heat and musk and the delicious flavor of his bold, demanding mouth. His hands were on her backside, drawing her up into his body with movement she could only label as desperation.

Elijah had not meant to attack her in this manner, but the moment he had sensed her nearness, smelled the perfume of her skin and hair, he could not do anything else. He devoured the cinnamon taste of her mouth relentlessly, groaning with relief and pleasure as her hands curled around the fabric of his shirt and her incredible body molded to his with perfection. He pulled her hips directly to his own, leaving no question about how hard and fast her effect on him was.

He felt her swinging perfectly with the onslaught of his pressing body and adamant kisses.

Everything was perfection. Top to bottom, beginning to end, and he had been starving without her. He also knew she had been just as famished without him.

She was the first to put any distance between them, by breaking away from his mouth, letting her head fall back as far as it could as she drew for breath hard and quick.

“Oh no,” she groaned huskily, shaking her head so her hair brushed over the arms around her waist.

Even those strands betrayed her, reaching eagerly to coil around his wrists and forearms, trapping him around her effectively, just in case of the outrageous scenario that he might want to move away from her. She lifted her head and opened her eyes, their golden depths full of her desire, and her anguish.

“I did not want this,” she whispered to him, her forehead dropping onto his chest when the heat in his eyes proved too intense for her to bear. “Why will you not let me go?”

“Because I can’t,” he said, disentangling one hand from her hair so he could take her chin in hand and force her to look at him. “No more than you can.”

“I hate this,” she said painfully, her eyes blinking rapidly as they smarted with tears of frustration. “I hate not being able to control my own body. My own will. If this is what it means
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to be Imprinted, it is a weakness I will abhor with my last breath.”

Then she pushed away, defying every nerve in her body that screamed at her to step back into his embrace. She could only backtrack a couple of steps, however, because her hair remained locked tight around his upraised wrist, pulling him along with her…as if he wouldn’t have followed her anyway.

When she realized her back was to a window, she felt a moment of panic. However, she realized no one was likely to see them, because they were over three stories up from the houses and people below.

“You call it weakness, and yet as affected as I am by it myself, I choose to call it strength.”

His rich baritone voice echoed around her, making her heart leap in alarm. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him farther down the hallway, the dark shadows enclosing them as they reduced the potential for echoes.

“Why are you here? And do not blame it on a holy day that will not arrive for two days.”

“I do not intend to ‘blame’ anything. I don’t believe I need an excuse to see you, Siena.” He reached for her face, but she jerked back and dodged him. “And it is because of that holy day two nights from now that I am here. We need a little bit of resolution between us before that night comes, Siena.”

“I am not in need of resolution. If you are, you must come to it on your own.”

She turned to walk away from him, but she forgot he was just as quick as she was. No one could outrun the wind. His hand closed easily around her forearm, pulling her back…and snapping the temper and pain she had been holding in tenuous control for days.

She released the cry of a wounded animal and flew at him. He saw the flash of claws and felt the sharp sting of their cut as they scored his face. Shocked by the attack for all of a second, Elijah reacted on instinct. He had her by her hair in a heartbeat, wrapping it around his fist in a single motion, turning her around so her back was to him and her claws pointed in a safer direction.

She grunted softly and then screamed in frustration as she found herself trapped face first against the stonecutter’s art.

His enormous body was immediately flush against her back, securing her to the unforgiving stone as he caught one hand and pushed it against the stone as well.

“Let go of me!” She struggled in vain, unable to move a micron in any direction. “You’ll have hands full of a spitting-mad cougar if you do not release me this instant!”

“I highly doubt that,” he purred easily into her ear, his mouth brushing over the lobe of it in a way that made her shiver involuntarily. “Your hair is bound around my wrist, and if I am not mistaken, that is more than adequate enough to keep you from being anything than what you are in this moment. Which is nothing more dangerous than a spoiled child, I think.” Her response was to call him a name he was not familiar with, but had a good idea as to its meaning all the same. “Then stop throwing tantrums because you cannot have your way, kitten,” he instructed her smoothly, his mouth drifting down the side of her neck slowly. “I have come here before Samhain because I did not want to hurt you, Siena. If you do not reconcile yourself to the inevitable by then, I will end up doing just that. And you may not believe it, but it truly is the last thing I want to do.”

Siena closed her eyes, trying not to listen to his words and the patient, soothing tone they were delivered on. She clenched her teeth against the rivers of fire bleeding into her body from the touch of his artful mouth. She did not want to be swayed so easily by him. He could call it a tantrum or anything else he wished—it was her independence that was at stake, and she would not give it up without a fight.

“I am not here to rob you of your independence, kitten,” he said softly, making her exhale in frustration at how easily he was beginning to know her thoughts. “In fact, I would rather cut off my own hands than do equal damage to you. It is your spirit, your independence, your fight, and all those instincts you cradle so close to your heart that make you so perfect for me. And make me perfect for you.”

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“How are you perfect for me?” she asked bitingly. “Because you can make my body respond to yours? Is this your idea of perfection?”

“It is a start,” he mocked her, chuckling against her pulse. “But there is much more to it than that, and I don’t think you need me to point that out.” He moved close to her ear once more, whispering his next words on the softest of breaths. “What better mate for an accomplished huntress then a warrior who brings the scent of her prey on the breezes? Who better to be the companion of the sensual cat then the male who will never get enough of her scent, her movements, her taste, and her touch? And who would you prefer over the one who can bow his head beneath the power of your hold around his throat? Have you forgotten that, kitten? Have you put away the memory of how easily I accepted your assertions in that moment, and all the moments when we were in bed together?”

“I am amazed your ego survived such wounds,” she said, her bitter sadness heavy in her voice as she struggled to ignore the truths she did not want to hear.

“My ego is satisfied just to hold you. To feel your body against mine and know it will be there always. I would be happy simply to watch you as you hunt, hold court, sleep…” Elijah touched his mouth to her temple. “And I wish you would look into me to know what it means for a man such as myself to say such things.”

Elijah released his grip on her hair, stepping back from her.

She took a long moment before she pushed away from the wall and turned to face him. It took her a moment more to lift her golden eyes to his.

“Why would you allow anyone to do such a thing? To invade your thoughts.” She shivered in such a way that he felt it along the fine hairs of his body.

“Because I grew up in a society where such things are commonplace. We are very forward and up front with our thoughts and feelings. We share easily with one another. Something you may find liberating one day.”

“I already do. I speak freely with Syreena and Anya, my thoughts as available to them as they would be to the probes of your Mind Demons. The difference is, I choose to do this. The choice is not taken from me without my permission.”

Elijah leaned his back against the opposite wall from her and folded his arms across his broad chest. The movement made her suddenly aware of the fact that this was the first time she had seen him in perfect health since last Beltane. He emanated it. He was a tide of power, a current of lethal strength, and an elemental sexiness that made her shudder within her own skin. What would it be like, to make love with him now that he was strong once again?