“Well, you were good friends, yes?”
Elijah didn’t see what possible use there was in bringing up stories of other great men who were also long gone, but she was animated and curious and it was infectious to see her that way.
“Honestly?” the big blond Demon said with a crooked grin. “Your father was Adam’s best friend even above Noah. When they weren’t bickering, that is. Your dad loved to get under Adam’s skin and would poke and prod until he got his ass kicked for it.”
Leah laughed, and Elijah relished the sound. It was a rare commodity in her. It was rare in just about everyone these days.
“Then again,” he continued, “those sparring matches and their playful rivalry is probably how your father learned all the tricks of the Enforcer’s trade. From diplomacy to cunning to battle, Adam was the ultimate instructor, and your father a clever sort of student. Did you know that Adam was the one who devised most of the current punishments we use to deter Demons from straying during the Hallowed moons? There have been others throughout the centuries, but Adam’s were by far the most wickedly effective and have stuck the longest.”
“Really?” she asked breathlessly, her expression rapt as she leaned in.
“Yeah. Apparently, Adam thought the original forms of castigation and humiliation were a bit too warm and fuzzy for his tastes. What he devised has proved far more diabolical. Adam was ...” Elijah grinned at her, his green eyes alight with distant memory. “Adam was the definition of a hard-ass. Believe me when I tell you it paid off. Whatever you hear people say about your father being militant, it was nothing compared to Adam. He was the all-time deadliest fighter on the block when he wanted to be. Not to disparage your father, but if Adam were still around, Ruth would have been dealt with long before she could ever have got this far.”
Leah frowned as he turned to shift the blade under the coals. “You mean he was better than Daddy?” she asked as she licked the sweat from her upper lip. The forge was hot and close, but she wouldn’t have budged for anything.
“Well ... let’s say he was different. Adam wasn’t known for being touchy-feely. Your father was the opposite in many ways.” Elijah hesitated. “If I took Adam at the time he died and set him up against your dad at the time he died, it’d be a real hard call. But you see, your mother made Jacob more powerful than Adam could ever be alone. However, she also ... well ...” Elijah stopped with a wince, realizing he had forgotten whom he was talking to.
Leah wasn’t left behind.
“You mean to say Mama was Daddy’s worst weakness as well, don’t you? It’s okay, Elijah. I was there. I know my father wouldn’t be dead if he hadn’t turned his back on his enemies.”
“Actually, no one knows that,” he corrected her sharply. “Do you blame your mother for what happened? Or your father?”
“I blame everybody!” Leah bit out sharply. “I blame everyone who ever let Ruth slip through their fingers! I blame the Vampires! I blame you and Noah and even Adam for not being there when my parents needed them the most!” Leah’s small hands balled into fists as she railed. She tried to hold back, to rein in her temper, especially when she saw the guilt and pain in Elijah’s eyes. “I just ... I wish it had been different. I bet if my father and my uncle Adam had been there together that day, Ruth would be dead and that Vampire bastard would be burned to ashes instead of my father and mother!”
Elijah looked at her carefully for a minute or two, letting her catch her breath and calm her emotions. Then he said gently, “I think it’s a waste of time to think of such things, Leah. If you get caught up in fantasies about ‘would have beens,’ you forget to appreciate what you actually have in the here and now. Tragedies happen, Leah, but quite often unexpected good comes from them.”
“Tell me what good has come from my parents’ murders!” she lashed out, standing up and bearing the fierce heat of the forge in order to go toe-to-toe with her Siddah. “You tell me, Elijah! Teach me how to see their deaths in a proper light! Wax poetic on all the happiness among us that was born because Jacob and Isabella are dead!”
Elijah stood in stony silence as Leah reached to dash tears from her eyes. He deserved her anger, he thought sadly. They all did, because they all had failed her. It broke his heart to see her in the firelight of the forge, her mother’s violet eyes and her father’s brown-black hair leaping out at him from a face made half of Isabella’s fey features and half of Jacob’s sterner aristocracy. She even grew tall and lean like her sire, yet was developing the curvaceous femininity of her dam. There was no doubt, the instant you laid eyes on her, whose daughter she was.
“I’m sorry, Leah,” he said after a moment of weeding his own pain out of his voice. “It was a poor platitude to use. I only meant—”
Leah waved off his explanation with a hasty sniffle. “No,” she said softly, “I understand your point. I truly do.” She slowly turned her back on him and stepped back toward the stool she had been sitting on. Unable to trust herself, Leah kept turned away and hid her features behind the fall of her hair. “Please. Tell me more about Adam.”
Elijah was quiet and still for a beat, but then with a nod to himself he continued to do so.
When Leah had finished her lessons, Elijah sent her on her way and turned the forge over to the Minotaur that had been assisting him. He then made his way up from the deep caverns to the underground castle that was the seat of his wife’s government. There she was, sitting in state, hearing grievances and attending to the minutiae of her political life. Siena looked utterly bored, her chin resting in her palm, her hair absently curling itself into twists. Each strand was alive with its own blood supply and nerves and would reflexively curl around her in protection or if she was cold. When she was changing form, it would spread over her entire body and become the fur of the cougar she could eventually become. But lately the springy, lush golden coils had taken to clinging to her like a constantly protective cloak.
She looked up and directly at him the instant he moved into the room. Imprinted as they were, she was always aware of him, always a part of his thoughts just as he was a part of hers. Their mating was the first one of its kind. In this millennium, in any event. In the past decade, scholars had uncovered certain strange truths and histories about the Nightwalker species that showed history had ways of repeating itself.
Hopefully they would do things better this time around.
Although it wasn’t looking very promising. The rogue Vampires and human necromancers were growing in power, and Ruth and Nico continued to wreak havoc.
Elijah had to have hope that the goodness and love of Imprintings like his and Siena’s would be enough to counterbalance all of that. But without powerful Demons like Jacob and remarkable Druids like Bella to help defend the Nightwalkers, it was looking very bleak. Once cohesive in thought and action, the central body of government in the Demon courts had fallen apart, agreements a thing of the past, bickering and whining taking up so much of the Great Council’s time that Noah had refused to call them to table for nearly three years now. And although he was no longer Noah’s Warrior Captain, Elijah was still a Great Council member and still wanted to fulfill his role as such. He wanted to help guide Noah in this volatile time. He wanted to help the man who had formerly called him friend.
But Noah did not feel the same. For some reason, he couldn’t seem to move forward without his Enforcers. And Elijah had to admit it was hard. Sometimes too hard. But it must be done. If for no other reason than to show a young girl that it could be done.
Siena immediately began to shoo her people away from her, standing up from her throne and displaying her lush, beautiful body in its light, nearly sheer gown. The empire waist brought the material up snugly to her breasts, accentuating their fullness. The silky fabric fell away from the rest of her for the most part. But it liked her hips well, clinging to them and her backside almost lasciviously. It wasn’t until she began to move forward that it gave hints of her rounded belly in front.
Sie
na ought to have been thrilled about her pregnancy, but she wasn’t. Not entirely, anyway. What should have been full of joy was marred. And now that she was more obviously beginning to show, it was past time for them to announce the impending birth of the Lycanthrope heir. Most probably those closest to her had managed to figure it out already. Her attendants and aides had very probably deduced as much.
But Siena was trying to protect her child and, more likely, the feelings of her sister. Whatever was left of them. Elijah’s belief was that it probably wouldn’t matter. If the news was going to make any impact, it would be worse if Siena did not confront Syreena herself, instead allowing rumor to reach her sister first. It was quite possible the barren sister would be devastated by the news of the fertile sister’s triumph, but Elijah really didn’t think it would hurt Syreena quite the way his wife feared.
If Anya had still been alive, perhaps she could have helped advise Siena better than he had been doing. After all, the half-breed General had known both of the sisters best. But Nicodemous had ambushed Anya in the woods last spring, ripping her to shreds for the fun of it, leaving her for Siena to find. Ruth still blamed Elijah for her daughter’s death and still took pleasure in tormenting him in whatever way she could, and Ruth knew the deepest way to hurt him was to somehow attack the woman he loved. Anya had been Siena’s very best friend, and losing her had been a devastating blow to his wife’s confidence and sense of security.
The attack only added to her fear about announcing her coming child. She felt that it would open her up as a target to Ruth’s vindictiveness. Siena could remain protected in the bowels of their world; her people and her husband would never let harm come to her there. However, she was part wild animal. To keep her cooped up and under constant observation for all of her pregnancy would no doubt drive her crazy. Elijah had to admit that he was no longer capable of protecting her if Nico and Ruth came at them while they were somewhere in the open alone together. Both had grown so tremendously in power that no one was safe from them. And since Nico had fed from Bella, acquiring the little Druid’s remarkable power ... and Ruth had boldly attacked Syreena ...
Nicodemous laid waste everywhere he went, and his demented Demon mistress could destroy any mind she touched. It was a recipe for utter devastation and it was eating away at Elijah’s world from every direction.
And so his first child, the product of the incredible love he shared with his Lycanthrope bride, was a point of fear and contention in his marriage when it ought to have been just the opposite.
“Hello, Kitten,” he said softly as she moved eagerly into his embrace. She reached for his face, the fingertips of both hands smoothing over the blond brows that so perfectly matched her hair, rubbing away the creases that had formed between them. It was a common action of late, becoming a habit, really.
“Worrying again?” she asked, although her free access into his thoughts easily told her that he was.
“It’s time, love. You know that it is. Your people need to feel secure in the royal line, and ever since Syreena ...”
“I know,” she sighed. “And I am not so able to hide this anymore.”
Elijah drew her out of the main receiving room, turning the nearest corner with her. After a quick look around, he reached out for her belly and engulfed it in his big hands. She was just past her first flush of showing, warm with her high body temperature and full enough to fill his hands as he rubbed them over her. She smiled, unable to resist, letting herself enjoy the moment for a change. She had never thought she would be the sort to take to motherhood. To be honest, it still frightened her a bit. But being a substitute mother to Leah all these years had changed her feelings on the matter greatly. It had taken a great deal of clever work to avoid pregnancy during her heat cycles in the interim, her behavior very much the opposite of her sister’s. Syreena had barely been wed before she had begun to strive for a child.
The thought of her sister ended all the warmth of her feelings, bringing them crashing down. Elijah felt the change, looked up into her sad eyes, and then reached to bring her close. He hugged her tightly, hushing her softly against her ear when tears pricked at her eyes.
“If only ...” she said brokenly.
“I know. But we can’t focus on our regrets. We can’t wish for something that wasn’t. And where do we change the past, even if we could? If only Syreena had been protected? If only Nico had never drunk from Bella, giving him and Ruth the power to get to Syreena? If only we had killed Ruth long before she had met Nico? If only Ruth had never been born? I hate to say it, but Ruth was integral to the birth of the Mind Demon ability. She was the first female born with that power. She was the first female to become Elder. All those who came after her learned from her experiences. Even Ruth’s madness was necessary. If she had never kidnapped Syreena, Damien would never have fallen in love with her.
“Kitten, we can’t play with the past in our heads. We can’t do that to ourselves. All we have is the here and now. We must deal with the present and try to shape the future as best we can.” He smoothed his hand over her hair, a thumb drifting over her cheek. “We can try our best to be happy.”
She sighed.
“I’m afraid that it might not be possible.”
A short distance away Leah was eavesdropping on their conversation, her thin arms wrapped tightly around her body.
If only ... she thought.
Later that night, Leah was sitting in a private alcove located outside one of the busier caverns of the Lycanthrope court. The hub of the court and castle consisted of a well-populated village aboveground that protected the entrance to the more heavily populated underground castle and its outbuildings, which had been carved directly out of the stone of the earth. Most Lycanthropes lived in the large network of underground caverns beneath the wild mountains and forests of Russia. It was probably one of those caverns that had seen the grisly death of her parents. She had been too young to remember the place, but she had heard hints over the years that had led her to make the assumption.
This little alcove was prettily decorated with a hand-carved stone bench and gorgeous pictures on the walls that the talented Lycanthrope stonecutters had created. She liked the privacy of it for reading or for thinking. She sometimes liked to just let her mind wander into the pictures depicted around her, touching the shapes of the carvings, thinking about nothing really at all.
But the problem with picking out favorite places was that after a while they weren’t all that secret. People learned of them. And to prove it, she heard the shuffle of a step around the corner.
“Seth, I can hear you,” she sighed.
Seth poked his head around the curve in the wall that had so poorly hidden him. He looked sheepish under his too-long café au lait curls and the light dusting of freckles over his nose. He was as darkly tanned as his father, so the little dots were hardly visible, but Leah had spent too much time with him not to notice the characteristic.
Leah scooted over and patted the bench next to her. Seth, all long limbs and angular lines, immediately took a seat, leaning back with his hands folded behind his head and his feet crossed at the ankles.
“I don’t mean to bug you,” he said as an afterthought. “If you want me to go, I will.”
“Nah.” She gave him a blasé shrug. “It doesn’t matter.”
The truth was she had been close to Seth since they were kids. Seth was the son of Gideon the Ancient and Legna, the Demon ambassador to the Lycanthrope court. He was also, supposedly, the second half of a prophecy about two miracle children, Leah being the first. The problem was, while Leah had been showing signs of power over the element of Time ever since she had been two, Seth hadn’t shown so much as an inkling of the nature of his supposed power over the element of Space. In Seth’s mind, this made him somehow ... less.
“Whatchya been doing?” Seth asked her. “Staring at the walls again?”
“Shut up.” She made a fist and punched him in the arm. He was lanky and kind of scraw
ny in her opinion, so he made a face and rubbed at the spot. But he didn’t complain. He felt bad enough about coming up short in other areas; he wasn’t about to let a girl know she’d hurt him. Even if it was just Leah.
“Did you know I had an uncle?” she asked him.
“Duh. He’s the Enforcer.”
“Not Kane! I know you know about Kane. Why would I ask you that? You’re so stupid sometimes.”
“I am not stupid!”
Seth’s face flushed at the insult and he surged to his feet, his hands balling into fists. Leah saw him shaking as a tide of nasty words and insults rushed through his brain and she waited for him to choose the right one, the most cutting insult he could come up with. He was really good at them. Almost as though he had a stockpile of them that he held in careful reserve just for moments like this. He probably did. The Lycanthrope kids their age knew full well what Seth was supposed to be, and they never missed a chance to taunt him for not living up to the Demon prophecy’s expectations. He was the son of the oldest and most powerful Demon in the entire world and had nothing to show for it.
“Why are you wasting your time thinking about a family that wants nothing to do with you anyway?” Seth wanted to know.
It was a good one, she had to admit. Even knowing it was coming didn’t dull the sting any. She didn’t get mad, though. She just absorbed the pain and tried to blink back the urge to tear up. After all, the truth was the truth. Kane and Corrine wanted no part of her. They couldn’t stand to look at her, never mind sit and have some kind of conversation. So it really was a waste of time to dwell on her family, past or present.