Fae visions were highly respected in his world. “Where do you want her?”
Rosamunde looked around. “Here will do just fine.”
Seth laid the wolf on the couch beside Rosamunde, positioning Lorelei’s back against the cushions and her head resting on the queen’s lap. This position left her wounded side fully exposed.
She placed her hand gently between Lorelei’s white wolf ears. Lorelei whimpered softly, her snout long and graceful, her winter coat creating a thick white ruff around her neck.
Rosamunde closed her eyes.
Seth felt a profound wave of healing energy pulse through the room. The ache in his knee and ribs lessened because of it.
Lorelei’s breathing hitched, then released. She finally drew a deep breath and the terrible, bloody wound began to knit together at lightning speed.
He called the fae healer and rescinded his request for her to come to him. He didn’t try to explain why he no longer needed her though he assured her that Lorelei was healing more quickly than he thought. He just wasn’t sure Rosamunde would want it known that she’d left her kingdom.
He remained standing in front of Lorelei, his gaze fixed to her. In stages, her breathing eased and she no longer panted.
After several minutes, Rosamunde looked up at him. “Mastyr Seth, from this moment forward, you must open yourself to Lorelei and to what the two of you can accomplish together. I know that you’re stoic by nature, not given to passionate pursuits or anything of a romantic nature, but for your sake and for the sake of your realm, I ask you to be open to all that you’ll soon discover Lorelei to be.”
His gaze fell to Lorelei once more. “I’ve felt her power, which she shared with me while confronting the Invictus tonight. She saved us both.”
“Be open.”
He met her gaze and saw in the weight of her expression not only his need to take her advice to heart, but her own suffering. He could relate. In many ways, he and the queen were alike, but even he didn’t carry the burden that Rosamunde did. She was perhaps the most powerful woman in his realm and had kept her throne safe from Margetta. It was believed that whoever ruled Ferrenden Peace could also take over the Nine Realms.
When Seth had visited the castle two months ago, he’d spoken with the queen about her responsibility to keep Ferrenden Peace out of the hands of Margetta or any other self-serving, realm person who wanted to enslave all the realms. She’d lived apart from her peers in order to preserve the freedom of all.
His own solitude had been a personal choice, while the queen’s had been a necessity for the sake of their world. The least he could do was take her admonition to heart.
“I’ll do as you’ve said.”
She appeared to breathe a deep sigh of relief. “Good, and that’s all that anyone can ask of you, Seth, to just be open.”
* * * * * * * * *
Lorelei hurt deep into her stomach all the way to her spine, then up through her ribcage. She was certain every one of her internal organs had been damaged when that horrible wraith had slung her battle energy in her direction.
She’d never known such pain and while lying next to Seth in the snow, she’d been convinced not only that she would die, but that Seth would as well. And she would have failed at the first important task she’d ever been given in her long life-on-the-run.
But from where she lay, with a warm hand pressing on her head and healing rolling through her body, she knew she hadn’t died after all. For one thing, there was a small spider web in the corner of the broad front window near the grand piano. Surely, the Nine Realm’s version of heaven wouldn’t have allowed spiders.
She pushed her paw against the healer’s knee, a form of gratitude, then sighed deeply. She was still in wolf form, a shape she’d come to treasure since coming to Walvashorr.
How long ago it seemed since she’d made the trek to Ferrenden Peace with Mastyr Quinlan and Batya, through the Caverns of Pickerne, the Dead Forest and the Snowfields of Rayne, all to get to Queen Rosamunde’s kingdom and to safety.
The queen had taught her so much, so many skills that she now employed to successfully thwart her mother’s attempts to gain control over her again. She owed the queen everything.
“Can you shift to your fae form?”
Lorelei frowned. She recognized the healer’s voice, but it seemed impossible. Rosamunde? You’re the one tending to me?
Yes, I’m here.
But you’re in danger. You’re only protected in Ferrenden Peace? What if Margetta finds you and why did you come here in the first place?
Rosamunde chuckled. So many questions, child.
Lorelei was an adult, ninety years in the realm world. But Rosamunde’s age was as yet unknown, well over a thousand years, so Lorelei supposed the queen had cause to address her as she would a child. In realm-terms, Lorelei was still very young.
She tried to lift her head, but couldn’t. She was so weak and she still hurt.
But she would heal so much faster in her fae form.
She’d also create a new level of pain when she went through the transformation, but it couldn’t be helped. She had more to consider here than her own comfort level. For one, the queen was always in danger once she left her kingdom, and for another Lorelei still had a job to do in protecting Mastyr Seth.
I’ll shift now.
Good. Just remain in this position, reclining on my lap.
No problem.
She squeezed her eyes shut, accessed her shifting vibration, and let it flow, focusing on the fae form she’d been born with so many decades ago.
But the pain!
She cursed mentally, making use of every foul word she’d ever heard in the course of her life. She hoped she didn’t path them to Rosamunde, but even if she had, she wasn’t sure she cared.
In the end, she blacked out.
When she woke up, Queen Rosamunde had left and Lorelei had been moved to a different room altogether. She snuggled beneath a warm comforter with a wood fire blazing in the stone fireplace across from the foot of the bed. She turned onto her side and glanced out the window. She could see that night had become day and the snow had started to fall once more. Her internal clock told her it was late afternoon. She had slept a long time.
Everything was quiet, except that she heard Debussy’s Clair de Lune coming from the living room. She smiled. Seth was playing the piano, expertly, beautifully. He lived a rich life, full of
divergent interests, and in this way he seemed so different from the other mastyrs. He loved music, books, mathematics, and living in the mountains.
She shivered suddenly, a sensation that had nothing to do with a chill in the air, but with a powerful memory, something she would never forget, of the first time she’d ever laid eyes on the Mastyr of Walvashorr.
Two months ago, the day after Mastyr Quinlan and Batya left Ferrenden Peace on the queen’s orders, Lorelei had been walking along the third story catwalk that looked down into the Queen’s receiving room.
The upper stories of the stone castle enjoyed a flow of heat from the lower fireplaces so she’d gone exploring. She hadn’t known that Mastyr Seth had stayed over an extra night.
But she’d entered a short hall with a secrecy screen that allowed her to see into what proved to be Mastyr Seth’s bedroom.
He had the large balcony doors flung wide open so that fresh, cold air blew through the room. Though night hadn’t yet fallen, the northern light flooded the room without the dangerous direct rays that would harm vampires and to a lesser degree fae and other realm-folk.
He wore his long, thick brown hair in the Guardsman’s woven clasp, but little else. Just black work-out shorts and a white tank top hanging from his waistband. He used the shirt occasionally to wipe sweat off his forehead.
She watched mesmerized as he dropped lithely to the floor and on the tips of his fingers performed at least a hundred quick push-ups, then shifted to his buttocks and crunched out at least as many sit-ups. He was leaner than Quinlan b
y a lot, but his muscles had a ripped, heavier look.
Desire for him had begun like a small wave that got bigger and bigger, finally swelling over her until she felt dizzy. She’d never had so powerful a reaction to a man before, of any species, in the whole course of her adult life. The need to touch him, to connect physically, became almost a compulsion, something more wolf than fae.
Had she been in wolf form, she might have charged into the room and bumped him with her nose, then her body, just to make contact.
But as a fae female, and experiencing sexual need of him, she could only remain rooted to the secret hallway floor, staring at him through the screen, essentially spying on him.
He wrapped up his routine with more stretching, then moved to the balcony to stare out at a rolling vista of farmlands and the occasional island of trees. Ferrenden Peace was a beautiful, pastoral country, almost a realm apart.
What she did next, however, was unpardonable. Using the new skills Rosamunde had only that morning trained her to develop, she cast a layered enthrallment shield around herself, left the hall, and stole into his room.
She had to see him close up.
Moving to the balcony, she took up a place at the end so that she could watch him. He smelled heavenly, a rich mossy forest scent, like something wooded. Her nostrils flared and the wolf part of her wanted to howl, wanted to cry out some message to the world that she’d found him, she’d found the one.
He had no idea she stood five feet away from him, staring up at his gray-green eyes, his straight brows, the angled, masculine line of his cheeks.
Her gaze fell to his neck and shoulders, corded with tight, extremely well-defined muscle. He drank from a water bottle, small sips, rehydrating as his gaze wandered the distant vista.
Sheep bleated, a jarring sound in the serene pasture. His gaze rose, tracking a hawk, hers did as well.
She realized that in all her travels while hiding from her mother, she’d spent only one year in Walvashorr Realm and all during that time, she’d never once seen Mastyr Seth. Would she have had such an intense reaction to him all those years ago if she had?
She wanted to touch him. That was the worst part. It was one thing to hold the shield tight and disguise her presence, but quite another to put her hand on him. She moved closer, inching her fingers toward him. A vibration ignited deep within her body and instinctively she knew what it was, her mating frequency, and that none of her previous boyfriends had ever once awakened her in this way.
Though she didn’t actually make contact, Seth suddenly grabbed his arm and rubbed the area near the tips of her fingers. He must have sensed her proximity.
She drew her arm back, fearing discovery. Still keeping her shield tight, she hurried from the room, returning to her castle bedroom. She lay on her bed for a long time, stunned that only a realm ruler had been able to arouse her mating frequency.
A realm ruler.
Seth of Walvashorr.
It wasn’t until the next day that she settled into her investigative routine, ferreting out every scrap of information about Seth, making liberal use of the Nine Realms Internet, reading every comment, every blog, every newspaper article that even so much as mentioned his name.
From that information, she’d gradually constructed a portrait of him, that he lived an extremely solitary existence for a realm ruler, but that he was a man of honor, a powerful warrior, and he spent every waking moment serving Walvashorr.
He had only one residence of any significance, his Shauck Gorge house, while most of the other mastyrs had three or four. The apartment in south Walvashorr, in Hawgrine, didn’t count nor did the odd treehouse he’d built at Redheart Peak in the north.
He had no close friends, and in this one thing especially, Lorelei felt she could really relate to Seth. Batya, now a blood rose and bonded to Mastyr Quinlan, had become a good friend, maybe even the first real friend Lorelei had ever had in the past seventy-two years of her life, from the time she’d escaped her mother’s prison-home when she was eighteen. But her transient lifestyle had severely limited the things she’d been able to share with Batya.
Essentially, she’d lived her life apart, like Seth.
So she understood him and even the cause of his chosen solitude. He’d been orphaned at eight when an Invictus pair had killed his parents. While on a family picnic, Seth had been exploring deep in the nearby forest and when he’d come back, he’d found a massacre. His younger brother and his parents had been drained and slaughtered, while an older brother had disappeared.
An orphanage had followed, a place where survival of the fittest had defined day-to-day existence.
Almost a century later, he’d been engaged to a woman named Kristen, but she’d died. Not much had been written about those circumstances, but they couldn’t have been good because he’d never tried again. He kept women at a distance.
Shortly after, he’d become Mastyr of Walvashorr.
As the reverie drifted away, Lorelei sighed deeply. She lifted the comforter to her nose and breathed in. The fabric smelled of Seth, that intensely rich, mossy scent of his. She knew she’d been left to recover in his bed and something about that afflicted her heart badly. Her chest felt strangely heavy and weighed down. She worried about Seth and though she’d been instrumental in saving him at Loperz Canyon, she could feel in her bones that there was more to come.
She trembled, as the fae part of her warmed up. She had a sense of the future, that she would become much more than Seth’s bodyguard. Yet how could two such solitary individuals ever trust each other enough to journey together?
* * * * * * * * *
Seth played Debussy, a sure sign he had a problem to solve. Something about the impressionistic music, or maybe just the soothing aspect of running his fingers up and down the black and white keys, helped his brain to process whatever dilemma had him tied up.
And he needed processing right now: Rosamunde, Lorelei, her latent power, the future of the Nine Realms. And of course, his blood starvation.
His stomach cramped in increasingly tight waves. He should have called his doneuse sooner. But she would arrive at full-dark and he’d be ready to face whatever it was that Rosamunde had hinted at when she’d told him to be open to Lorelei.
In between pieces, his hands shook, another indication he’d waited too long to feed.
And the more he hungered, the more his thoughts turned to Lorelei asleep in the next room. For reasons he couldn’t explain, from the time he’d settled her in his bed, he’d started to crave her. He longed for her blood and maybe because she lay beneath his covers, he wanted to join her, to feed from her, and to make love to her.
These thoughts, however, he strove to set aside. No good could possibly come from sexing up his bodyguard.
But the cravings remained.
His fingers continued to ply the keys, repeating Clair de Lune.
He still hadn’t completely processed the attack he’d just barely survived. He’d been led into a trap that would have killed him except for two things, that Lorelei had intervened and that somehow she’d summoned his entire Shifter Brigade to come to his rescue. He owed his life to her.
He had so many questions including how Lorelei had actually reached his entire brigade with one long howl.
When he finished Claire de Lune the second time through, he rose from the piano bench. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he saw that it was four-thirty, not long now until full-dark, the month being December and his realm farther north than most. Rosamunde had left him strict orders to awaken Lorelei at this hour, to give her some food, and to talk with her about the recent battle. He was then to keep her close to his side over the next several days. She’d emphasized the latter, that critical events were on the horizon for them both, matters that involved their individual safety as well as the future of the Nine Realms.
Seth smiled wryly. But no pressure.
He went to the kitchen first and poured a cup of steaming beef broth, also recommended by Ro
samunde. The shifter part of Lorelei would always respond to red meat. He added a slab of buttered sour dough bread, then headed down the hall.
As he walked toward his bedroom, a severe cramp took hold of him so that he had to pause and wait for the pain to subside. His cheeks drew inward and saliva filled his mouth. It didn’t help to be smelling the broth.
As soon as he took care of Lorelei, he’d call his doneuse to make sure she was on her way and to put some speed on. At this point, he was in bad shape.
He generally fed twice a day and he’d missed his early morning feeding. Maybe it was his strict exercise regimen, but he seemed to need more donations than the other mastyrs he knew. Right now he was maybe three hours away from falling into a coma, with death taking place not long after that.
Entering the room, he found Lorelei standing in front of the south-facing window which had a long view down the gorge to the Athalia River and the snow-covered forest banking both sides. She wore one of his t-shirts, a black one that bagged over her shoulders and hung to mid-thigh.
His gaze dropped to her bare legs and feet, and like the red-blooded vampire he was, desire rose, but he suppressed it immediately. She looked sexy as hell, which wasn’t helping his cravings at all.
She seemed intent on the view of the river, two hundred feet below his home, rolling fast, visible through a light fall of snow.
“I brought you something to eat.”
She turned, her nostrils flaring. She squeezed her eyes shut as though in pain.
Concern for her bloomed. “Are you still hurting?”
He set the food on the table to the right of the fireplace, near the east window, then hurried over to her, moving to stand next to her.
“I’m fine.” She held up both hands as though to ward him off. She was shaking.
“You’re not fine. Lorelei, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m all healed up. Really, I’m fine.” She turned a shoulder to him, facing the window once more and crossing her arms over her chest.
She was lovely, even in profile, with her hair drawn back behind her right ear. The shape rose to a stunning fae point, with three amethyst studs leading toward the peak. Exquisite.