Noah. Jacquelyn Frank
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or the way of your laws.”
Bella glanced down at the woman in question, taking a better look at her. Her head hung limply back over the King’s left arm, a braid of pure white hair swinging in the smoky air. She was pale, clearly drained of most of her vital energy, a condition Isabella was familiar with enough to know who had initiated it. Since Noah had committed his crimes in Corrine’s presence with apparent purpose, it was very likely that this woman was his intended mate. However, she could also be an innocent on the wrong end of the King’s misdirected and volatile emotions. Either way, Noah was in no state to be in charge of the fate of a vulnerable human female.
“She looks weak,” Isabella noted softly. “Let me help.”
“Stand back, Enforcer. You will not take her from me.”
“I didn’t say I would,” she agreed quickly. “But if you force us into an altercation, Noah, it could harm everyone in this room. Leah, Corrine…and this female as well. You’re so powerful that I’d have to dampen your power with every ounce of my strength. There would be little room for finesse, Noah. The young woman you hold couldn’t stand such a drain on her energy.”
“As you say, Leah is in this room. Can so young a child bear the brunt of her mother’s power?” he countered coldly.
“Perhaps not. But I can guarantee that you will not survive her father’s wrath if anything happens to her or any of his family.”
Noah looked up over the tiny Druid who blocked his path, to meet the black gaze of his male Enforcer. He realized then that Isabella had been stalling him while awaiting her husband’s arrival.
Finally, the monarch visibly hesitated. One Enforcer; perhaps he could get away with the advantage in such a battle. However, the matched set was something else entirely.
It was this moment of hesitation that always heralded a turn in the dynamics of an enforcement situation. Jacob was quite familiar with it after all these centuries. The hesitation was no doubt as selfishly motivated as anything else the King had done in these past few hours, but it was also the first step toward logical reasoning. If he realized how futile his situation was, he would be on the path of recognizing the other flaws in his uncontrolled behavior.
Jacob put a hand on his wife’s waist, nudging her gently in the direction of their child. As Bella hurried to inspect and protect her sister and her baby, Jacob squared off with his longtime friend.
He observed every detail of Noah’s body language for a quick second, everything from the solid brace of his feet to the death grip he had on the blond woman hanging so limply in his arms. She would sport some serious bruises come the evening, but Jacob was determined to see that was the worst of the damage. It worried him that her breath came so shallow and that she was so deeply unconscious, but his senses, as sharp as all of nature, told him Noah hadn’t had the time to put any other marks or damage on her.
“I will not allow anyone to take her from me. I no longer care what sacrifices have to be made, I will make them to keep her. Do you understand me?”
Jacob understood perfectly. In that moment, the King would go through every single living being in that room—in their very society—to keep his prize. Jacob knew the feeling well. Even he had once threatened Noah when he’d been forced away from Bella after their first intense encounter. It had torn at his soul and his sanity in a way that he didn’t think he could ever truly bear again. Not without becoming pure animal and instinct, pretty much exactly like the Demon before him.
“I understand. But the only way you can truly keep her is to obey the law and its protocols. You realize that, do you not?”
Noah hesitated again, taking a moment to shift the weight of his burden a little higher against his chest. Jacob watched the King’s eyes close briefly, his face turning closer to the woman’s, the sound of his breath loud in the room full of people holding theirs.
“Very well.”
Jacob and Isabella both cautiously exhaled. Corrine was less able to control her emotions, bursting into tears and falling against her sister in relief. Bella had no choice but to push her away. Her husband’s command was ringing in her head and she rose straightaway to obey. She approached Noah carefully, swiping damp palms down the thighs of her jeans.
“Let me have her, Noah,” she beckoned with a half smile and all the feminine coaxing she could muster. If Jacob had reached for Noah’s possession, there was no telling what volatile reaction it could spark. To this day, Jacob himself had difficulties with other men touching or intending to touch Isabella. Therefore, he was highly sensitive to who should make the necessary move of retrieving the King’s would-be mate.
The unconscious woman was nearly six inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than the petite Enforcer, but Bella was far stronger than she looked. Jacob watched her work her soft, soothing magic on the Demon King, her hand reaching to cover his warmly where it gripped his captive’s shoulder.
“She…she is drained,” he warned her, clearly reluctant to release her to anyone.
“I know. I see that. She will come around soon enough,” she assured him.
“Only I can reverse it. I can feed her energy in general, but she is to be my one true mate. It is my energy she will crave as she becomes Druid. She must stay close to me.”
Bella glanced at Corrine when she caught her nod of agreement out of the corner of her eye.
“Then she will stay close to you. Only, let me carry her. You…” Bella hesitated for a long, painful second that reflected a fear only her husband was fully aware of. She spoke before he could stop her. “You have frightened Leah. Go and comfort her. You know she always stops crying for you.”
Isabella knew her husband was flushed with mistrust and barely repressed outrage at the idea of Noah touching their child after he had behaved so badly and with so little regard for her safety, especially because neither of them was at all certain Noah’s episode was past him. However, Isabella knew that Noah would never relinquish the woman without redirection.
He finally acquiesced after a long moment, hoisting his burden into Bella’s arms with a tenderness that belied all of his actions of the past minutes.
“Don’t worry,” Bella whispered to him. Noah nodded, drawing away slowly. He paused for several beats before turning toward Leah. What he ended up facing was the expressions of fright that neither of the females huddled together could have repressed even if they’d had all the time in the world to prepare for it.
It was this evidence of the cruelty of his actions that finally and truly hit home. Noah exhaled sharply with shock and breathless pain as true awareness battered him from all sides. He was surrounded by a roomful of loved ones he had betrayed. He had been running on borrowed strength and power for several hours, burning it off as fast as he could replenish it in his maddened momentum. When the insanity abandoned him, so, too, did his strength, and just as suddenly. Noah stumbled forward onto his knees, only the brace of his hand preventing him from falling facedown onto the debris-scattered floor.
With a child’s fickleness of memory and emotion, Leah scrambled out of her aunt’s arms and hurried to help her uncle. Her little hands cupped his face for a moment, and then she hugged his head and made the soft, soothing sounds her mother and aunt used to comfort her when she was hurt or upset.
It completely undid the Demon King. He blindly gathered the little girl in his arms, sobbing once with incredible pain into her neck before completely giving in to his emotions in front of them all.
Chapter 6
The Miserable Princess
A Demon Fairy Tale
Cont’d…
Sarah could hear the collective whisper that shifted like a wave throughout the viewing stands as the Enforcer came to stand before her. She looked up, feeling small and vulnerable in the wake of his tall, imposing figure. He was crafted out of muscle and sinew as a sculpture was shaped