Elijah. Jacquelyn Frank
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proportions. It was quite some time before she entered the room to retrieve the bowl and take a willow broom to the remaining debris of the spilled food that was on the floor. She remained well out of his reach this time, unusually silent as she worked.
As he watched her in similar silence, Elijah was forced to recall the first time he had seen her. It had been in Kane’s home immediately after Kane’s mate, Corrine, had been abducted. It had been there that they had first come to understand that Ruth could be a potential traitor to Demonkind.
It had been Siena’s sources that had led them to the truth of that particular matter. But as seemed to be his sudden habit around her, he had been hostile to her instead of being grateful. Again, it had been an affliction of pride that had instigated the behavior. He had been very irritated that she had been able to unearth the betrayal where he had not. Irritated and embarrassed. It did not matter that she was better equipped to get such information from the start, it just mattered that she had been the one to tell his King how poorly he had done his job, however unintentional it may have been.
On top of that, he had not been able to take his eyes off her. She was a breathtaking creature, a beauty one could not help but admit to being unparalleled, even if she was a Lycanthrope. That was saying a great deal, in Elijah’s mind. He knew very well what three centuries of war had done to his perspective concerning her species. He was prejudiced, angry, and unrelentingly unforgiving. So for him to show any appreciation to any of them for any reason was nothing short of a miracle. A miracle, and a total truth. Demon women were very beautiful creatures, inside and out, and there were some that were blindingly attractive, but none he had seen could outshine the Lycanthrope Queen. She was golden, luminescent, and she held herself with all the pride and stubbornness of dignity of her race. He had absolutely no right to be attracted to her on any level, never mind with the ferocity he had experienced. She had turned those enormous eyes on him, meeting his appraisals with an unconcerned air, and Elijah had felt as though she had stolen the very breath from his body with just that single, unblinking look.
It had worsened the day she had joined their forces in battle against the onslaught of human killers at the Battle of Beltane. He had seen Lycanthropes in battle countless times, but he had never once seen anything like her. She was a full-blooded huntress, a warrior of remarkable speed and lethal beauty. She was as merciless as he was, efficient once her mind was set to her purpose. She did not hesitate or shy from the kill. In fact, she reveled in it. And so she should. The necromancers had deserved their fate. They had harmed and destroyed innocents, some of them her own people, and retribution was the only acceptable punishment.
Elijah remembered smelling the scent of the hunt on her, the blood of her prey, and the adrenaline of her victory. He remembered that moment vividly because he had never known such a fast and hard reaction of arousal as he had in that singular, unbelievable instant. His blood had been high and hot, the lust and delight of justice riding him like a wicked mistress, and then those golden eyes of a woman warrior fresh from her victims’ throats had skimmed over his body like a siren’s touch. It was as if her hands had run over his naked flesh, determined and skilled and just as bold as she was when she hunted anything else.
Then she had spoken to him, completely oblivious of how she had affected him, and made a statement that had haunted him almost day and night for the months since she had uttered it.
He had spoken briefly of his mistrust of her, a knee-jerk reaction to the confusion pounding through his mind, and she had responded.
“I would think you an utter fool if you did not doubt me, warrior. Instead, I am forced to respect your uncommon intelligence. Now what, do you suppose, should I do from there?”
With those words she had proven herself to be the better person. While he clutched his prejudices and hostilities close to heart, she had once more laid down her ideas of peace and a desire to respect him for exactly what he was. She had humbled him by humbling herself, and he could not forget it.
She had shamed him, angered him, aroused him, and confused him, a deluge of emotions so powerful he didn’t even recognize them as his own at first. It had been exactly the same less than an hour ago. She had done it to him all over again, but this time he had been at a disadvantage. In his confusion and weakness in that moment when she had been beneath him, oh so beautiful and so incredibly lush, Elijah had allowed her to see what he had spent these many months hiding from everyone, including himself.
Siena was an audacious creature, self-assured to a fault and almost cocky in her attitude toward things that would have given anyone else a healthy dose of fear. She never had to second-guess herself, and certainly would not show it if she did. So her silence after his callous treatment of her disturbed him on very deep levels. He did not imagine her sulking in some simpering, feminine way, the ways that had made it easy for him to discard some of his past female acquaintances.
No.
This was the silence of a female predator who was nurturing a pride of her own, trying for all she was worth to remind herself of the greater purpose she served so she wouldn’t give in to an urge to break his fool neck. He was forced to remember the self-control she had used as he’d had his hand wrapped around her soft, vulnerable throat. She had not even made a sound when he had inadvertently burned her.
Elijah knew he was notorious to her people as a legendary slaughterer of men, women, and children. Of course, the worst of the stories were quite exaggerated, as happened in the case of the differing perspectives of a war. But for her to be so still, so quiet, when he’d had the upper hand? Resisting every instinct he realized must have been screaming at her, trying to force her to protect herself, to strike back, had to have been an act of remarkable inner strength. And one of utter devotion to the cause of peace that she seemed to serve so adamantly.
Elijah rubbed at the ache in his healing chest as he mulled over that piece of information. He was no stranger to powerful women, but this one was exceptional. Unnervingly so. He was not supposed to think in these ways about her. To respect her in any other way than as a worthy opponent was a dangerous pastime. She could be his enemy by this time tomorrow. Lycanthropes chose their friends and enemies just that quickly, and as randomly. One day war, the next peace, then vacillation back to brutal war.
The warrior felt the edges of the coarse bandage that was sealing the wound on his chest and he looked down. Immediately his heartbeat quickened when he saw the telltale coil of hair that was helping him heal. When he shot his gaze back to her, she was looking at him with a resigned expectancy.
“What have you done?” he asked hoarsely, his body trembling with the outrage surging through him so violently, so suddenly.
“I had no choice, warrior. I am sorry for that, but not sorry for saving your life. At least, not yet.” She gave him another one of those saucy smirks, her golden eyes flashing with challenging amusement.
“I do not find any humor in this,” he said darkly. “You have tainted me with your blood!”
“I have healed you with it,” she countered sharply, her hands curling into offended fists. “You and your narrow ideas! Thank the Goddess Noah had the sense to send Gideon to teach me your ways, warrior, because if he had sent you I would have had you executed by the second morning! My blood is no more or less tainted than yours is, Demon. Though I’m sure I can produce just as many pigheaded, prejudiced people from my own species that would say yours is utterly diseased. I had hoped you were slightly smarter than those superstitious simpletons.” She seemed to be laughing at him even in her resignation over his character. “Are you poisoned? Rotting away? Are parts of you that weren’t furred before suddenly becoming so?” Again, that twisting of her lips, reminding him that she had taken quite a detailed accounting of his entire body during his unconscious state. “Trust me, Demon, you are no more or less an animal than you were when this began.”
With that veiled insult, she marched out of the room with her broom. He heard her swearing softly in a Russian dialect as she went, being dubiously polite enough to make sure she added some from his own ancient language so he would be quite certain to understand her meaning. It made his ears burn with renewed embarrassment at himself. Hadn’t he just told himself to quit being an ungrateful ass? Yet, somehow