Damien (35 page)

Jasmine streaked toward the battling women just as Ruth turned on Syreena with a cry of enormous fury. Syreena had struck first blood, and it seriously affected Ruth’s self-image of invulnerability. Ruth screamed out a spell, fueled by the power of her rage, and the entire forest exploded with a blast of percussion that centered from the Demon’s position. Syreena was struck full-on by the blast, as was Jasmine, and both women were catapulted back through the air before they slammed into trees. Too stunned to get her wings under her, Syreena plummeted to the forest floor with a mighty crash and a kickback of debris that clouded around her for a few fluttering moments.

Jasmine, however, did not need wings to keep buoyant. She recovered quickly because she had no breath to get knocked out of her. Stunning pain could be put aside for the moment, even though she was certain she had cracked a couple of ribs at impact.

Her immediate problem was how to shut Ruth up. As long as she could speak, they would never gain an upper hand. Her spells were too unfamiliar, unexpected and indefensible.
But
, Jasmine thought wickedly,
she cannot cast spells if she gets her tongue ripped out.

Logically, she knew she would never get that close. She had to come up with an alternative.

Meanwhile, Damien and Nico had also been thrown by the magical blast, sending them rolling and skidding across the ground, each getting torn, punctured, and battered along the way. This time, Nico managed to gain the upper position over Damien. He pinned the monarch to the ground with the sheer power of his enormous weight, strong legs, and the deadly grip of his hand over the Prince’s throat. He reached for his dagger now that he had a better target. But as he stabbed for Damien’s heart, the Prince threw a forearm up and there was a clang as metal clashed with metal.

Nico tried to press through to Damien’s flesh, through the leather of the jacket he wore, but it was as though the Prince’s skin were made of steel. It was when he withdrew for a second strike, the action slicing away a strip of leather, that the gleam of the poniard up the Prince’s sleeve showed itself.

“Tricky, tricky,” Nico said breathlessly.

Nico realized that hand to hand was not going to give him an advantage over Damien, especially since the Prince had concealed weapons on his person.

The traitorous Vampire had not had much time to learn spells, not the way Ruth knew them, but there were some like the ensnarement spell that he had focused on because of their tactical usefulness in a fight. Since the Prince was on the ground, it made sense to use the advantage to try again. Now that Nico was on top of him, changing form would be too dangerous for the Prince.

Nico went to speak the spell that would trap Damien helplessly beneath him and his ready blade.

Syreena could not breathe for a long moment. Her lungs simply would not work as she knelt on her hands and knees on the forest floor. Finally she coughed and inhaled, her lungs expanding against bruised and battered ribs. She struggled to gain her feet, whipping around to try and seek her enemy even before she could straighten up completely.

What she could see was Jasmine. The Vampire was streaking toward a target. From her position, Syreena could not see what it was. On impact, she had reverted to human form. She hesitated as she tried to decide which winged creature would be best for the moment, when a loud clang of metal rang from just behind the grove of trees she had crashed into. She whirled and leaned around the nearest tree trunk. She saw Nico’s blade gleam in the moonlight as he withdrew for a second attempt at her mate’s heart. Then he thought better of it and she heard him utter a singular phrase in a language foreign even to her.

Roots sprang up from the ground around Damien, whipping out to lash him about the legs and throat, pinning and strangling him at once. Syreena felt immediate rage flood over her, and Ruth was completely forgotten. She flew with all speed from her hiding place as Nico reached back to plunge his dagger into her mate’s exposed breast.

Damien felt her coming, a speedball of charcoal hair and violent protective instinct. She struck his enemy with the force of her full weight. It was enough to move even a mountain of a man such as Nico. She tackled him clean off Damien’s body, and the two went tumbling off into leaf litter and underbrush. Damien immediately began to strain against his bonds of nature, using all of his strength as roots began to snap under the stress, one by one. Flat to the ground as he was, he felt like Gulliver, tied fast by thousands of Lilliputian ropes. When enough snapped loose to free a limb, the spell immediately revived and lashed him back down again. The trees around him began to list dangerously in his direction as their root system was torn away, altered and pulled out from under them.

Meanwhile, Nico was learning the true definition of a well-trained Monk of The Pride. As she had struck him, Syreena had reached for his blade and neatly disarmed him as her surprise strike tumbled them away from Damien. Without preamble, the moment they slid to a stop with Syreena pressing a knee into the Vampire’s throat on one side and groin on the other, she reached with both hands to commit to her strike.

The Vampire’s dagger sank into his flesh, cracked explosively through bone and through his heart.

Nico roared with pain and outrage as she once again stabbed him through that vital organ. The Vampire could not believe she had gotten him a second time. This time, however, it was much worse. She was able to withdraw the blade, unplugging the hole she had made, her updrawn arc spraying his blood across her thighs, breasts, and face. Before he could react, she was plunging into him again. Her eyes were wide and wild, her lips curled into a feminine snarl of wrath, and her hair swung in a dark gray cloud with her movements. She withdrew again, coming away with even more blood this time as the force of her weight, strike, and his contortions sent it spurting up over her.

It was all Nico could do to finally stop the chopping descent of her hands before she struck him yet again. She slammed into the catch of his hands instead of his chest, and it seemed to only infuriate her further. She struggled against his strength, which, in spite of his deadly injuries, was still quite enough to overpower her. He threw her off him with a powerful pivot of his body, sending her tumbling over. He tried to seal the gushing wounds on his chest with his palm as he scrambled to his knees and lunged after her. She had rolled up onto her feet, the bloody dagger still clutched in her small but clearly capable hand.

Jasmine diverted away from Ruth, perplexing the Demon for a moment. Then the Mind Demon realized that Jasmine’s nature was far too much like her own for Damien’s good. As long as Ruth did not threaten her directly, the Vampire would not be likely to risk her own neck for any purpose that was not solely her own. It was clear how much Jasmine hated Damien’s new mate. Why would she come to the Princess’s rescue?

Ruth teleported, appearing by Damien’s side. Seeing that the struggling Prince was no threat at the moment, and not wanting to risk Jasmine’s focus, she popped out and in again, this time appearing beside her injured partner and the Lycanthrope who had seriously wounded him.

“At least I will have you,” the Demon murmured with eager delight and intent.

As Nico was lunging for the Lycanthrope, Ruth reached to grab her by the hair that was as great a weakness, as it was her one true strength.

To the shock of both enemies, they passed through their intended targets, crashing hard against each other instead in a tangle of clothing and limbs. Ruth cursed Nico; Nico cursed Ruth, shoving her violently away as he tried to find the quick little minx who had somehow managed to elude them both.

When Ruth and Nico both finally located Syreena, they were shocked to see her standing side by side with the Vampire Prince, not ten feet away from them.

“Impossible!” Ruth hissed.

“It’s a trick! An illusion,” Nico growled.

“
Impossible
!” the Mind Demon insisted.

“Clearly not,” Damien remarked dryly.

Ruth struggled to her feet, making to lunge for the couple that had outfoxed even her considerable mental powers. She had barely managed to make it to her full height when her hair was grabbed violently from behind, tearing out in painful clumps, her head jerked back so hard it nearly sent her back to the ground.

Ruth screamed in pain.

Jasmine slapped her other hand over Ruth’s mouth, the thick handful of pasty mud she had mined from the nearest puddle filling the orifice thickly, sealing off all sound and ability to speak.

Damien reached for the poniard up his sleeve, and he and Syreena advanced on Nico with clear menace. Realizing he was outnumbered and too wounded to make an impact if he continued fighting, Nico closed his eyes and promptly disappeared in a roiling cloud of smoke.

“Damn him!”

“Teleportation!”

“Apparently, Ruth figured out how to share her power with him,” Jasmine said dryly. “Did you not, dearest?” she asked, jerking the suffocating woman back against her body by her hair. “You would not want to tell me where my book is, would you?”

Jasmine looked up at Damien and Syreena with a flashing smile that was brilliant and surprisingly pretty. “Oops. That’s right. Speak no evil.” Jasmine wiggled one of the fingers sealed over Ruth’s mouth, forcing her to keep the paste of mud within her lips.

“Do we kill her, or take her to Noah?” Damien asked.

“Kill her. Kill her before she can—”

Jasmine’s words and figure were lost in a sudden explosion of thick black smoke. The cloud roiled up from between her arms as Ruth disappeared from her grasp. Damien and Syreena heard the Vampire woman scream with outrage and frustration as the smoke cleared to show her stomping her foot in fury, her hands empty of her prisoner.

Damien and Syreena exchanged a look and a sigh.

“Nico,” they said in unison.

For the most part, the mission had been a victorious one, even though Jasmine was still grousing over losing her captive. Syreena, however, knew that they had been the first in a long time to best Ruth to the point of nearly capturing her. And that was with the added threat of Nico included. It was something to feel very proud of, in spite of the undesirable outcome. She sensed clearly that Damien felt the same way. That did not change the fact that they were about to have a very difficult discussion.

Syreena sat on the bed where they had completed the Exchange only the night before. Damien walked into the room with a clean bowl of water, clean cloths, and bandaging materials.

“Scoot.”

Syreena obeyed, sliding aside so he could sit beside her. He placed the bowl on the night table, then, after wetting a cloth, turned to face her. He reached to cleanse one of the many cuts on her back, urging her to turn so he could better see.

He was silent for several long minutes before speaking.

“You have every right to be angry with me. In spite of everything I said, I do know that,” he said quietly. “I let Jasmine convince me too easily into doing what we did. I was itching for a fight because of Kelsey’s death and the idea of a Vampire joining ranks with Ruth. I am not an idiot, but I suppose to you, I was acting like one.”

She felt him lean forward and give her bare shoulder what felt like an apologetic kiss. “I don’t care if you are an idiot, Damien. I do care that you broke a promise only a few hours old. I have given you my complete trust in so many things and asked little in return, and the first time—”

“I know. I know,” he interrupted her with a fierce whisper. “It was bad of me. And worse to place fault in your lap. I was just taken off guard and I was afraid for your safety. Jas and I could go undetected, but I knew the minute I sensed that you were close…”

“And that, perhaps, was bad of me. It was certainly foolish. I know I could have gotten us all killed.”

There was quiet again as he gently cleansed her wounds. They were superficial, and she would heal by the next evening, but he wanted to tend to her in this way. It was part apology, part concern, and even a part gratitude. She had proven herself valiantly against enemies who had both bested her once before and had been a great source of fear and rattled confidence since. She was quite possibly the bravest creature he had ever met, and it made him quite proud to have her next to him.

When he finally set aside the cloth he had used on her, she immediately reached for another and turned toward him with expectant intent. He obediently shrugged out of his jacket and loosened his shirt. When he peeled back the dark blue fabric, he exposed numerous bleeding lacerations, but more importantly, ring after ring of livid bruising.

“Damien,” she breathed in obvious despair as she reached to touch light fingertips to the discoloration. The ensnarement spell had been powerful, and the roots of the trees had strangled him from head to toe. The damage looked profound and probably felt worse. “I am so sorry.”

“It will heal in a day or two.” He smiled at her. “It is worth it, because I now know who the Vampire is. I could not tell from a distance. In a way, you helped us find out exactly what we wanted to. You lured them out into the open.”

“Yes, well, I have come up with better plans.”

“Yet they were probably less effective,” he chuckled.

“It is not very funny,” she said, reaching to cleanse a particularly nasty abrasion on his shoulder. “It was a mess and we were lucky to get out relatively unscathed.”

“About that,” he said suddenly, reaching to stop her ministrations by catching her wrist. “Would you mind telling me how you managed to trick Nico and Ruth into thinking you were somewhere you were not?”

“I…” She gave a distinct blink of her dark eyes. “I don’t really know. I just had this instinct…”

“An instinct to cast an illusion of yourself while you escaped his target area.” Damien let a corner of his mouth curl into a smile. “Well, well. I think we can stop guessing what part of me you are going to achieve. I must say, it was a pretty powerful trick to play on two people of such mental skill. Especially for an amateur.”