Elijah

Book 3: Nightwalkers

by Jacquelyn Frank

Genres: Fantasy Romance

Synopsis

Some feelings you just can't fight.



He is known as the Warrior Captain-a master of every weapon, a fierce soldier sworn to protect his kind. Powerful, relentless, merciless, Elijah has always won every battle he's ever taken on-until now. Ambushed by necromancers, he is left for dead only to be discovered by the woman who could very well deliver the final blow: Siena, the Lycanthrope Queen.



With three centuries of warring, little more than a decade of uneasy peace has existed between the Lycanthropes and Elijah's people. Now, after a lifetime of suspicion, the warrior in Elijah is consumed with a different battle-winning Siena's heart by giving her pleasure beyond all boundaries. What starts as attraction and arousal soon burns into a passion with consequences that will echo through the ages for both their people. And as would-be enemies become inseparable lovers, another threat approaches, one with the power to destroy them all.

Release date: January 1, 2008

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

Whosoever wishes to know the fate of Demonkind must consult these prophecies…

…as magic once more threatens the time, as the peace of the Demon yaws toward insanity…

…it will come to pass that in this great age things will return to the focus of purity that Demonkind must always strive for. Here will come the meaning and purpose of our strictest laws, that no uncorrupted human shall be harmed, that peaceful coexistence between races shall become paramount…

—Excerpts from The Lost Demon Prophecy

…it is therefore forbidden for any of Demonkind to mate with creatures who are not their equals, not of their nature, not of their strength and power. Those lesser creatures are ours to protect from ourselves, not to be violated in impure sexual abomination. This is the law and the will of nature. The dog does not lie with the cat; the cat does not lie with the mouse. Whosoever breaks this sacred trust must suffer under the hand of the law…

—Excerpts from The Original Scroll of Destruction

Elijah fell to his knees, clutching at his chest as warmth spread between his fingers, staining them and his white shirt a bright crimson. He looked down at the blossoming picture of his life’s essence spreading over the material, almost with the fascination given to the sprawling, artistic circlets of a tie-dyed shirt.

The warrior Demon was astounded.

He had been injured repeatedly over his centuries-long lifetime. He was certainly no stranger to it. Everything from mystical electricity to wicked blades made of the brutal, burning iron that was so toxic to his kind had cut into him in one way or another over the ages. Some wounds had been serious enough to leave scars in spite of his remarkable innate healing powers, some had not. But never had he been injured in a way he would consider a truly mortal wound. Mortal to others was not mortal to him. Mortal to the average Demon was also not mortal to him, if only because of his stubborn refusal to succumb to something so passé as death.

However, in this case it was not simply because a hole was torn through his chest and very near the vital workings of his heart that his life was threatened, but because he was in the middle of nowhere, too weak to call for help, and surrounded back and front by enemies. Even if he could somehow find the stamina to survive this rending intrusion into his body, these enemies would not let him live any longer than they wanted him to.

Elijah was immediately furious with himself for ending up in this predicament. He was Captain of the Demon warriors, the elite army at the beck and call of the great Demon King. He was the most skilled fighter of all Demonkind, a Nightwalker race renowned for its awesome abilities in battle. He had lived all the centuries of his life honing his craft, learning everything there was to know about battle, war, and the weapons and strategy required for success in those situations. Jacob, the Demon Enforcer, and his liege lord, Noah, the Demon King, were the only ones he would have considered his equals in battle prowess. He was not supposed to be so stupid as to fall into even the best laid traps, nor capable of being bested once caught by said trap.

Even without training, at their hearts all Demons were essentially battle-ready beasts. He believed that—it was a personal philosophy—and he strongly felt that no matter how heavy the veneer of civilization within their race, or within the individual, there were instincts that could not ever be denied. Sure, Demons looked human, although taller and tanner than average, but they were considered extraordinarily attractive when in human circles. Elijah knew this was because the elemental and animal genetics within them allowed for heightened pheromones that called out to the opposite sex, a predatory sense of awareness that exuded attractive danger, and the extraordinary eyes behind which settled extraordinary cunning and intelligence. All the qualities of natural-born hunters, always seething just beneath the surface, waiting for someone to make themselves prey. Demons were capable of behaviors as untamed as the elements they claimed their great powers from, behaviors they had embraced and integrated into every skill they cultivated in their long lifetimes, making them formidable opponents to those who managed to get on their distant bad sides.

Thus, even the most juvenile of fledglings could have avoided his current predicament, the warrior thought crossly to himself. So to be caught like this, like a weakling mouse in a trap, was shameful and enraging. How had the act of doing his duty suddenly turned on him? He was the Warrior Captain, the stalker of all Nightwalkers with a price on their head, those who were not of the Demon race who had committed egregious acts and sins against the Demon people, a direct challenge and insult to the Demon King. He was the specialist in all those species, an anthropological strategist. If anyone wanted to know the true ways of how to destroy Vampires, Lycanthropes, and most every other Nightwalker species, Elijah would be the best source of information. War and peace were, unfortunately, transient things, and it was his duty to be prepared for all possibilities, in case friends became enemies or enemies threatened friends.

Elijah fought off a passing cloak of dimming consciousness and the spinning of his immediate surroundings. It was he alone who belonged at the head of his monarch’s armies when needed, and he who must train the spies and assassins who would slink through the cloaking shadows in the face of threatening intrigue. Therefore, he knew everything anyone could currently discover about the humans who dabbled in the perverse arts of black magic. The same kind who stood around him that very moment, circling him like vultures awaiting the end to a victim’s final death throes.

The use of this corrupt power turned these foolish human men and women into necromancers, staining their souls with the inky dye of evil and embedding a stench so foul into their flesh that no Nightwalker with a clean soul could bear to breathe the odor of it. They were powerful, capable of growing even more so the more they studied and practiced their vile arts, but they were not powerful enough to capture him, never mind kill him. No, only his stupidity could have provided that opportunity to them.

He must have looked like a holiday turkey, breaking through the tree line and stepping into their trap, necromancers all around, as well as the human hunters who spent time chasing down myths so they could torture and kill them. Mortals who took it upon themselves to not only uncover the existence and locations of the hidden Nightwalker races, but made it their personal quest to eradicate them from the planet armed with little more than myth, legend, and ignorance.

Demons were one of the least exposed Nightwalkers in human mythos, but species like the Vampires and the Lycanthropes were not so lucky. Stories of them abounded, whether accurate or not, titillating the avid hunter into stalking them, looking for proof and personal vindication, occasionally getting lucky in their bloodthirsty quests. For the hunter, it was a victory, a mental trophy. Mental only. The body of a dead Nightwalker would often look very little different from that of a murdered human being, so it was not exactly one of those treasures a hunter could mount on his wall and tell stories about. At least, not to anyone outside of his own secret society of deranged heroes.

It was becoming far too common an occurrence lately, finding the ashes of Vampires left staked in the sun, Lycanthropes shot and stabbed with the silver weapons that poisoned them, and even Demons impaled by weapons made of scorching, disfiguring iron. That was, of course, when the Demons were not instead being Summoned into the mutilating destruction of the necromancers’ tainted pentagram traps. Murder upon senseless murder, and between these two groups of humans, the list of victims would go on.

It was a painful betrayal. Demons had always held human mortals in such precious esteem, much in the way a parent protects its young, developing child. They and the other civilized Nightwalkers fiercely protected these humans, perhaps instinctively knowing that though they were not empowered themselves, left to grow and develop, they might someday become so. It would be a beautiful evolution to watch in the centuries to come. Though Demonkind knew it was only a comparative handful of mortals who sought to harm them, it still stung bitterly. And now, with hunters and necromancers joining forces, the danger had doubled for them all.

Tripled, the warrior thought dryly.

Elijah knew he was close to death in that moment, with that thought. The warrior within him would never indulge in reflection during a battle that required all of his attention. But this battle was all but over, so it left him a few precious seconds to reconcile the thoughts in his head. It seemed ironic that these badly informed humans, who sought to destroy the empowered races they so thoroughly feared, would not feel threatened by the black magic they now consorted with. What, Elijah wondered, in their minds, was the distinction? What made a Demon, born and gifted of the clean and beauteous elements of the Earth, so reprehensible to these humans? And yet, the embalming of evil magic that bled through necromancers was suddenly being lauded and accepted by the very same self-righteous groups?

Was it as simple as the fact that the average human mortal was too outbred, in evolutionary sixth sense particularly, to feel or smell that innate evil? Were they really such a child race that they did not have the instinct to determine good from evil, right from wrong, on a purely intuitive level? Certainly, the moment they stepped on the path, there would be no recognition of the error as they were pervaded and overrun, but was there no forewarning at all within them?

These were answers Elijah did not have and, it seemed, would not find in what was left of his lifetime. After over five centuries, thousands of battles, and thousands of victories, it seemed Elijah’s so-called immortality was about to come to a decided end. He had finally caught the wrong tiger by the tail.

Or should he say tigress?

Elijah lifted dark, forest green eyes, full of malice and contempt, to his attackers, who were all standing so proudly in their defeat of him. The hunters and necromancers surrounding him were all women, part of an all-female sect the Demons had recently become aware of. What burned his emotions with the intensity of a wildfire, however, was the presence of the two female Demons standing at the forefront of these murderous feminine forces.

Traitors.

The Demon on the right, the one known to him as Ruth, was a very powerful Mind Demon. In fact, she had been the firstborn female to that youthful element, which had existed in the Demon culture for only a little over five hundred years. She was an Elder, formerly a Great Council member, who had helped form the very roots of Demon society and law over many, many years. The magnitude of her defection was immeasurable. Elijah could barely wrap his mind around the concept.

Though she was the older of the two, her youthful appearance matched that of her daughter, the one called Mary, who stood close to her. Since Demons did not visually age beyond a certain point, the duo looked more like sisters. However, Ruth had an arm around her offspring’s waist and was stroking the young woman’s hair with a maternal fondness that belied the fact that Mary was nearly a century old herself. It was eerily unnatural and must, even to these human eyes all around them, seem more than a little creepy. Perhaps it would have, had those eyes not been blinded by hatred and fear.

It was the inconceivable idea that both women were of Elijah’s very own race, turncoats openly joining up with these malevolent magic-users and self-righteous human hunters, that burned him with such unholy rage. Of course, with even more irony, Elijah understood that none of the mortals realized that these two women were members of the very same race they were now declaring war on with this attack upon him. None of them knew Ruth’s motivations were driven by her personal need for warped and misdirected vengeance and that they were merely tools, a weapon she could wield against her former people.

To the mortals, she was nothing more than a beautiful, knowledgeable human woman. A gifted sorceress, perhaps, if she had shown them her masterful ability to command certain aspects of the element of the Mind. It was this Demon deceiver and her daughter who were goading the humans into battles against victims the mortals never would have found with such awful ease and so little effort. Every day Ruth stood on the opposite of that line drawn in the sand by these paranoid and misguided people, she would reveal more and more to them about the Demon race. It would not be long before she carefully gave them the means to destroy those she had once called friends. Beyond that lay every other Nightwalker race, innocent or not, who would be threatened by Ruth’s centuries of knowledge.

All that mattered to the humans was their fear of the unknown, terror of creatures whose power so outstripped even their wildest imaginations, making them quake with the conviction that it was only a matter of time before these night-living races fell upon the human race as myth and legend had predicted over and over again. It did not matter that, if they had wanted to, any Nightwalker race could have done so thousands of times over the last millennium alone.

Bitterly, Elijah felt that even if someone gave them the truth, they would still only expect the worst of all Nightwalkers because they were under the sway of stubborn prejudice and fear. The only thought that comforted Elijah in that moment was that his death would rouse a retaliation from the oldest and most powerful of his kind, and it would very likely be the end of this insurrection of evil.

“Spawn!” Ruth hissed the epithet with wicked delight, fueling the bloodlust of the women around him. “Devil in the guise of a human!” She smiled and said softly, “Elijah, the mighty Warrior Captain.” Ruth laughed, the sound deceptively beautiful as she leaned forward to peer at him, her voice low so others could not hear her familiarity with him. “Noah’s little pet pit bull, felled by mere women. I know your thoughts, Wind Demon. There will be no vengeance in your name. They will never find anything of you by the time we are through.”

Ruth straightened, tossing back a length of luxurious blond hair, smiling serenely. She kissed her precious child’s cheek, if one could call a fledgling Demon of almost ninety years of age a child, making Mary smile with a fawning affection that turned Elijah’s stomach. But a child she was, compared to the adults and Elders of her kind, and even compared to other fledglings her age. Though she had the beauty and the body of a full-grown woman, she was a little girl at heart and in mind, completely under the sway of her overprotective, smothering parent.

Why had none of them noticed Ruth’s detachment from her senses? As a Mind Demon, Ruth had no doubt blocked that awareness from other skilled Demons of the Mind. Why had no one ever insisted on separating the child from the unhealthy and domineering behavior of the mother? Because it wasn’t their way to gainsay a parent’s right to raise her child as she saw fit? Now their entire society would live with these errors and their consequences, just as Elijah would die because of them.

Too little, too late, he thought, with genuine sadness for the path the Demon females were choosing. Both were now spoiled, rotting beneath the breathless guise of their outer beauty. He didn’t need his genetically enhanced sense of smell to catch the vile odor of corruption eddying off their tanned flesh.

Elijah fell forward, putting out a hand to try and brace himself and keep his face out of the dirt. Hopeless situation or not, he would not be remembered as being too easy a kill. His pride would not let him make that kind of an end. There were slain opponents sprawled in the dirt behind the considerably lessened circle that attested to his ferocity as he had tried to save his own life. Women or no, anyone who sought to murder him deserved what they got.

He was aware of the others closing in around him. The stench of the dark magic that clung to the human sorceresses was overwhelming and unbearable. Energy crackled all around him as they played with their power. Blue arcs of electricity wriggled between them, almost like a macabre game of monkey in the middle. Elijah’s mouth pressed into a grim line as he understood what it meant to be the monkey in this particular case.

The first bolt that leapt from the ring of women struck him in his spine, jolting him into a hard backward arch, his arms jerking to his sides, stretching the muscles of his broad chest and forcing blood to pour out of his wound. The flow came so heavy, so fast, that he felt the gushing heat of it drenching him right down the front of his clothing, the denim of his jeans saturating completely in all of an instant.

He felt light-headed, dizzy, and strangely distant as the next bolt forced him to contort in another direction. He could smell the burning of his own flesh, amazed that it overpowered the reek of the magic-users. He tried to change, to find solace in the form of the wind he was so much a part of. If only he had the strength to metamorphose into even the littlest of breezes, they would no longer be able to harm him. But the time had passed for that. He had misjudged his situation and was now too wounded and too weak to concentrate on even the simplest of transformations.

He cursed himself for being such a fool, for walking into this feminine trap. He had been the one warning all others that no one was safe so long as the defectors, Ruth and Mary, were at large and stirring up unrest in the underbelly of the human populace. Had he not been telling them for the past half year, since they had first realized the traitors’ betrayal, that anyone could be a victim of the duo’s intimate knowledge of the Demons, their individual importance, their power? Ruth, her dementia disguised as maternal love for a wounded daughter, knew so many names, so many facts. Indeed, she could lead these murderesses to each and every member of the Great Council.

He would be but the first, Elijah realized, frustrated rage burning a second hole in his chest. Next would come the Enforcers, Gideon the Ancient medic, or perhaps Noah, the Demon King himself. And he would not be there to do his duty and protect them. Elijah thought about Jacob and Isabella, the Enforcers, who were the brand-new parents of a beautiful daughter who had her mother’s silky black hair and her father’s serious dark eyes.

The Warrior Captain had been chosen to be one of the two who, besides her parents, would attend her naming ceremony. To be one of only two Demons in all this world to be given the honor of standing up as the angelic babe’s Siddah. It was the most precious distinction one friend could give to another. Near her sixteenth year, he would have begun the Fostering of the child, taking her into his home as if she were his own. He would have taught her the ways and morals of their people, guiding her as she learned how to use and control whatever great power she would be gifted with. This responsibility would be shared with only one other person, the child’s female Siddah. In this case, Magdelegna, the King’s own sister.

Thinking of Legna brought him an even deeper pain. She was with child herself, about five months into term, and safe under the watchful eyes of her mate, Gideon. But what future would there be for both these innocents? Being hunted down? Destroyed? Treated like nothing more significant than the stray fly that needs a good, hard killing swat? Elijah grieved for the babes, blaming himself for not doing a better job of keeping himself safe and strong so that he could be their protector.

The warrior felt blackness creeping across him, but it was as much from understanding that he had failed his people and his monarch as it was from the deadly loss of blood. He heard feminine laughter, contorted into an ugliness of killer joy, a sound no woman should ever make in her natural state, be she Nightwalker or human.

Elijah finally collapsed, rolling onto his back in the grass until he was trying to focus on the stars above him. He was distantly aware of the wicked women toying with him, sending sadistically playful bolts of power through him. The black sky blurred into streaks of light and dark. The warmth of his blood seeped into the dried leaves and grasses beneath him. He had been calling the weather to him since he had been but thirteen years old. What he would not give in that moment for the simplicity of a rain shower. A final act of defiance, soaking the ground so any electricity sent into him would lash back onto his murderers.

But he would not be able to have that last act of retribution. He had known infants stronger than he was in that moment. All he had left were his thoughts. He did not care if Ruth could read his emotions, possibly even his thoughts at her Elder age, though that was usually a talent found only in the males of her type. She was corrupted by her fractured mind and all the evil magic poisoning those she had decided to associate with. Usually, unexpected power came with such malignant associations.

No. All Elijah cared about was the nature of the world he was going to leave behind him. To never again blow over miles and miles of untouched mountains and virgin beaches as the wind. To never wash himself and the world anew as the rain. To never drift slowly from heaven to earth with the random meanderings of snowflakes. To forever be deprived of the joy of these things made his heart rebel with despair and outrage. He opened his mouth to roar with the rage striking through him, but was beyond creating any sound. He forced himself to be satisfied with the screaming of his soul.

To his wonder, Elijah heard the scream echo in the distance.

It was a wild, savage thing. Unbelievably beautiful, and making him shiver as it vibrated across his nerves. He was succumbing to his own internal night, but the scream was repeated and he found himself fighting to hear it, to understand what it meant. The cold of his body was replaced with an inexplicable flush of heat and he felt his senses trying to return to him, to work for him, trying with every last available cell to hold on to that primal and stunning sound.

But he was too close to his death. With frustration clawing through him, he succumbed.

The catamount screamed across the expanse of the forest meadow, making the circle of women forget their dying prey as inexplicable fear coursed through them. Humans were born with instincts like any other species, and they knew as surely as they knew their names that it was not wise for them to remain in the path of the beast that made such a sound. It did not matter that they were a power unto themselves. Nothing could circumvent that inbred terror of prey fearing a predator.

The necromancers backed away, eyes wide and magic blossoming forth as they began to levitate from the ground, hoping height would provide a sense of safety they simply could not feel with both feet on the ground. When it was still not enough, they could only ease their panicking hearts with a full retreat, flying away and above the trees, fleeing for home or any place they associated as being one of true safety.

Some of the female hunters were lucky enough to be remembered by the fleeing necromancers and were levitated into retreat with them. Those who were not so lucky took to heel and bolted wildly into the tree line, taking only a minute before they were nothing but an amusing, distancing sound of crashing underbrush.

The Demon females were not so easily affected. The younger one was a Demon of the Earth. The creatures of nature were hers to empathize with and control. Though she was just a fledgling, weak compared to the great Elders of her kind, charming animals was a rudimentary skill. She reached out with her mind, trying to touch the thoughts of the approaching predator. Her fair brow furrowed in confusion, though, when the puma proved unusually unreceptive to her coaxing thoughts. The great golden cat broke through the tree line, stalking through the deep grasses in a hunting circle, the rotation of her shoulder blades as she walked both mesmerizing and frightening, her golden eyes fixed on the two females who yet remained in the clearing.

The cat could scent the massive amounts of blood spilled upon the ground. The scent called deeply to the animal’s basest instincts. It attracted the catamount with an almost singular lure. Usually she would have avoided approaching other predators, but that blood scent was too powerful to resist. She stalked closer and closer, making the young blond Demon break a sweat as she struggled to touch the animal mind so thoroughly hazed over with the delights of blood scent.

“Mama, I cannot reach it. It will not listen to me.”

“Never mind. We are done here.”

Ruth tightened her hold on her child, and with a snap of displaced air, the two Demon females teleported to safety.

The great golden cat raised her head, stopping mid-step, testing the air as the stench of the invading women faded. The bloodied body lying in the center of the clearing was the only remaining scent of any strength, and the cat began to advance on the hapless victim.

She was so close to the unconscious creature, she could touch her muzzle to him. She did so, testing his scent. Under the blood was the unmistakable musk of maleness. It was a rich, heady thing, eliciting a speculative purr from the beautiful cat. She lowered her head to the largest of wounds, her tongue lapping roughly over the sweet tang of his blood. Her purr deepened, and the lioness opened her powerful jaws, closing them over the male’s throat. All it would take was a single snap and she would finish him.

Suddenly the cat retreated, shaking her golden head as if coming out of a spell. She shook again, like a dog trying to shed water. As she shook, her fur began to peel away, stripping off in long coils until, with a final shudder, the beast became a woman, dressed only in a gold and moonstone collar and foot upon foot of long, golden hair.

Siena, marked by that richly appointed collar as the Queen of the Lycanthropes, took in a deep, calming breath, trying to ignore the urgent craving that tasting the male’s blood had inspired in her. She knew this Demon, knew his name and his import to the Demon King. But she also knew that Demon blood was like nothing else in the world. It was rich and full of the power they possessed. However, though she was sometimes more beast than woman, she did not need blood to survive as the Vampires did. She was the most powerful of all her people, and this was a craving she could overcome.

If only there were not so much of it invading her senses.

But she needed to think more clearly, needed to act. As she knelt in the deep grasses trying to control her baser nature, the Demon warrior known to her as Elijah lay dying—nearly dead, in fact. It was a startling sight. She had battled beside this warrior a mere six months ago, knew his skill and power and undeniable strength. How had one such as he come to this?

Siena reached out with a tentative hand, her fingers threading through long golden locks not too unlike her own, though his were a whiter blond than her more purely filigree-colored hair, and only shoulder length where hers covered her entire torso. It was her hair that she reached for next, pulling one long tress between her teeth, her canines rending through the inch-thick coil of silken gold. The lock curled around her wrist and forearm, as if unwilling to leave the body it had been cleaved from. She tossed back her head, ignoring the droplets of blood that sprinkled from the torn ends of the severed strands that yet remained attached to her scalp. She leaned over the Demon, pushing open the once-fine silk shirt he wore, licking her full lips slowly as she took the coil of golden hair and let it curl like a braided carpet, around and around, until it covered the wound in its entirety.

Blood immediately seeped into the gold filaments, blending with the droplets already welling out of their severed ends. The wound instantly began to coagulate, the hair turning into a red and gold bandage that stayed fast to the gaping hole, plugging it quite effectively.

She could do nothing about his blood loss at the moment and could not leave him where he was lest his attackers decide to return and finish him off. His breathing was so shallow, so weak, that if not for her keen hearing she would not have been able to mark it. Luckily, she knew these woods well and could find some excellent shelter. Then she would see what she could do to aid him.

What the Demon was doing in Lycanthrope territory would be something to discover at a later date. Right now, she had to get him away from the approaching dawn. Though sunlight did not char either of their species with the agonizing pain and the promise of death in the way it did Vampires, it was no friend to any Nightwalker race. For Demons, its effect was like that on the nocturnal cat, making them feel fat, lazy, and lethargic. Many Demons actually loved the invading warmth of the sun, finding the daylight to be the best time to succumb to comfort and sleep. Unfortunately, this reaction was often an involuntary one, making them desire nothing but sleep to the point of distinct vulnerability. In this case, any further weakness caused by the light could depress the warrior’s autonomic systems completely, finishing the task his attackers had begun.

For the Lycanthrope, it was a little bit more hostile. A changeling became ill in the bright light of day, a literal version of sun poisoning. Since they were a species inherently guided by moon phases, it seemed to make sense that the sun would feel unnatural to them. Being part cat herself, Siena was doubly inclined to remain active in the dark of night when she was most powerful, and to find rest and shelter out of the reach of daylight when she was susceptible to its effects. She did enjoy a higher resistance to the sun than most if she kept mostly to the shade, but it was not something she enjoyed doing.

Siena needed to decide the best and shortest route to reach where she would be able to care for him, and the best way to get them both to that place of concealment. Her people were too far to travel to, and she sensed none but herself in the area. It would be a good choice to find aid, a place where she would find a little assistance in his care, but it was not a logical option given the clear urgency of the situation. The ideal alternative of taking him to his own people, well, that was an even farther-fetched possibility considering they were even farther away than her people were. Besides, the most renowned Demon healer in all of the world was at her court at the moment.

The warrior was not a slim man. He was built in every way a warrior needed to be built to maintain his strength and prowess. The Captain of such warriors…well, he was of a most impressive stature, to say the least. Though Siena was tall and quite strong in her own right, his biceps could very well be larger than her muscular thighs.

The distance from help worried her most because the warrior needed medical aid and she doubted she would be able to give him anything near what he would require. He was an entirely different species and probably not as receptive to Lycanthropic ways of healing. It could very well be the equivalent of giving a human patient to the care of a veterinarian. The veterinarian medic could be at the height of his expertise, but even his best care could do more harm than good.

Her people had been at war with the warrior’s race far longer than they had been at peace with them. Their knowledge of Demon anatomy was fairly limited, and even that information was restricted to which vital organ would make for the quickest death. With peace only fourteen years old between their races, who would have thought to trade medical knowledge? As it was, they had only recently traded ambassadors.

The Queen rose to her feet, her form lengthening into a proud and Amazonian stature. Nude, as she was at present, or fully clothed, there would never be a doubt as to her sex. She was golden skinned and lushly curved in spite of the obvious cut of her muscular, fit body. She was a huntress and warrior in her own right, a proud and pure Diana, and it radiated from every inch of her. However, the contradiction of a head full of thick, golden, spiraling curls that tumbled down to the middle of h. . .