Gideon

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Legna, I do not need to explain to you the difficulties we all experience during the Hallowed moons. Especially the Samhain moon. I never meant to cause you pain. I have always been disturbed by my lack of control that night.”

  “Oh, I am sure you have,” Legna hissed, fighting back the embarrassing sting of tears that threatened to overwhelm her. “How awful it must have been for you to realize you had defiled your wondrous ancientness with the kiss of an infant.”

  Legna pulled herself out of his hold, turning her back on him violently as the back of her hand tried to press back the sound of pain brewing behind her trembling lips. She lost her battle with her tears, shamed to feel them skid down her flushed cheeks.

  They had barely spoken of that night—a mere nine years back—mostly because Legna could hardly stay in the same room with Gideon for more than five minutes at a time. But much of their gap in communication was because Gideon had been in a self-imposed exile for the past eight years, driven there by his shame over having stalked a human female and being forced to face the humiliating justice of the Enforcer as a result. The incident with the human female had taken place the very next Samhain moon after the one that had caused the rift between Legna and Gideon. To Legna it had only served to add insult to injury, forcing a shameful pain upon her that magnified that of the original encounter.

  And she remembered that night, that moon, the entire incident as keenly as if it had happened five minutes ago.

  She had been restless that particular full moon, much in the way she had been feeling only recently. But as expected, on that Hallowed night it was intensified a thousandfold. She had been pacing the gardens, chilled by the clouds that drifted over the bright moon, waiting impatiently for Noah to emerge from Council. She had been hoping he would somehow be able to distract her, keep her from going stir-crazy. But as she had wandered the distant mazes of sculpted bushes, it was Gideon she had stumbled across. She had been surprised, not having sensed him at all. What was more, Council was in session and he was one of the Triumvirate, one of the three most powerful voices at the Council table.

  He had stood there, his face turned up to the moon, as if he were a wolf ready to bay in worship of it. His powerful body was locked rigidly in place, every muscle flexed, tensed to react to whatever came across his path. Legna’s senses had suddenly flared to life, no longer unaware of his presence, and she was overwhelmed with the emotions abruptly radiating off the usually serene Ancient. He was holding a rash of wild impulses barely in check, his need crashing over her like a violent tide, making her gasp aloud in shock from the force of it.

  Gideon had turned then, the speed of the movement barely perceptible to her vision. She suddenly, breathlessly, found herself being dwarfed by his presence, his power, and his remarkably vital body. She had no hope of erecting her usual safeguards against such a potent influence. It was far too late in any event. His raw emotions had long since taken over hers. She became a mirror for them, making them hers in a way she hadn’t even thought herself capable of.

  “Magdelegna.”

  He spoke her name with a low, predatory sound to his voice. She even heard the guttural growl of contemplation he loosed beneath his breath. It called to Legna’s primitive restlessness of that night. She had narrowed her eyes, taking his measure very slowly, unaware of how inviting and sensual an act it was.

  Gideon easily saw the rush of her blood as her pulse quickened. He saw her skin flush with awareness in her erogenous zones as she devoured his imposing frame with fearlessness and blatant curiosity. She had stepped closer to him, a soft undulation of her long, feminine body, making him realize that she was only about six inches shorter than he was. It placed her proportionately close to scale against him, and he knew instantly how well she would fit his body if only he closed the small gap that remained between them. Her scent had carried on the still night air, overwhelming the crisp autumn odors all around them with her special perfume of sweet spices and a nectar of ghosting feminine musk from her obviously provoked body.

  Gideon had been enthralled by the uniqueness of that scent, his head lowering slightly as he drew a deep breath to bring the bouquet of her beauty deep into his lungs. In the blink of an eye, his hand shot out and seized her by the nape of her neck, jerking her forward toward him so hard that she felt their breastbones collide. She was tall, but Gideon had to lower his head to close the distance between their faces just the same. He held her still, not allowing her to turn her head in any direction he did not wish it to turn. He bent his silvered head until his nose brushed the curve of her swanlike neck.

  Legna felt the rush of his breath against that sensitive portion of her skin, unable to resist the shiver that shuddered through her and the impulsive purr that vibrated over her vocal cords. Her senses were bludgeoned with the fierce sharpening of arousal that rocked through the powerful male who held her so possessively. It was safe to say that, as an empath, she had experienced much of this emotion over her centuries from others as they had indulged in passions of the flesh, but she had never felt anything like this in all of her life. She had never even conceived of such overwhelming intensity.

  He had wrapped her hair up in his fist, bringing the silky mass to his lips and rubbing it against them slowly, all the while boring into her soul with the hot ice stare of his eyes.

  “Magdelegna,” Gideon said again, her name a command on his tongue.

  She felt him move aggressively against her, making her very aware of his physical response to her closeness. She felt liquid heat slither throughout her entire body just from the understanding of her effect on him, the heated sap coiling into intriguing puddles of arousal in equally intriguing places.

  “I could make you feel in ways no female has ever dreamed of feeling,” he had promised her, his smooth voice so perfect and so hypnotic with its low, beckoning pitch, creating a whirlpool of desire deep in her soul as his free hand slid to the curve of her waist, moving boldly to the arch of her lower back. It was as if they already knew each other with perfect intimacy, from thought to movement, from feel to touch, from male to female.

  Legna’s breath came quicker as he aggressively appraised her, his gaze like melting wax, scalding her everywhere it touched her. His fingers came forward over her rib cage, fanning out until each had found a fit in the spaces between the flexible, curved ribs. His thumb slipped under the weight of her breast, slyly stroking the sensitive flesh in a way that shimmered right through her. She gasped softly, her head falling back until her throat was fully exposed to him. He released her hair immediately, his hand covering the alluring expanse she’d provided, his fingers greedily absorbing the vibrations of the low sounds of invitation she made. Then his fingers were moving aside and his lips touched her in their place. His breath was a potent heat against her skin, making her shiver as her flesh exploded in goose bumps all the way from her neck to her heels. His mouth was masculine magic, his lips stroking her in prelude to the damp questing of his tongue.

  Her mouth began to ache with the desire to capture the taste and feel of him, her lips tingling and flushed full of blood in a broadcast to him of her need. His mouth came to hers suddenly, hovering above those thirsting lips as he drilled her with the intensity of his mercury gaze.

  “Neliss…” he murmured, reverting to the elegance of their ancient language. “Neliss ent desita.”

  Beauty of the ages.

  His mouth touched on hers at last, and she welcomed him with an eager sound of encouragement. White lightning sensation bolted through her, making her taut and weak all at once, bending her back in his hold as he insistently sought her compliance. His lips were sensual against hers, exploring with purposeful tempo, gentle, searching yet not aggressive. Legna thought a little dazedly that she had expected him to be a little harsher in his impatience. She could feel tempestuous emotions radiating from him like the brilliant moonlight at his back. However, the thorough nature of the kiss was very much in character for him. Thoughtful, met
hodical, and full of supreme confidence as he slowly examined every fine detail of her lips alone. When his tongue touched her lips for the first time, it was a slow stroke along her bottom lip that was like the caress of moist, sensual velvet. Her mouth opened slightly to allow an erotic sound of feminine pleasure to escape on a softly exhaled breath.

  For the first time, her eyes slid closed, sparing her the penetrating heat of molten silver, even if it had been from under half-mast lashes. He saw so deeply inside of her, wanted to see so deeply inside of her, and it was as if she were already naked beneath his command of her. His hand against her ribs burned with his body heat, just as the rest of him did, marking her with the intense impression along all the surfaces of her skin.

  When she made that aching sound of pleasure, Gideon finally breached her mouth, his tongue slipping past her parted lips, tangling with hers instantly. Her hands came up, her slim fingers sliding along his back, up to his shoulders, finally holding him there with the strength of a butterfly but the power of a Titan. Her touch alone made him groan softly against her, but added to that was the taste of her, so warm and sweet, like sun-warmed nectar, and he was but a bee driven by instinct to drink deeply of her. She hardened him, like liquid metal plunged into water, and it was an eroticism and a weighted agony to feel it. It had been so long since he had craved a woman in any fashion at all, Hallowed moons be damned. Sexual need was one thing, a bodily thing, and a physiological function that he could control better than any other Demon since control of the Body had been his one true mastery for a millennium. Needing Legna was something else entirely, an entity not within his realm of puppeteering.

  To Legna, his kiss was yet another perfect reflection of Gideon. Bold, unapologetic, and brutally honest. His entire being radiated his hunger into her, his aroused body moving purposefully against her flushed and pliant one. He allowed her to feel his cravings, to feel the way she expanded his need, and to feel the pleasurable pain of his heavily hardened body as his hips rubbed against her. Then the curiosity and method of his kiss began to stutter in its smooth, controlled feel. He was tripping over the aggressive demands of his Demon nature. She could feel it as he began to devour her with increasing intensity, the surge of the base, animal nature that was such an elemental part of them all. This was her craving. She could not bear a moment more of his gentleness. The burn of the moon was within her, begging for more. Demanding it.

  So she played him, played his senses with every feminine trick in the book. She moaned, low and erotic, into his mouth, allowing her feelings to overwhelm her until the single sound duplicated, then chained into soft gasps of aching pleasure. Her hands pulled around to his chest, sliding up to his shoulders, finally diving deeply into the silver hair along the back of his head. She returned his kiss just as assertively as he gave it, refusing to be the only haven for their joined tongues. She reached for the back of his head, holding him to her as she delved deep into his mouth for a richer taste of him.

  His response was volatile, his hands grasping the back of her rib cage and hauling her completely off her feet and further into him. Her sensitized breasts were crushed into the hard wall of his chest, her flat belly in completely flush contact with the ridges of his taut abdomen. Her hips were cradled against his, his poorly restrained erection pressing urgently against her. The world began to swing away from her in a dizzying vortex of feeling and she was completely lost to emotion and sensation. His kiss went on and on, bordering on brutality, as if he had crossed a desert bereft of physical contact and she had suddenly become his only oasis. Legna would not realize then how accurate the metaphor floating through her mind actually was.

  It was in that moment, on the heels of that thought, that Gideon had suddenly broken away from her, shoving her back away from him so hard that she nearly fell onto her backside. He had cursed richly, using a term she wasn’t sure she knew the full meaning of, but could certainly feel its intent. She had been too overwhelmed by her abruptly bereft feelings to make any sense of it. Confusion rushed through her as she tried to comprehend what he was doing.

  He swore again, condemning himself, berating her.

  “This is madness,” he had uttered hoarsely, his hand striking through his hair in a rare expression of disturbed emotion. “You are a child! A child! I am stronger than this. I will not give in to this ridiculous impulse of madness. I refuse!”

  And before she was finished hearing the words, he had turned and fled with the preternatural speed of a creature with perfect control over anything he wanted his body to do.

  She had been left bereft, insulted, and humiliated beyond words. She had collapsed to the ground, too shocked to even cry, his words ringing brutally against her feminine pride, her delicate ego. And after that, the very next year, he had chased down a woman not even of the same species, stopping only because Jacob had battled him away from the unsuspecting creature.

  So no, she had never forgiven him. And until this moment, she had never wept from the injury he had visited upon her.

  Gideon watched her closely, knowing she was upset, unable to figure out how to proceed. He was not at all skilled in handling a woman’s sensitive emotions. He was not a Mind Demon, after all. He was aware that he had handled the original situation poorly, but he had always been at a loss to figure out how to repair the damage, so he had hoped it would fade with time and things would revert to their normal state. It was an error in thinking that, faced with it as he was at that moment, felt almost as sharp to him as the acts he had committed so arrogantly during the Druidic war. He had made grievous mistakes then, and clearly had done so now as well. One would think that a thousand years would provide enough information to circumvent such errors, but apparently they had not.

  Gideon moved closer to her, and Legna could feel his body heat against her back. It always amazed her that the Ancient Demon seemed to radiate an almost humanlike heat in spite of the fact that Demon body temperature was normally five degrees lower than that of the mortals. She felt the intensity clearly, however, and it only served to unsettle her further.

  “I wish for you to leave,” she said tightly, not looking at anything but the artistry of the garden outside her window. The dawn had come, tingeing the sky rose and orange, its soft colors reflecting off every shiny leaf of every tree in sight. She should have been in bed, settling in for the day, relaxing and drifting into dreams that had nothing to do with pain or humiliating tears.

  “I will not leave, Magdelegna.”

  Legna winced inwardly, wishing he would stop using her full call name as he did. It reminded her too clearly of the compelling timbre he had used to beckon her to him all those years ago.

  “Fine,” she said bitterly, “you can feel free to stay.”

  She lifted her hand, moving it in the familiar twist that helped her to focus on directing herself to her target. Before she could begin the teleport, the medic had hold of her wrist, locking it tightly in his grip. Legna glared at the elegant fingers circling her hand and finally turned to face the owner of the offending appendage.

  “As usual, you are determined to have your way regardless of my feelings, Gideon,” she accused sharply. “You are cruel and insensitive. You have no reason for detaining me, and I have no desire to be in your company. Remove yourself,” she threatened coldly, “or I will call on my brother and the Enforcers to do it for you.”

  “Your suppositions are inaccurate, Legna. I have very good reason for detaining you.” The Ancient relaxed his hold on her wrist a little, allowing their hands to fall, still linked, between them. Legna knew, however, that it would only take an instant for him to tighten his grasp should she even think about freeing herself. “Reasons, I suspect, you would not care to share widely with others, including your friends, the Enforcers.”

  “You are uttering nonsense,” Legna snorted. “I have nothing to hide.”

  “Oh, no?” One silver brow lifted in warning, barely giving Legna a moment to step back from him, trying to press hersel
f as far back into the stony window frame as she could. The Demon followed the retreat with ease, his body a mere whisper away from touching hers. “Legna,” he murmured softly by her ear, his breath washing down her neck, giving her a heated chill. “I can see what you try to hide from us. I see the power within you that you pretend not to have. I see things that you probably do not even know about yourself. You have changed much in this one short decade, and yet you choose to perform below your aptitude. Perhaps,” he murmured softly, an absent hand pushing her hair back gently from the ear he was engaging, “your brother might like to know why his sister behaves the way she does. I know I am quite curious.”

  “Have I ever mentioned how much I despise you?” Legna hissed out, trying not to notice the peculiar swirls of heat in her body that answered to the stimulation of his touch against her skin. “If you wish to extract intelligence, hire a detective.”

  “I have always preferred to get my information directly from the best source,” he told her, his eyes traveling down the long length of her body once more. It unnerved her whenever he did that. She knew it was nothing more than an assessment, a medical scan, and that he was probably taking her measure in the purely biological ways of a medic, but the quicksilver weight of his gaze always left her feeling heavy and exposed in very feminine places.

  “If I answer your questions,” she relented at last, all fears put aside as the overwhelming desire to put him at a distance flared wildly into her consciousness, “will you leave me alone?”

  “I am afraid that will depend upon the answers, Legna.”

  “But you will maintain my confidentiality?” she persisted, her eyes dark with suspicion.

  “I had thought we had already discussed my bindings to my ethics.”

  “You never answer me directly!” she snapped at him. “You talk in obscurities so that you can later take an action and fit your words to suit your needs. You are bound to medic ethics, Gideon, but I know full well you are also bound to the Council’s ethics. If a conflict should arise, it is the Council ethics you will honor above all else.”