Gideon. Jacquelyn Frank

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СКАЧАТЬ good fortune Bella had found in her love for Jacob the Enforcer. “There has not been an Imprinting in our society in almost…well, frankly, I do not think I can remember when. I, for one, always used to think it was a fairy tale little girls were told. This was before I understood Mother and Father were Imprinted. I wish I had…I wish I could remember what you do. I wish I could remember the depths with which they loved one another. You make it sound so beautiful, and now that I watch Jacob and Isabella, how passionately they love, I wish it even more.”

      “Well,” Noah chuckled, “little boys were told these fairy tales as well, but I think we tended to concentrate on the part about it being the most outstanding sexual experience known to exist in the world.”

      “Noah!” Legna gave him a little shove as she scolded him. But she broke into giggles in spite of herself. “I think I might have thought about that once or twice myself. Take heart. Two Imprintings in a single week last October bodes well for you, my brother.”

      “One can only hope,” Noah said with a lecherous wink that compelled his sister to cluck her tongue at him and roll her eyes in exasperation.

      “You are incorrigible! And you wonder where your nieces and nephews get it from?”

      Noah laughed, shaking his head. He realized then that Legna had once more found a way to turn the conversation away from herself and onto something entirely different. It had been her habit for as long as he could remember. Legna never discussed herself, her empathic nature always urging her to put her needs and emotions aside in order to assist others.

      “Your point is well taken, sweet. I am beyond redemption and it is no wonder none will have me. In any event, I myself am far too busy to run around trying to find a Demon or Druid who suits me, no matter how tempting the rewards. Besides, all the courting nonsense, the emotions and sensitivity…We shall leave such things to the Enforcers. Simpering and sonnets suit them far better than they do me.”

      Legna elbowed her brother in the ribs as punishment for his irreverent referral to Jacob and Isabella. Before Isabella, Jacob had been a lonely man, his soul aching to be accepted and cared for to balance out the stigma of his position as the one who enforced the laws on his own kind. So used to being held in contempt, as a necessary evil, Jacob had only discovered true happiness the day he had literally caught his Isabella up in his arms. Noah liked to tease Jacob for being “ruined” and “besotted,” but Legna knew her brother was happy for the Enforcers. Happier still, now that they would provide an addition to their race within a year, the first child born of a Druid and Demon mating in over a millennium.

      Sometimes, though, Legna could not escape the feeling that Noah teased too brightly and tried too hard for wit with his disparagements of the Imprinting. She was an empath, she was his sister, and she had eyes in her head. Legna could see what he did not think she did, what he thought he guarded so carefully from her. She had seen the many times when the Enforcers were guests in their home, when Bella and Jacob sat with their dark heads bent together with so much love and sensuality of need for each other, and how gray-green eyes so like her own had watched them covetously.

      “Well, I for one would be well pleased to see you so ‘afflicted’ as Jacob is,” she teased with warm neutrality, giving him a classic smile of beautiful mischief. “But for now, you have reminded me of an appointment I am late for.” Legna stood on her toes to buss her brother on the cheek. “You look tired and ought to nap.”

      “I am not an old man in need of naps in the middle of the night,” Noah retorted indignantly. “The moon is only just come high.”

      “Suit yourself, Noah. It was only a suggestion. Forgive me for bruising your delicate ego.” She was mocking him, stepping several feet back and spreading her arms wide as she curtsied low and reverently, with all the grace she had earned through her Demon genetics. The next moment, with a flourish of a wrist, she exploded into a soft cloud of smoke and sulfur, teleporting away before Noah had any hope of retorting to her impish behavior.

      “Brat!” he shouted to the high ceilings after her, even though he was pretty certain she couldn’t hear him.

      He stepped toward the fireplace, starting a blaze within it with the merest whisper of thought, and sat down in his favorite chair.

      “A nap indeed,” he muttered under his breath. “I can give or take energy with the snap of a finger!” he announced proudly to the empty room. “I do not require sleep in the middle of the night like some babe. I will teach that girl a lesson in respect one of these days.”

      The thought was interrupted when he yawned ferociously. Catching himself doing so, he loosed a sheepish laugh. Glancing around quickly, sealing off his home with a few spare thoughts, he settled back deeper into his chair and allowed himself the luxury of closing his eyes.

      Chapter 2

      Isabella turned and looked over her shoulder when she felt the air pressure in the room change with a distinct pop. She instantly knew who her guest was, even before the smoke had cleared. Bella cried out happily, dropping her watering can onto the window shelf and flinging herself through the remaining mist of sulfur to hug her newly arrived friend.

      “Legna!”

      “Bella, it is so good to see you,” Legna greeted her happily, hugging the petite Druid carefully in order to avoid squashing her rounded belly. They were acting as though they had not seen each other in ages, rather than a week. It was probably because Bella was so happy to see another woman that she was projecting it enough to affect the sensitive empath. Sometimes Legna got swept up in others’ enthusiasms, and she did not mind. It was one of the better emotions to get caught up in.

      Isabella laughed, pulling back to look at her friend, tossing back her heavy head of pitch-black hair, the tresses gleaming like raven’s feathers as they immediately snaked down the length of the Druid’s spine. Isabella barely reached Legna’s shoulder, so petite compared to the empath, who was very close to being six feet tall. All Demons were tall. Bella often complained that talking to them gave her a crick in her neck, but Legna had noticed Bella’s neck never seemed to hurt when she had to reach for her mate’s kiss.

      “You are such a liar,” Bella accused without zeal. “I look like I am carrying a small basketball under my dress. I’m only five months pregnant and I’m already tired of waddling around.”

      “Well, far be it from me to remind you, but that baby is half Demon. Five months is only a little bit over first trimester, by Demon standards.”

      “Okay, just for reminding me of that, you are no longer my friend. Poof yourself out of here right this minute,” Isabella commanded, her hands on her hips in mock indignity as she glared at the beautiful woman across from her. Magdelegna chuckled, moving with her fluid grace in order to circle the little Druid’s shoulders with a comforting arm. “And,” Bella sighed wistfully as her arm circled Legna’s waist, “you have to go and have a perfect figure on top of it.”

      “Now, now,” Legna soothed and scolded her. “How is Jacob?” she asked, guiding Bella to a comfortable couch in a cozy conversation area near a beautiful window of stained glass picturing the wilds and wildlife of a forest. The empath felt the care that had gone into the piece, saw the detail, and it was all very breathtaking. Moonlight struck through it, sending silvered colors over them as they sat on couches close to but opposite one another.

      “Busy.” Isabella exhaled hard, trying to shove her heavy hair behind her ear with impatient fingers. “I should be helping him. I am supposed to be his partner. It says so in black and white…or…well, actually it’s kind of a grayish beige СКАЧАТЬ