Evan threaded his hand into his servant’s hair, taking a firm hold as he explored him thoroughly with tongue and fangs, obviously enjoying the taste of him against that dark tapestry of trees waiting for the kiss of dawn.

Waiting for the possibilities of God’s work, for the sadness of endings. For the ephemeral and yet eternal nature of it all. That’s what affects your wame, neshama. The forest will be here long after both of us, but this moment will be part of the impressions that linger here, that an artist will sense, even if he hasn’t witnessed it firsthand. Our passion will guide the brush.

“You asked what I see,” Evan murmured, at last pulling back. Niall realized he was gripping the male’s shoulder in one hand, a lifeline. “I see your soul, Niall. That is what I see.”

It was their first kiss.

So aye, he kent well what Alanna was saying. Vampires had a peculiar obsession with the human soul, particularly their servant’s.

The first time Evan had seen a camera, a huge piece of machinery with a cover in the back, Niall had thought the vampire was going to dismantle it right there to figure it out. It still surprised him when Evan experienced the same wonder at a new invention that a human would have. He expected vampires to reach the point where nothing seemed new or different, but that never happened with Evan. In fact, Niall was far more likely to react with jaded cynicism than his Master.

Coming back to their present-day surroundings, Niall saw Alanna leaning back on her arms, tilting her face up to the moonlight.

The spirit endures through the physical, no matter how time has decayed and destroyed the original vision. Reaching out, he touched her bare throat. When she stilled, registering the questing nature of his caress, he stroked down that graceful line to her sternum, tracing the curve of her right breast under her rib cage. He remembered how he’d quivered under Evan’s touch, understood when she did so now. He’d grown up since then, and understood even better the feeling that swelled in his chest in response to it, the desire to take what she was unconsciously offering. Instead he rose, leaning over her. He caught a brief glimpse of the deep brown eyes, the dark rings around the irises that made them even more compelling, before he brushed his lips over her forehead and straightened. Pressing his hand into her shoulder, he left her, seeking a higher spot to take a nap. The fragrance of her skin, her hair, would be pleasant company in his dreams.

Alanna turned to watch Niall go, her skin still tingling along the track his fingers had made. When he stretched out on the grassy knoll to the left of Evan, forming the center point of a narrow triangle of space between the three of them, she shifted her attention to Evan. The vampire didn’t react to his servant’s familiarity with her. However, she agreed with Niall’s warning. There was something about Evan, even when he wasn’t looking in her direction or Niall’s, that made her certain the vampire was aware of every move and thought they had.

Niall’s sexual caress made her feel uncomfortable, but only because she wasn’t sure how to classify it. She sighed. What did it matter? Even now Lord Daegan was hunting Stephen. She could be in the middle of deciphering her precious structure and rules, and drop dead. Her heart did a funny jump, as if she could feel it getting ready to explode in her chest, supposedly what happened when a vampire Master was staked. She knew better than to think about this.

Alanna, do you paint?

She looked toward the vampire. “I can sketch. I was taught the basic arts.”

Come up here then.

She rose, moving up the slope. Following a compulsion, she deviated from her track enough to stop where Niall reclined. As she stepped over him, he cracked his eyelids and gave her an absent half smile. Bending, she studiously brushed away a cadre of bread crumbs caught in the stubble of his hard jaw. Satisfied, she straightened, leaving him with a curious look on his face as she quickened her pace to make up for the delay.

Evan was using quick brushstrokes on the clean canvas to mock up a subject. As she came to stand beside him, she saw a rough but excellent rendering of Niall’s profile. The one the vampire had pulled off the easel and propped at its base was a study of the sky, nothing but moonlight and stars. As she bent to take a closer look, she saw the shadows of the mountains and something else . . . something in flight above them. Perhaps a bird, dragon . . . or even a man, arms flung out against the darkness.

Evan drew her attention to the upper canvas. “I started the face, and thought you might want to fill in the details, draw out the torso.”

She hesitated. “For what purpose . . . Evan?”

“I’d like to see you do it.” He proffered the brush.

Taking it, she considered Niall. Whether by the direction of his Master or some other reason, he was propped on his elbows, but still in a half doze.

She was tempted to respond to the command as she would any other task, focused primarily on precision and response time, being ready for the next order. Yet when Evan painted or took pictures, he took time before pressing the button, or making the first slash of paint. He was reaching for something else, something deeper.

You’re on to it, Alanna. Keep following that.

She gave a slight nod. Despite Evan’s teasing, Niall was far from ugly. No vampire’s servant was ugly, and they didn’t age. Even so, there was a weathered, rugged look to Niall’s face, lines that gave it depth. She could see the trained focus of a scout’s eyes, even now when they seemed deceptively unfocused and lazy. His mouth had a capable intent to it that made a woman think of his possibilities as both protector and lover. The solid jawline complemented it. He was power, strength, steadiness . . . and stillness. He’d teased her, tried to play with her. The laugh lines around his mouth and eyes said it wasn’t artifice, but there was something else that became obvious when his face was at rest like this. Something deep . . . painful . . . magnetic.

His gaze shifted then, focusing on her face, and it clicked. They were both servants, both knowing what that meant. He knew all about the hunger and need, the inarticulate wanting . . . the sorrow and disappointment. The rage.

As surprising as that was, what startled her was realizing she was more like him than she was like the other Inherited Servants. None of them had understood, sympathized or cared. That wasn’t their job, though, so that wasn’t supposed to bother her.

She’d stepped back, clutching the brush hard against her chest. When Evan’s hands settled on her shoulders, she almost wrenched away. Recalling herself in time, she went wooden, holding it all in. Evan’s hands withdrew, leaving her standing on her own, all that energy pulsing around her. “I . . . ah . . .”

“Take a few breaths. When you’re ready, paint.”

She wanted to put slashes of red, black, brown on that canvas. A reflection of something else, not someone’s face. The colors of a soul.

“If that’s what you see . . .” Evan shifted behind her once more. When he touched her waist, a gentle pressure, she found herself doing as she’d wanted to do before. She leaned into his body as he closed his hand over hers. Lifting it with the brush toward the rough rendering of Niall’s face, she knew she couldn’t do it. Her hand was trembling, fingers clutched hard on the wooden stem.

“You’re overthinking it. Take your mind out of the equation. If you were a portrait artist working on commission, it wouldn’t matter. Most patrons don’t want you to paint their soul. They want you to get rid of those unsightly pounds, the wart on their nose, the blemishes.”

She drew a shaky breath at the warmth of his tone. His body was also warm. Warm and solid behind hers, his other hand sliding around her waist to hold her more firmly against him, make it clear he wanted her to lean, to press her backside against him. “See that hump of a nose, broken one too many times? The patron would want that straightened . . .”

“This patron wants it documented. You were responsible for one of those breaks, after all,” Niall commented.

“You had it coming.”

“That’s what all the wife-beaters say.”

She drew in a breath as Evan, ignoring him, bent to kiss her throat, nudging past the braid. His tongue traced her major artery as her blood pressure ramped up. Her fingers tightened on the brush. “All the lines around his eyes would be gone,” Evan continued, breath heated on her skin. “You’d leave or create ones that make him look serene and wise, handsome. We do the best with what we’ve been given, and the good thing about painting is you can take artistic license.”

She steadied, pulled from the storm by the calm, matter-of-fact explanation. When her gaze went back to Niall, the Scot crossed his eyes.

Her lips twitched. He saw it, his own curving, eyes warming to enhance all that character in his face. It told her everything was okay. She was allowed to feel whatever she was feeling.

She couldn’t trust such an unlikely message. The very fact the thought had crossed her mind was enough to knock the floor out of her world. Her feelings weren’t safe at all. That’s how she’d arrived at this point, wasn’t it?

“I don’t want to ruin what you’ve already started.” She recognized the desperate tone in her voice, struggled to dispel it.

“It’s just a practice canvas. Here, look.” Evan took the brush, made a smiley face in one corner, then turned it into a vampire cartoon face with slashed downward eyebrows and two points jutting from the curved mouth for fangs. Paint whatever you like. It doesn’t have to be Niall.

Shifting away from her, Evan picked up his other in-process canvas and started to work on it on the other easel, leaving her to her own devices. In the meantime, Niall sat up. Taking out a whittling knife, he began to shape a fallen branch. She blanched, realizing he was sharpening it into a wooden stake. As always, Evan seemed unconcerned. They really were an odd pair.

Testing the brush’s movement, she executed a smooth glide along the side of the canvas, below the smiley face. Evan had offered a second palette and a selection of tubed colors. She mixed some muted earth tones, experimented to come up with crimson and different shades of blue. Using a toothpick-sized brush, she dotted dark blue in the depths of the brown eyes Evan had created for Niall. Using her fingers and earth tones, she sketched out Niall’s reclining body, giving more definition to the braced arms, the long thighs.