“Aye, ye like sitting spread like that for me. I can smell your sweet honey, lass.” His voice had a husky note, but he kept on, making her more insane. “Even beyond blood and buggering, it seemed he mostly wanted a pack mule, like he said. Nane o’ what he wanted was obvious, though. Not in the beginning.” Niall took a breath.

“When I met Evan, I was married.”

8

NIALL had no idea why he’d said it. Maybe because she was getting more nervous. Her body was responding, but he expected she had no frame of reference for responding to a servant the way she would a vampire. The lass was all about structure. However, typical for a woman, an unexpected bit of knowledge brought her attention back to him.

“Your wife . . . she came with you?”

“No. Here, scoot this way.” He put her in the chair next to him, needing the space for a couple of reasons now. She looked a little disappointed, and he hoped to make that up to her. For now, though, he finished up his breakfast. He liked how she waited on him to gather his thoughts, realizing he needed that pause. Evan was silent as a corpse, suggesting he was dead asleep. Given the sun was well up in a bright blue sky and he’d stayed up longer than he should have done, that was pretty likely.

Leaving the wife question alone, he backtracked. “When Evan and I met, he was just over a hundred. He told me having no servant was like a human not being married at a certain age. Everyone starts tae wonder what’s wrong with ye.”

Female vampires get a little more latitude, because they’re expected to be choosy. Most males are itching to take one by the time they’re fifty, to have the feeding trough close. We tend to be lazy in food and sex. Plus, we go through full servants more quickly in our first century or so. Random fights and typical young man deviltry.

“I thanked him for his honesty,” Niall said dryly. Alanna gave him a polite smile, but he couldn’t tell if she saw the humor in it. “At first he wanted a scout in Scotland, to help him on his scavenger hunts for subject matter. But he was also looking for a lad with hunting and tracking ability, one who could pick up the lay of new terrain swift-like and serve the same purpose in unfamiliar lands.”

He shrugged. “I’ve no doubt there were others, better fed, more educated, who could have done for him, but that’s the why he gave me. He also said if he was going to have a servant about, he preferred the straightforward company o’ a male. At least at that time,” he added quickly, not wanting her to think Evan didn’t welcome having her here. As for Niall’s thoughts on the matter, her soft arse and her biscuits made her well worth the company. He wondered if she had any more of the latter stored in the oven.

“And your wife?” She asked it softly, obviously understanding it might be a tender subject. Since he hadn’t guarded his tongue as he should, he’d pay the fair price for it. That was the danger of women. They opened up things, dug into them.

“I didnae know I was one of Evan’s subjects, weeks before he met me, but I had a prickly feeling on the back o’ my neck during that time. When I told him about it, the feeling matched when he started following me about. A scout’s instinct, he called it, which confirmed his opinion of me.” That initial meeting flashed through his mind, the glen, the deep, cold creek, the touch of Evan’s hard hands, holding him pinned, but he pushed that away.

“A few weeks after we had our proper meeting, I was injured in a battle. It was a mortal wound. Evan carried me from the field, told me what the whole servant thing was about, which of course meant he had to let me know what he was. Said he could try it to save me, but he wasnae going to expend the effort if I wasn’t interested, if I believed he was condemning me to eternal damnation.”

Though Niall was as devout as the next man, that issue hadn’t figured into it. All he could think was Ceana and the two bairns would be left without him. The village was already near starving. Though others would do what they could for them, it wouldn’t be enough. They’d be turned out of the croft, unable to pay the rent. He’d already seen children starve to death in his short life, and he would sell his soul to the Devil to keep it from happening to his own.

“So we struck a bargain. If he could save my life, I’d serve him when my wife passed and the wee ones were grown up and able to care for themselves.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” she murmured, the truth of it reflected by the wonder in her expression. “A servant doesn’t age once they reach their thirties. How did you explain that to your family?”

“It wasnae an issue,” he said shortly.

As he’d already noted, she had a fair intuition. Reaching out, she touched his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Straightforward sympathy, no pity in her gaze. It is what it is. The vampire servant’s creed. At least he understood that much about her. But something about that touch made him keep talking, like a fool.

“Starvation took a lot o’ our young and old, but sickness had its way with those in-between. She was a braw lass, but she couldnae hold against it. My daughter went with her but it spared my son, Eric.” He pushed his chair back. “My brother and his wife . . . they had no children. They helped me raise Eric, and when I saw him handfasted to a lovely lass, I turned over the croft and all that went with it to him. Things were getting summat better, and he had some job prospects in Jamaica with a sugar planter, so I knew he’d be fine. I told him my grief for his ma was giving me the yen tae travel, to seek my life elsewhere. His aunt and uncle were like another Da and Ma to him, so I knew he’d be all right. Back then, if your kin left Scotland, it was likely you wouldnae see him again, though I sent letters. Until there was no need to send them anymore.”

He rose abruptly. “It was a guid breakfast. I’m going to finish up the wood. Next visitors will appreciate it when the snow flies.”

Her fair brow creased, those bonny brown eyes seeing far too much of his heart. “I’m so sorry, Niall. I didn’t mean to raise difficult memories.”

“You’re a guid listener, lass. It makes a man say things better left unsaid. That’s not your fault,” he added at her stricken look. “Anyone who remembers me died a long time ago, and I made sure they didnae suffer from my absence while they lived. That’s all a man can do.” Giving her a nod, he left the cabin.

After the first hundred years, he’d stopped thinking about most of it. It wasn’t until recently, facing his own closing life span, that the ghosts had stirred. A man didn’t fester over these things like a woman did, and probably for this very reason. It left a dull ache in his belly, made the sun seem a little less bright, the crisp breeze more cutting than cooling. Picking up the axe, he twirled it, then brought it down with such strength, he cut a good three inches into the stump itself.

Take the time you need. I know you’ll honor your oath. You’ll feel it when it’s time to come find me.

Niall spent eight years with his family after making his oath to Evan. During that time, the vampire wasn’t wholly absent. He’d recognized his future servant needed to get to know him. Therefore, whenever he was within range of Niall’s mind, he would reach out. After his initial start at the unexpected intrusion, Niall found the vampire good company. He became accustomed to those surreal, long conversations in his head while working the field, seeking scarce game or thatching the roof.

When he was with Ceana or the children, he could sometimes feel Evan there, watching, but the vampire didn’t try to distract him then. Niall even felt an occasional sense of warmth, as if Evan was enjoying a family vicariously through him.

Evan told him about wonders Niall never thought he’d see, and offered him counsel about managing his relationship with the landlord. Thanks to the advice, Niall revealed to the man that he was a good tracker, and earned some extra coin taking the gentry out on their hunts.

Evan had packages delivered to Niall, books about the places where he was, the legends of Norway or history of China. Niall’s reading was rudimentary at best, but he enjoyed the pictures. Evan also sent money. At first, Niall had been reluctant to use it, but a look at the thin faces of his family, and those in worse shape in his village, and he’d gotten beyond that. Evan also chided him for it, reminding him about his oath of service, telling him he would end up earning every cent. Why shouldn’t he use the coin to make things better for as many of them as he could?

To his neighbors, Niall explained he had a distant relative sending him funds from the Colonies. Ceana met Evan on his in-person visits, but she never warmed to the vampire, as if sensing the things that bound Niall to him. Evan treated her with great courtesy and kindness and, except for the circumstances of their initial meeting, he never made another inappropriate move toward Niall during her life span.

It wasn’t all smooth, however. Once, Niall had felt Evan’s presence while he was making love to his wife. He could feel the male’s heated regard through his own eyes as he looked down on Ceana’s heavy breasts and the plump pleasure of her sex, the silky curls wet with her arousal and his seed. He pulled back so abruptly, Ceana blinked at him in confusion.

“I need to take a piss,” he explained. Ignoring the chamber pot, he stalked out into the frigid night in the altogether. You’re no more welcome to be ogling her than any other man. That’s my wife. My wife. She’s nae part of our agreement.

I never said she was. The voice was cool, but amused enough to put Niall’s teeth on edge. I wanted to see how you touch her, how you feel with her. What pleasures you . . . and how you pleasure her. It’s different than when you’re rutting on a male, isn’t it?

I’ve never done that, and ye damn well know it. Now bugger off. I’ll be up at dawn slopping pigs if you want to feel that.

She’s a lovely girl, Niall. You’re a lucky man.

He’d have thought it empty flattery, but by that time he knew vampires never wasted flattery on a human. Ceana looked like an average village girl with a nice figure, unless one noticed the softness of her dark hair, the generous mouth and kindly, thoughtful look to her brown eyes. In the weathered lines of her too-thin face he could see the physical appeal that more food and less difficult childbearing would have lent her.