“A bonny lass named Ainsley,” he said. “She was eleven and I was twelve, fancying myself quite a man. Until she had me behind her croft. When she put her wee hands on my shoulders and pressed her lips against mine, I near fainted. I lost my balance, grabbed her waist, and toppled us both in the mud, which is where her two older brothers found us. They thrashed me within an inch o’ my life and sent me home with my tail between my legs. But Ainsley smiled at me behind their backs. She always kept a sweet spot for me, since I was her first kiss as well.”

She looked down, hiding her smile again. “I can’t imagine anyone thrashing you.”

“Well, I was scrawny as Evan then. Hadn’t hit my growth spurt.”

“Do you remember it so vividly? The things that happened long ago?”

“Aye. Of late.” Her head rose at the briefness of the answer. He was staring into space. “It’s odd, how that goes. The far past becomes more vivid, whereas the recent things become less remarkable, no matter how remarkable they truly were. Until Evan, I had little knowledge of anything beyond my own small world, but reading about the history you’ve lived, a lot of it is pure bollocks. Kings and politics. The things a man truly remembers and history forgets are home and family. That first kiss.” A faint smile touched his lips.

When he was done with his meal, Niall went to wash off with the outside spigot while Alanna considered the task he’d left her. She intended to attack the slides right after doing the dishes, but the spigot was outside the window, the distraction of it slowing her task at the sink. Niall had stripped off his shirt to splash water along his chest. He dunked his head in a bucket, straightening to toss his hair out of his eyes, smooth it back with his hands. Realizing he hadn’t taken a towel, she went back to his bedroom and found one. When she came outside with it, he met her at the door.

“You’re a handy thing to have around,” he admitted. “Or were ye just worrit I’d drip on the floor looking for one?”

As he flashed a grin at her, he took the towel and stepped back in the yard. When he covered his head with it, vigorously rubbing, she was caught by the beautiful play of muscle on his upper body. She wanted to reach out, touch, so instead she hurried back inside. How many times today was she going to be reminded how her control was slipping, how low she was sinking in the InhServ standards? Perhaps Stephen was just the catalyst for a weakness that had been there all along.

The rest of the day, she worked on the slides. Niall stacked wood, repaired a few other things around the house, settled in to read newspapers he’d bought from Henry. When the trapdoor opened right after sunset, Alanna felt a loosening in her chest, anticipation at seeing their Master.

As she turned toward the vampire, there was no sign of the earlier lethargy. In fact, he had a rather determined spark in his eye, a set to his jaw that Alanna wasn’t sure how to interpret. Niall rose, so she looked to him for cues, but he had an inscrutable expression, giving her nothing.

“Good evening, Master. Can I—”

She bit back a startled noise as Evan caught her chin, jerking it up so that he brought her to her feet. “Alanna, what did I expressly tell you not to do?”

“Not to . . . devalue myself.”

“What have you done today, except find yourself lacking?”

Her flesh warmed under his hand. “I apologize, Master. I will do better.”

“Yes, you will. A punishment will help your memory. Niall?”

Evan didn’t even glance at his servant. He strode past Niall and picked up the canvas, easel and paint supplies the Scot had set by the door. As he left the cabin, Alanna looked toward Niall, who was considering Evan’s back, but then he moved across the cabin, gripped her wrist.

“Come with me, lass. Best get it over with.”

Niall swung her up on his shoulder, clamping a hand on her backside as he moved toward the door with strides as purposeful as Evan’s. “I can walk,” she protested. “I don’t plan on avoiding punishment, Niall.”

“Better if ye dinnae see this one coming.”

He crossed the front yard. She had a brief glimpse of Evan, setting up his canvas, his back to them both. What did he want Niall to do—

A moment later she was airborne. Though she managed not to shriek during that part, it was impossible not to do it when she landed with a resounding splash in the creek. A frigid mountain creek that drove the breath from her like a thousand daggers through the flesh, especially since she dropped below the waterline like a cannonball before she floundered up, gasping.

“Over here, lass. I’ll give ye a hand out.”

She paddled that way, the chill making it hard to coordinate her movements. She was desperately glad for the warmth of his hand, wished she could curl up inside it. Her hair was dripping, clothes clinging to her in a most unpleasant manner.

“You’re lucky it’s a first offense,” Niall observed. “For a second or third, he’ll make ye stay in there for about fifteen minutes. Turns your balls blue.”

He hauled her out. Once he had her on her feet, he kept her wrist manacled in his, and guided her back up the hill. Evan was at the picnic table, sketchbook before him. Because she was so disoriented, Niall put out a hand to make her stop a few feet away, so she wouldn’t drip on it.

“I’m s-sorry, M-master. What more can I d-do t-to p-p-please you?”

“Nothing.” His tone was indifferent, almost bored. “I require nothing from someone like you.”

10

THE distinction brought her head up. “Excuse me, sir?”

Though it was an effort, given he could hear her teeth chattering, Evan ignored her for several moments, continuing to study his in-process sketch. He felt Niall’s gaze on him, ignored it as well.

“Did I . . . have I done something to offend you, sir?” He was surprised she dared the follow-up, but it gave him the opening he needed.

“How could you possibly offend me? You’re as capable of that as this blank pad. No will, no interests. You can’t even say what you want.”

“I want your will.”

He cut across that with a snort. “Do I look like I want a plastic doll as a servant? No thoughts or feelings of her own? One whose responses to my touch are like a trained circus poodle? Do I look like I want to fuck a dog?”

“Evan.” Niall’s fingers tightened on her wrist. “Stop.”

Evan tossed him a look. “Holding her leash now? If I told her to sit, stay, roll over, sit up on her hind legs and bark, she’d do it. Wouldn’t you, Alanna?”

She had her free hand in a tight knot at her side, her face now a hard brittle shell. “I will do whatever my Master commands.”

“No, not always.” He pinned her with his gaze. “For one very vital, very significant moment, you didn’t do what your Master commanded. You turned him in to the Council. You crossed a line, because you have a line. Find it, Alanna. Where is it? What do you want? Tell me one thing you want. Salt instead of pepper, to dance instead of sleep, bread with or without butter. What the hell do you want? Say it. Tell me. Your Master is commanding you to have a will, to have a soul, to be a fucking human being.”

“Evan, for God’s sake.” Niall released her. In another moment he would step forward, as if to shield her from the words with his body.

Stay where you are. He rarely used such a sharp tone with Niall, such that it brought him up short, but it wouldn’t hold the protective Scot for long. Evan couldn’t blame him.

Alanna was disintegrating. The cold water had shocked the body, and he’d delivered the same dousing to the mind, intending to knock her off-balance. Shuddering, hands clenched, she had tears dripping down her face. She had the desperation of a drowning person, trying to find an answer to save her life. To please him. But only to please him?

“It’s what I am,” she whispered. “What I want.”

“What?” She would never know the effort it took him to sound impassive, but Niall finally picked up on it. He saw the shift to understanding in the man’s eyes. A good thing, because otherwise he’d have to put the Scot on the ground to keep Niall from pummeling him. Which would definitely detract from what Evan was trying to accomplish.

“I’ve always . . . I just wanted to serve a vampire . . . one who . . . one who . . . would value me.”

“Value you. For your origami skills? Your trained sexual skills? The way you keep your hair nice and shiny?”

She swallowed, got paler. “I didn’t . . . I was taught certain things, but Stephen wanted a virgin. I learned by watching, doing, emulating. He . . .”

She didn’t say it, but Evan saw it in her mind. He let Niall have the information as well, saw his lips tighten with helpless anger. Stephen had taken her virginity with careless indifference. Fucked her, pulled out, made sure of the blood, then told her to clean herself up and come down for dinner while he went to handle a phone call. A sixteen-year-old girl who’d never even been kissed. She’d been a small ball on the bed for a few moments, passing her fingers over that bloody patch. She’d thought it would matter more to him. But then the shift had happened, the training kicked in, locked into place. Her feelings weren’t important. They’d never be important, and that was okay. Humans were inferior to vampires, yet also vital. Service was what was important.

Though he didn’t show it on his face, Evan shared Niall’s murderous thoughts toward Stephen. It also made him gentle his tone. Somewhat.

“But you felt empty. Why did you feel empty, Alanna?”

Niall picked up his cue now, keeping his voice low, neutral. “Why did that book you read today make you feel different?”

She flushed. She’d probably think Niall had made that connection from Evan’s mind, but he hadn’t. It was one of the ways Niall had taken him by surprise, in the beginning. The Scot might act dense as a pile of bricks, but he was a deep well, fed by a whole network of underground water sources.

“I thought . . .” She was still struggling, and Evan saw Niall fighting the desire to reach out to her. But she needed the mental thrashing room. “I wanted so much to serve a vampire, and I thought . . . Please . . . let me go back to the house. I’ll work on the slides.”