Evan stilled against her. When she glanced up, she caught a brief tightness in his expression. Had she acknowledged something about the men’s relationship that Niall never did?

Evan brought her face back down to his shoulder. She was content to be there, just listening to the sounds of the night, his fingers stroking the bare curve of her spine, the other hand idly kneading her sore buttock, but at length, she thought she could ask another question.

“What was he like . . . back then?”

Evan toyed with her hair, following the line of it over her breast, down her abdomen. She loosened her thighs and he slipped between, playing with her pussy. The tissues there were still very sensitive, so she quivered under his touch, but she loved the feel of his long, sensitive fingers stroking her.

When Evan let her into his mind, he took her back to that first meeting, giving her a longer, more thorough look at Niall this time as he emerged from that loch, dripping wet, naked. Though the Scot appeared about a dozen years younger than he did now, he was tall and proud, then. Strong, yes, but so thin, his cheeks gaunt. Rage and determination burned in his eyes. She wondered how many times he’d given his family his portion, telling his wife he’d eaten part of the kill while out hunting?

“You see the physical beauty, but you immediately seek what’s below the surface. It’s an admirable quality.” Evan’s lips curved in a poignant expression. “I told him to impress me, and from the first day, he never disappointed. After that first meeting, I left Scotland for another project. I told him I’d be back in six months to check on the results of his scouting for me, but I came back five weeks later. I wanted to see him again, to see if the money I was sending him had improved things for his family. At times, Fate shows her hand quite clearly in our lives.”

Her fingers tightened on Evan’s chest as he gave her another image of Niall, this one of him bleeding to death on a dark battlefield.

“His landlord forced him to fight for the Jacobites, threatening to turn out his family if he didn’t join his army.”

Evan drove away the midnight looters, making it clear they’d pay with their lives if they lingered, but he had no desire to stay on this desolate battlefield under a cloudy nighttime sky, either. He hiked the Scot over his shoulders, a narrower span than Niall’s, but he held him with sure hands and used vampire speed to leave the bloody scene behind. Taking him deep into the wood, he laid him down in a secluded glade whose cushion of grass had provided safe slumber to more than one deer family.

Eyes darkening, he squatted by the man. A gut wound was a horrible way to die. Niall should have been moaning, but he was suffering it in silence, his expression caught between anger, anguish and desperation. Not for himself. Evan already knew enough about this man to know what would make him afraid. And make him fight for his life beyond all reasonable expectations.

He was groping for his dagger. Evan pulled it free and tossed it out of range, before he pushed him to his back again. “It’s me. It’s your wrestling mate, man. Not a bloody enemy.”

He pressed a cloth to the gut wound, trying to staunch the blood flow as those lion’s eyes focused on him. “My family, I cannae die. They need me . . . Ceana, she nae . . .”

The path to what Evan wanted was clear as a paved street to Hell. Fate wouldn’t have lined things up like this if it wasn’t meant to be. Right? His sire would have given him an ironic look through cool eyes, calling the rationalization the horseshit it was, but fortunately Lord Uthe wasn’t here at the moment. “I can help you live. But you’ll owe me something.”

The Scot gazed at the bloody mess under Evan’s hands. “You’re a devil, then.”

“You’re not making a pact with Satan. Though I expect you have enough of a brain to figure that out. Eventually.”

“Will what I owe you . . . hurt my family?”

“No. But it will hurt you. No help for that.”

Vampires didn’t apologize to humans. Evan had once been human enough to understand how arrogant that was, but a vampire was too superior in strength and other skills to ever see a human as an equal. He’d give him the choice to live or die, but that was the only choice he’d offer. Yeah, he was a bloody bastard, wasn’t he? But he wouldn’t see this man die. Even now, with his hand pressed on the gut wound, as if the insistence in his touch would keep the life in him longer, Evan was tempted to commit one of the few vampire sins. Take that one vital choice away.

“Hurt . . . as in pain worse than this?” Niall’s lips drew back in a ghastly smile, telling Evan he cared little about pain to himself, even though he was near convulsing with it.

“The marking will hurt like a son of a bitch, but I’m talking about this kind of pain.” He put his other hand on Niall’s heart. “Choose fast. Better to do this sooner than later.”

“My family . . . I’ll be able to care for them.”

“Better than ever.” Niall would belong to him. He didn’t have a lot of excess funds, but he had far more than Niall, such that no landlord could blackmail him again. “Choose, Niall.”

“Death and leave my family tae starve . . . or you.”

“I make few promises, but I guarantee I’m a better choice than option one.”

Niall stared up at him, then offered his hand. The effort was such that his fingers, the entire arm, were shaking badly, but Evan lifted his own blood-soaked hand, clasped palms. “If it doesnae work, you’ll take care of my family.”

“No, I won’t. You have to fight to live, to honor your promise. I won’t give you that escape route. I get what I want, or you get nothing.” The wound was severe. Even a vampire couldn’t win a one-on-one with the Grim Reaper. Much would depend on Niall’s strength, his desperate will to live.

“Bastard. All right then. Aye. I owe ye a debt. Give me my life so I may care for my family.”

First your family, then me, Evan thought. “Close your eyes. This will feel like dying, but then you’ll feel better than you ever felt in your life. If it works.” Giving all three marks at once could kill the Scot in his current state, but there was no time to do it any other way. Hopefully, the first two would provide enough vitality to give the irrevocable third mark the chance to latch on to his soul.

Bending, he laid his hand on Niall’s jaw, pressing his cheek to the earth, and unsheathed his fangs. The brown eyes flashed in shock, as Evan bit down on the first sweet, sweet taste of his servant’s blood.

“What happened to his son?” He’d shared the images in his head, but it was obvious Evan had gotten as lost in them as she had, so she brought him back to the present with the quiet question. He blinked.

“A few years after Niall left, Eric booked passage on a ship to take his family to Jamaica, to join a sugar enterprise there. The ship went down, no survivors. Niall broke off all contact with his other relatives then. He’s never been back to Scotland. I’ve honored his request not to return for all three hundred of our years together.”

Evan’s face was shadowed. There were lights inside the cottage, and she saw Niall foraging in the kitchen.

“You sent money to help his son, didn’t you?”

“I did.” A smile touched his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “When Niall came into my service, he told me whatever salary he was paid should be sent to his family, minus any small pittance he might need for his upkeep. By the time he realized there is no salary associated with being a vampire’s servant, I’d ensured his family had been cared for. His service was more than enough compensation. It’s only taken him three centuries to believe that. Stubborn Scot.”

She nodded. “Niall said . . . you visited him while he was still married.”

“You want to know what his wife was like.”

At her dismayed look, he tugged her hair. “Female curiosity is one of the very few predictable things about you creatures.”

He had forgiven her enough to tease her, his gentle touch sending warm tendrils through her stomach. When she pressed her lips against his hand, his gaze stilled upon her. She reached up, touched his mouth, fingertip grazing a fang. He nipped her enough to draw some blood, sipped it away while her body stirred at the attention.

“Insatiable creature,” he murmured. “I think your desire is greater than your curiosity.”

She couldn’t block the thought, and was glad she hadn’t when he laughed. “Yes, I expect you would like both satisfied. But I’ll tend your curiosity first. Ceana was courteous but reserved with me. Typical of a country girl, but I think it was more than that. They were childhood friends, pushed together by their families as a practical matter, but they had a real fondness for one another, if not a huge passion. She was protective of him, which I think is the real reason she was never overfriendly to me.” His lips twisted in a wry expression.

“Niall had no sense of his reputation in the eyes of other men. He’d grown up poor, struggled through difficult times, but he’d proven himself. He was a better hunter, warrior and scout than a crofter, but he worked hard at whatever was necessary to care for his family and community. Despite his refusal to take a political stand in a very political time, people respected him. In short, he had stature, despite the meanness of his lot. It told me a great deal about him.”

“I think you don’t want to let him go now, any more than you did then. I think you love him, too, Master.”

She stiffened, appalled at herself. Lulled by Evan’s images and story, she hadn’t thought to censor her tongue. Vampires didn’t love their servants. They might value them, have affection for them, but love was never a possibility. Servants might whisper about it, crave the impossible dream, but it was dismissed as a fanciful side effect of giving one’s heart fully to a Master or Mistress. In the vampire world, such an unlikely love would be condemned. If the vampire was female, it could even endanger her life and freedom. Lady Lyssa was the only exception, and that exception existed only because she was at the top of their food chain. The queen was likely keenly aware of that.