“I couldnae give my children and wife smiles and plenty that often. Not until Evan came. I worked hard for him, I did, but yet, he was the one who gave them that. That hurts a man’s pride hard, no?”

“You never gave up on your family. You never stopped trying to take care of them.” She touched his knee. “Food, warmth, safety, those might be vital, but I think love is the only thing that makes their lack bearable.”

“It’s poor comfort, when all’s said and done,” he said shortly. “If you’ve never known the lack of the vital things, you’ll not say otherwise to me.”

“No,” she agreed. “But I know what the lack of love feels like. You never had that, Niall. Your wife and children loved you, and it’s obvious you loved them.”

“Not enough,” he said. “Never enough. I guess America is where Ceana thought I’d go after she died, but she knew Evan was the key to it, even then.” He swallowed, looked down at the stone between his splayed feet. “‘You tell Mr. Evan to take guid care of my man.’ That’s what she said. ‘For he’s a guid lad.’”

Alanna linked her fingers with his. “Did you tell Evan that?” she asked after a long silence.

“No.” Niall shook his head. “But I guess he knew, because he did, aye?”

“You’ve taken care of each other.” Alanna could tell Niall didn’t want to talk about it anymore, though, so she simply laid her head on his shoulder and they sat together, watching the sun descend over the trees.

“Why do you sometimes whittle stakes when you’re with Evan?”

“Oh, that.” He snorted. “It started as a bit o’ a joke. Ye might have noticed he sometimes stomps on my nerves?”

“No. I didn’t notice at all.”

He pinched her. She fended him off, linking fingers with him during the short tussle, and won a true smile from him. He pulled her up onto the rock between his thighs, holding her there with his jaw pressed to her temple, his hands linked around her waist.

“One day I said I was goin’ to get a stake and put us both out of our misery. We were in some godforsaken corner o’ the world, a swamp where the mosquitoes could drain ye faster than a vampire, but he wanted to take pictures of it during a bloody fog, which took about two weeks to happen. Long as I stayed near him, the mosquitoes didnae bother me, since vampires are bug repellents. Have ye noticed?”

She shook her head. “We weren’t in outdoor situations much.”

“Aye, Stephen’s not really the outdoorsy type, is he? Anyhow, having to stick that close or be sucked dry brought my temper to a boil. Coming back tae camp one day, I found he’d collected a fair pile of cypress knees. Evan told me to make as many stakes as I’d like, and that he’d let me stake him with all of them, but for the love o’ God to please leave off my carping and complaining until he got this one shot done.”

“So whenever you’re mulling on something about him that irritates you . . .”

“I carve a stake. ’Tis therapy.” He grinned at her. “’Tis also a useful thing to have. We’ve several occasions where we’ve had to use them.”

“You’ve killed a vampire?” Alanna’s eyes widened at the thought.

“That’s an executable offense for a servant, aye? Unless I’m aiding my Master in a fight.” Niall inclined his head. “The vampire had him down, and I’d cut his servant’s throat. Bastard wasna expecting that. While he was recovering from the shock to his system, I took my shot, right between the shoulder blades.”

Niall recalled it, that moment of squeezing panic when he thought he was going to be too late. As Evan had met his gaze, recognized the possibility of it, Niall had seen regret in the vampire’s gaze, as well as felt it in his mind. Regret that he wasn’t strong enough to preserve his own life, and thereby protect Niall’s. Niall had staked the attacker with a savage vengeance, pulled his body off Evan’s before it stopped twitching.

“If anyone’s goin’ to stake him,” he said, forcing himself to sound casual again, “it’s going to be me.”

She touched his arm. “You didn’t even think of your own life, did you? Just his.”

“Aye.” But that hadn’t surprised him. What had surprised him was that Evan had done the same.

“You two are like brothers . . . but not.”

“Thank God. While I’m hoping He’s a bit more flexible than I was taught, He’s pretty clear on incest. Plus . . . Evan as my brother . . .” He shuddered as if touched with a slimy worm, making her chuckle. She covered it with her hand, though he saw the dancing light in her serious brown eyes. “He didnae tell ye what I told him when I first found out he was a vampire, did he?”

She shook her head.

“He’d already marked me, so the deed was done. But after he explained what he was, I thought it over, then told him I was relieved. I was far more worried about being indentured to a Jew than a vampire.”

She couldn’t bring her hand up fast enough this time and he caught it, grinning at her as she laughed. He’d been right. Her laughter could turn a man’s heart over in his chest.

At length, though, she sobered. “Do you think there’s a Hell?”

He knew where her thoughts had gone. Reversing their grips, he held her firmly. “I dinnae care what the vampire world says. It may be that ye follow your Master into an afterlife. But if there’s the kind of God there should be, He willnae be tying you to that bastard for eternity, Alanna.”

“I wish . . .” She looked down at the bear he’d given her.

“Tell me, muirnín.”

“I wish Evan would give me the third mark. I don’t care what it might do to me. Even if it tore me apart, even if it’s not strong enough to hold me here, maybe it would hold me . . . somewhere, until he came. I’d wait forever. I wouldn’t mind.”

“I know you wouldnae.” He slid his knuckles along her face. “Though you’re not thinking this through properly. You’ve known Evan only a short while, and Stephen suffers in comparison to cow manure, let alone an obsessive-compulsive artist who has no clue what a proper vampire is supposed to do.”

Her lips curved. She turned in his arms, putting her own around his shoulders and staying that way. He could feel her holding the bear against his neck. Pulling gently on her arm, he brought it back to her lap and closed her fingers more firmly over the small carving.

“I want ye to keep this.”

When her expression got that look he was beginning to anticipate, he wanted to snap at her. What did it matter if she kept something for herself now? But he’d try to respect what she held so sacred.

“Hold on to it for me,” he said, and her tension eased. She nodded.

If she was taken from them, he’d remember he gave her something for her own, even if only for a little while. Then he would be gone as well. What would Evan do with it, as well as his mementoes? After three hundred years, what retained value wasn’t physical, any items kept usually symbols of the intangible. Able to fit in that one wee box. When he died, someone who cared might keep something from it, but it would be a struggle to know what to do with the rest. The world was an ever-changing landscape, and only memory kept it the same.

My memory is quite sharp, Niall. And long. Come back to the cabin. The obsessive artist is up and it’s time to go.

Well, thank the saints. We could have been on our way three hours past, if ye weren’t such a wean about the sunlight.

Grinning at Evan’s response, he pulled Alanna to her feet. “He’s ready,” he told her. He bent, kissed her soft mouth. When she leaned into him, he held her against his body, felt her tension and worry. He’d find ways to distract her. She was proving herself adept at doing that for him, and he was determined to do as proper a job.

16

SHE was attending a human wedding.

From Niall and his correspondence, she knew Evan was comfortable with humans, but finding he had relationships with them made the whole situation even more remarkable. Tyler and Marguerite Winterman, the couple providing their graceful plantation home for the wedding couple, obviously considered Evan a friend, and his decision to attend the nighttime event seemed to reciprocate the feeling.

Tyler and Marguerite were both Dominants, in the human sense of the word. She recalled Niall’s amusing recap of rules, pain thresholds, boundaries—all that silly stuff. Marguerite, a reputedly formidable Mistress, was submissive to her husband. Brendan and Chloe, the young engaged couple, also had a unique dynamic. Brendan was a dedicated submissive, but his bride-to-be wasn’t a Domme, just a sexually adventurous young woman who was somehow compatible.

In the vampire world, all vampires were Dominants. It was part of the physical makeup of the species, whether born or made. Vampires only capitulated to greater political or physical strength. As interested as Alanna was in the wedding, she was equally curious about the “private party” planned for the following night, where she’d observe human Dominant and submissive practices. Safe words and consensual were not in the vampire dictionary.

Niall had told her they would participate in the private party like any of the human guests, though Evan would restrain himself from any extremes, including blooddrinking. The political pressure that attended vampire gatherings would also be absent, though she could behave as the servant she was. Among a group so immersed in the Dominant/submissive mind-set, the three of them would “blend.” Well, she and Niall would blend. She wasn’t sure a vampire ever fully blended, particularly one like Evan, who didn’t even mesh with the expectations of his own species.

Tyler had given them accommodations in a one-bedroom guesthouse, but Niall’s insistence on what appeared to be the smaller of Tyler’s annex guest accommodations became clear when he told her there was an overflow wine cellar there. They’d arrived well past midnight, traveling in the luxurious RV outfitted like a home on wheels. The vehicle had specially treated windows for Evan, though Niall explained it was for emergencies only. “He willnae turn to ash, but he’ll still cook above ground at the height of noon. All in all, ’tis a nice way to travel, though. Unless he has me drive this behemoth through Atlanta traffic. That’s when he really proves he’s a sadist.”