Emotions were the problem, though, weren’t they? He wasn’t looking at this girl and merely seeing a receptacle for his lust. If that was all it was, he and Chumani had gone a round on occasion, fulfilling a mutual need. No, Elisa and her fledglings tripped off other things inside of him, things he knew he shouldn’t be ignoring.

He’d wanted to know how she reacted to the shoes, so he’d waited, following the geographical first mark until he knew she’d left Thomas’s room and headed for her own. When he dipped into her mind then, he read how she took the shoes as a reassurance. He wasn’t sure how to interpret that, any more than he understood why he’d done it for her.

He didn’t much care for lurking around in a human’s mind like a constant spy, so he mostly used his second markings in a functional manner. Besides which, his particular gift was intuition, developed to the point he almost didn’t need a second-mark. But this girl . . . she was a wild mixture of things.

He understood her distress at responding to his mouth on her foot. Willis had been her first true lover, and they’d barely discovered that love, not even past the kissing-and-holding-hands stage. Having him torn apart in front of her, however, had elevated that nascent relationship, imbuing every memory with forever-and-all-eternity promises. Willis had had a mere blink of time to introduce her to the idea of how deeply she could yearn for a man, emotionally and physically, and then he was taken away. That torment was all over her. As was her deep investment in these fledglings. Behind all of it, screaming in the dark, were her nightmares, capable of dragging her down and making her feel isolated.

That sense of isolation would have developed in her childhood, fighting to survive without a parent’s protection. It was something that never left the consciousness, waiting like a dormant virus and raising its head when life became unbearable. His fingers curled as he recalled Danny’s intel about her former employers, as well as snatches of what he’d seen in Elisa’s mind.

Remarkably, none of it had broken her . . . yet. She’d clung to the good, to the hopeful, with an optimism that would have been irritating if it weren’t so genuine and heartfelt. But now it had a desperate tone to it. In the vampire world, there were many glittering, charismatic and strong personalities, not only among the vampires but among their servants as well. Elisa was not glittering or charismatic. She was a servant, from every perspective of the word—vampire, human, sexual. On top of that, she had a core of steel. It had been twisted, dinged up, even melted with the flames of her own personal hell, but it was still holding.

He found her . . . fascinating, even as he knew that might not be such a good thing. What right did he have to add to her distress and conflict? Yet tonight, when he’d found her in his bed, he’d felt that intuitive click that told him something was going to happen. The vampire nature had stirred, strongly, and he’d felt a desire to claim, to take what was his by right.

He closed his eyes. He’d long ago stopped denying such things, because it was the nature of the species he was now, and he knew better than anyone that nature would not be denied.

The cheetah he’d visited tonight, Lola, was almost ready to return to the wild, where he might lose her to a poacher’s bullet. But he couldn’t deny her the chance to be what Nature had intended. He should take the same tack with Elisa.

It sounded good, but still, it might need a different approach. Because, unlike with Lola, in the case of the wounded Irish maid, he was all too aware that he was the one holding the gun.

10

SHE was on the front porch promptly at dusk. Kohana had insisted she eat first, so she’d abandoned all table manners to wolf her meal down, afraid Malachi might change his mind and go without her. Her anticipation helped her not dwell on the fact that Thomas was gone and she was by herself.

No, not by herself. She’d always had good luck making friends in new places. For instance, Chumani had loaned her a pair of dungarees. Since she was shorter than Chumani, she’d had to roll up the cuffs twice and put a dart in them for their outing. She was also a bit flustered by how snug they were over her bum, since even with her weight loss she was rounder than Chumani in that area, but she put a serviceable cotton blouse over it and managed to pull it down a few inches past the waistband.

She’d donned her decorated sneakers, of course. Kohana had glanced at them while she ate, made a noncommittal grunting noise, and shoveled another layer of eggs at her. She expected herself to grow feathers and start squawking before long.

Her self-consciousness about her appearance was wasted, because Mal barely gave her a look as he emerged from the downstairs, obviously ready to go in cargo pants, usual long-sleeved T-shirt and boots, his knife at his belt. He didn’t slow his stride toward the front door, just jerked his chin toward the waiting Jeep. She scrambled to follow him, giving Kohana a hasty thanks and apology for leaving the dirty dish. Mal seated himself in the Jeep with a ripple of biceps and a flex of lean thigh.

“The rest of the crew is already out doing their jobs,” he said, as if she was keeping him from his, or she was shirking hers. She bit down on her retort, though, and said nothing. She’d do nothing to jeopardize the chance to see Jeremiah and the rest today.

He glanced at her with an arched brow. “You do know I heard, ‘Well, I’m sorry to inconvenience Your High and Mightiness’?”

She pressed her lips together. “But I didn’t say it. I can’t help my thoughts, but I always try to be respectful when it comes to what I say, Mr. Malachi. Kohana said you don’t normally listen in much, even though they’re all second-marked.” So why was he listening to her mind? Perhaps he felt he needed to babysit her more closely. She tightened her chin. “With all due respect, if you eavesdrop less, we’ll get along better.”

“I think we’re getting along just the way we should.” He grunted. “Hold on to the bar there so I don’t throw you out on the turns. If you call me Mr. Malachi one more time, you’ll walk to where we’re going tonight.”

“Yes, sir.”

He gave her a look, but put the Jeep into gear. She did take a firm hold as the Jeep lurched off the drive onto the bumpy incline that would take them out of the valley.

“You’re one of the first vampires I’ve seen that prefers to drive himself,” she ventured. “Danny prefers Dev or another of the hands drive. The vampires who visit the station are the same.” There. She’d attempted civil conversation, though she knew vampires didn’t always encourage chitchat with servants. But if he would strike up a conversation with her, maybe he would talk about the fledglings.

“Still listening.”

She counted to ten. She would remain calm. If he would act more like a lordly vampire, instead of like one of the station boys, teasing her until she went after him with a cooking spoon . . . “Fine, then. Are you going to tell me anything about how the fledglings are doing? Though it’s obvious you’re very good at what you do, there may be a few things you haven’t figured out.”

“Does Danny listen in on your thoughts? It’s fascinating, your inability to stifle them. And on that note, I’m sure there are actually a few things God has figured out that I haven’t.”

Elisa tightened her hand on the bar. “You don’t need to pick at me to get me to shut up. You merely need to say so.”

He sighed. “It limits our focus.”

She cocked her head. “What?”

“Why so many vampires don’t drive. We’re used to being alert to our surroundings, above, below and all the way around. When you’re driving, you have to give a larger portion of your attention to one direction.” He nodded through the windshield. “Out here, I’m not as worried about that. Plus, I think a vehicle makes a fine weapon, being two tons or so.”

“Oh. Well, that’s very sensible.”

“I have my moments.” He gave her a sidelong look as he downshifted, and though she met his gaze for a second, she couldn’t hold it. She looked out at the nighttime terrain even as his regard lingered, like a trail of heat over her bare forearm, the crease of her elbow, the line of her neck.

“I’ve spent one-on-one time with each of them in the communal enclosure.”

That brought her attention back to him. He was navigating the tight turns over the hills now, so his eyes were back on the road, his hands sure and capable on the wheel. “What I’ve learned about their personalities thus far suggests at some point we need to separate them. They’ve meshed into a highly dysfunctional pack.”

Separate them? She thought of Miah and Nerida, and William and Matthew, both obvious couplings for mutual protection and reassurance, flimsy though it was.

“They reinforce one another’s fears and negative influences. Vampires are not pack animals. In fact, they’re far more like cats. With the notable exception of the lion, most feline species are solitary, only coming together for mating or breeding. They hunt alone, mate briefly, raise their cubs and then send them on their way. They maintain distinct territories.”

Elisa gripped the bar tighter as the Jeep rocked over a depression in the faint road. He continued, “The fledglings were all made vampires, children kidnapped and brought together by a common enemy, Lord Ruskin. That made them a pack by necessity, for survival. It’s the reason Leonidas, while likely to tear apart anything that wanders too close to him, is still bonded into the group. He won’t harm the others, not mortally, if not provoked. Would you agree?”

He was a pendulum, making wide sweeps between annoyance with her and barbed teasing, with the occasional stop right in the still middle to discuss the things that mattered. She scrambled mentally to keep up. “Yes. He and Jeremiah don’t get along at all, but Matthew and William don’t bother him. He ignores the girls, but they do everything not to be noticed by him.”

“He notices them; don’t mistake that. An even better reason to keep them apart.”

She’d missed that entirely. Her brow creased. It made her all the more certain she should be with him when he observed her fledglings. What they might see together . . . And how had they reacted to him?