“Try your best not to speak with anyone,” Finlay murmured as the gates of the castle came into view. Dawn glimmered on the horizon. “Once we are shown to our rooms, you must remain there until I come for you. You cannot trust anyone.”
“Come now. It can’t be so bad as all that. My mother dreamed of being invited to court.”
“Kenna, they are threatening to charge me with witchcraft. They would rather I be burned than walk free of their web.”
“Witchcraft? What is it you can do?”
“I am quite good at persuading people to my point of view.”
She shook her head. “You implied that already. How do you do it?”
A sleepy-eyed soldier watched them as they rode up the hill. “Later, Kenna.” He tucked her cloak more carefully over her legs, mindful of the number of soldiers they’d be passing. She’d rearranged herself to sit aside before they’d entered the town, but she’d grimaced in pain as she’d done so. He’d see her tucked into bed before he presented himself to the king.
“You willna…?” he started, then paused to wonder if he should ask. She’d seemed to accept him, but then she’d not had much choice alone in his castle. “You willna tell them the truth?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You’ve made clear you think me a beast, Kenna. A monster cursed by the Devil himself.”
She didn’t answer for a long while, and Finlay held his breath, waiting for her response.
“I believe that you’re cursed,” she finally said, her voice low as the breeze. “But ’tis clear to me now that you’re not so different from other men.”
Finlay pulled his chin back. What did that mean? He opened his mouth to press her further, but then they were passing through the outer gates under the careful watch of eight armed soldiers.
“Laird Finlay MacLain,” he announced to the two soldiers who stepped in front of the mount. “Here at the request of the king.”
The soldier on the left glanced to his side and must have received a signal, because he waved them on toward the inner gate. They were stopped once more, and then they were through.
He felt Kenna shift in the saddle as a boy rushed forward to grab hold of the bridle.
“Finlay,” she whispered. “I’m not sure I can.”
“It’s all right. I’ve got you.” He jumped down and eased her slowly to the ground, aware that her weight rested heavy on his hands.
“Are you not the least bit stiff?” she muttered.
“Nay.” He glanced toward the east. “But my eyes are beginning to burn, if that soothes your pride.”
“Oh!” She stood a little straighter, though he clearly felt the way her muscles stiffened and twitched. “We must get you inside.”
The worry in her voice made him smile. “I’ll survive. Would you like me to carry you?”
“Of course not!” Her outrage gave Kenna the last bit of strength she needed to stand on her own, but she moved slowly as they followed a servant inside and were shown upstairs to a small room. With one small bed.
“I canna pass you off as my wife, I’m afraid.”
She shrugged. “I understand. It’s not such a hardship to be known as your leman. An elevation from serving wench, I’d say.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, lass.”
“You would.”
He left her to her privacy for a moment and hunted down some hot food. Not easy at this early hour, but there was fresh bread and warm mead, at least. The closed shutters of their chambers provided all the protection he needed from the sun, as they faced north and couldn’t have coaxed much light if they tried. After the hurried meal, Kenna slumped with weariness.
“The king won’t receive me for hours, at least. We should sleep.”
With only a mildly concerned glance at the bed, Kenna nodded. He tried his best not to anticipate anything other than sleep. That alone seemed a fine enough pleasure at the moment.
He laid his claymore on the floor within reach and Kenna took the other side. But there wasn’t much of a “side” to the narrow frame. When he stretched out on the straw ticking, his front pressed against her back in several interesting places.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but Kenna raised a hand to wave his apology aside.
“We’ve been closer than this for hours.”
Yes, but they hadn’t been in a bed. Did she not know the difference?
He’d grown used to the smell of her hair on their journey, but now he was aware of it again, the scent tempting him to bury his face in the nape of her neck and breathe. The same scent as her skin, only warmer.
Closing his eyes, he tried not to think of her fragrance. Or her plump bottom pressed against his groin. Or the way his knees fit so close behind hers.
“Kenna,” he whispered, smoothing back a lock of hair from her face. His fingers memorized the feel of her cheek beneath them.
“Mm?”
“If I’m not here when you wake, don’t venture out. Wait for me.”
“Mm-hm.”
He watched his fingers stray down to the soft skin behind her ear. She was nearly asleep. If he kissed her there, would she even notice? It would gain him nothing but aching, but Finlay couldn’t resist. Her scent tugged at him, swelling more than just his cock. Despite everything she’d been through in the past twenty-four hours, she was still so strong and steady. A mate he could be proud of, if only his life were fit for her. It wasn’t.
He stretched forward, letting his breath touch her ear. Kenna didn’t move. She didn’t protest. But he knew she wasn’t asleep after all, for her breath hitched. He waited two heartbeats, then three. Finally he shifted the smallest amount and his mouth touched that spot, the bare skin just behind the shell of her ear.
He pressed his lips there and drew in her scent, holding it in his lungs as long as he could. Her heart sped, pounding until he could hear the individual thumps of the blood rushing in and out, in and out. The life of her, pulsing below his mouth.
His fangs stretched, but he ignored them with only a small bit of difficulty. She was tired. Exhausted.
But it seemed she did know the difference between a horse and a bed. Her body needed no more than that small kiss to rouse itself and call to him. Finlay lay back and let her be, but the scent of her quick arousal followed him deep into sleep.
Kenna woke to the slamming of a door. “Oh!” she gasped, disoriented by the pale blur that surrounded her.
“I’m sorry,” MacLain’s voice said. “I didna mean to startle you.” Part of the blur shifted, and Kenna realized he’d pulled the bedcurtains around her before he’d left.
“Have I slept too long?”
“Nay. The king willna see me. He’s making a point, I believe.” The anger in his voice raised the hairs on her arms.
“What will we do?”
“We’ll wait till the morning. If his man refuses me again, I’ll have no choice.”
She shook her head, still muddled by too much sleep in the middle of the day. “What do you mean?”
“I must find Jean. I canna lose him again.” He gave her a hot look. “I canna.”
“You’ll defy the king?”
“On the contrary. I will see him. And I’ll show him the skill he’s so eager to witness.”
Kenna started to nod and then found herself shaking her head. “I don’t understand any of this, Finlay.”
His eyebrows twitched up at the sound of his name. Then he nodded and sat hard on the mattress. “I ken how strange this must be to you. You’re verra brave.”
“I’m verra confused!” And she was. She did not know whether she should run from him or pull him down upon her. Each time he touched her, she burned with want and pleasure. That couldn’t be right. It couldn’t. “Why must you kill Jean?”
“Because he’s a monster.”
“But why you?”
His head bowed and he sat quietly, not even breathing as far as she could tell. She watched him, noticing the fine white leine he wore and the silver pin that held his plaid in place. His hair was neatly combed and his jaw freshly shaven. He even wore stitched stockings that hugged his calves.
“I met him here,” he said softly. “Him and his band of Frenchmen. I was nae more interested in politics then than I am now. But I liked the women here, you understand. I was twenty-two and I cared for little but women and whisky.”
“Aye. As most young men do.”
“And the women with Jean, they were beautiful and verra…wicked.”
Kenna felt her face flush as she nodded. A mixture of embarrassment and jealousy warmed her skin.
“And when he suggested we all retire to MacLain Castle for a spell, it seemed a grand idea. My father remained at court, so he had no idea what was happening.”
“What was happening?” she whispered.
MacLain shrugged and she watched his face grow pale. “Jean liked it there. It was secluded. The people were…unsophisticated. And I was…I don’t know. I entertained him, I suppose. So they turned me. I’m not even sure when.”
“What do you mean?”
“They took turns draining me of blood and feeding me their own.”
“That’s how it’s done?”
“Aye. It takes a few days, but I’m not even sure when I stopped being human and became a vampire. They’d turned the castle into a…den. It was endless blood and sex and whisky and opium. The women simply lay about naked, eager to take on any man who wanted them. I lived like an animal for weeks, Kenna, blind with the pleasures they lay before me.”
She felt horror and disgust and fear. What kind of a man could turn his ancestral home into a harem?
“And then my father returned.” He said the words as if that were the final line of the story. As if it had ended there.
“But what happened? What happened when your father returned?”
Taking a deep breath, he lifted his bowed head and stared straight ahead. “I heard him shouting, but the woman I was with pulled me back down to her and I let myself forget him. When I woke in the evening, everyone was gone.”
“Who? The vampires?”
“Everyone. I was alone. I wandered the castle and found no one.”
Kenna clutched the bed linens closer to her chest. “Where were they?”
“Dead,” he said softly. “My clan was dead. As the weeks had passed, they’d fed on them or killed them outright. Left the bodies in a pile behind the bailey wall so as not to be bothered by the stink. My father’s fresh corpse was at the top of the heap.”
Sickness rolled through her belly. She pressed a fist to her mouth to hold back a groan.
“I was feasting and rutting and filling my gut with blood while my people were being slaughtered. Day by day. My family. Everyone. I didn’t even notice.”
“Finlay,” she started, but he cut her off.
“So that is why Jean must die, and why I must be the one to do it. He’s the last one left. I’ve killed them all. Even the women.”
She saw his jaw clench at that, and wondered what that would do to a man like him. To kill women. Women who’d been in his bed. What would it do to any man, to know he’d allowed the murder of his entire family?
When he pushed suddenly to his feet, Kenna jumped.
“We must dress for dinner,” he said, reaching toward the bedside table for a package she hadn’t seen. “I’ve a dress for you. I’ll leave you to your privacy.”
Though she held out her hands, he set the twine-wrapped material on the edge of the bed, avoiding her touch. Before she could ask him anything more, he slipped out the door and closed it quietly behind him.
He was a demon and a murderer…and he was her only protection in this place. Kenna’s mind spun with helpless confusion.