“They tell this story several ways. Legend has it there were three beautiful sisters among the Katoomba people. Three brothers of the Nepean people fell so deeply in love with them, they knew they’d never be whole until they had them. So they rebelled against tribal law that forbade the marriage and planned a battle to capture them. Sometimes you have to capture sheilas before you can work on winning their hearts,” Dev added. At his broad wink, Danny gave him a raised brow that made Elisa hide a smile. “But as the day of the battle approached, a witch doctor of the Katoombas decided to turn the three sisters into rock to protect them. He figured he’d turn them back when the battle was over.”
Dev’s gaze flickered to the left. Jeremiah had put a hand through the bars. Just pressed his palm flat on the wooden slat floor, near one of the toys that Elisa had left close to his cage. None within reach, because the children shredded them, but it had been something pleasing for them to look at. This toy was a stuffed bear.
Leaning over, so he was on his hip and elbow, Dev pushed the bear closer, continuing the story even as the boy scuttled back. Dev kept that position, his shoulder propped near the bear. Danny tensed. He’d brought himself within reaching distance, and the boy’s gaze was too focused on the artery in his throat. Even Elisa could see him fixate on it, and wondered at Dev’s judgment.
“Unfortunately, the witch doctor was killed in the battle. So to this day, those three magnificent rocks stand in the Blue Mountains, the three sisters forever captured, because no one knows how to reverse the spell.” He tilted his head back to eye Danny, humor and something else there, something that made Elisa’s vampire mistress curl her hands into balls and give him an exasperated look. “Course, I’ve always wondered; if those girls could do it over and had the choice—to become three magnificent rocks for hundreds of years, or offer those three blokes a chance to be their husbands, despite tribal laws—how would they have decided?”
Danny pressed her lips together, about to move forward. Dev shook his head, apparently quite aware the boy had reached through the bars. With one hand, Jeremiah took the bear. With the other, he stretched toward Dev’s hair. One fingertip touched it, then another. A crooning noise came from the boy’s lips, garbled by the long fangs curved over his lips. Then the hand retracted and Dev turned his head to watch the boy pull the bear into the cage. As he held it against his belly, a curious look crossed the boy’s face. Jeremiah moved it back and forth, experiencing the soft sensation under his ratty T-shirt.
“There you go, mate,” Dev said. “You go to bed now, and have sweet dreams.”
Elisa had swallowed, trying not to clap her hands in victory over this small progress. In her joy, she of course had paid no attention to the crimson flickering in Victor’s gaze. The vampire who looked thirteen years old would be the one who, a couple months later, would take her and Willis by surprise in such a tragic way.
It was too bad Jeremiah wasn’t stronger than Leonidas, because if he had more authority with the others, it would go much better. Her most “gentle” vampire had terrible moments himself, though. Elisa had seen him fight the bars of his cage until he bloodied himself, his fangs dripping with saliva as he stared hungrily at any living thing. They all had such episodes, though Jeremiah’s and Leonidas’s seemed more intense. For no reason at all, they would become savage, as if they were going insane in their own skins. Those were the hardest moments for Elisa. She could sense their distress, their need to be touched and comforted, but the bloodlust in them wanted only to destroy. It was like watching paper dolls being torn in half.
It was also at those weak moments she wondered if Danny was right in her first thinking, that they should have been put down.
Elisa closed her eyes. No. She couldn’t bear to think that. It couldn’t all be for nothing.
As Elisa got off of the plane, she looked for him, this Malachi. He was not a Region Master or even an overlord, so he bore no lord or ladyship title as did Lady Danny. Elisa decided she would address him as Mr. Malachi until he indicated otherwise. She wasn’t unhappy about Thomas’s presence with her, though. The weight he brought as Lady Lyssa’s human servant—Lady Lyssa being Region Master of the southern United States, as well as a consultant to the current Vampire Council and the last royal blood of the vampire clans—would be helpful, even knowing Thomas would not stay long from Lyssa’s side. Three days . . . She had to convince Malachi to let her stay, to convince Danny it was okay as well.
For one thing, she couldn’t bear to go back to the station and see the empty spot that should have been Willis. Riding the stock in, or whittling in a chair leaned back against the barn. Tipping his hat to her with a lazy smile when she came out to beat the rugs. If she went back, she’d have nothing to do but be a maid. Having the children had filled her days and nights. It kept her from thinking so much.
Once being around vampires, it wasn’t difficult to spot one. The exceptionally graceful, predatory way they moved, the intense focus of the eyes. And of course, every single one of them was beautiful beyond words. It should get tiresome, her senses unaffected by it. Perhaps because of his unexpected appearance, that wasn’t the case when the island’s owner strode toward the plane.
Even the untitled vampires she’d met took care to appear as aristocracy. Well dressed, well-groomed, well-spoken. Most had lived long enough to accumulate money, education, making themselves appealing to human prey if they didn’t have a servant for a regular blood source. In contrast, Mr. Malachi wore jeans and work boots, an untucked and snug-fitting dark T-shirt. The outfit was no more formal than what Dev or Willis might have worn for their stockman duties. Black hair, unruly and brushing his shoulders, looked like a lion’s mane. He had an aquiline nose, the features of a hawk. He was an Indian.
When Danny bought her a book about the United States, they’d compared Western Australia with the American Wild West. In the pictures of the natives whose tribes had once been scattered over the United States, the resemblance was unmistakable.