wrong,” Fin agreed. “But I can be jealous because I want to know her, too. I’ve dreamt about her for centuries. Unlike the rest of you, I knew she was coming. I never broke faith.”
“Lust-filled dreams about her breasts are not what I would call prophetic,” Maddox stated drily, and Rogue gave a half-laugh.
He dozed.
“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.” Her husky voice wrapped around him like a lure.
Maddox snarled, “Stop poking in her head. We’re supposed to be convincing her, not chasing her away.”
“I was playing,” Fin argued. “Besides, she thinks I’m pretty. So suck it.”
Flashes of impatience from Rogue. The boys argued. They always had. It was good for them. It kept them alive.
“…what the fuck were you thinking?”
“He’s lust drunk, what do you think he was thinking?” Fin snapped. “Just feed her. He’s all knotted up inside her and not moving for a while.”
Quiet again.
Movement roused him. Movement and pain. He tried to focus on it. The stranger moving about the keep. Her light steps landed like warning thuds. Change eddied in the air. Change he hadn’t tasted in generations.
It wasn’t time yet.
“…shadow demon…”
Hmm. What was that about a shadow demon? Demons kept their distance. They knew better than to disturb him or his.
The thread faded away.
“…Fin believes she’s here.” Rogue. “I am only telling you because she was in Nightmare Penitentiary. She may not survive her transition. We may not have gotten to her in time. If they come for her, we will lead them away. If we must flee the keep, they will never get in here, but you will find us in Fin’s lands.”
If they come for her?
Someone hunted her?
His sleeping mind turned the information over.
Shadow demon.
Prison.
Yes. They might try to come for her.
No one invaded his lands.
“I was just wondering if I could go see the sun…I haven’t seen it in weeks.”
Her voice whispered to him, beckoning, and he listened to the shift in her heartbeat. To the discussion from the boys wanting her to not risk it. Vampires in transition were particularly vulnerable. If the transition wasn’t taking, the sun was the fastest way to end their suffering.
Not all vampires could walk in the sun. The bloodlines had begun to weaken. The natural born retained some of the skill, but the turned? More and more, they faded too quickly. Power and hunger had made selection an open market rather than a chosen few carefully shepherded.
Selfish bastards.
Movement against his wards had him stirring.
Crows.
They swarmed toward his garden. Another power touched their minds, and he dislodged it easily. This was his keep. His land. Everything on it was his. The interloper fled at the first brush. An image scorched against his mind, a challenge.
Then he stared into the garden through the eyes of the many. Red hair snagged his attention, full lips and pale golden skin.
The red eyes pulled all his focus, and her pout when they insisted she return inside. He agreed, he didn’t want her to go, but then she was gone, and Rogue stared at the crows with a warning on his face.
It had been a long time since he’d lain eyes on his brothers. Rogue didn’t know it was him, he worried it was the other.
Then they were gone, and Alfred let his mind wander as the crows flew. Time had marched on. How much had passed, he wasn’t certain. He needed to find out.
Anger.
Rebellion.
Lust.
The scent of it permeated the keep. Fiona.
Her name was Fiona.
Maddox called her Kitten.
Fin labeled her Beautiful.
But it was Rogue’s nickname that pulled at him. Little sváss.
Little Beloved.
His heart rate began to increase. They were courting her. Draining her. Feeding her. Fin pled with her for more time. The little hellion wanted to leave. They always ran. But it had been a few days, and she was still in the keep. She still fed from them, and her signature and scent grew stronger every day.
Alfred wanted to see her
Wanted to test her.
Taste her.
Awareness rippled through the keep as a door opened and she left. Her heartbeat grew more distant. He’d been listening to it for days now, the cadence of her heart. When it sped, when it slowed, when it pumped furiously as one of his brothers pleasured her. He understood each rhythm. It slowed and grew fainter as she left the safety of the interior for the sun.
The crows came at his summoning. At his first glimpse of the firebrand’s hair, his pulse quickened. The chamber opened with a single wave