She blinked her eyes open, then stared up at him sleepily. “What happened?”
“You’re weaker than either of us realized, Anna.”
She nodded slowly, spotting the water and starting to sit up, reaching for it.
“Let me,” he said, and he got the glass for her, holding it to her lips and supporting her head.
She drank deeply, then leaned back again and said, “I’m not going to last much longer, am I?”
He thinned his lips, saying nothing.
“I’m dying. You don’t have to put up with me for a few weeks, after all. Maybe not even for the rest of tonight.”
“Stop it. Stop saying that.”
She blinked at his sudden outburst. “Why? It’s true. I’m at the end. I can feel it. And then you can toss my body on a pyre and burn me to ash, or haul me out to sea and dump me over the side to feed the fish and be rid of me at last. It’s not as if I’ll have anything to say in the matter.”
“You have everything to say in the matter.”
“Do I?”
He nodded. “More than you know. Including…” He bit his lower lip. “Including whether or not to die at all.”
His words had clearly reached her. She blinked, hope appearing in her eyes for the first time. “What do you mean, not to die at all?”
He licked his lips, rising from his spot beside the sofa to pace away from her. “I wasn’t going to tell you this until…well, until closer to your time. But it seems your time is nearer than we thought.”
“How were you planning to tell me anything closer to my time if you sent me away?”
He turned to look back at her. She was watching him, her big blue eyes wider than before, more alert, as if the hope he’d just given her had provided a rush of new strength, as well. “I would have found you. And I would have known when your time was close. I would have felt it, just as I’m feeling it right now.”
She blinked rapidly, averting her face and trying to prevent the tears that she could not hope to hide from him. “I’m feeling that, too.”
“You know what I am, Anna. You’ve seen—”
“Yes. You’re a vampire.” Her eyelids seemed to grow heavy again. They fell slowly closed.
He hurried closer, shook her gently. “Stay with me, Anna. This is important.” When she forced her eyes open again, he hurried on. “I’m a vampire, yes. But do you know what that means?”
She shrugged. “You have to drink blood to survive.” She was whispering now, leaving long spaces between her words, as if just speaking left her out of breath. “You can’t go out in the daylight. And you’re…immortal.”
“For the most part. We can die. There are ways. We can bleed out. We can go up in a blaze quite easily, either due to the sun or accidental exposure to an open flame. We feel everything intensely. Our senses just grow sharper the longer we live, so that they become extremely acute, from the moment we are changed over, increasing exponentially with each passing year. That means we feel pain more acutely, too. It can debilitate or even kill us. But pleasure…pleasure is…amazing.”
She nodded weakly, eyes dropping closed, opening once again. “Why…are you telling me…all this?”
“As a human being, Anna, I had the Belladonna antigen. Just as you do.”
Her brows knitted tight as her head tipped sideways. “The same thing that’s killing me?”
“Yes. Every vampire had it. It’s rare. But it means more than just that you bleed easily and die young. It also means that you can become…what I am. A vampire.”
He watched her face, wondering if he would see relief and surprise, or the smug look of triumph he’d chosen to ignore in Cassandra, all those years ago.
But she showed neither of those things. She was still waiting to hear more, as if that was not the revelation that mattered to her. Not at all.
“And then what?” she asked softly.
His brows rose. He was puzzled by both the question and her lack of reaction. “And then you’d be strong, immediately strong, vital, alive. You’d be able to hear every birdsong for a hundred miles, if you wanted. Identify every living thing by its scent from miles away. You could read minds, communicate mentally. You’d run faster than a gazelle, jump higher than anything alive. But you’d never see another sunrise. Never age another day. Never eat another morsel of food, or drink wine or water or anything else. These are heavy prices to pay, Anna.”
“I don’t imagine I’d be eating or drinking much if I were dead, either,” she said very softly. “And all the rest sounds very appealing, Diego, but that’s not what I was asking you.”
He frowned at her. “Then…what?”
She frowned, staring at him as if she could see inside his mind the way he saw inside hers. “There was another woman, just like me, here with you once, wasn’t there? This same situation? I can see it. Who was she?”
“There’s no time, Anna,” he began.
She swallowed hard. “Then talk fast.”
Sighing, he nodded. “Her name was Cassandra. She had the antigen, the syndrome was killing her. She found me here somehow. I think she may have followed me from one of my trips to the mainland. She pretended not to know what I was, what her options were.”
“Did you fall in love with her?” Anna asked softly.
“Yes. And she pretended to love me, too, but only until I transformed her. It was all she’d wanted all along, you see. But if she’d simply asked…”
Anna lifted a hand to his cheek and turned him to face her. “You’ve been shutting me out. Keeping me at arm’s length. All because of her. A woman who used you and then threw you away without even knowing what a treasure she had found in you. But I’m not her, Diego. I know how special you are. Somehow, I’ve always known.”
He lifted his brows, hope springing to life in his heart. “I didn’t want to let you get close. I was afraid you would hurt me in the end.”
“I won’t.”
That was all she said. Those two little words. And just like that, what remained of the granite wall he’d erected around his heart shattered into a million glittering bits. He believed her. He actually believed her.
“I don’t want to die, Diego,” she told him. “I want to live. I never did before, but now…now that I’ve seen how good life can truly be—now that I’ve finally figured out how to live—I want to live. But only if I can live here—with you. I think this place…this is paradise. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Diego.”
He blinked away hot moisture from his eyes and realized it was tears. He hadn’t shed tears since Cassandra. This time he shed them in sheer joy.
“I want to share eternity with you, Diego,” she told him. “Tell me that’s okay with you.”
“It’s more than okay. I…I love you, Anna. I realized it out in the workshop. I realized I was trying to prevent something that I had no choice about. It was already too late. I love you.”
Her smile was wide, and so bright it was contagious. “I love you, too.”
“Then…then you’re ready?”
“I’ve been ready for this my entire life,” she whispered.
Diego bent closer, pressing his lips to her mouth, kissing her deeply, passionately, and then slowly, he traced a hungry path around her jaw, down over her neck, to her jugular.
She pressed her palms to the back of his head, and closed her eyes as his teeth broke the skin. “Now,” she whispered, “I’m in heaven.”
IMMORTAL
Maureen Child
Dear Reader,
I love Scotland. Always have. The first time I visited there, it just felt magical to me. Edinburgh castle practically shimmers with the past and the long-dead echoes of those who have loved and died there.
So what better place, I thought, to stage a story about an Immortal Highlander?
Emma Madison is in Edinburgh for the summer on a study program. She never expected to land in the middle of a centuries-long intrigue. And who could possibly ha
ve been prepared for Bain Sinclair? He comes to her rescue one dark, scary night—and nothing in Emma’s life will ever be the same again.
In this story, you’ll find an ancient curse, a heroine with a mind of her own and a hero with a centuries-old code of honor. All set in the shadowy, magical world that is Scotland.
I hope you enjoy spending time with Emma and Bain—I really did.
Happy reading!
Maureen
To Tara Gavin, the editor who brings so much heart to Nocturne
Chapter 1
“Ye doona hae to go wi’ me if ye doona want, though ye hae nowhere else to go nae?”
“Huh?” Two weeks in Edinburgh and Emma Madison still wasn’t used to the heavy Scottish accent. Though, in her defense, Cute Blond Guy had a much heavier Scots burr than anyone else she’d encountered since arriving for her summer course at Edinburgh University.
He’d wandered into her study cubicle a half hour before, and since then, they’d been flirting. At least, Emma was pretty sure they were flirting. With that heavy accent, it was sort of hard to tell. But he said his name was Derek, and he was tall. Since Emma stood five foot eight, she appreciated a man she had to look up at.
Truth was, though, even if he’d been five foot three, she’d have been grateful for the company. For two hours she’d been sitting in a cramped, generic, study room in the university library all alone, wishing she’d gone to the pub with her dorm mate. But no, she’d done the “right” thing. She’d wanted to somehow prove that her parents were wrong and that spending all this money on a six-week summer session wasn’t a waste.
And what did she have to show for being so virtuous? A headache, a growling stomach demanding dinner and a weird sense of…unease. She didn’t even want to admit that last bit to herself, but the strange sensation of being watched was hard to ignore.
Just one more reason why she was glad Derek had come to sit with her. Being alone in a practically deserted university library was clearly making her jumpy. No one was watching her. Heck, except for Derek and her, she was pretty sure no one else was there at all. So why, she wondered, couldn’t she shake the feeling of impending…something?
She was probably just tired. That and the fact that the library was too empty. Too quiet. Too…well, creepy.
The building was new and well lit, but beyond the windows, the night was thick and black and almost seemed to be crouched at the glass, waiting for a chance to sneak in and—
“Will ye?”
She frowned, tried to figure out what he’d been saying before and took a shot. “Will I go with you to the pub?”
“Aye, isna tha what I’ve been sayin’?”
Well, yay her. She’d guessed right. And a trip to a neighborhood pub sounded much better than wading through more nineteenth-century literature at the moment. Naturally, though, her American-honed cautionary instincts kicked in.
Going somewhere with someone she’d never met? Not a good idea. But on the other hand, she’d come to Edinburgh to meet new people, see new things, shake up her life. No point in not seizing the moment when handed the opportunity, right? She was smiling to herself when she happened to glance at Derek and thought she saw…something…shift in his eyes. They went from grass green to gray to black and back again to green in the thump of a heartbeat.
Her stomach rolled, but this time fear was in charge, not hunger. She hadn’t really seen that, had she? A trick of the light, maybe, she thought as she noted the slight hum of the fluorescent lights overhead. Emma watched him, and the longer she studied him, the less cute Derek became. His smile was fading, his eyes were narrowing and she had the distinct impression he was losing patience with her.
“You’ll nae go wi’ me, will ye?”
“If that means no way, yeah, that’s right,” she said, though she wasn’t entirely sure why she was suddenly less intrigued by him. There was just something off. Something she couldn’t put her finger on. Something that warned her to stay exactly where she was.
“Aye, then,” he said, his accent sliding into something less comically overdone. “We’ll do this here.”
“Do what?” Did she really want to know? She slid her chair back, wanting a little more distance between them. Derek had changed so quickly, going from flirtatious to vaguely menacing in a split second. Emma wasn’t sure what to do next.
Was there anyone besides the two of them in this library? Would anyone hear her if she screamed?
Screamed?
Where had that thought come from? Was her mind already sifting through information about Derek and finding things she hadn’t really wanted to notice? Was she sensing trouble on a subconscious level?
Oh, she hoped not.
“Look, Derek,” she said, standing and gathering up her books and papers, “this has been fun, but I really have to go.”
“Not yet.” He stood and Emma swallowed hard. Was he going to try to keep her there? Was he some kind of crazed rapist? On drugs or something? That would explain the weird thing with his eyes, but the thought went nowhere in calming Emma down.
“My friends are waiting for me,” she said, forcing a smile that felt brittle. That was a big lie. She only knew two people in Edinburgh and they were both at a pub, convinced that Emma would be studying all night.
“They’ve a long wait, then.” His smile faded a bit then as he cocked his head, as if straining to hear sound in the quiet.
She listened, too, hoping to hear a whole crowd of people approaching the study cubicle. All Emma heard was the hard thump of her own heartbeat.
The steel and glass and chrome library looked innocuous enough—hardly the old-world castlelike building she’d expected to find—but when it was empty, as it was now, it felt sort of…haunted. Of course, Emma had always had a low creep threshold, which was why she never watched horror movies. At sixteen, she’d seen a late-night TV showing of Friday the 13th, and hadn’t slept for a month.
But that hadn’t been real. This was. And she was wasting time. If Derek was hearing someone she wasn’t, she’d do well to bring whoever it was closer.
“Hey!” Emma shouted. “In here!”
“Shut yer mouth, woman.” Derek’s green eyes flashed black, then shifted again until they seemed to roil with flames.
Emma moved back fast, stumbling in her hurry to get away from him, but Derek moved even faster. His feet made no sound, though. It was as if he wasn’t really there. And that thought was enough to deepen the chill crawling along Emma’s spine.
Then the cold came, settling over the room like an early frost. Her breath puffed in front of her face and ice cracked and covered the study table like a glistening tablecloth. Derek stood in front of her, his lips peeled back from his teeth in a parody of a smile, and the temperature in the room plummeted even further.
Fear spiked inside Emma, slicing at her insides, making her breath hitch and her pulse race. Her mouth was dry, her throat was tight. There was nowhere to run. The cubicle was small, enclosed, with one way out, and Derek was blocking that path.
To escape, she’d have to go through him, and for the first time in her life, Emma was grateful that she wasn’t exactly a delicate flower of a girl. She was an athlete and not exactly anorexic. In fact, her best friend had once said that Emma had enough boobs to build two healthy women.
Right now, though, she’d trade the boobs for a baseball bat. Or an Uzi.
She swallowed her fear and the wild racings of her mind. Why was it so cold? What was happening? Who was he? He couldn’t simply be some run-of-the-mill lunatic. There was more going on here, much more, but she had no idea what it was. Or how to combat it or even if she’d live through the next ten seconds.
So the only choice she had was to play dumb. The innocent. To try to ease Derek back into the mildly flirtatious mood he’d been in only moments ago.
“Look,” she said, shivering as the temperature continued to drop and her mind screamed silently. “You seem like a nice guy and everything…” Soothe
the crazy person, she told herself. Keep your voice even, soft. Don’t be threatening, and for heaven’s sake don’t ask him why his eyes change colors or how he’s making the room so damn cold your hands are turning blue. And most importantly, if he rushes you, remember that you played soccer for five years and you’ve got a hell of a kick.
Good to know that one corner of her mind was still working even while another corner was curled up in a ball keening.
“You’re a Campbell, are you not?”
“Huh?” Okay, she hadn’t been expecting that. What did her mother’s maiden name have to do with anything and how had this guy known about it, anyway?
She backed up again, keeping one trembling, nearly frostbitten hand stretched out behind her, hoping to not trip and fall like a dumb heroine in a horror movie.
“You are.” Derek sidled closer again, still moving without sound, and now Emma realized he’d done that from the beginning. She hadn’t heard him enter her study cubicle. It was more like she’d looked up and there he was. Why hadn’t she noticed that before?
Why was she only now seeing that nothing about him was normal? He smiled as if he could guess what she was thinking and now his eyes were black again. Black and empty. “You’re a Campbell. I can smell it on you. Your blood sings to me.”
Her blood? Not only crazy, but a wannabe vampire? Oh, crap. Emma was in deep trouble.
“Give me what I need.”
“Therapy?”
Then he was on her. So fast she hadn’t even seen him move. So fast she hadn’t had a chance to kick him or even to draw in an icy breath to scream. In a blur of soundless speed, he closed the distance between them and grabbed her so hard she dropped her books, and the papers tucked inside swirled in the cold air like overblown snowflakes.
“Step away from the woman, demon.”
A deep voice, dark and rich and full of threat, rolled out around them like a clap of thunder. Emma didn’t feel the reprieve that voice should have provided, though, because Derek’s hands on her arms tightened, his fingernails digging through her long-sleeved yellow T-shirt to slice into her skin. She felt blood trickling down her arms, glanced down to see it seeping through her shirt. She felt sick to her stomach.
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