by Lynsay Sands
When Connall’s hand slid between their bodies again to touch her, the tension increased tenfold and she began to move more urgently, then Connall broke their kiss, his mouth moving to her neck and nibbling a trail there. Eva let her head drop backward, her breath coming fast and hard. She was a hair’s breadth away from finding that sweet release he always gave her and cried his name in a desperate plea, then her eyes shot open as she felt his teeth slide into her neck even as his body slammed into hers. There was the briefest second of pain from his bite, then pleasure exploded inside of her and Eva screamed his name as her body began to shudder and pulse with release.
Eleven
“The lass saved yer life,” Magaidh said solemnly.
“Aye.” Connall stared down into his ale as he considered that Eva had saved him twice; first by fending off the attacker, then by replenishing some of the blood he had lost. Had she not been there and offered herself up to him as she had, Connall wasn’t at all sure he’d have survived until the sun had set and it was safe for him to seek out sustenance elsewhere.
Connall ran a hand through his hair with agitation. He had spent his whole life knowing he was stronger and faster than most of those around him, certainly stronger and faster than all mortals. In truth, he supposed he had always considered himself somewhat superior because of this, but last night he had been the weaker one, his life dependent on a mortal, and a female at that. It had been a humbling experience.
“She’s lucky she wasnae injured,” Aileen murmured, then frowned. “Eva is all right, is she no? She wasnae injured so that she hasnae come down yet?”
“Nay, she’s fine,” he said and hoped it was true. Connall hadn’t intended to take much blood, just enough to see him through until night fell and he could head out on a hunt, but in the excitement of the moment, with the hunger roaring in his ears and his body buried deep in hers as ecstasy rolled over them both, he’d taken more than he’d intended. Connall had only stopped when she’d gone limp in his arms, and could still recall the pallor of her skin as he’d lifted his head to peer down at her. Eva had lain limp and pale in his arms, and so very still. Connall had felt a fear like he had never before known clutch at him. It was only then, as he’d cradled her in his arms and pressed her head to his chest that he’d realized how much he’d grown to care for the woman. She had been trying since arriving to make a place for herself at MacAdie, but somehow had crept into his heart and made a home for herself there as well. He loved Eva and that knowledge had kept him awake to watch over her until his physical state alone had forced him to sleep.
Connall had awoken at sunset to find her curled up against him. She’d still looked awfully pale to him, but not nearly as much as she had the night before, and when he’d brushed a hand lightly over her cheek and she had murmured his name sleepily, relief had flooded him along with the knowledge that she was recovering. He’d decided to leave her to rest for a bit while he tended to his need to feed, and had dressed and left the night room.
Aware that he was too weak to defend himself properly should he be attacked ere he could feed again, Connall had been relieved to find Ewan, Donaidh, Geordan, Keddy, Domhall, and Ragnall still seated at the trestle table in the great hall. As the six men he trusted most at MacAdie, he’d enlisted their company for the ride. By the time they had returned half an hour ago, he had recounted the full details of the attack from that morning.
Connall had gone upstairs to check on Eva the moment they had arrived. Finding her still sleeping, he’d decided he’d have to wake her soon and make her eat, rest was good for restoring her, but food was just as important. He’d come below to order Effie to prepare a meal for the lass, then had come to sit at the trestle table to wait for it to be ready and found Ewan telling the women about the intruder and the attack that morning.
“So, you think he must have returned again last night and figured out how to open the door?” Magaidh asked now, drawing Connall back to the conversation at hand.
“Aye. Or he may have been in the hall, or watching from one of the rooms while I showed Ewan how to open it,” he murmured, recalling how he had heard the click of a door closing. At the time, he’d explained it away as it being Ewan, but Aileen and Ewan’s room was at the far end of the hall and he thought now that this had sounded closer to hand and suspected it had been the intruder closing the door of whatever room he had been watching from. There were a couple of empty bedchambers at the moment, rooms he hoped to fill with their bairns.
“We shall have to put a guard on the chamber entrance,” Magaidh murmured, looking troubled.
“Aye. I’ve already arranged it,” Connall assured her, aware that she slept in the night rooms too and would worry about that as well. He had decided to put a guard on the chamber while out with the men. More than that, he had decided that there should be two guards with Eva at all times while she was up, then two on the chamber while they slept. He’d left it to Ewan to sort out who did what.
“M’laird?”
Connall glanced around to find Glynis standing at his shoulder, holding a tray with food, and stood abruptly to take it from her, then paused. Eva had given him a great gift that morning, she’d given him his life and he wished to give her something in return, but wasn’t sure what she might like. She asked for nothing and accepted the smallest things as great gifts.
“Glynis?”
“Aye?” The maid glanced at him expectantly.
“I’m thinkin’ to gi’e me wife something, a treat to please her. Do ye ken anything she might like?”
The maid looked doubtful for a moment and Connall felt disappointment claim him that she might have no more idea than himself, then she murmured, “The only thing she’s ever mentioned to me that she might like, m’laird, is to see the water.”
“The water?” Magaidh asked with interest and the girl nodded.
“Aye. She grew up on the ocean, and has said a time or two that she’s missin’ it, so I mentioned that we had a loch nearby and she said she’d like to see it someday.”
“She mentioned that to me once as well,” Aileen murmured. “Said her favorite thing in the world was to slip away and sneak a swim once in a while when chores were done, and she missed doin’ that here.”
Connall frowned at this news. “Is there nothin’ else she’s e’er mentioned, wantin’ or likin’?”
“Nay, m’laird,” Glynis said apologetically. “She’s no the sort to ask fer things, I think.”
Connall sighed at this comment, knowing it was true, then nodded and turned to carry the tray upstairs.
A gentle hand running over her shoulders brought Eva slowly awake to find herself lying on her stomach in bed. Moaning a protest at being awoken, she rolled slowly onto her back and blinked at her husband, wondering why she felt so tired. Her eyes felt gritty and her mind sluggish, she was unusually cold and felt weak too.
“How do ye feel?” Connall brushed the hair back from her face, his smile not hiding the concern in his eyes.
“Tired,” Eva admitted, then realizing it sounded almost a whine, grimaced at herself and forced a smile. “Could you not sleep?”
“Tis night,” he informed her, then added, “I brought ye something tae eat. Ye need to rebuild yer strength.”
He helped her to sit up in bed and Eva found her gaze shifting around the room. A fire was burning cheerfully in the hearth and every candle she had brought from the other chamber was now lit so that the room was as bright as daylight. Once he had her seated upright with cushions behind her to prop her up, Connall turned to the table to collect a tray he had set there. Eva’s nose began to twitch as she finally noted the mouthwatering smells filling the room and was suddenly starving. She peered eagerly at the food as he set the tray on her lap, wine, bread and cheese and some sort of stew, chicken she thought, and she made a face as her stomach rumbled. Eva was hard-pressed not to attack the food she was so starved, and even after she had eaten every last crumb of food he had brought her, she seemed still
to be hungry. That fact made her ponder when she had last eaten.
Eva recalled having supper the night before, then coming up to make this room more comfortable, then falling asleep for a bit. She had awoken from her nap shortly before Connall returned and they had…Oh, yes. She smiled faintly to herself as she recalled his efforts “to tire her out.” Not that it had worked, he had fallen off to sleep at once and she had planned to sew—
Eva stiffened as the memories of the rest of the night spun into her head. The intruder…hitting him with the burning log…Connall’s wound and the way it had healed.
“Dear Lord, you are a vampire,” Eva gasped, then covered her mouth to keep the wayward thing from spouting any other unwanted revelations.
Connall stiffened, his eyes shooting to her face. He had the oddest expression on his face, she noted. He looked…scared? Nay, apprehensive was a better description, and Eva had to wonder why he was looking so apprehensive when he was the soulless—
Nay, not soulless, she reminded herself, recalling their conversation from the night before. He was not dead, nor soulless, he had assured her and he did not kill those he bit. Connall had described himself as just different and while Eva thought that was something of an understatement, she reassured herself with that information, now. He was just different, still her husband, the kind, sweet, gentle man who had treated her as if she had value, and shown her such consideration, as well as taught her passion. Nothing else had changed, she reminded herself as her head began to spin. He was the clan chief of the MacAdie, and her husband. And really, as flaws went, vampirism was much more pleasant to deal with than his being a wife beater or some such thing. Wasn’t it?
“Dear Lord,” Eva breathed, shaking her head at her own thoughts, then she glanced to Connall again. He was uncharacteristically silent, his attention focused on her with an intensity that made her nervous. Her husband hadn’t said a word since she’d blurted that he was a vampire and it was making her uncomfortable enough to start searching her mind for a way to make him leave.
“If you have things to do, you need not trouble yourself to wait here for me to finish eating. I can manage well enough on my own,” she murmured at last, though the food was all gone.
“Tis no trouble to be with ye,” he said with a frown and there was sudden anger on his face. “Yer no a burden to me, Eva, ye ne’er ha’e been and ne’er will be. Dear God, ye saved me life this morn, woman, no once, but twice. Ha’e ye no realized yer worth yet?”
“I—” Eva shook her head helplessly, confused by the tears suddenly pooling in her eyes. His vehemence was as surprising to her as the words themselves. She had saved his life that morning. She’d driven the intruder off with the log, then…well all right, the feeding bit wasn’t that impressive. Anyone would have done in that instance, but she had fended off the intruder.
“Ye’ve courage and beauty and intelligence and are a worthy wife. E’en a king would ha’e pride in claimin’ ye to wife. I have felt nothing but pride in claimin’ ye meself.”
“Despite my bein’ accident prone?” she teased with a wry twist of the lips.
“Yer accidents are a result o’ tryin’ too hard to earn a place here,” he said quietly. “But ’tis only because you doonae realize ye already ha’e a place here. Yer the Lady MacAdie. My wife.”
Eva swallowed, her gaze dropping from his at those words. They made her heart ache for some reason.
“Why do ye look away? Do ye hate me now?”
Eva glanced back up with surprise. “What?”
“Now that ye know what I am?” he explained. “Will ye be wantin’ an annulment? Beggin’ to be set free? Wid ye rather a mortal man to husband? Should I take ye back to Caxton?”
Eva stared at him in horror, fear clutching at her heart at the very idea of what he suggested. Leave here? Leave the only place that had felt like a true home since her parents died? Leave these people who had been so kind? Leave Magaidh and Aileen and Glynis, and Effie and Ewan and the men? The very idea was horrifying, but not as wrenching as the idea of leaving him. The hours of talk and games and passion she had shared with him whirled in her mind. Moments when he had held her and gentled the hair away from her face, just cradling her to him and making her feel as if she belonged right there, in his arms. To lose that, never to enjoy it again…The very thought made her heart ache and Eva suddenly realized that her feelings for her husband went beyond gratitude or caring, or even the dutiful love a wife was supposed to have for a husband, but then she had known that morning when his life was threatened, she admitted to herself. It was the only thing that had given her the courage to charge the intruder rather than cower where she hid, it was what had made her keep her head and try to tend to him when she had realized how badly he was wounded and needed her. It was the only thing that had kept her from panicking or dropping in a dead faint when she had finally admitted to herself what she had been refusing to recognize all along and acknowledged that her husband was indeed a vampire. Eva had come to love her husband, and that love would allow her to accept much about him…including his being a vampire.
“Nay,” she said finally. “I would not have the marriage annulled. You are my husband.”
Connall looked torn for a minute, then said, “Why will ye keep it so when ye ken what I am?”
“I…” She peered at him helplessly, not quite having the courage to reveal her feelings.
“If ’tis out of duty, I’ll no ha’e it. I’ll no ha’e ye stayin’ with me out o’ duty and silently hatin’ me fer what I am.”
“I do not hate you, I—” She stopped short, fear crowding around her, then Eva saw the look on his face, the hope there and the fear. It was the fear that did it for her. Eva had spent the better part of her life feeling unwanted, and she would never see anyone suffer that, she would not have Connall doubting, even for a moment, that he was wanted, cared for, loved. Drawing on some of the courage that had carried her through the attack that morning, she blurted, “I love you.”
One moment she was sat in bed, facing him, and the next Eva was enveloped in his arms as he babbled the Gaelic at her between peppering her face with kisses. The assault stopped just as abruptly as it had started when Connall caught her face between his hands and stared at her intensely for several moments as if memorizing her features. Eva stared back, wondering what would come next.
“Do ye really love me, Eva?” he asked at last.
“Aye,” she said solemnly. “I love you, Connall MacAdie. With all my heart.”
“And I love you, Eva MacAdie,” he said, his voice husky, and before Eva could quite react to that, he kissed her. This kiss was different from any that they had shared before, it was deep, with the current of passion in it, yet tender and gentle and slow with a caring that nearly made her weep. When he eased, then finally broke that kiss, he then pressed his lips to the tip of her nose, each eye, and finally her forehead. To Eva, it felt almost like a blessing given by the pope and in a way it was, Connall was blessing her with his love.
“Right!”
Eva blinked. Connall had suddenly released her and bounded to his feet. “Ye’d best get dressed, wife. We’re goin’ out,” he said with a grin.
“Out?” Eva stared at him blankly, feeling as though she had lost the thread of what was happening somewhere. “Out where, my lord husband?”
“Tis a surprise.” He strode around the bed toward the door. “Ye’d best dress. Tis a nice night, one o’ the last warm ones I think ere summer turns to fall, but ye’ll be ridin,’ so dress appropriately. I’ll send Glynis up tae help ye.”
“Glynis?” Eva asked with surprise. “But I thought these rooms were secret. How—”
“They’re a secret no more,” he said with a shrug. “No sense in keepin’ ’em secret from our allies, when the enemy already kens where they are.”
“Oh,” Eva breathed, then raised her eyebrows when on reaching the door to the room, her husband suddenly swung around and strode back. Reaching the edge
of the bed, he caught her chin, tipped her face up and kissed her again, this kiss quickly passionate and just as quickly ended.
“I’ll see ye soon,” he murmured, smiling at her dazed expression, then he straightened to stride away again. This time when he reached the door, he did not pause again but actually left.
“Where are we going?” Eva asked.
“Ye’ll see,” was all Ewan said, but she could hear the amusement in his voice. She had asked where they were going at least ten times since leaving the keep.
Eva had gone down to the great hall after Glynis had helped her dress to find her husband absent and Ewan waiting for her, claiming he had instructions to take her to Connall. She hadn’t hesitated to go with him, not even when she had stepped out of the keep to find two horses waiting for them, nor when he had led her out of the safety of the bailey, across the clearing that surrounded the castle wall, and into the deep, dark woods beyond.
Not that they seemed as dark as they first had, Eva supposed, her gaze moving over the trees they rode past. It had seemed terribly dark and rather spooky to her at first, but her eyes had quickly adjusted, and it no longer seemed quite so spooky as it had at first. In fact, it was almost pretty with the moonlight dappling a leaf here and a trunk there.
Nay, she had not hesitated to go with him, but Eva had asked where they were going, and would continue to do so, she decided. Her curiosity was positively killing her. But before she could ask the question again, they had broken into a clearing.