She turned to their first mate, Joseph, and nodded with a grin. “Thank you, Joe. I’ll tell James.”
Joe tipped his hat and descended into the belly of the vessel. A man of habit, he would be about his routine preparations in his cabin before they set sail on their third voyage. The merchant trips were short and fairly local and Cailin always reveled in the freedom surging through her spirit as the ship cut through the open waters. Holding her palms open, she performed her routine, reciting the blessing incantation as she envisioned a bubble of protection around the entire ship—from bow to stern and from mast to belly. Satisfied her task was complete, she gripped the rail and enjoyed the view.
Mesmerized by the ocean beyond the marina, Cailin sighed when her husband’s body pressed against her back. His warm hands smoothed over her rounded belly and the familiar nuzzle at her neck sent shivers of anticipation down her arms.
“How is our boy doing?” he murmured against her skin.
She giggled. “Our girl is doing just fine.” She enjoyed this banter she had with her husband since they discovered she was with child four months or so ago. She honestly didn’t care if she had a boy or girl. It wouldn’t be their last and they had plenty of time to have a brood of male and female Knightlys.
James turned her in his arms and slanted his mouth over hers. He then planted a sweet kiss to the tip of her nose. “Are we ready?”
“Aye, Joe says everything is loaded.”
“Good.”
Cailin fingered the cross hanging around James’s neck and touched the one between her breasts. Both had been blessed with the incantation as well. Added protection and with them wherever they went. Never again to live in fear. “And the barrier is up on the ship.”
“Very good.”
A stout man with a light-brown beard and severe eyes stalked down the dock.
“That’s our final passenger,” James whispered and patted her bottom before he meandered to the opposite side of the deck. He waved to the man, who grunted in response. Occasionally, Knightly’s Refuge took paying passengers to local destinations. Many were friendly enough. Some liked to keep to themselves.
This may be one of those who likes to keep to himself, Cailin pondered as the scowling man approached the ship.
“The last of your cargo is loaded, sir,” her husband greeted. “We’re ready to set sail.”
Another grunted response, the man stepped onto the gang plank and stopped. His frown deepened and he stepped back onto the dock, his eyes roaming over the length of the vessel.
Cailin stood at her husband’s side as the man assessed their boat. He took another step back and leveled a stare at James and Cailin. She gasped when a yellow light flashed in his eyes. Did he just growl?
“I want my cargo off this ship immediately.”
James glanced at Cailin, his brow furrowed. “Is there something amiss, sir?”
The bearded man narrowed his eyes. “I’ll not travel with the likes of you,” he snarled. “Get my cargo off your ship…now.”
James shrugged and stepped to the cabin stairs. “Joseph, let’s get Paddy and Keith up here. Mr. Stellar wants his cargo unloaded.”
“He what?” the first mate bellowed from below. “But we just loaded it!”
James flashed Cailin a smile and skipped down the stairs into the ship. After some heated mumbling, Joe stalked up the stairs with a smirking James not far behind, Paddy and Keith in tow. Grumbling, the three men did as ordered, taking many opportunities to glare at their ex-passenger.
James grinned at Mr. Stellar, nodded and returned to Cailin’s side. She also smiled at the scowling man and snuggled beside James to enjoy the warmth of his arms. Aye, never again to live in fear. And neither will our children.
The End
SNEAK PEAK AT BOOK 3:
MIDNIGHT HUNT
Chapter One
Outside the Village of Kostbar, Germany—1636
Eighty years ago today, he killed her…
Broderick clenched his teeth as he held the frail body of his beloved Davina to his chest. “Please.” He gashed his wrist with his fangs and offered his healing blood. She shook her head. His wound healed in moments.
“We have already discussed this.” Davina pushed his wrist from her face then coughed and curled in his lap like a fetus. She pressed the kerchief to her mouth as she labored through another long spell of hacking and wheezing.
The scent of her blood wafted up to his senses and he savored the sweet essence of his wife as tears stung his eyes. “I will not lose you. Please let me heal you, just this once more.” His plea would be useless.
Drawing shallow breaths and wiping the blood from her mouth, she gazed at him with sorrow in her eyes. “That is what you said the last two times. Darling, I cannot bear to live like this. You know the healing is only temporary. Your blood cannot purge this disease from my body and each time it returns worse.” His wife gasped and coughed, crying out through the agony of her condition.
“Let me transform you, Davina!” He clung to her tiny body, so thin from the sickness, willing with all his spirit she would listen this time. “Then you will be healed and we can spend eternity together.”
“And spend an eternity running from—” She gritted her teeth as a spasm wracked her body. “Running from the Vamsyrian Council. I want peace, my love.” She heaved breaths and relaxed in his arms. “I want peace.”
Broderick helped her lie back onto their bed and nestled under the covers beside her. She shivered in his arms. Her fingers feathered across his bare chest, trembling as she reached for his face. He grasped her hand and pressed his lips to her palm. Though gray streaks had dulled her hair with age and the wrinkles on her beautiful face bore testimony to her sixty years, the light of her spirit shining from within had never diminished. But in these last two weeks, that light faded. Davina grew weary.
“It is too late for me, Broderick. Even immortality cannot restore my youth.” She chuckled and Rick’s heart constricted. “We would forever receive the scathing looks thrown at us now…an old woman with such a young, handsome man. Scandalous.”
“I care not what others think. I—”
She placed a finger on his lips. “Hush.” She moaned and clung to him, coughing and bleeding from her mouth onto his chest. “End this now,” she wheezed, when the fit had passed. “Feed from me one last time, my darling. Let my life give you sustenance and give me peace.”
“Nay!” He gripped her shoulders and searched her eyes for reason. “You cannot ask this of me!”
“I plead for mercy, Rick.” She sobbed and a wave of misery flooded him with such a force, it stole the breath from his lungs. His wife had been holding back all this time!
“My god! Why did you not let me—”
“Forgive me, my love, but I did not want you to worry so.” She pressed her palms to his cheeks, wet from tears. “But now you know why I beg you to let me go.”
“Nay, Davina,” he whimpered into her hair and enveloped her in his embrace. Rocking her in his arms, he wept as she wracked through another fit of coughing and moaning. She held nothing back. Her anguish consumed him. Heart breaking, but knowing he could not let her endure this misery for his sake, he surrendered. “Aye, Blossom.”
Broderick pushed the hair from her smiling face and tired eyes. She nodded and sighed. “Thank you, my love.”
He pressed his forehead to hers and clenched his jaw. “How will I live eternity without you?”
Threading her tiny fingers into his hair, she gripped him with as much strength as her weakened form would allow, but her eyes bore into his with purpose. “Hear this now. Nothing, not even death, will keep me from loving you. Though this body may wither and become a dry shell, my spirit will pursue you until the end of time. We will never be apart.”
He covered her mouth with his and tasted her blood. Trailing tender kisses across her cheek and jawline, he nestled against her neck. “Eternally yours,” he whispered.
She cl
utched his head and offered her throat. “Together forever,” she responded.
Broderick hesitated, her erratic pulse beating against his tongue.
“Give me peace,” she whispered in a tortured breath. “Do this for me.”
“I will love you forever, Davina.” His fangs pierced her cool skin and Broderick drank the life from his wife, granting her wish…and tormenting his already damned soul.
Broderick threw the empty earthen cup across the tavern and it shattered, raining pottery shards over the patrons at the far wall.
“Acht!” The innkeeper charged to Broderick’s table and stuck a rigid finger in his face. “Another outburst like that and I’ll toss you out on your rump!”
Rick scoffed and leaned forward. “Don’t you have anything stronger than beer?” he demanded in German. “Bring me Scotch.”
The owner threw his head back and let forth a hearty guffaw. “You’re drunk enough, if you ask for that.” He glanced around as a few others joined him in a chuckle, but Broderick frowned. The man sobered. “Beer and wine is all I have. You want aqua vitae, you’ll have to travel down the river to Bremen.”
Rick tossed a small sack of coins onto the table. “Then bring a cask of beer to my table. There’s enough there to pay for ten of them.”
The stocky man snatched the bag and examined the coins. Cocking an eyebrow, he hefted the sack then narrowed his eyes at Rick. The innkeeper disappeared through the door at the rear of the tavern and returned with a cask and a lead cup. “No more smashing my wares. It’s no business of mine if you want to drink yourself into sin, but you’ve been peaceful until now. Let’s keep it that way.” With a nod, he stomped off to his post behind the wooden counter.
Broderick glared at the other patrons, who eyed him with a mixture of apprehension, anger and disgust. However, they were all wise enough to divert their attention elsewhere, leaving him to his drink. The small tavern he’d wandered into was dark and unassuming. He just needed a hole in which to hide and sort through his thoughts.
What in blazes am I doing in Germany?
The decades had been lonely without Davina, but he had managed. Seeing Cailin and James eased some of the grief. Though he mostly left Cailin in the capable hands of her husband, Broderick returned every few years to visit…and they grew older while he did not. They had five beautiful children, who also grew into adulthood. Broderick watched from afar as time stole them from him, one by one. None of their children or grandchildren pursued the shipping company so, when Cailin and James passed, Broderick reclaimed it, long forgotten by their offspring. The business kept him occupied enough to stave off the heartache of losing Davina. Though his bereavement had never disappeared, he had managed. And when her birthday arrived, he mourned as he always did on those special days. But this year, as he wept over her grave, grief swallowed him. The specter of his beloved Davina had penetrated his defenses and pierced through the numbness he’d forged over the near-century. A yearning had pulled him south, out of Scotland, through England, across the Channel and into France. Then the compelling desire to traverse along the war-torn, northern coast yanked his soul through the Netherlands and into Germania of the Holy Roman Empire. And here he sat, staring at the leaden mug waiting to be filled, just as he ached for his own heart to be filled.
Due to the rapid healing of his immortal blood, alcohol had no real effect on him. At one time, he’d had a generous portion of Scotch whiskey and started to feel the effects, but it passed quickly. He gulped down six mugs of beer from the cask and closed his eyes tight against the ache in his chest. The libation did nothing to drive the images of her from his mind. I should savor them. Relive them again and again. Eight decades of silence…and then a precious, spectral encounter with her today. He had only dreamt when Davina was near, whenever she thought of him while he slumbered during the day. But she was dead, so these new visions couldn’t be her. Perhaps he had been so consumed with grief on the eightieth anniversary of her death, he had finally gone mad.
Davina had been in the woods, her ethereal form naked and waiting for him. Her cinnamon tresses spilled over her shoulders and hid the precious globes of her breasts, but blended with the thatch of curls at the juncture of her thighs. Young and breathtaking as when she’d entered his Gypsy tent as a voluptuous woman.
He fell to his knees before her and buried his face in her skin, inhaling the lavender scent of her hair and growing hard. “Davina!” He covered her belly with kisses and nibbles, his hands smoothing over her silken legs and bottom and back, not able to get enough of her.
She cradled his head against her breasts and wept. “How I’ve missed you!”
Davina straddled his thighs and Broderick claimed her lips. Tearing open his breeches, he slipped inside her wet heat. Surely he had died and gone to heaven! She clung to his back as she rode him to a swift and furious climax, taking Broderick with her.
Shuddering and panting, he pulled back to gaze at the rapture on her face and a raven-haired woman with olive skin rocked in his arms. “Blossom?”
She nodded, her sapphire eyes revealing the woman he would die for. Davina pressed her lips to his and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Together forever.”
Aye, he had gone mad. Broderick opened his eyes, reached for the cask and jerked with a start.
Malloren Rune sat across the table from him. “Well met, Broderick MacDougal,” she whispered in her British accent, concern in her gaze.
The Prophetess! “I cannot recall the last time I have been taken by surprise.” He scowled at her. “Exactly how much does your position as the Keeper of Secrets prolong your life?” The last time he had seen her, over a century ago, she was more than one-hundred sixty years old. What was different about her? Her skin had the subtle luster only seen on… “You are a Vamsyrian?”
She nodded.
“But…you are a member of the Army of Light.”
“It was necessary so I may continue my station. My transformation was the second milestone in the prophecy. It appears I will be the steward of this journey to redemption for Vamsyrians.”
He tipped his head back and a sardonic chuckle rumbled through him at the irony. “The one who advises mortals against the very choice you made. Have you sacrificed your soul to save us all?”
Clearing her throat, she squared her shoulders and raised her chin with regal defiance. “There are many sacrifices I have made through the years in my service to God, though none quite as important as this. The prophecy is why I am here.”
He grumbled. “Where were you when Davina died of consumption? You claimed she was the key to this damned prophecy and, when I needed answers, you were nowhere to be found. How is it I did not sense you approach me?”
She shifted in her chair and avoided his glare. “My talents for remaining unseen were magnified when I crossed over.” She narrowed her eyes. “You will not find me if I do not wish to be found.” She glanced at his cup, then the cask. Sadness shrouded her face and she sighed. “I truly regret the sorrow you have endured over her passing. But I have—”
Broderick jumped to his feet and snatched her throat in his hand. “Lies!” he hissed. “The prophecy. Her part in it. Don’t pretend to show compassion toward either of us. If you had a care, you would have let me kill Angus and I could have made amends with the Council. She would be with me now.”
In spite of the hold Rick had on her, she only encircled his wrist with her fingers and shook her head. “If you had killed Angus,” she whispered. “Davina’s soul would have been destroyed and you would have lost her forever.”
“I did lose her!”
“Take your hands off the maiden, son.”
Broderick glanced to his left and spied a half-dozen glowering men, ready to pounce with various blunt objects and clubs in their fists.
But Malloren put her palm out to stay the crowd. “I am not in danger, kind sirs,” she rasped in German. “But you will be, if you take another step closer. I know this man and, in his pre
sent disposition, he will tear your beating hearts from your chests.”
Broderick shoved Malloren back into her chair and snarled. “You know nothing about me, woman.” He waved a dismissive hand at the intimidated men. “You have nothing to fear from me.” He crossed his arms and scowled at the Prophetess.
The innkeeper narrowed his eyes. “Acht! Damned gentry and your sick games.” He pointed his axe at Broderick. “I’ve had enough of you and your lady friend. Get out of my tavern.”
As much as Broderick wanted to release his pent up anger and grief on everyone around him, rational thought won over his emotions. These men didn’t deserve his wrath. He’d save that for Malloren. He leveled his gaze on her. “Aye, let us take this outside, shall we?”
She rubbed her throat and nodded. Rick pivoted on his heel and stalked out of the tavern.
The damp, chilled August night haunted his form, surrounding him with heavy foreboding. Malloren scampered to catch up as he stomped down the road to the coastline. The North Sea lay quietly hidden on his left behind an oppressive fog bank. The stillness of the late night sucked the life out of his argument. He grumbled.
“We are far enough from the town. Let us speak.”
He continued down the road at a determined pace. “So you can feed me more of your lies? I think not.”
“You dreamt of her today, didn’t you?”
He stopped and held his breath, squeezing his eyes shut against the dream and Davina’s haunting presence.
“She lives, Broderick MacDougal.”
He whirled to face the prophetess and she stepped back. “Why are you here! To torment me? Is my grief not enough to satisfy you?”
“I’m here to help you. Davina has been reborn. Have you not had a yearning to come here? Are you not drawn to this place by an unknown force?”
“Stop speaking to me in riddles! She is dead!” Broderick paced, doing his best to push down the rising tide of hope the Prophetess could bring back his wife…because believing was insane.
MIDNIGHT CAPTIVE: Book 2 of the Bonded By Blood Vampire Chronicles Page 22