Highland Hunger

by Hannah Howell

  Shifting his attention to one of her guards, Patras asked, “Is the blood that was drained still in the kitchen?” Upon getting an affirmative nod, Patras continued. “Bring her to my bedchambers. I will be there shortly.” Then he turned to enter the kitchens.

  Dorian scampered lightly to the other side of the chapel rooftop. It was not adjacent to the keep, but it was close enough. He waited until the two guards were in view and then dropped down onto them. He was able to instantly knock out one and then kill the other, but not before the spawn could issue a shout to alert the castle that Dorian was inside.

  Freed, Moirae stared at Dorian. No warmth was in her eyes, only wariness, and he knew she was replaying Patras’s last words and realizing they were true. He threw her the smaller katana, and she snatched it out of the air, unable to reconcile that the monster Patras had described would arm her with such a weapon.

  “Explanations later, Lady Destiny,” whispered Dorian. “We need to get through that gate.”

  A sparkle leapt back into Moirae’s eyes just as the first wave came to kill them. Reacting on instinct and what training she had received, Moirae sliced with deft movements and strength the spawns had not been expecting. But the second group, seeing how easily the first had been defeated, came in more cautiously and dismissed the concept they were fighting a human woman, but something far more powerful and deadly. But it did them no good.

  Dorian felt renewed hope. They were going to have to fight their way to freedom, but Moirae was performing in combat as he wished more humans would after hours of training and skills development. She had no fear. She was accurate, unemotional, and surprisingly creative. For the first time in his life, he felt like he had found a woman that could be more than a companion, but an equal. Someone whom he knew he would never tire of, someone who could instill daily meaning into his life . . . someone he could respect and love. It was absurd. She was a human, the one thing he had sworn to avoid, but it was too late. He did love her. Fully. Completely.

  He also knew that even if they survived . . . it changed nothing.

  They broke free and dashed to the gate only for a final small group of spawns to jump down and block their way. The large Highlander was among them. Dorian immediately lunged for him, fearing that Moirae, despite her inhuman strength, would not be able to tackle the giant. After several minutes of fighting, he finally struck him down. But just as the katana slammed down into the large frame, ending the spawn’s life, Moirae cried out. This time in sheer fear.

  Dorian swung back around to see Patras biting down into her neck, drinking. Seeing Dorian, the old spawn released his grip and let her limp form fall to the ground. “I’m like you now, Dorian. A nosferatu. An immortal. We are brothers. You can try to harm me, but I will now heal. You cannot kill me.”

  Patras slid out a blade from his belt and smiled broadly. It was not a smile of arrogance, but one of absolute confidence. After four hundred years, he was the best of Ionas’s men at wielding a blade. But he had lived those years as a spawn, protecting his body, never learning how to defend the one thing that would end an immortal’s life.

  With lightning speed, Dorian leapt into the air and spun around, swinging the katana with precision. Before his feet touched the ground again, Patras’s brief experience with immortality had ended.

  Human, spawn, or immortal. One needed their head.

  Chapter Eight

  Moirae stirred to the unusual sensation of being gently rocked. She opened her eyes and quickly surveyed her surroundings. Close quarters, wood floors and walls, distinct odor of fish and salt, and on a far table were two katanas, sheathed and in their holder. She was on a ship and Dorian was with her. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she realized she was naked and immediately searched the room for her clothes.

  In her youth, she would have been embarrassed to awaken in such a state, but based on her last memories, Moirae was more thankful to be alive. But how Dorian had saved her, and why he did so considering what he was, remained a mystery. She needed to find him, but not just yet. First, she needed to consider all that she had learned and just what that meant to her and her future—if anything.

  It was not Dorian, but a creature like him, that had killed her family and, twice now, tried to kill her. Was he truly different? It was obvious now that the reason he had coveted her role as the Guardian was so that he could disguise his bloody activities. Like the others, Dorian fed on people and he was not remorseful about doing so. But he chose to feed on criminals whom she, too, would have killed, if given the opportunity. In addition, he could have fed on her many times, and yet he elected not to. Why?

  Dorian was indeed unlike the monsters she had sought to find and kill. He had saved people—including her—by putting himself in danger. But Moirae had always known that he did so for an ulterior motive, not from altruistic urges. He had known from nearly the beginning that she was unusual—stronger, faster—but it wasn’t until she was captured did he learn just how special her blood was. And yet, here she was. Still alive and relatively whole.

  Whatever Dorian was, he possessed a soul, and even more importantly, he owned her heart. Nothing had changed that. He was still the man who understood her, challenged her, fascinated her, and made her feel alive in a way no normal man ever could. And she suspected the reason she was still alive was because he felt similarly about her. No other reason explained her continued existence when her death would be so much easier.

  The door opened and Moirae’s head snapped to the large figure entering. It was Dorian and he was carrying her clothes, which had been cleaned. He briefly hesitated at seeing her naked form before handing them to her. Then without explanation, he went and sat down in the small compartment’s only chair.

  Moirae watched silently as he adjusted the seat several times, pretending to find a more comfortable spot to sit and extend his legs. She knew he was waiting for her to ask questions, and she had many. Most of which were personal, but she decided to start with the easiest, or the one whose answer she thought she already knew and therefore would be the least surprising. That would give her a guide as to how Dorian would answer the ones that were much more important—where was she going, what he intended to do when they got there, and how did he feel about her?

  Shaking the chemise free from its folds, she dropped the soft, clean garment over her head. Feeling somewhat more on an equal footing, she picked up the kirtle and asked pointedly, “What are you exactly? Do you admit to being what that white-haired one said?”

  Dorian crossed his legs and intertwined his fingers across his stomach. He had known the question was coming. Moirae was not one to pretend or wish a problem away. In a way, he admired her for that trait. To confront an issue, even if it could possibly mean harm, was in essence, pure bravery. And that was a quality so rarely found in humans. As a result, he felt compelled to answer her question honestly and completely, when typically he would have ignored it.

  “Yes and no. Like I told you before, I was born in Greece and I have lived for a very long time. My grandfather was a human man, but after surviving a large flood, he discovered his blood had changed, giving him unusual abilities that were inherited by his offspring, of which I am one. This ‘blood disease’ gives us extended life, as well as an increase in strength and sense of smell, among other things. It also makes us crave blood, to the point we will die without it.”

  Moirae listened intently as she finished donning her kirtle. She waited to see if he had just paused, but when he didn’t continue, she pushed. “And just how are you different from the brute with the white hair?”

  Dorian raised a single brow but otherwise did not move as he assessed Moirae’s strange response to what he had already revealed. No shock registered on her expression or her mannerisms. Just as surprising was the lack of repulsion. It was if he were telling her an interesting story of his childhood, not that he was a monster who could and did kill her kind. He wondered at what point she would have a negative reaction.<
br />
  He was positive, however, that one was coming.

  “Nosferatu or nosophoros,” he began, “as we are called in our native tongue, are actually very few in number. We suspect the disease that changed our blood weakened with each generation, but it is also possible that whatever caused our change disappeared before we discovered its origins. Because the disease only begins to manifest during later stages of physical development and full change can take several years to complete, we did not realize our children were mortal and had not inherited our abilities for many years.”

  The word hit Moirae like a hammer to the chest. She should have known Dorian would have children . . . several children, and that knowledge was disconcerting.

  “So you don’t die . . . ever?” she asked, skepticism finally creeping into her voice. “The others I saw feared death, something you are claiming to elude. Why aren’t they chasing you and your blood?”

  “Patras was a spawn. When nosferatu feed on humans, they die. But a millennia ago, one of my brothers discovered by accident that if he did not kill a mortal upon feeding, a small number would survive the experience. They gained many nosferatu abilities, including the extension of their life, sometimes up to several hundred years. Greed rules most spawns’ actions. And the one thing they covet the most is unending life.”

  “And that is why the white-haired one wanted me.”

  “Yes. He thought you could give them immortality.”

  Moirae sank back onto the mattress and licked her lips, taking in all that Dorian had just told her. Part of her screamed to ask about where she was going, why she was going there, and a dozen other questions, but mostly she needed to know that with everything that happened, did it change things between them? Because for her, it had significantly.

  She had been consumed with finding and killing whatever had murdered her mother and grandmother. Now that she had, her purpose had vanished. In its place was not a void but something far scarier. A new overriding need that was even more powerful. She loved Dorian. He completed her. Learning what he was did not make them incompatible but possibly made him the only man in the world perfect for her.

  Moirae knew he felt something for her. Nothing else explained his actions. But would he admit to being in love?

  “And what about me?” she finally asked.

  Dorian rose to his feet and went to stand to look out the room’s one small window. “You are on my boat. I’m taking you somewhere safe.”

  “I’m talking about you and me.”

  “There is no you and me. You promised you understood that,” he stated coldly, still looking out at the horizon.

  Moirae moved to go stand by him. She rested her hand on his arm and felt a small flinch beneath her fingertips. It confirmed that he was not as dispassionate as he wanted her to believe. “Why?”

  Dorian turned to look at her straight in the eye so that she would know he was being earnest, and that there was no compromise in his decision. “I will not stay and watch you grow old and die. I’ve done it before and I won’t do it again. I can’t do it . . . especially not with you.” He turned to look back out the window. “So I’m taking you to safety and will go back for your family. Once I’m assured that you are secure, you will never see me again.”

  Moirae nodded her head in understanding. Dorian loved her. He could not say it, and she, more than anyone else, truly understood why. She now knew who he was. It was time for him to discover her secrets.

  Resting her head on his forearm, she joined his gaze out to the rolling waters. In the distance, she could see the hazy outlines of mountains, but they were not the mammoth hills she had grown to love. “I have no family for you to save.”

  Dorian held his breath. He had been afraid that was a possibility, though he had hoped otherwise. Having no family made it a lot easier to keep her safe and her uniqueness unknown, but it would also mean that when he left, she would be alone with no one she knew or trusted.

  “Were their deaths recent?” The question was a selfish one, but he needed to know if it had happened while he had forced himself to be the Guardian.

  “No.” She raised her head and tugged his arm to make him look at her. “My grandmother was beautiful.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Dorian whispered.

  Before he could return his gaze to the window, she continued. “No, not just beautiful, but stunning. No one ever believed she was my grandmother. In truth, neither did I until years after she had passed away.”

  “I am sure your mother told you otherwise.”

  “She did, but not convincingly. I think my mother was jealous of my grandmother, and in a way me, since I am so much like her.”

  Dorian cocked his head and studied Moirae for a second. She was trying to make a point, but he could not grasp what it could be. “Why are you telling me this?”

  A large smile came over Moirae’s face. “How old do you think I am?”

  A puzzled expression overtook Dorian’s brow. “I am not sure. But I suspect you look younger than you are.”

  Moirae chuckled. “I should hope so. I will be four and sixty before the end of this year.”

  Dorian’s attention was immediately captured, and he stared at her to see if she was in earnest. Instinctively, he inhaled. “But you are human,” he mumbled.

  “If you mean I don’t drink blood, you are correct. But I also don’t age. I haven’t since the night my mother and grandmother were killed. I was seventeen.”

  “Were you bitten?”

  Moirae shrugged but nodded. “Yes, the one who attacked us fed on my mother and then tried to feed on me, but immediately stopped. I don’t think he liked how I tasted,” she said quietly, remembering the event not with horror but curiosity. “My grandmother said that she knew I was different as an infant when a dog accidentally bit me and I healed within hours. My sense of smell grew throughout childhood, and my strength came later, but whatever I am, it is not because of that night. It is the reason I survived.”

  Dorian was quiet for several minutes as complete comprehension took over. How could he have been such a fool not to realize it before? The night he first brought her back to Kilnhurst—she had been injured. Just like when he had thought to have seriously cut her arm. Both times she had healed. It was why she did not taste anything like the young, sweet thing she smelled. It also explained her unusual view of the world and those around her. It was not a mortal’s view, but an immortal’s one.

  And yet, despite her being human, there were too many similarities between their capabilities. There had to be a connection. “You’ve mentioned your grandmother, but who is your father? Could he be the reason why you are different?”

  “Perhaps,” Moirae answered, stepping away. “I never knew him.”

  “You said he died at sea.”

  “I said that is what I was told.”

  “I got the feeling then, as I do now, that you do not believe that.”

  “What I don’t believe is that he was married to my mother. She would never talk about him, describe him, or tell me stories about him.”

  “Then you know nothing that could tell you who he was.”

  “Very little. My grandmother would bring me aside and tell me what a wonderful man he was and that of all the sorrows in her life, that I did not know him was her greatest.”

  “We have to find out who your father was.”

  “We do?”

  “Well, you want me to come with you, don’t you?”

  Moirae crossed her arms and tried unsuccessfully to look dismissive. “I thought you had to drop me off, save me, and never see me again,” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

  “Well, that was before . . . I mean, now that I know you are, well, what you are . . . what I said should no longer matter.” Then grabbing her shoulders, he dragged her into his embrace, holding her tightly to him. “You don’t think that I could now possibly let you go, do you?”

  Moirae bit her bottom lip, trying not to grin too broadly
. “Then you do love me.”

  Dorian ignored her and pointed out the window. “So am I coming with you or not?”

  “Oh, you are definitely coming with me.”

  She felt him exhale and his body relax, just before he whispered, “Then I suppose you must love me.”

  Moirae laughed. They would need to work on improving their communication—but they had several lifetimes to perfect saying life’s three hardest words.

  “You’ll say it to me someday,” she murmured loud enough for him to hear.

  “Aye, and you will say it to me. But I bet it will be you who will admit to such a vulnerability first.”

  Moirae smiled, knowing this would be the first of many challenges she intended to win.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

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  Compilation copyright © 2011 by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  “Dark Embrace” copyright © 2011 by Hannah Howell

  “A Knight Beyond Black” copyright © 2011 by Jackie Ivie

  “The Guardian” copyright © 2011 by Michele Peach

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  ISBN: 978-0-7582-7439-7