Highland Hunger Bundle with Yours for Eternity & Highland Beast

by Hannah Howell

  No one answered.

  Alder swung around to face Dunstan, who was one of the few not mesmerized by Alder’s presence. “Is this your quest to settle a personal vendetta, mayhap?”

  “What?” Dunstan shouted, his eyes widening.

  “Mayhap you propositioned my betrothed and she refused you. Is it your pride that wishes to see her destroyed? Shall I challenge you for the Levenach’s honor?”

  “I’m a married man!” Dunstan cried. “This is about murder, stranger! A concern of folk of which you are nae kin to, so—”

  Before Dunstan could gather up the broken pieces of his speech, Alder addressed the crowd once more, taking Beatrix by her elbow.

  “The inn will not trade this night, to give you good folk time to cool your tempers and see reason. My lady has had a trying evening at your very hands and I’m certain she wishes to rest.”

  Beatrix opened her mouth, to say what, she didn’t know, but Alder frowned at her and she clearly heard the words “Say nothing,” in her mind.

  “Any matter,” he continued, “I have a great desire to speak privately with my betrothed.” He began pulling Beatrix toward the inn. “Perhaps we will meet on the morrow under happier circumstances. In the meantime…”

  Their backs were at the inn’s door now and he made a low bow to the crowd. “Will you not invite me in,” he growled, the exasperated question meant for Beatrix alone.

  She started, as if from sleep. “Won’t you come in, Alder?” she said brightly, loudly.

  “Thank you, my lady, I think I shall.” Alder looked to the stunned and gaping crowd a final time. “We bid you good night.”

  Then he was bustling her inside the inn and barring the door behind them, leaving them both in the dark quiet of the common room.

  Alder collapsed in a hard wooden chair as soon as the door was shut and locked, his mind’s eye full of the near escape both he and the Levenach had had. All those sharpened staves…

  The Levenach woman still stood perhaps five paces from him, where Alder had left her. Her mouth was slightly agape and there was a delicate frown laid across her rust-colored eyebrows.

  “You’re welcome,” Alder prompted.

  “You came,” Beatrix Levenach said. “You actually came. The white wolf,” she said in wonder.

  Alder froze. Did she know of his true nature? If she was as powerful of a witch as had been rumored—and Alder suspected she was—who was sworn to rid the highlands of vampires, Alder could have very well just locked himself inside with his greatest enemy.

  A gorgeous enemy, for certain, but one that would leave him just as destroyed.

  “Aye,” he said slowly. “Some do call me that.”

  “You are the only one who can help me.”

  “Didn’t I just?”

  “You’re a killer of beasts,” she continued, as if he’d not spoken. “Of…of”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“vampires.”

  Alder nodded and then gestured to Beatrix with a wave of his hand. “As are you, so I hear tell.”

  The Levenach nodded. “My life, the lives of the Leamhnaigh, are in grave danger. The vampires are multiplying.”

  “You know the one who stalks you?” Alder prompted, wanting yet dreading her to speak the name.

  “He is called Laszlo,” Beatrix whispered. “The king of the vampires. He is verra old. Ancient. Dangerous.”

  “As am I too all of those things,” Alder said, wondering at the warning he was giving her. “Although perhaps not as ancient as he.”

  “Of course you’re nae.” A faint smile tilted her full lips for an instant and then was gone. “Why have you sought me?”

  “It’s Laszlo I seek. He stole something from me, many years ago. I’ve come to get it back, and destroy him. Though for both those tasks, you, Beatrix Levenach, are the only one who can help me.” She gave him no comment, and so Alder continued. “You reside here alone?”

  “Aye. My father died three months ago.”

  Alder let his own smile curve his lips. “Gerald?”

  Her teeth flashed. “Aye. A fine ruse we’ve concocted, the two of us.”

  “There is no betrothed, then, is there? I’d not be set upon by an irate suitor as well as Laszlo and his fiends.”

  “Nay, nae suitor. ’Twas but a buy for time with the folk until you came. My father told me you would.”

  “Did he?”

  “Aye.”

  Alder did not question her further on the matter. “You hunt at night?”

  The Levenach nodded. “After the inn has closed, past midnight. I sleep during the day and then open the inn for trade at dusk.”

  Alder’s heart pounded. It was almost too perfect. “Then we shall both hunt at night.”

  Beatrix’s eyes raked him from head to toe, and Alder felt himself stiffen in his breeches. “Where are your stakes?”

  “Ah…I don’t carry any at the moment.”

  “You can borrow one of mine. They are old—well used, and very effective.”

  He gave her a seated bow, although he thought to himself that he would rather peel his own skin from his flesh than touch one of those ancient weapons.

  After a long moment of each studying the other, Beatrix asked, “Are we to play at being betrothed, then?”

  “I think it best under the circumstances, don’t you agree?”

  “I do. But what of after? When we’ve killed Laszlo and the rest? What shall I tell the folk?”

  Alder found himself staring at the pale curve of her neck, just under her crimson hair, where he could see her pulse leaping. Her blood was calling to him already, and he wanted to grab her now, throw her onto her back on one of the inn’s rough tables, drive himself into her while he drank his fill, mortal and undead passions united, slaked.

  He shrugged. “Perhaps you will not have to tell them anything at all.”

  She nodded as if this was a perfectly acceptable answer. “Well, then. I’ll show you to a room. The hunt should be an easy one tonight—the moon is waning now, and the beasts are not as heated.” She started for the narrow staircase.

  Alder followed her with his eyes for several moments, his nostrils flaring with her scent, before rising from the chair and stalking the Levenach into the dark upper level of the inn.

  Waning moon or nay, Alder’s own fire blazed.

  Chapter Five

  In the bowels of the snaking, subterranean network of caves that was his palace, Laszlo le Morte slumped in his favorite chair. It was a throne of sorts, fashioned painstakingly from the bones of his most treasured victims, bleached and macabre and cold—like Laszlo himself. And while the chair perhaps didn’t lend itself to a cushioned and pampered backside, it did give Laszlo a sense of lazy, privileged power, and he slouched regally in it whenever he could.

  But this early evening, not even his regal throne could bring a cold smile to Laszlo’s long and pointed face beneath his short beard. The king of the Leamhan Vampires was troubled.

  Alder the White had returned. And he had set up house with the Levenach. Perhaps the white bloodsucker had only entered into the witch’s abode to kill her in a spot of privacy, in which case, Laszlo would be pleased—after taking her blood, Alder would be mortal again and vulnerable to Laszlo’s attack.

  What gave Laszlo concern was the fact that Alder the White had returned at all. Laszlo had taken the ambitious human’s blood—and his soul—personally. One hundred years ago, the Levenach witches had enchanted the forest, to prevent Laszlo and his unnatural and deadly children from capturing the magical well at its center. And so Laszlo had lured a mortal into the highlands with promises of vast tracts of land, choosing the young, power-hungry Alder de White for his fiery ambition, which had blinded him to the danger of Laszlo and his true vampire nature.

  Laszlo’s plan had worked, bringing his bloodsucking offspring to the very cusp of the enchanted water, which once claimed would guarantee Laszlo rule over that dark slice of Scotland and its people forever. Unfortunate
ly for him, Alder de White had realized his folly too late—only when Laszlo had sunk his fangs into the proud English neck for that final indignity—his screaming promise of revenge seeming empty and futile.

  When the archangel Michael and his Wild Hunt had descended upon the slaughter of witches, thwarting Laszlo’s near victory, and seized Alder’s body from the forest clearing, Laszlo had assumed that his unwilling co-conspirator was to spend a soulless eternity in hell.

  But Alder had somehow escaped the Hunt after nearly a century, and returned to the highlands for what Laszlo could only surmise was revenge and retribution. The latter for the Levenach—to take her lifeblood in hopes of regaining his soul, and revenge on Laszlo, for sucking that soul from his mortal shell. Laszlo was not fearful of the White; more…cautious. As slave to the Hunt, Alder’s power and knowledge of things, usually unseen to mortals, had undoubtedly grown. Engaging the rogue vampire directly could be very, very dangerous, but Laszlo would not be intimidated by a beast of his own making.

  No, Alder the White must die a permanent death this time, while Laszlo himself kept a safe distance. Laszlo suspected the White would use the Levenach, as Laszlo had used the White a century ago. And so Laszlo must find a way to rid himself of Alder before Alder could rid himself of Laszlo.

  Hmmm…puzzling.

  He thought of the ways those of his kind could perish as he extended each long, bony, alabaster finger: sunlight, stake through the heart, several herbs were certainly potentially damaging, and being bled dry by another vampire. All of those possibilities were too dangerous for Laszlo to carry out personally. He could set his children to chase, but there were barely two score remaining now, thanks to that bitch, the Levenach. Laszlo could not risk lessening their numbers if he was to have a proper dynasty.

  The only other choice was to build their ranks. The thought of tainting their exclusive tribe with the stupid forest folk caused Laszlo’s lip to curl. But after Alder was dead, the undesirables could be pruned.

  Laszlo thought of how close he had come to being rid of the Levenach—the oaf Dunstan had nearly done the job before Alder had arrived. Greedy, dense of brains, and ridiculously strong, the forest man would make the perfect grunt vampire. It was no secret that Dunstan disliked the female Levenach, and Laszlo thought it would be an easy matter to recruit the idiot. That task he would most definitely do himself, and with pleasure.

  Laszlo’s blood started to hum in his veins—the sun must have set. As if to confirm his suspicions, the screeching and mournful howls of his tribe itched at his eardrums as they roused themselves from the recesses of the caves. Laszlo pulled his lanky form from the chair and at last stretched with a lazy, satisfied smile, eager to slip behind the heavy curtain of darkness. Perhaps the folk had given in to their human weakness for drink only a pair of days after attempting to kill the inn’s mistress, and in the next several hours would be staggering home to their pathetic woodland houses. It was very much like picking mushrooms—mortals were so unbelievably gullible when drunk. And quite tasty, as well. Laszlo would feed quickly and then retreat to the safety of his natural catacombs to plan.

  He raised his face to the rocky and dank ceiling of the cave, stretched wide his thin gray lips, and let loose his own cry, the call that would gather his children to their bloody supper.

  It was time to eat.

  It was time to hunt.

  Beatrix laid out the weapons on a table in the now empty and tidied common room while she waited for Alder to descend from the upper floor. She trailed a finger along the knotted embroidery of Gerald Levenach’s quiver, which held the supply of freshly sharpened stakes. She’d never hunted with anyone save her father.

  Was Alder de White truly a killer of beasts? Would his presence be an aid or a deadly hazard?

  Beatrix suspected the latter, being unable to take her eyes off the man’s muscular body and enigmatic smile for the past two days. He made her blood rush as if by magic—it sang and pumped through her veins and whispered to her in an old, old language things of heat and lust and naked moonlight. It was prophesied that the white wolf would come to save the Levenach, and he had already saved Beatrix’s life in the clearing, true. But what was to become of her heart?

  As the last living protector of the Leamhnaigh, Beatrix had always known there was little chance of her ever marrying. Who would she pair with? A man of the forest? None had ever shown the slightest interest in her as a woman, and it was clear now that the folk did not trust her. She could not leave the Leamhan forest while it still crawled with vampires, and even should she rid the land of the bloodsuckers, to where would she go? The wild highlands were her home and she had no friends or family left either here in the black thickness of forest or anywhere else. And what man was likely to wander into this cursed part of Scotland, seeking a witch for a bride?

  She shook herself from her foolishness and turned her burning face once more to the tabletop as Alder de White’s boots whispered against the stair treads. His approach was stealthy, but she could feel his energy press against her as he descended into the common room.

  “I’ve brought out my father’s things for you to use, if you wish,” she said, not wanting to turn and look at him just yet, with her cheeks still heated from the mere thought of him. Instead, she waved her hand over or touched lightly the items she spoke of as he came to stand at her side. She felt as though the floor of the common room was tilting, swaying her body closer to his. She made a conscious effort to stand upright.

  “His quiver and stakes.” Her eyes only flicked at his shirt. “You’ll likely have to tighten the strap—he was a bit thicker of chest than you. Here is a pouch of five finger grass, and a phial of blessed water. I also have his long staff, if you’re the sort who prefers a bit of a fight before the kill.”

  Then she did turn her face to look at him directly, forcing herself not to retreat at the close scrutiny those black eyes placed on her as they skittered intently over her face, taking in her hair piled high atop her head and tied with thin twists of leather, then dropping deliberately to her shirt and breeches. His nostrils flared, as if picking up her scent through the thick, rough wool.

  A smile quirked his lips suddenly and he blinked, as if just remembering she was there. “I see you’ve dressed for the occasion.”

  Beatrix’s face heated once more. “I canna be stomping through the wood in a skirt now, can I? I’d be cut down in a blink.”

  “Take no offense, Levenach,” Alder said smoothly. His cool smile widened and he leaned to the side slightly as if to peer behind her. “’Tis a wise choice of attire. I particularly admire the backside. You will be leading me through the wood, won’t you?”

  Beatrix’s mouth gaped open for a moment at his bold teasing and then she broke into a laugh, feeling at once at ease. “Is that how you speak to your woman in England?”

  “I have no woman in England.” Alder’s smile relaxed into something only slightly less predatory. “Perhaps you are volunteering to be my woman in Scotland?”

  “I am nae woman, Alder de White.” Beatrix grinned and began to divide up the simple but deadly tools into their respective piles. “I am the Levenach. I am a hunter. ’Tis my only purpose, so you can roll your slick tongue back inside your mouth.”

  “I can think of somewhere else I’d rather put it.”

  At this, Beatrix did gasp, and she swung her face back to his.

  “Too bold?” Alder challenged.

  “Aye, too bold,” Beatrix insisted, although her legs felt weak and her nipples tightened beneath the rough shirt she wore. “I may be Levenach and therefore nae meant for the mundane life of a husband and family, but I do demand respect.”

  “What I said was meant only with respect,” Alder argued mildly, and picked up the quiver. He seemed fascinated by it, turning it this way and that in the dim candlelight. Then his black eyes pinned her again. “Neither of us are innocents, by the very role we play in this evil. I am not offering you marriage or children.”
Beatrix swallowed and Alder tilted his head, studying her now. “But I’ve wanted your body since the moment I saw you in yonder clearing. What say you to that?”

  Beatrix wanted to swallow again but could not, her breath frozen in her throat.

  And aye was dancing on the tip of her tongue….

  She cleared her throat, picked up her own quiver, and slung it over her head to seat the strap between her breasts. “Why do we nae see if we’re compatible in the hunt first? Perhaps you’ll be of nae use to me at all, and I’ll be forced to banish you for your own safety.”

  He snatched her against his chest before the last word had cleared her lips, and the contact of his hard muscles against her loose breasts caused an involuntary mew.

  She gave a nervous laugh. “Ah…or mayhap my own safety.”

  “You’re not safe with me, Beatrix,” Alder agreed quietly and the breath of his words stirred the tendrils of hair at her temple. “Indeed, at this very moment, you’re in more danger than you have ever been the whole of your life.”

  Her eyes were fixed on his mouth and she couldn’t help but let her tongue slide over her own lips. She wanted to taste that mouth. She felt a humming in her core. “I know.”

  “’Tis well that you do.”

  He eased back from her and, after a quick adjustment to the knots, slipped the strap of Gerald Levenach’s quiver over his head. Beatrix twisted, picked up the pouch containing the herbs and water, and held it out to him, but he did not take it.

  “I’ve…no use for those,” he said uneasily. “But I will take the staff you offered.”

  “Very well,” Beatrix said, her heart still pounding. “’Tis in the kitchen. We’ll pick it up as we go.”

  Beatrix Levenach did in fact lead Alder through the wood for the first hour of their hunt, and he very much enjoyed the sight of her round ass in the men’s breeches she wore. The night around them was pitch, but Alder’s vampire eyes illuminated the shadows as if subjecting them to a white flame. Each time the Levenach high-stepped over a downed tree, the wool pulled tight over her curves, revealing her body in a way that was somehow more erotic than nudity. Seeing the freedom of her limbs, scissoring, stretching, lengthening—Alder could barely concentrate on his surroundings.