Highland Hunger Bundle with Yours for Eternity & Highland Beast

by Hannah Howell

  He turned his head to look at her, and those blue eyes roamed her face wondrously. “You’re still alive,” he whispered.

  Beatrix nodded. “And so are you.”

  “But…your lifeblood?”

  “It was in the well, Alder. The lifeblood of the Levenach clan is the blessed water that has protected my family these many years. You only needed permission to take from it.”

  Alder huffed a laugh. “Well water?”

  “Magic well water,” Beatrix clarified.

  Alder’s chuckle deepened. “I’m alive,” he said, and held his palms before his eyes, turning his hands front to back. “Truly…alive.”

  Beatrix also laughed, and when she saw Alder’s teeth—white and even—her heart clenched.

  He was alive, and he was mortal once more.

  Alder suddenly shot up into a sitting position. He seized Beatrix by her shoulders, turned her onto his lap, and kissed her, his mouth warm and wet and aggressive.

  In but a blink, her desire for him was raging, and she drew her arms about his naked body.

  He pulled his mouth away from hers and stared into her eyes. “I want a family with you,” he announced.

  She laughed. “Very well.”

  He dropped his lips to hers once more, but only for a moment. “And you will marry me.”

  “Straightaway.”

  He turned her onto her back in the dirt and she shrieked with laughter.

  “Are you cold?” he asked. “Shall we go inside?”

  Beatrix shook her head and then framed Alder’s face with her palms. “I’m nae cold, and I doona want to wait.”

  Alder grinned. “Neither do I.”

  And in that clearing on that morn, a new dynasty was planted, a magical and wide-branching tree that would grow and spread to protect not only the Leamhnaigh, but all of the highlands.

  The following summer, the first white witch of the Leamhan forest was born.

  LAIRD OF MIDNIGHT

  Victoria Dahl

  This story is for my boys, who are not impressed with love

  stories but might be impressed with vampires.

  Chapter One

  Larmuir, Scotland—1595

  He was back again.

  The man. Every eye in the inn slid away from him as soon as his foot crossed the threshold. Kenna watched him mark each face with his gaze before he made his way toward the table in the farthest corner. Not one other person had dared to sit there since the man’s first appearance five nights before.

  The MacLain, Cousin Angus had called him, his voice a whisper of warning. When Kenna had asked questions, Angus had shaken his head and stared hard at the ground.

  But others had whispered. The last of his clan, they’d said. A curse handed down by the Devil himself. The MacLain’s great-grandfather had killed his whole family, and been punished in turn. Each MacLain chief could have one son and nothing more. No daughters. Not even a wife. Just a son delivered of a banshee woman whose ghostly form was torn apart in the violence of the birth. When the son came of age, the father died. The solitude of the MacLain men was inescapable.

  For five days Kenna had pieced together these whispers, hungry to know why others seemed so frightened of him. He looked powerful, to be sure. Wide shoulders and muscled arms, and eyes that carefully measured each man in the room, as if he were walking into battle instead of sampling the ale.

  He was neither handsome nor ugly, she thought as he shifted his chair to face the door. But his eyes…his eyes could capture souls. They were the pale green of drying leaves, cool and removed.

  A hand closed over her breast. “Bah!” Kenna barked and slapped the head of the man closest to her. An explosion of laughter erupted from the table as the man protested his innocence.

  “By God, she’s bonny,” the man next to him sighed.

  “Keep your hands to yourself, peasants.”

  They all laughed, taking none of the offense she’d intended. She was a peasant now, too. Or something even lower. The local serving wench. The woman who brought the peasants their ale.

  The inn was growing more crowded. Peat smoke mixed with burning fat from the spit, thickening the air with an acrid haze. Already, it had grown busy enough that she would no longer be able to defend herself. Once her hands were crowded with the handles of heavy tankards, there’d be no batting away the eager fingers of the patrons. They’d caress her breasts and slap her arse and even sneak an occasional hand up her leg.

  Kenna wanted to slump with weariness. She wanted to retrieve her next load of ale and dump it over the heads of the nearest drinkers. She wanted to spit and scream and drive them all away.

  But it was either tolerate the hands that groped her bottom or starve. And she was done with starving.

  “Wench!” a red-faced man called, jowls quivering with the movement of his jaw.

  Kenna ignored him and carried her last tankard toward the far corner. The MacLain might be cursed by the Devil, but his corner was peaceful, and he never tried to pinch any part of her.

  In truth, she liked being close to him. He was…dignified. Charming in a quiet way, like the gentlemen of her youth had been. Whether he was in league with dark forces or not, the MacLain was a gentleman, and she felt pulled toward him, as if he carried a scent of her childhood home.

  “Sir,” she murmured as she slid the ale across his table.

  He inclined his head. His strong brow cast a shadow over his eyes.

  “Will you take supper this evening? We’ve bean stew and a leg of venison.”

  “I will,” he answered. He rarely spoke, and Kenna found herself leaning slightly forward at the sound of those two words.

  “And some bread perhaps?” she asked, as if there were any question she would bring it.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  She didn’t move. For just a moment, Kenna stood in front of him, waiting for him to say more and knowing he wouldn’t. But then his wide mouth quirked up into a crooked smile. At the sight of that smile, she lost her nerve and spun away.

  What was it she wanted him to say? Would you honor me with a stroll about the inn, lass? She knew full well how a stroll about the inn with a serving wench would end.

  “Fool,” she muttered and made herself keep moving even when she heard MacLain call out, “Wait.”

  She had no time for mooning about, staring at a man who could offer her nothing more than a tumble. She was busy and tired, but she didn’t mind that so much. If only the men would keep their hands to themselves.

  “Kenna!” Angus shouted from behind a barrel he was tapping. “Stop hitting the men!”

  “They’ve no right to put their hands on me.”

  “’Course they do. Don’t act so proud.”

  “I am your cousin’s widow,” she hissed. “How can you suggest such a thing?”

  “I’m well aware whose widow you are. Why do you think I haven’t sent you abovestairs with anyone? ’Tis not for lack of offers.”

  Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. “Well, thank you for your kind consideration, cousin. And you needn’t worry over the men. My resistance is free entertainment for them.”

  “I know that. God’s bones, I’m trying to help. If you stop fighting, Kenna, they won’t be so rough with you. All they want is a tickle.”

  A tickle. Yes, just a friendly rub or curious squeeze. And if a hand slipped beneath her skirts on occasion, what did that take away from her?

  Kenna picked up the heavy tray of trenchers and turned slowly back to the smoky room.

  She’d done this to herself. Her parents had warned her, but she’d been young and headstrong and fancied herself in love. Alas, it had only been reckless lust that had driven her into the arms of John Graham. They’d married, and after a year of living off the charity of his widespread family, traveling from home to resentful home, Kenna had fallen out of love with him. After two years, she’d fallen out of lust. And after three, he’d died, and she’d had nothing. Not even pride.
>
  Now she had food, at least.

  When she set a serving of stew before the red-faced drover who’d shouted for her earlier, his thick fingers crept beneath her arm to twist her nipple. She only halfheartedly banged his knuckles with the tray before turning away.

  “Well worth the punishment,” he crowed to his chortling friends before giving her rump a painful squeeze. Kenna ignored him and served the next table. Two pinches and one rub later, she was down to her last trencher.

  For the first time since he’d started coming to the inn, Kenna didn’t look at the MacLain when she approached his table. She only pushed the stew toward him and turned away.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw a movement of his hand and jumped forward. If even MacLain began to paw at her tonight…Kenna blinked back tears and fled toward the narrow passage that led to the yard.

  This wasn’t the first time that regret had overwhelmed her. She just needed a moment. Just a moment of quiet in the clear air of the corridor. Cold wind sneaked beneath the crooked door that led to the horse yard and stable. It carried the faint scent of manure, but the air was crisp and smelled of rain, and she dropped down to her haunches and laid her forehead to her knees to draw a deep breath.

  She’d long ago ceased to imagine that her life was simply a bad dream from which she’d awaken. No, she no longer hoped to open her eyes in her fine, warm feather bed and go downstairs to break her fast with her family. Her father had disowned her for running off with a wastrel. So now she was only Kenna Graham, serving wench, and sometimes the reality of it was too much to bear. But only for a few moments. Even regret was a luxury now, and best saved for those moments before sleep overtook her.

  A footstep whispered against the packed earth at the start of the passageway. “Lass?” a voice said.

  Kenna cringed and took a deep breath. Time to get back to it.

  “Mistress Kenna?”

  That brought her head up. In this place, only Angus called her by her Christian name, and that was not his voice. She squinted against the dim. The faint light of the great room was blocked out by the man. When he shifted, the firelight caught his profile, and Kenna gasped and scrambled to her feet.

  The MacLain.

  “You did not look well.” His deep voice rumbled over her as he stepped closer. His shoulders brushed the rough wood as he walked. His body did not quite fit here. “Is aught wrong?”

  “Nay,” she whispered. “I’m well.”

  “You seem troubled.”

  She could smell him now, a scent that reminded her of snow, it was so cool and pure. “How do you know my name?”

  He stopped only a foot from her and frowned as if she’d said something odd. “I’ve heard it spoken by the innkeeper.”

  Simple enough, she supposed, but why would he remember it?

  “Why are you weeping, Mistress Kenna?”

  She shook her head to deny it even as she raised the apron to swipe at her face. How embarrassing to be caught here like a moody child denied a treat. “I must return. I’ll be missed.”

  Though she started to push past him, there was no easy route, and when he turned to give her room, Kenna found herself pushed against the wall and facing a very warm man. His hand rose and he set his fingers lightly beneath her jaw.

  “Why are you not afraid of me?”

  Pleasure seemed to emanate from his fingertips and spread down her throat like droplets of water trailing over her skin. “Should I be?” she whispered.

  “Yes, you should be.”

  The trailing pleasure slipped lower, tightening parts of her body that had spent long months in slumber.

  The MacLain’s eyelids dropped. His gaze fell to her mouth, and Kenna realized she’d parted her lips to catch her breath. Nervous and too aware of his attention, she licked her lips, and his shoulders tightened.

  His head lowered slowly, slowly, as if he were waiting to be stopped. She would have stopped him. Should have. But he was giving her a choice in this, offering her time to escape, and that made her want it.

  That strange scent of snow clung to his skin. Kenna breathed it in as his lips brushed hers. And that was all it was. Before he’d even truly kissed her, MacLain raised his head and took a deep breath. Her mouth tingled.

  “What are you doing here, lass?”

  “I…I just wanted a moment alone.”

  “Nay, I mean what are you doing here, in this place?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You don’t belong here. That’s why the men won’t leave you be.”

  Kenna pressed her back harder to the wall, trying to put a little distance between them. “They won’t leave me be because I have breasts and an arse.”

  His chuckle shook through her belly and trembled her bones. “True enough.”

  Her heart sped up in excitement, and Kenna blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. “Is it true you’re cursed?” The words seemed to come from someone else’s mouth.

  His smile vanished. “Aye. I am.”

  “I shouldn’t have—” she started, but if she thought she’d angered him, she was clearly wrong. MacLain kissed her again, and this time his lips pressed softly into hers and his tongue teased her lower lip. Startled, Kenna opened for him, and his warmth invaded her.

  She would have sighed if she’d had the breath, but he’d stolen it all away. He eased into her, a slow assault that devastated her nerves. She could feel nothing of herself but her mouth where it touched his. And then his tongue as it rubbed against hers. His hands where they cupped her face.

  Their bodies were separated by no more than two inches, but he didn’t push himself into her. He didn’t press her to the wall and grind against her.

  And when Angus shouted her name loudly enough to rattle the walls, Kenna was struck with grief that the kiss was over.

  “Kenna,” MacLain whispered against her cheek. His mouth trailed down to her jaw and whispered over her neck.

  For a moment, she refused to open her eyes. She clung to the belt of his plaid and squeezed her eyes shut and imagined they were in a hallway in her father’s home. Later they would dance and flirt and Laird MacLain would lead her to her father and ask for permission to court her.

  And that kind of dreaming was exactly the kind of idiocy that had led her to this inn in Larmuir.

  Kenna let him go and slid to the side to escape the shadow of his body. “I’d best return,” she murmured and spun to hurry back to the taproom. She heard the door open and glanced back to see him vanish into the yard.

  Wiping the last tears from her face, Kenna went back to her work.

  Finlay MacLain’s fangs burned like slivers of metal pushed into his jaw. He paced the stable yard and let them descend with a groan of relief. They still throbbed, of course, aching with the need to sink into her body, but that he could bear. He’d learned self-control over the past fifty years, though he’d never faced a challenge like Kenna Graham before.

  The woman was a temptation of scents. When she approached his table, she seemed to bring her own air with her, spiced with roses and green grass. It wasn’t soap or perfume, he knew that. Over the years, he’d gleaned hints from conversations with other vampires. Scent had much to do with attraction, and as a vampire, his sense of smell was sending him a blatant signal. Have this woman. Take her. She’s yours.

  Kenna Graham was a mate. A woman perfectly suited to his body and his needs.

  A mate.

  Just the thought of the word terrified him. He’d been alone for so long. The choice had been his at first, but now it seemed a decree handed down by a higher power. God, perhaps, if he still existed. Or the Devil, as everyone else seemed to think. Either way, there was no room for a woman. His longing for her was already taking up too much space inside his skull and causing him to do foolish things. Like watching her. Following her. Kissing her.

  At least he’d so far resisted the need to snap the necks of every man who touched her.
It was a near thing each night, and getting harder, but he’d resisted. He hadn’t even stood and shouted a demand that they cease their pawing. Being associated with the MacLain would not help Kenna Graham’s station in life, and it was clear to him that she’d already fallen far.

  Her way of speaking suggested an education in a far larger town than Larmuir. He’d even seen her scratch out a few numbers on a table top during a long discussion with the innkeeper.

  Kenna did not belong here…but neither did she belong at Castle MacLain. He shouldn’t have kissed her, and he wouldn’t again. She might think her current life low, but Finlay would bring her lower still.

  No one should have to live the way he lived.

  “One more,” he muttered as he paced the length of the yard and back again. The rain soaked through his shirt, but Finlay didn’t feel the cold. His body simply adjusted to it, dropping down to a lower temperature.

  One more murderer and he would be done. His fifty-year hunt would be finished. The monsters who’d killed his family would all be dead. But this last one…This last one would assuage some of his own guilt, too. Surely.

  Finlay glanced up at the moon and watched it with a measured eye. Another hour and he’d need to leave, and still no sign of his quarry.

  The last week of September. That had been the deal. But Jean was nothing if not smart. As wily as a serpent. And he could likely smell a trap from hundreds of miles away.

  “Move, girl!” Angus shouted, giving her a push between the shoulder blades. She would have turned to snarl at him, but she was too tired and still in shock.

  The MacLain had kissed her. Quite nicely. If he was cursed by the Devil, the evil hadn’t affected his lips. Nor his hands, which had touched her with such gentleness. How long had it been since anyone had touched her with care?

  Frowning, Kenna made her way to a table to set new tankards down. A hand cupped her bottom. She brushed it away. That kiss had thrilled her, jostled her nerves into excitement. But now that her pulse had slowed to its normal pace, she only felt wearier, more exhausted than she’d been in weeks.