Starry Knight

by Nina Mason

  The scene below turned his stomach. His heart stopped. His vision swam. His brain refused to take it in. His butterfly was sprawled on the flagstones, legs bent at impossible angles. Blood pooled around her head like a dark halo.

  His thoughts spun like a tire trapped in mud. He stripped, spoke the magic words, and dove off the battlement. He underwent the change as he fell, swooping upward when his wings sprouted. As he set down beside her, he folded his wings. The smell of her blood so overpowered his senses, he nearly tore into her.

  Shifting back, he bent over her. He reached out a hand, then, thinking twice, withdrew it. What if he caused irreparable damage? She was unconscious, both legs had multiple fractures, and one of the snapped bones in her arm poked through the fabric of her coat. Blood gushed from her scalp. Fearing her neck might be broken, he didn’t dare lift her head to try and stem the wound.

  He felt for a pulse. It was weak and thready. The nearest hospital was in Wick. She was too far gone to ride on his back and driving would take too long, as would summoning an ambulance.

  From the look of her, she had only minutes left to live.

  He couldn’t lose her. The smell of her blood had summoned his fangs, a mixed blessing. He brought his left wrist to his mouth, but stopped before biting into it. Was this wrong? Would she hate him for it? He bit his lip and swallowed hard. There wasn’t time to contemplate the consequences. He’d just have to deal with what came. He sank his teeth into his wrist. As the blood streamed, he bent over her.

  “Vanessa, can you hear me?”

  She emitted a feeble moan. He pressed his bleeding wrist against her lips. “Drink, lass. This will save you.”

  As her tongue fluttered against the wound, hope surged through his system. Her sucking, weak at first, gradually grew more purposeful. When she’d taken enough, he withdrew his arm and checked her pulse. It was strong and steady. He could hear her bones knitting as her limbs straightened. The blood was performing its healing magic, thank the heavens.

  He climbed to his feet, now cognizant of his nakedness and the cold night wind. Shivering, he hugged himself and looked up at the tower.

  “Sorcha,” he shouted at the stars, “what have you done and, more to the point, why?”

  Spitting a curse, he raked a hand through his hair and tried to think. What had motivated the ghost to do it? He could come up with only two possibilities: she’d either done it to kill Vanessa or to stop her from leaving.

  If it was the former, she’d gotten the opposite of her wish. If it was the latter, she’d taken a tremendous risk. The fall could have killed Vanessa on impact, though perhaps Sorcha knew it wouldn’t, having taken the same fall herself.

  Whatever the reason, he was furious. Shaking his fists at the sky, he cried, “Damn you to hell, Sorcha. Damn your bloody soul to hell.”

  * * * *

  She was dead. She had to be. There was no way anyone could have survived a fall from that height onto flagstones. Still, Vanessa had expected death to feel differently. Painless, for one thing. Wasn’t physical sensation supposed to cease as the soul took leave of the body?

  Either she was wrong or she wasn’t dead, because her head pounded, every bone in her body ached, and something toxic now flowed through her veins. Her mind was a dark sea of nothingness. She tried to focus her thoughts, but it only added to the pounding in her head. She felt weak, feverish, dizzy, and queasy. She opened one eye, but shut it again at once. Wherever she was, the light was blinding. It also looked like Callum’s bedroom.

  Was she in heaven or hell?

  She’d never given much credence to religious mythology—heaven, hell, holy ghosts, virgin births, or any of the other patriarchal nonsense designed to control the masses and keep women, especially, brainwashed and disempowered. She believed God was energy, not an entity. He was pervasive, not in some magical kingdom in the clouds.

  So, where was she then? Her mind rooted around for other possibilities. In Dante’s Inferno, the gods condemned astrologers and other soothsayers to the Ninth Circle of Hell. To punish their hubris for looking ahead in life, they were doomed to spend the afterlife looking backwards.

  Bloody hell.

  Was her head on backward? Panic rising like a fever, she felt for her breasts, relieved to find them where they’d always been. So, not in the Ninth Circle of Hell, though, ostensibly, still dead.

  Her hands clenched at her sides in frustration. It seemed so unfair that her life should end when it was finally starting to get good. She’d only just landed a full-time job in her chosen profession, had only just met someone who might make her happy.

  The thought of Callum clawed her heart, giving her more pain than anything her body could dish out. Hang on. If she still had a body, she couldn’t be dead. Which must mean, by some miracle, she’d survived the fall.

  It seemed improbable given the height of the tower and the solidity of the landing. Luckily, the shock had veiled her awareness, sparing her the horror of the impact. Even so, the memory of falling turned her stomach and brought bile into her throat. The burn made her cough and the cough made her grimace in pain.

  Her eyes fluttered open. She called his name, her voice a feeble creak. She tried again with more force.

  “Callum? Are you here?”

  “Aye.”

  Squinting against the light, she looked around. She lay on his bed, propped up on pillows, while he stood at the foot, leaning against the bedpost.

  He looked different. More radiant somehow. She smiled and glanced around, seeing with a jolt that everything had changed.

  Colors were more vivid, textures more defined. It was as if she’d spent all her life looking through a filter. Everything was brighter, crisper, sharper, and cleaner.

  She met Callum’s gaze and, enthralled by the luminance of his eyes, made no attempt to look away. She became aware of the sounds from outside. The screeching of gulls, the sigh of the sea, the whisper of the wind in the trees. Nature’s symphony, the most astounding composition she’d ever heard.

  “Something’s happened to me.”

  He flew to her side, sat beside her, and enfolded her hand in his own. “How do you feel?”

  She licked her dry lips. “Like I’ve risen from the dead.”

  He gave her a tepid smile and squeezed her hand. “That sounds about right.”

  Squinting at him, she asked, “What happened?”

  “Aye, well.” He looked sheepish. “You fell from the tower, didn’t you? And would have died had I not, well, intervened.”

  She blinked at him in confusion for a moment before understanding dawned. “You turned me?”

  “I had no choice,” he insisted, flustered. “It was either turn you or let you die, which I just couldn’t do. What happened was my fault.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “If I hadn’t brought you here, you couldn’t have fallen off the tower, eh?”

  He had a point, not that she blamed him. Had she been in his shoes, she would have done the same. Still, it changed things. Not between them necessarily, but everything else. Her job, her diet, her life expectancy, her sex drive. It was all too much to think about. Overwhelmed, she shut her eyes and turned away.

  He squeezed her hand. “Please don’t be cross with me. I did what I felt I must. What I believed was for the best.”

  A hash of feelings sizzled inside her, but blame wasn’t one of them. Confusion, disorientation, fear, and angst, yes; but not the need to point the finger of blame at anyone. She needed to sort through it all, let her new reality sink in, get her mind around how to cope. At the moment, however, her brain steadfastly refused to cooperate. Try as she might, she could not retrieve the memory of falling. “How did it happen? Did I slip somehow?”

  He stroked her hair. “A stone broke loose. I suspect Sorcha may have had a hand in it. I’m not certain, mind, nor can I do more than speculate about her reasons. I only know I felt her presence on top of
the tower just before you went over.”

  Vanessa bit her lower lip. Callum didn’t know about her last encounter with Sorcha’s specter. She’d meant to tell him, but the right moment never presented itself. It would seem the moment had come. “I didn’t tell you, but I had another encounter with her a couple of days ago.”

  His eyes flashed just before narrowing with suspicion. “Oh? And what did she have to say?”

  “She wanted me to stay with you, to free her to cross over,” Vanessa attempted to explain. “I told her all the reasons I couldn’t do that, including the fact that you were immortal and I wasn’t.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell me this?”

  “I meant to tell you tomorrow,” she told him truthfully. “On the way to the airport.”

  He’d offered to drive her in her rental car and take a taxi back to Barrogill. As far as she knew, he still planned to erase her memories of him.

  “What happens now?”

  “Obviously, you’ll have to stay with me for a bit longer,” he said, not looking happy about it. “You’ll need someone to look after you while you adjust to the changes in your body. Your thirst for blood and all the rest.”

  Every cell revolted against the idea of drinking blood. “Can’t I just eat regular food?”

  “Nay, lass. Once your fangs come in, you’ll need blood to survive.”

  Another question burned in her mind, but she wasn’t sure quite how to phrase it without risking offense. After reordering the wording in her mind several times, she decided to just put it out there and take her chances. “What about sex?”

  “What about it?”

  “Will I be a total horn-dog now?”

  “Aye,” he said glumly. “I’m afraid so.”

  He looked overwrought. She wanted to say something to make him easier, but was too busy cataloging the lifestyle changes to expect. She wasn’t crazy about the blood-drinking part, but the eternal youth and beauty part was a definite plus. So was a libido to match his, as long as he was around. But he wouldn’t be, would he? Not if she went to New Orleans without him. And speaking of New Orleans, she needed to think how this might impact her new job. Would the change help or hinder her role as a paranormal investigator?

  She was inclined to believe it would make her a better one. In her creatures class, she’d learned about dhampirs—the half-breed offspring of vampires and humans. Supposedly, because of their hybrid physiology, they were the best vampire hunters ever.

  Obviously, she’d have to conceal the truth from Beau Armstrong, at least until she could trust him with her secret, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. Callum passed for a human, after all, except when he assumed another form.

  “Will I be able to shape-shift?”

  “Aye,” he replied, still looking downcast. “After I teach you how.”

  Apprehension gave way to anticipation. Being a faery could be rather amazing, actually. In fact, except for the gross blood-drinking part, she couldn’t see a downside. She’d be able to turn into an animal, have heightened senses and super-human powers, would never get sick, would have the power to heal, and would be almost impossible to kill.

  “How much blood will I need to sustain myself?”

  “A few pints a week,” he said. “But you’ll also need regular sex in your diet in order to thrive and blend in human society.”

  Concern pulled her brows together. “How much sex are we talking here?”

  “Like animals, we’re driven by the mating instinct. If we don’t copulate often enough, the feral side of our nature starts to take us over.”

  “Are you telling me that, if I don’t shag all the time, I’ll turn into some kind of sex-crazed she-devil?”

  “Aye. Basically.”

  She worried her bottom lip. Who would she have sex with in New Orleans? Male prostitutes? Strangers she picked up in bars? Images from Looking for Mr. Goodbar flashed through her mind. Good God. She did not want to end up like Diane Keaton’s character at the end of the film.

  An affair with someone like Callum was one thing. Cruising bars for strangers to fuck and feed upon was something else entirely. The thought sickened her, in fact. She’d become a slave to her appetites, a blood and sex junkie always looking for her next score. What kind of freedom was that?

  The alternative was staring her in the face. Quite literally. Stay with Callum in Scotland. Forget her training, forget her job, and forget their differences. Unfortunately, there were a few holes in that plan. For one, Callum hadn’t asked her to be his immortal beloved. He’d only offered to let her stay until she adjusted to her new lifestyle.

  For another, she wasn’t ready to commit to a relationship with a man she’d only known a week—especially when the vow wouldn’t just be “till death do we part,” it would potentially be forever and ever.

  She bit her lip as her heart sank into the pit of her stomach. Bloody hell. What was she going to do?

  Callum was still beside her, still looking down at her with guilt in his beautiful eyes. She wanted to say something, to ask how they might go forward together, but she couldn’t find the courage. At least, being like him now, she was no longer a threat.

  “Are you still going to erase my memory?”

  “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

  That was good. She might not be ready to marry him, but she definitely wanted to remember him.

  He got to his feet, crossed to the window, and clasped his hands behind his back. “Are you still thinking of moving to the States?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Aye. You could stay in Scotland. We could hunt together and see to each other’s needs.”

  Suspicion smoldered in her gut. “Stay where in Scotland?”

  “I could put you up in a flat in John o’Groats or Wick. Maybe even Edinburgh, if you would prefer a bigger city.”

  “And do what? Sit on the shelf twiddling my thumbs until you came round to put your cock in me?”

  He didn’t turn, damn him. Or say anything. Her hands fisted as her blood pressure spiked, making her temples throb. She was not the sit-by-the-fucking-phone kind of girl. She needed to be active, engaged, inspired. What he was suggesting would drive her mad. What he was suggesting was so textbook Leo.

  The chivalrous and gallant suitor bit he’d shown her all week was a sheepskin disguise. The lion underneath was a jealous and possessive egomaniac who didn’t just want to be placed upon a pedestal by his woman—oh, no; he had to be the centerpiece of her altar.

  “I just thought we could maybe try and see what developed.”

  “And if nothing develops? You’ve still got everything and I’m left holding the bag—the empty fucking bag. No job, no money, no place to live, and no lover to satisfy my lusts. I’d be a bloody fool to enter into such a one-sided arrangement, Callum, and you bloody well know it.”

  “It wouldn’t be like that,” he said calmly.

  “Says the guy who stands to gain everything and lose nothing.”

  He threw a hostile backward glance in her direction. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

  “I do, actually. Come to New Orleans for conjugal visits.”

  “New Orleans is a long ways away and requires expensive and inconvenient air travel. What am I supposed to do to appease my lusts in between visits?”

  This, she needed to think about. Vanessa had vowed to herself long ago never to tolerate infidelity in a partner. At the same time, she didn’t want to cut her ties to Callum. Yes, he was an infuriating Leo, but he also had a lot of good qualities. Plus, she really liked him.

  “I don’t know.” Sighing deeply, she looked up at the ceiling. “I need more time to weigh the pros and cons.”

  He stood at the window—not turning, not saying anything—for an infuriatingly long time. Then, he said, “Do think it over, but consider this when you do: if you decide to move to New Orleans, we’ll have no choice but to sleep with other peo
ple.”

  She spewed an exasperated sigh at his back. He was such a bloody Leo it wasn’t even funny. Yes, he’d done a good job of banking his fire over the past week, but she knew what Leos were like. If she gave an inch, he’d take a mile, take control of her life, tell her what to wear, how to fix her hair, what to read, what to think, what friends he approved of and which he didn’t. She’d seen the signs. Unpacking her suitcase, the question about garters and stockings, and, worse, the assumption she’d give up her whole life simply because he asked her to.

  Indignation set a hook in her gut. She would not, could not, be a Stepford wife to anyone.

  “Listen, Callum, I like you and all, but if you try to change me…or tell me what to do, I’ll, I’ll”—she hesitated, unsure what threat she was prepared to back up—“well, just don’t, all right? If it ever comes down to a choice between you and my freedom, I’ll choose my freedom, whatever the cost.”

  He stood there a long while, looking out the window, saying nothing. Just when she’d reached the end of her patience, he said, “When I was a lad, I collected butterflies. I’d catch all sorts, pin them to a board, and label each specimen with its Latin name and where I’d caught it.”

  She shot visual arrows at his back. What was he trying to say—that he was planning to collect her, too? Pin her to a bloody board with her bloody name and where he’d caught her written underneath on a label?

  Vanessa Angelica Bentley

  Mo Dearbadan-de

  John o’Groats, Scotland

  She waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. He just stared out that fucking window like she wasn’t even in the room. With an addled huff, she prompted, “What’s your point, Simba?”

  His hands were clasped over his bum and he was motionless apart from his twitching fingers. Finally, just when she was tempted to throw something at him, he went on. “One day, I had an epiphany and wept for all the butterflies I’d killed. They were so beautiful, so delicate, and so wondrous. By trying to hold onto them, I destroyed their spirit—the thing that made them so special.” Turning to look at her over his shoulder, he added, “I would never ask you to choose between me and your freedom nor try to change the things that make you beautiful and unique. And, quite frankly, it hurts me deeply to know you believe I would.”