Byrne studied her face. Her grave features gave nothing away, but he knew her moods better than his own. He never had to chastise her for a mistake, for she punished herself more harshly than any master could—even when she was not in the wrong.
"We should not have gone there in the first place," he told her. "You were right to advise me against visiting the city at so late an hour."
"I should have anticipated the attack by the humans," she insisted. "I did not pick up their scent in the rain. Even if I had"—she made an uncertain gesture—"I might have dismissed it."
"They thought you a lad alone, with no one to look after you." Byrne could still feel Rob's grip on his shoulder as he had pulled him back out of the alley. Somehow his friend had sensed what had flared inside Byrne, straining and clawing to be released. At least he did not have to explain to Jayr why he had not stepped in to put a stop to the attack. She knew better than anyone how sudden, unexpected violence summoned the thing inside him. "Next time have Harlech or one of the men accompany us."
She stiffened for a moment. "They were but boys, my lord. Well within my abilities to disarm."
"I know that, lass." How prickly she could be, even after all these years. He watched the firelight chase itself through the short strands of her dark hair, threading it with glints of amber and topaz. "Where did you put Rob this time?"
"Lord Locksley requested his usual chamber by the west practice range. I arranged a warm bath and a willing maid to scrub his back." Jayr set his boots to one side, and her gaze shifted to the window. "It is the last night of the full moon, my lord."
Was that resolve in her voice, or resignation?
"I forgot." How quickly he lied to her. Yet he could never tell his seneschal how impatiently he waited for this night each month, counting the weeks and days and, sometimes, the hours. Knowing this was the night of renewal, he had felt his dents acérées emerge fully from the moment she had entered his chamber.
Byrne took the hand Jayr offered, feeling the slight weight of the other she placed against his left thigh. Renewing the bond between a Kyn lord and his seneschal required a brief, largely ceremonial exchange of blood once during each moon cycle. Some lords had abandoned the archaic custom altogether, but Byrne would not.
This monthly concord, this communion, this one selfish thing he would have with her.
Byrne brought her hand to his mouth. As ever, the desire to drive his teeth into it pummeled him from the inside. He instead gently scored her palm with only the very tips of his fangs. Her skin, as cool and resilient as his own, parted for him. Only a few drops of her blood escaped before the scratches healed over, but they were enough.
As ever, the slightest taste of her blood made his head spin.
Jayr's voice stirred his hair as she repeated her oath of loyalty to him. "I willingly undergo everything for you, my lord, and will serve as your seneschal for all the days of my life."
Byrne took his mouth from her palm but didn't utter the usual reply or offer her his wrist. He didn't want it to end so quickly this time. This might well be their last exchange.
Until he left, she was his.
Jayr stared up at him. Expanding rings of violet lightened the sienna of her eyes, and the set of her mouth told him that her fangs had extended fully. Before he could see shame in her face, before he could think, he picked her up and set her on his thigh.
Jayr sat rigid in the circle of his arm. "My lord?"
"Stay." Byrne tore at the leather lacing below his collar, opening it. When she didn't accept his offering, he cupped the back of her head with his hand and brought her face to his throat. Her full lips pressed against his flesh, but she still did not use her teeth on him. "Open your mouth."
The soft heat of her breath scalded him as she obeyed, and as soon as he felt the sharp tips of her fangs he pressed her face against him, forcing her to bite into his throat.
"I accept you as my seneschal," he muttered as he held her there, his blood flowing into her mouth, "and give you service, honor, and the protection of my house."
Jayr made a low sound that moved over his skin before she reluctantly sucked at the wounds. The light, exquisite pressure of her feeding inched down his chest and belly, teasing and tightening everything in its path. In that moment, Byrne would have given her every drop of blood in his cursed veins, if only to hold her a little longer.
Fingertips touched his chest; a square palm settled against it. Her scent sharpened and darkened, dragging at him. His chest burned as he fought a swelling, roiling compulsion to claw away her garments and fill his hands with her flesh. As she lifted her mouth from the bite wounds they healed over, and his arms, dull and heavy, dropped away from her.
Jayr eased onto her feet and picked up his boots, carrying them over to the foot of his bed. She remained there, her back to him as she turned down the coverlet and linens.
"Lord Locksley mentioned something about not competing in the archery contest this year." How normal she sounded. "So that others might have a chance at the prize."
"'Tis the only way they will." He saw her rearranging his pillows for his comfort and knew her touch would leave behind the scent of tansy. It had become the only thing that would lull him into the curious sleep of their kind. When she passed within his reach on her way to the woodbox, he almost pulled her back to him. His self-control would not last another minute. "Never mind the fire; I'm warm enough. Go to bed now, lass."
Without him. Alone. Where he should have sent her hours ago.
She started for the door, but halted and regarded him in an uncertain manner. "Forgive me, my lord, but is there something amiss?"
"Here?" Everything. Did she feel nothing when he touched her? "No."
"I meant, has something been troubling you? You seem so"—she searched for the words—"preoccupied of late."
"We have one final performance to give to the humans before several hundred Kyn descend on our household," he reminded her. "Some will be these newcomers from France and Italy. They willnae know how we do things here."
"I will speak to their men." Jayr extinguished the sheep's-tallow candles that she imported from Scotland because Byrne favored their scent. "Good night, my lord."
"'Wait." Byrne found that he could not let her go; he was on his feet and catching her shoulder to stop her. "You spoke the truth when you said you were not injured by the human's bullet?"
Jayr reached up and tugged aside the wide collar of her shirt, revealing a slim, unmarked shoulder. "I made a foolish mistake, but I would not lie about such a thing."
As the scent of tansy and heather entwined around them, Byrne stared down at her exposed flesh. His most accomplished fighter, the only Kyn he trusted completely at his back, and all he could think was how like new milk her skin was.
How many times had he wished he could lay his cheek upon that shoulder and feel the smooth touch of her skin against the roughness of his? But there, against the whiteness, two thin, crooked scars gleamed. Unlike the scratches he had inflicted on her palm, the silvery marks were the last wounds Jayr had suffered during her human life. Twin reminders of that which immortality would never heal.
That which he had done to her. The life that he had stolen from her.
"I know you would not." Gently he pulled her shirt back into place. "G'night, lass."
"Sleep well, my lord." She gave him her customary bow before slipping out of the room.
Byrne lifted the hand he had used to straighten her shirt. Three of his fingers burned in the places where they had skimmed over scars. Scars that he had given to her when she had found him in the pit trap at Bannockburn. Scars from the dents acérées he had buried in her mortal flesh, tearing at it in his eagerness for her blood.
Damn his soul to hell, but he could still feel the press of her hand on the back of his head, urging him closer instead of pushing him away. She had not been bespelled; his scent had been drowned by the mud of the pit. It had been the sweet warmth of her human blood that had thrown them into the death dream. There his memories ended.
Just as her life had.
To this day, Byrne did not understand why she had done it. Before they had come together at the battlefield, they had never laid eyes on each other. She had worn the garb of a peasant, and had spoken in the tongue of his enemy. Nevertheless, six hundred years ago Jayr had given her human life so that he might live to fight the English. And how had he repaid her? By making her a cursed creature, damned to walk the night forever at his side.
The time it should have ended was long past. He had to do this thing for both of them. His actions tonight made that plain. Someday she would understand why he did it.
Someday, perhaps, she would forgive him.
Michael Cyprien propped his back against a pile of silk-covered pillows and looked down at the naked woman sprawled across his legs.
"You have very good-looking kneecaps," Dr. Alexandra Keller said, tracing the lines of the bones beneath his skin. "Strong, nicely shaped, not too prominent. Pretty elegant for a set of load-bearing joints, pal."
"I could say the same about your feet." He slid his thumb from her heel to the curl of the back of her toes. "Although I believe they are more cute than elegant."
"In France, maybe." She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Do you know that in China I'd be like a supermodel from the ankles down?"
Alexandra's long mane of fiery chestnut curls framed a striking face as stirring to him as the first time he had beheld it. Then she had possessed the gentle, fathomless eyes of a Botticelli Madonna. He had destroyed much of that innocence by inadvertently ending her human life and making her his immortal companion, but now he saw even newer shadows masking the old.
Michael suspected she still dwelled on being abducted by Richard Tremayne, the Darkyn high lord, and what he had subjected her to while holding her captive at his castle in Ireland. It had been a nightmare for him as well.
