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As we made our way back, I considered the good news and the bad news. First, I wasn’t nearly as alone as I’d feared. I did, in fact, have friends on this island. All good.
But the bad news? Apparently, my allies were incapable of standing within ten feet of each other without looking like they wanted to draw blood.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ididn’t get a warning. Just a tug on my hand, then boom. Carden swept me off the path, behind a rock. And then he kissed me. Hard.
His body pressed mine against the cool granite. I’d been shivering before—the night was freezing and flurries had begun to drift down from the night sky—but no more. He was as cool and solid as the rock at my back, and yet heat blazed through me. My body—my blood—hummed in perfect recognition. This was where I belonged. With Carden.
He pulled from me finally, and I drew in a shaky breath. I’d been nervous what he might say. Nervous he’d be mad to have found me with Ronan. Our conversation surely had looked like more than just a chat between student and teacher. It had been more than a simple chat. But this intense kiss? I hadn’t expected this.
“Carden…what was…wow…” I gasped a laugh, trying to get ahold of my senses. Was this his way of taking my mind off the keep? Because it was working. “What was that for?”
I couldn’t see him clearly, but I felt his eyes bore into me through the darkness. He swept the hair from my neck and leaned close, whispering, “To remind you. ”
His words were a hot tickle in my ear, and I shivered with pleasure. If this was Carden being jealous, bring it on. “Remind me?”
“That you’re mine,” he growled.
Ronan was my friend. He gave my belly the occasional flutter. But that was where it stopped. In our time together, I’d known Ronan to steal my nerves. My will.
But Carden. He stole my breath.
I swallowed hard, gathering my senses. “Ronan is the last person you need to worry about. ”
Recent concerns about my safety—about Yasuo—invaded my mind. Carden must’ve sensed it, because he asked, “And who should give me cause for concern?”
“Nobody. ” I forced the thoughts from my mind. “I didn’t mean it like that. ” Anxiety was a constant on the Isle of Night—I wouldn’t let it come between us. Instead, I considered the powerful creature in front of me. Just the thought that this ancient vampire might’ve been jealous…because of me…It exhilarated me. Made me feel bold.
I cupped his face in my hands and drew him down for a slow kiss…one that I led. “I don’t need any reminders,” I told him as I pulled away. How could I ever forget this?
“I appreciate a woman who knows her mind,” he said with a smile, then darted in for one last quick, hard kiss. “Perhaps I simply enjoy reminding you. ” His words were confident, but I heard a hint of relief in his voice.
I’d never been much of a flirter, but seeing his smile gleam in the darkness gave me the guts. Using my best coy voice, I told him, “Hey, feel free to jog my memory anytime. ”
He laughed, grabbed my hand, and tugged me around the other side of the rock. Leading us away from the path.
I stopped short, looking back to where we’d been. “Wait. The dining hall is that way. ”
“Ah, but you won’t be eating in the dining hall this evening. ”
“I won’t?”
“You wanted to know where I stay,” he said.
As much as I longed to see where he spent his time, I truly was starving. My stomach grumbled again. “I’m afraid I need more than just…to drink. Do you think I could grab some food first? It’ll just take a minute. I can just snag a—”
“Och. ” He tsk-tsked me. “Have faith, wee dove. I may no longer be human, but I haven’t forgotten how to be a man. I have prepared you food. ”
He sounded so proud saying it, I felt bad doubting him. But seriously, what passed for a meal in his world? It’d been hundreds of years since he’d needed food to survive. Did he remember what tasted good? Plus there was the whole ancient Scottish thing. Delicacies in his day were probably things like blood pudding served in sheep’s entrails. “What kind of food?” I tried not to sound too wary, but I probably failed.
He grinned at me, like he’d read my mind. “A good kind,” he said firmly. “Trust me. ” He took my hand in his.
I did, and it was. Good, I mean. Like, all kinds of good.
His refuge was a modest, one-room cottage. I’d have called it a shack, except there was nothing shacky about the heavy stone and mortar walls. It was nestled on the bank of a lake that was small enough to have demanded only a few breaths to swim across to the other side. Though the general location was inland, it wasn’t so far from the coast that I didn’t get a visceral sense of the horizon, gray and empty in the distance.
“What is this place?” I ran a finger along the butcher-block table that punctuated the middle of the room. It was dinged up from generations of things like chopping turnips and deboning fish and yet it was spotlessly clean.
