Darkest Flame

“Kellan?”

 

 

He inwardly shook himself and looked at Rhys. “She’s hungry. I need to get her a tray of food.”

 

Rhys narrowed his aqua eyes on him. “Let Kiril bring her the food. I think I should drive you to Inverness.”

 

“Con wants me to get close to her.” Though Kellan wanted to be anywhere but there. A ride to Inverness sounded great, especially because it would get him farther from Denae, but also because he could find a willing woman to slake his lust on.

 

“Does Con know you’re barely holding it together?”

 

Kellan briefly squeezed his eyes shut. “I suspect he does. I also suspect he’s doing it on purpose because I’ve been asleep so long.” Kellan didn’t bother to say the third reason, the main reason he had decided to sleep—the one only Con knew.

 

“He can be an arse,” Rhys stated flatly. “I wouldna put either past him. None of us begrudged you your sleep. Return now. I’ll see to Denae.”

 

Without a doubt Rhys would do exactly as he claimed. It was Kellan’s way out of all of it. Con might be the King of Kings, but that didn’t mean he controlled the Dragon Kings.

 

So if Rhys was giving him the excuse to leave as he wanted, why then wasn’t Kellan taking it?

 

All of a sudden, the image of Denae’s hand shaking over the medicine bottle flashed in his mind. There was much the female was hiding. It could be something to harm the Kings, in which case Kellan couldn’t return to his sleep.

 

At least that was what he told himself.

 

“No’ yet,” he said to Rhys. “I want to get to the bottom of all of this.”

 

“Has Con filled you in on everything?”

 

“Last night,” Kellan said. “It’s quite a story how the women came to be mated with Hal, Guy, and Banan. The Silvers really moved?”

 

Rhys nodded woodenly. “We’ve still no’ uncovered how or why.”

 

“And the Warriors.” Kellan had soaked up all the information on the Warriors and Druids of MacLeod Castle and their many battles with the evil Druids, or droughs. “Con actually told the Warriors what we are. And he fought beside them.”

 

Rhys smiled widely as he stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Kellan, it felt wonderful to fight again. Besides, Charon and Phelan are good men. You’d like them, I think.”

 

“So much has changed.”

 

“And so much hasna,” Rhys said softly. “We still wait until nightfall to take to the skies. Sometimes if the storm is intense enough we can fly during the day. We’re no’ free.”

 

Kellan scratched at his chin and felt the whiskers growing. “We’ve no’ been free since the humans arrived, my friend.”

 

“I’ve missed you. I know it was your hatred of the mortals that kept you sleeping so long, but it’s good to have you back.”

 

His words eased Kellan somewhat and he forced his lips into some semblance of a smile. “It’s good to see you again, too. Doona tell Con, but I’ve missed walking around this place.”

 

Rhys laughed loudly. “Anything to put a knot in Con’s knickers.”

 

Kellan found himself freely grinning. Rhys never failed to irritate Con one way or another. “How many of us are awake now?”

 

“About a third. Most took one look around and returned to their caves. The others are a bit more curious. We took turns through the centuries keeping up your work, but since we’re no’ official Keepers of the History, it might no’ be all there.”

 

At the mention of the history of the Dragon Kings, Kellan pushed away from the door and started for the stairs. As Keeper, he didn’t need to be at an event to record it. It showed in his head much like the movies that were so popular. They continued even while he slept away the centuries. All he had to do was record them now.

 

At one time being Keeper of the History had been something Kellan had been proud of. That wasn’t the case anymore. He turned his mind away from then when he heard something hit the shower wall. “Listen in case Denae falls. She’s stubborn.”

 

It took ten minutes for Kellan to find Cassie downstairs and then make his way back to Denae. As he neared her room, he found the door cracked with Rhys nowhere in sight.

 

Then he heard Denae’s laugh and Rhys’s voice. Kellan pushed the door open to find the pair at the window looking out.

 

“The sheep are climbing over each other,” Denae said in awe as she laughed.

 

Rhys leaned a forearm against the wall. “They tend to do that sometimes. The sheepdogs run along their backs, especially when the sheep are penned as they are now.”

 

“The sheep aren’t being slaughtered, are they?”

 

Rhys’s laugh was long and deep. “Nay, lass. They’re being sheared.”

 

“But you do slaughter them here,” she said as she turned her head to him.

 

“A few. Mostly we sell them. They’re loaded onto a truck and shipped off.”

 

“Will you bring them all in? I see some far off in the distance that look like little white specks.”