Whatever this girl had done to attract Warin’s attention, before the night was over she’d wish she had died by a raider’s hand back in her shithole of a village.
“You smell… divine,” Warin murmured as he drew his nose up along the side of her neck where her pulse drummed rapidly. Her shallow gasps made her chest heave and her pupils blew wide with terror. When Warin’s fangs lengthened with a snick, she flinched and whimpered, but the vampire didn’t let her escape. He kept her pressed tightly against his own body as he nuzzled her neck with his nose.
“Stop playing with your food,” Aleric sighed as he stepped into the clearing. “I keep telling you, they taste better without the bitter notes of fear.”
The woman in Warin’s grip jerked and cried out at his appearance. She wouldn’t be able to understand the language he’d spoken, but he knew she’d have no trouble recognizing him as another Nightwalker.
“I’m not playing,” Warin sighed. His eyelids were half-closed as he sniffed and nudged at his prey, much like a loving cat. “She’s magnificent, isn’t she?”
Aleric arched an eyebrow at the pathetic human. She was small and dirty and scared witless, and for the life of him, he couldn’t tell what had his brother so enthralled. But he knew better than to question his Elder when he was consumed by bloodlust.
“Wonderful,” he said, his tone dry. “Are we staying here for the night then, or do you plan to be quick about it?”
Warin finally looked up from the girl’s neck then, and something… odd seemed to flame in his eyes. He wasn’t lost to bloodlust. No, this was… something else. Something deeply disturbing.
“I want to keep her.”
“Keep her?” Aleric raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “You want to Embrace this pathetic human?!”
Warin growled. The girl flinched again and tears began to leak from her eyes, but Warin didn’t pay her any mind. “I will never sire a Child. You know this.” His furious expression softened as he pressed his cheek against the crying girl’s. “She will stay human. And she will stay with me.”
Aleric narrowed his eyes at the girl. She had to be some sort of witch to have made his brother lose his mind within the span of a single night. “And what, exactly, do you plan to do with your new pet?”
“You speak as if this is unheard of. We have encountered many of our kind who kept human companionship,” Warin snarled, clearly irritated with Aleric's less than ecstatic response to this newest twist in their journey. He released the girl and stepped toward the taller man. “You yourself have pet humans whenever we stay in towns for any length of time. Why shouldn’t I?”
Aleric resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he looked his brother up and down, arching an eyebrow as he tried to find a way of explaining his… hesitance… at the idea of Warin growing attached to a human he’d picked up in the middle of the wilderness. Preferably without getting the temperamental Elder in one of his moods. His long, dark hair stuck together in matted clumps. Dirt smeared most of his visible skin, giving him an eerie, wild appearance. Smears of dried blood still adorned his lips from their evening meal.
“Humans need shelter. Food. You can’t keep her out here, and you dislike crowded towns. Just… put the pitiful thing out of her misery and let’s continue our travels, brother. Maybe a trip back to Sicily? You did so enjoy the monasteries there.”
“No!” Warin’s roar echoed through the clearing, and Aleric quickly dropped to one knee in a show of submission.
“She is mine! She will stay with me.” Warin pointed menacingly at Aleric, his darkened eyes narrowing. “Do not cross me! I have to know why her heart sings to me. I have to know, or I will go mad! I will not eat her. You will not eat her. As your Elder, I command it!”
Aleric blinked. It was the second time in his life he had heard this command. The first time had been when Warin had stood bathed in their Sire’s blood, the wild flames in his eyes so similar to those now dancing in his gaze as he’d commanded his brother to never speak of what had transpired that night.
After their Sire’s death, he was the eldest known vampire in their bloodline. His command was law. And yet, through their more than two hundred years together, this was only the second time Warin had used it.
And it was over a human.
Aleric bowed his head in acceptance, then looked back up. “As you command, brother.”
Warin held his gaze for a moment longer, then nodded as well, some of the tension leaving his body. “She is special, Aleric. I intend to find out why.”
Aleric got to his feet and glanced over Warin’s shoulder at the girl currently sprinting across the clearing. She was still na?ve enough to believe she could ever escape the vampire whose interest she’d piqued. “Then you should probably catch her, before she trips and breaks her neck.”
Warin looked in the direction his prize had run off in, a frown marring his features. Aleric was pretty sure it was inspired by dawning realization that his new pet could easily die even without encountering vampire fangs.
He watched as the wild vampire who’d cared for him when he was still new and vulnerable bolted across the clearing and tackled the human girl to the ground, pinning her in the grass with a menacing growl. The same growl Warin had given him when he’d taught him how to survive and he’d done something unforgivably stupid that would undoubtedly have gotten him killed, had he been on his own.
The woman, whose face was currently less than three inches from Warin’s bared fangs, looked like she was about to wet herself.
Aleric sighed and sank down in a crouch by her campfire to poke at the burning logs with a stick. Warin may have taught him how to survive as a creature of the night, but he had a feeling that he’d have to teach his feral brother how to live as a human, if this wasn’t going to end in complete disaster.
Chapter 4
Warin
“Be calm!” Warin glared at the trembling human underneath him. The smell of fear wafted off her in waves, and for some reason it was putting him on edge. Usually he loved that scent—loved every frantic heartbeat and panicked gasp for air as his prey took him in. On Thea, though…
“I said calm!” He pushed his will at her, felt the jolt up his spine as his mind connected with hers… and nothing. Again.
He glared at the still absolutely terrified woman. He’d never met a human he couldn’t Compel. Until last night.
“Maybe it would help if you stopped shouting at the lass,” Aleric drawled from the campfire. His voice was dry as tinder. “Unless you want to wash her in the creek, because I’m pretty sure she’s seconds away from soiling herself.”
Warin shot a glare over his shoulder, but his insolent brother wasn’t even looking in his direction. Not that he’d need to, to know Thea was scared. Her heartbeat drummed against her ribs so loud it seemed to pulse through his own, unmoving chest.