Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

" S he was asleep again. In the middle of the night."

Mal braced his hands on the split rail fence by the house, gazing at the field beyond it, dotted with purple wildflowers. Unlike other vegetation here, the resilient blossoms were native to the island.

The preserve was an amalgamation of environments, created by a sorcerer's spellcraft to provide optimal habitat for the animals Mal had rescued or brought here for rehabilitation. One-way portals, pieced together with fault lines between the protected areas here and the wild places where many of the cats would ultimately be returned, allowed that transition to happen less traumatically than a plane or boat trip.

So much that had once seemed impossible had become possible here. He didn't take any of that for granted. But there were days when he was filled with anger, because none of that could save his daughter from the dangers of the vampire world into which she'd been born.

Elisa stood next to him, her hip pressed against his thigh. Over eighty years ago, she'd come to him, and proven herself far more than a simple Irish maid from the household of another vampire, Lady Danny. Elisa was a woman who'd faced unimaginable loss with courage, not allowing it to stop her from caring for others. Or falling in love with him.

She'd become his third marked servant, which bound her to him forever. Three hundred years in this life, and whatever lay in the afterlife, if vampire lore on the subject wasn't merely wishful thinking. He hoped it wasn't, because every day he spent with her told him no amount of time would ever be enough.

She'd also borne his children. Vampires rarely procreated, and if they did, and the child survived to adulthood, it was expected to be their one and only. Twins were an even rarer miracle. He'd only heard of it once before, so their children had received closer scrutiny.

For a mercifully brief timespan, they'd faced the threat of their removal. It was thought the children would be safer with a stronger, older vampire until they'd passed the age at which they were susceptible to kidnapping from the Trad sect, or other vampires who hungered for the status blood children could bring.

However, because of the island's special status, and whose direct protection it had—Lady Lyssa, last member of vampire royalty and currently the head of the Vampire Council; Lord Marshall, the Florida overlord; and Lady Danny, once a Region Master in Australia and now a Council member herself—Mal and Elisa had had the freedom to raise them here, and let them become as extraordinary and unique as Fate had planned.

Sometimes Mal wanted to punch Fate in the mouth.

At the young age of fifty, their son Adan had officially become apprenticed to an accomplished sorcerer. Through a trial no one had expected him to survive, he'd evolved from that into a Light Guardian. Thanks to his mating and vampire-servant bonding with a hamadryad, Catriona, who happened to be the ward of the powerful Fae Lord Keldwyn, Adan was also a valuable bridge between the Fae and vampire worlds.

Mal didn't have a problem with any of that. Well, not so much anymore. While it was unlikely he would ever fully trust the Fae, he didn't doubt Catriona's love and devotion to Adan. She'd been with them during the thirteen years when they weren't sure if Adan would make it through the grueling Light Guardian training.

Now the two of them traveled together on the many tasks that involved a Light Guardian, but Adan visited the island whenever he could. Since a vampire was immortal, what was a long time to a human wasn't much more of a blink to them.

Except when it came to the absence of their offspring.

Elisa curled her hand around Mal's braced forearm. "Ruth is safe on the preserve. None of the cats would be after hurting her. She has a way with them. It's one of her many gifts."

They were both aware of what traits weren't gifts. Elisa and Mal had recognized the differences between their two children early on, but the years Adan had been away from Ruth had made those things more noticeable. When they were together, they'd functioned almost as a unit, and made it easier for those issues to be overlooked.

Elisa's jewel-blue eyes lifted to his face. "It's all right, Master," she said softly. "I know it. These things work out."

"Usually if the people aware of the problem act before the worst can happen." He set his jaw. "It's time, Elisa. The Circus is the safest place for her."

Elisa tensed, but they'd had the discussion before. Argued about it, something she rarely did with him, but when it happened, it was always about protecting someone. Him, their children. Other children.

That was how their relationship had started all those years ago. She'd brought a half-dozen vampire children to his island. Not born vampires like theirs. These had been human children forcibly turned. Aberrations that most would have agreed needed a swift and humane end. She'd argued with him to save their lives. Argued, pleaded, cajoled. And prevailed. Four had survived and adapted.

They'd found places in the world for them, but Mal remembered the agony of those early days, when they didn't know how it would work out. If it would work out.

Now they visited William and Matthew in Florida frequently, where they lived with Lord Marshall and his servant, Nadia. Adan and Ruth considered the boys good friends. Same for the two females, Nerida and Miah, who resided at the Farida Sanctuary in Tennessee. They were thriving. As much as children forcibly converted to vampires by a monster and forever doomed to look like children could thrive. But yes, they were content and reasonably at peace, in the best scenario possible for them.

Still, their leaving had been hard for Elisa. Adan's thirteen-year separation had been awful, but before that, when he'd left to apprentice with Derek, another Light Guardian, she'd accepted it as what a boy did when he became a man.

Ruth was different. She was another fledgling leaving the nest, with weaknesses that made her far more vulnerable to a dangerous world.

But despite how often her soul had worried, suffered and grieved over her children, adopted and born, his servant was a strong female. And she trusted him. Mal valued that trust and worked hard to keep it.

"Adan says there's a member of the Circus with a threat against her," Mal continued. "She has a protector, but he has other commitments pressing upon him. Lady Yvette, the Circus's Mistress, has suggested a female vampire addition to their security team, one who can specifically watch out for her when he has to attend to those commitments."

"A bodyguard?" Elisa's brow furrowed. "But vampires might attend the Circus performances. They have before."

"Yes. But the Circus already has strong protections in place, even for performances watched by vampires and other races. Yvette is an accomplished sorceress, and Adan says she has additional help in that area. Plus, if Ruth is there, she's under Lady Yvette's protection, and all that entails.

"As far as the job itself, Ruth is well trained. She may not be as strong as other vampires, but she can fight. She's focused, intuitive to danger, and can stay ahead of threats, calling in stronger reinforcements as needed. It's what a good bodyguard does."

A small smile touched Elisa's lips. Her hand tightened on his arm. "A job that says she's capable of being a protector, where she'll have the protection she herself is needing."

"She could take it as a measure to placate her. Her brother is a respected free agent in the vampire world, and she's being offered the job of a security guard, where she'll be cushioned from most of the vampire world's demands."

"Ruth knows her limitations, better than anyone," Elisa noted. "We'll be honest with her, as we've always been."

Mal met her gaze. "We've never discussed the other issue straight out with her. We've waited for her to bring it up."

"Because it's a bloody sin in the vampire world." A rare bitterness edged Elisa's words. "It's ridiculous. They have their own pecking order, the stronger vampires taking the lead, the less strong agreeing to be ruled by them in their territories and regions. How is it so different?"

"You know why." He wrapped his arm around her hip, cupping it with strong fingers. "Vampires are dominant by nature. They submit only when someone proves themselves stronger than them, and only as long as they can hold onto that position. It doesn't indicate a change in their nature.

"Our daughter is a submissive," he stated. "And she's too strong-willed to be good at subterfuge. A vampire around her any length of time will pick up on it. So far the ones who have are family, or as good as. She won't be safe in normal vampire circles. Especially with her being behind the curve on the physical strength she should have by this age."

"Lord Brian said it would continue to develop," Elisa said.

"Yes. Much more slowly than anticipated, and it will reach a stopping point."

Lord Brian ran the research centers in Savannah and Berlin, studying the strengths and weaknesses of vampire kind, helping to contribute to their survival. Even so, he hadn't been able to predict when Ruth's development would cease. His best guess was during her second century. Most vampires continued to strengthen as they aged, enhancing their ability to survive and prosper.

"She is not the first to have the issue," Brian had told them. "I will not tell you his identity, but there is one well-placed vampire, four centuries old, who has adapted and so far overcome the issue by developing his wits and intelligence. Cultivate those traits in her."

"If only I hadn't been so determined not to tell anyone." Elisa's voice had that broken note Mal wouldn't tolerate.

He lifted her chin. Catriona had told Mal his servant's faceted eyes were the color of indicolite, a tourmaline. Adan's Fae servant and mate had given Elisa a necklace with them once as a birthday gift, proving it. Except Elisa's eyes had even more facets, thanks to all the emotions that brought them to life.

Her thick brown hair was clipped back, but it clustered in silken waves around her face, tempting him to pull the clip loose so he could spool those locks around his fingers, ease the tightness of her soft lips.

"No. That choice was mine," he told her. "I forbade you to tell anyone about the pregnancy, especially once we realized you were carrying two babies. I knew it would make you a target for other vampires. They would have tried to take you, cut the babies out of you when they were ready, so they could have them."

As he thought of such vampires, his grip tightened. If any of them had come after Elisa, Mal would have done anything to stop them. And it wouldn't have been enough.

The shadows that replaced the fire in his heart clung to his next words. "I could only protect you so much here. It was my decision, Elisa. Our daughter paid the price for it."

"No." Elisa pulled herself out of her own castigation. "You didn't know what would happen. And you did permit me to tell Lady Danny, when I became worried at what I was sensing."

Lady Danny was the only other vampire he'd known to have come from a twin birthing. As soon as she'd heard Elisa was carrying twins, she alerted them to the danger they'd never thought to consider.

Better late than never.

Ruth had been a frail child who'd given them a lot of harrowing moments during those first few years. But she'd pulled through.

Because they were honest with their children, Mal and Elisa had struggled with the decision they'd ultimately made, not to tell Adan and Ruth why Ruth had been born so much weaker than her brother. They saw no purpose to it.

His Irish flower, his atsilusgi , put a hand on Mal's arm. "Her Da looks after her and loves her," she said staunchly. "He would do anything to protect her. Just as your dear mother did for you, God rest her."

A sore point, but one that hit the right target. His mother had sacrificed her life for him on the Trail of Tears.

"Right, then." Elisa squared her shoulders. "So Ruth will be joining the Circus and protect a lass who needs protection. Sounds like a fine adventure."

Day to day, Elisa had educated Brit and a touch of Aussie in her accent, because that was how she'd been raised, as a house servant. However, over the years, she'd purposefully reclaimed even more of her Irish heritage, including in her speech. He understood that need.

Mal drew her close, putting his mouth on hers. He made the kiss the kind that took them deep inside one another, where they danced together in a night sky of stars and shared history, love and loss, laughter and tears. All theirs.

When he lifted his head, her hands were curled against his biceps, her fingers stroking the tattoo there of a lioness, batting at feathers inked over the contour of the muscle.

"Just like every cat brought here, we work with what we have and give them the best possible chance of a good outcome. We'll do the same for Ruth." He said it for his own benefit, as well as Elisa's. "I have faith in her. She has her mother's stubbornness and strength of will."

Elisa's eyes twinkled. "Aye. Her mother's stubborn will."

With a mock stern look, Mal lifted her onto the split rail and slid his hands under her skirt. Her knees parted for his demanding touch, her blue eyes darkening as he put himself against her. "I'm going to take you right here," he murmured. "I want to see your eyes reflect the stars, and hear you cry out for me. You are irresistible."

"That's what Kohana used to say about Ruth," Elisa spoke breathlessly as he stroked her clit, and slid several fingers inside her sweet cunt. Ready for him. Always ready for him.

Then there were those gorgeous, full breasts. He'd suckle them until she came for him again.

"Oh…"

"What did he say exactly? Tell me, Elisa."

He loved to watch her struggle to obey a command in such a moment. Her exasperated look was touched with desperate humor. Her nails dug into his biceps again. "He said the man whose heart Ruth captured would need all the help he could get, to resist her."

Kohana had been Mal's second marked servant, for decades the thorn in his side, and his closest friend. He could well imagine the big Lakota Sioux making that wry comment. Mal gave her a dark look. Plus an admonishing pinch for her barely suppressed smile. "One crisis to deal with at a time."

She was leaving the island.

Ruth's mind spun like an upended turtle on a busy highway. She needed it to slow down, but after the conversation she'd had with her father, there was little chance of that.

It was just before dawn, so she was in her room underground, where she'd be protected from the sun. Once dawn came, sleep would claim her, whether she wanted it to do so or not, but at least it would give her busy brain a break.

Ruth lay in her bed, studying the handful of black and white feathers she'd been able to find and collect in the vicinity of her wrestling match with the incubus. She'd put them in a clay pot on her dresser, one that Chumani, Kohana's wife, had made for Ruth when she was nine. Etchings of bounding bobcats formed a decorative collar below the rounded lip.

Before Ruth put the feathers in there, she'd laid them out on the dresser. Three wing feathers and a contour feather. She'd confirmed the jagged lightning pattern, the silver-tinged white intersecting gleaming black.

She'd gathered them up into one hand and stroked them through the channel formed by her half-curled fist. The contact made her shiver and recall the astounding force of his sexual energy. The demanding strength of his hands upon her.

He'd liked her resistance. She suspected he'd particularly liked it because she'd known she was overpowered and outmatched, and it didn't stop her from fighting.

The over-the-top climaxes had left a very pointed message. I let you run from me, but when it comes time to take what I want, you will submit.

She had an answer for him. If we meet again, I don't plan to make it easy on you.

Incubus was still her best guess on what her dangerous playmate was. But she knew of another winged race.

Angels.

Adan had told her there was one at the Circus. She'd thought he was messing with her, but he insisted he wasn't. She'd never had the chance to attend a Circus performance. That was about to change.

A woman needs protection there… The Circus travels to many places. As a Circus employee, you would be under the protection and rule of Lady Yvette. She would be your overlord while you're with them.

When Mal explained the situation to her, she'd heard all the unspoken messages. This was an option to broaden her world, with the best safeguards possible. But there were no guarantees. For the first time in her life, if she needed immediate protection, she would be out of range of the people and setting she trusted to provide it.

"Do you wish to go?" he'd asked, watching her closely.

When her father was experiencing strong emotions, his voice became flatter and harder, his expression freezing in lines that made him look almost cruel.

They'd been in his home office, dominated by a scarred giant desk that looked like an old sea chest. When Mal had asked her to join him there, Ruth had been sure it was because he knew about her earlier encounter. She'd braced herself for his censure for not alerting him, but that concern had vanished in the face of the unexpected topic.

Even so, she wasn't in the habit of lying to her father, or hiding information from him. For the first couple decades of a born vampire's life, it was impossible anyway. Vampire parents could scour their kids' minds if they suspected even a hint of evasion. They didn't hesitate to do so, since a pre-pubescent vampire's bloodlust, strength and lack of impulse control could take an adult human's life, and their island had a staff of a dozen humans. They were all first or second marked, but only a third mark "might" have the strength to fight off a born vampire child and prevail.

At that age, if she'd ever even thought about copping an attitude, demanding her parents "respect her privacy," her father's stare would have pushed the words right back down her throat, wisely blocking anything else from coming out. Other than the two words he'd expect.

Yes, Sgidoda.

Yes, Da.

She used the Cherokee and Irish terms interchangeably.

She was an adult now, but the respect was still there, and well-earned. Ruth circled the desk to sink to her knees beside him. She put her hand on his leg as she gazed up into his face.

"Yes, I want to go. I think I need to." Change was scary. But she was ready for it, and that would give her the courage to bear the uncertainty. "I won't forget just how precious home is."

Mal stroked her hair as she laid her head on his knee and wrapped her arms around his muscled calf to hold him close. He always smelled like earth, fur, forest. Wild things.

"I will miss you, tlanistè ."

The affectionate, informal term for daughter was gentle in his deep voice.

She raised her head to gaze at him. She saw her father, but there was no denying his appeal as a man. All vampires were sexy and mesmerizing. Whenever Ruth accompanied her father to the mainland for a supply pickup he had to handle directly, human females stammered and blushed over his simplest question, like "Do you have half-inch PVC pipe?"

Elisa liked to tease him, saying he looked like a warrior from the set of Dances With Wolves . With the long hair he sometimes wore braided with feathers, beads and ribbons—when he didn't have to work close to the big cats—it was a pretty accurate comparison.

When Ruth was a child, he'd been strength and authority to her, the port in the storm. She'd watched him weather some awful ones and hold fast. As an adult, she wanted him to be proud of her. Wanted him not to think of her as a burden, a constant worry.

Aside from her own reasons for wanting to go, she hoped this was a path to do that.

Dawn was getting closer, and they'd discussed what was needed. As she rose to leave, she stopped at the office door and traced the knife marks alongside the frame. It was an idle habit, Mal testing his throwing accuracy from his desk.

When Kohana was alive, he'd come to Mal's office and brace his hand next to it as he informed Mal of important matters. Like when Mal had his head up his own ass. Some of those marks were Mal's answer to that assessment.

"Have you ever hit him, Sgidoda ? By accident, or on purpose?"

Adan had asked the question when they were both much younger. Ruth remembered her brother's wide blue eyes.

"I never miss what I aim at," Mal had told him. "How do you think he lost his leg?"

They'd been in the living room, Elisa mending clothes, Mal whittling, Ruth and Adan playing a game on the rug. Kohana, peeling vegetables in the large kitchen, snorted and tapped his prosthetic leg with the butt of the peeler.

"Your father is telling tales," he told Adan. "He annoyed me one day and I lacked a proper weapon. So I cut off my leg to have something large enough to beat some sense into him." His mouth twitched. "Sadly, it was not large enough."

According to her father, Kohana had written his own job description as a second marked servant. Her father still missed his friend. They all did. She and Adan had called Kohana "uncle." When Kohana asked why, Adan told him, "Because you and father are brothers. Aren't you?"

The two men had been out in the barn, working together to fix a faulty pump for the rain barrels. Mal had lifted his head at the comment. Kohana said nothing, one of the few times Ruth remembered him showing the deference a vampire expected from a servant, but ever after she'd known Kohana honored those protocols, not because they existed, but because he respected her father.

"Yes," Mal said. "We are."

When Ruth emerged from Mal's office, she saw her mother sitting in the hallway. Elisa was rarely idle. Tonight, she was reviewing and making notes in her garden journal. Her curiosity, her desire to learn and her love of reading were things she'd given Ruth.

Unlike Mal, Elisa didn't have an expression that walled off what was going on behind it. Her mother was resilient as hell, but the wave of emotions she was feeling made Ruth grip the frame anew.

"I'll be okay." Looking over her shoulder, Ruth met her father's eyes, her back straight and chin set. "We knew I would eventually have to face the big, bad world of vampires on my own. I'm ready to take those risks. Just like Lil Sol."

Lil Sol had been a bobcat cub born with a deformed leg and a bad heart. He'd been found on a Florida highway and had two years on the preserve before his heart gave out. Initially, they'd thought to keep him away from the others to protect him, but he'd pined for the company of his brethren. With them, he managed many of the hunting and play behaviors they did.

"There's no sense in living a half-life to get twice as much time," she told her father.

His flat expression came back, which surrounded her heart with his love and held it tight. Ruth moved into the hallway to accept the warm strength of her mother's arms.

"Lil Sol was far tougher than those other cats expected," Elisa said, woman to woman. "Tis the way of it, more often than not."

Returning to the present, Ruth curled her arms around her knees, drawing them up against the pillow she was holding, and gazed at the bouquet of feathers.

Was the male she'd encountered earlier tonight both angel and incubus? Was that possible? She couldn't ask Mal, not at this point. With the significant turn of events, she'd decided not to raise the issue she'd expected to have to discuss, why she hadn't called for him when she realized an intruder was on their island.

She couldn't give Mal an answer she didn't know herself.

In the few days before she left for the Circus, she'd wait and see if the winged male came back. If not, then it was a passing encounter, over and done. Nothing her father needed to know about.

The sun was starting to crest, because the lethargy she could never seem to shake or push past started to grip her. Other vampires her age could get in a couple hours more waking time in whatever burrow they found from the sun. Watch cable, write letters. Surf social media. Instead, she was comatose once it fully cleared the horizon, and started its slow ascent into the sky.

She wondered how it would be at the Circus. Adan had told her when they weren't doing a show, the Circus set up camp in the in-between places between worlds, and the daylight was a soft buttery gold that didn't burn vampires.

On an impulse, she shoved herself off the mattress and stumbled to the dresser. She brought the clay pot back to her nightstand and took one of the wing feathers into the bed with her. As she held it against her, the tip teased her collarbone like the male's fingertips.

Whether it made her sleep more or less restfully didn't matter. Whoever he was, she wanted him in her dreams with her.