She went very still, her eyes unblinking as she stared at his mouth. "You are one of those called the Darkyn." When he nodded, she closed her eyes briefly before she fumbled with the top of her bodice and dragged her hair out of the way.

Byrne wondered if he was delirious, for she could not be doing this. "You are not afraid."

"In the convent they say you fought in the Holy Land, and are as fallen angels. That God will richly bless anyone who gives you aid." Her voice trembled as she asked, "But I am a little afraid. Will it hurt?"

"Only for a heartbeat, lass, and then you will forget the pain and the fear," he said, his voice growing thin. "I promise you."

He let her come to him, lying across him as she brought her throat to his mouth. He kissed the sweet, delicate skin there, and on her cheek, and at the corner of her mouth. When he felt her shiver, he put his arms around her and opened his mouth, striking as quickly and mercifully as he could. She flinched, gasping once as her hands fisted in his shirt.

Her blood flowed into him, warm and intoxicating, flooding his veins with unseen sunlight. Byrne drank from her until he felt the edges of his wounds pulling together, and then lifted his mouth to fill his lungs with the taste and smell of her.

Jayr put her hand to the two puncture wounds he had left in her skin, and gazed down to see the wound in his chest closing over. "You are well? You will live now?" When he nodded, she laughed and hugged him, her mouth descending to kiss his with innocent joy.

Byrne caught her face between his hands and brought her mouth back to his. The taste of her made him forget the killing, the heaps of bodies, and the ugliness of this war. She knew nothing of men, for his tongue in her mouth made her go rigid, but he stroked the inside of her lips and rubbed the softness of her tongue with his own until the tension left her limbs.

A moan humming in her throat, a new dampness coloring her scent, and something inside Byrne fell apart.

He did not think as he lifted her up, shoving her skirts out of his way and then reaching under them, hooking his fingers in the slatted crotch of her drawers to tear them apart. He only needed the taste of her, and brought her to his mouth so that he might kiss the lips no man had seen or touched. He found her mound bare and fragrant with her arousal, and put his mouth to her there, parting her with his tongue and tasting the barest hint of slickness from her slit. He needed to be inside her, and worked his tongue into her, using it like a cock to penetrate her while she shook between his hands, her voice silenced, her hands digging into his wrists.

The jewel in her tight little purse brushed against his upper lip, a kiss from a fairy's tongue. He brought his mouth up to capture it and suck until she made the sweetest sound he had ever heard from a woman and shuddered uncontrollably in the throes of first pleasure. As she crested, he reached down to yank open his trousers and free his cock.

He could think of nothing but impaling her, and so he did, lifting her again and settling her on the head of his cock. Despite the wetness from his mouth and her pleasure, he could force his way into her tightness only by short, hard inches. Byrne felt her muscles gripping him, drawing him in rather than forcing him back out. Then her maidenhead gave way to him, and one last push lodged him in her to the root.

Byrne looked up and saw that pain and fear had taken her from him, and smashed the hold slavering hunger had over his senses. "Lass.""It hurts." She drew his face to her throat. "Bite me again. Please," she added when he only kissed her. "Take me there again."

Feeding from her a second time was dangerous, but Byrne could not deny her the ease she would have from his bite or himself another taste of her. He struck a second time, groaning as his fangs punched through her skin and his cock surged deeper. The mists rose inside his head, and he tried to draw back, but they clouded his mind, drawing him down into the bloodrealms, where she was waiting.

Byrne had no memory of what happened after that, but he knew what he had done just the same. He had surrendered to the bloodrealms, where he took her blood and her body, in the most perfect communion of his life.

Where he loved her and was loved by her.

Where he grew strong, and made her weak.

Where he had left her to die.

Chapter 8.

Jayr hurried to the guards' hall, where Byrne would be meeting with his captains before retiring for the night, but found her master waiting alone.

Byrne stood by the central fireplace, leaning with one arm on the mantel as he stared down into the flames. It seemed to Jayr as if his eyes glowed as red and hot as the fire. That happened only when his temper grew unmanageable, something every soul within the Realm who knew their lord's affliction feared.

What angers him?

Jayr felt no fear. She could not look at Byrne without feeling his skin against her lips, or tasting him in her mouth. His very presence made itself known on her skin as if she were actually pressed against him. Such unseemly thoughts had never plagued her before, but she now suspected that he bond between them had been affected by their recent blood exchange, reshaped into a new and altogether unwelcome sensitivity.

Perhaps it affected him in the same fashion.

Why had he made her take oath blood from his throat? Before last night he had always made the exchange according to custom, in the proper manner of hand to mouth. What he had done had been too intimate for contact between a lord and his seneschal. He had treated her the way he might a human lover.

What had possessed him to think it necessary? She had never broken her oath to him; he had no reason to demand such a thing. But it was done, and it seemed that both of them would have to suffer the consequences. She had to stop brooding on it.

In time it would fade, and everything would be as it had been. She would simply have to remain on her guard until it did.

Jayr shuffled her feet, but Byrne ignored her, evidently as lost in his musings as she had been. "Excuse me, my lord. Should I summon your captains?"

"They have been and gone." His arm tensed, and the knuckles of the hand holding the edge of the mantel bulged. Just as quickly the moment passed, and the frightening cast to his eyes disappeared. "You are late again."

"Someone made mischief with Rainer." She described how she had found the warrior, and the condition of his rooms. "I will question Beau, but I doubt this was his doing. This seems too deliberate."

He nodded. "Cyprien has moved Alexandra from the infirmary to his chambers. Post guards at the access points."

"At once." That part of the keep was already well patrolled, so the request perplexed her. She tried to see his expression. "Is this because of Rainer, or do you or the seigneur expect some new trouble?"

"Rainer likely brought the beating upon himself. Michael's woman is genuinely ill. More than that I cannae say. She is nothing like us." He thrust himself away from the hearth and paced the length of the room. "Cyprien told me that her talent is to read the thoughts of murderers."

Jayr had never heard of such a thing. Kyn talents were unique to the individual, but served chiefly to lure humans or incapacitate them so that they could easily feed. A few exceptionally powerful lords like Lucan and Richard could use their talents on anything living, including other Kyn. Talent was for the hunt, so why would Alexandra need to know the thoughts of murderous humans in order to take their blood?

"Our household staff has left, and none of them would kill," Jayr told him. "Surely there is no one here who could cause her illness."

"She reads the thoughts of humans and Kyn." He stopped under a display of copper-bladed claymores. "Did you hear what she said before she fainted?"

"I did," she said, adding cautiously, "It sounded like the Gaelic you speak sometimes."

"'Twas my native tongue. She spoke like a woman of my clan. No human has done so in centuries." He ran his hand along the length of a blade in the same way he might stroke a woman's arm. He drew back and looked at a long gash on his hand in wonder. "Damn me."

Jayr was beside him before he could bleed, and seized his hand. The sharp edge of the sword had cut through his skin and muscles down to the bone, but instead of healing instantly, the wound remained open. Such a thing could not happen, unless- "You have not been feeding properly." She felt a sudden appalling urge to strike him. "But you had those women the other night.

Why did you not make use of them?"

"I cannae remember." Byrne seemed bemused rather than concerned by the wound. "'Tis no matter."

"Your bones sticking out of your wounds might make it difficult to clasp hands with the lords at the tournament," she snapped, examining the gash. Muttering to herself, she added, "This will take hours to heal."

He looked bored. "You make too much of it. Give me a cloth and I will bind it."

Jayr drew the dagger Harlech had given her and slashed her left wrist, pressing the wound to her master's palm. All of this she did too quickly for him to see, much less stop her. By the time he felt her blood pulse over his flesh, they were both healing.

"Dinnae waste yourself on me," he muttered as he pulled his hand away.

"I waste nothing. Be still." She encircled his wrist and brought his palm back to her own shrinking gash, forcing the last of the bleeding into his closing wound. Kyn blood could be used to heal the damaged flesh of another Kyn, but it was done only when the wound proved serious.

He eyed her. "Happy now, lass?"

"No. I don't understand why you've denied yourself like this. Have you tired of human females? Do you wish a new selection?" Part of her wanted to hear him say yes-and no, but not because it would explain his fast.

"I've lost my taste for them." He closed his fingers around her forearm, holding her as tightly as she gripped him. "Do you never weary of humans?"

I weary of playing nursemaid, she thought, but said nothing.

Flames crackled, but not in the fireplace. Jayr looked into her lord's eyes and saw them reflected there. Not the heat of anger or the ashes of melancholy. No, this heat was something entirely new, but part of her recognized it.

So it was true-she was not the only one suffering from useless desires.

"I would offer you different fare if I could, my lord," she said, quickly hiding her own startled pleasure, "but I fear you would not care for the taste of black bear, alligator, or flamingo."

"Aedan."

Her hold on him loosened. "My lord?"

"Aedan. It is my given name," Byrne said, bending until his nose almost bumped hers. "Or have you forgotten it?"

They had shared blood-far more than they ever had at renewal. The bond that tied her to him now tugged at her, as if determined to drag her backward through time, to the day she had first looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked back at her- Stop this. He is your master, not your lover.

"I have announced your name often enough." She hated the stiffness in her voice, but it could not be helped. For a moment she had thought of him as hers, and that would not do. "You need to hunt, and soon. Master, you cannot afford to have open wounds-"

"Master." He lifted his uninjured hand to her face and ran a fingertip along the curve of her brow. "You've not called me that since we left Scotland."

She had to swallow to find her voice. "When we came here you bade me call you lord."

"I did not want the Americans to think you my slave." As he spoke, his breath caressed her lips. "No." He cupped her jaw and held her when she tried to turn her face. "You still think of me that way? As your master?"

"I am your seneschal." She could not think, could not move. Whatever had seized him and burned in his eyes held her as tightly in its grip. "You have but to say how I am to think. I am sworn to obey."

"Yes." The strange incandescence faded from his eyes. "Of course." He released her and stepped away.

The distance between them helped Jayr reclaim some of her composure. "How is it that Lady Alexandra speaks your language?

Could she have somehow drawn it from your thoughts when they arrived?"

"No. My thoughts were not of murdering anyone, and I've made myself think in English since we came to this land." Byrne looked down at his hand, flexing his fingers and then spreading them to flatten his palm.

Jayr saw that his wound had healed over, and made a mental note to double the amount of blood she mixed into his wine for the next few days. "What did Lady Alexandra's words mean?"

"'Twas mostly gibberish." He pulled his sleeve down and straightened the cuff. "One thing I had prayed that I would never hear again." Contempt chilled his features. "The last time I heard it used was when Henry and his armies invaded the land. 'Burn the field.'"

Jayr remembered the old, vile king who had slaughtered anyone who stood in his path during his quest for power. He had certainly deserved to burn for his sins a thousand times over. "What field was burned?"

"All of them." Byrne's eyes dulled. "The English came before harvest that year, as they often did. One of the young farmers incited our villeins to go out and burn their crops where they stood. He had them pledged to see their own children starve before a handful of their grain fattened an English belly." His voice went soft. "Many children died that winter, along with their parents and kin."

Jayr thought of all the scorched fields she had seen on her first and only journey into Scotland. Everyone had blamed the English for them, even the Scots themselves. "I never knew this."

"I tried to find the instigator, but he vanished. Perhaps he starved along with the rest of them. The Brus played the politician; he made sure to blame the bloody English for the burnings, and they were eager to take the credit for it. It enhanced Henry's reputation for cruelty, and martyred those who died of starvation." Byrne's tone turned ironic. "They won, we became merchants, and they wrote the history books. No one could know those words unless they had heard them."

"One of the newcomers must have been," Jayr suggested. "Given the lady's talent, this could be some sort of warning, a premonition of trouble to come." She took out her radio. "I will alert the men and have them-"

"No." Byrne snatched the device from her and tossed it into the fire.

She had others; it made no difference to her. It was the manner with which he treated her equipment that stirred her ire. Still, this was not the time to protest the waste of resources, even if Byrne would never appreciate them. "My lord, this could be a threat against you, against the Realm. I cannot protect you if you do not allow me-"

"I put the last of my enemies in the ground before I left Scotland," he told her. He stared at his hands for a long moment. "No one will challenge me for what is mine."

Jayr knew he wasn't talking about the Realm now. "At least permit me to investigate further," she said. "We don't know these newcomers. During her spell Lady Alexandra spoke of vengeance. Perhaps she can tell me more about the one from whom these killing thoughts came. I vow I will be discreet."

"You will report only to me," he said finally. "Whatever you learn. Say nothing to Cyprien, Alexandra, or the men."

Did he distrust her? "As always, my lord." She thought of the Italian's ill-chosen colors. "Could this killer be involved in a jardin war vendetta?"

"I think not," Byrne said. "After Harold was slain and the six took control of the jardins, Richard rounded up and executed all of the traitors."

"Perhaps someone survived." Jayr felt a strange sensation across the back of her neck, almost as if someone behind her were glaring at her. She glanced around the room, but they were alone. "One of the newcomers may be an old enemy."

"I begin to think this tourney cursed." Byrne strode to the door. "It's late, and there is no more we can do this night. Come."

Phillipe woke early that afternoon and, after he dressed, went to check on Cyprien and Alexandra. He found them both still asleep in the adjoining master bedroom. Before her abduction, Alexandra had rarely slept through the day, and did not seem to have the same need for rest as other Kyn. Her ordeal in the hands of the high lord had resulted in making her more restless, and subject to being awakened by the slightest of sounds.That she was sleeping so deeply here pleased Phillipe. She needed the respite; she had suffered too much these last months.

It would not be difficult for her to rest here at the Realm. A king might have been comfortable in the chambers Byrne had prepared for them, the seneschal thought as he drew the heavy brocade drapes to block out the last rays of the sun. Delicate violet enamel had been applied to the outlines of the white marble stones in the chamber walls, with a stalk of heather cunningly painted in the center of some of the blocks.

A mural of the Scottish Highlands had been painted on the wall facing the east, and the artist must have been Kyn, for Phillipe recognized features of the land that had not existed in centuries. Around the mural were small black circles representing the sun, moon, and human eye, filled with green triskele, which symbolized the land, sea, and sky. Byrne had the motif repeated throughout the castle, and like his ancestors believed it to invoke balance and harmony.

The enormous bed had been carved from English fir and decorated with different types of spirals, stars, and knots, with several symbols inlaid with gold and garnet to emphasize their importance. Each post on the bed had been worked at the top and bottom to mimic the entwined branches and roots of the tree of life. Whisper-soft white linens draped the bed from all sides, with bejeweled tassels adorning the golden satin drape cords.

A trio of ancient decorated chests lined one wall, each embossed with the intricate knotwork of the Celts, but Phillipe appreciated the more modern addition of white oak cabinetry. As sturdy as the old chests were, modern garments needed to be hung to avoid wrinkling. Bouquets of fresh roses and lavender, bound with silk ribbons tied in lovers' knots, had been placed on the tables and in the wall vases as a quiet tribute to Cyprien and Alexandra.

Phillipe set out clean garments for his master and mistress, and made sure there was enough bagged blood stored in the refrigerated wall unit discreetly hidden behind a painting of a beautiful Highland woman. Seeing his master and mistress entwined together in their bed reassured him as nothing else could. He had witnessed with his own eyes how much the forced separation had hurt both of them, but especially Alexandra, who had never before experienced a testing of the bond between her and his master. Then, too, he thought she had not told Cyprien everything that had happened to her in Ireland. Still, whatever ailed her, Phillipe felt sure his master's love and care would set it to rights.

As he quietly closed the bed curtains, he spotted Alexandra's medical case on her bedside table. He picked it up to move it out of the way, and found a copper-tipped syringe behind it. He held the needle up to the light. It appeared empty, the plunger almost completely depressed, but he could smell her blood on it. He pressed the plunger down, and a drop of blue fluid appeared on the tip of the needle.

Little wonder she slept so soundly. She had given herself a shot of nickel sulfate hexhydrate-what she called "vampire Valium"-a substance lethal to humans, but which rendered the Kyn unconscious for hours.

Phillipe opened her medical case, in which she carried her instruments, and found it filled with dozens of vials of the liquid blue tranquilizer. Alexandra always carried the drug with her, but never in such quantity. He was tempted to remove them, for the thought of his mistress drugging herself to sleep disturbed him, but it was not his place to do so.

If she does so again, I will tell the master, he thought as he took one of the vials and tucked it into his pocket. He will know what to do.

For his part, Phillipe could contact an old friend at Dundellan. Richard's men were intensely loyal to him, but Korvel owed Phillipe a blood debt from long ago. The captain would tell him what had been done to Alexandra during her captivity.

Securing the chamber door behind him, Phillipe walked out into the corridor and paused when he smelled another familiar Kyn nearby. "They still sleep, my lord."

"Is that what they're doing?" Robin of Locksley came around the corner with his seneschal. "I had thought that since being made seigneur, Cyprien never closed his eyes.""Even God rested on the seventh day." Phillipe bowed, and then turned to clasp hands with Scarlet. "I had hoped to meet you in the lists, William. My arm wants loosening before the tournament begins."