The Keep

“Perhaps you can explain,” the vampire pressed, “about what, exactly, do you find our Annelise to be clueless?”



Oh hell. There it was. Final confirmation, if any had been needed.



“Clueless?” I interjected quickly. I didn’t like the wrath I sensed in my vampire’s voice, and I was so not ready for any I-know-you-know sort of showdowns. I cared about both of them too much. “I’m not clueless,” I added, trying to break the tension with humor. “I’ve always thought I was more, you know, like a scattered-professor type.”



Silence.



My mind raced for the conversational pleasantries that might break this level of tension, but I was pulling a blank. I decided on some version of the truth. “I was asking Ronan about the keep.”



Carden’s expression shuttered. “This again?”



I nodded sheepishly. Caught.



“I told you to think not on such things.” My vampire paused briefly, an unreadable look crossing his face. “Nor should this Tracer allow you to entertain such questions.”



“I was in the process of telling her as much,” a steely-eyed Ronan said.



Great. Now they were both on me. Meanwhile, I’d begun shivering again, both from the confrontation and the dropping temperature, and Carden fully registered my condition. He shot a quick glare Ronan’s way, then turned his full attention back to me. “You’re drenched,” he said, with an accusing edge in his voice. He adjusted himself beside me, sheltering me from the January wind. Feeling his body close was a relief.



Affection for him swelled in me, but I tried to hide it. He was being pretty blatant about his interest in me, and it was making me nervous. I gave his arm a discreet squeeze. “I’m fine.”



He ignored this to glare at Ronan some more. “She will become ill.”



Ronan bristled. Gathered himself. Then he dropped a bomb. “Acari Drew,” he said slowly, meaningfully, “is stronger than any of us realize.”



I gaped. What a statement. It shocked me into silence. I wasn’t the only one, either. We stood there, awkwardly, for what felt like an eternity, and I imagined each of us was weighing all the various things those words could imply.



It was my stomach that saved the day. It grumbled, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Hunger, so ordinary and yet so undeniable. Cheerily, I announced, “Hey, dinnertime.” Chirpy didn’t come naturally to me, and I was sure I sounded like a complete moron, but it did the trick.



Reluctantly, Carden nodded. “I will escort you back.” He was in full knight-in-shining-armor mode, his grim expression suggesting we were heading to battle instead of just the dining hall.



I realized he never gave his reason for seeking me out. Wasn’t he worried the Tracer would figure out what was between us? Ronan was obviously beginning to put two and two together. Though Carden wasn’t stupid—maybe that was what he’d wanted.



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.



He came up behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders. “Such places are called bothies. Though I’ve staked my claim on this one, it would once have been open for any to use. Mostly hunters or fishermen. What do you think?”



I didn’t know what I’d expected, and though it wasn’t this, this didn’t surprise me. Everything about the place was solid—much like Carden. “I like it. It seems…right.”



My eyes went to the corner of the room and the sturdy wood platform that was the largest item of furniture in the place. It was covered in quilts and pillows—a bed.



His bed.



Oh God. His bed.



I was a virgin, obviously. And obviously, I was nowhere near ready to have sex with a vampire. But that big bed seemed so masculine. So…demanding.



“I thought…I thought you vampires didn’t really sleep.” So what did he use it for? I reminded myself that I was here because I’d asked him to bring me. I wasn’t ready for sex. But I trusted Carden. He probably already knew I wasn’t ready. This could be as innocent—or as not-innocent—as I wanted.



“Aye, it’s true. I no longer sleep as you know it. But vampire or no, a man likes to rest.” He seemed to read my mood, and with a light squeeze to my shoulders, he walked to the fire and, like that, changed the subject. “Here I stand like an unschooled lad, and yet you’re hungry.”



I sighed. Carden always knew how to put me at my ease. “I am,” I said, happy to have the topic of food normalize this otherwise completely bizarro situation.



I smelled the food now and meandered over to stand with him at the fireplace. Taking up the whole back wall, the thing struck me as overly large for such a small cottage, but I supposed when it was originally built, that hearth would’ve provided heat, stove, and a gathering place all in one.



The cottage was dark, but the fire cast dancing orange light along the walls. “What is that?” I asked, studying the oddly shaped burning coals.



He went to stoke the fire higher. “Peat,” he explained, “burns longer than wood.”