Conquer the Highland Beast: The Vampire Dylan Macgregor (Hearts of Darkness) by Eliza March Page B

obey his parents’ words, his determination did not falter. He repeatedly wiped the dampness off his cheeks, sobbing quietly as he watched his mother’s magical spirit leave her body.
    Obeying his father’s command to stay hidden, and his mother’s warning, grew more and more difficult as the beast within him clawed for release. He was too young, but his skin crawled and blood pounded inside his head, thundering in his ears. He was afraid he couldn’t hold himself back. He placed a hand on the crate concealing his hiding place to stay focused in this world.
    “Dylan, nay!” A warning—an entreaty. Jennie risked a glance in his direction. For one moment, he met her horrified eyes. “You must not reveal yerself.” Fear filled her face, but he knew it wasn’t for herself. “You must survive. Use yer strength to champion the weak.”
    Jennie entered his mind, trying to help him hold the beast back. Her clear determined warning shot through her pain as she continued her fight against the men assaulting her.
    Dylan breathed deeply and ground his teeth, fighting for control.
    “Close your eyes now, dear little brother, and do not watch this. I beg you.”
    Dylan squeezed his eyes shut intending to give her the dignity she requested, but he was unable to block the visions coming from the raiders’ mind. They seeped into his thoughts, and to his dismay, Dylan saw everything. While his sister kicked and screamed, the rough males groped her. His father and brothers cried out, hopeless to help sweet Jennie.
    “Grab the hellcat’s feet,” one man ordered. “I’ll not be losing my manhood tonight, not afore I’ve had a taste of the bitch.”
    A slap from one of the men knocked her to the ground while another guard held her arms above her head. “She’s a ready piece. Too bad we can’t keep her.”
    “Haruld said use her and kill her. We can’t risk it. She’s the witch’s spawn.”
    The raiders beat her until she weakened and succumbed to her injuries, and then they stripped her, taking their turns with her at the foot of their mother’s blazing pyre.
    “Do not let our deaths be for naught, Dylan. Promise!”
    “I promise, Jennie.”
    He focused and for the first time discovered how to close his mind to everyone’s thoughts but hers. While the remainder of his world was destroyed, he listened to the remnants of his sister’s screams rip through the night sky and his heart, as his mother’s ashes drifted on the wind.
    And when Jennie’s voice faded, going silent in his head, Dylan opened his eyes and watched as her bloodied face fell to the side. He kept his mouth shut, but his mind silently screamed. “ Jennie, no—no—noooo!”
    She smiled in his direction, beautiful in death. His lovely, gentle sister, who’d comforted him when he was scared or worried, had been used and discarded by filthy, grunting males, one right after the other—abused and beaten to death. But her light did not go out. Her magic shimmered around her, and her spirit rose to greet their mother’s light before they moved off into the faery forest.
    “Stop! Step away from her,” ordered Haruld when he stared at Jennie’s glimmering corpse. “She’s an abomination like her mother,” he shouted and moved back. “Stand back. Do not allow her light to touch you.” He studied Jennie’s body more closely, and then followed her dead stare, narrowing his eyes in the direction of Dylan’s hidie hole.
    No longer caring what happened to him, Dylan wept openly. They’d burned his mother as a witch. He could hear the sounds of his people being tortured while his wounded father and brothers were beaten, and his sweet sister had been raped and murdered. The orders to stay safe retreated behind his rage. At his young age, the berserker within him was almost impossible to contain. Yet, he’d fought back the beast and contained it, obeying his parent’s wishes up until the very moment Haruld lifted the crate concealing his hiding place.