Highland Thirst by Lynsay Sands, Hannah Howell Page B

his gaze away from
Brona’s wide sea-green eyes. The three men staring at him looked more amazed
than appalled or afraid, even a little stunned. None of them was rushing to
find a weapon, either.
    “And,
Fergus, I am nay a demon,” he said and decided that Fergus’s guilty flush was a
good sign, for if the man could feel uncomfortable about calling him a demon
then it meant Fergus did not fully believe it. “I truly am just a mon, one with
a few special gifts and a few, weel, curses.”
    “Curses
like having to drink blood?”
    “Aye,
I suspicion ye could call that a curse, but I have ne’er worried o’er it much
as I dinnae have to do it verra often.” He shrugged, silently pleased over how
his abused muscles now allowed him to do so easily. “It doesnae matter. Just
cease to worry that I am about to suck out your soul. And I would like your
word to nay speak of what has happened here. ‘Tis talk about such things that
has brought me into this hell.”
    “Fair
enough,” said Fergus. “Ye have it. Dinnae think anyone would believe me anyway.”
Peter and Colin nodded in agreement.
    “How
did my cousin come to ken about ye and your clan?” asked Brona. “None of us
have really heard more than a whisper here and there about the MacNachtons, and
some nay e’en that.”
    “Your
cousin has joined with others who have made it their crusade to hunt down me
and mine and kill us all. As your cousin so sweetly told me, the MacNachtons
are an abomination that must be cleared from God’s earth.”
    “Hervey
sounded that pious?”
    “He
has become a hunter and they tend to talk that way. My cousin and I were trying
to find out more about them as we kenned that they were starting to gather
together, to become many instead of one here and there. Several of my clan have
met gruesome ends recently and we are sure it was done by the hunters. We have
declared them all our blood enemies.”
    “Oh,
weel, aye. So ye must.” She shook her head. “I confess I dinnae understand what
ye are, how ye could drink blood, or how ye could heal as ye have. Howbeit, ye
have ne’er harmed anyone at Rosscurrach and ye didnae deserve what was done to
ye. Ye certainly didnae deserve what Hervey and Angus had planned for ye.”
    “Exactly
what did they have planned for me? I assumed they would torture me until I died
or, since I would ne’er tell them what they sought to ken, just get so furious
with their failure that they simply killed me.”
    “I
did as I said I would and tried to find out exactly what was going on. Weel, I
am nay sure how much Hervey believes in what these hunters do, but he was
appalled by what ye are. However, he wants your secret to a long life. When I
heard him speak of that, I also heard what he meant to try next. When ye healed
after drinking Peter’s blood, Hervey decided that your blood was the secret to
your long life. He and Angus intended to drink a potion made from your blood
every day for a fortnight and see if they began to heal quickly from wounds. If
they did, weel, I fear ye would ne’er have been set free. They would have
continued to use ye to make their daily potions.”
    “Ye
mean they would hold him down here forever and milk him like a cow just so they
might live longer?” asked Fergus.
    Brona
winced, but had to admit there was a certain clarity in Fergus’s words,
although it was not an image she really wished stuck in her head. “Aye, in a
manner of speaking.”
    “Wheesht,
I think I have been looking for demons in the wrong place. ‘Tis certain Angus
and the laird have enough dark evil in them to be the devil’s men.”
    Restricting
her response to that of simply a nod, Brona fetched Sir Heming a tankard of
wine. It pleased her to see him smoothly sit up and take it from her hand, to
drink without aid. She still found the idea of drinking blood a little
chilling, but could not subdue a touch of pride that her blood had done such a
fine job of bringing Sir Heming back from the