Highland Thirst by Lynsay Sands, Hannah Howell Page A

just some knight she might be able to have a future
with. He was so different from her it made her head spin simply thinking about
it. It was not just the fact that he drank blood, either, or had the fangs to
do so. He could hear better than anyone, could see in the dark like a cat,
could heal so fast she still questioned the truth she had seen with her own
eyes, and he would undoubtedly still look much as he did now when she was bent
and wrinkled. The fact that he would not age while she did was one reason she
knew it was foolish to fall in love with him. Unfortunately her heart did not
seem aware of that one particularly large problem and seemed to be setting
itself right into his elegant hands.
    What
she feared now was heartbreak, utter devastation when they finally parted ways.
Such a coward she was, she thought with disgust. Brona was sure many women had
faced such a thing, had even suffered it, and survived. When he held her in his
arms, she felt as though she could conquer the world. If there were even the
smallest chance of holding onto that, would she not be a complete fool not to
try and grab hold of it?
    She
inwardly shook her head over her own inability to decide what to do about
Heming and her rapidly growing feelings for him. Brona suspected she had spent
far too many years cowering before Hervey’s rages and had lost whatever daring
and courage she might have once had. Each day they drew nearer to the end of
their journey and she really did not have the time to wrestle with all of her
fears and doubts. Unfortunately, if she decided to be brave and daring and
reach for what she so badly wanted, she was not sure she knew how to do so.
    “Brona,”
Heming said, resisting the urge to ask her what she was thinking about so
strenuously that her eyes were a little cloudy, “I will confess that there is a
verra large part of me that wants to cut your cousin up and feed him to the
carrion birds, but there is also a verra good reason aside from that. He
threatens my whole clan. He is part of a group of men who wish to see all
MacNachtons dead—mon, woman, and child. I cannae let him continue on that path
and I see no chance of talking him into stepping off of it before he does more
than what he did to me.”
    “And
that was bad enough,” she murmured.
    “Aye,
and I wake in a sweat from dreams of him or men like him getting hold of one of
my family.”
    She
nodded as she began to eat some of the thick mutton stew the maid had brought
them. “I but weakened for a moment. He is a wretched mon. Cold and cruel. Yet,
every now and then all I can think of is that I have so few kinsmen left. I can
count them on the fingers of one hand. ‘Tis sad that good ones have died yet a
mon like Hervey lingers to make so many miserable.”
    “I
also wish him dead for what he has done to ye.”
    “Me?”
    “Aye.
He has made your life a misery, given ye a fear that ye will be a long time
shaking free of, and beaten ye. From what ye said about his wanting ye to marry
Angus, I think he has also stolen from ye.”
    “My
dowry,” she murmured and felt the stab of anger. “I didnae e’en ken I had one.
Hervey certainly has done nothing to try and see me married yet I am two and
twenty. Now I think some of that is because he didnae wish to have to give away
whate’er my dowry is.” She sighed and helped herself to some bread to sop up
the thick sauce of the stew. “I believe I shall just nay think on it any more.
Hervey has set his own fate and ‘tis nay longer my concern.”
    “Good.
Now eat and then we can rest so that we are fit and strong to travel tonight.”
    Brona
nodded, knowing she needed to eat her fill, for the two nights of traveling
they had already accomplished had shown her that she was not quite as strong as
she had thought she was. So far the journey had offered her a lot to see and
the good company of Heming, but no real adventure or danger. Hervey was hunting
for them, however, and she needed to remain strong