In fact, he opened his mind, showed her how he’d paint it, adding the haze of a fog, increasing the sense of suspended time, an unlikely moment where the mother deer would normally take her baby out of range of the adult bear, or the adult bear would chase the doe off as a potential threat to her cubs. Perhaps Farida Sanctuary spun magic even over the wildlife.

Unbidden, she thought again of Stephen coming here. It made her cold, a shiver running over her skin. Though she never wanted to leave, if Stephen could get to her, she’d prefer it to be far away from this place, so no harm could come to the people. To that magic.

She put her hand on top of Niall’s, the other aligned with Evan’s leg, just barely brushing his trouser leg, because she didn’t want to disrupt the artist’s flow of thought, but that connection was enough to steady her. She was done running. She would stand with them. She breathed in the moment, breathed deep.

Her heart stuttered, seized . . . and she screamed.

The deer bolted, her fawn right on her heels. The bear made a surprised growl, then she, too, disappeared into the darkness with her progeny. Evan and Niall never noticed, having caught her together, but Alanna saw it. She was arched up from the ground, agony jerking her head back at an unnatural angle.

Gasping, she clawed at their hands. She struggled to focus on their faces, wanting to hold on to them as long as she could. I’m sorry, so sorry, Master.

She hoped Evan knew she meant him. If Stephen was dying, she would go within moments of him. But maybe the blocker would give her a precious extra minute, and she could say something.

“Alanna, no. Hold on, lass.” She tried to reach up to Niall. He caught her fingers, and Evan overlapped them. The vampire had his hand on them both, and she could see it, how hard he wanted to hold on to them, to defy the terrible mortality vampires had to face. Not for themselves, but for their servants.

Alanna, you will not leave us. He knew it was a futile order. She couldn’t fight the biology of Stephen’s bond. But the saying of it meant everything, the expression in his face, the tension of his body that proved he would fight with everything he had to keep her here. Niall was a hard rope of muscle as well, wanting an enemy to fight, but he could only hold her hands. She saw the flash of it in his mind then, him holding his wife’s hands, telling her not to go, telling her he loved her.

He had, though it hadn’t been the type of love he’d discovered later. That nebulous feeling of something more out there would have been plowed down in his subconscious as he plowed his fields, except Evan had brought it to glorious life. She knew how he felt. Exactly how he felt, because their minds, for this painfully blissful instant, were held together inside Evan’s.

It’s all right to love him, Niall. There’s no shame . . . to loving. To wanting. No matter how little time there is left. Thank you . . . for letting me . . . love the both of you.

The Scot’s gaze became dark, anguished. “Damn it . . .” He snarled something at Evan, and Evan’s hand merely tightened on him, his gray eyes fastened on her face. He was watching for something, measuring . . . Something that suddenly gave her hope. He said something to Niall she was spinning too high in her mind to catch, but Niall lifted her. The two males were moving swiftly through the grasses, back toward the compound, so fast everything was a blur. Or perhaps that was her physical state, everything hazed by disorienting pain.

The agony was incredible, frightening, as she’d expected. How bad would it get before she actually died? At a certain point the soul finally leaped into the dreaded chasm of death because the pain afflicting the body drove it to leap. But her Master had forbidden her to go.

Her heart had to be exploding. She couldn’t breathe. Perhaps she’d passed out for a while, because when she became aware again, she was in the bedroom in the cottage. Evan and Niall were . . . they were outside, talking to someone. She felt disoriented, and had the strange sensation that she’d become disconnected from her body for a while, everything in a bright light, a peculiar drifting. Coming back to her body was like a wall meeting an oncoming car. The pain was back, in full force, radiating out from her stuttering heart.

Shadows were collecting around her vision. She sensed him there, the presence she dreaded more than any other. She tried to open her mouth, call out, but then there was one very large shadow, falling down over her now like a cloak. Pain exploded in her head, struck through that covering. She was plunged into darkness, the terror following her like maniacal laughter.

It had been a cloak, not death. Opening her eyes, she looked at the close stone walls of a narrow cave. She could breathe a little better, but her chest still hurt badly. It was an effort, but she turned her head to see Stephen sitting against the wall, staring at her as if he could hate nothing in the world the way he hated her. And being hated by a vampire was a terrifying thing.

Being on the run had marred even his vampire beauty. The smooth black hair was shorn close to his head, his green eyes burning with anger in a gaunt face. His unkempt state reminded her of the Trad.

“Your chest hurts because I drove a stake into my own heart and then ripped it out,” he said in a monotone, those flat eyes staying on her. “You died, InhServ. As did I. Just for a moment, just long enough to make them leave your side. A calculated risk, but I have nothing to lose anymore, do I? Thanks to you.”

“You . . . betrayed them,” she managed.

He surged from the wall, moving so fast she couldn’t follow him, But she felt the single, precise kick that broke ribs, punctured a lung. As she sputtered, blood frothing her lips, he loomed over her. “Your loyalty was to me,” he snarled.

It was a squeezing, drowning sensation, but he could do much worse. Despite the madness and desperation driving him now, she saw the calculation in his burning gaze, lingering evidence of the intelligence that had driven his ascent in the vampire ranks.

“You deserve far worse, but you’ll have to wait on that in the afterlife. I intend for you to have centuries to dread my arrival. But before I kill you, InhServ, you’ll feed me one more time.”

He spat InhServ like a curse, yanked her upper body off the floor and stabbed his fangs into her neck, as excruciating as a knife blade. The stress to her system had overridden the blocker, which meant Stephen could scramble Evan’s radar, his ability to find her. A lot would rest on how good a tracker Daegan was. Not just Daegan. Niall.

He was a better hunter, warrior and scout than a crofter . . . But if Niall and Evan found her first . . . oh God. She knew just how powerful Stephen was.

If I had time, I’d fuck your traitorous cunt, bludgeon you to take away your beauty.

He wasn’t listening to her mind. He never had, had he?

“You . . . betrayed . . . me,” she rasped.

Stephen pulled back. The shock of hearing words an InhServ would never speak had snagged his attention. By doing what she’d always done—tell the truth to her Master—she’d make sure he killed her fast, before Evan or Niall were in danger. Licking her lips, she met his gaze. Deliberately. And since she could barely breathe, she spoke in his mind.

A servant serves for one reason. Because we love our Master or Mistress. I wanted to love you, and I couldn’t. I based my devotion on my love of service, not of you. That was my greatest mistake.

“I’m not your whore,” she coughed. “Or your maid service. I’m your servant.” A soul-deep oath, a commitment to the vampire, to be loyal and protect his soul with all that I am. Pushing herself up on weak elbows, she put her face right up into his, showing no fear. He wouldn’t get that from her.

“My brother died,” she whispered. “And you let twelve servants fuck me until I bled. To prove my loyalty to you. I owe you nothing.”

Blood was trickling out of the corner of his mouth and she used a trembling hand to collect it, placing it on his tongue as he stared at her. His fang pressed against her knuckle and she increased that pressure, letting it cut her. “I may wake in the afterlife chained to you forever,” she rasped, “but you will be chained to me as well. Do what you feel you must, my lord.”

“If you value your fucking head, you’ll step away from her.”

Stephen let go of her, leaping to his feet. The jolt made her groan, cough up more blood, but through the wracking pain she was able to see Evan arrive in the cave entrance, Niall at his shoulder.

Let him have me. Don’t . . . I can’t bear for either of you to be hurt. Please. Don’t let me take that to my grave.

“Daegan too far away?” Stephen passed a contemptuous gaze over Evan. “The weakling of the litter. This InhServ belongs to me, her fate mine to decide. You interfere with that, I’ll kill you with her. I’ll kill you anyway, for daring to mark what was mine.”

“She was never yours,” Evan answered, the gray eyes fired steel. “You never deserved her.”

Niall drew a wooden stake from his belt, flipped it in his hand. “How fast are ye, Lord Stephen?”

Stephen bared his fangs in a hiss. “Faster than you can throw.”

Niall threw in the middle of the sentence, and Stephen was gone. But he didn’t reach Niall. Evan met him in between, the two of them crashing into the stone side of the cave so hard dust billowed from the ceiling. Heart in her throat, Alanna saw Stephen had the immediate advantage, his hand locked on Evan’s throat, fist striking him midbody, hard enough she could almost see the organs rupturing beneath the skin. Then Evan was airborne, only not alone, for her Master had seized Stephen’s body. Both males spun out of balance, hitting the ground with a sound of cracking rock.

Another stake sliced through the air, as precise as a thrown knife. It caught Stephen in the lower back. He howled, pivoting. As he did, Evan shoved him back to the ground, driving it in farther.

Pain exploded in the same location, but Alanna bit through her lip, containing the cry. Niall leaped on Stephen as Evan grappled him from behind, holding on with an expression of grim, fierce determination. Stephen flailed, knocking Niall back, but the Scot returned in a blink, plunging his hunting knife hilt deep into Stephen’s chest.