Oak, and seven lifetimes of sorrow and regret.
Byrne almost reached for the knob, and then turned, propping his back against the door. He should have taken the humans to bed and rid himself of his lust. The women had been willing, beautiful, and, God knew, talented enough to bring any man, human or Kyn, to his knees.
Byrne appreciated the human women who came to him. True that they were soft and fragile things, requiring gentle handling, but that proved no burden. He had never been a brute in bed with humans.
Under the spell of l'attrait, the females Jayr brought to share his nights had always satisfied his thirst and hungers. They tired quickly, so he often used two or three at a time, but he saw to their pleasure first. Taking care with them was natural. To harm them would have been like beating a puppy or choking a kitten.
The problem was with Byrne. He simply couldn't tolerate the touch of human females anymore.
Centuries of slaking his lust on the bespelled had finally taken their toll; each time he lay with a human female his disgust with himself grew until he could not bring himself to do it. Perhaps it was his awareness of this modern era, when women were permitted to make choices about everything that happened in their lives. Perhaps the novelty had finally palled. Whatever the cause, his desire to plow a sweet, yielding body could no longer overcome his utter revulsion for the partners provided to him.
There was only one woman he desired. The one who had saved him in his darkest hour. The one who had sacrificed her life for his.
It had happened so fast. One moment he was riding across an empty field; the next he lay skewered in a stake-lined pit trap, his stallion trampling him in its frantic haste to escape.
Molten agony spread through him, thanks to the copper-tipped stakes upon which he lay impaled. It had taken every ounce of his strength to work himself free of all but one of the deadly spikes. The loss of blood kept his wounds from closing, and as he looked up at the smoke-fogged sky, Byrne suspected his immortal life was rapidly coming to an end.
Then she had appeared, a mop of dark, tangled hair around a pale, frightened face, peering down at him.
Byrne had already accepted his fate, but he didn't want to meet it by himself. Dinnae leave me alone here, lass.
She had circled the pit, climbing over the crumbling earthen side and then sliding down to land on top of him, a ragged bundle dressed in nun's black. Her hands went to the bloodied stake that had rammed through his chest, her fingers slipping as she tried to grasp it.
He had covered her fingers with his hand, his voice gone, his certainty that the copper had skewered his heart unshakable. He had only wanted her to hold his cold, heavy hand in hers.
With a muttered prayer she instead wrapped her skirt around the stake and jerked it out of his body. The pain had shifted and changed, and the stink of death became a field of blossoming heather…
Jayr.
Byrne pressed his hand over the phantom pain in his chest, leaned his head back against the door, and closed his eyes.
Chapter 5
"I've been to Disney World," Alex told Michael as Phillipe navigated his way out of the city. "Cinderella's castle was cute, but I can't see actually living in it. Not after the age of twelve."
Michael looked amused. "It is fortunate, then, that my family estates were burned to the ground and the property seized by the Brethren."
"I'm not complaining. Just the air-conditioning bill alone for a castle would put us in the vampire poorhouse." Her mobile rang, and she checked the illuminated screen. "Area code seven-oh-eight, but it's not Val." She eyed him. "You screw around lately with anyone from Chicago?"
He trailed his fingers down the length of her arm. "Besides you?"
"Wiseass." She switched the phone to speaker and answered the call. "Alex Keller."
There was a pause before a man said, "Alexandra, it's John."
"Hey, big brother. You're on speaker, and Michael's here." She gave Cyprien a warning look. "You were also supposed to call me a week ago. Where are you?"
"I'm sorry, I forgot. I'm staying with—" The signal broke up, garbling what he said for a few seconds. "… coming to New Orleans."
"You're breaking up, Johnny. We're in Florida right now," she said. "Change the tickets I sent you and fly into Orlando. You can come back home with us when we're done here."
"I told you, I can't," he said, his voice clearer now. "I'm leaving in the morning."
"What?" She stared at the phone. "Where? Why?"
"I can't—" The line went staticky again. Just as Alex was going to hang up and dial back, John's voice came through. "… worry, Alex, I'll be all right."
"John, I didn't get any of that. Hang on; let me call you back."
"… won't be here. Cyprien, look after her." A click sounded as John ended the call.
Alex pressed her fingers against the hammering pain under her left eyebrow. "I can't believe this." She handed the phone to Michael. "Call Val. Tell him to track down my brother and stop him from doing whatever idiot thing he's got planned."
"Do you know exactly where John is?" When she shook her head, he sighed. "Perhaps he does not wish to be found."
"Too bad." She took the phone from him and dialed the number John had called from. A strange voice answered. "Hello? I need to speak to John Keller."
"Don't know any Keller," the man told her.
"He's a big guy with a dark beard," she said. "Looks like Jesus with an attitude problem."
"Lady, this is a pay phone in front of a convenience store," the man told her, "and there ain't no pissed-off Jesus here."
"Sorry." Alex ended the call and thumped her head back against the seat. "Damn him. Why does he keep doing this to me?"
"He said he was leaving tomorrow, and he does not own a car." Michael thought for a moment. "Valentin can check to see if John changed his plane tickets. He can also have the airports and train stations watched."
She shook her head. "John doesn't have a lot of money. He'll probably cash in the airline tickets and take a bus."
"Then I will have Franz check the bus depots as well," Michael assured her, and kissed the side of her head. "Try not to worry."
"John's pulled another disappearing act while I'm going to be locked up for a month in—hooray—another castle," she snapped. "What's there to worry about?"
"The Realm is not a prison," Michael told her. "Nor is it anything like Dundellan. You will like it; I promise."
Alex was sick of castles, her brother, and the Darkyn, but she'd agreed to come along with Cyprien for this Scotsman's big party. She'd have to make the best of it. She leaned forward. "Hey, Phil, you ever been to this place?"
"Many times, my lady. Lord Byrne lives as we did during our human lives." The seneschal smiled at her in the rearview mirror. "It should be very learning… schooling… good for your brain."
Phillipe had been taking a correspondence course to improve his English, Alex had learned when she had returned from Ireland. Sometimes she suspected that it was making his English worse.
"I already know that the way you guys lived back then caused leprosy, tuberculosis, the Black Death, and a whole list of other delightful epidemics. I should go check into a nice, clean Marriott." Or take a flight up to Chicago and track down her brother herself.
"The Realm is clean and comforting, my lady," the seneschal assured her.
She drummed her fingers against the armrest. "That's another thing: What's with this 'my lady' stuff all of a sudden? 'Alex' isn't good enough anymore?"
"I am practicing proper manners with my English," Phillipe said. "It is not correct for a seneschal such as me—such as I—to call you by your…" He stopped and asked Cyprien something in French.
"First name," Michael replied.
Phillipe nodded. "Just so."
"Go back to speaking lousy English. I liked it better." She saw the outlines of a building on the other side of a river and nudged Michael. "That it?"
The car came to a halt in front of a private drive barred by a massive wrought-iron gate. Phillipe left the engine running and got out of the car to speak with the guard at the gate, who was dressed in leather and chain mail, and held a nasty-looking spear.
Alex watched as the seneschal and the guard bowed to each other and clasped hands to each other's forearms. "See? I knew there was a secret handshake."
The glitter of the moonlight on water drew her gaze to what she had thought was a river at first. Then she saw the somewhat irregular shape of it.
Her chin dropped. "Is that moat? The guy has a working moat?"
"I believe it was once a seasonal lake. Byrne diverts some of the overflow from the St. Johns River to fill it," Michael told her. "There is another, larger lake on the south side of his land. Both help prevent flooding during the rainy season, and the moat provides a more familiar form of defense for the castle."
She couldn't believe she was seeing a castle with a moat in the United States of America. "He couldn't just invest in a decent security system and a couple of Dobermans?"
After speaking with the guard for several minutes, Phillipe got back into the car.
"All is well, master," he told Cyprien. "The Kyn from France and Italy arrive soon." He started the engine as the guard pulled open the gates and walked to what looked like a small podium covered with switches and lights.
Alex couldn't see anything beyond the drive but the twenty-foot-wide moat, which had no bridge across it. "We don't have to jump that, do we?"
Michael gave her an inscrutable smile. "Watch and see."
Alex heard water rushing, and as Phillipe drove down toward the moat she saw the surface of the circular channel churning. Two wide, vertical pilings rose from the moat, revolving and changing shape as they seemed to fold over. Horizontal platforms flattened out and overlapped each other, the edge of the drive, and the edge of the gate road into the castle. Water streamed over the sides in a flood that dwindled to small streams.