“We should have given you a bigger lunch before taking you grocery shopping.”

A woman passing them with a pair of active toddlers in her cart chuckled. “Never take them shopping on an empty stomach. You learn early, darling.” She gave Niall an appraising look that said junk food wasn’t causing him any problems. In return, Niall offered her a grin that made the mother blush and trip over her feet like a girl.

“Stop it,” Alanna said sternly.

Niall cocked a brow at her. “Orderin’ me about, lass?”

His lazy look made her flush as well. Not dignifying that with an answer, she turned back to her shopping. By the time they reached the checkout, they had items that suited both their tastes, and Niall had offered some useful suggestions for the meals she planned for the two of them. She admitted his teasing and companionship had balanced her once more, as if the episode earlier hadn’t happened. She was even looking forward to trying on the silver-gray dress, seeing how it would fit.

“I’m glad you’re smiling, more, lass,” he told her when they left the store. “It lights up the whole world when ye do that.” Which just made her smile again.

On the way back up the mountain, he used the same strategy that he’d employed to get her to choose dresses to choose music. He played country music, singing along gustily in his abysmal baritone until she snatched the controls from him. Since she’d never considered her music preferences, she spent most of the trip listening to different selections and deciding what she liked. He of course teased her for the romantic ballads she chose. However, once she listened to a few of those, the charged emotions in the lyrics, she returned to Niall’s safer theme song playlist, where the music didn’t make her feel quite so . . . wistful.

Placing her temple on the window glass, she closed her eyes. That was a mistake, because she instantly recalled that cold terror when she thought it was all going to be over . . . or Hell just beginning. She counted down, a mind-wiping meditation to calm herself, dispel the thoughts. She could only embrace each moment.

“Then catch the moments as they fly, And use them as ye ought, an: Believe me, happiness is shy, And comes not aye when sought, man.”

She’d spoken the words softly, but now turned her gaze to a surprised and touched Niall. “Robert Burns,” he said.

She nodded. Forcing her mind to blankness, she let herself drift, imagining the mountains turning to silent guardians in the descending darkness, watching over them.

“Do ye have a picture of him?” Niall asked after quite a few miles had passed. “Your brother.”

They were beyond the city lights, so now only the headlights provided any illumination of his features. From the steep grade and winding path of the road, they were close to the turnoff toward their cabin. “Ye draw so well,” he added, “I thought if ye didn’t have a photograph, ye would have sketched him.”

“Anything you own can be taken by your Master, Niall,” she said wearily, hoping she wouldn’t have to keep saying it over and over. It made her feel oddly bleak. “That’s the InhServ oath. He’s in my heart, but my Master owns that as well.”

“No, muirnín.” Niall looked toward her, his brown eyes boring into hers with a sudden intensity that held her still. “That’s the one thing they dinnae own outright. That one, they have to earn.”

14

IT left her with a mix of emotions when they pulled back into the cabin site. Evan was on a fairly precarious perch, along the northern rocky slope above the cabin. Niall muttered something about how nice it would have been if he waited until he had the ropes to start scaling cliffs. “Impatient bugger.”

To Alanna, it looked like the vampire was evaluating the sky, which still held various dark streaks, residue from the long-past sunset. Since he didn’t acknowledge their arrival, Niall nodded to Alanna, indicating they would unload the car and leave him be.

However, after she put things away, she couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding. When Niall was occupied, she slipped out to figure a way up that slope. Before she could set her foot to a likely path, though, Evan’s voice came into her head, clipped and short.

I have no need of you right now, Alanna.

Yes, Master. I apologize. Chagrined, she turned back.

Of course, if he’d be consistently one thing or another, maybe she could keep up with how she was supposed to act. She immediately chastised herself for making her Master responsible for her proper behavior, but confusion was an acceptable reaction. He’d given her what couldn’t be called anything but what it was—affection, attention, approval—none of which he was required to do. She’d been acclimated to doing without those things from her Master. But getting even a taste of it was like a drug.

She remembered her resentment toward Adam, the brusque answer she’d given him. Two months later he was dead. She was mature enough to know that one moment didn’t destroy their love for each other, but she regretted it was the last face-to-face conversation they had. And not just because she loved him. It was as if that simmering regret held a wealth of other messages for her, important things she couldn’t decipher.

She sat down on the path. Evan wanted her out of his field of vision, and here, sitting among the silent trees, she accomplished that. She should cook something for Niall’s dinner, for Evan’s later sampling. She also hadn’t completed her two hours of “me time” yet. Maybe she’d draw a picture of Adam. She’d tear it up of course, because it was one of the InhServ’s top rules, not to have any possessions. But why would anyone other than her want a picture of a servant’s face? A servant who was gone.

Putting her head down on her knees, she freed her hair, letting the wind blow it over her shoulders and forward so it hid her face. Her shields against the terrifying reality she was facing were thin, but since she’d been taking the blockers, she’d been managing them better. However, today’s error had cracked them back open, such that the fear kept coming back at her like a boomerang, refusing to let her be, especially with no current occupation for her thoughts.

The waiting was the worst part, wasn’t it? Everyone feared the unknown, but she feared certainty. She would be with Stephen for all eternity.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered to her knees. “I don’t want to be, but I’m so afraid.”

If she sat here a moment longer it would overtake her, paralyze her. So she jumped up, hurried down to the cabin. When she reached it, she came up short, because Evan was there. How long had she been sitting on the slope, and how had he passed her without her knowledge?

Niall was putting his camera equipment away. As the vampire turned toward her, she didn’t need any exceptional intuition to know he was not in a good mood. In fact, he looked angry. Shifting her glance to Niall, she didn’t get any clues. In fact, he was watching the vampire as warily as she was.

“Master? May I do something for you?”

Evan studied her, his mouth a harsh line. “Strip. I want it all off.”

She lifted her hands, began to slip the top button. “Now,” he snapped.

She yanked open the rest, her fingers trembling a little, and pulled the shirt off her shoulders. Unhooked the bra as she was toeing off the shoes, pushed the jeans and panties off her hips. Niall had made her indulge a second pair of earrings at the shoe store to wear with her current outfit, and she deposited those on the pile of clothes, heedless of whether they’d tumble off into the grass and be lost. She could feel Evan’s eyes on her like two brands.

Closing the distance between them, he clamped his hand on the back of her neck, turning her toward the picnic table. A brief arm around her waist and he’d put her knees on the bench, pushing her facedown to the table. “I said everything.” He yanked the clip from her hair and tossed it away.

“I’m sorry, Master.”

“No talking. Grip the other side of the table, arms spread as wide as they’ll reach.”

She did it. Her cheek pressed against the rough wood.

“Spread your knees and lift your ass. Hold that position.”

She obeyed. Her breath was shallow. With Stephen, punishment had been performance. He’d never punished her in private. Ironically, except for that one unforgivable betrayal, she’d never done anything to merit punishment, though of course with vampires it wasn’t necessary to do anything, if they enjoyed dispensing it. Stephen hadn’t.

From what Niall had said, she knew Evan enjoyed the pleasures of dispensing punishment, but it was obvious this was not that. She wasn’t frightened; her heart was pounding and tears were close to the surface because she’d done something to displease him, and she couldn’t bear that thought. She wanted him to punish her, to make it okay, so that he would go back to his thoughtful discussions with her, the half smile, the unexpected yet entirely welcome caresses . . .

Like now. She let out a tiny noise of hope as he spread her hair over her shoulders, stroked it so he was also stroking her skin beneath. When he swept it off to the side, it pooled on the table by her right shoulder. She closed her eyes, shuddering again as his fingers trailed down her spine.

“Niall, give me your belt.”

She swallowed, fingers spasming on the table. She’d never been struck by a belt, and Niall’s was a thick leather strap.

“Count them off, Alanna.”

“Yes, Master.” Her voice was quavering, but she made up for it by lifting her ass higher, spreading her legs another inch, increasing the strain on her hips, because she wanted to make it clear she would take whatever punishment he desired.

The first stroke was a hard, stinging burn. She bit back the cry, but strangled out the count. “One.”

Each one was worse, because he stayed in the same target area, hitting no more than an inch above or below the last stroke, so he was overlaying them in no time. By the time she reached ten, she was sobbing, fingers digging into the wood. But she bit down on her lip so hard she drew blood and kept raising her ass, anticipating by his rhythm when the next one would fall. She would prove her devotion to him, her acceptance of his Mastery. She would win his forgiveness by showing she submitted to his will in all things.