“Handy.” I gave him a teasing smile. “Seeing as there aren’t exactly many trees on this rock you call an island.”

He laughed. “Precisely.” He sounded pleased, and that pleased me…more than it should have.

I looked away, self-conscious again. What was my problem? I was tripping out. I needed to relax. To let go. I was there, which meant he trusted me. What better way to relax, I decided, than by getting to know him better? I scanned the room, looking for the real Carden. The cottage was a bit on the Spartan side, lacking things like pictures or paintings. I realized what else was missing. “You don’t have any appliances,” I said suddenly.

“I’m not exactly in need of a refrigerator.” He cocked his head my way, flashing me his fangs in a playful smile.

“No, I guess not.”

He took a large fork from the hearthstone to spear and flip a piece of fish the size of my hand. He’d settled an iron grate over the coals, and the fish hit it with a sizzle.

I inhaled, taking in the aroma of butter and wild onions. I’d thought I was sick of seafood, but my watering mouth was currently disagreeing. “Wow, that smells good.”

“Aye. It’s fresh.” He nodded to the window. Moonlight sparkled on the lake, shimmering and lapping mere feet from the door. “From the loch just outside.”

He put down his fork, clapped the soot from his hands, and in one swift movement, I was in his arms. “I told you, love. I’ve not forgotten what it is to be a man.”

If knowing how to kiss me till I was dizzy or cook the heck out of a piece of fish was a sign of being a man, then Carden was one with a capital M.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I should go,” I told him later. We lounged on his bed, and though he’d nestled me close, he must’ve sensed I wasn’t ready for too much more. I loved kissing Carden, but feeding from him, too, added a whole extra layer of intensity. I wasn’t ready for much more than that…not yet. I felt close to him, intimate, yet not put-upon. I was safe, utterly. He wouldn’t demand anything from me that I didn’t willingly offer.

It was just right—he was just right.

“Not yet, love.” He flexed his large arm, snugging me more tightly to him. “First you must drink.”

“But I drank already.” We’d kissed, and I’d tasted Carden’s lifeblood pumping power through me. I felt the effects of him more than ever now, the change in me, from his blood.

“Was it enough?”

“Yes…” I paused to turn inward, checking in with my body. I was stronger, and lately I needed less blood to feel this way. “I feel different from before.”

He pulled away to meet my eye. “Good different?”

“Yeah.” I smiled and flexed my hands and shoulders. “Really good, actually.”

“It’s as I hoped,” he said. “As our bond grows deeper, you will grow stronger. Able to part from me for longer.”

“No blood fever, you mean?” When we’d first bonded, my first impulse had been to break our bond and I’d experimented with being apart from him. Let’s just say, the experiment didn’t go so well. I’d felt itchy and achy and just plain crazy.

“The risk never completely goes away, but aye, you are stronger.” He rolled onto his back, lifting me so I straddled him. “You are stronger,” he repeated in a voice gone hoarse. He squeezed my thighs as though he’d test that strength then and there. “And will become stronger still.” Then he pulled me down and took me in a fierce kiss.

I tasted him and thought of the fever. Even if I didn’t fear it, I’d still want this. Want him. And yet it was a relief to know it was possible to get past that feeling—that I wasn’t dependent on Carden every single day to function. Not that I wanted to part from him, but the fever had made me jittery, helpless. Girls died from it, driven insane by their dependence on the blood.

When we parted, I asked, “So does this mean the day will come when I won’t need to feed from you at all?”

He gave me a hard, narrow-eyed stare that I could tell was playful…mostly. “Is that what you wish?”

I nudged his shoulder. “No, that’s not what I wish,” I said, mimicking his grim tone. “It’s just…ironic, I guess.”

“Ironic?”

“That the closer we get, the farther from you I can be.”

“I don’t know of ironic. But I do know, the closer we get”—in a blindingly swift movement, he swept me beneath him on the bed and was kissing along my neck—“the closer I want you.”

I totally lost my train of thought for a while, melting under Carden’s touch. He was so strong and solid over me. How amazing that to drink his blood was to share that strength.

Finally, I pulled away, unable to push aside a nagging thought that’d entered my head. “Carden?”

He held my hands over my head and began to kiss his way down my arm. Distractedly, he mumbled, “Hmm?”

I unlaced my fingers from his and slipped my hand around the firm column of his neck. My thumb found his pulse, pounding. Beckoning. “If I were to drink more, would I get even stronger?”

He stilled and met my eyes, giving my question consideration. “Is that what you desire?”

If drinking from Carden made me stronger than the unbonded Initiates, if I drank even more, would it make me stronger than a Guidon? Stronger than a Trainee even? “Maybe,” I hedged. “Maybe I do.”

“There are no guarantees.” He genuinely considered my question. That was the thing about Carden—he was never dismissive of me, and I appreciated it. “It could as soon harm as help you,” he said. “There are risks.”

“Aren’t there always?” I thought of the castle. Even if I never found a way to spy inside, that kind of strength would come in handy with Alcántara’s recent assignment. I was still waiting for a Trainee to jump out of the bushes in an attempt to bite me. It would happen any day.

Whatever came, I told myself I’d survive it. Just as I’d survived all the rest.

But I also knew that, until now, I owed part of that survival to Carden himself. He’d been my secret weapon, helping me escape from my first mission, saving me from the rogue vampire. More than that, his very presence kept the other students—not to mention other vampires—at bay. He felt like the last guard, the emergency reserve. My Plan B.

But what if I didn’t need so much protection? I was getting the most advanced, the most lethal training in the world. And with extra doses of Carden’s blood, I was getting stronger. Would the day come when I could truly look out for myself completely, even against the vampires?

“I’d like to try.” I curled up toward him, nibbling at his neck. But strong as I was, I was still just a human girl, and my teeth were useless.

He pulled away, and for a moment, I thought he was angry or that he’d deny me. But he bit his wrist and held it out to me. “Then I’m yours to take, mo chridhe.”

I took, and took some more. It surged into my mouth, warm and rich and so much more exciting than simply drinking from a glass. I took his blood until I grew woozy from it. Drunk with it. My head spun from the rush of his blood in my veins. It spun with possibilities.

I felt closer to him than ever. I knew I’d never be immortal like Carden, but if I drank enough, would the day come where I’d age more slowly? What would happen the next time I faced down a vampire? I knew there was information Carden had kept from me out of concern that too much knowledge might put me in danger. But what if my strength made that moot? There was so much to know and learn…about the island, about Carden.

“Tell me,” I said suddenly.

The fire had died down, casting us in deep shadows, but his laugh was quiet and close. “Tell you what, dove?”

“About you.” I was feeling buzzed and easy, and it loosened my words. “About your childhood. Your family.”

“My family?” he asked warily.

I could tell I’d caught him by surprise. “Yeah,” I said. “You know…Did you have siblings? What was your father like? That sort of thing.”

“I…I didn’t much know my father,” he said quietly.

I adjusted to see him more clearly. The topic was clearly an uncomfortable one.

Before I could probe further, he changed the subject. “What of you? What of your home?”

“My home?” I brushed that one right off. “I don’t have a home. My father used to knock me around.”

“You mean to say he hit you?” His lips peeled back to reveal his fangs. “I’ll find him and—”

I hitched up on my elbow to kiss his cheek, cutting him off. “Thank you for that.” The sentiment warmed me. He looked so fiercely protective—I think that was even a hissing noise he’d made. “But I promise you, it’s not necessary. I’m sure I’ll beat you to it anyway.” I thought for a moment about my dad. Would I kick his ass if I ever saw him again? Was he even still out there, or had he already drunk himself to death? Did he ever think of me? I realized I didn’t care. “I’m over it,” I said, feeling my outer shell harden that much more. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”

But he wouldn’t let it go. “Your mother allowed this to happen?”

Sadness sideswiped me, welling from some hidden place, clenching my heart. “My mom died when I was a kid.”

He murmured some tender but unintelligible thing to me. I thought it must’ve been Gaelic, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was him, how he cared. How he tucked my head in his hand, comforting me with his sure and gentle caresses.

Between the blood and his touch, I grew drowsy. It made me oddly philosophical. I wouldn’t press Carden on his father but made a mental note to try again someday. There was still one thing I didn’t understand, though, that I did want an answer to: Why was I the one here, in his bed, being touched like this? “Why me?” I asked groggily. “Why are you with me, Carden?”