Realizing how forward she must seem, she took her hand away, but he caught her wrist, holding her still, her fingers brushing his cheekbone. “I think you believe that.” And I guess bastard sometimes isn’t an affectionate term, hmm? Before she could respond to that, he lifted her palm to his mouth and took a tiny nip, enough to cause pain but not break the skin.

My bite is far worse than my bark, Elisa. Never doubt it. You break one of my rules here, and you’ll find out.

She wasn’t sure how to explain the shiver that went through her at that. She honestly couldn’t keep up with her emotions any better than she could his. Next to that, dealing with the fledglings would be a breath of fresh air. Almost.

Mal showed the girl how to use the cage system, and then went to the Jeep to stretch out on the hood, his back against the windshield. The fledglings were far more wary when he was inside the communal area, and Elisa far more self-conscious, at least this first time. Being a contrary prick hadn’t helped, and he knew she was right. He needed to get a grip on his emotions as much as she did. But Christ, she had a way of innocently yanking a scab right off a wound best not disturbed, ever.

As he watched, she went to Jeremiah first, taking the two inexpensive dime-store books she’d brought, along with some treat morsels she’d gotten from Kohana. Laying them down on the concrete pad of the lockdown cage, she backed out and secured it again. He approved of how she looked toward him the first time she did it, making sure she’d followed the process right. She waited for his nod before she opened the interior door so Jeremiah could retrieve it. Mal tensed, though, when the young vampire retrieved the items but reached through the bars toward her. He saw her yearn toward that hand, but a blink before he would have intervened, her shoulders squared.

“It’s not allowed, Jeremiah. Not right now. I’m so sorry. I’m very glad to see you, though. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed all of you so much. You need to look at that top book. Remember how I was teaching you your letters? This book will help you remember some more of the schooling you had . . . before.”

He kept reaching, his expression becoming more agitated. Elisa looked over her shoulder at Mal. He made sure he appeared relaxed, dispassionate, as he shook his head, but every muscle was ready to move if she disobeyed him. Jeremiah’s grip could break her arm with barely a flex. He could yank her up to the bars and take out her throat, and he was far too worked up. Fledglings got frustrated as a normal matter of course, but stirring them up meant they were far more likely to have a bloodlust episode, which could come upon them like quicksilver.

All those emotions she’d been bottling were welling up. She was obeying Mal’s direction, but it was tearing her apart, seeing the fledgling’s need to touch her and having to deny him. And Jeremiah knew it, would push it until she couldn’t help herself.

Mal stood up then, immediately drawing the young male’s attention. He made sure there was no doubting his expression or the thought he sent into the boy’s chaotic mind. Cut it the hell out. Jeremiah made a plaintive noise, then withdrew his hand. His gaze dropped, surrendering. Stepping back, he took a seat inside his cell. Elisa glanced toward Mal, then back at the boy. He could feel her weighing his actions, determining how to respond, but then she turned, sat herself down on a stump in the center of the communal area where she could easily turn and see each of them. Drawing up her legs, bracing her heels on the edge of the stump, she locked her hands around her knees. “This is a really nice place, isn’t it? Remember I said it was a cat sanctuary? You won’t believe the things I’ve seen today. Tigers and lions, and cats that can jump ten feet in the air and catch a pigeon . . .”

Her voice strengthened as she spoke, and it carried to all of them, as if she was used to talking to them this way, like a storyteller in a hall with a listening audience. He watched, interested, as warily and in their own time, they each moved to the portion of their cells closest to her. All except Leonidas. That one continued to prowl, occasionally hissing to himself, but he’d remembered the lesson of the first night. He kept his gaze down or elsewhere, anywhere other than on Elisa, but Malachi could feel his intent toward her like a simmering volcano.

It intrigued him. Their minds grew no clearer, but there was a definite slowing of those chaotic whorls of activity, a singular focus on her. Was it like what the Easter eggs provided his cats? Something different to do, stimuli that kept at bay what they longed for more than anything? Wide-open space, lazy days under trees, and the thrill of the hunt, the power of sustaining one’s own survival. Except the fledglings’ instincts toward their natural state had been twisted, and not just because they’d been turned far too young. At the whim of a brutal vampire, the only outlet they’d been given from his torture was hunting human prey. Now, draining a human corpse was an unrelenting thirst. Like those rare instances of lions who’d become man-killers, the easier, more plentiful prey was an irresistible drug.

A nine-year-old boy reached toward her and she saw a lonely child, grasping at the memory of a mother. Mal saw the traces of red in his eyes, the mindless strain behind that grasp.

When they were turned, they’d had the undeveloped emotional maturity expected of young humans. Children saw things differently from adults, and were far more impulse-driven. The base savagery of the vampire nature, as well as its carnality, had given them a confusing soup nigh impossible for a child’s brain to process. Victor and Leonidas, being teenagers when they were turned, would have had it worse because their bodies had been changing, puberty’s hormonal flood.

His gaze strayed to Leonidas. Though they might be physically trapped in the age they’d been turned, how it affected the aging brain was the troublesome unknown. Was there any chance they could ever have any meaningful self-control, enough to live their lives outside of a cell, without a jailer always attending their every movement? As he’d implied to Kohana, even if they could, their future would still be bleak. They’d never be as strong or mentally agile as an adult vampire.

He sent another mild curse Danny’s way, for saddling him with this, but that was water under the bridge. He brought his focus back to Elisa.

She was balanced on the point of her lovely buttocks and rocking back and forth on the stump as she told them all about the cats. The animated way she was relaying every minute detail of what he’d shown her said how closely she’d paid attention. She was right; he had known her enthusiasm was genuine, but he’d gotten caught up in his own past. He wasn’t wrong about the fledglings; he knew it. But he was doing something wrong, because this agitation wasn’t like him. He of all people understood how essential calm was to correctly anticipate the needs of the creatures here.

Ah, the hell with it. He was thinking too much at this point. Pushing all that away, he watched her leave the stump and begin to pace. Gesturing with her hands, she gave a sudden, dramatic jump to demonstrate how the caracal had caught the pigeon. It made her curls bounce, and she smiled at her own play. Another item she’d brought was a small ball, and she approached William’s enclosure, close enough that she could toss it through the bars. She warned him it was coming, encouraging him to catch it. When he did, her smile became brilliant. She coaxed him to toss it back.

Interactive play. He was impressed with her intuitive understanding of their development, unschooled though it was. They had the agility and speed to do things far more exceptional than catch the ball, but what she was doing was teaching them how to control it, dial it down a notch so the ball didn’t get thrown halfway across the island. Ruskin had always kept them whipped to a fever pitch, to the height of their bloodlust. In order to truly defuse that, they would need regular outlets for that energy, more than what could be accomplished in their cells, playing catch. He gave that some thought as William threw it back to her. He shot it wide, and it rolled over to Miah and Nerida’s cells. Elisa ran after it.

Mal nearly came off the Jeep, but caught himself just in time to avoid notice as she stopped a good number of feet away from Nerida’s cell. Like a gazelle herd, all of the vampires would still instantly if he shifted in any way, and he wanted to avoid disruption. The little girl, who appeared all of six years old, reached through her bars and got it, then winged it to Jeremiah. Elisa laughed as they continued their game of keep-away, now obvious from the direction and height of the ball. She grinned, took a seat on the grass by the fountain now. Leaning back on her arms, she watched them take over the game.

After a while, she got her drawing pad from her pack, made a few sketches. Keeping up her idle chatter, she asked the fledglings to do things for her. Asked Nerida to do a somersault, Matthew a handstand. She was doing what they did with operant training, verifying that they were responsive, healthy. Eventually, she rose and circled to each lockdown, leaving a picture she’d done for each child, as well as some markers and more paper if they wished to do their own drawing.

Despite the fact a game of catch couldn’t meet their energy needs, there was no denying they were now calmer. Most of them. It troubled his mind, the energy between her and Leonidas. She didn’t have the same open and relaxed body language toward him she had with the others. In fact, there was a reluctance to it that suggested she had to make herself turn toward him, go to his lockdown and offer him things. He registered her fear, even as he kept his eyes down and prowled, making those warning noises like an aggressive cat about to pounce on a rival.

Perhaps he should move Leonidas to a different part of the island. As he became more agitated, it stirred up the others. The entire time she was near his lockdown cage, Jeremiah and William focused more intently on him. Miah, Matthew and Nerida moved to the backs of their cells, even into the doorways of their cabin shelters.

No wonder they’d been calmer before that disruption, though. Interestingly, Mal realized he’d been as absorbed by watching her as they were. He didn’t yet have the key to resolve this situation, couldn’t see how it would be anything other than a Greek tragedy, but he was clear on one thing. He wanted her. The lust didn’t surprise him, because a curvy female was his preferred type, as Danny had slyly suggested. But his interest in the twists and turns of her mind intrigued him.