for ninety-three minutes—one minute for each day since his last feeding—but his massive thighs never quivered for an instant, never once belied the strain his muscles endured as they settled his six-and-a-half-foot frame in a semiseated position.
Crimson and emerald mixed together on the platform almost immediately as the king’s blood dripped out of the dozens of cuts and punctures the jewels inflicted as a sacrifice on his lower legs. Liam stepped up behind him and removed the robes. Kael centered his mind and concentrated, easily tuning out the quiet sounds Liam made as he crossed the room to hang the garments. Later, after the Warrior King entered the feeding chamber, Liam would collect the bloodied stones into an ancient glass urn for display in the Hall of the Chieftains—the ceremonial center of the compound. The urn’s contents reaffirmed the ancient belief, “life gives blood gives life,” and its appearance in the hall signaled the warriors they could feed.
Kael chanted these ancient words in his head, words of life, bonds, sacrifice, honor. His focus was absolute—neither pain nor apprehension nor Liam’s efficient movements around the room distracted him from the precision of his position and prayer.
Instinctively, he knew when he’d served his sacrifice. He blinked open his eyes, which strained a little against the flickering yellow light. Liam was long gone, but he’d readied everything Kael needed, as he always did. Carefully, the king rose to his feet, stepped off the jeweled dais and gently removed the stones that were embedded in his flesh then returned them to rest with the others. He retrieved the cloth laid out on the edge of the altar and wiped the blood from his wounds. He healed quickly and cared little about the injuries, but there was no sense scaring the Proffered with unnecessary gore. She was probably already nervous enough.
His skin cleaned, Kael picked up the leather knife holster and strapped it to his thigh. The dagger it held was lean and vicious, but used correctly offered a quick and nearly painless cut that saved the Proffered from the piercing of his fangs into her soft flesh. Or, perhaps more accurately, the knife saved him from learning whether the woman could be his mate. Only by fully joining his body with the Proffered—by feeding directly from her veins as his cock took her virginity, could he determine if she had the potential to walk beside him as his partner in leadership, life and love.
But Kael didn’t want to know. Kael didn’t want a mate.
He’d had one. Meara and their newling son had died in childbirth following the stress of an attack by the Soul Eaters on Dunluce, the very attack that brought ruin to the castle and drove them to expand the existing underground apartments into a full-out compound. While Kael and his men had eradicated that fiercest and most troublemaking band of Soul Eaters of the eighteenth century, his clan’s losses had been great. Ever since, Kael had vowed never to chance again the lives of those he loved. Given the dire state of the war in recent years, that meant never chancing love again.
Yet, Kael’s very biology yearned to seek out the mate connection so strongly it was nearly painful—his fangs throbbed in search of the satisfying pressure of teeth slicing mated flesh, his balls clenched for the release of his unrealized progeny, his chest tightened against the centuries-old loneliness.
Still, he held fast, wanting to protect himself and the Proffered and her family. He would take only what he had to from her, and no more. He wouldn’t take her affection. He wouldn’t take her humanity. He wouldn’t risk her life. No matter how much she or his people might want—no matter how much, in those dark, nearly forgotten corners of his mind, he might want—he wouldn’t fall in love.
So the dagger was necessary. He’d soothe the Proffered using his hypnotic words and eyes, then bleed her into a goblet before sealing her wound with a quick swipe of his tongue—the closest he allowed himself to drinking from her, and then, only out of necessity. As the virgin blood from the goblet infused his system, his ancient chemistry would allow him to do no other than slake his body’s primal thirst for carnal connection with the woman in front of him. But there would be no biting, no feeding directly from her vein and, therefore, no chancing the mate connection.
The Proffered were specially groomed for this role by human families around the world in alliance with the vampires. The seven surviving vampire kings, related by ancient kinship ties or blood rites, each ruled over a region of the world. Together, they coordinated their offensive campaigns against the Soul Eaters. Over the years, one strategy they’d developed was the careful cultivation of influential human allies, known collectively as the Electorate. In exchange for the Electorate’s silence on the vampires’ existence, their assistance where necessary in diverting human attention from the war, and their providing of the Proffered—required because a vampire could only be born and not made, and all vampires newlings were male, the vampire kings repaid them with their protection and their blood, which cured disease and slowed the aging process significantly. The Electorate understood that mating their human daughters with the kings and their warriors would enshrine the Vampire-Electorate Alliance for all time, cementing a partnership through familial relations that otherwise existed through diplomacy alone.
But, as with Kael, the war had left many of his vampire brethren hesitant to develop emotional ties that could be used against them. Without mates, fewer newlings were born every year.
Knife holster in place, Kael walked to the hooks at the rear of the room and retrieved the innermost robe—a dark green silk that skimmed over his weary body and billowed behind him as he walked. He tied the belt around his waist in a careless knot and approached the feeding chamber.
Taking a deep, centering breath, the king eased the heavy wooden door open and stepped inside.
Kael pierced his tongue with his fangs to keep from making an utterance he had no business making. But for the love of all that was holy, the creature before him was magnificent.
Perfectly posed despite the thundering sprint of her heart, her long black-brown hair was braided and intertwined in the traditional way, ribbons and flowers threaded throughout. The sheerest of white silk robes did little to hide from his vision the sexy muscularity of her body. She was not thin, which pleased him. He had once turned away a Proffered for being too thin—he was 250 pounds and nearly feral once blooded, and he’d feared crushing her. Instead, this woman appeared strong, athletic. She was young, to be sure, but also womanly, with curves where women should have curves, with rounded flesh that would fill his exploring hands and strong grip.
He stepped before her kneeling, submissive form and swallowed the blood his fangs had drawn into his mouth. “Tell me, young one, what is your name?”
Chapter Two
After years of imagining this very moment, he was speaking to her. And, oh, God, what a voice. Deep, resonating and slightly accented, it dragged over her like a caress.
Oh, he asked me something…what did he ask? Her brain engaged again and her lips fell open. “Shayla, Your Highness, Shayla McKinnon.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Shayla. I am Kael, Son of Iain, Warrior King of the Vampires, Chieftain of Clan MacQuillan.”
His introduction set her insides to trembling. Vampire. At one time, the concept had been impossible to conceive. But she’d been forced to confront the reality of their existence one cold winter night when men in uniforms and dark suits had arrived at her family’s home and delivered the news her older sister had been murdered. At fourteen, Shayla had been completely devastated. Though she realized her father’s position as editor in chief of a major Irish newspaper made him a prominent figure in their community, she’d known nothing of her parents’ high-level role in the Electorate Council. Hadn’t known it existed at all.
But once she found out, knowledge was power, and the only thing that provided any solace
