“Hmmm … she is a top sawyer! Don’t let her bossiness fool you, Kit. She really is grand, you know!”
“And how came you to this profound conclusion about a young lady you hardly know?” his lordship asked drily.
“Kit!” Billy protested. “She saved my life! If Myriah had not found me and brought me home, I could have bled to death on the grass … or worse!”
“Very well, we will allow her that much. She did indeed deliver you into Fletcher’s hands instead of hauling you off to the doctor’s … which would have been the very devil to deal with.”
“Aye, but, Kit,” objected Billy once again, “she did far more than that! Lord—ain’t Fletcher told you? He told me … fastened some sort of thing … ah, a tourniquet that slowed my blood from spilling out altogether. And what’s more, she never asked how I came by my bullet! Not one question. Nor does she talk around it like some females do trying to get you to slip up and give over …”
Kit laughed and put up his hands. “That, of course makes her right ’un!”
“Yes, it does,” Billy said defensively. “She is plucky—for you must know her father has tried to bully her into marrying some chap she didn’t take to. Up she gets and runs away! How many females do you know have the backbone to take such a step?”
“She told you that, eh?” His lordship was mildly surprised and asked, “And that step meets with your approbation, Billy?”
“Now, Kit, come down a leg! Lord, it ain’t like you to get some preachy look over your face. ’Tis humbug you be pitching at me, and I want to know why!”
“Frankly, I don’t wish for you to become involved with a girl of her stamp—” started his lordship.
A gusty laugh drowned out Kit’s words. “Involved? Egad, Kit … Myriah is a dazzler! Lord don’t know when I’ve clapped eyes on a brighter flower. But she no more wants my name than she wants that fellow’s she is running away from!”
“But what do you want, my bucko?” Kit asked.
“I want a fairy queen with china-blue eyes, corn silk hair blowing soft in the breeze … and I want her ten years from now!” Billy grinned.
Kit smiled and stood up. “All right, lad. I’ll plague you no more—for the time being. Get some rest.”
“The devil I will!” retorted his brother. “’Tis your turn now, my brother.”
“My turn, brat?” Kit’s brow went up.
“Aye, what I want to know is why are you back… now?”
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ShadowLife—Hybrid
(unedited)
~ Prelude ~
Present Day,
Grampian Mountains, Scottish Highlands
HE FEELS HIS tongue hanging between his sharp canines, teeth that can crush through a man’s bones, as he races with precision through the trees. The wolf in him has taken the scent from the earth and then lifts his head to the breeze to confirm the distance—a wolf can detect its prey in this manner almost two miles away.
He can feel the cold wind whip at his thick and beautiful black fur, and he loves the sensation it tracks through his body. The last of the winter snow is beginning to melt beneath his huge paws, and he revels in the freedom of the run …
He is at home in these woods; the scent of the sweet-smelling tall pines mingled with the rays of the new morning’s sun has a soothing effect on his frazzled nerves—as does the hunt. He has abstained long enough.
The early scent of spring is in the air and fills his nostrils as he reaches the precipice where he can look over his valley. He shifts into human and lands naked on two feet.
He stands a huge, muscular man, with his long, black, shiny hair blowing freely in the morning breeze. The intricate tattoos on his chest and arms catch the sun’s rays as his muscles flex and he raises his head to catch the scent of the deer off the wind. His cock is at full attention from the excitement of the hunt. There is an old stag he has been tracking …
These woods have belonged to his family for centuries—MacAdams’ Foothills they are called. He and his father, nearly lost to him, are the last of his clan. They are neither man, wolf, or vampire, but all three.
* * *