The Ruby Kiss (2 page)

He narrowed his eyes. Ruby held his gaze and tightened her grip on the bat. As they stared each other down, a tingle of excitement ran up her spine. She had thought she never wanted to see another supernatural after what happened to her mother, but there was something about this one’s vibrant male energy that set her nerves singing.

He gave a hiss of reluctant surrender. “I’m a nightstalker.”

Yes, that did ring a bell. She wished now she hadn’t burned all her mother’s supernatural books. “Is that some type of demon?”

He bristled. “I’m not a bloody shadow elemental, woman. I’m a fairy.”

“A what?” The bat sagged in Ruby’s hands while her brain scrambled to process. She had thought fairies were tiny with translucent wings. A slightly hysterical giggle burst from her lips.

“What’s so funny?” he demanded.

“I thought fairies were small.” At his scowl, she had to stop herself from grinning. He was so easy to get a rise out of. “Don’t fairies wear sparkly dresses and have bells on their slippers?”

A growl broke from the back of his throat. She raised her bat again, wondering if she’d pushed him too far. Time to change the subject.

“To answer your first question, I’m Ruby Macdonald.”

He grunted, his gaze tracking down her body, then back to her face. “And this place is?”

“Glenskelly Lodge. I suppose you realize you’re in Scotland?” She watched him take stock of his surroundings, absently ruffling his wings against his back. Ruby stabbed a finger toward the ceiling and added, “It sounded as though you damaged my roof.”

The nightstalker glanced up, his nostrils flaring. “It wasn’t my fault. The damn bird should have looked where it was
going.” He flexed his shoulders before raising a hand to rub one. “Bathroom?” he demanded.

“You use bathroom facilities?” The leprechauns who had helped her and her mother when she was small had lived in caves. But, come to think of it, some of the others supernaturals they’d met had seemed very civilized. Still, she couldn’t imagine a man with wings sitting on the toilet or lying in a bath.

“Of course, woman. This is the twenty-first century.” He tapped the cell phone on his belt. “Where I come from we make use of modern technology and live among humans. Although most do not know what we are.”

Ruby pointed the bat at the door of her en suite. Nightshade strode inside, leaving the door open. He washed his hands and face, then wiped himself dry on her towel before dropping it over the side of the bath.

“Make yourself at home, why don’t you,” Ruby said under her breath.

The nightstalker wandered back into the room, blinked, and rubbed his eyes. His hand went to his shoulder again, and he looked exhausted. With a sigh, he glanced at the open skylight. “Sorry about the intrusion,” he offered reluctantly. “Don’t often get birds flying at night.”

“Looks to me like you were asleep at the wheel,” Ruby retorted. “So to speak.”

He pinned her with a belligerent gaze but didn’t deny the accusation. His gaze roamed more slowly over her body, as if he were really noticing it. The tension between them shifted subtly. The annoyance melted from his face and he licked his lips.

A prickle of awareness skittered across her skin, making her nipples peak beneath the tight jersey tank top, which she belatedly realized left little to the imagination. And her pajama shorts made her thighs look fat. She tossed the bat on the bed,
hurried across the room to grab her dressing gown off the back of the door, and put it on.

She considered him for a moment and remembered the kindness of many supernaturals whom her mother had intruded upon in her relentless search for Ruby’s father. Although the last thing she wanted to do was get tangled up in that weird world again, she strongly believed that what goes around comes around and it was time to reciprocate. “When it’s lighter out, you can check my roof’s not damaged where you hit it. First I think you need to sleep. Before you fall over.”

Winged ebony brows rose in surprise. “You’ll let me stay in your house?”

“You can go outside and sleep in the dog kennel if you’d rather, but I think you’re too big.”

He scowled—an expression with which Ruby was fast becoming familiar. She’d always been good at sensing the energy of people and animals, she’d been told it was a gift, and she was certain this stranger didn’t pose any danger to her. He was exhausted and he could hardly check into the nearest hotel. And, now he had dropped in on her, she might as well take the opportunity to question him. She was determined to rid herself of the annoying power she’d inherited from her supernatural father. Perhaps Nightshade could help.

* * *

Nightshade narrowed his eyes on the woman’s back while she made up the bed in her spare room. He couldn’t pick up her psychic signature in the way he would expect if she carried fairy blood, yet she wasn’t completely human. The house resonated with strange energy. It was as though he could
feel
her in the wood beneath his feet.

She turned and bent over the bed to tuck in the sheets, and her breasts swung forward and made the dressing gown gape.
All thought of psychic signatures disappeared from his brain. Excitement raced through him at the thought of standing behind her and catching those breasts in his hands. She was no slender creature like the Cornish pisky women from the troop with whom he lived; she was only just over five feet tall but with buxom curves. He’d never seen a full-bodied woman like her. And although his fangs burned within his gums with the desire to taste the sweetness of her blood, they did not slide out over his lower lip. Instead, the tight heaviness in his groin dominated his awareness. For the first time in his life, his instinct to mate was stronger than his desire to bite.

“One bed ready for occupation.” She straightened and put her hands on her shapely hips with a long exhalation of breath, then flashed him a quick smile, her hazel eyes twinkling. The small diamond stud in her nose glinted in the overhead light. She was so different from other females he knew, with her short spiky red hair and the many piercings in her ears.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, uncomfortable with being in her debt. He wouldn’t have blamed her for tossing him out after he’d crashed onto her bed in the middle of the night. She had a sharp tongue, yet she must have a kind nature to have offered him a place to rest.

“Would you like a cuppa before you turn in?” Then, without waiting for his answer, she bustled past, leaving a trail of sweet floral fragrance in her wake.

This healthy well-built woman would produce big strong babies. Could she be the right woman to give him the son he longed for?

* * *

“Come on. You’re dead on your feet,” Ruby said, beckoning Nightshade into the guest room after he’d silently drunk his cup of tea. She’d been hoping he’d be chattier. As she stood aside
to let him pass, she noticed scratches marring the smooth skin of the shoulder he’d been favoring. The impact with her roof must have injured him, but his black skin hid the damage.

He slanted her a sideways glance through his hair as he sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots. “Thanks.”

“Want me to look at your shoulder?”

“No.” He made to lie down.

Ruby hurried across to the bed and caught his wrist. “Yes, you do.”

Sinews flexed beneath her hand like tensile steel cables, and a shock of response burst through her at contact with the leashed power of his body. Drawing an uneven breath she released him and leaned over to examine his injured shoulder. A sticky trail of blood had seeped from a nasty gash to run down his back beneath one of his wings. He must be in pain but she would never have guessed. The smell of blood mingled with the unusual scent of almonds and the musky male fragrance of his skin.

“Leave me be, woman. Let me get some rest.”

He turned his head toward her, and she stared into the brilliance of his silver gaze, looked so close she could see every hair in his dense ebony lashes. His face was a study of masculine beauty, his strong jaw and brows giving a rugged cast to his otherwise fine features. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, then she pulled back and rested her hands on her hips, determined not to show he affected her.

“Sit tight for a few minutes. I’m going to dress that wound or you’ll ruin my sheets.”

Ruby grabbed the first-aid kit from the bathroom and returned to find Nightshade sitting with his head in his hands. To see this huge über macho creature looking vulnerable did something strange to her insides.

“I’ll be quick,” she assured him.

She climbed onto the bed behind him and started wiping the
blood off his skin. When she eased aside his wing, the stretchy skin was strong and soft as kid gloves. She had a crazy urge to rub her cheek against it and decided she must be light-headed with tiredness. She smoothed away the thick silk of his hair before she cleaned up his wound and covered it with gauze.

“There you go,” she said in a brightly efficient voice. “Ready for bed.”

He didn’t move. She went around in front of him and squatted down. His eyelids were lowered, his lashes thick ebony crescents against his cheeks.

“Nightshade,” she whispered, and silver slivers appeared beneath those lashes. “Lie down, laddie.”

He eased onto his side, and she threw a duvet over him, then watched while he went back to sleep. His guarded expression relaxed and he looked even more beautiful. His lean dark fingers gripped the edge of the pillow, and she clenched her hand as she imagined running her fingertips up his sinewy forearm to the bulge of his biceps. He must be casting some kind of magic over her; she could hardly tear her eyes away. She had thought that only a mad and irresponsible woman like her mother would succumb to a supernatural man who appeared in her bedroom in the middle of the night.

Perhaps she had inherited the same madness.

* * *

Nightshade woke to stillness. For a moment he wondered where he was. Then he recognized Ruby’s light floral fragrance on the air.

He stared at the clock beside the bed and puzzled over the fact that, although he felt well rested, he’d apparently slept for only fifteen minutes. After more thought, he worked out that he’d slept round the clock. As it would soon be dawn and he couldn’t be seen flying during daylight, he would have to
wait another day before he went on to the fairy Gathering of Kith and Kin in the Scottish Highlands. At least that meant he would have time to check Ruby’s roof for damage.

He listened for her, heard the steady beating of her heart on the other side of the wall. Guilt flickered within him at how he’d dropped in and frightened her; he should never have flown all the way from one end of the country to the other when he was out of practice. Normal nightstalkers who lived a solitary life got used to flying all the time. But he’d grown soft living his comfortable life in Cornwall, with the modern-thinking pisky troop, being driven around in cars.

Longing ticked in his chest. Only two days away from home and he already missed his brother. He imagined Rhys sleeping peacefully in the nursery at Trevelion Manor with the Cornish pisky king and queen’s children. His beloved baby half brother. To protect Rhys, he would find their evil father Dragon and make him swear a blood oath to give up all rights to the boy. He would never let Dragon injure the child again, as he had in the past.

Nightshade’s stomach rumbled in protest. Heaving himself out of bed, he ripped the dressing off his healing shoulder and went downstairs to find the kitchen. When he snapped on the lights, they gleamed off the contemporary white-fronted units. The house was a strange combination of rustic wooden hunting lodge and modern styling. He preferred old houses, like Trevelion Manor where he lived, that breathed history from every seasoned-oak beam and floorboard.

He opened cupboards at random until he found a loaf of bread, then dropped two slices into the toaster before making a cup of tea. That would have to tide him over until Ruby prepared him a proper breakfast.

While he ate, he sat at the pine kitchen table, scrolling through the photos of Rhys saved on his cell phone. The Gathering of Kith and Kin where he hoped to find his father
would last five nights, and he had already missed the first. He must arrive tonight in order to get his bearings and plan his strategy.

After he finished eating, Nightshade looked for a calendar to check his dates. One hung beside the fridge, each full moon highlighted in orange. The Cornish pisky wise woman kept just such a moon calendar in her room at Trevelion Manor, but Nightshade couldn’t understand why Ruby would be interested in lunar cycles. Maybe she was a wise woman or witch. That would explain the strange power he’d sensed in the house. He stared at the calendar for a few seconds, frowning, then noticed the wall clock showed it was getting-up time. So he went upstairs, impatient for Ruby to wake and cook for him.

Her bedroom door stood ajar, the bed visible through the gap. Early sunlight glowed through the thin white curtains, illuminating her. She lay in a state of abandon, arms flung above her head, one leg protruding from beneath the covers. Without him making a conscious decision to go inside, his feet carried him to the foot of her bed.

He had never noticed how women smelled before. Her floral scent mingled with an enticingly musky feminine fragrance that stirred an unfamiliar hunger. The covers rode lower as she moved, revealing the ripe swells of her breasts. Nightshade clenched his teeth to hold in his fangs.

This woman did things to him he’d never experienced. He might be a vampire, but for him taking blood was a pleasure rather than a necessity. He’d only ever wanted to bite men, and the idea of mating rarely entered his head. Now his body ached to mate with Ruby’s while he sank his fangs into her soft pink curves and formed a blood bond so that he could control her. He would only be able to take blood from her a couple of times a week, assuming he didn’t want to hurt her, but that could be enough to satisfy him. She was the woman he needed to complete his life. He would make her scream with pleasure and
start his baby growing in her belly. Then, after he’d secured the blood oath from his father, he would collect Ruby and bring her home with him to Cornwall.