The Broken Highlander (3 page)

“You’ll give in soon.” The man’s smug voice
grated over his nerves. He thought Nevin couldn’t last much
longer.

“Nay. I won’t.” Nevin’s voice was devoid of
anything. It was flat and firm, giving the man pause.

Each time he left, Nevin continued working on
his chains. He wasn’t at full strength, nowhere near, in fact, but
he was stronger. He pulled at his bonds, the cuffs digging into
scabbed over wrists, from where he pulled at them each day.
Something had to give. The rats were attracted to his smell, but
even they had given him a wide berth lately. If he could just get
one more, maybe then he could break the chain.

There! He could hear a rat scurrying about.
Stilling himself, he waited. It felt like hours, but finally one
came close to his foot. He brought his boot down on the beast, and
trapped it between his feet. Maneuvering it up, he tossed it as
best as he could towards his mouth.

Success!
He caught the rat with his
fangs and bled it dry. The small burst of strength allowed him to
pull at his chains once more, until he heard his thumb pop. With a
snarl, he yanked it all the way out, his broken digit bleeding all
over. Lightning-fast, he snagged a second rat and tore into it. His
thumb began to knit itself together.

He would be gone by the next night, this he
swore. With one hand and both his legs free, he was able to use his
legs for leverage. He wouldn’t hesitate to break his other thumb to
get free, if he had felt it would help. The chains creaked, he was
so close.

Footsteps signaled his nightly feeding.
Shite!
The hell with it. Growling, Nevin broke his other
thumb, yanking it through the cuff. When the guard opened his cell,
Nevin lunged at him, ripping his throat out. The other guard
couldn’t draw his sword fast enough, and Nevin quickly snapped his
neck.

“I’ll see you in Hell,” snarled the last man.
He drew his sword and shoved the woman to the ground.

But Hell didn’t want him. It had spat him
back out, and Nevin refused to go back a third time. Bleeding and
tired, he had no patience for this. Dodging the man’s blow, he was
behind him before he could blink. While the confused man turned too
slowly, Nevin took his head.

Bending down to the woman, he noticed her
eyes were glazed over.

“Lass? Hullo?”

No answer. Was she in some sort of trance? He
hefted her over his shoulder and ran.

Nevin ran until he could no longer run. His
chest heaved, but the farther he got from the castle, the more
agitated the woman became. By the time he finally had to stop, she
was screaming at the top of her lungs. He put her down and she ran
back towards the castle. Shaking it off, Nevin turned to catch his
bearings. He needed to hunt.

A shuffling indicated a large animal nearby,
perhaps a boar? He didn’t care, he couldn’t afford to be picky at
the moment. He scented a moose. He knew the people of this area
poached moose from the royal preserves. He thought he was in the
Carpathian mountains, the ancient Dacian lands, so chances were he
would be poaching as well. No one would catch him, he thought as he
lunged at his prey.

He dropped the carcass and headed toward the
sound of water. He needed to get the stink of the dungeon off of
himself.

***

Stepping out of the water, Nevin knew someone
watched him. But that wasn’t what bothered him. That scent…

He couldn’t get it out of his mind. He’d been
trying to outrun her for centuries. The woman who only hunted him
in his memory.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. His
voice was gravelly, not yet healed.

She didn’t answer.

“
Why are you here?”
he gritted.

The scent was gone.

Nevin roared his anger and frustration to the
sky, no one to hear him, not even the moon, on this dark night. He
stalked into the woods, determined to put her behind him. He would
stop thinking about her.
Never again
, he told himself. But
he could still smell her, a teasing, lingering scent as if she
laughed at him. As if to say,
Never is a long time
.

When you were immortal, never was an
eternity.

His prey ran. They always ran. Nevin
MacLachlan loved it when they ran. The thrill of the chase, the
fear he could smell, the capture.

He tackled the man around the waist. Slipping
plastic zip ties on his prey, he hauled him away. The sick bastard
babbled in fear. Good. This man had raped and murdered a woman,
landing him in jail. But scum like this man never stayed in jail,
and had jumped bail. Nevin took the bounty.

When the man tried to tear away, Nevin
tightened his grip to the point of pain, knowing his prey couldn’t
escape. This one was worth fifty grand, and Nevin wanted him off
the streets.

The scar on Nevin’s neck was proof that he
didn’t fuck around. Because yeah, some injuries did scar. Some
injuries were so traumatic that they never healed properly. His
vocal chords had been cut that night, lending his voice a dark,
gritty quality that helped frighten his prey into submission. Not
that he needed help.

He never found out the would-be king of the
vampire’s name, but he knew where he lived, and they would meet
again.
One day
, he thought.
One day
.

Never far from his mind was the female
vampire who had changed him, damning him to this endless hell.
Nevin pushed himself farther, faster, trying to outrun the memory
of her taste, her scent. He had centuries ahead of him, an immortal
life where he would always want her, and always hate her. But now,
he had purpose. He would hunt. He would kill every last vampire he
found. They feared him already. They should. He was the Demon
Blacksmith, broken no longer.

Thank you so much for reading Highland
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Reborn, the first short story in my Nightkind series, please turn
the page.

Excerpt from RONÉ Award
Honorable Mention Highlander Reborn
:

Scotland, 1304

The blood dripped down his forehead and
caught in his eyebrows. Nevin didn’t have the energy to wipe it
off. He leaned heavily on his sword, trying desperately to catch
his breath. The moon gave off plenty of light, but his vision was
turning dark. He tried to glance up at the stars one last time but
he couldn’t move his head. His body numb from blood loss, he’d gone
beyond pain. His body was much too weak to register it. Before his
knees buckled and he fell to the ground, the last sound Nevin heard
was a woman’s soothing voice telling him to lie still. He couldn’t
see her, though. All he could see was darkness. Everywhere he
looked there was only a thick, endless field of nothing.

A light formed and pulled him closer, closer.
It was warm, and he was so terribly cold. But he couldn’t move. The
darkness held him back. He instinctively knew that once the thick,
inky black had him in its grip, he would never be free. So he
fought. Nevin struggled and strained, trying with everything he had
to reach the light, but he only exhausted his depleted strength
even more.

The welcoming warmth of the light drifted
farther and farther away. If he could have reached for it, he would
have. But he couldn’t move. The Dark would not relinquish him. Not
now, not ever.

***

Amalia brushed her fingers across her
warrior’s sticky forehead. The blood didn’t bother her, his death,
however, would. When she’d seen him struck down in that bloody,
gods-awful battle, she’d shrieked in denial and rushed to his side.
She was beyond furious. He wasn’t supposed to die. Not yet. She
hadn’t had enough time with him. She found an unmarked patch of
skin on his neck, leaned down and laved his skin with her tongue.
His blood tasted bitter with the taint of death. Pressing her lips
against his ear, she whispered, “Lie still,” and she bit his
neck.

She didn’t have to drink much from him since
he’d lost most of his blood on the battlefield. She immediately bit
her wrist and held it to his mouth, praying he would drink, praying
this would work. A shadow slipped over them, obscuring the silvery
moonlight. Amalia didn’t glance up, she knew who it was.

Her voice snapped like a whip, “I expressly
commanded you not to kill him.”

Sebastian flicked a non-existent piece of
lint from his shoulder. “We were more concerned with defeating the
heathens, than watching out for your pet Highlander.”

Amalia looked at him then, fury in her eyes.
“He was not to be harmed.” A ripple of her power was carried on the
wind, causing Sebastian to shudder. Amalia returned to stroking her
warrior’s face, waiting for him to turn.

“And what happens when he wakes?” Sebastian’s
silky smooth voice interrupted Amalia.

She glanced sharply at him. “What do you
mean?”

“He’s spent his life fighting our kind, you
cannot possibly think he’ll be grateful to you for turning him.”
The ennui Sebastian usually projected was missing, in its place was
true curiosity.

In truth, Amalia had worried about that, but
when faced with letting him die, or knowing she could save him, she
was willing to chance his ire. This magnificent warrior deserved a
much longer existence than the miniscule six and twenty years he’d
lived.

Amalia had been watching him for months now.
He didn’t know it, but she knew him. Nevin Maclachlan was a skilled
blacksmith who lived in a cottage in the village. He had lost his
wife to one of her kind, and ever since her death, he had fought in
every battle against the Nightkind he could find. Instead of
sleeping like most humans, he hunted her kind at night. The man was
impressive. He slept very little, yet he spent a full day in his
smithy forging weapons.

One evening, a night where the moon hung low
in the sky, Amalia had been hunting when she’d realized that
someone was following her. An amused smile tipped her lips at the
thought someone would dare hunt her. No one hunted Amalia. She was
royalty. And she was very, very powerful. Stepping out into a patch
of moonlight, she turned. He stepped out from the cover of shadow
and his hands fisted. She noticed the glint of metal in one of his
hands. So he thought to kill her, did he? This arrogant human could
no more kill Amalia, than he could sprout wings and fly. Gliding
towards him, Amalia noticed his body tense in preparation for an
attack. But he did not attack her. How curious.

“Demon,” he spat.

Amalia cocked her head at the venom he
injected into that one word. Interesting.

She regally bowed her head a fraction.
“Human,” she greeted him.

Quietly they stared at each other. Amalia was
the one to break the silence, her curiosity getting the better of
her. “Why do you follow me?”

“To kill you,” said without hesitation.

“Yet you have not.”

His eyes tightened. “Aye, you have no’ made
your move.”

Ah, he had honor, this one. He would wait for
her to attack first.

“Shall I move my hand?” Amalia lightly
touched her fingers to his lips. They stiffened beneath her
touch.

“Keep your hands to yourself, vampire,” he
growled. His growl would frighten most. She was not most.

“Will you kill me now?”

“Fight me and see.”

His deep voice intrigued her. Every word
seemed a throaty growl, torn from him. He didn’t wish to speak; he
wanted a brawl.

“What if I do not wish to fight?” Amalia slid
her hand from his lips to his neck and around to twist in his hair.
“What if fighting is the furthest thing from my mind?”

He wrenched himself away, cursing her. Her
soft chuckle enraged him even more, yet he still made no effort to
hurt her.

“Damn you, vampire. Fight me!”he roared.

Amalia sauntered back up to him, placed both
her hands on his braw shoulders, stretched onto her tiptoes, and
placed her mouth to his neck. “Is this what you want?”

He instantly had a blade at her heart. “Do
it,” he ordered.

Amalia pressed her lips to his neck in the
whisper of a kiss and murmured, “Nay.” She slid away from this very
brave, very foolish human and disappeared into the night.

However she did not forget him, quite the
opposite, in fact. She began to follow him at night, every night.
When this battle had begun, she spread the word that he was not to
be harmed. Yet here she sat, his dead body in her lap, waiting for
him to wake to eternity.