Too Brazen to Bite by Erica Ridley

Author:Erica Ridley [Ridley, Erica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Erica Ridley

Chapter 8

Cain wandered restlessly amongst the dense greenery in the darkest nook of the conservatory, hoping to avoid both servants and revelers whilst his puppy cavorted out-of-doors.

His fractured shoulder was healing, although not as quickly as he would have liked. If he had been thinking about his injury, he would’ve spirited away one of the party’s insipid coquettes for a drop or two during the card-playing yestere’en. Instead, he had been thinking about bonny Miss Ramsay. That was, when he was capable of rational thought.

After centuries of fruitless searching and prolonged homesickness, he had crossed paths with renegade vampire Aggie Munro. At long last, he could see an end to decade upon decade of solitary hunting, peppered by the occasional wild pup that invariably grew old and died, leaving Cain to walk his path alone.

No more. If he could not talk the Deserter into accompanying him peaceably, he would return her forcibly. He had not come this close to his quarry to fail now.

Then there was the question of returning Miss Ramsay—Ellie—to her real family. Whomever they might be. Depending on how much detail Aggie had Compelled her human companion to forget, Ellie might never recall her true life... or her true name. “Elspeth Ramsay” was much too Scottish for a modern English rose.

Aggie might have stolen her as a child. Might have used enough Compulsion on the parents so that they forgot they were parents, violating virtually every sacred tenet of the clan’s rigid Code at once.

Unforgivable, as far as Cain was concerned, but the clan Elders valued his brawn, not his opinions. He was simply required to deliver Aggie to their mercy.

Victory was finally at hand... if unexpectedly bittersweet. Cain had no desire to turn Ellie’s world upside down and then abandon her in the wilds of England to fend for herself, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t drag a human girl into the heart of a vampire clan.

He would never forgive himself if Ellie were Compelled to spend the rest of her life serving the Elders.

So why did he feel like he was losing something important?

Cain leaned his good shoulder against the conservatory wall. He bloody well knew why he regretted leaving Ellie. Because he liked her, dammit.

She was bonny, clever, delightfully skeptical... He’d actually had to work to charm her and was not at all confident as to the extent of his success. She, for her part, had managed to charm him quite effortlessly, with her arch wit and unpredictability.

Yet her very mortality ensured he could never have her. His clan only accepted fellow vampires as mates, and he would not turn her.

Conversion had been banned for centuries, for good reason: Only one in a hundred survived the process. Even were it legal, it would still not be worth the risk.

Besides, what he liked best about Ellie was her humanness. He’d damn near sprained his cheek muscles keeping his smiles at bay so as not to flash his fangs by accident. Being in her company was simply good fun.

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