“Really?” Ellie’s stomach dipped in a swirl of glee and apprehension. “I can go?”
“We can go,” Mama corrected with a sharp nod. “I’m coming with you.”
Chapter 6
Cain cursed whatever demon had incited him to descend upon the Breckenridge country estate perched atop a stylish phaeton.
Vampires might be immortal, but immortality did not exempt a body from the discomfort of foul weather. Thunderclouds enshrouded the sky, echoing Cain’s darkening mood. Where he had once been hopeful that tonight was the night he would encounter his elusive prey, now he was simply hopeful he’d encounter a roof, and with luck, a fire. He was shivering and soaking wet and miserable.
So were his horses.
The beasts no longer believed him when he promised their destination must be around the next bend. The ragged lightning coursing across the sky terrified the grays as much as the roaring thunder that followed.
The intermittent flashes of bright white shooting across the thick woods were the only source of light along the serpentine path. His favorite mount had thrown a shoe over one of the many patches of fist-sized rocks atop unstable mud. But the smartest choice was to continue on. His most recent lodgings were already an hour past, and his clan naught but a memory until he, as hunter, returned with the prize.
Rain-blurred lights flickered about the next bend. In his excitement, he scarce discerned a small, dark shape huddled directly in the path. His horses reared. Cain wrangled them under control in time to avert their course. He might have missed the trembling ball of mange altogether, had it not whined plaintively upon the realization it was about to be trampled to death.
Cain leapt from his rain-soaked perch, barely vaulting over his skittish horses. He landed hard on his left shoulder, but did his best to ignore the sickening snap and the sharp flash of pain. There was no time. He scooped up the shivering pile of wet fur and rolled out of the way seconds ere they both would’ve had the full weight of a pair-and-carriage squelching them into the mud.
If his horses had been alarmed before, now they were altogether panicked. They shot off along the pitch-black path at a suicidal pace, the phaeton clattering perilously behind. They would find their way on their own.
And Cain would have to, as well.
Unsteadily, he hauled himself to his feet. He tipped his face into the driving rain and let the pelting drops clear the dirt from his eyes before bending his head to inspect the bundle quaking in his arms.
A puppy.
It licked his face, and Cain laughed despite himself. He’d lost his carriage, lost his horses, and broken his collarbone, but he’d managed to save the life of a half-drowned puppy.
“Stupid creature,” he scolded under his breath, but scratched its ears anyway.
He knew better than to stop for mongrels. He definitely knew better than to pick them up and cuddle them to his chest. But he adored animals and couldn’t resist rubbing the puppy’s belly and scratching behind its ears. Fortunately for animals, only human blood could sate vampiric thirst.
Wincing, Cain set off after his horses, puppy in hand and mud dripping from his face. When he’d accepted the Breckenridge invitation, he had wished to make an Appearance—and damn his arrogance, now he certainly would.
His clothes were ruined, his hair a fright, and his shoulder... Och, at least the snapped bone wasn’t protruding from his skin.
Had he been at home with his clan in Scotland, he would’ve already imbibed the sustenance necessary for rapid healing. But he was in godforsaken England trying to pass for human. Regardless, no maiden in her right mind would offer a nip to a mud-stained rogue in such an abominable condition. He would simply have to give his best careless-rake smile and feign nothing was amiss. The usual.
“Well,” he murmured to the shivering puppy. “If we’re to be saddled with each other, we might as well introduce ourselves. You can call me Cain. And I’ll call you...” He studied the puppy in his arms. Light brown fur, dark brown eyes, a quick, wet tongue, and a whip of a tail that managed to slap Cain’s tender shoulder and spray dog-scented rainwater into his eyes with every swipe. “The more I think on it, the more I come to believe you’re the one who should be called Cain,” he informed the recalcitrant puppy, and was rewarded with exuberant face-licking. “As that’s already taken, you’ll have to settle for... Moch-éirigh.”
Closing his eyes, Cain shook his head in self-disgust.
He’d lost his mind and named the damn thing. Hadn’t he sworn to himself a thousand times over that his puppy-adopting days were through? And hadn’t he triply sworn that he was done torturing himself by giving animals names that reminded him of home, and of things he could never, would never, see again?
He had named his grays Sunrise and Sunset, and now he’d gone and named the puppy Early Riser. As he had been, once. Back when it was a joy to greet the dawn and spend the day awash in sunshine.
A regular glutton for punishment, he was. He deserved the bittersweet reminder of who and what he was.
He took a deep breath—which only served to unbalance both dog and collarbone, and was unnecessary for survival in any case—and tramped forward into the night, his eyes squinting against the onslaught of rain. The puppy snuggled tight against his unbeating heart. They both desperately needed something to eat, so the sooner they descended upon the festivities, the better.
After what felt like miles but was likely no more than ten minutes of cursing and stumbling, Cain could fully make out the Breckenridge estate looming up from the darkness. Unlike Cain, his horses were apparently in no rush to make themselves known. Instead, the grays stood perpendicular on the muddy path, their faces buried in a thatch of rain-battered grass.
He managed to retrieve the ribbons without dropping the puppy and hauled himself back onto his perch. With a tug, his horses abandoned their meal and resumed the miserable trudge to the Breckenridge stables. The ceaseless rain cleansed nearly all the mud from both Cain and puppy, but had no ameliorating effect whatever on tangled fur or ripped linen.
The swarm of liverymen who rushed to greet the carriage had enough breeding to hide any shock at Cain’s appearance—or perhaps he was not the only guest to have arrived worse for wear from the vicious downpour. A stroke of fortune, since he was too weakened from hunger and his injury to Compel the minds of a dozen servants at once.
Nonetheless, brown and bedraggled was not the impression Cain hoped to make upon the weekend revelers, and his sole request of the obsequious footmen was to be granted admittance through a side door, so as not to cause a stir.
