38. Tristan
Chapter thirty-eight
Tristan
Piper Monroe tastes like sunlight and poor decisions. Her blood smells better than any I’ve ever scented.
One afternoon with her beneath an oak tree has rendered centuries of restraint useless.
We’re laying back on the blanket now after kissing and starting something that will finish later in the castle, looking at the oak leaves, the sky and the nearby brook, fingers laced as I gaze at her.
Murphy lies between us and the brook, devouring another biscuit Mrs. MacLeod packed for him despite repeated assurances that human food is inappropriate for dogs.
“You’re staring,” Piper says.
“I’m not. I’m just thinking.”
“That seems dangerous. Should we have some cheese?”
I turn toward the brook. Water moves quickly over pale stones, bright beneath the afternoon sun. Wind passes through the oak leaves. Bramble and Fern graze nearby, reins loosely secured.
It should be peaceful. I want Piper badly, all of her. But the unease that began inside the chapel has suddenly returned, like a second shadow.
Piper nudges my arm.
“Tristan? What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not a nothing face.”
“I was unaware I possessed one.”
“You have several. That one says you’re thinking about something unpleasant and intend to protect everyone. Was it that panel in the chapel?”
“Yes.”
“The panel—was it a door?”
“Possibly.”
“Could it be a vampire?”
“No.” My answer comes with certainty.
“How do you know?”
“I would have sensed one. And I would have sensed a human as well. Blood scent, heartbeat, smell of skin…”
“A ghost, then?”
“You ask that very casually.”
“I own a castle. Ghosts are practically an amenity.”
“I have never seen one.”
“That does not mean they haven’t seen you.”
The hair rises along the back of my neck. Not because of her words. Because suddenly the breeze has stopped. The leaves overhead become perfectly still.
The brook continues moving, but the forest beyond it falls silent. No birds. No insects. Even the horses lift their heads.
I stand.
“What is it?”
“Stay here, Piper.”
“No.”
“You promised choices.”
“This is not politics.”
“No. It’s something you don’t understand, which means I would prefer not to sit on a blanket while you investigate it alone.”
She rises beside me. Murphy is already on his feet. His ears point toward the trees. A low growl vibrates in his chest.
I step in front of Piper and then a scent reaches me. Not blood or human. The scent is of wet earth, cold stone and something burned. Ancient smoke trapped beneath rain.
I know every scent belonging to Glenhaven. This is not one of them.
“Do you smell that?” Piper whispers.
“Yes.”
“So I’m not imagining it.”
A shape moves between the trees. Too fast for a human. Too large and upright for an animal.
Darkness crossing darkness.
Murphy lunges forward. I catch his collar before he reaches the edge of the brook.
He snarls, looking across the brook.
“Murphy!” Piper grabs him from the other side.
Across the water, something stands behind the trees. I cannot see its face.
I’m not entirely certain it possesses one. It’s tall and narrow. Its head tilts at an angle no living neck should allow.
Then, a cold recognition touches me but not of the creature. Of the gesture. I’ve seen it in a manuscript beneath the Keeper’s library. I saw it looking at me that night in the library. This may be what Piper saw in the castle…
A drawing scratched into the margin of an account written centuries before my birth.
The Watcher Beneath the Hill, that’s what they called it. Or simple, the Watcher.
Impossible! The figure withdraws. I release Murphy and cross the brook in a single leap.
“Tristan!”
I reach the trees instantly, but nothing is there. No footsteps or broken branches or traces of footprints. Just the lingering scent of stone and smoke.
But I see a mark has been carved into the bark of the nearest ash tree: nine lines across a circle. The same symbol concealed inside the chapel. The same symbol on the Vampire Accord.
I touch the bark and the wood is warm. Freshly burned.
Behind me, Piper splashes through the shallow edge of the brook, dragging Murphy by the collar.
“I told you to stay there.”
“And I made a different choice. What was it?”
“I’m not certain.”
Her face changes as she looks at me.
“You recognized it.”
“I recognized something associated with it. From an old document.”
“Truth…”
The single word stops every instinct I possess. Protect her. Delay. Research. Hunt whatever and wherever it is. Tell her only when I understand enough to control the danger.
Those instincts have served me for centuries.
But they will cost me her if I obey them now.
“There’s an old account in Glenhaven’s archives,” I say. “It describes something believed to have guarded these lands before the Accord.”
“Something?”
“The writer called it the Watcher. The Watcher Beneath the Hills, to be more precise.”
“What does it watch?”
“The Keeper.”
She looks at the burned symbol.
“Maybe that’s reassuring.”
“It is not.”
“Why?”
“The final page of the account of this being is missing. The surviving text suggests the Watcher appears only when Glenhaven’s succession is changed, disrupted or disputed. It has never appeared to my knowledge.”
Piper’s face loses color.
“Because ownership never changed. Until now.”
“Yes. You officially own Glenhaven now.”
“And now this thing is awake. What does it do?”
“I don’t know. I only know of it from a manuscript.”
She folds her arms.
“Excellent. I have acquired vampire Switzerland and activated its haunted security system.”
Despite myself, I smile a little at how her mind works, her turn of phrase.
“You kissed me against a tree ten minutes ago. Things were improving.”
“They remain improved.”
Her eyes meet mine. The danger and mystery have not disappeared. It has simply made every moment feel more fragile and more immediate.
Piper looks toward the oak and the abandoned picnic. “Should we go back to the castle?”
“Yes, I think we should.”
“Because we’re in danger?”
“Because there are books I must examine.”
“That is the least romantic answer possible.”
“I was not aware romance remained under discussion.”
Her eyebrows rise. I regret the words immediately. Not because they are false. Because hope is a dangerous thing to place between us.
“Do you want romance to remain under discussion, Tristan?”
My entire body stills. Piper has never understood the mercy of indirect questions. She goes straight through armor.
“I want many things,” I say.
“Truth.”
The word again. A command I gave her the right to use. I look at her mouth.
“I want to kiss you until neither of us remembers our names. I want to touch you until Sebastian Ashcroft, the Accord, the chapel, or anything else waiting to destroy this afternoon is forgotten. I want to bed you.”
Her breath catches. The sound nearly undoes me.
“But?” she asks quietly.
“But you saw what I am yesterday.”
“Yes. And I’m coming to terms with it … Tristan, I see who you are.”
Her hand touches my coat, not pulling me closer. Simply resting there. “I’m still angry,” she says, “and I haven’t fully forgiven you. I may become angry again without notice. But I’m tired of pretending fear erased everything else.”
My hands ache to touch her. I keep them at my sides.
“What else?” I ask.
Her cheeks color. Desire has a scent and with it is warm skin, faster blood and a subtle sweetness. Her scent has haunted me since the first night she arrived. And now it has added the scent of desire.
“You know what else.”
“I need you to say it. Because if I misunderstand, I will never forgive myself.”
She studies my face.
Then Piper says, “I’m not promising tomorrow. And this doesn't mean I’m finished being angry. But I want you to bed me tonight.”
She leans in to give me a kiss, but then she bites my lower lip. Not hard, more like a teasing challenge. And every civilized thought leaves me.
Her blood calls to me. It always will.
“Tonight is yours.”
Behind her, the burned symbol suddenly darkens against the bark. For an instant, nine lines glow red. Then vanish.
Piper doesn’t see it, but I do.
And as we gather the abandoned picnic and mount our horses, I understand one thing with absolute certainty.
Whatever woke beneath Glenhaven is watching her.