The Awakening (The Bryn And Sinjin Series Book 6) Page 9

  I watched my little hellion from a distance. Her physical ability as a warrior left me in awe. The soldiers she trained hung on her every word, proving the royal princess to be a skilled teacher, capable of educating even the clumsiest among our recruits. And, of course, I would be remiss in forgetting to mention her delectable body, with her full, bouncing bosom and pert derrière.

  Practice some modicum of self-control, Sinjin, old man, I warned myself. This is no time to lose yourself in erotic fantasy. I pulled back from the precipice of intricate daydream, although it was terribly tempting in all of its glorious naughtiness.

  Just then, my little hellion looked up from her sparring and turned away from her recruits for the briefest of moments, though their rapt attention remained on her. Our eyes met, and a certain heat began to pulse through my body. My fangs lengthened of their own accord. Lady Bryn had an effect on me I could never have imagined experiencing. I was pleased as she waved to her recruits, signaling a break in training exercises, and immediately began to walk in my direction.

  As she came closer, I could better see her beautiful eyes, her soft skin, and her incredibly impressive pair of breasts.

  “Sinjin, what’s up?” she asked once she’d finally completed her walk and stood before me. Was that a hint of sarcasm I detected? Naturally, of course.

  “Well, Joan of Arc, I was hoping to propose something to you.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, then frowned at me. “And I’m up here, by the way.”

  I cleared my throat and brought my attention back to her eyes. “Yes, I am well aware.”

  “Then why were you staring at my breasts?”

  “Because you have the tiniest droplet of perspiration running much like a rivulet, just between your lovely mounds. Try as I might, it is near impossible to direct my attention elsewhere.”

  She scoffed. “Well, try harder.”

  “My apologies,” I answered, beaming at her with the expression a naughty schoolboy gives his teacher.

  “I’m a busy woman.”

  I nodded. “I would like to invite you to or take you on—whatever the proper parlance is for this newfangled term—what modern-day romantics refer to as a ‘date.’”

  She smiled. “How is it that you’ve been alive for, like, thousands of years—”

  “Six hundred years.”

  “Whatever. Yet you still haven’t managed to grasp the way modern language works?”

  “Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

  She was quiet, but that irksome grin remained on her face.

  “You do make these trials rather uncomfortable, I must admit,” I told her with a frown.

  “Trials?”

  “Yes, this date-asking, as it were.”

  “How am I making it uncomfortable?” she feigned innocence, but I was well aware that she knew exactly what she was doing. The bloody vixen.

  “You answer my question with questions of your own and then, once we have exhausted those tangents, you still refuse to respond.”

  “What was your question again?” She laughed.

  “Case in point.”

  “I’m sorry. I promise I won’t forget this time and I’ll answer you straightaway.”

  “Bloody hell,” I grumbled. Then, I faced her resolutely, irritated that I had to play this game although a part of me enjoyed it all the same. “I request your presence this evening just outside the castle walls, where I plan to provide us with an elegant picnic,” I finished.

  “What sort of an elegant picnic?”

  “Oh, for the love of all that is decent!” I trilled. “Will you answer the question, woman?”

  “Sinjin, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so uptight before.”

  “I am not uptight.”

  “Then what’s gotten into you?” She attempted to keep her laugh at bay, but was unsuccessful.

  “Nothing has gotten into me! Or perhaps you have, as you are the most vexing woman I have ever come across!”

  “Yet you want to treat me to a picnic and, it follows, subject yourself to more of my vexing company?”

  I was quiet for a moment as I studied her, taking in her rosy cheeks and the smile turning up her lips. Her eyes shined with mirth. I felt my own narrow as a sardonic smile took hold of my mouth. “You do realize, my dear…” I started, purposely allowing my words to trail off.

  “Realize what?”

  “That you are flirting with me?”

  “Flirting with you!” she scoffed and immediately began shaking her head as a fresh blush overtook her cheeks.

  “Yes. You, my dear warrior, are flirting just as unabashedly as any schoolgirl does with her crush.”

  “The answer is no.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she fixed me with a penetrating glare.

  “The answer to what is no?”

  “To your picnic.”

  I frowned. “And why is the answer no?”

  “Because you accused me of flirting with you.”

  “You were, in fact, flirting with me,” I retorted as I took a step closer. I heard her heartbeat increase in response. “And I rather liked it.”

  “I… was not.”

  “Were too.” I took another step until only a couple of inches separated us. “I can smell your excitement, my pet.”

  “That’s—”

  “Anticipation of what I will do next?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps you wish I would reach out and pull you into a heated embrace? Or tuck that stray lock of hair behind your ear? Or perhaps you are talking yourself out of reaching up and touching your lips to mine?”

  Her expression was difficult to read, but her heartbeat continued to wage its own obvious battle and crimson still stained her cheeks. She was flustered and she was excited, but her pride was, as usual, acting the part of strict chaperone.

  “I’m sorry, but I… I can’t think about romantic stuff when… we’re on the brink of war,” replied my little hellion. She seemed to find herself unable to make eye contact with me. I knew in that moment that the ensuing battle was not the issue. She was purposefully avoiding my company. But as to why, I was not certain.

  “I have to get back to training,” bête noire muttered, clearly uncomfortable in my presence. Then she turned, rushing back to her waiting recruits as hurriedly as she could.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sinjin

  The sun had finally taken its leave, and the moon hung heavy and full in the sky. Beautiful though the moon and its handmaidens, the stars, were, I could find no pleasure in gazing upon them. I had spent the previous few hours lying awake in my bed, tossing, turning, and ripping my sheets away from where they had been neatly tucked in.

  For once in my life, I did not understand the natural order of things. More pointedly, I did not understand what had overcome the princess. At one moment, she was so warm and entranced by me that she offered herself—an offer she did not take lightly. Yet, at the very next, she was cold and distant.

  What had gone so terribly wrong between us? This rupture in our once affectionate, if sarcastic, relationship could not have been caused by the likes of the dandy alone—no, something much deeper was at play. Yes, I was convinced there was more to this than what appeared upon the surface.

  This would not do, this lying about and moping. I was ensnared between two equally horrible places: the pain of rejection, and wondering why it had happened in the first place. And the more I considered the question, the more befuddled I became. I felt quite like a dog chasing its own tail.

  And that was a point on which I could not lay claim. For this love-sick, confused, and macabre character was not one I knew. I was Sinjin Sinclair, master vampire and Lord Protector of Kinloch Kirk. I was a man accustomed to getting his way and had been for centuries. I was the ultimate hunter, never the prey. I did not whine like a teenager. I did not fall back and lick my wounds. I was at the top of the food chain, and I needed to adopt that mannerism again.

  At once, I leapt f
rom my bed and walked the interminable halls of the castle with a newfound sense of purpose. I strode with intent as my long gait carried me rapidly across my route. In no time at all, I had arrived at my destination: the bedroom in which the Lady Bryn slept. I knocked on the door as loudly as my fist would allow without breaking the damned thing. I heard a rustle and then a sound suggesting someone was approaching. I continued my knocking—Lady Bryn would speak to me. I demanded it. After another three raps, the door opened to quite the sight.

  My little hellion sported unkempt hair, desperately in need of a brush and wash. Her amorphous pajamas hung off her lithe figure and were quite hideous.

  “Sinjin, I was asleep,” she grumbled, appearing quite out of sorts. Somehow, it did not matter. In that moment, she was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. That realization struck me with the intensity of a blade straight through my heart.

  “I apologize for disrupting your slumber,” I said between clenched teeth. “But it is imperative we speak.”

  “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” she asked and did not bother to stifle her yawn. I tried to find the words to give the royal princess an answer, but none made their way across my lips. As I opened my mouth to tell the hellion exactly why I stood in her doorway and what I expected to accomplish by being there, I realized I had not quite fully articulated to myself what exactly I planned to do during this late-night visit.

  I must have looked a complete fool, standing in the doorway, unable to explain myself. Lady Bryn seemed to be of the same opinion, for the Joan of Arc of Kinloch Kirk responded to my mute presence by rolling her eyes, suggesting she thought me ridiculous.

  “Sinjin, I’m exhausted—go find someone else to bother. Whatever you’re worried about can wait ‘til tomorrow.” She began to shut the door in my face.

  “No, madame,” I countered, impressed by how firm and insistent my voice sounded. “I will not leave. Nor will I move. I will not so much as shiver or alter my position from this place in your doorway one inch until you explain your recent behavior.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I am talking about.”

  “No. I. Don’t.”

  Her eyes widened slightly as I took a step closer to her. Her heart rate picked up, as well, and the flush of her blood was enough to cause my fangs to unintentionally lengthen.

  “You seem to have completely forgotten about what transpired between us in the forest before we returned home,” I said, growing braver by the minute.

  “Sometimes things… happen,” she started.

  I shook my head. “No, they do not.” Then I glared at her more pointedly. “Your complete abandonment of our friendship, and the crude way you have handled me since we returned, is overtly cruel and I will not stand for it. You, by your nature, are not a cruel person. Especially to your friends—and we were at the very least friends, if not something more.”

  “We’re still friends.”

  I prickled at the word. “That is not how friends treat one another.”

  “Well…” she started, and then swallowed her words.

  “Explain yourself,” I finished, impressed with myself.

  “Sinjin,” sighed Lady Bryn, glancing down the hall before pushing her door open wider. ”Come inside. Let’s not make any more noise than we already have.”

  “Very well,” I answered and entered her room, watching her close the door behind me. She turned on the lights and the spotless room was bathed in a yellowish hue. The place smelled of her—a sweet cleanliness that toyed with my head.

  The room was furnished comfortably, yet sparsely. I sat down upon her bed, needing to make myself feel at home. I was not certain as to why the need claimed me, but it did all the same. The mattress was of the memory-foam type, plush and highly comfortable. But the bedframe was utterly dull and featured none of the decorations most of the furniture within the castle sported. It seemed that Lady Bryn had not overcome the taste in interior decorating instilled in her by her time spent with Luce and his Tribe.

  She walked over to the edge of her bed and sat just beside me.

  “Speak,” I commanded as she faced me.

  She sighed. “Alright, Sinjin, here’s the deal.” For a moment, she was quiet, as she appeared to be collecting her words. When she turned to me, I found she could barely make eye contact. “I’m sorry if my decision to avoid you has caused you any pain.”

  “Then it was a conscious decision you made?” I asked, anger and frustration taking turns stabbing at me from the inside.

  “Well, yes and no,” she admitted, cocking her head to the side. “Despite the way our relationship began, we both know that our feelings have evolved into something… different,” explained my little hellion, steadfastly refusing to use words that could possibly evoke any suggestions of romance.

  “Something different?” I asked, bemused and annoyed in turn.

  “I haven’t been ignoring you because I’m mad at you or because you’ve done anything wrong. You haven’t. You’ve actually been very… good to me.”

  “I would concur.”

  “Right.” She nodded quickly. “You’ve been a good friend to me and even though I hate to admit it, I kind of have to—I’m lucky to have you in my life.”

  “Yet…”

  “Here’s the thing…” And she seemed to lose her way again because she just sat there, looking at the floor.

  “What is the thing?”

  When she looked up at me again, her eyes were wide. “There’s a very real chance that any or all of us could die in this upcoming war. Everyone is relying on me and the Flame as the one magical power on our side to defeat Luce. And as I’ve taken the opportunity to contemplate the very real possibility of my impending death, I’ve realized that my role in this court, as a member of the Underworld, is the role of a warrior. That’s it, Sinjin. I’m a warrior. I’m not anything else.”

  “That is complete and utter rubbish. You are so much more,” I began but she cut me off, shaking her head.

  “I fight hard, I brave battles, and I defend the people I love as my first and only priority. That’s all I’ve ever known. And it’s what I know now.” She took a long and deep breath, then looked back at me. “I’ve been thinking about all this since we did… what we did in the forest.” She took another deep breath. “And I’ve tried so hard to think about how it could work between us. But I’ve reached the conclusion that I just… I can’t be the woman you want me to be, because it’s not in me. I wouldn’t know how to be or what to say. I’d be awkward and it wouldn’t feel right.”

  “I do not want you to be anyone other than yourself. I would never ask you to be anything different; I would not want it.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “Our… whatever it was… was beautiful, and it meant more to me than I’ll ever be able to tell you. But I can’t get distracted now, Sinjin. There’s too much at stake.”

  “We will always find ourselves in inopportune moments. Life has a way of intersecting our well-laid plans.”

  She shook her head again. “This is different. I think everyone’s overestimating my abilities. And they’re underestimating Luce. There’s a reason he’s been in his position of power all this time. It’s not because he’s weak.”

  “No one believes him to be weak, my pet.”

  “The point is, I have to focus on getting stronger. I have to become the best warrior I can be, because that’s the point of my existence here: I am here to defend Kinloch Kirk, and my sister and my niece. And that’s it.”

  I appreciated Lady Bryn telling me the truth as she knew it; however, what seemed true to her in that moment was, in fact, not the truth at all.

  “You have value to offer Kinloch Kirk far beyond your military skills and combat abilities. And, for the sake of argument, even if you had no value whatsoever to offer, your decision to dedicate your life to battle and nothing more would still b
e misguided.”

  “No—” she began, but I silenced her with my fingers on her lips.

  “You deserve to live a happy, full life. You deserve to understand what love is, and what it is like between a man and a woman when they love one another. You deserve children, if that is what you want.”

  “Sinjin…”

  “I am not yet finished,” I silenced her again. “If you do not choose to be with me in the way that I want, I understand that and I respect it. But I will not allow you to dedicate your life to a path of austerity. Yes, you are a warrior, and a fine one at that. But you are also much more, and you should not limit yourself thus. You deserve to know love, Bryn—and if you find that love elsewhere, then so be it. The point is that you cannot turn this side of you off, because it would be an injustice to yourself.”

  She took another deep breath and smiled up at me. “I appreciate what you’re saying.”

  “But you do not believe it.” I shook my head, wrapping my arms around her as I pulled her to my chest. I immediately noticed how her heart rate picked up. Not wanting to worry her, I released her and smiled again. “I vow to protect you, no matter where we are, no matter what this vow ultimately costs and demands of me. Your sister assigned me to be your guardian at the very outset of your tenure here at Kinloch Kirk, and I continue to take that assignment very seriously.”

  “Why haven’t you given up on me yet?” she asked in a mere whisper. “You could have any woman you want.”

  “The woman I want is sitting right beside me.”

  I took her face, beautiful beyond compare in that moment and in every moment, between my hands.

  “Yes, the Flame is powerful and yes, it is true that your newfound magical ability may prove to be decisive on the battlefield, as it did during the last conflict we fought against Luce. That does not mean you are obligated to be the individual, sole protector assigned to every innocent on this green Earth. You deserve protection, too. That is why I was named your guardian; that was the task I was assigned to carry out, and you can rest assured that I will ensure your safety, by any means necessary.”