A familiar clattering sound drew Kael from his thoughts. He turned to find Liam on his knees, carefully covering the jade dais with hundreds of small, faceted emeralds. The stones looked nearly black in the low light of the single torch, but Kael could see their exact vivid shade of green in his mind’s eye. The emerald was the sacred stone of his people, representing life and renewal. Liam recited an old Celtic prayer to the spirits of the Chieftains as he worked, then he swiftly backed away and cleared the altar for the king’s sacrifice.
With purpose, Kael stepped up to the dais, opened his robes, and knelt onto the jewel-encrusted alter. The traditional pose required his knees, shins and feet be flush against the surface, and that he sit back but not relax his bottom against his heels. He had to hold the position for ninety-three minutes—one minute for each day since his last feeding—but his massive thighs never quivered for an instant, never once belied the strain his muscles endured as they settled his six-and-a-half-foot frame in a semiseated position.
Crimson and emerald mixed together on the platform almost immediately as the king’s blood dripped out of the dozens of cuts and punctures the jewels inflicted as a sacrifice on his lower legs. Liam stepped up behind him and removed the robes. Kael centered his mind and concentrated, easily tuning out the quiet sounds Liam made as he crossed the room to hang the garments. Later, after the Warrior King entered the feeding chamber, Liam would collect the bloodied stones into an ancient glass urn for display in the Hall of the Chieftains—the ceremonial center of the compound. The urn’s contents reaffirmed the ancient belief, “life gives blood gives life,” and its appearance in the hall signaled the warriors they could feed.
Kael chanted these ancient words in his head, words of life, bonds, sacrifice, honor. His focus was absolute—neither pain nor apprehension nor Liam’s efficient movements around the room distracted him from the precision of his position and prayer.
Instinctively, he knew when he’d served his sacrifice. He blinked open his eyes, which strained a little against the flickering yellow light. Liam was long gone, but he’d readied everything Kael needed, as he always did. Carefully, the king rose to his feet, stepped off the jeweled dais and gently removed the stones that were embedded in his flesh then returned them to rest with the others. He retrieved the cloth laid out on the edge of the altar and wiped the blood from his wounds. He healed quickly and cared little about the injuries, but there was no sense scaring the Proffered with unnecessary gore. She was probably already nervous enough.
His skin cleaned, Kael picked up the leather knife holster and strapped it to his thigh. The dagger it held was lean and vicious, but used correctly offered a quick and nearly painless cut that saved the Proffered from the piercing of his fangs into her soft flesh. Or, perhaps more accurately, the knife saved him from learning whether the woman could be his mate. Only by fully joining his body with the Proffered—by feeding directly from her veins as his cock took her virginity, could he determine if she had the potential to walk beside him as his partner in leadership, life and love.
But Kael didn’t want to know. Kael didn’t want a mate.
He’d had one. Meara and their newling son had died in childbirth following the stress of an attack by the Soul Eaters on Dunluce, the very attack that brought ruin to the castle and drove them to expand the existing underground apartments into a full-out compound. While Kael and his men had eradicated that fiercest and most troublemaking band of Soul Eaters of the eighteenth century, his clan’s losses had been great. Ever since, Kael had vowed never to chance again the lives of those he loved. Given the dire state of the war in recent years, that meant never chancing love again.
Yet, Kael’s very biology yearned to seek out the mate connection so strongly it was nearly painful—his fangs throbbed in search of the satisfying pressure of teeth slicing mated flesh, his balls clenched for the release of his unrealized progeny, his chest tightened against the centuries-old loneliness.
Still, he held fast, wanting to protect himself and the Proffered and her family. He would take only what he had to from her, and no more. He wouldn’t take her affection. He wouldn’t take her humanity. He wouldn’t risk her life. No matter how much she or his people might want—no matter how much, in those dark, nearly forgotten corners of his mind, he might want—he wouldn’t fall in love.
So the dagger was necessary. He’d soothe the Proffered using his hypnotic words and eyes, then bleed her into a goblet before sealing her wound with a quick swipe of his tongue—the closest he allowed himself to drinking from her, and then, only out of necessity. As the virgin blood from the goblet infused his system, his ancient chemistry would allow him to do no other than slake his body’s primal thirst for carnal connection with the woman in front of him. But there would be no biting, no feeding directly from her vein and, therefore, no chancing the mate connection.