But he wasn’t those vampires, and Elisa wasn’t most servants. He thought of how the fledglings had viewed her, for all their ferocity and uncertainty. He also thought of Danny’s words, how a servant helped a vampire keep in touch with his own soul. He’d make sure his child knew that about a human servant, and that he or she would never think of their mother as a servant, except as the highly respected and beloved helpmeet she was to their father.

He managed to suppress a smile, because he was fairly sure she would misconstrue it when she was staring at him with such a mixture of apprehension, frustration and worry. Everything she’d described, she’d already done for him. She’d mended his clothes, fussed over the scratches from the lion attack. Made sure he fed properly, and when he wanted the blood in a glass, she garnished it with a slice of fruit or a dash of spice, “cooking” for him. She hadn’t cut his hair, but she’d talked about braiding it, had made him that Christmas gift to adorn it.

She’d also stood by him at Lord Marshall’s, hadn’t backed down from anything he needed. Given the demands he suspected were made of a wife in the lonely and harsh Outback, he was pretty sure she was overqualified to be a vampire’s servant.

She’d taken his lack of response the wrong way. She was struggling against his hold again, and he was fairly sure she was going to start kicking in a few moments. Because he wanted to do so, he simply swept her off her feet, took her to her back against the soft earth and laid himself upon her. He slid his hand beneath the skirt, found the soft petals of her sex, catching her attention immediately. Her thighs quivered and he hardened, feeling how they loosened, how instinctively she surrendered to him, no matter her agitation. Though a vampire might have a more aggressive degree of it, he expected most husbands were the same about their cherished wives. That hungry need to dominate, to possess and claim. As well as trust and depend on her love. Those things were nowhere near as inconsequential as he’d believed them to be for so long.

“Elisa.” He murmured it, bracing his elbow by her shoulder, feeling her heart race beneath the press of her breasts against his chest. “You are the child’s mother. You think, after all you know of me, I would take that away from you? That I would take that away from my son or daughter?”

She stared up at him, her lips parting as he kept up that teasing stroke. “I can’t . . . think when you do that.”

“I know. You’ve been thinking far too much.” He eased a fingertip into her, stroked the inside and felt fire when she whimpered. “It’s not good enough. I want all the way in.”

He lifted off her enough to get his own clothes out of the way. Then, with barely a hesitation, he ripped the panel of the panties. She gasped at the barely leashed violence to it, but her gaze went opaque and her teeth sank into her bottom lip when he put his broad head to that tight opening and pushed in, just until he’d gotten the head past the gate.

“Beg me, Elisa. Tell me what you want.”

“I want you inside. All the way. In every way.”

That fire expanded in him. “I love knowing my child is inside of you, Irish flower. I want you as my full servant, and every bit of what that means. Mother of my child, the woman who belongs to me utterly, connected to my soul, serving me with every ounce of hers. You’re right. It may not be what you imagined wanting, but I think it was meant to be.

“I can’t offer you much,” he added. “Three hundred years of life, and the occasional vampire event you and I will have to endure together. But I will love you and care for you. I will try to give you the best life possible. I can only tell you how I feel. I want you with me, in all ways.”

She considered it for a long moment, and then a tiny smile bloomed on her soft mouth, her eyes cautious but hopeful, filling his heart with warmth. “Well, it’s not fifty years working myself to the bone on a station through drought and flood, but I guess it will do. And I will have a baby with you. Maybe more than one. I know vampires don’t usually do that, but we’re not the usual thing, are we?”

“I believe in miracles, when it comes to you.” He gave her a smile back, one heated with desire and need both. “I don’t want you to leave. I won’t allow you to leave. You’re mine, now and always. Understand?”

She nodded, and he slid deeper inside of her body, into the clasp of her eyes. He would take those doubts and worries, and prove to her she’d made the right decision, that she would never regret giving her life to his. He’d take it as seriously as the oath he’d made to protect his cats and his island, all the things that really mattered.

She locked her arms over his shoulders, burying her face in his neck, but then she proved that she didn’t need access to his mind to know he could use some of the same reassurance.

I’m yours, Master, now and forever. I promise. I love you, too.

Elisa woke in their bed alone, but that was all right. She knew he was nearby. She curled under the pelts, her naked, well-used body pressed to the sheets. Stroking the furs with idle fingers, she let the promises spoken and unspoken wash over her.

The life he offered her wouldn’t involve rings and white dresses. But he’d bound himself permanently to her out of a need to claim her for his own. She remembered the night he’d third-marked her vividly, how it had overtaken everything, even his supposed reasoning that it was merely important for their travels, for the fledglings. But tonight he’d stated it baldly. He wanted to protect her, wanted her to share his life. While she was scared about some of it, she wasn’t uncertain. She wanted to be with him. Everything else would come in time, wouldn’t it? That was the way it was supposed to work, with or without rings and dresses.

She’d seen the girls who had the storybook wedding, seen them years down the road after babies and tears and hardships. The relationship was always evolving into different things, but if the binding was true and strong, then that part never changed. It just went from new and shiny to deep and lasting, slowly drawing them through life together, taking them through light and darkness. The question wasn’t what they were, but what they wanted to be to each other, and how important that was to each of them, even if they could never be it.

A home wasn’t sticks and stones anyway, but a heart that never closed its door to her, no matter what other awful things had to be faced.

The sensibleness of her thoughts settled her, so she decided to get up. Rising, she put on her clothes and went out to find him in the new twilight. He liked doing that, liked rising so close to the tail end of the sun, as if he wanted to test his strength against it, a strength that would increase as he aged. He was sitting on a piece of split-rail fencing out in the backyard, gaze tilted to the sky. Yet his gaze came down when she stepped out onto the back porch, and she knew he’d been waiting for her.

From his expression, she also knew he’d been following her thoughts, so nothing else needed to be said. He slid off the rail and opened his arms, and she went into them.

“I dreamed of Jeremy.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve been afraid to sleep, afraid of dreaming of him.” When Mal’s arms tightened, she closed her eyes. “He was twenty-four, tall and earnest. It was how he really was, trapped inside his child’s body. He looked at me, as if asking permission; then he leaned in, took my hands and gave me one kiss.” She tilted her face up to him, gave him a smile, her blue eyes deep and vast. “It was sweet, lingering. It made me feel warm inside. When he lifted his head, he offered me the kindest smile. He said, ‘I know your heart belongs to Mal, but I wanted my first kiss to be you. Hope you don’t mind. Or him.’ Then he gave me a rascal’s smile, but I think that was meant for you.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Mal said dryly. “The little bastard.” But there was a fondness to his voice that told her he understood.

The next part was a bit harder to get through. As if he sensed it, he stroked her back, gave her the ability to continue. She couldn’t quite get it out yet, so she jumped ahead. “After a time, he turned away and walked down a beach. A beach like the one we saw in Florida. He broke into a run to catch up to Leonidas . . . John. As he ran, he became younger and younger, until he was nine, really nine, before Ruskin caught him. He was walking next to John, and John gave him a fishing pole to carry. John’s hand was resting on his shoulder, but then he lifted his other one in a wave to Victor, farther down the beach. I wish I’d known his real name.”

“I know. What happened before that?” His voice was quiet, easy, telling her she could say it, that even if she had to cry over it, it would be okay. So she looked up at him, at the handsome features, the gaze that could be so unexpectedly kind and understanding. “Before he took off after John . . . after the kiss, Jeremy knelt down in front of me. He laid his head on my stomach, stroked the baby. He said . . .” Her voice trembled, eyes filling as she’d feared. “The baby and you would have to take care of me, now that he’s gone.”

We will, no fear of that. Sitting her up on the top rail of the fence, he leaned against it himself, letting her hold on to his shoulder as they looked out at the deepening night. They sat quietly a moment; then Elisa spoke again. “You don’t seem to mind the kiss.”

“Did you think I would?”

“Well . . . vampires are a bit possessive.” She dared a teasing smile and was encouraged by his expression, the way he cupped her face and passed his fingers over her lips.

“So are certain Irish maids. Chumani said you taught her to sew, but only with the explicit understanding that she wouldn’t be mending any of my clothes.”

Elisa sniffed and would have pulled away, but he held her there with his sure grip. His expression became more serious. “I can’t imagine any boy who wouldn’t want you as his first kiss.”

“Oh?” She flushed at the compliment, was entranced by how his eyes heated over her response. It was there in his eyes, the way he felt for her. Here, just the two of them, he wasn’t hiding it in the least. A promise in itself.