Free One With the Night by Susan Squires Page A

her, where she had held it. Her own particular brand of cinnamon and ambergris was delicate, seductive. He rubbed the soap over his body briskly, scrubbing at the remains of dried blood. He lathered his hair as well, ducked several times to rinse it. He put off washing his genitals because it always reminded him … Nonsense, laddie. A man has ta wash. He slid his right hand under his balls and washed his cock briskly with the other. At least with hunger running in his veins, he wouldn’t rise. But he did. His cock swelled instantly. Lord, but he was a low creature. He wished he could give up all sexual response. He would have been glad to be a eunuch since she had finished with him.
    “Nay, lad,” he breathed, fighting back the memory. “Think o’ th’ blood. Th’ girl’s got blood and she’s willin’ ta share with ye.” But he seemed to think more about the girl than the blood and his erection wasn’t easing at all.
    He stood and grabbed for the towel she’d left. He rubbed himself down as though he could rub away the evil. That’s what he’d been attempting to do all this last year. He’d taken the advice of a man sent to kill him who told him to find meaning in righting small wrongs. Ever since, he’d been trying to keep from turning into the creature he knew he had it inside him to be. In each new town on the way up from the south of England, he’d locate a bully by talking to the town gossip. Then he’d break the bully’s hold on the prostitutes or working men in his thrall by main force and fear. He showed the tyrant that the problem with being a bully is that there is always someone worse than you are. In his case, immeasurably worse. And he sealed the command to cease and desist with a good dose of compulsion. It was useless, of course. There would always be another bully. The world was a dreadful place. And it hadn’t given his life meaning. Maybe it had prevented him from turning into Asharti. He wasn’t even sure of that.
    Keep yer attention on today, he told himself. He had only two shirts now. He’d have to find some clothes if he was to stay here for any length of time. He couldn’t have the girl washing his shirts every other night. Even now he could hear her moving about in the kitchen. She shouldn’t have to take care of this place all by herself, let alone him into the bargain. He toweled his hair, then stropped his razor, trying to focus on the snap of the leather.
    She was a strange girl. How she had mocked him last night over refusing the wine. The laughter was plain in her eyes and the wry twist of her mouth. How could she laugh, infected as she was?
    He lathered his beard in front of the small mirror. His hand trembled, but any cuts he made would heal. He shaved without meeting the eyes in the mirror. He didn’t look into them anymore. He wouldn’t think why. He’d think about the coming blood.
    When he came out, the girl looked up at him from where she knelt at the hearth for a startled moment and then flushed. That flush sent blood racing about his body, too, but not to his face. She was shaking almost as badly as he was. Maybe she hadn’t had blood in a while, either.
    Outside the sun sank below the horizon. He always knew where the sun was.
    She must have felt it too. “All right, sir. Let’s get you what you need.” He followed her out into the soft light of the gloaming. She struck out across the yard to a stone circle fitted with a windlass. Callan sprang to the handle and began turning. There was definitely a weight at the end. She peered into the dim echoing well. As the streaming bucket came up she reached for a carmine-colored bottle stoppered with a fat cork, one of several, and turned back to the house.
    “Let the bucket down slowly,” she called back. “We wouldn’t want to break a bottle.”
    He wanted to let the bucket fall and dash after her, grab the bottle, pull the cork, and upend it over his mouth. But she was right. Such a supply of blood was a