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above his men, however, and always took his turn among the suzerain’s personal guard, which required him to occasionally accompany their lord whenever he traveled from Rosethorn to his great house in the city.
    Rebecca understood why he served as both castellan and warrior, and respected him for it, but that didn’t make her like the separation any better. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
    “Nor do I,” he said. “Our lord has been strangely restless of late. Will rarely has a moment of peace. Tell me more about this Carmichael woman.”
    Rebecca recalled the brief conversation she had had with Reese. “She wishes to be shown through the interior of the house so that she might choose the most favorable spots for the photographs needed. She has never been here, and asked if I would take her on a tour of it.”
    “She told you she wishes to spy upon us? Just like that?”
    “Every curious mortal is not a Brethren agent wishing to destroy us all,” she told him. “Tish said something about her once. I think she is Will’s special friend.”
    Sylas grunted. “I will speak to the men anyway.”
    “I thank you, but I have already done so.” His indignant look made her chuckle. “You were busy.”
    “I am castellan. You are chatelaine. The ladies and the household are your charge; the garrison, the weapons, and the fortifications are supposed to be mine.” He thought for a moment. “I will direct Alain to escort you and this mortal while she is here.”
    “Alain will only wish to use her,” Rebecca pointed out.
    “Aye, but you may keep him busy fending off anyone else who comes at her.” Sylas’s hand rasped over the short, tight black curls his constant cropping could never quite disguise. “Attend to this special friend of Will’s, but do it quickly, my lady. Strange mortals do not belong at the stronghold. Even those we are told to trust.”
    While he buttoned her gown, Rebecca twisted her light brown hair into a neat coil, which she pinned against the back of her head before she slid two ivory combs on either side of it. She handed him an airy silk snood and sat down on the edge of the bed while he gathered it over her hair and tied the ribbons. “Do you think you are to stay in the city until the morrow?”
    “’Tis likely.” He kissed the side of her throat. “No longer than a single night, I promise.”
    Neither of them cared for being apart for longer than a few hours. Rebecca knew it was mostly due to the physical and emotional dependency they had on each other, a rare but enduring bond that had been born when they had risen from the mortal grave where they had been buried together, and walked the night as immortals. When separated from his sygkenis , a Darkyn male became uneasy and short-tempered; he could not rest or find pleasure in anything. If the separation was unwilling or extended, both partners would quickly grow unstable and even dangerous.
    The bond Rebecca shared with Sylas was rather more than one merely of blood. In the last days of their mortal lives they had been two strangers desperately battling to save the innocent. That hopeless struggle had forged a sudden but deep friendship between them. Rebecca loved her husband, but she also respected and trusted him, as he did her. When death had come for her, he had not run away like the others, but stayed with her, holding her hand in his. She had begged him to go, to save himself, but he said that life without her had no interest or meaning for him anymore. He had not let her die alone and afraid, but went with her into the darkness.
    There had been a price for that loyalty, one some might have found heavy or even terrible, but in time they had learned to deal with that, as well as all the other changes that becoming Kyn had wrought.
    Rebecca made her way slowly to the full-length mirror on the other side of the room. She turned this way and that, examining her reflection.
    “We need a holiday,” Sylas said, coming up behind