Veridian Shores

Chapter 04 - Melding

"Err, hey, Brooke," a deep voice rumbled, pulling her from her thoughts. Brooke stopped and a thin smile slid across her face.

She turned and found Finbarr standing in the corridor – all six-and-a-half feet of him – a mountain of a specimen. He loomed there like a piece of antique furniture, a black-clad slab of muscle and bone with long dark hair hanging down to just below his thick jaw.

For a moment he stood there, silent. His mouth opened and closed but nothing came out.

"Something I can help you with?" Brooke enquired.

"Oh...it was just the spar," he began falteringly, like a stuttering engine. His glassy blue eyes flitted uncomfortably from left to right. If he could have blushed, she was sure he would have. "It got pretty heated."

Wow. A master-class in disguising affections. "Did it?" Brooke folder her arms, giving him a sceptical look. Finbarr was a good clan member. He knew his duty and knew his place, but that didn't stop his occasional fumbling attempts to flirt with her – if you could call this flirting.

The towering vampire clasped his hands together, fingers fidgeting awkwardly in front of him."Just wanted, you know, to make sure...no hard feelings?"

No hard feelings? She had to swallow down a laugh. Fighting Finbarr was like fighting a big clumsy windmill: a whole lot of power without an ounce of control.

"None whatsoever," she told him, trying to keep the mocking edge out of her voice. Being knocked on his arse in the training arena was enough of a humiliation for one day. Although his infatuation with her was little more than a pipe-dream, he was harmless. He might have been a bit slow-witted, but Finbarr didn't have a bone of malice in his unwieldy body. "And you?"

"Not the first time." He grimaced, touching his chest where her duelling rod had been driven into him. "I'll survive."

"Keep practising," she said, tapping him gently under the chin, extending her arm all the way to do so. "One day maybe it'll be me picking myself up off the dirt."

"Maybe." Finbarr shrugged awkwardly. "You're pretty quick though."

"She is, isn't she?" another voice knifed through the conversation.

Fantastic. She couldn't stop a sigh of exasperation slipping out of her mouth. Finbarr stiffened visibly and his gaze flashed over her shoulder. Brooke knew exactly who he was looking at.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and then rounded on the speaker. "Hello, Marshall."

The slim, sharp-jawed vampire smiled languidly back at her. Of average height and built like a whip, Marshall Roe was every inch the product of the finest blood in the city. He certainly had the look pinned down. A shirt the colour of burnished steel hung perfectly on his lean frame with the two top buttons undone, revealing a small triangle of smooth skin. He wore a black waistcoat over the top of it, with a set of straight dark trousers to match. All in all, a perfect specimen.

So it was a shame he had all the charm and personality of a spitting cobra.

"I think that'll be all, Finbarr," Marshall said, acid in his voice.

Despite standing almost six inches taller, Finbarr dipped his head meekly, cast a furtive glance at Brooke, then turned and lumbered off down the passage. Brooke watched him go, feeling a small twang of regret in her chest. Finbarr wasn't exactly stimulating conversation, but he didn't make her skin crawl either.

With an effort she dragged her gaze back to Marshall and found him smiling happily. It wasn't a particularly enticing image; a bit like seeing a grinning skull head.