"Keen, could ye not be a shitehawk for five minutes?" Billy grumbles, and the scary grin slips from the stranger's lips. In its place, a playful smirk appears.

"Yes, I could," he tells Billy, and he seems to be seriously considering the question. "I wasn't a... shite... hawk... between midnight and 4am this morning."

"Naw, ladd," Billy chuckles, shaking his head. "I'm not convinced that ye stop bein' one when ye're asleep."

"Probably not," the newcomer grins, turning his unsettling eyes on me again. "How do they stand having you in the manor with them?" he asks me, breathing in deeply, his eyes shining seductively. I might be wrong, but I think he is smelling me.

"I'm a vegetarian, but the fragrance of your blood is making me drool."

"Excuse me?" I gasp, shrinking away from his closeness, turning my head to look at Billy for help, but he doesn't appear to be concerned; he is chuckling and shaking his head.

"Yer a what now?" he grunts, cocking an eyebrow.

"Well, in comparison to the others, I'm one," the stranger says, straightening up and taking a step back to allow me some room to breathe. His eyes suddenly lose their intensity as if he flipped a switch in his head; smiling benignly, he holds a hand out to me in greeting. "I'm Cianán."

The name rings a bell. I think Moira mentioned him. Yes!

Me fella often drives me off me nut with all the bleedin' shite he gets up to with those plonkers, Billy, Cianán and Ransford Slatherty.

"Pleased to meet you, Keenon," I say, taking his hand and hastily releasing it again when goosebumps break out all over my skin at the contact. I take my glass from the countertop in an effort to appear calm and normal when he gives me an almost sympathetic, knowing grin.

He definitely felt it too.

"You're a S-Slatherty?" I try to confirm based on what Billy said earlier. I don't really need him to respond to that inane question since it is obvious just from looking at him - he has all the classic Slatherty features - but apparently, Cianán has no problem with answering any questions I might have. I don't even need to ask them.

"Yes, I suppose I am a Slatherty. At least according to the family tree... I was certainly registered as one. My mother never married my father, though," he shrugs.

Oh! So he is a half-brother?!

"Yes, I'm a bastard," he chuckles, though the word never even entered my mind. "My mother, bless her heart, couldn't be bothered with honour and love and all that tripe. That was a direct quote," he assures me. "More or less. She simply wanted to give the lord of the manor some much-needed comfort in his time of deep sorrow - also her words. That was very warm-hearted of her, wasn't it?" he scoffs, clearly not thinking her motivation was remotely pure or selfless.

I get the feeling that I shouldn't take anything this man says seriously, but his mocking smirk seems to hold some hidden pain. Perhaps he wasn't welcomed into the Slatherty family.

I hope that is not the case.

"All she wanted was a couple of nights of bliss in the arms of Mr. Stoic. Those were her words, by the way, and let me tell you, I really enjoyed hearing them." His face says he definitely did not. I'm sure Cianán heard many things from his mother that he didn't enjoy hearing. The thought saddens me.

"She certainly didn't plan to have a son that would make her old before she's old. Especially since she intended to give old age the finger by dying young," he grins, seemingly enjoying the knowledge that he at least got back at her a little bit.

"Whoa!" Billy exclaims, waving the knife he's using on a small onion in the air. "Way to be givin' out about yer mummy issues, Keen."

"Yes," Cianán nods, agreeing as if Billy was praising him. "I have loads of Mummy and Daddy issues, I'm afraid," he laughs. "And they tend to spill out. Still, I figured that Aubrey, here, needs to know what she's getting herself into with my father."

"Excuse me?" I say again. I think I'll probably be saying it a lot in conversations with this man. I'm completely baffled by this confusing turn in the discussion. "Who is your father, and what am I getting into with him?"

"No! Please, Sweetheart! Have some mercy!" he exclaims dramatically, waving his hands in front of his chest as if he's warding off any more words from me. "I had enough over-sharing from my mother about getting into things with my father. Please don't make me picture all the strange things you might be getting up to with him. That is simply too disturbing, especially since I would rather picture the things you could be getting up to with me," he laughs, giving me a saucy look that sets my face on fire. "Believe me; I'm a lot more fun than he is."

"Talkin' to ye is even more ogeous handlin' than usual!" Billy growls. "Will ye dry up?!"

"No, Billy, I won't... dry... up," Cianán informs him coldly, announcing dry and up as if they're two incredibly insulting words worthy of being stated with a high level of precision to highlight their level of offensiveness. Earlier, he did the same thing with shite and hawk. "The lady asked me a question, and I aim to answer it properly."

"She asked if ye're a Slatherty," Billy points out, sweeping the finely chopped onion pieces into a bowl. "All ye had to say was a clear aye, not rabbit on and drive the woman off her nut with yer shite, ye manky plonker."

"Everybody is always going on about what a kind and decent man Billy Doyle is," Cianán says, clicking his tongue, but I can see from the sparkle in his eyes that he agrees with that estimation of the rugged man, currently delicately breaking eggs.

Billy expertly separates the whites into an empty bowl and drops the yolks into the bowl with the onions, adding spices to it. For a moment, his deftness in doing the tasks takes my attention away from the increasingly confusing conversation... but just for a moment.

"They only hold you in that high regard because none of them ever have to listen to all your insults... except Ran, of course."

"If it weren't for insults, I'd have nothin' to say to ye and Ransford," Billy grunts, breaking another egg.

"That is... true," Cianán chuckles and turns his attention back to me, where I'm blinking up at him, wondering if I fell asleep and am having a particularly strange dream.

"Alaric Slatherty, the man you're betrothed to, is my father," he tells me, and I am not sure which of his statements shocks me most. The one where I'm betrothed to Alaric or the one where Alaric has an adult son. I discard the betrothal part when I remember the ring on my finger and how it caused Moira to misunderstand too.

"Was he ten years old when he had you?" I blurt out the question, overshadowing all my confusion. The fingers of my right hand find the ring on my left hand and toy with it, turning it round and round my finger. I'm considering taking it off and stuffing it in my bag to avoid further misinterpretations of its presence.

"I'm so sorry," I gasp when Cianán laughs at my statement, and I realise I asked the question out loud. "I'm just... it... He doesn't seem old enough to have an adult son."

"No need to be jealous, Sweetheart," he tells me with a teasing grin.

"I'm not jea-"

"My mother is not in his life anymore, and not just because she passed away ages ago. She left him the second he snapped out of his rare loss of control and started talking about marriage and making an honest woman out of her. She had no desire to be honest... or respectable."

"Oh! I'm so sorry for your loss!" I breathe, surprised that I'm not feeling waves of grief wafting from him but only mild regret. After what happened at the well, I'm expecting to feel other's sorrow much more profoundly than this. Cianán is not indifferent about the death of his mother; he is just not falling apart over it, at least not at the moment.

"Thank you," he smiles warmly. "She had a full life and was happy to pass on to the next adventure... as she called it. The Slatherties are good at providing for the people in their lives even when they refuse to play along. It comes with having an inflated sense of responsibility."

"At least she got her wish of dying young, I suppose," I mutter, feeling completely unsettled by this whole encounter and am surprised when Billy snorts, and Cianán laughs, giving me a cheerful shrug when I look at him again.

"Fortunately, I am not the heir to the massive burden of honour and duty the Slatherties love to pile on themselves," he says, and I wonder why he keeps on talking as if he is not really part of the family. "I get to taste a lot more freedom."

"Did you not grow up in your father's home?"

"I did, most of the time," he shrugs. "I wouldn't have at all if Liam didn't show up in France just when my mother discovered that she had an unexpected bun in the oven. If he hadn't come and she had decided to keep me, I would've been raised somewhere fancy, drinking wine and eating caviar." He frowns at his own words and gives me a guilty look. "Mind you... I do that anyway.

"To be honest, if Liam didn't show up, she probably would've died in childbirth... me too. Thanks to him, she lived long enough to send me to my father when my presence started to cramp her style. She said she was happier dealing with me in smaller portions. I wasn't as easy to get along with as I am now." He ignores Billy's derisive snort, negating his words, and adds. "A week here, a month there was the most she could handle."

"Oh," I say, since I have no idea what to do with all this information. He doesn't look like a young man who grew up with rejection weighing heavily on him, but he might just be really good at hiding it.

"I'm sorry..." I mutter the words I've been saying far too often lately, but this time, I don't think I caused the pain. He is volunteering information I didn't even ask for.

"Oh, don't be," Cianán says with a wave of his hand and steals a piece of tomato from the cutting board, where Billy is cutting tomatoes and cucumber and shredding lettuce. "My mother passed away too long ago for any of that to still matter to me. We had a pretty good relationship in our own way. She certainly was fun."

"I am so confused right now," I say, looking at Billy for help, but he simply shrugs and uses his knife to scrape the cuttings into a salad bowl.

"Imagine how it feels livin' with this melter," he says with a grimace, reminding me that he'd said something earlier about Cianán living here.

"Why don't you live at the mansion?" I ask since Cianán doesn't seem to have a problem with spilling the tea about his family matters. "You also weren't at the family dinner last night."

"I had a few things to take care of last night," he gives me the first evasive answer, avoiding my eyes, clearly not keen on talking candidly about things other than family scandals.

"Think about it, Aubrey," he says, pulling a face. "Would you want to live in that mansion with Alaric as your father? The man is exhausting with his massive sense of responsibility. His example is impossible to live up to. Frankly, I don't know how Ran stands it!" he exclaims.

He grabs some of the cheese Billy is grating, popping the slivers into his mouth while he thinks over his statement, and then he winces.

"Ran might actually be worse; he just hides it better."

He could be right. Ransford has a leisurely, nonchalant air about him, and he talks a lot of flirty nonsense, but he takes his responsibility for the island very seriously.

"No, I don't go there unless I absolutely have to," Cianán clarifies. "That place is all doom and gloom. I can understand why my mother didn't want to be bound to all of that. What I don't understand is why she decided to seduce her employer while he was in the depths of despair."

Oh! Is that why Alaric didn't want to have a woman working for him? Was he afraid of being seduced again? I cannot imagine anybody seducing that unapproachable man.

Exactly what was Cianán's mother's role at the mansion?

"Well, she did always refer to my father as a lonely wolf wrapped in enough sex appeal to drive her out of her mind," Cianán says, looking half amused and half horrified. "My mother had a thing for men who seemed unattainable. His aloofness made her shout: Challenge accepted!"

I take a few sips of my orange juice to drown the laughter bubbling up inside me at his words. I imagine a woman carrying a banner with those words, chasing Alaric all over the mansion. Peeking at Billy, I can see that he, too, is laughing softly.

Aside from Cianán's cavalier attitude and mischievous grin, I can see the resemblance between him and Alaric very clearly. He has his father's eyes and lips, and his proximity also makes the hair on my skin bristle with electricity as if I'm being touched.

"So, how old would you like me to be?" he suddenly asks, his wolfish grin back in place, and I almost choke on the sip of orange juice I just took. I hurry to put the glass down and snap my eyes to his in new confusion.

"Uhm... I don't think that is how age works."

"Oh, why not?" he scoffs as if I'm being ridiculous. "It's the easiest way for you to decide if my father is young enough for your liking or if I'm old enough to play with."

"I... what?"

"Oh! Houl yer whisht, will ye?!" Billy barks, making Cianán laugh again.

"I have never seen you jealous before," he chuckles, giving Billy an affectionate look laced with melancholy. "It suits that whole fiery warrior thing you have going on, but it makes me really sad."

"Keen! I warn ye!"

"Put down your sword, Billy," Cianán says, his eyes suddenly as cold and serious as Alaric's. Startled by the sudden change in his tone, I turn my head to see if Billy took the sword from his collection in the living area, but he is holding a whisk. Though I think he could do serious damage with that whisk if he wanted to, only the egg yolks in the bowl he's focussed on seem to be under threat.

"Judging by her track record, she'll forget everything I tell her the minute I'm out the door. Letting out some pent-up secrets is very therapeutic... you should try it," he says, narrowing his eyes in challenge, and then his expression clears up. "Besides, the woman is practically family. As I said, she needs to know what she's getting herself into. I thought that was your stance too. Have you changed your mind?"

A frown mars Billy's handsome brow, and he gives me an apologetic look when he sees my startled expression.

"Aye," he finally admits. "I don't like keeping things from ye, Aubrey, but there is a time and a place for everythin'," he adds, turning his eyes to glare at Cianán, who shrugs as if being glared at by Billy is not the scariest thing ever. For the record, it is rather terrifying.

I would not want him to glare at me like that.

Up until this moment, I've experienced Billy as incredibly even-tempered. It scares me a little to realise that he might be capable of naked rage when the circumstances call for it.

When Cianán lays a gentle hand on my shoulder, his touch sends shockwaves cascading through my entire body, and I watch, fascinated, as his black pupils slowly swallow the grey of his eyes.

"I talk a lot of nonsense," he tells me, ignoring Billy's heartfelt agreement. "The only important thing here is that Alaric is a good man. His sense of honour will kill him eventually, but you can trust him. Is that better?" he asks Billy, who makes a soft, scoffing sound.

"Aye, 'tis true, at least."

"I might also add that I'm young enough for Alaric to have fathered me without him being too old for you," Cianán says with a naughty grin that reminds me so much of Ransford. Reaching out, he lifts a strand of hair from my shoulder and winds the curl around one of his long, tapered fingers. "But I'm old enough for you not to feel guilty that I'm making your heart race."

I watch in startled awe as he effortlessly grabs the apple Billy took from a woven bowl on the counter and aims at his head from the air without his eyes leaving mine for even a second.

He's right; my heart is beating so fast that my head is spinning from all the blood rushing through my veins.

"See you later, Aubrey," he whispers, leaning over to touch his lips to mine in a featherlight kiss, stealing my breath. Before I can react, he strides to the front door, casually biting into his apple.

"My word! Just how many men am I going to kiss on this island?" I mutter, my cheeks aflame, when the door closes behind Cianán. Realising that I said it out loud, I look up at Billy in time to see him giving me a dark look.

Was Cianán right? Is he jealous?

Well, it's the truth. I've kissed almost all the men I know on the island except Diarmuid, Leopold and Alaric.

I gasp, reaching for my glass again as if it's become my anchor in this topsy-turvy world when my mind is suddenly overwhelmed by a clear vision of Alaric. He is lying on black sheets, shirtless, with tousled hair and a rousing smile directed at me. A lonely wolf wrapped in sex appeal describes him really well.

I want to be yours too.

Reaching out with my heart, letting it run further and further from where I'm sitting in Billy's lovely kitchen, I can feel Alaric's presence on the island. It calms my mind and fills me with warmth, reminding me of the day he went to the continent, and I felt like I was going to die.

Is that what Billy meant when he said I belonged to Alaric? Is that what Cianán meant by me getting involved with his father?

~~~