Highland Thirst by Hannah Howell and Lynsay Sands

When two Highlander cousins go on a mission to scout out the enemies of their clan, they are immediately attacked by enemies at an inn and captured. Both are taken prisoner, one by a Lowland Scots Lord, the other by a border Country English Lord, both are helped to escape by a woman, and each story is told in a separate mini-book.

Heming MacNachton is taken by the Scottish Lord Hervey Kerr. He has been days imprisoned when Brona Kerr, Hervey's cousin, comes to see the truth of the man who her brother has imprisoned. She is soft-hearted and sees no demon come to drink blood or rip souls from bodies, but a man, tortured and imprisoned. Not agreeing with her brother's impulse to keep Heming, she overhears them talking about using his blood as a potion to ensure a long life. Disgusted, she frees Heming and the other prisoners, leading them to safety in a part of the castle that Hervey doesn't know about, where the women and children are to shelter should the castle ever be attacked.

But to get Heming there, she must give him some of her own blood to drink, to hearten him from the torture he has suffered. For Heming is only partly of MacNachton blood, and while he can go outside in daylight, unlike some of his kin, he still needs blood occasionally to sustain him. Taking from Brona was a pleasure, and he is surprised that her blood gives him so much life. He suspects she may be his mate, and his dearest wiah is to make her his and mark her with his fangs so all who share his blood know she is his.

But first they must make their way back to MacNachton lands, avoiding the searchers sent out by her cousin Hervey and his second in command, Angus. But when Brona is kidnapped by Angus, who has always wanted her as his own, in the battle between Hervey and Heming near MacNachton lands, Heming must return to Kerr Castle if he wishes to make Brona his and not give her up to Angus and her cousin. Can he return with his kin before Angus marries and rapes Brona?

The second story concerns Tearlach MacAddie, a pureblood member of the same clan. Unlike Heming, he cannot go outside during the day, otherwise he burns very quickly. He is imprisoned along with Lady Lucy Blytheswood, a neighbor to Wymon Carbonel, an English Lord. Wymon wished to marry her, and she, sensing that he was not a good man, refused. She and her brother, the Lord of Blytheswood, were returning home when they stopped at the inn where Tearlach and Heming were captured, and after the Highlanders were drugged, Wymon killed Lucy's brother and took her prisoner, threatening her with being fed to Tearlach if she will not reconsider and marry him.

Then, Tearlach is tortured, with her in the next room to hear. When he is returned to the room she is in, she is unbound and her bleeding arm used to entice Tearlach to drink from her. He turns Wymon down, and she is returned to her chains. But she has used the distraction to pick a piece of metal from one of the guards' belt pouch and uses it to pick the locks and free them both. When Tearlach confesses that he is too weak to escape, she tells him to drink the blood from her arm, and then finds him another body to feed on in the keep above.

The King must be told of what happened to Lucy's brother, and once they've escaped, Tearlach intends to take her to the court. But when Lucy is stabbed by one of Wymon's men, Tearlach must take her to a healer to save her life. There, he finally makes love to her, having fallen in love with her intelligence, patience and resourcefulness. But will his family allow him to leave and take over running Blytheswood as his wife, or will he lose her to the dictates of the King's court?

I liked both of these stories, which took the idea of a vampire and turned it on its head. In these stories, vampires are not undead, but can have children and intermarry with other clans. Even the clan itself doesn't understand exactly why they have this power, and it is mostly misunderstood. Even the other clans around the MacAddie clan think of them as demons and blood-drinkers, but not being undead, the clan has more life to it (pun intentional).

Surprisingly enough, I liked the first story the best, the one with Heming and Brona. I identified with the characters and liked the sense of fun and play in how they flirted with each other. Hannah Howell has penned a great tale here, and I enjoyed the story all the way through.

Lynsay Sands wrote the Tearlach MacAddie/Lucy story, and for whatever reason, I simply didn't enjoy it as much. I know it seems shallow to be biased based on the hero's name, but I didn't find Tearlach as interesting as his cousin. True, Tearlach, being a trueblood, had more of the traditional vampire weaknesses (not being able to go out in the sun, mainly) and Lucy accepted him much more quickly than Brona did Heming, and I enjoyed the story, just not as much as the first one. Perhaps I got into the rut of thinking of the two Highlanders as "the pretty one and the Rough one" and since Heming's story was first, he became "The pretty one" in my mind. I don't know.

But I enjoyed this book a lot, and both stories just flew by for me. If there was another book in the series (and the chapter at the end seems to indicate that there will be), I'll definitely buy it.