Beloved Vampire (28 page)

Right now, I am very afraid of losing you,
habiba.

No, not that. Are you afraid of anything?

A pause.
Yes. I am afraid of
. . .
I do not care for small spaces.

Perhaps it was the hesitation that caught her attention, the fact that his male pride, even in this terrible moment, made him revise the way he said it. “You’re claustrophobic?” Her eyes opened, and though wavering with tears, she blinked them away. The blood from her shirt was forming a small pool in the vee between her bent legs. Looking at that was easier than looking at what else was in the room. Her hands stayed locked on the dagger, but she didn’t go further, yet. With the tip in, all she had to do was push. No one could stop her now. “Well, that’s . . . pretty typical. For humans.”

She giggled at her own joke. Now she felt the darkness of his worry, his urgent pull at her to put down the knife. She cradled it closer, but the motion dislodged it. It raked a stripe down her abdomen, parting her shirt. Dizzy, she rested her wrist on her knee.

Dropping her head on top of the steel pommel, she let it press into the concave bone over her eye. It was likely a lie. Vampires feared nothing. But she was curious, in a drifting sort of way. What story would he tell her? He’d told Farida stories at night.

When I was young, I played with the children of my parents’ staff members. They had read the human stories about
vampires, how they slept in coffins. When a born vampire is young, we sleep heavily during daylight hours. You cannot
rouse us. So as a lark, and a curiosity, they put me in a wooden crate and buried it in a hole in the back garden. They were
not intending to be cruel. They were children.

She eased down to her side, curling into a fetal ball. Cool stone lay against her cheek, while she stared at the polished upper points of the St. Andrew’s cross in front of her.
Don’t believe it, Mason. It’s always about cruelty. Power. Even when they act like
it’s just play. Just harmless fun.

No,
habiba
. Not always. My parents found me. I’ d figured out how to escape, but it took a while. I kept passing out from
the panic attacks. They found me as I was emerging from the ground with bloody and torn fingers. Fortunately at night.

Are they still alive, your parents?

No. They were killed a year later, by vampire hunters. Jessica, open the door.

“Can’t,” she said drowsily. “Can’t get up. Heartbeat . . . putting me to sleep.”

Then don’t be alarmed.

Before she could process that in her sluggish brain, the floor shuddered. Thunder reverberated through the chamber and the door splintered inward. The iron bar hurtled free, stripping the screws on the braces. It clattered down the stone steps amid a froth of wood pieces. In the next moment, the wreckage of the door was screened by Mason’s wide shoulders, his concerned, handsome face as he bent over her.

“Give me the knife, Jess.”

As befuddled as she was from blood loss, she realized he could take it from her. But he waited, his mouth a thin, hard line, his eyes fierce as his gaze swept the blood soaking her shirt. “Jessica, right now.”

When she lifted a trembling hand, his fingers closed over it. As he lifted her in his arms, her heavy head lolled against his shoulder.

“You’re angry,” she whispered.

“Of course not. I should thank you. I was thinking two hours of paperwork were going to be torment. You quite selflessly proved something else could be far worse.”

“Could help,” she managed. “Good at paperwork.”

“Consider it added to your current stable duties.” Sitting down on the top step, he cradled her in his lap. He still smelled like the sea, where they had walked earlier. When he shifted her in his arms, she watched him nick the artery in his throat with the dagger, then toss it away in a jerk of movement.

“You’ve lost too much,
habiba
. You need to drink from a richer source. Now.” He’d placed pressure on the wound in her chest, but with the other hand he cradled the back of her head, holding her steady and bringing her up to his neck.

The smell of it was too intoxicating, and she was too far gone to resist or despise herself. She latched on to his flesh and drank him in, aware of how his breath left him, his heart rate increasing, the thigh muscles hardening beneath her as his grip around her back and waist also constricted. His strength flowed into her for the second time today.

Every time she took more of him, it increased the binding between them. She knew that, but she didn’t know how not to crave that.

It brought tears and desire surging forth at once.
I’m broken, Mason.

No,
habiba
. Nothing can break you. You need time, and rest. You need to stop worrying so much, learn to trust me.

But you have this room. Like him.

His lips brushed the top of her head. “Jessica, every tool can be used for good or evil. When you look at the things in here, what I see in your mind
is
evil.” He paused as a growl entered his tone, an underlying fury she sensed him trying to contain before he continued. It made her glad her face was hidden where she couldn’t see his. Not because she feared his anger, but her reaction to

it. She was all too aware it made her feel protected, not afraid as it should.

“But imagine this,” he continued. “Imagine I have bound you on that cross. I kiss your wrists, below the cuffs, teasing your pulse with my tongue. Then I do the same all over your naked body, pleasuring you as long as I wish, until you are begging for release, but not release from that cross. For a climax, at my touch, at my command.”

Her body quivered, nerves warring with reaction to the sensual picture. She was done drinking, though her lips still pressed against his throat. He rested his cheek on her head, continued in that husky murmur.

“After your climax, I would adjust the cross so you are lying down, and use warm fragrant water to bathe your skin, still vibrating with your release. My touch promises you more of the same, over and over again, until you are as exhausted as you are now, though from something far more lovely. Your own mesmerizing responses.”

“But why would you want to do that?” she whispered. “Why wouldn’t you want to hurt me? He liked making me come while he hurt me. And sometimes, with you . . .” A shudder of denial jerked her against him.

Mason stroked her hair, his fingers delving deep to fondle her neck in a slow, soothing rhythm. He knew he had to keep it like this, casual, relaxed, balancing her again. Even though they were both soaked in her blood, and her memories were making his own boil.

The hated knife still lay too close to them, but too far for him to give it a vicious kick.

“Raithe and his kind were monsters,
habiba
,” he managed. “But you do take some pleasure in pain. It is part of who you are. I could put you on the cross, do as I said, but also introduce some pain into it. Perhaps a light flogging that striped your pale skin with faint red lines, or a nipple clamp that pinched you enough to make you gasp. The very act of binding you, taking away your control with the straps, is a form of torture, but one you would embrace, if done the right way, by the right person.”

By him. Only him.
He pushed away the possessive surge. “But it is your pleasure
for
the pain and restraint that would drive me, not my need to see how much power I could take from you, how much pain I could inflict upon you. It is a key difference. Willing submission is a gift of the gods,
habiba
. Forced servitude comes straight from Hell. It is not you who is broken, Jessica. It was Raithe. If I could help you believe one thing, it would be that. What you have is a gift to a Master.”

She shook her head, wearily closed her eyes, her mind. “I don’t know what’s right or wrong.”

Mason drew a deep breath, hitched her more securely into his lap, worried by how pale she was, how limp in his arms.

“Remember the night with the cookies, how I asked you for only one thing?”

Slowly, her cheek moved against him. A nod.

“I shall ask it again now. Learn to trust me. I promise you, if you can do that one thing, you will be able to use that trust to trust yourself again.” He raised her shirt then, relieved to see the wound was closed. “Good. Let’s get you into some different clothing.”

023

She was too weak to walk without aid, so Mason carried her through the house, back to her bedroom, where Amara was waiting.

As the servant cleaned and dressed her, Jessica was too drained to do anything but lie there like a doll. Mason was at the periphery of her awareness, but she was beyond wanting to think, to look at him. She should have finished the job. She was so tired. Too tired. How many episodes like this had she had in these past weeks? How many more would she have, and would she ever get a grip on her life again? She knew these things took time, a great deal of time. But she’d lived ten lifetimes in the past five years.

“Sorry about that,” she mumbled. “Sorry about door.”

He bent over her then, Amara stepping back. As Jessica lifted her lashes, she was conscious that her upper body was bare, Amara having removed her bra and shirt. Mason’s gaze slid over her breasts, the pink nipples, before returning to her face. His expression was unreadable, but not frightening. Putting a hand on her forehead, he held her gaze in his. She wanted to cling to it like a cradle in a tree, forever rocked by the reassuring whisper of his breath, the warm blanket of amber sky. “Don’t worry, love. Sleep now.”

“I hate this. I hate being weak.”

His jaw tightened. “You are not weak, Jessica Tyson. Just impatient. Though I am happy my mark made you physically well, it might have been better if your body had improved by degrees, instead of all at once, to give your mind time to catch up. Time is no longer your enemy. What did I tell you?”

She swallowed. “You said to learn to trust you, and use that to trust myself again.”

“Good.” He bent, and his lips brushed her forehead. “Do that, and all will be well.”

But it didn’t work that way. There were no knights in shining armor to come and surround her with safety and care, hold her in their arms, real and metaphorical, until she could stand on her feet again. They didn’t exist. Even if they did, they came too late. The evil had circled, waiting to puncture her with its claws, poison her mind with insidious whispers, and it had succeeded, again. It would never let go. She’d never feel safe again. No one could make that go away.

Even as she had those thoughts, though, her hand closed on his wrist, clung with desolate hope.

Mason shifted to the right to allow Amara to finish, but covered her hand, stroking her knuckles as her despair gave way to uneasy unconsciousness. Amara glanced up when she realized Jessica had passed out, but her words died in her throat at the expression on her Master’s face. “My lord?”

“She’s right,” Mason said flatly. “We are always too late. And I am goddamned sick of it.”

He knelt. Because he wanted to be sure she heard him on all levels, he spoke aloud, though he was aware of Amara’s intent gaze

upon him. “You have a candle in your darkness,
habiba
, one that will never be extinguished. You saved
yourself
. Even if a hundred knights in shining armor had come, you are your own savior. Because it is not the body that resists and defeats the evil and despair wielded by someone like Raithe.”
Or Farida’s family.
“It’s not even weapons of steel and wood, or fire. It is the spirit, and each spirit wages that war. What we have is each other, to make that war worth fighting.”

He drew her from Amara, held her close. He willed his own heat into her, and thought their heartbeats might have synchronized.

“Your war is over, though you have fought so long you cannot see it yet,” he murmured. “What I can give you now is rest. Let me protect you for a while. Do me this honor, and I will not fail you. I swear it, even if I have to destroy my own spirit to make it so.”

024

But his words did not ease her dreams. While Mason forced himself to leave the room and go change, assigning Amara to remain at her side, he stayed closely linked to Jess’s mind. He was determined not to withdraw until his heart stopped racing from their near miss, which likely meant he’d be in her brain for the next century.