Beloved Vampire (32 page)

Amara had peered in once. When Jessica raised her gaze, wondering if the woman would chase her out for doing what she’d not been asked to do, Amara instead gave her a nod and retreated without further discussion. Jess was glad for it, because she wasn’t sure what she’d say, which had nothing to do with the paperwork.

The bald fact was she hated that Mason had gone to Amara to slake his lust, if not his blood needs. There was no way any male, let alone one with the enhanced carnal needs of a vampire, would have just gone off to bed without taking care of his arousal.

Amara must have done her job well, because Mason had barely sent her a thought since.

She had no right or reason to feel the way she did about that. It was more of her poor mind’s war with its own sanity. But the fit of the silver bracelets and collar were a constant reminder of him, their heat on her skin. And that reminded her of what he’d said about the chastity belt, stirring a far more intimate region of her body.

“ ‘You don’t know what you want,’ ” she mimicked under her breath. “Well, that’s for me to say, isn’t it? Not you. I don’t need a father.”

She scrubbed her hands over her face, propping her elbows on the desk, then a smile twisted her lips as she thought of another passage in Farida’s second journal.

There are times he is so
. . .
old. Like he knows best about all things and I am nothing more than a child. Perhaps that is
so, but I have found that when I bathe, and take more care than usual with the cloth, cleaning those tender regions of my
body he enjoys so much, he comes to me, and I feel the hunger in him. Not only for my flesh, either. I hold his heart inside
of me, and we are both ageless then.

If she could cloak herself in Farida’s thoughts, a woman completely, deeply immersed in her love of one man . . .
Lord Mason has
a wonderful laugh. I must seek ways to coax it from him, for he tends to be too somber at times.

“Jessica?”

She started up from the chair, hitting her knee with a painful clunk, her eyes springing open. Something flickered through the metal at her throat and wrists, a warning that was almost . . . arousing.

“Easy.” Jess struggled to focus past that and saw Enrique at the study door. He held up his hand in reassurance, though he didn’t come into the room. “I knocked on the door panel, but I thought you might have gone to sleep sitting up.” His glance swept the much cleaner desk. “Mason’s paperwork has been known to have a narco leptic effect on the most hardy.”

“No, I was just thinking.” Jess put a hand over the circlet at her throat, her fingertips testing it. Just cool metal. She hadn’t thought to ask exactly how the restraints would prevent her from hurting herself. She was starting to get an apprehensive—or anticipatory—idea of it.

“Amara requested you come to the back balcony. There is someone here to see you.”

Jessica frowned, dropped her hand. “To see
me
?”

“Someone Lord Mason had brought here to see you.”

“Oh.”

Enrique nodded. “I’ll leave you, then.” And he was gone, just like that. But the uneasiness spawned by how he’d come up on her like that, unawares, made her go to the French doors and push them wide-open, enabling two exit points from the room.

It was ridiculous. Enrique meant her no harm; she knew it. Still, as she drew in the sea air, the memory gripped her anyway. Raithe suspending her by a chain, and allowing . . . commanding the human household staff to gang-rape her. One man after another, from a young, frightened-looking boy who could barely maintain an erection, to a grizzled maintenance man with hard, cruel hands.

She’d been able to handle the evening gatherings in Mason’s house because there were as many female house staff there as male, and no vampire directing things. But this one moment, with her and Enrique alone in the room together, brought the fear back, unexpectedly.

She dug into the wood of the frame, a splinter piercing her forefinger. Warmth licked across her wrists, her throat, that sensual admonishment again, only stronger this time, breaking her out of the memory. The inhibiting magic, intended to keep her from going down that self-destructive slide of thoughts, was amazingly like Mason’s touch, his presence. Though she didn’t want to acknowledge it, it did ease the paralytic grip of the remembrance, the fear and revulsion. It also made her want to hurt herself again.

Sick.
She was sick.

“Jessica?”

The French doors led out to the wide back verandah and the stairs down to the gardens. Amara had come seeking her, with a slender, elegant man. Jessica noted black silk hair tied back in a long ponytail and jewel-toned green and golden eyes. His white linen shirt and well-cut slacks made him look as if he’d escaped from a fashion magazine, his face sculpted like a young Valentino.

“This is Robert,” Amara said, pronouncing it in the French fashion.

Jessica slid a glance from the man to Amara, then back. “It’s nice to meet you, Robert.”

“A pleasure.” Stepping forward, he took her tense hand. Jessica noticed he had a series of intricate tattoos across his fingers that made it appear as if he were wearing rings. There was a similar Celtic design around his neck, inked in black, with a dark cross in the hollow of his throat. When he brushed a kiss across her fingers, it was startling, but not threatening, not with Amara here. Still, Jessica retrieved her hand, pushing down the lingering uneasy feeling. He arched a brow. “May I see the area in question?”

At Jessica’s blank look, Amara cleared her throat. “I don’t believe Lord Mason had an opportunity to inform her. You
are
early, Robert.”

He shrugged, typically Gallic. “My plane made better time than expected, and fortunately we weren’t attacked by wild animals on our way to your desolate outpost.” He said the last drolly, sweeping his glance over the back balcony and the breathtaking beach panorama.

“Robert is a very gifted tattoo artist. Lord Mason thought you might want him to design a tattoo for your back.” Amara’s expression said clearly she’d expected Mason to tell Jess about this, which said she wasn’t aware of the argument they’d had. The volatile blood taking, followed by his abrupt dismissal, his “run along and play and don’t bother me” routine. Jess suppressed the desire to grind her teeth.

“Robert, let’s go have a glass of wine.” Amara spoke over her silence. “We’ll let Jessica finish up her paperwork. We’ve caught her in the middle of things and she needs time to change direction.”

“Certainement.”
Nodding, he squeezed her hand. Tension thrummed through her arm, more strongly this time, so that Jessica had to quell the desire to yank it back. “But I will say, it will be a pleasure to work on so lovely a lady.”

Her back was many things, but lovely was not one of them. The only good thing about the scars was she couldn’t see them without twisting around like a contortionist. But she was well aware of them, the way they pulled against her healthy flesh, as constant a reminder as Mason’s bracelets and collar now. And how were they different, really?

No. They
were
different. Each time Raithe took a strip of her flesh, he’d followed it with an experience to hammer home the lesson that she couldn’t escape him. The rape by the household staff had been stripe number four.

“Jessica?” Amara drew her out of her thoughts with a light touch that made Jess jump. Robert had left them, headed back to the verandah area. The woman settled her hand on her forearm, a reassuring grip above the silver manacle. “Lord Mason has decided to allow you to accompany us to the club next month. You have several weeks to think about it. If you change your mind, you’re welcome to stay at home. You go only as his guest, to enjoy the dancing and entertainment. You will not be expected to participate in the club’s activities.”

Amara’s gaze flickered downward. Jess realized she’d reversed their grips and was clutching her arm hard, that same white-knuckled response she’d had last time the club was mentioned. At one time, she’d liked to dance, so dancing sounded good. But at this club, she couldn’t avoid seeing others perform the acts that terrified her to the bone. Even if done consensually, they would suck her into her memories like a drain.

Letting go of Amara, she forced herself to get a grip on her emotions. She’d asked Mason for this, as a way to face her fears. She had to learn to take care of herself. She couldn’t be afraid of every man’s casual touch. “All right,” she said. It was several weeks off, after all.

“Robert is also your decision. You are not required to do anything. My lord thought it might be something that would please you, however.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say no.
I don’t want him touching me. I especially don’t want that part of me touched.
Still, Jessica gave a nod. “Let me think about it for a few minutes.”

“All right.” Amara squeezed her arm. As the woman turned, she hesitated, looking over one bare, tanned shoulder, her black and dark green patterned sarong enhancing her willowy body. She looked like an enticing, exotic tropical plant. She belonged in this dark and mysterious world, was at home here in a way Jessica never could be.

“Mason did not come to me last night.” Her gaze flickered over Jess’s throat. Though Jess knew the collar rested over where he’d pierced her artery, and the puncture scars had healed already, it felt as though Amara could see them. “I thought you’d want to know that.”

“Why?” Jess crossed her arms over her body.

Amara cocked her head, her lovely fan of ebony hair rippling in the breeze. “He is different with you, Jessica. You have been through a great deal, so I don’t tell you this to make you change anything about who you are or what you want. But have a care with him. He does not open himself to others easily. You might not see it as a gift, but do not abuse it, if you can help it.”

“He’s going to get really pissed off at you if you keep handling him.”

“Yes.” Amara inclined her head. “But I love him too well to say nothing.”

She moved away then, leaving Jessica staring after her. Even Raithe’s devotees had been smart enough to fear his anger, his wrath.

But there was a difference between an abused dog that tried to love her master, thinking if she remained devoted, he would eventually stop beating her, and the prized pet who’d never known a reason to be afraid of him. Perhaps Amara wouldn’t appreciate the analogy, but for the first time Jessica realized Amara did not fear Mason, because he’d given her no reason to.

In fact, in the short time she’d been with Mason, he’d given Jess no reason, either. It was the overlap of her memories with Raithe, the nearness of them to her present-day existence, that instilled fear in her. This, despite the fact that Mason’s age, strength and power made Raithe look like a bumbling fledgling in comparison.

“Not might
is
right. Might
for
right.” She murmured the quote from
Camelot
, the play her parents had taken her to see for her sixteenth birthday. She’d been enthralled with King Arthur, knowing she’d have never left him for Lancelot.

025

Enrique was waiting for Amara around the corner. When she reached him, he cupped her neck, drew her against his body for a lingering kiss. Amara smiled against his lips, enjoying his hard chest, the lean hips under her caressing hands. “So how did she react?” he asked.

“He hadn’t told her, so they must have quarreled. Do you think she realizes she’s being wooed?”

“As much as he realizes he’s wooing her,” Enrique observed. “He’s slept deeply today. I haven’t heard from him.”

“No.” Amara’s gaze shadowed. “He is troubled by her.”

“It’s for them to resolve,” Enrique reminded her, bending to nuzzle her throat. His hand slipped down to cup a buttock. Amara swayed into him as he nipped her, sharply enough to cause a gasp. “Try to stay out of it, or you’ll feel Lord Mason’s lash.”

“And won’t you enjoy watching that?” Her lips curved, but she sucked in another breath as he increased the pressure of his grip.

“Go to Robert and don’t tease me. Otherwise I might wield the whip myself.”

“Promises, promises, my husband.”