Nightfall (20 page)

What should have sounded remarkable sounded like something
Quinn had always known, hearing the words said aloud. But he wasn’t going to
jump completely on the Kool-Aid train yet. He waited for the answer to the
question. Sam sighed.

“Yes, vampires have some compulsion ability, to help them
feed, to help their food forget, but to make a man decide to give up his life
to one of them, no. That requires human consent. There is a lot of evidence to
suggest vampire servants are a specific subgroup of humans, a switch inside
them somehow triggered by the presence of a vampire. Perhaps the right vampire,
much the same way certain people are attracted to other people.”

So whatever he was feeling for Selene…it was real. That
loosened things in his gut, made him feel much more sure of all of it. As long
as she felt the same way, no matter what she said about vampires and humans.

“So we need to go visit this Texas overlord. You don’t have
a name, do you?”

“Caleb Buford Dorn.”

“Butch Dorn? You’re shitting me.”

Quinn had met Butch Dorn years ago at a cattlemen’s
convention in Dallas. It had been a brief meet, the two of them hitting the bar
at the same time and shooting the shit for a couple minutes. Quinn was as straight
as they came, but he remembered the guy was a handsome bastard, with piercing
gray-blue eyes, dark, short-cropped hair and a magnetic personality that seemed
to go along with the large and successful spread in southwest Texas he owned,
Blood Rock Ranch. Quinn also remembered that every time he’d seen Butch had
been at night. During daytime he had a guy who represented him at the meetings,
his right-hand man. What was his name…Dixon. Dixon Conner.

He leaned forward, flipped through the giant rolodex of
business cards he insisted on keeping. He knew he should put them in his phone
or on the computer, but he liked looking at the designs on the cards, and he’d
remembered Dixon’s. There it was. Christ. Talk about hiding in the open.

Dixon Conner, Ranch Manager, Blood Rock Ranch. The two Rs
for “Rock” and “Ranch” had a stretched, sharp point. Almost like a pair of
fangs, if you held it back a bit and knew what you were looking for. The card
was red, the lettering black. He remembered arguing a couple points of order
with Dixon over beer afterward, and he’d also asked about his boss, because it
had been hard to get those piercing eyes out of his head. Now he thought about
what Sam had said, about certain people gravitating toward vampires, and
shifted uncomfortably. He remembered Dixon shooting him an odd, long look
before they parted, and giving Quinn his card with a friendly, “Call if you’re
ever in the area.”

World was full of crazy intersects, wasn’t it? Almost made
him believe what Sam had told him, countless times.
If you step back and
could gaze at the universe like a god, you’d see all the threads cross other
threads. They all circle, weave and spiral in ways that make the universe like
a rippling flag.

“Son of a bitch,” he murmured. He realized Sam had been
silent throughout his whole revelation. “Sam?”

“Have you found what you needed?”

“Yeah. Think so. You said this would be a dangerous way to
go. Why?”

“Humans often craft societies that give the illusion of
civility, rules, structures. Vampires have strict rules and structure, but
violence and death are as much a part of their world as breathing.”

Quinn thought of what Selene had said.
Vampires are more
about power and politics, where people end up dead or wish they were.

“Do not be misled by whatever you know of Butch Dorn. What
you know of him is what he has presented to the human world. A vampire overlord
is dictator to the vampires within his world. They live or die on his word. He
also might decide to torture them for several years in his basement just to
reinforce a point of order.”

“Selene seemed pretty worried about what would happen if
this Laurent character finds her.”

“She should be. I wish you had not been drawn into this,
Quinn. Though where you are meant to be is not always in line with the wishes
of those who care for you.”

“Hey, don’t worry about me, pal. I’ve weathered my share of
knocks.”

“Yes you have. I can’t assist you in this because I have no
influence in that world. If I was simply a mortal with no connections to the
magical realms, what I know of vampires would win me a death sentence, for they
are very particular about who knows about them.”

“Should we be worried about this phone conversation?”

“No. Anything that comes through the fault line is always
disrupted from outside eavesdroppers. That’s why you hear the static on the
line.”

“I just figured you have a crappy provider.”

“I have one of the best providers there is.” Sam’s tone held
reproof and his trademark dry humor. “You should come visit sometime, Quinn.
What you felt that night…it’s far stronger here. It might bring your soul
strength and ease. I think you’ll need both for the path you are taking.
Remember,” he added, voice sharpening, “if you go to see Butch Dorn, make sure
you’re third marked. Or let her go alone.”

“Why?”
What the hell?

“You won’t survive the trip otherwise. She will need you
afterward, no matter what happens. That is what I feel, though I don’t see the
path you’ll follow.” Sam paused. “But keep in mind, Quinn, if you let her make
you her full servant, there is a dark, brutal side to that you don’t fully
grasp, that has nothing to do with love and romance. You have always been a
self-determined man, and one to whom being a man has a particular meaning. When
you are a vampire’s servant, however you define yourself is secondary. You are
hers, in every single way. To use, to loan, to determine your path for you for
the rest of your life. Are you really prepared for that, Quinn?”

Was anyone?
Well, shit. Yeah, Sam had hit the nail on
the head. Some parts of this he didn’t even have to think about. He wanted
Selene, wanted to be with her, care for her, protect her. But then there were
the parts he didn’t
want
to think about. He was still coming to grips
with the cravings that made him get off on being topped by her, strapped by her
with a belt, for fuck’s sake. Threatened to be fucked by her like a man. Jesus.
It made him question his manhood, even as other things overrode it. He figured
Sam’s unspoken message had less to do with the mark and more with his state of
mind. In other words, Quinn needed to figure that shit out before he went
forward.

But first, he took her out to dinner Sunday night, just as
he’d said. A cool little place with live music, dancing. He hadn’t been on a
real date in fuckall, such that when he picked her up he felt like a giddy
schoolboy. Selene took his breath away. She wore a tiny little dress that made
him want to drool on her, right before he tore it off her, but he managed to
keep it in check and get her to the restaurant. After a steamy kiss.

Over dinner in a corner of the restaurant, in between band
sets so she could hear his low tones, he casually mentioned that he’d talked to
his friend Sam, and what they talked about. Then braced himself for the
explosion of shrapnel.

Her eyes had narrowed, her jaw getting that tight look. He
wanted to reach out, cover her hand, but her body language said that was about
as good an idea as hugging a rattlesnake. Instead, he kept going, giving her
all of it, as well as Sam’s background. Fortunately, she showed she could
listen as well as be pissed, because her expression grew thoughtful, and she
started tapping her fingers meditatively on the wood surface of the table.

“I guess I should have realized your easy acceptance of
things beyond your world had a concrete source. I just figured you were a
dumbass cowboy with so much of a hard-on you’d overlook crazy.”

She was teasing him, though there was an edge to it that
said she hadn’t made her mind up about any of it.

“Well, there was plenty of that too.” He cocked his head.
“You going to punch me now?”

“Still considering.”

“Want to dance with me while you think about it?”

She followed his nod to the dance floor. “You dance?”

“I can Texas two-step with the best of them, honey. But forget
about that fancy New York hip-hop, Zumba, ass-shaking crap.”

She allowed a small smile at that, and he dared to close his
hand over hers. “Come dance with me, Mistress. Please.”

At her bare nod, he rose, taking her hand and leading her to
the floor. They were doing one of Toby Keith’s more upbeat tunes, so he swung
her into that. She didn’t know the steps, but she was fleet of foot and picked
up on things fast, two things he already knew, though fleet of foot was
probably an understatement.

He tightened his arm, enjoying the feel of her. She was
still thinking about the things he’d told her, deciding how pissed she needed
to be, but he saw her start to loosen up as they made the turns, give him a
smile as he did an exaggerated misstep that threatened to step on her toes.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she told him, and he knew
she wasn’t talking about clumsy dancing.

“I thought a servant is supposed to do things to watch out
for his vampire.”

“You’re not my servant. I’ve marked you twice, once too many.”

Maybe once too few. He met her gaze as he thought it. She
bit back a response, her cheeks flushing, and he saw the frustration in her
gaze, felt it in the tension of her body. She was about to pull back from him,
probably tell him to pull his head out of his ass.

“You know,” he said abruptly, “you may be about twenty years
older, but it doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about life. I know how hard it
is to find someone who makes you feel like they’re the one you’re meant to be
with, a down to the balls-and-guts feeling.”

I’m a lot more than a dumb fucking cowboy. I also know
how we all have to wear different faces to get along in the world, but if you
have one person who knows your real face, no matter how many masks you wear,
everything else is worth it.

He’d added that in his mind, because it made it easier to
say something like that. Her gaze lifted to his, held. Frustration turned to
understanding, to sorrow and yearning, to the whole map of places she’d been
and endured without having that person at her side.

The band finished and the female vocalist stepped up to the
mike. “This is for those lovers out there. The ones who’ve been together so
long they creak out of bed in the morning and still hold hands over breakfast,
and the ones staring into each other’s eyes right now, hoping they’ve found
that person.”

Quinn’s jaw tightened as he recognized the intro to the Anne
Murray song
Could I Have This Dance
.He switched to a Texas waltz,
sliding one hand up to the side of Selene’s neck as he closed his other hand
over hers, molding it over his waist before he slid his arm around her, taking
her into the flow of the dance and the song.

She kept staring at him. Her mind had remained still, still
as her body seemed, even though they were moving together. “Quinn,” she
whispered.

“It’s okay. All of it is okay.”

She closed her eyes, shook her head, but put it on his
shoulder, let her body meld into his. It made his chest tight, closed his throat
up. He wasn’t sure the exact message she was sending. It wasn’t a capitulation,
but for sure it was a message of wishing the world was way different.

When the assassin killed my sire, his human servant died
with him. Dropped like a stone in the same room. The third mark links you to my
life force, Quinn.

“If I die, you die.”

She murmured it into his chest. With the music going, he
shouldn’t have been able to hear it. However, thanks to that second mark, he
could, because he saw the words form in her mind even before they came to her
lips. Christ. That was the biggest part of it, wasn’t it? She’d seen the
servant die, caught in the same assassination.

He tightened his arm around her. “I get it. But you don’t
stop riding because a horse throws you. The worse the throw, the more important
it is to get back up there.”

He nudged her temple so she shifted her gaze up to him. “So
if you die, I die? And you only live to be about six hundred years? Man, that’s
a raw deal. No wonder you’re trying to protect me from that.”

She thumped him with her fist. It might look like she had a
petite little hand, but she put enough behind it he was pretty sure he’d have a
bruise. “Ow.”

She sighed against him, but he was gratified she’d seemed to
become more fluid again, her curves fitting into his angles. Brushing the crown
of her head with his lips, he realized he felt very tender toward her right
now, protective. The vibe that was making him react that way was coming from
her, underscored by her next thought.

Quinn, when Laurent finds me—and he eventually will, no
matter what—there’s probably a fifty-fifty chance he’ll kill me as punishment
for leaving his territory.
“It’s something I accepted when I bolted.” When
she lifted her head again, the vulnerability had vanished. Now her eyes were
steel. “I won’t take you down with me.”

Stepping back and away from him, she turned and left the
floor. When she picked up her wine and took it out onto the outdoor patio, he
followed her, despite her stiff shoulders suggesting she might not want the
company. She wound through the tables, occupied by a scattering of people, and
found one in a back corner. Once there, she sat down, brought the wine to her
lips for a healthy swallow. Then she turned her gaze to studying the sky.
Making it clear she wanted her own space.

Too bad. He dragged a chair close enough his knee slid in
front of hers, and tugged her chair around so she had to see his face, the cold
resolution he knew was there.

“That’s not going to happen. We’ll go see Butch. You’re
amazing and strong, he’ll help you. Hell, you show him how you run a bar, he’ll
want you in his territory. He might be no better than Laurent, but I’m banking
he will be. I only had a moment’s impression of him, but Dix seemed a decent
sort, and if he’s associated with him…”

“If he was acting on his behalf during daylight, Dixon is
likely his servant.”

Right. He didn’t know why he hadn’t put together the
obvious. Butch would tell Dix what to say on his behalf during those meetings.

“So we’re going to figure this out. You’re going to live. I
want to do everything to help make it happen, so I need to be with you. Sam was
adamant that you need to third mark me for me to go.”

“I am not going to let you twist the words of a shaman to
get your way.”

“There was no twisting to it, honey. He said it straight
out. At least think about it.”

“You’re willing to become my slave, my property, possibly
used by others in the vampire world. Yet you’re still not sure you’re
comfortable with me dominating you, Quinn.” She met his gaze, and he had to
will himself not to flinch, though with that second mark she saw his desire to
do just that, damn it. “In the heat of the moment you accept it, but until
you’re comfortable with it during daylight hours, it’s not even a remote
possibility.”

“I’ll figure it out as I go. I’m not an impulsive
twenty-year-old, Selene. Everything in my life, I’ve made out the shape of it
before I leap, so even if I don’t know the full picture, I have enough of it.
The most important thing to me is you.” He cupped her chin. “With you I’ve
found the first real emotional satisfaction I’ve ever known. Don’t take that
away from me.”

“I’m not.” She pulled away. “But telling you about being a
servant and you experiencing it are two different things. There’s no trial period
for this. Once it’s done, it’s done. You don’t even know me.”

“Maybe I know the things I need to know. You’ve told me the
worst of it, right?” He twisted the spaghetti strap of the thin dress around
his fingertips. “You prefer the right side of the bed. You like to be on top.
You like to wear yellows and blues.”

At that, her mouth twitched, heartening him, but her eyes
remained serious. “The hues I’m wearing bind to my wing color when I transform
into a butterfly. I’ve tried to be consistent around you. Have I managed it?”

He blinked. Blinked again. Set down his beer. He thought of
that butterfly, the way it had stayed, hanging out with him, almost seeming to
watch out for him as well. The way he’d automatically imposed Selene’s
attitudes and voice onto the delicate creature’s actions.

At his expression, she nodded.
Strange as it may seem to
you, Quinn, I’ve just told you the worst thing about me. No one except you
knows I have Fae blood. Not much, just a little on my grandmother’s side,
enough to give me the power to shift and travel in that form during daylight.
But even that small amount of Fae blood is intolerable to vampires.

Quinn stared at her, then his gaze clocked down to his hand,
drawn there by a memory. Turning his hand palm up on his knee, he opened his
fingers wide, then curled them up, remembering how the butterfly had stayed so
still in his hand, trusting. She trusted him, she felt safe with him. She’d
said so, hadn’t she? It amazed and humbled him, even as he realized she was
obviously conflicted about feeling that way, probably thinking a big, bad
vampire like her was supposed to be beyond things like needing to feel safe.
Loved. But maybe bigger, badder vampires had similar feelings. He didn’t know a
single being on the planet who didn’t need to feel like they belonged, who
didn’t sometimes seek the company of others, need to feel loved. Except maybe
badgers and Annette, but everyone knew they were ornery cusses.

“Why is that the worst thing about you?” He heard himself
ask the question, even as his mind was still spinning over it.

“Because vampires despise the Fae. There was a rumor last
year that Lady Lyssa, the highest-ranked among us and now head of the Vampire
Council, is half-Fae, and the Council tried to execute her when they found out.
She disappeared for a time, but when she returned and took over the Council,
the rumor vanished. Those of us who have heard it secondhand assumed that was
all it was. Even if it isn’t, what will be tolerated in the most powerful of us
is not likely to gain the same amount of acceptance in the lowest.”

She’d been so fragile in his hand; he could have crushed
her. Yet from the way she’d acted in that form, the way she gazed at him now,
he knew she didn’t feel it diminished her power.

Why did he feel he was any different? Deciding to submit to
her, to trust her with every deep, dark longing he had, didn’t make him weak.
She brought out the need to be himself with her, and she’d already showed how
much she liked who he was, every bit of it. Being submissive to her aroused him
to the point he wanted to fuck her for days, protect and keep her forever, and
nothing about that felt unmanly. Far from it.

She was obviously tracking his thoughts, because when he
made that connection, when it all clicked together, that stillness was back,
but there was a different quality to it now. When he saw a glint in her gaze,
he caught her chin again, gently guided her face back to him. Leaning forward
put them almost eye to eye, and when the tear slid free, he caught it on his thumb.

“Selene. Mistress.” He placed his mouth on that tear track,
moved to her lips, and they parted beneath his, her breath caressing him as
they shared a kiss that awoke heart and loins together. Hell with it. Sliding
his arm around her, he brought her onto his lap, the armless metal chair making
it possible for her to straddle him there in the shadows as he cupped the back
of her head, made the kiss deeper, savored the feel of her arms winding around
him. Those arms could crush him like a boa constrictor, but she held on to him
now like a vulnerable woman who needed to hold on.