The Mark of the Vampire Queen (12 page)

“She requires nothing.” Carnal watched his servant with a gleam in his dark eyes. Oddly, Melinda had followed Jacob and now stood as close as possible without hampering his elbow while Carnal stood across the hallway. She reached out again, her fingertips whispering against the side of Jacob's body, along the line of his hip. “Except perhaps you. She's an erotic little creature. She'll fuck any man if he stands still long enough. Very malleable. She can pretend to be even younger. Suck on your cock as if she's a babe with a thumb in her mouth.”

Jacob set the brandy snifter down harder on the side bar than he'd intended. Melinda jumped, her fingers trembling, even as she struggled to maintain a come-hither expression. Trying to feign what could not be feigned. She managed only to look frightened when Jacob sent her a quelling look. However, she held her stance. Probably because she knew there was a greater threat to her in the room than Jacob's annoyance.

He had no idea what the hell was going on here. If Carnal thought he could get his child servant to distract him enough to leave him alone with his Mistress, the ploy was pitiful, transparent. And revolting.

“I'll pour my own brandy,” Carnal said abruptly.

That was fine by Jacob, for he had no desire to wait on the creature. He moved away from the bar. Melinda thankfully stayed, waiting for her Master.

“She seems young to have such advanced appetites.” Jacob paced off several feet and crossed his arms, keeping Carnal under close scrutiny as he examined the brandy choices.

Carnal cast Jacob a disparaging glance. “A teenager's sex drive is far closer to a vampire's appetite than an adult's. I can fuck a woman in her thirties to death in no time. While the innocence of the young is often tedious, it can also be very…intriguing. Teaching them about unnatural desires.” He lifted a bottle, uncorked and opened it to sniff. “Their hormones are too strong to allow their morality or narrow upbringing to hold out against the craving for long. Melinda is special in those areas. You've not lived until you've watched her tears fall in delicious shame as she's writhing, her legs spread, her body on the brink of an orgasm I'll make her wait hours to have.”

He was just going to have to kill him. It was as simple a thing as knowing that the dogs would need dinner in an hour. Kill visiting vampire, dispose of body—preferably by burning—then feed the dogs. Jacob stepped forward.

Carnal turned away, missing the menacing gesture, though from Melinda's indrawn breath, Jacob knew she didn't. The brief flare of hope in her eyes, quickly extinguished, nearly choked him.

“Lyss—Lady Lyssa.” Carnal stumbled over the greeting, though Jacob suspected he clearly remembered she'd rescinded her husband's permission for Carnal to call her familiarly. “I thought I heard you come in. Though of course you're such a delicate, quiet creature you've probably been standing there for quite a while, listening to me educate your young servant on our ways.”

Jacob turned. His lady stood at the end of the hall, framed by the ten-foot-high, arched, stained glass window there. St. Francis of Assisi raised his hands to offer food to over a hundred differently colored birds hovering in the sky around him. Bursts of sunlight in rose and gold glass outlined them and haloed her. While it was now dark, she had outside lights positioned to allow enjoyment of the stained glass even during the night. Wearing black slacks with a slim belt and gold blouse, her hair up, she looked tailored, self-contained. Even from here, though, Jacob could feel the latent energy pulsing around her. Restless. Dangerous.

An elegant diamond bracelet draped the thin bones of her wrist. Diamond studs adorned her double-pierced ears. A vampire had to pierce her body each time she chose to wear post jewelry, since once the posts were removed, the openings healed completely. Lyssa removed her earrings every morning. Female vanity had always been a remarkable thing to him, but his lady's devotion to it had brought him to a new level of admiration.

When she inclined her head to their visitor, it was a cold gesture. Jacob couldn't hear any thoughts from her. All her shields were tightly locked down, but his intuition sensed those currents of energy circling in the air of the room like the closeness of an impending thunderstorm.

Carnal had moved toward her. Vampire rules of courtesy required a distance of ten feet unless the higher-ranking vampire invited the other vampire within that personal space boundary. Jacob noted that Carnal stopped at the proper distance and then took one additional step, as if he were mocking the rule. Or her.

Lyssa did not remove her attention from his face. “What is your business in my territory?”

“As you know from our meeting at the mall, I am only passing through, my lady. A trip to the Midwest. Your husband was kind enough to acquaint me with many of the western territory overlords. I've been doing some fortunate trading of talent and resources over the past year.”

She studied him in silence. The quiet of the hall began to have a weight to it that pressed in on Jacob, made him itch for a weapon. Carnal cocked his head. “While I am merely observing the ritual courtesies you demanded, I was hoping I might interest you in sharing dinner with me.”

“I am otherwise engaged.”

Carnal's back was to Jacob, so he saw the slight lift of the shoulder. When the vampire moved back to the side bar, his countenance was accepting, cordial. “Since you have no immediate need of my company, then, allow me to pour your wine and we'll complete the formality.” He glanced at the bottle. “Your preferred vintage has changed. When Rex lived, you preferred muscatel. Port. This is barely more than grape juice.”

“It's made with an exotic flower, only available in one place in Asia.” As far as Jacob could tell, the only part of Lyssa's face moving was her lips, an eerie effect. “The blooms must be cut at the end of the spring season. Exactly one hundred bottles have been made in the three-hundred-year life of the tree. It grows in the memorial garden of a great teacher, Yang-Sun. I studied with him. He taught me much about patience. Inner silence. Balance.”

Carnal paused. Jacob shifted so he could see the angle of focus between the two of them. As she reached the last sentence, Lyssa's pronunciation had become more exact. On the last word he saw the tips of her fangs. Her eyes glowed in the dim recesses of that end of the hall. While Jacob's section was modestly lit, she'd apparently purposely put herself in shadows.

“There is one pure note of silence within ourselves,” she continued. “So powerful that if we stepped inside it, we could blink our eyes and save the world from evil. Or destroy it utterly, like the soul of an unnatural creature never meant to exist. Watch it shatter and blow away as dust. Forgotten. Insignificant. Never to be remembered except with a child's mocking laughter.”

Melinda had crept to Jacob's side again. He couldn't blame her for seeking comfort. The mood in the hall was deadly, and almost all of it was coming from his lady now. The young girl's fingers touched his hand at his side, linked with his fingers. Her breast was pressing against his arm, her hip bone against his buttock. Her breath was sweet and soft on his shoulder.

While her physical actions might support the inconceivable things Carnal was saying about her, nothing else did. Melinda had no natural sexual aggression. Either Carnal had her trained to act like a nymphomaniac for his own amusement or he thought Jacob stupid enough to fall for the obvious distraction. But it made no sense. For Carnal to attempt to harm Lyssa in her own home would be suicidal.

Carnal pricked his finger with his fang to put several drops of blood in Lyssa's glass. He reached for the bottle of wine as it drained into the bowl.

There.
As Carnal picked up the wine bottle, the finger next to the pricked finger shifted a minuscule amount. Something wavered on the glass edge. Jacob narrowed his gaze. In the dim light of the hall, he knew the eyes could play tricks, but his intuition made him sure. Carnal splashed several swallows of wine efficiently into the glass.

“My lady.” Jacob stepped forward, shrugging away from Melinda. “He put something in your wine.”

Lyssa's gaze flickered to him, then back to Carnal.

“Your servant speaks out of turn, my lady. He has faulty eyesight.” Carnal snapped his fingers as if summoning a pet. “Melinda, come here. We shall prove our intentions to Lady Lyssa. When they are proven to be honorable”—he gave Jacob a scathing look—“I hope you'll give me a guest's right to chastise him for the insult.”

When Melinda came to him, moving without hesitation but somehow conveying rigid protest in the lines of her body, he curled his hand around her nape, tugging on her hair. “My little nymph. Sweet child. Try this exotic wine Lady Lyssa says holds the secrets of the universe. It will taste like the best candy. Just like you.”

In a blink, his voice had become tender, seductive. Jacob knew vampire allure could disguise even a monster as evil as Carnal, but witnessing it was a jarring step into a different reality. As Gideon said, he easily could coax an impressionable girl to him, bind her before she knew what was happening to her.

Obediently she put her lips to the cup, tipping her head back when he exerted pressure on her chin with his thumb. She swallowed, then again more frantically as he gave it to her in one draught. It was not much more than a quarter cup, but still too much for the one swallow in which he forced her to consume the rest.

“It was a common Inquisition torture, forcing someone to drink too much.” Carnal watched her struggle with the discomfort of the fluid ballooning down her throat into her stomach. Jacob realized Carnal was directing his words to him. An attempt to intimidate or threaten, he supposed. He remained silent and still, though everything in him wanted to pull the girl away from him.

My lady, your silence is getting damn irritating.
Her preternatural stillness at the end of the hallway was just flat-out disturbing.

“The Church wasn't allowed to invade the body, cut it open with interrogation techniques,” Carnal continued. “That entirely unspiritual practice was reserved to the secular authorities. Therefore, if the Church couldn't obtain a confession their way, they might turn the person over to the local law and see if it could be sliced out of them. But I find the Church's nonsurgical methods were most inventive.”

Setting the glass aside, he turned his attention back to the lady of the house. “A waste of your beautiful and rare wine, Lady Lyssa. I hope you punish him severely for this.” Reaching out, he collected the drops of wine that had escaped from the corner of Melinda's mouth. Well trained, she didn't jerk back, but her eyes were wide and mouth tight, anticipating pain. He jerked his head. “Go and stand next to her arrogant servant while I prepare my lady another cup.”

Melinda turned and moved toward Jacob. Her eyes were watering from the strain of taking down the wine. It was a good thing the wine wasn't more potent. As thin as she was, Jacob doubted Carnal let her eat much, just enough steroid-laden meat to maintain her breast cup size.

Carnal placed two more drops of his blood in the cup and poured another splash of wine, this time in exaggerated, open movements. “So your servant doesn't have another attack of paranoia,” he explained mockingly. “Perhaps he would behave better if you castrated him. You don't need an inferior human cock when I'd be happy to offer mine. A mortal can hardly be expected to have the stamina to please you.”

Lyssa watched all of them as if they were part of a play she'd paid money to attend, a silent member of an audience cloaked in darkness.

Carnal took several steps forward again. Paused at the invisible ten-foot barrier and extended the cup. “My lady?”

The night she'd marked Lord Brian, the ritual had been far more intimate. She'd taken the blood directly from his throat, taunting Jacob as he stood silently behind her chair only a few steps away. But she'd needed more of Brian's blood because he was staying in her territory and was under her protection. For Carnal, all that was required were these few drops in a cup to allow her to monitor his movement through her territory. It was an act of surety, part of the whole manual on etiquette governing vampire interaction, a Book of Shadows embraced by each new Council. When Jacob reviewed it under Thomas's tutelage, there were times he understood why many of the younger vampires made fun of it. However, knowing how quickly vampires could revert to unthinkable brutality, he'd come to understand the uncanny genius of it. It had been surprisingly effective in helping vampires govern their bloodlust, for it imposed a detailed, Sun King–type aristocratic hauteur on their personal interactions that appealed to them.

This was a simple, standard ritual. In the mundane world, no different from someone paying a toll. Yet as she stared at that glass, Jacob sensed something rising in her, something as unstable as an atom exposed to forces that could cause it to split and become nuclear.

“My lady?” Carnal's brow was raised, a slight smile upon his lips. He took a step forward, then another. Coming into her space uninvited. Her gaze rose, her eyes dark pools holding the capability of destruction. Jacob couldn't tell if it was outgoing, where she might obliterate Carnal, or incoming, something attacking her vital organs, destructive to herself. If she wasn't so damn closed off he could tell. His gut wasn't helping him a bit.

Something was off. At her lack of response to Carnal, the way she studied him as if he were merely an uncomfortable thought, rather than a physical threat directly before her, it finally came to Jacob.

Even when she was shielding her thoughts from him, there was an essence to her that was accessible, touchable. But it was missing right now. A woman who had been violated shut down when confronted by her violator. Instinctively, all her defenses would be raised against anything male. Wagons pulling around in a circle, warding against attack from any side. While it hurt him to acknowledge that was what she was doing, Jacob knew it was a survival response.