The Mark of the Vampire Queen (15 page)

It was not difficult to imagine him sitting by Melinda's grave, finding those Bible passages and attaching them to his own life. His brother believed Jacob had abandoned him. A young girl had died tonight while he could do nothing. He was servant to a dying vampire he loved, but he could not save her, either. She didn't have to read his mind to know the flow of his thoughts, that he was drowning in them.

What did what was appropriate matter anyway? There was just right now. His pain, and in truth, hers. Lyssa curled her arms around his waist and chest and went on her toes, holding him in her embrace. As he bowed his head, she brushed his shoulder with her lips. “Gods, today was awful,” he muttered.

She felt gratified when his fingers closed over hers on his chest. Loosening her grip, she coaxed him to turn and face her. Reaching up, she framed his face in her hands, feeling the softness of his trimmed beard under her touch.

He shook his head. “I don't know how to get my mind around what happened tonight. All I feel is anger. I want to cry. I want to rage. I want to hurt something and I need…I don't want to have to think at all. I don't know how to be your servant right now. I'm…” He shook his head again. “I feel completely lost. I…I've been preparing myself for the annual kill, and that's been hard. Getting my mind around it, knowing it was going to happen. But this knocked my legs right out from under me.”

He moved away from her touch, putting the fountain between them. Somehow his walking away now made her feel even more bereft than when he'd left her in anger. She didn't want to let him go, but she didn't know what to offer him. Her life was what it was, and he had committed himself to being a part of it.

“Jacob,” she spoke, bringing him to a halt. As the silence stretched out and he turned, raising a brow, she was surprised at how difficult it was to say the words when it was something that happened so long ago. “I lied to you, in a way. I do believe I'm barren now, but I did conceive. Once. Things happened…I ran into some difficulties and she was born early. Too early. I buried her in Jerusalem.”

The baby had come out deformed because of her mixed heritage, Lyssa had thought. Fey, vampire and human, an aberration that couldn't live.

At his shocked expression, seen through the wavering spray of water, she nodded. “It was the knight's child.”

She firmed her chin, raised it. His eyes had become brilliant, fierce on her face. “He died soon after he left me, so I was never able to tell him. Sometimes I thought it was better that she went to be with him, because he could always protect her, would always put her first. His soul was pure, untainted by politics and evil things.”

He came back around the fountain, stopped within five feet of her. “Why did you tell me that?”

“Remember I once said I could live ten thousand years and never understand some things, that none of us ever would? Like why someone like Melinda dies, or my…
our
child was born too early.” She made herself say the words, though she couldn't meet his eyes. Swallowing, she pushed away the recollection of the tiny body swaddled in velvet and silk, being laid in the earth. “We shed our tears and have to go on. I just know…if I was Melinda's mother I'd be glad it was your hands that held her at the last, safeguarded her to the next life. Never doubt your heart, Jacob. It's the best I've ever known.

“The night of the third mark. I should have…I tried to let you go. But I couldn't. I just couldn't. I'm sorry.” It flashed in her mind, the baring of his throat, the deep penetration of her fangs. The mark he bore on his back, his binding to her. No, she couldn't let him go.

He shifted, uncrossed his arms and turned away, this time obviously fighting with his own emotions. He needed her. But he didn't know how to arrange the ugly confusion of grief and anger battling inside him to approach her in an acceptable way. She could see it in his mind, not as clear thoughts, but a tumble of response rising in him like storm wind.

“Go—” She stopped herself. No, she wouldn't make this a command. “If you wish, go to bed in my room. I'll come to you soon. You can sleep in my arms, or bury yourself in me in whatever way will help. Be whatever you need to be to deal with this night or whatever is coming.”

His hands closed into fists at his sides and yet she saw in his mind the image of those same hands closing over her flesh, holding her with brutal need.

She knew that life had a way of piling up horror upon horror, test upon test, on a soul. Like the weighting of stones on a witch's body until she was willing to say or do anything, sell her very soul for the crush to ease. The only way to get through it was to remember what you were. What you intended to be, who you intended to be.

He deserved that. He was not a supplanter, a pretender taking someone else's rightful place. Whether or not he was meant to be her servant, he was meant to serve her. Before her now she could see not only the present Jacob, but that knight. His large, capable hands and firm lips. Anticipation tightened in her lower belly as he turned, took a step toward her, then another.

He wouldn't go to her bed alone.

J
ACOB
thought he'd be worn out and simply seek oblivion. Instead he took his Mistress again and again, using them both hard. The world might treat the idea with crass vulgarity, but in the darkness, with despair closing in, a man found sacred sanctuary in the wet heat of a woman's pussy. His woman's.

Exhaustion finally took some of the pain, leaving it vibrating discordantly off of the waves of the last orgasm, but it wasn't enough. He pulled out only to give him the ability to maneuver his mouth down her throat toward the sweet taste of her nipples, the valley between her breasts. When his hand slid between her thighs, she opened to him, let his fingers slide into the channel he'd already soaked with his fluids and her own. Her breath whispered out in a quiet sigh of pleasure.

Perhaps Carnal should not have spoken so hastily about inferior mortal stamina.

Her thoughts drifted through his mind, her pleasure with him spurring his efforts.

And do vampires value stamina in bed over other attributes?
When he thrust his cock into her again, her tender tissues took him slowly, her hips tilting up as he slid his arm under her waist, his palm spreading out between her shoulder blades to bring her to his mouth, nip at her sternum. Tease the flesh of her breasts with his beard.

Like size, it's what they do with it that matters. For the man…or vampire…who doesn't know what he's doing, stamina can become never ending…torment.
When she moaned, he relished the sound fiercely, deepening his penetration, knowing as her nails curled into his back and her cunt muscles tightened that he would make her come again. And again. Her climaxes, her screams, would drive the memories back, let him fall into a sleep where they could not follow and strangle him.

“What about the man who knows what he's doing
and
has stamina?” He nudged into her hair and bit her ear, moving to the tender skin below. Need pulsed like blood hunger beneath the thin veil of his teasing.

She drew his lips insistently back to hers.

“That man I might just have to keep forever.”

He fell into exhausted sleep, still deep inside her. She'd had her arms twined around his shoulders as he rested in the cradle of her thighs, pressing her into the mattress. When he woke that way several hours later, she surprised him further by staving off her dawn slumber with creative use of his morning erection, bringing them both to peak again.

 

She didn't shun his company for an indefinite time period as she often had in the past when he'd crossed the arbitrary boundary lines she set between them. It was as if suddenly she intended to give him a collection of pleasant vignettes, like a photo album of good memories shoved between the bad to break them up. It didn't make the pain of what had happened in her master hall bearable, or even better. Just a crucial step closer to what she had said.
We shed our tears and have to go on.

The very next night, she invited him to join her in the study, reading while he channel surfed and watched her out of the corner of his eye. Finding nothing on, he switched to music and retrieved a couple of the X-Men comics he'd picked up on errands. Lying on the carpet on his stomach, he propped his chin on his knuckles and turned the pages, studying the graphics. As he stared at the colorful images, the simple concepts of good and evil playing out among the complexity of human emotion, he remembered Melinda's harsh death rattle. His lady's anger, the strike of Carnal's fist. The silence of the forest, as if every creature sat in judgment of him.

He tuned in to find he'd been staring at the same page for ten minutes. Thinking that looking at her would take his thoughts in a better direction, perhaps to the memories of the most recent night, he found his lady watching him. She pointed to the floor at her feet. Bemused, he scooted over, and she amused him by propping her feet on the small of his back. Kneading him with her toes absently, she continued to read, occasionally moving down to stroke his buttocks in the loose jeans he wore, dipping her toe beneath the waistband.

Before long, she set aside her novel and came down on the floor with him. He explained the comic book's characters as she lay back on his chest and he held the comic up over them. It was like they were studying the stars in the sky. The soft weight of her body held him to the earth when the lack of gravity threatened to send him spinning into space.

How many had told him she wasn't his lover or friend? Debra had said it was something unclassifiable, that
lover
was the closest frame of reference, a dangerously erroneous one.

Lyssa would set him back on his heels again; he knew it. It didn't matter. He wasn't going to stop serving her, protecting her. What was between them
was
a deeper relationship than lover or friend, because it encompassed both of those things and went to a far more intense level.

Debra was wrong. They knew what to call it. Mistress and servant. A “'til death do you part” no marriage ever envisioned…

 

“How on earth did you get up in there?” Jacob felt through the tools next to him and chose a different clamp, pulling aside a set of wires beneath the Mercedes. He'd been inspecting the car's undercarriage, specifically the brake line, when he'd noticed the car had a small, furry tenant. Feline. He'd thought he was on the verge of getting to the little creature, but now he was having a harder time seeing her or him, cloaked in shadows as the animal was.

Bran jarred his leg. In his lower vision, he saw the dog crouch down and hunch his shoulders with a hopeful look for his progress.

“Not…helping,” he grunted, shoving the dog with his knee.

He always put fresh flowers in his lady's room at sunset with intriguing tokens of his sunlit day. This object might be a good one to leave for her. Depending on how coated with grease it was. And how long it took to extract it.

“Ah, damn it. You must be female.” His target managed to shift into another, deeper crevice, into which it would have been impossible for even his lady's delicate fist to fit. “Keep it up. I'll get a corkscrew and pluck you out of there by your soft tissue.”

“What are you doing under there?”

Speak of the devil. Or perhaps—at least for the moment—an angel. Tilting his head, Jacob saw a pair of pretty bare feet planted on either side of his left leg. At the same moment, his fingers brushed his goal. An unhappy mewl greeted his triumph.

“Come here, little mite. Sssh…it's okay.” He managed to hold on to the squirming thing, only because it was too young to be strong, and the mouth too tiny to do any damage. “Can you tell Bran to go sit a few feet away, my lady?”

She bade the dog move back and he heard the dog chuff, pad away as Jacob wriggled out from beneath, holding the tiny kitten to his chest to keep it from streaking away.

“How on earth did that get here?”

“Without the dogs eating her, on top of that. She's not more than about eight weeks old. Mother probably got hit by a car and the kittens scattered.”

As he came out, his lady changed her stance so she was straddling his waist, standing above him, her brow raised. She was holding her strappy high-heeled sandals in one hand and wore a tailored suit with a short skirt, suggesting she was heading out on one of her business errands.

Now she stepped to his side so she could squat beside him.

Now see, you little rat, if not for you I could have run my hands up those beautiful legs and…

“Think again. Not with that grease all over you.” Reaching out, she touched the kitten with a finger. The animal was cowering under the cup of his hands, quivering so she appeared to be a faceless ball of matted, oily fur. “Oh, goodness, what are we going to do with you? The dogs won't tolerate you; that's for certain.”

“I thought I could take her over to Elijah's. He's had to take his grandson in. Even if his son or the kid's mother comes back to get him, he could likely use some company.”

Lyssa raised a brow. “You've been male bonding.”

Jacob gave a mock shudder. “You make it sound so sordid.”

Smiling, she came down to him, catching his lips in a kiss, stroking her fingers through his hair. “How do you know it's a she?”

He couldn't cover the thought that came into his mind quickly enough. With a smothered laugh, she gave him a sharp nip.

“Men tend to be pains in the ass, too, Jacob. Quite frequently. In fact, they're probably the main reason women don't always have a sweet disposition.”

“I bow to your great wisdom, my lady.”

“Only because you know I could stomp on your groin with my heel.”

“There's that sweet disposition showing itself now.”

He grunted as she drew blood this time, but the tip of her tongue flicked at it, took it off his lip, her green eyes meeting his, glowing with sensual intent. His body stirred. If he hadn't spent so much time retrieving the feline, he would have let her toddle back under the car and see if he couldn't coax his lady into getting dirty.

“Uh-uh.” She smiled again, those wet lips curving. “You set up the appointment with the bank to sign the trust papers. Told me I had to be there on time, you bossy thing. It's your own fault.” She turned her attention to the creature in his hands, stroking the fluffy back between the bars of his fingers. “Give her some scraps or milk before you take her. Poor thing feels like she's starving.”

He watched appreciatively as she balanced herself against the car to put on one shoe and then the other. “Keep walking around barefoot on this asphalt and I'll have to give you another pedicure.”

“An odious thought. I've had nightmares about the first one you gave me.” Her wicked smile gilded the image she allowed to flash from her head into his. The way he'd knelt between her legs, his mouth on her dew-kissed flesh at the Eldar Salon, the soles of her feet pressed into his bare back.

She adjusted a strap. “I'm not coming back to the house tonight. I'll be back in two days. Keep Sunday night open. We're taking your motorcycle out.”

Jacob frowned at the unexpected announcement. “Where are you going, my lady?”

“My business,” she said, but rather than sounding impatient or imperious there was an anticipatory gleam to her eye. “And don't argue with me. I'll be fine and I'm going. I'll stay in touch, so don't worry like a shrewish wife.”

His gaze narrowed. “Sunday, then. Any special preparations, a particular destination?”

“Somewhere special. A surprise.”

“Where?”

“That's why it's called a surprise.” She easily evaded his attempt to catch her calf between his feet. Moving nimbly out of his reach, she headed for the BMW. “You better not have reprogrammed my radio.”

He hid his grin as she turned the ignition and AC/DC's “Back in Black” blasted out her windows. Sitting up, he eyed Bran, who gave the bundle still securely held in his grasp a calculating look. He parted his jaws to pant, showing a foam of saliva. The kitten squeaked.

“You're too much of a sportsman for this little mite. Let's go find a box and take her somewhere not populated by a legion of hell-hounds.”

Still, as he rose to do just that, his brow furrowed. Where was she going for the next two days?
And where the hell was she taking him Sunday?

 

At least she did stay in close mind communication. Just before dawn on day one, he'd woken with his mind flooded by an image of her in a hotel lounger, dressed in nothing but a black satin garter belt and stockings. Her hand covered herself, playing lazily with her pussy, which she kept frustratingly out of view with artful placement of her fingers. She'd nearly brought herself to orgasm before she cut the link, her playful laughter making him want to choke her even as she succeeded in reassuring him of her well-being.

After that, he wasn't able to tell where she was or what she was doing, but she regularly fired off demands for correspondence to be sent, phone calls and paperwork to be handled. There was a plethora of things she wanted done related to the Gathering in addition to his normal duties.

Despite her teasing and his full schedule, he worried about her. While she hadn't experienced any symptoms of the virus for the past few days, underscoring how the third mark had boosted her immune system, he knew it wouldn't last forever. He dreaded seeing symptoms reappear, because how soon they did would be a barometer of the disease's progress.

She needed that annual kill. He'd set all the details up, forcing himself to treat it as he did a domestic task. He'd communicated three possible dates based on the man's daily routine. She'd agreed to the date that was the furthest out, two weeks, and refused to consider anything closer. On one hand, it made sense. She was choosing the date closest to their departure to the Gathering so she'd make the most of the strength the kill would give her, while milking along the benefits of the third mark. Which also told him she suspected, no matter what measures they took, her time was short.

The idea of witnessing her annual kill and handling the disposal details was a hard ball in his stomach. But he knew that making it happen sooner was not likely to dissipate that ball. His conscience was starting to resemble a pitted battlefield.

It didn't matter. He had to push it out of his mind. Make her his primary focus, everything else just the details.

You think by learning how to clear your mind I can't read your face, your heart, Jacob? Your body?
It had been just a whisper in his mind as she picked up on his thoughts, but he resolved to keep his mind off it anyhow. He knew his conflict over it bothered her, and he didn't want to give her an opening to deny him the right to be at her side when she did it. If her time was short, there were many reasons, both emotional and functional, that he needed to stay as close as possible.