The Mark of the Vampire Queen (20 page)

I know you think our species is inferior…
The words of Thomas's letter mocked her, made her want to spit out the blood and vomit into the grass. But she didn't.

At length, she felt Jacob's sweat-dampened palm, the hand that had just taken a man's life, touch her head. Stroke once, then grip, grip hard as she continued to draw blood into her body. His hand followed the movement of her skull as she drank. Wet, warm drops splashed against her cheek, her temple, and she felt him shudder with his silent strangling sobs. It moved Carl's body in slight, disturbingly lifelike twitches. She didn't stop or look up, knowing Jacob wouldn't want her to do so. After tonight, he wouldn't want to speak of it again. There was nothing to be said. It was what she had to do to live, and he had helped her do it because he had sworn to serve her.

She wouldn't forget it, while Jacob would always wish he could.

As if he were a male vampire competing for her favor, he'd proven his strength and power to take down her kill. Brought it to her as a mate would.

These were dangerous thoughts creeping into her mind, but this was her time, the dead of the night when she walked in full strength with fear of nothing. The crickets and frogs were silent. The smell of blood was in the air and a predator was close by. Her headache was gone as if it had never been, as if it had never knocked the strength from her so she could not finish the task she'd started. The nausea was gone as well. The vitality that came with an annual kill coursed hot and strong within her. Would it get her as far as she needed to go? It had to. Most importantly, it would get her through this moment.

Her servant had no coherent thoughts right now. Just a hurricane of rage, grief, desperate energy. A need to control something, balance his world that was spinning out of control. Like the night with Melinda, but even more strongly. Primeval impulses rode close to the surface, and the rush of energy surging through her responded to them with a savage eagerness. When death and life joined hands and death prevailed, mortals had an irresistible need to do something that defied it. Immortals in contrast would skirt as close as possible, absorbing its untouchable power.

Rising to her feet, she straightened her dress, unpinned her hair and shook it down. Threading her hands through it, she let it fall away from her face, down her back, arching her throat so she knew it caught the moonlight. She knew its paleness and the rise of her breasts over the scooped neckline had drawn his gaze, even as his hands remained clutched on the man in his arms.

“Jacob.” She met his haunted gaze. Reached out a hand. “Come to me, dearest.”

She backed a step away, then another, moving even deeper into the shadows of the trees as he rose. As he stared at her, his eyes were a brilliant color, glittering with so much life and conflict she thought he might possess an electric force field capable of delivering voltage. His hands opened and closed, his body tense, his rational mind arguing with what his body and the darkest part of his soul knew they needed. Hungered for.

Grounding. Connection.

“Because you brought my kill to me as a mate would do,” she said softly, “tonight I offer you the rights of a mate. I submit to your desire. Your will.”

He gave a harsh chuckle, ran a hand over his face. “You're a piece of work,” he said thickly. “I can't…I need to take care of him.” His eyes said something else entirely though, running with greedy desire over her body, conveying a consuming want that tingled over her skin like the electric brush of his mouth, the snap of his teeth.

“We will. Together. I'm not dishonoring his sacrifice, Jacob. But I need you. I want you. Now. This very second.”

“Do you, then?” His voice altered, became abruptly soft and deadly, so that she felt the sharpness of his attention like the prick of fangs in her vitals. “You just said you owed me your submission. I'll make the demands.”

She slid the straps of the dress off her shoulders and stood before him as it pooled around her ankles.

“Off. I want it all off. Even the jewels.”

She complied, rolling one stocking off and then the other, peeling off the earbobs and necklace, dropping them on top of nylon carelessly, as if they didn't cost as much as they did. She knew that would inflame him further. Her hair fluttered over her shoulders, the tips of her breasts, tangling in her fingers.

His breathing quickened, a laboring as if he'd been running. When she trembled, his gaze darkened. “Are you afraid of me, my lady?”

He could overpower her with the force of his emotions where he couldn't with his strength. He could take her down and make her helpless to his mercy, though she knew he had no room for mercy in his current state of mind.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Good,” he said, and closed the distance between them.

The kiss was hot and brutal. His hands closed on her breasts with no intent to be gentle, though his violence was enough to arouse her. He squeezed, bringing pain with the spearing pleasure of it.
Mine,
the rough touch said. His fingers pinched her nipple, and when he bent her back over his arm and fastened his mouth over the other one, he bit hard, eliciting a gasp from her.

He took her to the ground, dropping to one knee so he had her trapped between the one raised leg and the knee pressed to the grass. When she tried to rise and touch him, he seized her wrists and wrapped them in her stocking from elbow to wrists, knotting it between her clenched fingers. He pushed her arms over her head so he could thrust the fingers of his other hand into her cunt to tease her. She was soaked at his fierce possession, and he swore as she widened her trembling legs, opening to him. She understood in a way he didn't that something terrifying was roaring through him, something that could only be relieved by pummeling into her, a receptacle for all his sins. She would gladly take them.

He stripped off his jeans and shirt, becoming a pale, naked animal like herself in the moonlight. Some of Carl's blood stained his neck at the collarbone. Another smudge over his pectoral showed that some had gotten down the shirt. Her pussy clenched, anticipating, but she should have known his anger was not assuaged. He straddled her head, thrust himself deep into her mouth. He braced himself with one hand on her wrists so she had no way of controlling his thrusts.

When he pushed deep against her gag reflex, she had to quickly relax her throat muscles to accommodate him. She'd chosen to put her mouth on him before, but never had she serviced him like this, and it was clear why he intended her to do so now. What wasn't so clear to her was her gushing response to the brutal taking, but nothing had to be rationalized. They were more animal than human or vampire at the moment, obeying some primal need to validate, bond. It was a war of Dominance and submission where she'd given him the reins, so effectively she didn't know if she'd really offered or he'd simply taken them.

Her pussy was wet, ready. She growled against him, scoring him with her fangs even as she licked, suckled, swirled her tongue over him to taste his salt. As she writhed, he reached back and gave her clit some light swats that made her buck up to his touch, mewl with need against him.

“Suck me well, my lady. I may come in your mouth, make you swallow every drop of me to earn the pleasure of being fucked.”

Her cunt convulsed at the thought, and there was a savage part of her that wanted to fight him, wanted to rebel. But when she tried to lift her arms he shoved them back down, gave her a glaring, almost mean look that told her he would fight her if she crossed him. It only made the edge of her desire that much sharper. She didn't know if he was doing this to shred the edges of his soul or use it as fire to cauterize the wound the evening's events might have caused. She let go of the desire to care because she just needed him, the bloodlust and physical lust working so strongly together they were unable to be contained in her body. She was far past the bright edge of climax, on the knife edge of something far more powerful that might shatter them both.

His cock was pulsing in her mouth, his fingers clutching spasmodically on her arms, telling her he was close. She tried to push the issue by increasing the force of her suction, bringing her fangs into play to pierce his skin, just enough to make it difficult for him to pull out without pain, an effective cage as she worked against his length with her tongue.

He thrust his fingers into the corners of her mouth, his thumbs pressing on either side of her throat to hold her as he wrenched open her jaw and withdrew. Faint rivulets of his own blood marked him, his size only increased by the challenge. His thickness was extraordinary, even for him, though she knew that life-and-death situations often had such an effect on men.

Lifting her legs, he folded his own under him and tilted her hips up onto his lap. Straightening both of her legs against one of his broad shoulders, he banded his arm over them so they were held together. Lowering her with the power of that single arm, he guided his cock into her ass, bringing her down on it with ruthless determination, penetrating the area she'd never allowed him to penetrate except the night with Gideon. Even lubricated by her saliva and the juices of her pussy that had flowed into that area, he was a great deal to take, particularly in this state. She gasped at the invasion, the bruising fullness of him, a sound of distress in her throat. But desire was there, too, as her pussy spasmed, jealous of that channel, wanting him inside in a different place.

He spoke through clenched teeth, seating her on him even further. “No, my lady. It's your ass I'll fuck tonight, reminding you that you're my Mistress. Mine alone.”

The darkness made his eyes almost black, his face sharply etched. He began to rock her up and down on his length, abrading her sensitive tissues. She'd be aware of his presence there for days to come, healing powers notwithstanding. She'd shudder from desire at the mere memory, even as the pain kept her focused on the message he wanted her to understand. He'd killed for her. Served her. He was hers. Somehow he'd committed to that so deeply with this night's actions that it had all become a wall of mirrors. She was as much his as he was hers.

“Tell me I'm hurting you and you love it, that you want me to make you come.”

She arched her throat, her body undulating, a simultaneous struggle and yet involuntary response at once.

“You'll say the words. Call me what you never called him. Tonight…at least…I'll know it's true.”

She trembled, shaking her head, fighting that even as her pussy convulsed. Despite the pain in her ass at the thrusting of his large cock, she was being provoked by his words toward the goal he was fiercely determined to achieve.

“I'll never stop serving you, my lady. But you'll give me this truth.” He put his hand down and found her clit with his thumb, sliding all four other fingers into her.

She screamed, and still his devilish knowledge kept the climax out of her reach. Telling her he held everything at this moment.

“Please…please…Let me…”

“Say it, or you won't. I won't let you until you say it.”

He was human.
Human.
Yet he had done what no man or vampire had ever done for her. Not just tonight, but in so many other ways.

“I can't…”

“You can.” He was ruthless, as ruthless as she'd ever thought of being. He pinched her clit so briefly, but it sent a spasm as strong as an orgasm rocketing through her. “Say it, and goddamn it, you'll look at me when you do.”

She opened her eyes, met his furious ones. The hard jaw, his hair falling wild about his shoulders, his broad chest and shoulders dominating her vision. Looming over her against a cloudy sky now devoid of stars, a sky showing only the smoky hint of the yellow moon. Her trembling legs pressed against his shoulder. The guttural sounds coming from her lips and his harsh breath were the only sounds in the night as he increased his thrusts in her ass, taking a full measure of satisfaction there while he held hers out of reach with those immobile fingers.

“Master.” It was a bare whisper on her lips, torn from a place deep inside her, a place she'd locked away from Rex and everyone else. She'd never trusted anyone enough to hand them her soul.

He closed his eyes then, an emotion passing over his expression so strong it closed her throat, made her almost unable to speak. But she did, even as she clutched him with her internal muscles in a way that brought his eyes back open. “Master,” she repeated. “Let me come for you. Serve you well, as you've served me. Always.”

With a look that contained both fierce triumph and utter despair, he worked his thumb against her, began to thrust with his fingers.

It hit her like a tidal wave rising undetected by radar directly offshore until too late, striking her hard in her midsection and spreading out from there. Tremors of earthquakes shimmered through her, intensified when he came inside her at the same time, thrusting up into her so roughly she was sure he tore her delicate opening, but she didn't care. She would heal physically in moments, while the rift in her defenses he'd created would remain that way forever. From here forward, she'd only have him to stand between that opening and the rest of the world. The conqueror and invader would serve as her defender and protector.

As he always had.

T
HEY
would travel to Miami to pick up their charter plane to get to the Council Gathering in South America. While they could have flown the entire distance, vampires hated to fly. He didn't know if it was the similarity to a large coffin, or the fact they were separated from the earth, but Jacob made arrangements for Mr. Ingram to drive them to southern Florida.

They left during daylight hours, so the limo with its darkened rear windows had been pulled up to the door and Lyssa had ducked into it, using a cape to go from the house to the car. Bran had stood at the gate, watching them leave. He'd chased them down the drive but reluctantly obeyed Lyssa's compulsion to stay as the gate closed.

As they pulled out, she turned and watched the dog out the back window, laying her hand on the glass as if she were touching his furry face and the faces of the other siblings who came to join him. Jacob reached out and covered her other hand with his, squeezing with reassurance. In truth though, her sudden apprehension worried him.

We've prepared as much as we can, my lady. We're ready. It will be all right.

She gave him that absent smile that told him he didn't know what the hell he was talking about, not having ever been to a Council Gathering. He couldn't argue with her on that, of course. They'd be spending three days among over two hundred of the most powerful vampires in the world. Overlords and Region Masters most of them, though there were others, like Lord Brian, invited because of their status. The political positioning and volleys would be fierce. Among a host of other vital issues, she had to convince the Council to grant permanent residency status to her fugitives and get through the meeting without raising any suspicions about her health.

With such somber thoughts on her shoulders, it didn't seem possible to offer anything that could draw her mind away from it. So he rummaged in his knapsack and withdrew a small box. “Travel chess or 101 Games You Can Play on the Road?”

You're incorrigible.

But he did win another small smile.

She of course slept during the full daylight hours, waking late afternoon. They kept the screen between driver and passengers open and conversed as any travelers would. With her dry wit, Lyssa even got Mr. Ingram to laugh about the tragic foibles of his son. They listened to him talk proudly about how John had become his class's top speller and was making friends in the school he'd transferred to when he moved in with his grandfather. Ingram blamed Jacob for causing a business tax crisis in his house with Whiskers' propensity for shredding anything paper. Then he and Jacob exchanged ideas on home improvement when he mentioned he was building a workshop at his small house.

At dark Lyssa had them stop at a closed produce stand and take several oranges. She gave Jacob a hundred-dollar bill to leave tucked under the chicken wire with a note of thanks.

When they passed a group of bikers that included a large woman riding behind her boyfriend in only a thong and a leather fringe jacket, Jacob reminded Lyssa she still hadn't allowed him to order her some appropriate biker wear. He won a narrow glance and a death threat that made him grin and Elijah laugh.

Jacob reflected there was something quietly stirring about traveling on the highway with only the lights of other late-traveling motorists strobing across the paleness of her face, outlining the curves of her body and then plunging her into darkness again. She didn't say much, seeming to prefer to listen to them talk. The men both picked up on that, occasionally soliciting a comment from her out of politeness, but knowing she would speak if she desired to do so.

At length she curled up on the seat again, pillowing her head on Jacob's thigh. When she tucked her fingers beneath the column of it, he laid a hand naturally along her side, fingers on her hip.

It had been two and a half weeks since her annual kill. Her strength and vitality seemed to have improved with no further episodes, but in the last week he'd noticed her doing this, not only sleeping during daylight hours but taking a one-or two-hour nap in the middle of her “day.” She'd explained she wanted to make sure she was as rested as possible for the grueling hours of the Council, but he knew the real reason. She was anticipating weakening again.

Like a terminal patient who'd waited too long to seek treatment so that the treatment was not as effective, the annual kill and third mark were not likely to carry her as far as they would have if she'd acquired them six months ago instead of a handful of weeks. He should have listened to Thomas, come to her side sooner.

Do not worry about what cannot be changed, Jacob. And the annual kill
has
helped a great deal. I am just conserving the energy it has given me. Never fear.

The brutal images of that night still haunted him. The way Carl Ronin had struggled against his hold, his eyes white. When he realized he had no chance of escape, the fear of death was in his eyes. With his prescience, Jacob could feel every nuance and change in the man's emotions like a roar in his head. The desire to live was the strongest of man's emotions, a primal instinct that rose to the fore-front when it was challenged. It made Jacob wonder about the knight…him, when he was the knight. Had the internal screams of men dying around him been louder than the outer din of an army in full-pitched battle? He was glad not to have that memory.

He'd gone to church, lit a candle for Ronin, asked his forgiveness and then put it aside to take care of his lady. There'd been too many details he was handling on her behalf now, too many loose ends he was tying up for her. She needed his focus, and she'd have it. Time was too short for anything else.

As he raised his eyes to the mirror, he met Mr. Ingram's gaze and knew that the driver was as cognizant as he was of the significance of her nap. “You know,” Elijah said after a bit, “my mother died of cancer. Some people, you just can't figure it, because they don't deserve that. They just don't deserve it.”

That was nothing but the simple truth, though Jacob appreciated what it took for Mr. Ingram to say it. He knew the man still viewed Lyssa as something of a creature of darkness. He could hardly argue with that.

The men maintained a companionable silence for the next hour, letting her nap undisturbed. When she woke, she fished about and found one of the oranges. As she began to peel it, she kept her bare feet tucked under Jacob's thigh, her gaze considering him beneath her lashes as if she was still drowsy. Elijah began a discussion with Jacob on which nailer was best for laying a hardwood floor.

He answered, keeping his eyes on her, sensing the shift in her mood. Her fingers coaxed the skin from the flesh of the orange, her knuckles getting moist from the abundant juice of the homegrown fruit. Her hair was in a twist over one shoulder, the edge brushing the top of her thigh, outlined by the way her skirt lay upon it. Her toes curled, pressing into his thigh muscle. Moving his hand to her ankle, he stroked the delicate bones there.

When she raised a slice, she leaned forward, apparently wanting to feed him. As she caressed his lips, her fingers grew moist with his saliva as well as the juice of the fruit. He couldn't resist a nip that caught a finger. As he drew it deep in his mouth to suckle it, her eyes glowed like a cat's at him through the darkness.

“So, Mr. Ingram, why does it make a difference what kind of nailer you use to put down hardwood floors?” She said it with a smile in her voice, but she had an entirely different expression as she extended the next slice of orange to Jacob.

Take it from my fingers. I want to feel your mouth again. Did you know some vampires don't allow their servants to eat or drink except from their Master or Mistress's hand? Ever. To underscore their bond.

He met her gaze in the shadowed gloom of the backseat. That focused intensity she was so good at projecting washed over him with the same arousing effect of feeling a gush of warm, wet response between her legs spill over his fingers.

Do you think I need a reminder?

No. But I like making you dependent on my will.

He considered that. She'd worked one foot even deeper beneath his thigh, and the movement of her toes teased the flat base of his testicles constricted in his jeans.

It's a long trip, my lady.

It is at that. How long do you think you can stay hard for me?

When do I ever stop?

Though her mouth curved, she continued her peeling. Offered another slice. This time after he took it, he captured her wrist in his hand, held her there. They stared at each other in the darkness. Slowly, he moved his mouth to her palm, feeling her nails curve in, the points pressing against his eyelid and the soft, vulnerable tear duct as he suckled her pulse, let his thumb stroke the same territory, the network of highly sensitive nerve endings he knew were there.

He'd tried not to make the first move, but this maddening proximity to her was more than he could resist. Since that explosive coming together after Carl, she'd been withdrawn. The intensity of that night had been far over the top of what he'd ever been with a woman, and he'd realized it had broken new ground for his lady as well. When they next came together it would be there, this different level between them, and she apparently hadn't been ready to face that.

She'd kept him busy with preparations and the handling of her day-to-day affairs. That level of activity was all that kept the hunger for her at bay. He'd had the overwhelming desire several times to assuage it in the quiet darkness of his own room, usually in a half sleep when his hand moved to himself without conscious thought, dreaming of her body, her touch.

Oddly, it was worse when he was away from home. She'd sent him on a couple of out-of-town trips, for he was now accepted as her agent, her assistant to the highest level, and not just to the perception of her vampires. She trusted his judgment without requiring her consultation on most things, simply allowing his voice to become her own.

Now, with her pulse pounding beneath his hand, he wouldn't deny the savage need anymore unless she refused him. Fortunately, he sensed she was ready to embrace it as well, whatever form it would take between them.

I'm curious, Sir Vagabond. Did you…assuage often?

My mind is open to you, my lady. You know all.

He felt her there like her hair or lips, brushing him in light, provocative touches.

You didn't.

No, he hadn't. He'd pulled his hand away from himself, chosen a cold shower when he'd needed it.
You seem surprised.

You've never demonstrated such…a submissive characteristic before. Waiting for your Mistress's permission.

It was that. But it was more than that.
I wanted only you, my lady. After experiencing the wet, hot silk of your pussy, my cock finds my rough hand a woeful substitute.

“I do not find your hand that way at all.” Lifting it, she pressed her face into his touch. Her left eye, most of her nose and half her lips disappeared behind the cover of his palm and fingertips.

He noticed then the screen was up, likely raised by a compulsion she had sent Mr. Ingram or just the man's perceptiveness.

“When our flight lands, it will be daylight and I'll sleep on the plane. But when we rise at sunset, I have to meet with the Council first thing. Without servants present.” She cocked her head. “The Council and several other high-ranking vampires meet on the first night to discuss issues of more confidential concern to our kind. It's a courtesy, mostly an overview of the things we'll hear over the next three days and those things we won't, but will manifest themselves.” A slight smile touched her lips. “A briefing, if you will.”

“I remember, my lady.”

He moved his touch to her calf, his fingers teasing under the hem of the skirt, finding her knee. Her gaze held his steadily, but he noted her lips parted at the provocative touch.

“When you go to our rooms to get us settled,” she said, her voice throaty, “you will…assuage your need. I want to see you in my mind with your hand on your cock, stroking yourself to release.”

Enough was enough. He was only human, after all. Ignoring her breathless laughter in his mind, he reached out and dragged her across the seat to him, clamping down on her mouth with his own. He knew that was what she wanted, though he didn't know if it was his psychic intuition, their mind link or just the bond between the two of them.

Soul mates
. Those disturbing words again, planted by Thomas. He didn't know if it was true, but he couldn't deny it seemed like he knew her mind better than his own. Raising his head, he met her gaze. “My lady…”

“Sssh. Give me what I need, Jacob. It is just us here. Soon I shall have to be very different, very cold. I'll have to remind you that you belong to me in ways that are not comfortable to you. It is our way. But for now, take my woman's heart. Hold it for me so I'll be able to find it again after this is all over.”

Dropping his hand to her waist, he curled his fingers under her shirt, felt the soft skin stretched over the smooth valleys between her ribs. Moving up to the satin of her bra cups, he brushed them with his thumbs. When he took the shirt over her head, he watched the way her clipped-back hair formed a twisting spiral as it funneled through the neckline and then fell back to her shoulder, down her now mostly bare back. Spanning her skin with his large hands, the tan skin against the pale unblemished, he put his lips on the top of one curve, his jaw brushing her.

Her breath held, her teeth biting down on her lips as a distracted smile of pleasure curved them. Her fingers rested on his shoulders. For once they didn't dig in, just held as if she were seeking an emotional anchor. Her skin was so sensitized that if he teased one small part of her with tiny touches of tongue and lip, he knew her body would begin to quiver, like ripples in a lake that expanded and became a wake on a shore from that one minute disturbance.