The Mark of the Vampire Queen (23 page)

She realized when the same thought reflected back into her that she'd again let him see into her mind, had opened herself so he knew how aroused she was.

Are you where you can touch yourself, my lady?

No.

A pity.
His thought was as ragged as she imagined his voice would be, and then she realized she could hear him so vibrantly because he
was
speaking, just as she'd requested. His hoarse voice echoed in the shower against the rush of the water. “I would have enjoyed feeling you come in my mind. Knowing you responded to me even as far away as you are. That with…one…soft…whisper…I could compel you to…come. Only by thinking…of fucking you.”

Come for me, Jacob.
She said it desperately, before he could do it to her. He was close, and she was flushed at the shuddering feel of him, goading the pre-orgasmic state of her body. He'd waited for her command to climax. Did he do it because he knew it spurred her own response exponentially, to the point she almost didn't care if she brought herself to climax in this company? Or because it was
his
“dichotomous” nature to serve her like this, the perfect submissive, even as he drove her to distraction with his stubborn willfulness and aroused her past the point of good sense with his physical and emotional alpha tendencies?

His hand curled into a fist high on the wall as he began to come, his lower body bucking hard, the way a man moved when not worried about exercising too much force on his more delicate partner. He'd never held back much with her, knowing her strength, but she knew he did hold back some, always testing her lead to make sure it was not too much, waiting until she spurred him with fangs or nails.

His head bowed down, a grunt of exertion coming from him as he pistoned into his hand. The milky fluid shot against the shower wall in front of him, ran down the tile. It felt as if it had jetted into her, her cunt convulsing sharply, once, twice, ready at the squeeze of her thighs to take it to completion. She wouldn't, couldn't…

No, my lady.
An urgent clip to his thoughts, even as he physically gasped for air.
You can't. You are a screamer, you know.

The sharp edge of regret was in the humorous thought that steadied her enough to pull her back from the dangerous ledge. When she surfaced from her erotic fog, he was leaning against the shower wall, breathing hard, his hand still holding himself. In her mind she rubbed her face against his knuckles there, smelled him. Shared that visual with him.

Go out among the others now, Jacob. Think of me and know no shame. Your body is my possession and I want to show it off, let others feel envy at what I possess.

Coveting is a sin, my lady.

So was gluttony. But apparently she never got enough when it came to her young servant.

It's the older woman, younger man thing. Midlife crisis. They've made movies about it…

I'm going to find a cock harness and leash and make you wear them for the next three days, tugging you behind me like a poodle.

She'd turned his mind back to the challenge of exposing himself to others but, as she'd hoped, he was feeling less anxious about it. When the muscles in her stomach loosened at the sound of his laughter, she realized he'd managed to relax her, too. Perhaps he'd known she needed it as much as he had. Like the quick action to pull her back from embarrassing herself, it reminded her that no matter what, he never forgot his duty to her.

Never forgot his duty…his honor…loyalty.

The thought disturbed her. An unexpected anxiety clutched her low in her stomach, dissipating the lingering desire. When cold fingers walked across her spine, it tripped a physical wave of panic for Jacob's well-being. As she forced down the overwhelming urge to get up, leave the table, go and find him, protect him, a vision filled her mind. Taking over her senses, it blinded her to anything else as if she'd been picked up and dropped into another world.

Blood and sacrifice. Jacob on a…table…a cry of agony. An explosion…

The premonition was gone so abruptly she started, earning a quick glance from Belizar. When she steeled her expression to impassivity, he continued without pause. Inside, her thoughts scrambled like an animal in a trap.

She'd dreamed of her stepfather's death a week before it happened.

She'd dreamed she would lose her samurai guard…two days before it occurred.

She'd had one evening with her knight. Three days later, the news came to her that her nightmare of his death had been reality.

While she hadn't dreamed of Rex's death, perhaps that was because she'd killed him herself.

She told herself Jacob was fine. Near her. Within range of her thoughts. Reaching out, she found him without alerting him to her presence. He was in a courtyard, moving toward the side of the castle where the entertainments were taking place. Finely, beautifully naked, moving with lithe grace, his head up, every inch the servant of a vampire queen. He projected it so well that most of the vampires, while stopping for a second or third lingering look, didn't break the boundary of dignified reserve around him.

God, he is a treasure. My treasure. Please let no harm come to him.

He was fine. He was going to be fine. For Heaven's sake, when she died, he would die, so why should she be panicking over a vision of his death?

The night he'd killed Carl Ronin, he'd slowed the car down by a church. He'd studied the smooth sculpture of the Son of God, mounted on a pedestal to the right of the front double doors. The Virgin Mary had been on the left, her face wreathed in sorrow.

“It doesn't have anything to do with holy water or being burned by crosses, does it?” he said quietly. “Why vampires don't go into churches.”

“No, it doesn't.”

She'd wanted to take his hand, suffering for him, but knew there was nothing she could say for this, no comfort she could offer. She wondered if there was any comfort for the fear she now nursed in her breast, that something might be conspiring to take Jacob away from her. It had to be the disease, playing games with her mind. For the first time, the idea of a recurrence was reassuring. Nevertheless, she kept a part of her mind open to his movements and whereabouts even as she tuned back in to the meeting.

“Lady Lyssa, you indicated you had an important item for the Council's deliberation. You have the floor.”

“My lords, my ladies.” Her voice was imperious and strong as she rose. From their attentive and respectful expressions she was satisfied she hadn't cast any suspicions that she'd been dallying in areas far from this Council room. It
was
the disease, damn it. She shut the door firmly between her mind and Jacob's.

“I want to address the issue of permanent asylum for the fugitives in my territory.”

H
ERE
he was, in a resort full of vampires, with no weapons. Not even clothes. Gideon would be laughing his ass off.

But as he remembered her words, her touch on his body and his mind, Jacob's back straightened, his head lifting. He was Lady Lyssa's human servant. The man granted the right to touch her, feed her. Given access to her heart, sometimes even her soul. And she wanted him seen.

This was her world, and to be everything she needed, he had to be a part of it fully.

It had been easy enough to find the resort area. It was on the southeast side of the palace where a huge lawn was sculpted with elaborate hedge gardens and open spaces for a variety of games. The panoramic ocean was the backdrop to a spectacular view of the surreal and fantastic. It was an Escher painting come to life in vivid color. A verandah of alabaster white railings and columns overlooked it all, following the line of this side of the castle. There were two exit points, marble staircases that made matching crescent shapes to the bottom, inviting guests into the gardens and play areas.

It appeared that over a hundred vampires of various ranks were there, sipping drinks and lounging at chairs and tables on the verandah, socializing and watching the entertainments going on below.

Before he could follow their gazes, the smell of burning flesh and a strangled cry drew his attention toward a pavilion at the base of the closest set of stairs. While a servant knelt at his Master's feet, another man, apparently a blacksmith, applied a brand to the servant's buttocks. When he removed the iron, the vampire considered the mark, amused as it began to fade. Except for the bitten back cry, the servant was motionless, awaiting his master's bidding.

Because of Lyssa, Jacob had gotten in the habit of assuming all vampire-servant pairings were opposite gender, but he realized quite obviously it would vary depending on the sexual preference of the vampire.

“A fun diversion,” the vampire said. “Perhaps we will come back later and do other body parts if you do not please me.”

There was no fear in the servant's expression as he rose and followed his Master, telling Jacob the man enjoyed suffering such pain at his Master's demand. Or that he'd learned to mask fear well.

No. His intuition had been deepened by his third mark connection with Lyssa, and he'd been able to sense the absence of fear in the submissive male. Plus, as he'd seen vividly with Melinda, a servant didn't last long in the service of his Mistress or Master if there was not some bond of trust between vampire and servant.

He found himself lingering over the memory of how the vampire had looked at the mark, bent to pass his fingers over it. The emotional tremor of the servant's body at the touch, the unguarded response in the vampire's eyes when he wasn't affecting the amused boredom.

When a hand brushed the bare skin over his ribs, Jacob managed to turn toward the touch with an expression of mild indifference, rather than jumping back like a cat in a room full of way too many fanged rocking chairs.

Seanna gave him a thorough look. Her Master, Lord Richard of the Alabama territory, was apparently pleased to have her garbed in a creation of black straps that left her breasts bare. The straps crisscrossed, lifting and binding the generous mounds. Her nipples were captured in silver clamps connected by a decorative chain. While the skirt of studded straps she wore fell below her knees, the straps parted when she moved, showing her shaved mound and generous ass. Since she wore the fetish wear as if she bore the trappings of an Amazon queen, Jacob couldn't deny the outfit looked damn good on her. Enough to cause an embarrassing stirring of his cock.

“Irishman.”

“Seanna.”

A smile curved her lush mouth. “So formal. Last time it was much more affectionate. ‘Arrogant bitch,' wasn't it?”

The teasing light in her eyes dissipated the anxiety he expected at having to deal with her. Seanna was emanating the respect of a peer, underscoring that he'd won his spurs as Lyssa's servant. Since she had connections with the servants of many other high-ranking vampires, he knew that was a good thing, even as he maintained a healthy wariness.

“You made it difficult for me to walk that next morning,” she accused him with mock gravity.

“I'm sorry if I hurt you,” he said, seeking something safe to say. Her brows rose.

“It was all a pleasure, Irishman. A pleasure I'd be happy to repeat with you if you're otherwise unengaged while waiting for your Mistress. We could go to the statuary gardens, become some of the live entertainment.”

She nodded in the direction of the hedge gardens, where the attention of most of the vampires on the verandah appeared to be resting. However, since an inordinate number of them now seemed to be studying him, he let Seanna take his hand and coax him down the stairs. As they got to the base and passed the blacksmith's pavilion, he realized what he'd thought were more statues in the hedge gardens were living humans.

When Seanna strolled toward them, he saw they had been placed in poses in the midst of circles of flowers and elegantly landscaped shrubs and ordered to remain motionless. One woman bent over, holding her ankles, her hair brushing the ground. Nine blond locks had been tied in knots and staked out in a fan shape on the ground with decorative wrought-iron wickets. A man stood behind her buried to the ball sac, his hands gripping her hips, his head back as if in the throes of climax. Both were slightly quivering, showing the tension of holding such a provocative pose.

“She'll come before long,” Seanna confided. “See? Her Master has put a clitoral stimulator on her so she can't stop milking that slave with her pussy muscles. When she comes, her Master will punish her for everyone's enjoyment.”

“And if he comes first?”

“Then the male servant will have the honor of the punishment.” Seanna linked her arm in his, her hand whispering along his biceps as she guided him past the two. The same heightened senses which allowed him to detect emotions also brought him the smell of the girl's arousal. As they passed the copulating pair, Jacob could see the stretched pink lips of her pussy, the deep red flush of her nipples. Because he had no control of his cock, which had a mind of its own about such stimuli, he tried to ignore Seanna's appreciative gaze at it through her lashes.

It was only going to get worse, for the garden was full of such sights. Not all vampires were on the verandah. Many wandered through the gardens just as they did, glasses of wine or other chosen drinks in hand as they gazed at the posings and commented on them. Seanna used the pressure of her hand to guide Jacob off the path as a group of six vampires came toward them.

“Eyes down,” she whispered.

Though it made him want to grind his teeth, he did it, because he knew the etiquette at this conference was even more stringent than when entertaining Lyssa's guests in her home. There was no purpose to insulting vampires Lyssa might need to secure the fate of her territory.

“That servant of Lord Richard has a pair of superior tits,” one of the male vampires observed as they strolled past. “I'll have to see if he would be willing to let me borrow her and grease them up. It's been a while since I've had a nice titty fuck.”

“Lawrence, you're such a crude thing,” the woman chuckled. “Your alley street upbringing is showing.”

“Shouldn't be a problem getting Lord Richard's permission,” the other man with them put in. “He likes to watch almost more than he likes to fuck.”

“Not me,” the woman purred. “Why, Rodney, that's Lady Lyssa's new pet. Now he
does
look irresistibly fuckable, just as Lady Carola said. Look at the size of that cock.”

Seanna's nails dug into his arm as the woman stepped to the edge of the sidewalk and gripped his privates as casually as she might have handled some of the landscaping to determine its origin.

“I could take him to the grass right here, ride him until he begged for mercy.”

If she didn't take her hand off him, she was going to be the one begging for mercy. She had disturbingly clever fingers, however. Rubbing up and down his shaft, massaging the skin over the hard core.

“Ah, he likes that.”

“Remember, Marta, he's not wearing a head mask. He can be briefly touched, but not taken. You'd need her permission for that.”

Her hand withdrew reluctantly. “Idiot Council rules,” she muttered under her breath. “What does it matter if I fuck him now and she fucks him later? His dick will still be the same.”

“He's her property, dear Marta.” This from the taller man, drawing her away. “That has nothing to do with the Council. I wouldn't suggest irritating Lady Lyssa for no cause.”

Seanna loosened her fingers on Jacob's arm as they moved off, and gently reached down to pry open one clenched fist. “Easy, Jacob. That was pretty tame for this group.”

Jacob nodded, a muscle flexing in his jaw. He could do this. He had to do this. Even so, instinctively he moved to Seanna's outside as they passed another group. She chuckled.

“Chickenshit. Just enjoy the feel of it,” she said under her breath, smiling and giving a slight bow, a sweep of her lashes, as she passed a pair of vampire males. They gave her breasts a passing caress, one briefly catching hold of a strap of her skirt and letting it flow between his fingers to give them both an unencumbered view of her ass. She stopped, waiting, and when they released her, she kept walking.

Since he knew getting out of here as fast as he could wasn't an option, Jacob tried to tune in to what she was saying, knowing she was trying to help, to distract him. He wasn't proud. He'd try anything that might keep him from bolting.

“There are rules. Only brief touches and looks. Maybe five seconds at most, unless you're one of the servants marked as anyone's. One of the domestics, or those chosen as entertainment. As you probably know, those are most often servants of lower-ranked vampires. However, sometimes it's servants who are younger, newer, whose Masters and Mistresses want them to undergo more intense training at being a submissive. Sometimes it's a veteran servant being punished for a transgression. That's always fun to watch because the vamps are more outrageous with them. Those servants have a letter A painted on the forehead of their masks.”

He moved on with her to another garden pose. This one involved five people in a chain of intertwined arms and legs. The first man bent over, his mouth pressed to the pussy of the woman lying on her back, legs up and spread. He had her lifted so the curve of her body and his formed a triangle. Behind the man, a woman with a strap-on had her hands braced on his back as she was embedded in him. Behind her, another man was buried in her pussy. A final man straddled the first girl's head, his cock filling her mouth as he reached up and kissed the woman who was fucking the man going down on her. The landscaped circle in which they were posed had an interior circle of rocks from which hidden fountains jetted arced streams of water, moistening their skin. Colored light worked with it to form patterns on their flesh.

“Astounding, isn't it?” Seanna observed. “Each year, one set of territories is responsible for arranging the artistic entertainment for the Gathering. I think they've outdone themselves. This year the Latin American territories were responsible.” She pressed her hand to her breast and fanned herself, winning a reluctant smile from Jacob despite himself. “Oh, my God. That hot Latin blood and imagination.”

“So for most of the vampires, this isn't a business get-together.”

“Oh, never think that. This is extremely serious. Yes, the main point of being here is to pay honor to the Council. The ‘real' business is done on the third night, after the Ball. What they call the ‘Court' session, where disputes and political matters are discussed.” She sobered. “But the whole three days are highly ritualized. Everything, from Lady Lyssa choosing a partner for the first dance at the Vampire Ball, to strolling in this garden…” She bowed her head as they passed another vampire pair and squeezed Jacob's arm to remind him to do the same as they passed. He was glad to keep moving even as he complied.

“The Ball choice is just a formality.”

She gave him a glance. “Formality has great significance to the vampires. During the time she was married, she always chose Rex, except when she was paying honor to a certain vampire's contribution for that year, a platonic honor. But the year she married Rex, he was the one she chose, and it was significant exactly for that reason. Since she's no longer married, there's speculation that who she chooses this time might be her next consort, if not a marriage partner. Of course, she might choose Brian for his scientific work.”

Lyssa had told him it likely would be Brian for just that reason.

“Is he here?”

“Yes. I saw Debra briefly. She's even skinnier than when we last saw her, and far more intense looking. Her face is going to crack if she keeps holding that serious expression all the time.” Seanna's voice dropped as if sharing juicy gossip with a girlfriend, amusing Jacob. “Another rumor going around is he's made some remarkable finds he'll be presenting at Court. He's set up a temporary lab here to finalize some of his notes.”

“Did he say what about?”

“No. Not even a hint.” Her lush lips formed a very distracting pout. “I don't think he intended to let Debra out of his lab to have any fun, but Lord Belizar put an end to that. He made Lord Brian put her into the pool of servants available for entertainment. They're one step above those being used for domestic help, but Brian is too low ranked to get away with keeping her by his side the whole time.”

Jacob thought of Debra subjected to the humiliations of the female servants in the corridor and rage flooded him. “She's not seasoned enough for this. That dinner was her first experience in this kind of thing. And this is…” He let his gaze course over the garden. “You'd have to do this for at least ten years before you could face it without sweaty palms.”