The Mark of the Vampire Queen (3 page)

The impact of him leaving hit her on several levels, surprisingly intense. “What did you mean, you would die here?” She sat up, pushing her hair out of her face.

He shook his head, a slight smile crossing his face. Coming to kneel by her, he put a hand to her brow, her cheek. “You take care of yourself, my lady. I would suffer much to know any harm had befallen you.”

“You could stay and see to that yourself.”

She hadn't intended to say such a thing, but she knew suddenly, fiercely, it was what she wanted. What she would command. He was not going to leave her. If he tried, she would compel him to stay.

He shook his head again, a look of regret there. “My heart wants to stay more than anything. Nay, even down to my soul.” A look of wonder crossed his face at the startling realization of it, a mirror of her own amazement, she was sure. “To protect you. To lie with you. To find out what makes you laugh.” He reached out again to trace her lips, putting some slight pressure on one corner as if to make her smile. Miraculously he was successful, even as she swatted his touch away. Catching her hand, he lifted it to his lips. “But I made a promise, my lady. I promised a friend I would come to his aid, help with this battle he prepares to wage. No matter how senseless I believe it to be.”

But you are mine. Sworn to my service.
Where such a preposterous thought came from, she didn't know, but it baffled her. What made no sense had a tendency to irritate her. “Very well.” She withdrew her hand from his touch. “Go play your silly war games. I certainly do not need to beg a man to stay with me.”

It wasn't so much the stinging of her ego that hurt as what she saw moving in his eyes. She wanted to lash out at it. She had many commitments, much to do, but he'd fallen into her lap overnight, a treasure she sensed was beyond measure. One that wouldn't come again, perhaps for a very long time. Perhaps never. She wanted to squelch the absurd romance of such a thought. “Are you still here? Go and serve your foolish honor.” She curled away from him, turning her face into the pillows.

“If I've offended you, my lady, it wasn't my intention.” She was startled when his lips touched her rigid shoulder, lingered as she lay there stiffly. He even arranged the sheet back over her body before he rose. She heard him rise and move away toward the opening of her tent, a tent that, without windows, had seemed a sanctuary from the whole world for the past few hours.

With her speed she was able to wrap the sheet around her upper torso and make it to the opening of the tent before he took more than one stride outside of it. She reached past the flap and caught his arm.

The dawn sun struck her shoulder and the length of her arm. The full strength of it hit the top of her hand, but she held on as he turned, something much worse than the sun's light searing her inside. “Sir Knight,” she said, “take care of yourself as well. If…if you can come to me at another time, I would be pleased to see your face.”

“I doubt it will be in this lifetime,” he said, real regret in his voice. With an oath, he abruptly surged forward, crowding her back into the safety of the tent. “By the Blood of the Cross, woman. I no more than tell you to take care of yourself…” He cradled the scorched hand in his, his gaze covering the lesser burns on her arm, but she impatiently grasped the collar of his mail with the other hand.

“Why not this lifetime? Why are you so sure you will die?”

He pulled his attention from the damage and looked at her in that intent way that made her want to stand still as if he were touching her with his fingers. “I've dreamed of my death in this campaign, and sometimes I know what will happen.” Now he did touch her, tracing an eyebrow. “I do hope we might meet again, some other place. But no matter what happens, I could not have imagined such a treasured gift for my last day on earth than you. They shall have to send me to Hell, because nothing in Heaven can match you.”

“Your blood is within me,” she said abruptly, desperately. “I'll know where you are, always.”
I'll know when you die.

“I like that idea,” he said, with a thoughtful nod. “Perhaps you'll come visit my dreams in this wasteland one more time or two. Give me a breath of coolness, the green of your eyes.”

He brushed his lips across her hand then, studying the flesh that was starting to heal on her arm. Then his eyes were back on her face, so focused she couldn't think beyond the powerful hold of them. Her lips parted, for some reason tears gathering in her eyes. She, who never cried.

With an oath, he yanked her to him fully for another kiss, holding her as a man would hold a woman he loved, as she'd seen it done but never experienced for herself. She had one blink of time in God and the Devil's universe to savor the feel of his body, his mouth, the brush of his hair, and then he was gone. Out of the tent, striding into the sun-seared world where she could not hold him without turning herself to ash.

She'd never even asked him his name. Three days later, she knew he was dead.

Present Day

L
YSSA
opened her eyes, not surprised to find them wet with tears as she surfaced from her memory of the knight.

Though she had held Thomas in high regard, she wasn't sure she could allow herself to believe as the monk did, that the man who was her current human servant, Jacob, had been part of her over-one-thousand-year-old life span almost from the beginning. But the way Jacob made her feel, so much like that knight, certainly made her wonder…

Regardless, whether the knight had carried Jacob's soul or not, her subconscious welcomed the memories as a way to spend more time with Jacob without revealing her growing need for his company.

If she'd been a different type of woman, she would have seized on them as reassurance that the recent decision she had made—to give Jacob the third mark, essentially a death sentence—was predestined. Jacob himself had tried to comfort her, reminding her he'd insisted she do it. But Lady Elyssa Amaterasu Yamato Wentworth, the last vampire queen of the Far East Clan, did not capitulate to the will of a human. The responsibility was all hers.

Besides which, reassurance and tender comfort weren't what she sought as she moved restlessly in the solitude of her wide bed in the dwindling hours before dusk. She lifted her hand. Though it was very faint, she still had a mark from the day it was burned, reaching out of the tent to hold her knight. Just as the impression of Jacob's bite on her throat from the recent blood exchange of the third mark still remained, when the punctures should have disappeared within less than a day.

The images of the past and present mixed in her mind. Last night, after she'd marked him, Jacob had bathed her in the Jacuzzi tub. She'd used her fingertips to collect the water from his eyes so he could open them. Just the way she'd collected the water from the knight's eyes so he could raise his pale, auburn-tipped lashes. Like Jacob's lashes.

Jacob had asked her several times now what made her change her mind about giving him the third mark. She hadn't told him about Thomas's posthumous letter.

I know the prejudices of your world, certainly. You know I do. But hear me as I tell you that Jacob is the other part of your soul…He will not survive being parted from you again. Let him make his own choice, before you try to make it for him…

If Thomas had been right, Jacob had followed her through time, through her life. Fought to become her full servant, despite what that meant now.

She ached for a way to deserve the devotion Jacob gave her, despite how harshly she often treated him. She couldn't change who she was, but he didn't seem to want her to do so. His alpha nature resisted her dominance even as he was aroused by it. Just thinking of that made a response tighten in her vitals.

He was approaching his thirtieth birthday. Several weeks ago, she'd proceeded to make arrangements for a special gift. She hadn't really examined why she was going to the trouble for a servant she'd had for such a short time. But he'd made many things so much easier for her already, and a wise queen was always generous. Now, the significance of what she'd chosen, something she'd initially considered a jest based on the nickname she'd given him—Sir Vagabond—nearly made her want to call it off. But she wouldn't.

For one thing, she had more pressing concerns. She had to go get him out of jail.

A
S
soon as he was certain Lyssa had retired for the day, Jacob headed out with a list of errands. When he was done, he dropped the Mercedes off at the garage for a transmission repair beyond his skill to do and got a lift downtown from the mechanic. On the way, he called Mr. Ingram. The limo driver Lyssa had hired to periodically drive her around while she was staying at her Atlanta home agreed to swing by the stores to pick up the items he'd purchased and then pick up Jacob in a couple of hours.

She was indifferent to how domestic tasks were performed unless they were done inefficiently. God have mercy on him if that were the case, for her tongue certainly wouldn't. He had to suppress a smile. His Mistress, so aware of everything else, yet so unaware of her royal hauteur. Also unaware—at least for the moment—about this particular self-imposed last errand.

Tomorrow the vampire scientist Lord Brian and his servant Debra would be leaving Atlanta for Tuscaloosa. They'd been waiting for a shipment, the carefully preserved cadaver of the Russian vampire Brian hoped would lead them to myriad developments regarding the only disease known to affect their species. The Delilah virus.

While Lyssa could certainly find out what he was about to do if she looked in the right corner of his mind or asked the right question, Jacob was practicing the useful skill of not focusing on things he didn't want her to know so they didn't catch her eye when she was taking a stroll through his head.

And to hell with it if she found out. He'd rather ask forgiveness instead of permission on this one. His lady had the virus, though the two of them were the only ones who knew it.

By carrying the third mark, he'd willingly accepted the fact that the end of her life would be the end of his. The mark linked their physical flesh irrevocably. Some felt it even linked them spiritually, such that whatever the vampire's destiny in the afterlife, the servant followed. That was the way he wanted it to be, because she wasn't going anywhere without him. Her desire to protect those in her Region and the society she'd helped build was now her primary concern, and he'd sworn to make it his as well. He just didn't mention he was going to have two first priorities, one of them being to see if there was a way to save her life.

Jacob purchased coffee and a couple of donuts to compensate for his late night with his Mistress while waiting outside Debra and Brian's hotel. He didn't have long to wait. Debra headed out around nine o'clock and walked seven blocks to the library, carrying a stack of books. Jacob followed at a distance, wanting to approach her when she was inside the building.

He found her curled up in a comfortable chair in a secluded corner. While an open scientific journal and notebook with scribbled calculations were open on her lap like a security blanket spread across her legs, he was bemused to see she was reading a romance novel. As he took a seat in the chair across from hers, pulling it close enough for a discreet conversation, she closed the paperback, eyeing him warily.

From the color in her cheeks, he was sure she was remembering the dinner party where they'd recently met. Servants provided sexual entertainment for their vampire Masters and Mistresses at such gatherings, so at one point he'd had his hand deep inside of Debra, her pussy clutching his fingers as she screamed out her climax. While Brian, her Master, suckled the taut points of her breasts, Jacob's Mistress had watched it all, drawing in the energy like blood.

Such was a human servant's life. Dry cleaning, home repair, gardening. Arranging a table centerpiece and then replacing that centerpiece to perform as a sex slave in front of dinner guests. All in a day's work.

“Are you doing well?” Seeing the trepidation in her face, his reassuring tone was instinctive.

Some of her apprehension appeared to recede. “Yes. Thank you. I…What are you doing here? Is Lady Lyssa displeased with my Master? Or is there something we may do for her? We leave tomorrow for Alabama, but I'm sure he'll be happy to—”

Jacob shook his head. “I'm not here in an official capacity. I'm here for myself. Servant to servant. I was wondering if you could answer some questions I have.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands loosely between his splayed knees. “I hope I didn't hurt you the other night. I'm new to this, and…”

“I've been Brian's servant for four years,” she admitted, dropping her gaze to worry the corner of the book with a short nail. “That was the first time…I'd heard of it, of course. It's considered standard practice to use human servants for that…but…I was Brian's lab assistant before I became his servant and he…I guess for the most part it's just the two of us and the research. Of course, he has…” The color deepened in her cheeks. “But nothing like that. I guess I'd rationalized it. You know, two lab partners blowing off stress at the end of a long research session, but of course, when it happens, it's nothing like that. I mean, he's utterly brilliant, but when that part of him rises, I mean, the vampire part…”

Now she did flush all the way to her roots. Jacob bit back a grin. Beneath the pretty exterior, she was a stammering science geek. “He becomes something out of…well…” She raised the romance novel. Registering his amusement, she shook her head. “I'm quite the unworldly fool, aren't I? My apologies. I wouldn't usually talk about this, but…well, you're the first servant I've met that's newer to this than me. Most are so sophisticated and calm, they just look at me with this infuriating patronizing pity. Like Liam and Seanna,” she added, referring to the other two servants who had been at the party, servants of Lord Richard and Lady Tara, the Alabama territory overlords. Jacob had been challenged—and commanded—to bring Seanna and Debra to climax at the same time. He'd succeeded, but like Debra it had been his first exercise in sating vampire lust in a group setting.

Taking a deep breath, she laid the book flat on top of the notebook and folded her hands, smiling a little. “Of course I'll be happy to answer your questions, Jacob. Though I doubt I can answer anything that deals with vampire politics. As you can tell, I don't get out of the lab that much.”

“It's your experience in the lab I'm seeking,” he assured her. Taking his own deep breath, albeit a mental one so he didn't betray the urgent need he felt for answers, he met her gaze. “My lady won't tell me much about this Delilah virus, and I want to know more.”

“If she's made a conscious decision to withhold the information from you, it's not my place to offer it.” Debra's direct answer told Jacob she was back on solid ground, but she tempered it with a quick touch on his arm. “Lady Lyssa is very powerful, and her patronage is vital to Brian. I can't do anything to offend her that might risk that.” Her eyes widened in sudden alarm. “Perhaps even this conversation is inappropriate, if she doesn't know you're here. She doesn't, does she?”

“Hear me out. Please.” Jacob quelled the compulsion to try and block her way as she made to rise. While he couldn't appear desperate or overly determined, he wasn't leaving here without answers. “Lady Lyssa finds it amusing, my desire to protect her to the best of my ability. But I do consider that part of my responsibilities. I suppose most of us servants do, no matter how laughable our Masters and Mistresses find the idea.”

That apparently hit a chord with her. She sank back down, her eyes intent behind her wire-framed glasses. At the dinner party, Brian had taken them carefully off her face and set them aside. But after that tender gesture, he'd returned to his chair, demonstrating his ruthless support of Lord Richard's command that she strip in front of the assembled guests and allow Jacob, a total stranger, to intimately fondle her body and bring her to climax before them all.

He'd become part of a strange world. Innocence and dark carnality intertwined like a yin and yang DNA strand, creating an alternate reality with endlessly unpredictable twists and turns.

“I want to know how to protect her blood sources. The more I know about the virus, the more likely it is I can do that, right?” He kept his expression neutral, twisting the truth he had to safeguard. He was treading a very dangerous line. From his conversation with Lyssa last night, he knew if even a hint got out that the queen of the Far East Clan had the disease, all her work to protect her Region could topple. There could be other repercussions as well. Those who opposed the “civilized” structure of the current vampire society could erupt into bloody conflict with those who supported it, viewing her imminent demise as a possibly correct sign that the Council had been severely weakened.

“I give you my word, if Lyssa has any displeasure with our conversation, she'll take it out on my hide.”
In spades.
“Not yours or Lord Brian's. I wouldn't speak to you, not another word, if I thought I was going to jeopardize your lord's standing with her.”

That intent look again, telling him that while he was dealing with a woman with awkward social graces, her IQ was off the charts. “You have an honest face,” she said at last. “Very open. Most servants lose that quickly. You'd do well to do the same. Other vampires pick up cues from the expressions of servants, and they can use that against your Mistress.”

Jacob inclined his head, despite the clutch of worry the admonition created inside him. In the past, his lady had intimated almost the same thing about the ability to read his face. “I'll work on it, believe me. Tell me about the virus. How do I protect my lady from it?”

“I find it hard to believe that Lady Lyssa needs any assistance in protecting herself,” she responded dubiously. She paused, then let out a sigh. “But I'll tell you what I can.”

Taking her advice to heart, Jacob managed not to let out a victory yell of relief. Though he wanted to shout out questions that would tell him how best to help his Mistress's specific symptoms, he held his tongue.

“The Delilah virus gets its name from Samson and Delilah,” Debra explained. “Delilah cutting off Samson's hair, a mortal taking away a superhero's power, his immortality so to speak. That's the key to it. In a normal human it's a dormant condition, no more harmful than any other part of them. But if they have it and a vampire bites them, there's a strong likelihood the vampire will contract the disease. Our research indicates that the dormant condition is becoming more common in humans, which makes safeguarding your Mistress's blood sources even more important.”

“Why is it becoming more common?”

She shrugged. “That's the type of thing that's hard to prove, making it easy to jump to conclusions. There are so many things we don't know about adaptation and evolution. I know the news reports more and more mysterious deaths where the victims have been bitten, their blood drained. Humans of course typically assign that to human psychotics, killers with illusions that they're vampires. But we know it's evidence of vampires ignoring Council laws and taking more human kills to test their authority. So perhaps the virus is a defense mechanism developing in the human DNA. It would be a rapid adaptation, but we have proven to be a remarkably resilient species.”

Debra's expression hardened. “Everything we're seeing in the lab tells us if vampires don't heed the warning signs, they'll have an epidemic. That's why Brian is in such a rush to meet with the Tuscaloosa facility. He wants to be ready with as much data as he can to present at the Council Gathering. Our only blessing so far is that the virus is a limited, one-way street. It can only be passed from a human to a vampire. The vampire isn't contagious to another vampire and can't pass it to a human. Perhaps because once it's in a vampire's system it attacks the brain more than the blood, as far as we can tell.” Her face clouded. “However, with a human servant it's different.”

“What do you mean?”

She considered the notebook spread out in her lap this time, her brow furrowed. “Jacob, some of this isn't validated. So please…”

“This conversation remains between us. Please. I couldn't bear to lose my Mistress like this.” Just in time, he managed to bite back the word
can't
. The hitch in his voice caused her gaze to flick back up. From the softening of her expression, she seemed to take it as an emotional reaction.

“Once contracted from a ‘normal' human, we think a vampire has about ten years before he or she succumbs to it. However, there's a far more virulent strain. We've only discovered it recently. In the Russian vampire. Ironically, Brian's excited about it because he said that difference could provide vital clues to a cure.” A brief hesitation, then she said through stiff lips, “Lord Andrev got the Delilah virus from his servant, Helina. She'd been his servant for eighty-six years.”

“How…?” Jacob's brow furrowed. “If they have the condition dormant in their blood, then wouldn't he have contracted it almost immediately, the first time he drank from her?”

Debra nodded, her eyes somber, her tone telling him how revolted she was by the information she was imparting. “There's research on this disease going on elsewhere. In the labs of vampire hunters. We believe they figured out a way to inject the dormant condition into a human. Lord Andrev was not a very compassionate man. Helina could have just killed herself to escape him, but apparently she…” Debra shook her head. “I love my Master, Jacob. I could never countenance such an idea, but I also know there are servants who are taken unwillingly into service. They come to accept the idea over time. But when Masters are like Andrev…Helina apparently was brave enough to decide she wasn't going to let anyone else be brutalized by him.”

“She had to be extremely clever as well. Focused.” Jacob considered the effort it took him to misdirect his thoughts from his Mistress's notice, even knowing he didn't have a chance in hell of doing it when she was paying attention.