The Mark of the Vampire Queen (30 page)

His gaze found his lady, still reclining on her divan, watching him, her dark eyes glittering. A still point in the storm. There was empty space around her, for no vampire would dare to approach her uninvited, no matter how strong his lust.

Though he wanted to go to her, he was mindful of his duty to Debra. Helping her down from the platform, he freed her hands from the belt to rub her wrists. He pulled on his slacks, but when she made to take off the shirt, he shook his head, buttoning up several of the buttons, pushing away her protesting hands. Framing her face, he kissed her forehead, calling one of the masked servants to his side. “Escort this lady back to Lord Brian's quarters to await his return.”

To her, he murmured, “Council's busy. Keep your head down, get out of here and you won't be missed. You've had enough for one night. Put a hand over your mouth like you're nauseous and no one will stop you. No shame to it. You've earned it. Screw 'em.”

She nodded, her expression too dazed to argue. He slid her hand through the masked servant's arm. Once he made sure the man understood his orders, he sent her off with a gentle pat to her bottom, a reassurance he felt she needed right now. When she reclaimed her Mensa-shattering mind, he'd enjoy teasing her about it.

Now all he wanted was to be near his lady and hope not to attract any more attention tonight.

But as he moved toward her, she deliberately tilted her head away from him, exchanging a comment with Lord Uthe, apparently the only other vampire not engaged in carnal activity. When Jacob knelt at her feet in just the slacks and attempted to lay a hand on her foot as he had before, she drew it away without looking in his direction. Puzzled, he rested his hand on his knee, waiting. She glanced at him over her shoulder.

“Where's your shirt?”

“I let Debra keep it,” he said, knowing full well she had seen Debra's departure. Was she hallucinating again?

Before he could blink, she'd sat up on the divan and had her hand on his throat in an unforgiving tight grip, restricting his air flow. Her nails dug into his flesh, bringing him nearly off his knees. “I see most things quite clearly, slave.”

He had to force himself not to try and pry her loose or defend himself in any way. It was always a struggle to submit to her when she was in this mood, but apparently his attempt to do so now ratcheted up her temperament further. It swept through him like heat from a volcano blast.

 

Good. He could feel her fury. Lyssa wanted him to feel it. She
was
angry. Enraged. Not because Jacob had rammed his cock down a woman's throat in front of her. Not because he'd come as a result of her wet tongue and the overwhelming vibrations of sex all around him. Not even because he'd thought Brian a very lucky man. All of that meant nothing.

He'd championed Debra. Protected her. Of course, championing and protecting a woman were second nature to Jacob. Lyssa wasn't special in that regard, and she didn't need his protection and championing anyway, damn it. She'd expected no less than the ferocity he'd shown when Malachi threatened the girl, though the ruthlessness of how he dealt with it had surprised her as much as she'd felt it surprise him. Perhaps like Thomas, he was learning a little too much from his Mistress.

No, what bothered her was that Jacob had
chosen
Brian's servant. Out of a dozen women, he'd chosen her, as if he had a preference for her above the others. She was cold, so he'd put his shirt on her. He'd stood there before her, before this whole assembly, as if they did not exist. As if Lyssa did not exist. He'd threaded her arms through the sleeves, freed her hair from it and took her hands, bound them in the belt in a simultaneously uncompromising and gentle way that had gotten the juices of every woman watching flowing. As Lyssa had watched them stand there, her Irishman and the shy scientist, she'd seen the potential chemistry, the type of girl he would have loved, even married if his destiny hadn't taken him to a vampire queen. Debra or someone like her could have given him children, a lifetime of quiet, domestic and enduring love. Lyssa had given him a death sentence. She hated it, hated the tender way he'd treated Debra, the regard he'd shown her…

It didn't matter that she knew his thoughts, his heart. There were some things that were instinct, not rational, and no amount of mind reading would convince her they were false.

“My lady.” Lord Uthe's quiet voice. Not interfering, for another vampire would never interfere with a disciplining between Mistress and servant, but he was tactfully drawing her attention to the fact Jacob's breath was laboring.

She dropped him. Slapped him. It startled Jacob so much that for a moment, anger lost footing to hurt. While he bowed his head, he sensed Uthe's too shrewd regard and cursed his inability to mask his reaction more quickly.

“For having your servant such a short time, lady,” Uthe observed carefully, “his confidence in your bond appears extraordinarily strong. Perhaps it's time you consider another lover, if not a husband. You know servants can get the wrong idea of their place in a vampire's household quickly.”

At least Uthe had a strong enough sense of self-preservation he didn't imply that Lyssa was subject to such influences. Jacob expected she would have incinerated the other vampire in the mood he felt pouring off her. But his lady respected Uthe. He was a peer, while Jacob was the mortal apparently not worth even her attention as she turned her back on him, leaving him on his knees, trying to breathe again.

“My servant has simply been overwhelmed by all the stimuli here. I'll take care of reminding him of his place. Thank you for your advice, Lord Uthe.” The frostiness of her voice seemed to reassure the man, for he moved away with a nod, giving her privacy to deal with the infraction she perceived her servant had committed.

“That was my shirt, bought with my money,” she snapped.

Jacob wanted to rise, dare her to knock him back down. He didn't want to have her standing over him as she did now, rising off the divan, but he fought through the anger, knowing there were eyes on them. “A shirt? I'll be happy to pay for the shirt, my lady. If that's what's truly bothering you.”

What the hell
is
bothering you?

You care for her. You chose her. You looked at her…the way you've looked at me.

Like he would protect her, no matter what the cost was to himself.

Lyssa turned away from him, not waiting to see his reaction to such ridiculous thoughts. He was human. Debra was human. Servants were servants. She'd never demanded a servant be wholly monogamous, damn it.

My lady.
When his hand brushed her side, she didn't turn, but she didn't move away. His grip curled around her forearm, slid to her wrist, then to her hand, his fingers twining with hers. Suddenly she didn't want him on his knees, didn't want him like that, even as the tiny part of her brain that was still rational knew it was better for him to be so.

Despite the fury that had rolled through him like a wave at her contempt, Jacob had stayed on his knees, demonstrating his loyalty was greater than his pride. But it wasn't his loyalty she doubted.

She turned. His shoulders were bare, still gleaming from the perspiration he'd generated. She knew every line of that elegant body, knew how it felt pressed against her while his cock slid in and out of her pussy. She knew the many expressions of his blue eyes, the taste of his lips. She didn't want to share him with another woman like Debra. One too close to what he truly deserved.

She didn't want to share him with any woman. Ever again.

Studying her face, he slowly rose. Which put him much closer, standing before her, holding her hand, their bodies almost touching. Her breath was rapid as she tried to keep a handle on her reaction, but she knew he saw everything. During their performance, even as her anger built, so did her desire, and when Jacob had come, when Debra had screamed, she could have come simply by imagining Jacob stroking her deep, hard.

“Come with me.” He altered his position so he stood beside her. Lifting her hand, he moved them into a sedate walk where she appeared to be leading, rather than him pulling her along in a spurt of physical reaction she could feel thrumming through his muscles, the wake of the emotional response rippling through him.

It reminded her of a day he'd built a rack to equally space and anchor the dogs' food bowls. The structure would catch and divert the overflow she always complained about crunching underfoot. So excited by the modifications he'd made, he'd caught her hand and tugged her through the kitchen to the side door to see it, making her laugh at his eagerness. He'd been like a six-foot-tall child who'd forced her into a trot to keep up with his long legs.

Her lover, her innocent child, her servant. Her protector.

He navigated her past the wide variety of very intimate couplings occurring and took her to the outskirts of the tents, to the canopies of the craftspeople. At first she thought he was bringing her to the jeweler whose collar she had described, but instead he stopped before the blacksmith. The man was in Lord Mason's employ and helped maintain the grounds year-round. He also cared for the two Arabians Lyssa knew Mason stabled on the property.

“My Mistress needs to punish her servant,” Jacob said quietly. “Somehow he has made her doubt he lives only to serve her.”

The man nodded dispassionately and gestured to the myriad irons displayed on velvet.

“The larger brands hurt more, my lady,” he explained. “They of course leave no permanent mark unless you use your blood. That also intensifies the pain considerably, but it will heal to a scar on a fully marked servant in less than a night's time. You will not find your use of him hampered.”

“I beg you to use your blood, my lady,” Jacob said, looking into her face as if there was nothing else for him. Lyssa felt like weeping. “Set your hand on me, brand me as yours so you will have no doubts. Wherever you desire.”

“When you wish to do it, my lady, each of these designs is already in the fire.” The blacksmith nodded to the vat behind him. “They're sketched in the handle. Simply take your preference and hold it to his flesh as long as you like.”

The man was then called to explain some of his other offerings to another vampire overlord. Jacob's hands went to his trousers and he dropped them, leaving him naked from neck to ankles before her.

If it will ease your mind and keep you from having a shred of doubt in your soul, my lady, then do as you will.

Despite her wish to appear indifferent, the vision of Debra in his shirt rose in Lyssa's mind. She knew it was pathetic. Childishly dangerous and cruel. But if she didn't hurt him, test his willingness to suffer for her, this feeling would not abate in her chest. And she didn't care for the feeling one bit. She wanted it gone.

Hands laced behind your head.

He did it without hesitation, though he certainly knew what she was capable of doing, where she might choose to place the brand. Bringing her hand to her lips, she bit into the Venus mound of her palm with one fang.

He waited. His jaw firm, his eyes steady on hers. She found herself perversely aroused as if she were on the pinnacle of climax, even as the pain radiating from her heart made it seem as if a bed of nails pierced her insides. He was aroused, too. In his thoughts she saw his memory of the branding he'd witnessed earlier, how it had intrigued him in a disquieting way he hadn't expected. Seeing him getting harder at the idea only fueled her need to mark him this way. Claim him visibly.

Lifting the closest brand from the fire, she let the blood run down her palm and drip onto the white-hot metal. Those blue eyes never wavered. Reaching up, she curled her hand on the back of his neck, under the soft hair. Locking her green eyes with his, she pressed the brand to the inside of his left hipbone, above the pubic area.

His face contorted with the effort to remain silent, his upper body going rigid. The muscles drew up tight and hard, close to the skin. His hands became fists behind his head, the biceps flexing to the consistency of smooth rock. As his fingers clenched, her hand curved on his neck was drawn in to the bond, his fingers holding hers, locking them together in a knot of reaction. It reflected the torturous snarl in her heart, the way she'd felt watching him and Debra.

His flesh was burning, tears glistening in his eyes from the effort of maintaining his stillness. Several times tonight she'd dwelled on the fact that he was
her
servant. It had served as a reassurance, something to bolster her strength and courage. With this act, he was telling her he knew he was hers as well. One hundred percent, irrevocably. As a human, man, lover, as a living, breathing being. He considered all of it
only
hers, to do with as she would.

He'd hurt her by doing what he'd been told, in that unique way that made him who he was. The man she wanted like no man or vampire she'd ever met. In return, she'd hurt him deliberately, slapped him, forced him to prove himself, punished him for making her feel this burning pain in her heart she didn't understand.

With an oath, she pulled the brand from him. She extricated her fingers from his while he gasped, holding the pose she'd demanded and managing the pain. He couldn't help but capture attention. A powerful man standing before his Mistress, his slacks a soft pool at his feet, the upper body displayed in fine detail by his subservient position with the hands locked behind the head. But that was all physical. Being a slave, subject to another's will voluntarily with all one's heart, was not defined by postures or brands. It was in everything he did, and she'd come to count on it. Until tonight, she'd never let him know how much, but he'd known just how to answer her fears. She was a fool.

Her gaze coursed down to the brand. For the next few hours until it healed, the pain of it would be fierce. She'd placed the brand at his hip because she wanted to have her hands on it when she rode him, scrape her nails over it. If she took him in her mouth, she would abrade it with her hair. She'd wanted it close to his cock so he'd always know to whom that powerful organ belonged, along with the rest of him.