The Mark of the Vampire Queen (7 page)

“That sounds like Lady Lyssa.”

Gideon ignored that. “But the debt's even now. She saved my life but stole my brother. Even if she's one of those who only take out one human a year, those are healthy, decent human beings who don't deserve to die.”

“I'm not saying the situation doesn't suck.” Jacob spread open his arms, linked his fingers behind his head and tapped at the base of his skull, his muscles tense. “It's a Hobson's choice. But say you've got a decent vamp who takes their one kill a year to stay alive and in control of their powers. And you have a decent human who has to die. A one-to-one relationship. How do you make that judgment? One vamp or one human? You don't see the deer herd going off and killing all the wolves when they come and take down one of their number. It's a balance, Gid. Not fair, not kind, not even close to compassionate in many ways. A balance. A vamp is going to choose a human and that human will fight. He
should
fight. Defend himself whatever way he can. Maybe he'll get away; maybe he won't. Maybe he'll kill the vampire.”

“You're saying that it's okay for a vamp to kill humans.”

“I'm saying that we're the only species that doesn't accept that being prey may be a part of Nature's cycle for us.” Jacob blew out his breath, brought his hands slapping down on the table surface. The waitress who'd been approaching with more coffee backed off, went to another table. “We're expected to try and stay alive. Whatever the Powers That Be, I don't think they intended us to exterminate an entire species to make us a hundred percent safe.”

Gideon's eyes narrowed. “What are
you
going to do, little brother, when she orders you to help her take down her annual kill? Tarnish that armor of yours? Lure to his death someone like your Mr. Ingram, a guy who thinks he has a purpose for living beyond being dinner to a vampire? Hell, I know you. You're not comfortable with that. You're not a killer.”

“I was a killer when I helped you.” Jacob pushed his plate to the side. “A killer takes someone's life intentionally, against their will, whether justly or unjustly. I haven't got all the answers. I just know I'm where I'm supposed to be.”

“I don't understand you at all.”

“Yes, you do.” Jacob met his gaze. “You just don't want to. The first girl you ever loved died at a vampire's hand.”

A muscle flexed in Gideon's jaw. “According to your logic, I should have said ‘that's Nature' and walked away.”

“No. Actions have consequences. Vampires know that as well as we do. But Gideon, you were eighteen and Laura was sixteen. You're getting more bitter, year by year. Would she have wanted this—”

“Stop crawling around in my head.” Gideon jabbed a finger at him. “I don't care about their motives. If I can kill every last one of them, I will.”

So no man will ever again have to grieve until his heart cannibalizes itself.
Jacob remembered Laura. He'd thought she was too fragile for his brother's strong personality, but she had a sweetness no man could resist wanting to protect. So the man who chose to love her would have felt doubly responsible when he couldn't keep her from getting killed. Particularly a man who had lost his parents when he was only twelve, left with the self-imposed responsibility of looking after his eight-year-old brother.

His brother would keep driving himself with hate and blood until he was dead. The signs had been there for a while. Like any person with a family member addicted to a destructive path, Jacob had tried everything, even joining him. In the end the only thing he could do was walk away, refusing to support the self-destruction anymore. With a sinking heart, he realized that it appeared only to have made his brother more committed to his violent path. It was now Gideon against the whole world and all it had done to hurt him, manifested in the form of shadowy creatures of the night with gleaming fangs.

“Why, Jacob? Just…why?”
Why have you done this to me? To us?

It was as clear as if Gideon had spoken the thought.

Because he couldn't harden himself against the anguish in Gideon's voice, Jacob took one more stab at honesty. “She was in my dreams long before I even met her, Gid. You know how I've always felt like I was searching for something? That night we saw her, suddenly there was this huge relief inside me.
There you are.
Boom. The monk that trained me believed I've served her before. In previous lifetimes.”

Seeing Gideon's lip curling up in a sneer, he continued stubbornly, “I don't know whether I believe that, and it's not relevant, regardless. Now's the important thing. You remember how you felt about Laura? Barely even met her, and you couldn't imagine life without her from then on.”

Gideon's gaze frosted over, chilling the air between them. In a blink, any progress Jacob thought he'd been making evaporated. “She's nothing like Laura. Don't you ever put her and one of those bloodthirsty cunts in the same category.”

“Young man.” The lady across the aisle spoke sharply, even as her friend reached out a quelling hand to her. “That's enough.”

Gideon glanced toward her. “Mind your own business, bitch. Stick your head back in the sand with all the rest of them, my stupid fucking brother included.”

“Gideon,” Jacob snapped. He nodded apologetically to the two women and noted the hostile looks from the construction workers seated behind them. Leveling a warning look at his brother, he spoke quietly. “I don't even know who you are anymore, Gideon.”

“Same goes on that score, little brother.”

Biting back a response, Jacob laid a twenty on the table. “I think we're done here. I'll cover this.”

“With her money? I don't think so.”

“It's my money, Gideon.” Jacob stood, studying him. The large hands curled in helpless fury on the tabletop, the blue eyes glaring, the jaw so rigid it looked like it would crack under the strain. “As long as you're like this, there's nothing we have to say to each other.”

“Don't think I won't hesitate to kill you if you get in my way.”

Once, two boys had run through the surf, sunlight flashing on the water they kicked up, making it sparkle. Laughter had bounced between them like a tossed ball. He'd tried to grab Gideon, knock him into the water, but Gideon caught him in a headlock and they both tumbled in. Jacob tried to grasp at that image to block the pain of the icily delivered threat, but he couldn't hold on to it.

“You sick son of a bitch.” He pitched his voice low, picked up the money Gideon had swept onto the floor and laid it deliberately back on the table, under his coffee cup. “Fuck you.”

He turned away, wanting nothing more than to go off somewhere and get a shot of the strongest proof alcohol he could find. He wondered what Lyssa would think if he came home with his blood overloaded with sugar, caffeine
and
alcohol.

It was the gasp from the women, followed by a call of warning from one of the workers, that alerted him. He spun just as Gideon surged up from the table with a clatter of tableware to ram him midbody. They hit the edge of the ladies' table and toppled it along with its crockery as they tumbled to the floor.

Gideon landed one eardrum-shattering punch high on the jaw before Jacob rallied, rolled, broke the hold.

“You're coming with me. You're not going back to her.”

Jacob swung, a hard uppercut that sent Gideon staggering back several steps and bought him the time to scramble to his own feet. “No, I'm not. You stupid, thickheaded—”

With a roar, Gideon came back at him. This time he managed to take them both over the dividing wall between two rows of booths. It tangled them with its occupants, a group of workers who reacted far more belligerently than the elderly women.

A rough shove and a few blows took him and Gideon back to the floor, baptized by spilled food and drinks, and even more colorful curses that would have the ladies' ears burning. Jacob blocked another punch, Gideon's he thought, then caught his brother's thrown fist and turned the both of them, wrestling, trying to pin him. Gideon was strong, seasoned, but Jacob was faster, and they were both armed with Irish temper. It had always taken longer to rouse in Jacob, but once unleashed it was no less violent. Gideon ducked under the next blow and rammed his fist into Jacob's stomach. Jacob reacted with another punch to his face, hitting his lip and winning first blood.

The restaurant was clearing, people were shouting. Jacob was vaguely aware a couple of the less sensible workers had jumped into the fray, trying to pull them apart. In the end, they had to give up and stand back to avoid being casualties, for the two brothers were too skilled at fighting to countenance interruption and the workers just kept being tossed to the outside.

Jacob maneuvered them to the corner, caught Gideon by the scruff and slung him against the emergency exit. The alarm detonated when the crash bar gave way under Gideon's weight, but by then they were in the alley and out of the area involving innocent bystanders or destruction of property Jacob knew he didn't have the funds to replace.

He charged Gideon with a yell, tumbling them into a collection of garbage cans that scattered like bowling pins as they landed among them. In some distant part of his mind, Jacob knew they were riding the rage, letting it drown out the memories of loss that had bonded them so closely as well as driven them apart.

It drowned out everything, including the police sirens.

B
ECAUSE
Gideon tried to trip Jacob on their way into the police station and Jacob responded by using his shoulder to ram him into the wall, the officer who'd brought them in had recommended to the guard on duty that they be cuffed to the bars on opposite sides of the communal cell. He'd also threatened them with an officer assault charge because they sandwiched him in the middle of the scuffle. Gideon's private arsenal had not helped matters. While the cops had been partially mollified by his concealed carry permit for the guns, Jacob was sure they were running every background check on him possible, including searching the data banks for international terrorists.

Perhaps because Jacob had been a little more polite to the cops and wasn't carrying twenty pounds of weapons like an action movie star, he'd been cuffed where he could sit on a bench, whereas Gideon's choice was standing or taking a seat on the questionable cesspool of the floor.

The guard on duty was posted at a desk near the cell. He kept an indifferent eye on them and the other occupants, ignoring any wise-cracks as he worked on paperwork. Their cellmates were mostly drunks sleeping it off, a few petty criminals, a scared-looking white-collar kid who'd probably been pulled with pot in the car and was thrown in the tank to put the fear of God into him. He was keeping his head down, his hands twisting around each other as he tried not to look toward several of the more hardened offenders who were sharing sullen company in the corner.

Jacob felt the ache of the fight in every muscle. His eye and jaw were swelling and there was bruising in his ribs, but he didn't think he'd cracked any. Gideon sported a similarly damaged face. Despite that, Jacob wished they weren't cuffed. Beating on each other was preferable to staring at one another across thirty feet of space, everything said and unsaid vibrating in the air between them, making his headache worse.

“You look like shit,” he said.

Gideon's head lifted. “You're not looking so pretty yourself.”

“No. I mean you look like shit, Gid. This is beating you down.”

“Shut up.” Gideon turned his face away. “You don't get to talk to me as if you're my brother. After we leave here, I'm not looking back. You're one of them now. My brother's dead. You hear me?” He spun around abruptly, making the cuffs clank against the bars and earning a sharp glance from the guard. “Dead.”

“So love's all about meeting your terms, is it?”
Idiot, stubborn, hardheaded jackass. You used to sing to me when I had nightmares. You used to smile.

Gideon turned away farther, hunching a shoulder, but to Jacob's surprise, he responded, his voice low and gruff. “I'm past loving anyone, Jacob. I just can't handle it anymore. This is probably just the way it's meant to be.”

The desolation in Gideon's tone was as cold as death, and Jacob wondered if the analogy was uneasily close to the reality of his brother's life.

“That's fortunate.”

Jacob's attention swung to the rear of the cell. On first glance, the man looked like a well-heeled middle-aged businessman, a hooker's John or a DUI. But he was neither of those things. His eyes glittered in the shadows, and his smile revealed the hint of a sharpened tooth.

Jacob cursed his focus on his brother, which had kept him from more carefully noting all the cell occupants. The vampire had been blending into the shadows, screened by the restless movements of the others. Of course, if he'd been deliberately avoiding notice until now, Jacob might have missed him regardless. It didn't make their situation any less fucked. Gideon had gone on alert as well, straightening from the bars, his eyes narrowing. “Kyle Miller,” he said flatly, telling Jacob they were in trouble, if he didn't have the small handful of brain cells required to recognize that already. “Tends to like to take his full quota. Just another of your happy, fuzzy vamps trying to live,” he added, a cutting edge to his tone that made Jacob shoot him a narrow look.

“It's like dinner theater,” the vampire observed, remaining seated in the deceptively casual pose, his hands linked around his knees, idly fingering the expensive fabric of his slacks. “So many interesting dramas play out here. I could have used the sewers to head home an hour ago, but watching you two has been so stimulating. Oh, no worries”—when he nodded toward the boy, Jacob noted the vacant confusion in the kid's eyes, the lingering aftermath of vampire compulsion instead of alcohol or drugs as he first thought—“I've already supped well. I'm not interested in blood. However, I think I'll be killing him.” He indicated Gideon. “As you can tell, he's known to me and my kind. His luck runs out tonight.”

Jacob surged to his feet, the cuff bringing him up short. He could yell for the guard, but the guard would not only end up dead, he wouldn't even get the door unlocked before the vampire struck at Gideon. He wouldn't even know what had happened. At the moment, their conversation wasn't even being tracked, everyone else involved in their own miserable circumstances and the guard tuning out anything that wasn't life threatening.

In the meantime, Gideon hadn't moved at all. His brother met the vamp's gaze as if he wasn't hampered by a lack of weapons and limited mobility.

With a jolt, Jacob realized Gideon had perhaps had other reasons for wanting to meet with him today. Looking for hope from the only reason to live he had anymore—his brother—Gideon would have seen Jacob's betrayal as the last straw. Now he just didn't give a shit at all, which made him hazardous on a lot of levels, mostly to himself.

For the first time in his life, Gideon needed Jacob more than Jacob needed him. He might be past asking for help or wanting it, but that was too bad. Jacob wasn't going to let his stubborn brother's ass get wasted by some midlevel vamp.

“This isn't going to happen,” Jacob declared. Kyle's gaze shifted to him.

“You're brothers. You're the prettier of the two.”

“Told you,” Gideon said, though he didn't shift his gaze.

“Asshole,” Jacob responded mildly. He kept a matching deadly focus on their enemy, forming a triangle of tension that finally caught the guard's attention. Now the other inmates were stiffening, muttering. While they hadn't followed the exchange, they certainly could sense some violent entertainment brewing.

“Knock it off in there.”

The vamp's gaze flickered over Jacob, lingered in areas less than comfortable. “Perhaps when I'm done, I'll take some dessert, after all. I can make you hard as I drink, human,” he whispered. “Increase your pleasure and your prudish embarrassment. I bet your brother hasn't seen you jack off since you were young enough to share a room.”

“You're not touching my brother,” Jacob said. “Or me.” He could hear the guard starting to move, the chair scraping back. If he came into the cell, he was dead.

“I'm not seeing you in a position to stop me.”

“Perhaps not.” Jacob inclined his head with cold courtesy. “But my Mistress can blow you away like dust.”

In a blink, the vamp stood by Jacob, his face close enough for a kiss, his fangs exposed. He had a hand on the back of Jacob's neck, fingers snarled in his hair. Jacob steeled himself not to move. Gideon surged forward, metal clanking. The guard called out, telling Miller to move his ass back, his hand on his radio, a breath away from calling for backup.

It was all white noise as far as Jacob was concerned. He kept his focus on the man in front of him, all his energy devoted to maintaining a cool reserve, showing no fear or doubt even against the vampire's heavy wave of compulsion. It was like a sickly sweet cough syrup infiltrating his nose and lungs, but it was neutralized when attempted on a human already claimed as a servant.

The only good thing was it appeared to have confused the guard, who was rocking on the balls of his feet, torn between heading toward the cell, punching his radio and going back to his desk.

Kyle's nostrils flared, telling Jacob he'd detected his Mistress's marks, and not just the ones she'd administered with her fangs. Sexual emissions could be detected by vampires long after they'd occurred, even after bathing. On the first night she'd brought him to her home, Lyssa had rubbed her slippery response on his limbs, his cock, his chest…It had been a sensual experience he remembered vividly, and she'd told him it was one of the ways she would mark him as hers to other vamps. Since then, she'd done it several more times. “Who is your Mistress, mortal?” Kyle hissed it between his teeth, obviously warring between bloodlust and self-preservation.

“Lady Elyssa Amaterasu Yamato Wentworth.”

The vamp tensed, but didn't retreat. “You lie.”

“You know the marks are there, even if you're not powerful enough to detect who made them. Are you willing to risk her wrath if I speak true? Does she even know you're in her territory? My brother is under my protection. Hence, under hers.”

“Don't need your goddamn protection,” Gideon snapped. “Get away from him, Miller. Deal with me if you've got the balls.”

“Lady Wentworth's servant wouldn't be in a jail cell like a bar-room brawler. In the company of a vampire killer.” Kyle surveyed Jacob scornfully. “Nothing about you says servant to me. Whoever's service you are in, you have not been in it long. He or she won't miss you overmuch. Killing you both is starting to look more appealing to me.” His face got closer. Another millimeter and his lips would be meeting Jacob's, an idea so repugnant Jacob thought he might prefer to get his throat torn out.

Kyle was going to call his bluff, and he and Gideon were going to die. Even if he and Gideon had been armed and free, a vamp had a better-than-average chance of killing them. Cuffed to the cell bars, they were sheep staked out in a wolf 's den.

“I think you need to remove your hands from my servant, Kyle. And every other part of your presence.”

Kyle's gaze snapped to the cell door. Lyssa stood next to the guard, a calming hand resting on his shoulder, watching the exchange impassively.

Despite her stillness, Kyle reacted as if she'd swooped down upon him like a bird of prey. He backed away with none of his earlier grace, knocking into the cluster of smoking inmates. They shoved him aside, too interested in the appearance of a woman with Lyssa's striking features to react to the insult.

Kyle's use of compulsion had been like scattering marbles across the floor, causing imbalance, confusion, a loud mental clatter. Lyssa's was like the movement of water, simply taking away resistance and thought. The inmates did not make vulgar quips, just stared at her openmouthed, lust in their gazes. His eyes unfocused, the guard moved to the wall and pressed the buzzer to open the cell door. It slid open, but no one moved. It was as if time had stopped, and the only sound was the distant noise of the police station offices upstairs.

When Jacob glanced over at his brother, he found Gideon was as calm and riveted as any of them. If anything, his expression was even more blank and unaware.

“Don't do that to him,” Jacob said. “My lady, please.”

“He's seen much wear since I saw him last,” she observed, not without a trace of compassion in her cool tone. “Don't worry about him. His weary mind needs the rest. We'll take him home and give him some cosseting, you and me.” Her gaze shifted to Jacob, the jeweled beauty of her green eyes striking him low in the gut.

I was woken from my sleep to find you were in danger, a danger you were oblivious to until too late because of your preoccupation with your brother. As a result, I had to get here without adequate time
to do my makeup or hair. When I get you home, you're going to pay for that.

Her emotions were a dark, shifting mass he couldn't penetrate. He'd known she might withdraw from him like this for a little while. He'd wanted the third mark, fought her will for it and won. But now she was shutting him out. He wanted to touch her even as he had a strange impulse to run away from her
and
his brother, from the conflict in his heart they represented. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, though he knew he wasn't. He wanted to cross the distance between them, kiss the hem of her dress, wait for her touch on his head like a benediction.

Despite the circumstances, he couldn't help his response to her. The emotional impact of his brother's current state made him crave her on every level. He'd just tried to convince Gideon what it was about her, and here it was, active, thrumming in the air. The third mark had made it almost unbearably powerful, the connection they had. He was torn between wanting to do anything she asked and needing to resist her, to perversely prove his love was more than just a magical compulsion to an otherworldly creature.

Flatterer.
Her voice was a whisper in his mind, unable to be resisted.
I know that, Jacob. I also know what you've been doing today. All of it. I think it's best you don't defy me anymore. After all, you did say he was under my protection, correct?
“Do I have your obedience?”

“To the best of my ability, my lady.”

“‘Yes, my lady,' will do.”

“I don't wish to lie—”

“Oh, for the love of God, your honesty is fair killing me.” The snap of her voice reverberated through the room like a shock wave. Kyle flattened himself against the wall. Jacob thought if Kyle could have dissipated and materialized beyond the bars, he would have done it. However, despite the popular movies, that was not a power vampires had. The only way out of the cell was through that door, past Lyssa. Kyle wasn't that brave. He stayed where he was.

At her snarl, the others had shifted, her menace disturbing the calm she'd imposed upon them.

Even children know a parent sometimes prefers to hear a lie. I know your soul, Jacob. Just say “yes, my lady,” so I can have the fleeting pleasure of pretending it's true.