The Vampire Queen's Servant

THE BERKLEY
PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by
the Penguin Group

Copyright © 2007 by
Joey W. Hill.

First edition: July
2007

ISBN
978-0-425-21590-6

PRINTED IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Lyssa wanted a meal. Preferably
something muscular, a man whose long, powerful body would serve her well as she
took his blood. She would hold him down, drink her fill and ride him hard. Take
him deep, making him give up his rich blood and hot seed to her body at the
same time. She'd push him to exhaustion, beyond rational thought. All those
wonderful muscles would be taut and slick as he pounded into her with
single-minded urgency, his most primitive instincts making him into a fierce,
beautiful rutting animal. Just imagining it made heat shimmer over her skin. As
she gazed out the window from the shadows of the backseat of her limo, her lips
parted, her tongue caressing the backside of her fangs as if she could already
taste him.

For months she'd made herself
take blood functionally, letting it nourish her the way freeze-dried packets
would keep a lost camper alive. But like most vampires, her desire for blood
was intertwined with her need to dominate her victim sexually. Without that,
the blood had no taste. No vitality.

She missed taking alpha males.
She enjoyed the fight, their resistance, the sweet taste of heated blood. The
perception, if only for a moment, that the hunt would be a challenge. A vampire
didn't survive by being ruled by her compulsions, any more than a woman
survived by being consumed by her most private desires. But tonight she needed
release, and she was feeling reckless enough not to care about the consequences
to her fragile heart.

Her nails were just the
beginning. A manicure, then a man.

It irritated her that the car in
the deserted parking lot of the salon was not Max's. Maybe her manicurist had
experienced car trouble and borrowed someone else's vehicle. Still, it set off
alarm bells in Lyssa's head. But since her limo was an evening's rental while
she stayed in Atlanta, she couldn't very well ask the driver to scope out the
area for signs of rival vampires. Of course, if she'd had a marked human
servant, he could have performed the task for her.

Leave me be, Thomas. I've
made my choke on that. For now.

She studied her nails by the
light thrown into the car from the parking lot lamps. Hellhound that he was,
her Irish wolfhound Bran had torn one when she was indulging his incessant need
for attention. It had grown back to the half-inch length she preferred in no
time, but the glossy burgundy polish could not be regenerated. Perfection was
essential, particularly these days when showing any vulnerability could create
dangerous situations. Though she easily could afford to pay a manicurist to come
to her home, her enemies needed to know she wouldn't hesitate to go out to seek
simple indulgences.

The hell with it. So it wasn't
Max's car. If it was a trap or trick, she was ready to prove to any enemy or
potential suitor foolish enough to challenge her that she was not to be trifled
with—particularly not when she teetered on the edge of full-blown bloodlust.

She nodded to the driver,
indicating she was ready. Throughout (lie trip from her mansion on the
outskirts of Atlanta to the downtown area, the fifty-something black man had
watched her closely in the rearview mirror. From her research into his
background and her request from the rental company she knew he was ex-military
and used regularly for high-risk clients. Add to that, perhaps somewhere in his
southern past he had a grandmother into voodoo or witchcraft, or some other
path that believed in the otherworldly. For it was obvious he sensed there was
something different about her. Something that warned him not to turn his back.

Getting out, he opened her door.
When she stepped onto the pavement, she noted his large hand tightened on the
top of the window as he apparently controlled an urge to draw away from her.

"I'll be two hours,"
she said. "You're welcome to do as you wish during that time."

"I'll likely just sleep in
the car, ma'am."

"No." His brows lifted
as she turned, pointed. "If you do that, there's a hotel parking deck two
miles that way. You'll go there. It's not safe to sleep in a car downtown late
at night, Mr. Ingram." It was possible someone might slit his throat and
pose as her driver, a twisted attempt to gain her favor or capitulation. The
pressure on her to remarry since Rex's death was fierce, and courtship in the
vampire world had all the romance to it of a terrorist cell planning to blow up
a preschool.

She didn't want the driver's
blood spilled on her account. Particularly since blood spilled on the ground
was wasteful. "Do as I say." Withdrawing some money from her small
purse, she handed the folded bills to him. "That's three hundred dollars.
Lock up the car, eat dinner in the hotel and pay for a room to take your nap.
Come back for me at midnight."

He nodded. She could see her
actions created many questions in his mind, but she appreciated that he didn't
ask them, choosing to sort them out himself. Perhaps this driver would
consider… No, his fear was too palpable.

Even while she discarded the
idea of hiring him as her permanent driver, for hiring staff was something
she'd recently shied away from doing, her mind was admonishing her as she knew
Thomas, her last human servant, would have done.
You must have staff. Most
importantly, you need a servant. Who will take care of you, my lady
?.

Only a human servant would ask
that question and sincerely mean it when talking about his Mistress, a vampire
over a thousand years old. It was moot in this case. Lyssa had no interest in
Mr. Ingram as anything but a driver.

A marked human servant was
different from an employee or domestic staff person. It was a person who served
her by choice, binding himself to her by blood for much more intimate reasons
than just to drive her car. One who accepted the demands of the role out of
desire rather than fear, a form of submission that brought her a deep, lasting
pleasure.

She just hadn't found anyone yet.
A year was not a long time to wait when one had her life span. She still missed
Thomas too much. It was that simple.

As she walked toward the high
alabaster archway of the Eldar Salon and Spa, the sight of the familiar
security guard waiting for her made her relax somewhat. Unless there was
serious cause, she didn't believe in canceling an appointment at the last
minute or being significantly late, like a movie or rock star who believed the
world revolved around her schedule. People who worked had families, lives.
Short lives at that. Rex had pointed out to her more than once that it didn't
matter since humans frequently squandered the time they had. But that was their
decision. Hers was to be reasonably prompt so they would have that choice to
make.

She looked back at Elijah
Ingram. She supposed most clients who rented a limo for the night didn't even
know the name of their drivers, but she'd known much more than that about him
before he'd come to pick her up. Enough to be reasonably certain he'd go to the
hotel, pay for parking and take just enough of the change to get himself a soda
and a Danish from the vending machine. He'd doze in the car and stash away the
rest of the money to pay for his grown son's many mistakes. Other than
purchasing that guilty snack, he wouldn't spend the money on anything for
himself.

Elijah Ingram was a decent,
hard-working man. A man who knew the dangers of taking money from the damned.

Her standing arrangement with
the Eldar to open for her at ten o'clock in the evening whenever she came to
her Atlanta home and requested it had cost her a fortune, giving the
proprietors the not unjustified impression she was obscenely wealthy. As a
result, the staff acted with the appropriate deference. Not overly chatty,
attentive to her moods. They'd always been careful not to surprise her with the
unexpected.

For that reason alone, Lyssa
knew she should turn on her heel and walk back out. The man who stepped into
the foyer to meet her was not Max.

However, she didn't turn around
and leave. In fact, she brushed away the warning to do so the way she'd
impatiently push a cobweb aside as she passed into a darker, deeper cave where
unknown things—possibly treasure—awaited her.

This man did not look the least
bit like her manicurist. For one thing, he was blatantly, solidly heterosexual,
a condition easily detected by a person with her heightened senses.

His body was a feast. An
absolute feast.

Men scoffed at hose, because in
the Industrial Age they'd become associated with women's wear only, but she
well remembered the way men had looked in them when they'd been the fashion.
She'd favored the short tunics of the Renaissance period, particularly in
Italy. They'd allowed a full view of the leggings from calf to groin. When men
strode down the cobbled street in them, their swords at their hips, the air
ringing with the flowing speech of a language meant to seduce… There was no
woman who wouldn't have felt a. stirring in her loins at such a virile sight.

This man wore such a garment
easily, without self-consciousness, though she suspected he'd worn street
clothes to the salon. He'd chosen a modified version of the hose, no codpiece,
so his heavy cock and testicles cambered intriguingly beneath the tan fabric,
framed between the columns of his muscular thighs. The top of the hose was
rolled down so it rode low on his hips, low enough she could see his hip bones,
the diagonal slope of the muscles above them that formed a
Vee
as they
arrowed toward the genitals. His feet were bare. Since he was drying his hands
on a towel, the motion drew her attention to the solid, compact muscle of his
bare upper body. The man was a fighter, a cross between an Irish boxer and a
medieval knight.

His fair, reddish brown hair had
copper highlights from exposure to the sun. Loose, it fell to his shoulders. A
neatly trimmed moustache and short beard following his chin outlined his firm
lips. Set well on either side of a nose that had been broken at least once, his
blue eyes had fine blond lashes with the same hints of copper. His skin was
pale but ruddy, too Celtic to tan.

He'd executed a short bow when
he stepped into the foyer, but he'd not yet spoken. His overly firm grip on the
towel revealed some tension. When she registered the steady thud of his heart,
smelled his heat and the life pulsing through him, a response rippled through
her. She countered it with irritation, trying to force herself to be sensible.
Careful.

"Are you mute?"

"No, my lady. I would never
speak before you gave me leave."

Despite her intention to remain
inscrutable, she couldn't help the way her interest rose when he spoke so
formally. "Tell me who you are," she said, giving him a mental nudge
to ensure a truthful answer.