The Vampire Queen's Servant (17 page)

She tucked her hands under her
cheek like an innocent child preparing to take her repose, unfettered by sins.
When her eyes immediately began to droop, the siren's mask slipped, the shadows
etching out an exhaustion too startling to be false.

Thomas said she could stay up
even to the midmorning hours as long as she wasn't in direct sunlight, and it
was barely past dawn. Maybe there was a reason she'd used distraction more than
physical exertion to get him onto the cross. It managed to drive back his
frustrated lust and tangled emotions enough to realize she'd actually been as
tired as she'd said.

She turned on her back, giving
him a different view of her body in that scrap of lingerie.

"Tell me who Jacob
is." Her voice, sleepy, surprised him. "I like bedtime stories."

"Should
Arabian Nights
come to mind?"

She smiled. "Only if you
tell me a bad story."

He chuckled, but Lyssa heard the
strain in the tone. His current condition was weighing heavily on his mind. She
wanted him thinking, particularly while his connection to her was still limited
to one mark. No matter what happened, she didn't mind giving him the one that
would let her know where he was, that he was alive. She'd like to keep track of
him.

It was another of the many
things being alive so long had taught her. A person could make a lasting
impression in less than a moment. She cultivated those impressions as if they
were physical relationships, visiting with them in her mind when she wanted
company, imagining words they might have said intertwined with what they did
say during their brief interaction with her.

"Tell me about you, Jacob.
I want to see the pictures in my head. Who were your parents?"

"My parents are dead, my
lady."

"Will you tell me how? You
don't have to, if it's too painful."

"I can refuse you nothing,
my lady. When you ask."

She acknowledged the barb, but
waited, cognizant of his hesitation.

"It was a lightning strike
on the water while we were all at the beach. My brother knew CPR, worked on Dad
and talked me through doing it on Mom, because I was eight and didn't know how.
It didn't matter, they were both gone within a few minutes."

She studied the darkness, the
way it closed around her but still gave her the sense of him, just to the right
of her bed. For Christmas one year, Thomas had given her a set of plastic stars
that glowed in the dark. He'd put them on her ceiling for her. She watched them
glow above her now. "I asked you who they were, and you told me how they
died. You don't like to talk about them, then."

"When you're eight, your
parents are the center of your universe. It's a shitty age to learn the
universe can be turned into a donut with nothing more than a
thunderstorm."

"So it was you and your
brother. The vampire hunter."

"Gideon."

"He's a story for another
night. But start the story for me, so I can look forward to it another
time."

"How much time passes
before you trust someone, my lady? Before I can sleep next to you, hold you in
my arms to keep you safe as you slumber?"

His voice had the rough quality
of anger, the edge of panic that overcame a strong man when he realized he was
completely helpless.

There was a unique type of alpha
who could fight through it, who had the capacity to find the pleasure on the
other side of pain. She'd recognized it in him easily, such that the rough edge
sent shivers of pleasure through her body.

Lifting a hand, she touched the
darkness that held the shape of him as if she were touching him. "That
will be up to you, Jacob. But I've never trusted anyone. Not even Thomas. Until
the end, when he sacrificed his life for me."

When he drew in a breath, she
discovered another thing Thomas hadn't shared, but that didn't surprise her.
"That, too, is a story for another night. Besides which, I keep my human
servant too busy to laze around in bed with his Mistress during the daylight
hours." Though the mental picture was far too pleasing. "Where did
the accent come from? The Irish."

"My parents were from Ireland.
I was born and raised here, but being around them and my aunt and uncle… well,
I picked it up. I guess it was something like knowing two languages. I could
switch between them both, and sometimes the accent feels more comfortable to
me. It made me feel closer to memories of them. For the first three years after
their death, I spoke that way all the time. It also went over well at the
Faire, so I guess it comes automatically now, in certain situations."

"I like it, too. The way it
comes and goes." Like a lover's fingers gliding up her spine when they
weren't expected. "Give me something about Gideon, since I'm already
disposed to dislike him."

"In terms offeree of will,
you two are matching brick walls." His tone was dry. "But because of
him I saw you for the very first time."

When he shifted as much as his
bindings allowed, she noticed his cock had dropped to a semierect state. She
ran a hand over her hip, idly cupped her breast to play with the nipple, and
watched his organ stiffen, lengthen. Heard him stifle a groan.

"When did you see me for
the first time?"

She smiled at his whispered
curse, but he answered her. "I trained and worked with Gideon into my
early twenties. College wasn't for me. Never did take to the idea of having
someone else teach me what I could pick up a book and learn for myself, making
my own impressions. We were at a bullfight down in Mexico, because he was on
the trail of a male vampire who liked blood sports, as many vampires seem to
do."

"Mmm."

"You were there. With
Thomas and…"

"Rex." She whispered
the name, not wanting to call his image into the room. She didn't want Jacob
saying his name, as if it would bring harm to him, like the calling of a curse.

"He seemed very into it.
Very amused at how you weren't."

Lyssa's gaze rose. While he was
obviously stimulated by her body, Jacob had his clear blue gaze focused on her
face in a way that told her he saw the woman behind the seductive pose. The
woman he'd seen that day. "When you got up to leave, he caught hold of
your arm. From a distance, even to someone close by, that's all it would have
looked like. A man grasping a woman's arm. He never stopped smiling, but he
broke your forearm, just crushed the bone and it gave. You went white, but you
didn't sit back down. You stared at each other, a stalemate. I remember Thomas
was completely expressionless, but something vibrating from him said if he
could have called the bull up into the stands he'd have staked Rex on those
horns."

Lyssa turned her attention
toward the ceiling. She had a mural painted there. A moonlit night, shadows of
clouds chasing the full, pale beauty of the orb. Thomas's stars gleamed among
the images. "It's difficult for mortals to understand relationships
between vampires," she said at last. "He was almost invincible. There
was no move he couldn't anticipate. He'd read almost every book I'd heard of,
and he never slept well. It was as if his mind was constantly accelerating.
What did your brother say?"

"He told me it wasn't our
business. That you were a vampire, too. As if that made a difference."

"It does, Jacob." She
ran her fingertips up her throat, tracing the arteries, feeling the scrape of
her own nails. "We never did finish our manicure. I have what you need
here. You can finish it tomorrow night."

"Whatever my lady
wishes." The tone of his voice indicated he was frustrated by her
unwillingness to say more. She could ignore that, of course. But something made
her want to give him something, just a piece.

She turned back on her hip, one
hand draped on it so his gaze could not help but be distracted by where her
fingers rested, inches from the folds of her sex beneath the lace. It allowed
her the pleasure of looking at him without that too perceptive gaze on her
face. Her Irish knight had fine definition in his arms and across his stomach.
She'd likely have him shave off all his body hair except on his skull, if she
kept him. But she wasn't displeased by the thatch of hair gleaming on his broad
chest. She liked the idea of stroking through its softness, tugging. Plus, he'd
already proven the worth of his beard and moustache. She didn't go back to his
eyes, preferring the sense of physical stimulation only.

"Not all vampires are
sexual dominants, but most are. We have very strong sexual compulsions, and we
live by a stringent pecking order. You maintain your place on the ladder by
proving you can repel any threat to it. Rex had wanted me since we first met. I
knew we were meant to be together, for many reasons. But we never could
reconcile that part of our relationship. I would not become his slave, for I
knew the depths of his cruelty and his need. If I had ever relented, he would
have killed me, for he'd have had no use for me. But because I never did…"

She'd become the enduring
passion in his life. The one thing he'd loved, as much as he understood what
love was. She'd thought loving her could help him become the man she'd sensed
he was capable of being. A memory rose in her mind, of Rex sprinkling rose
petals over her bare body. While she'd slept, he'd gathered them, every rose
from miles around it seemed. She'd wakened from a dream into a snowstorm of
petals while he'd stood over her, showering her in them. Pale pink, white,
bloodred…

When he'd sunk between her
parted knees, she'd scooped up two handfuls and poured them over his head,
watching them tumble over his shoulders. He'd looked at her in what for Rex had
been a vulnerable moment. Wondering at her, not understanding her. So different
from himself but in that blink of time content to know she accepted him. No doubt,
no challenge. When she exposed her throat in invitation, he sank his fangs into
her, his body penetrating her as well. She'd wrapped herself around him,
holding him. Though she'd known it was a fleeting moment, the capriciousness of
time was something she understood and accepted as well. Hours later, he created
a crown of the thorns and made her wear it so he could lick the blood that
trickled down her forehead off her cheeks, her lips.

There'd been only one creature
powerful enough to kill him. She had.

"My lady?"

"I'm tired, Jacob. No more
stories for now. But… why didn't you and your brother hunt us that day?"

"We were there for another
vampire. It was odd, though." Jacob paused. "He said he would hunt
Rex in time, but he would never hunt you."

"Because I'm a woman?"
She was amused at the thought. "That kind of foolishness must be a family
trait."

"No. He's killed female
vampires before. He didn't say why, just made sure I saw you so I'd recognize
you were off-limits. Once I saw you… I knew that would never be a problem. I
could never cause you harm, my lady."

Her attention moved deliberately
over his bindings, underscoring his helplessness with a mocking look. "I
agree. It's also a good thing Rex is gone. He would have killed your brother
with as much effort as blinking."

A muscle flexed in Jacob's jaw
and he shifted his hips, giving her the pleasure of watching his cock and
testicles move with his body while bound in the uncomfortable jewelry. "I
wouldn't underestimate Gideon."

"I don't. There was no overestimating
Rex. Whatever you believe he was capable of, he was. Plus far more."