The Vampire Queen's Servant (53 page)

His anger surged up, driving out
philosophy in favor of raw reaction.

I'm not Thomas, damn it. Did
you ever holdfast to his arm at night to keep him close to you in your dreams?
Perhaps this isn't about proving Carnal can rip me limb from limb or that I'm
ready for politics at the Council Gathering, but that you have control over a
situation and feelings already far beyond your control. You're afraid of
recreating a situation that broke your heart. But I am not him. And I am
definitely not your fucking husband.

Pain shot through his temple,
causing a brief sense of dizziness that made him stumble. His jaw flexed.

No cheating, my lady.

A sense of infuriated woman,
heat and fire, and she was gone, pulling out so fast he felt somewhat sick to
his stomach. He had no doubt her purpose was to hear what was going through his
head, not to find him. But by catching her there, he'd won a point. She was not
invulnerable and unaffected by him. No one was invulnerable. Not vampires,
humans or wolfhounds. Grudgingly he admitted only the dogs seemed to accept
that with good grace.

Twelve minutes later he found
the glade he sought. About twenty-five-feet in diameter, it was surrounded by
an interlocking circle of live oaks, pines and maples, their branches a
tapestry against the night sky. There was a good amount of undergrowth as well.
If she moved rapidly, she'd give herself away. She could leap up into the
trees, travel that way. But while vampires could leap to extraordinary heights,
they couldn't fly, so she wouldn't be able to soar over the trees. He squatted
on his heels, putting his back against one of the large oaks growing so closely
to the pines he was enclosed on three sides. Even more important, he was
shadowed. Crossing his arms, he bowed his head to his breast, closing his eyes
so he wouldn't rely on them. Vision was a hindrance when it came to vampires.
The human eye could not follow them, and yet it would try to, draining energy
and focus from other senses he'd found more useful.

Concealed at his hip was the
only weapon he hadn't dropped from his arsenal. He'd use it to prove his point,
if he could. It was the vampires' assumption of human weakness that got them
killed. How often had he and Gideon used one of the team as bait, leading the
vampire into a trap, distracting him, taking him out with an error in judgment?
Yes, Gideon had lost people, because vampires weren't stupid. Their senses
could detect danger in ways humans were not as honed to pick up, except with
exceedingly high effort and practice.

But he made every effort to do
so now. Listening, his nostrils flared, body tense but loose at once. Alert and
ready to move.

There were a variety of sounds.
Leaves and branches making contact as the breeze moved through them. One of the
nocturnal animals scratching at something. A bark in the distance as one of the
dogs found something of interest and warned one of his more aggressive brethren
back because he wasn't finished examining it to his satisfaction. He could hear
the quiet sound of his own breath. His heartbeat.
Thud. Thud
.

She'd hear that when she got
close enough, but she'd have to pinpoint its location. You didn't often escape
a vampire. Gideon taught him that early. Once they were on your trail, your
only chance was to turn to the offensive, set them up to surprise them and take
them out. Was she moving quietly through the wood now? Those bare feet pressing
precisely into the earth, disturbing no undergrowth, her body flowing through
it, letting the foliage pass across her bare skin, branches leaving tiny red
scrapes that would vanish in a blink? The moonlight would turn her pale skin to
milky gray, all that dark loose hair cloaking her. A creature of the night. Why
had she undressed? To show that with nothing but her bare hands she could take
him down? Or to distract him with those curves, the pale folds of her sex she'd
revealed with a primal immodesty as she crouched in her feral pose, watching
him discard his weapons. His body burned at the deprivation. His cock had no
sense at all when it came to her, but he ruefully acknowledged no other part of
him seemed to, either. His heart ached to hold her in his arms.

Slowly he raised his head,
opening his eyes as he braced the back of his head on the tree trunk. The
branches of the large live oak across from him stretched out like the gnarled
arms of a giant.

It took a blink for him to
realize there was something not part of the expected picture. When he scrolled
his gaze back, at first he thought he might be in a Faustian dream. Perhaps
there were other reasons Lyssa had the forest perimeter patrolled. Not only to
give her warning of vampire intruders, but to protect creatures humans only
dreamed about in surrealistic nightmares or whimsical fantasy.

Then shock coursed through his
blood, freezing him. He was looking at his Mistress.

She crouched on a tree limb the
way she'd been squatting on the ground when he left her. It was this position
that suggested the amazing possibility to him. Her bare toes curled into the
limb, elongated so they were more like a bird's claws, holding her balance. It
seemed she'd broadened and thickened in the shoulders with the transformation,
but as he continued to study her, he was reminded of the gargoyles at Notre
Dame. Winged gargoyles.

Her skin was silver gray now.
Her hair was gone, her small skull as delicate as a child's, the ears pointed,
fangs pronounced and curving out over her bottom lip. Yes, that was a tail
wrapped around the branch several times, helping her remain still. It had a
barbed tip. Her fingers were talons. The smooth sleekness of her was like an
animal, no womanly softness. Even the discernable mounds of her breasts were
part of the sleek musculature. Yet he found her incredibly feminine. He'd have
known she was female even without the male curiosity that caused him to seek
evidence of her bosom, her sex. Her eyes had gotten larger, rounded, more
widely spaced like a doe's, with long lashes and no irises or whites, just pure
darkness. The skin did not look scaled, but tough, like a seal's skin.

Despite the legends, he'd never
known a vampire who could shape-shift. Their affinity for caverns associated
them with bats, their affinity for predatory animals like Bran gave rise to the
idea they could become all sorts of things, stories he'd always known were
untrue. Vampires had exceptional, deadly talents. Speed, strength, seductive
illusion. Transforming into something else was not one of them. What he was
looking at had to be another mysterious power of his lady's Fey parentage.

She couldn't see him, but she
apparently knew he was in this glade, for from slight movements of her head he
knew she was traversing it with her gaze. Shadowed by the three trees, he was
safe for the moment. He'd been fortunate to move his head when she was looking
elsewhere. As widely spaced as her eyes were, they weren't quite wide enough to
have caught the movement.

The position of her head, the
slight tilt, told him she was now focusing on where he was. Jacob remained
motionless. She kept staring. She knew he was there, but she couldn't separate
him from the shadows of his cover. It had been an excellent choice, but he
suspected he had only a series of seconds before its usefulness would expire.

Less than that. She exploded
from the branch, swooping down. She thought she could flush him with panic or
intimidation. He held fast as she plunged toward his spot, marking the best
time to move even as a part of him marveled at the fascinating sight. The thin
body, ribs as pronounced as a greyhound's. The leather-like wings, extended so
he could see the curved talon at the elbow joint, were nearly ten feet wide,
tip to tip. She looked like a fallen angel, one of God's outcasts coming from
the bowels of hell seeking souls for Lucifer. Or a fairy bathed in blood so
often she had brought sensual beauty and horror together in the same form.

She should have looked
frightening, unappealing, but there was a precise elegance to her, the sparing
movements he'd know in any form.

Closing his eyes, he waited
until he sensed she was almost upon him. He threw himself out of the alcove as
the sweep of her wings passed over him, her talons grazing his back, tearing
his shirt. He ducked under her reach, spun and leaped on her back, snugging his
arm around her throat below her jaw, taking the teeth out of the equation.

They tumbled, but she used the
powerful wings to take her from the ground with him still holding on. Six feet
in the air she executed a flip, which slapped her wings through the grass of
the glade. It threw his weight in an unexpected direction, disorienting him. He
lost his grip and two blinks later found himself on his back, his wind knocked
from him and her sitting on his chest. Just as she had sat in the tree, her
bare feet flat on his stomach, knees bent up to her bosom, protecting herself.
Her wings were half outstretched to balance herself, those dark eyes focused on
him. This close up, he could see far more of Lyssa in her features, though he
had no lingering doubt he was in the presence of his lady.

Of course she appeared impassive
right now, but he read other things. The tension in her body indicated an
overwhelming energy, barely suppressed. It could be bloodlust, or just plain
lust. Or something else, something more unguarded this form allowed more free
play than her vampire form did.

She had him effectively pinned.
At these close quarters, her strength and speed would counter anything he did.
Testing, he lifted one arm and it was immediately seized in her grip, the
talons overlapping so he felt them scrape against his skin. Pressing forward,
he communicated intent instead of struggle, keeping his gaze steady on those
dark eyes.

She'd not yet spoken, and he
didn't know if she could speak in this form, at least in a way he would
understand. But he didn't feel a need for it, lying beneath this beautiful, fascinating
creature who could destroy him without a thought. He felt certain her power
over him was not as absolute as she thought it was. But proving that was no
longer as important to him as touching her face.

While she granted his desire,
she kept her grip on his wrist. When he brushed the firm gray skin of her
cheek, her eyes, those large dark pools, remained unblinking, watching him. As
he pressed a fingertip along the prominent cheekbone, there was a silver sheen
to her skin, a type of oil that set off a ripple of glittering reaction, like
static rippling in tiny starbursts along a woman's skirt as she moved. This had
an electrical tingle to it but no pain. The area on either side of the bridge
of the nose and under the eyes was drawn taut in three symmetrical folds. They
gave her eyes a further depth, a sorrowful mystery, and his heart tightened as
he passed his thumb over them, wondering at the track shedding tears would
take. Or if she could cry in this form. Now he moved on to her ear, twice as long
as an elf's and yet standing just as upright, giving her the appearance of
small horns. He traced up to the point, rising up on one elbow to do so. She
tilted her head down toward him, making a soft crooning noise, a noise of
pleasure as he dipped into the shell of it.

He couldn't help but marvel at
the precise artistry of her. Her neck was long, giving her better reach to look
over her shoulder when flying and execute maneuvers like he'd just experienced.
He wanted to caress the line of it, but first he wanted this. He moved from her
ear to cup her head, the bare skull under his palm. It was smooth and silken
like her body when it had been brushed with a lustrous powder. There was an
exotic, different scent to her as well, almost a hint of vanilla cream. Tantalizing.

At his touch on her skull, she
made another of those soft noises, this time with a slight growl. He kept doing
it, even as it became a low rumble and he knew he was arousing her with the
stroking.

Hunger
. She was hungry.

Raising his chin, he tilted back
his head. Inviting. Offering.