A Vampire's Claim (35 page)

She put a hand to Dev’s hair, knowing he’d slipped into unconsciousness, for she was bearing his full weight against her.

“Munaintya is Dreamtime. The beginning, creation of the world, according to the blacks. Yertabulti is the place of slumber. It’s what they used to call Port Adelaide, because it was where the birds went to sleep. I think in his muddled way, he was trying to say he wanted to go to sleep.”
Or to die
.

Pushing that thought away, she turned it to the practical. “Bring buckets of water,” she commanded. “We’ll wash the worst of it off him out here, and then I want a bath drawn for him inside. A full bath. He’s earned it.”

Danny eased Dev down so his shoulders and head were in her lap. Until he was conscious or clean, she wouldn’t know the extent of his injuries, but for now, she laid her hand on his chest, where under the caked mud she knew the raven mark would be, felt her heart rate settle.

“Hotcakes. Cook promised hotcakes.”

“Soon.”

When he cracked open an eye, the pull at one corner of his mouth speared her heart, because she felt how the mere effort of it tore something inside him. He was wounded, but his worst wounds had nothing to do with his flesh.

“First, you need this.” Steeling herself for his resistance or revulsion, the idea of which bothered her far more than it should, she started to bring her wrist to her mouth to puncture it. “A couple tablespoons will be enough. A Mistress’s blood is highly restorative to her servant, when he has need.”

Reaching up with an unusually clumsy hand, he closed it over her right breast. Gently, his fingers traced a random path over it before his arm gave out and he let it fall back to his abdomen, his eyes closing. “There. Like you said. Liked the way you did . . .

the water. Need . . . something . . . need . . . death.”

“No. I forbid that, Dev. You’re my servant. You serve me.”

She wouldn’t let him push her away, but he tried. She didn’t want to hurt him, fight him here in the yard in front of the leers of Ruskin’s men. But those words cut into her, the confusing swirl of his thoughts a mixture of pain and exhaustion, so deep she almost felt the lassitude in her own limbs.

“It will be all right,” she said, letting it go for now and giving him something different. Sliding her other arm around him, she held him close, burying his face into her breast, the promise of it, letting him hide from himself. “Let me take care of you, Dev. Don’t think.

Just sleep.”

It took two rinses in the yard to get most of the surface debris off him, enough so that he wouldn’t turn the water in the inside tub into a mudhole. He was only semiconscious through the porch washing, so thankfully he didn’t have to see Ruskin’s departure.

Danny had to leave her staff to do the washing of the outer crust while she performed the necessary cool good-byes to the Region Master. Trying to block the whimpers and cries of his remaining children, she overheard one stockman relaying instructions that, once back in Darwin, they would be put back into their individual small cages and starved for the next week as punishment for their failure. She couldn’t bear to look at their faces, and actually hated the Vampire Council for their apathy.

Lord Ruskin’s farewell was curt, though his eyes were hard on her face. “I will restock my pack before the meeting, so they will perform far more ably. So I advise you to improve your manners, as well as those of your servant. Otherwise, you will be part of the excellent entertainments I’ll have planned.”

She cheerfully and viciously hoped he would drive straight into Hades as the entourage passed out of her gates and headed down the dusty track to start the long journey back to Darwin. However, she couldn’t take her eyes away as the last Rover passed and the three caged children in it watched her, fear and pain in their gazes.

Damn it, damn it,
damn it.

Turning back toward the porch, she saw her small handful of stockmen standing there, including old Jim. At her glance, he stepped forward. “Any orders, my lady?”

“You’re in charge until Dev’s on his feet. For tonight, have the men retire to quarters and handle their stock duties as normal.”

“Yes, ma’am. Aye. Right-o.” There was a general pulling of forelocks, an exchange of glances, none of which she perceived as being duplicitous, and then they were off to the sleeping quarters. From old Jim’s long look, she knew she could rest easy, at least for tonight. However, she couldn’t delay long in determining whom she was going to send off. The rest, including the house staff, would all need two marks for her to monitor them. Right now, though, she had only one thing to do that really mattered to her.

Her men had brought the semiconscious Dev to the kitchen and into the tub. That young maid was busy washing his hair, and the cook was pouring in some more clean water. At her entrance, they both looked up, but she waved a hand so that they could continue, though her gaze narrowed thoughtfully on the young woman.

“Ruskin didn’t assign you to watch me. Who are you?”

“No, marm. I’m Elisa. Your mum, she took me on right before she died. She said . . . you’d probably like me.” Her cheeks tinged and she rushed on. “I mean, that I’d be useful to you. I’m a very good lady’s maid, as well as . . . I can do household duties, also.

Mrs. Rupert”—she nodded to the cook—“she can tell you I’m a hard worker.”

“A little too pretty,” the cook said gruffly. “But, yes, my lady. The blokes fall over themselves when they see her, but she keeps her mind on her work.” Her gaze shifted. “Your mum . . . she arranged it so Elisa would never be bothered by the old master. His oath to her. Possibly the only one he ever honored, and that was because she hasn’t been gone very long. Plus, he was still occupied with Mary. This one was a little too strong willed for his tastes.”

Danny arched her brows and the woman flushed. “My apologies—”

“None needed,” Danny said. “Thank you for that honesty. Elisa has already proven her worth to me today. As you have.”

There was a rumble, a sound suspiciously like a snort, and Danny adjusted her glance to see Dev considering the young woman through half-slit eyes. Elisa’s position put her wobbling bosom, though covered by the maid’s uniform, right over his face. “I like her fine already,” he observed.

“Don’t tempt me to drown you.” Though she was glad to hear him exercising his normal wit rather than mumbling about death, see clarity in his eyes rather than the shadows of hell called up from deep in his soul. Laying a hand on his shoulder, Danny bent over him as Elisa discreetly withdrew. As she surveyed his body, she had to admit she liked that fine as well. Had from the beginning.

Now, though, she felt a rush of anger when she saw the healing scars of a half dozen wounds that would have been serious and possibly even fatal on an unmarked human. Yes, he needed her blood. Now.

“I’ll take over his bath.” She didn’t care what her staff thought, but neither one showed a reaction.

“There’s extra towels right there, my lady,” Elisa said. “Ring that bell if you need anything, or any help getting him upstairs when you’re done.” An unspoken message that they would have privacy. Both women affected a curtsy, then were gone on quiet feet.

You’re right, Mother. I do like her.
Danny shook her head. Typical. A small gift from a mother who’d left her so many other problems of nearly unmanageable proportions.

For now, though, she turned her attention to Dev, who had his chin on his shoulder, as if he’d slipped off again. Kneeling by his side, she put her hand on his temple, stroking through the wet hair. He had a strong neck, like a bull. In fact, he was built like that.

Such broad shoulders, a burliness that hinted at the pugnacious nature beneath his good-natured exterior. Not overly tall, though a bit taller than herself.

Come on, then, bushman. Before I can let you dream, you have to eat.

But she hesitated at the wrist, thinking about what he’d asked. She should just feed him from the arm, a functional act, but he’d asked so little for all that he’d given her. Unbuttoning the first several buttons of the blouse she’d been wearing, she unhooked the bra in back, pulled it down so that he’d have clear access to the inviting curve of breast. When she turned her attention back to him, she found his eyes had opened again, though he appeared to be fighting sleep as fiercely as he’d fought Ruskin’s men.

“Should have known the sound of a woman’s clothes coming off would be enough to wake you.”

“In a couple ways.” His gaze drifted down his body, and she saw, remarkably, he was getting aroused in the warm water.

“Maybe you don’t need my blood. Not if you can fill that huge thing.”

“Taking blood . . . from my brain. Don’t need a lot there.” His eyes glinted. “Weak . . . as a baby. Do what you want . . . with it.”

“Oh, Dev.” She passed a thumb over his lips, but felt a warm shiver at the responsive flex of them under her pad, the attention of his eyes on her bare flesh. The mindless hunger there. “It’s a survival response. You can’t possibly finish. You’ll probably pass out before you’re all the way hard.”

“Not about finishing. About . . . being inside. Please, my lady.” She saw it then, in his mind, a desperate need to find something real and immediate to ground him back in the present and not the blood of the past few days.

That took away any resistance she had. Rising, she removed her clothes. His eyes followed her, and even as worn-out as he was, she saw his powers of observation had not been dulled enough. He lighted on the tear in her shirt, moved from there to the bruises she knew would be fading.

“You and the Pom have a disagreement?”

“A mild one. Your arrival broke it up, or I might have got the best of him, then and there.”

Dev’s gaze rose, held hers. “No,” he said at last. “Not this time.”

Despite her protest, he lifted himself with a grunt, so he was sitting up straighter in the tub, reached out to her with a wet hand.

Biting back a sigh of impatience with his stubbornness, she let him touch her face, but the penetrating knowledge in his eyes was unexpected and unsettling. She would have drawn back, but his fingers tangled in her hair.

“He did more than knock you around a bit. He . . .” His eyes narrowed, his hand tightening.

“No.” She closed her hand on his wrist, held his gaze. “Only if I were dead, Dev. That’s the only way he’d get that. It was a way of threatening me,” she added, when his green eyes didn’t waver, a hint of savagery suggesting what his opponents had been facing these past several days. “He was trying to unbalance me. He succeeded a little bit, but he won’t be alive long enough to savor it, believe me.”

“Yeah, I do. But together, remember?”

She bit back another sigh. There was no way Dev could help her take out a vampire more than five hundred years old. But he was too much of a man to hear such logic, even on a good day. Instead, she let her hand slide to his shoulder, gently began to push him back. “What do I have to do to get you to shut up and eat?”

“The airplane, coming in for a landing?” At her startled look, he made the motion of a held spoon turning in the air, zooming for an infant’s hopeful mouth. “Of course, I
was
thinking of something a little different.”

“I
should
drown you,” she decided.

“Your hair,” he said softly. “Take down your hair, love. Thought about your hair. Dreamed about it.”

For today, she’d overlook the fact it came out of his mouth almost like an order. There was no way he could make her do it, after all. As she stepped into the tub, she removed Chiyoko’s sticks, let it spread out on her shoulders. She straddled his body, working her feet in on either side of his thighs. When he ran his wet hands up the sides of them, closing on her flesh, she let herself be drawn down, feeling the tremor in his arms.

His body was such a mess, but beneath the cuts, bruises and half-healed wounds, she saw his muscles, straining. From his mind, she knew he was right. Wounded he was, but what he most needed now was this. Truth, she was already somewhat slick for him, merely from the intensity of his gaze, his need for her. As she lowered herself, his hands moved up to her buttocks, cupped them. A wry smile crossed his face, though. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to do much for your pleasure, love. I’m so tired, but want you so badly, I’m sure to be the typical bastard. Go off like a geyser the minute your sweet cunt closes on me, and then fall right to sleep.”

“We’ll see,” she murmured, and began to sink down on him. As his attention went to that joining place, his breath drawing in, she picked up the razor Elisa had left on the stack of towels and flipped it open, drawing his startled attention. When his cock had pressed several inches into her slick, welcoming channel, she drew the blade across her breast, making a bright vermilion streak of blood well up.

“Drink first,” she ordered, cupping his head. “It will help restore your strength, heal your body completely.”

She leaned forward, half impaled on him, her body already quivering, but it was a delicious sensation, holding still there while that broad head waited, insisted.

Beats the hell out of the airplane method, doesn’t it?

His fingers dug into her hips, but she refused to budge until he complied.
Drink, Dev. Let me help heal you.

His tongue touched her skin, took the first tentative lick of her flesh, her nourishing blood. A drop fell into the water with a soft
plop
, spreading out, a crimson flower with spidery petals. With a mental sigh, he closed his mouth over the wound, began to pull at her. The reaction from her own body was electric, spasms rippling up through her womb such that she felt the reactive flex of his hands on her, the surge of lust in his own mind, as he realized the effect it had on her.

She could hold both their bodies still with effort, but it also required pressing down, and she found herself drawing out that torment, one millimeter at a time, feeling him stretch her, demand more of her body, as she demanded more of it as well. She maintained the creeping pace, because every millimeter brought a convulsion of pleasure almost as strong as a climax. Also, she knew it was a gentler way to handle his battered torso, though he likely wouldn’t care for her tenderness.