Authors: Joey W. Hill
“We were just chatting while you two discussed taffeta silk versus cotton. Floral versus animal prints.”
“We did not discuss animal prints. And you won’t distract me. You were flirting.”
“She was just a nice girl, love. I was being nice back.” It had been . . . nice to talk to someone simple and down to earth, who was going to university and liked going to the pictures with her friends on Saturday mornings.
Dev looked up to see Danny studying him with that doll’s mask of hers, but at his puzzled regard, she turned away. “You’ll be relieved to know our shopping trip is over. Tomorrow night will be for fun. Alistair is expecting us to join him and Lyssa for cocktails.”
“Not dinner?” Dev tried to keep his tone bland, but she cocked a brow at him.
“Not dinner.”
“No decapitations planned.”
She stopped, looked back over her shoulder with narrowed eyes. “Not yet. But that could change.”
He smiled, but when he moved to her, intending to offer his arm, she’d sidled off a few more steps, and was peering down the street. Dev followed her glance.
There was a man leaning up against the wall, smoking a rolled cigarette. A stockman on holiday probably, since he was wearing the clothes of one and looked as if he’d wandered out of one of the pubs at this late hour. He gave Danny a thorough, appraising look as she stopped there in the flood of the streetlight. In return, she cocked her head, the lamp catching the considering look in a predator’s eye.
“I’m feeling hungry,” she mused. “But for something a bit different. Wait right here in the shadows, Dev. Where he can’t see you.”
Before he could respond to that, she was moving down the street. As she came toward him, her walk changed to a provocative saunter that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but an invitation. No decent woman would be out this time of night unescorted, anyhow. The man straightened from the wall. If he’d been a smarter bloke, he would have been wary, for she didn’t look like any kind of whore. Of course, he hadn’t been any smarter that first night, had he?
Dev set his jaw, tried to cross his arms and lean back against the wall, almost a mirror of how the man had been standing. It wasn’t his business if she wanted some variety in her meals.
Except, for her, the taking of blood brought the same pleasure as sex. She’d said so, hadn’t she?
That wasn’t why he took after her. He wasn’t sure why his feet were moving, but they were. When he got into the alley, she’d turned toward the stranger, her face lifted as if she might take a kiss. Dev gripped her upper arm and pulled her away from the muddled bugger.
“Rack off,” he snarled at the man. The stockman needed no further invitation, apparently registering the blood in Dev’s eye, the feral amusement in Danny’s. But when he’d disappeared, that amusement disappeared. Reversing their grips, she slammed Dev against the brick so hard, his breath left him in a grunt. He tried to shove at her, but then he was gripping her waist, for she’d seized his jaw, jerked his head to the side and pierced him, her body pressing against him from neck to groin.
“You want to be mine,” she whispered. “You
are
mine.”
“No.” He denied it, even as his body betrayed him, hardening against her, his hands under the shirt now, curling into her flesh.
He didn’t want her feeding on others. Didn’t want her to seek another man’s flesh, his heat, to nourish her. Jesus, he was torn between being a moony, lovesick calf and wanting to cut and run.
Maybe she had the same problem, for with an oath, she pushed away from him, wiping at her lips with the back of her hand, her irises tinged with red.
Withdrawing his handkerchief from the jacket he wore, he reached out, slow, careful-like, for her expression was that of a spitting cat. She let him touch her, though, wipe the blood off the back of her knuckles. Keeping his gaze on that, he spoke, low.
“I was just being nice to her, love. She was young enough to be my daughter. Truth was, that’s what it felt like, like I was talking to a kid. Though a pretty kid, I won’t deny that.” He pocketed the handkerchief with a bitter smile. “I told you when you took another man to your bed, that’s when I’d leave. I don’t expect you to have a lower standard. I’m all yours, until I’ve had enough or you send me away.”
He glanced up then, and she was staring at the contact between their hands. “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, Dev. Between vampire and servant.”
“What? They have a manual? Like Emily Post?”
She lifted her attention to his face then, and he shrugged. “You’ve made me learn all sorts of things these past couple days. I could have been reading that, brushing up for this get-together tomorrow night.”
“Larrikin,” she said at last, and he squeezed her hand.
“Daft girl. How could I want any other woman? I’m aching for you, love.” He took advantage of the softening of her eyes to bring her closer, where her breasts brushed his chest. “Take me to your bed tonight,” he demanded.
As she touched his lips, he caught a finger, drew it in, teased it with his tongue. He felt her pulse elevate, for he closed his hand on her wrist. When she drew back at last, he damn well knew she was aroused.
“Not tonight,” she said softly. “And as stimulating as it was to be in your mind early yesterday morning, feeling you bring yourself to climax alone, I want you to keep your hands off what’s mine. Then, tomorrow night, we’ll see.”
“More games, my lady?” He tried to push down his frustration.
“It’s never a game, Dev. Remember?”
For some reason, Dev had pictured Lyssa as matronly. More than a thousand years old, after all. Danny was probably laughing at him, though he wouldn’t know, since the bloody woman hadn’t had a bloody word to say to him beyond perfunctory instructions since she’d left him in the foyer at dawn.
Lady Lyssa, Queen of the Far East Clan, had eyes with irises like jade, but large, dark pupils that could almost obliterate the color when her moods changed in intensity. The long black hair she had twisted over one shoulder went to her hips. He suspected whatever she chose to wear would be stunning on her, but tonight she wore a Japanese-style jade green and blue dress with mandarin collar and a single frog that reminded him somewhat of Chiyoko. However, this one of course covered most of her small bosom, though it was blessedly short, only to midthigh. She wore earrings that were emerald pendants set in a frame of dark blue sapphires to match the two colors of the embroidered silk.
Appearances aside, Dev had no doubt the woman was more than a thousand years old. When she took a seat on the beach chair Alistair had provided, her elegant hands rested comfortably on the chair arms, her posture erect. If he had been in the presence of Queen Elizabeth herself, Dev couldn’t have been more aware that he was before royalty. Lady Lyssa’s royalty wasn’t merely the entitlement of blood or birth. She projected it in strength of purpose, character and sheer
power
.
When Danny looked at him certain ways, he
sensed
he was dealing with an otherworldly creature. In contrast, what emanated from Lyssa was like the punishing strength of dangerous surf, wave after wave of it, impossible to get your feet beneath you once you’d waded in past the ankles. Any man in his right mind would be scared shit-less of her, vampire or not.
It was okay, Dev reminded himself. They weren’t having dinner. Just visiting, cocktails and such. Surely they only indulged in their depraved Roman-style orgies in conjunction with seven-course meals.
Alistair had a beautiful Victorian on a private stretch of beach outside of Brisbane, versus the more removed Surfer’s Paradise.
He’d had his staff set out chairs, a table with chessboard and refreshments for his guests, even a side table with a selection of beverages for the human servants, under a colorful pavilion he had permanently erected on the sand. The decorative wrought iron frame was wound with streamers and fresh tropical flowers. When the three vampires lost no time settling down to catch up with one another, Danny waved Dev away like a mother shooing her boy in short pants off to play.
He was distracted from that irritation when Alistair’s servant joined them. Nina was well along pregnant. She took a quiet seat on a towel folded on the sandy surface between her Master’s spread feet. While Alistair continued conversing with the two vampires, he stroked her hair, her temple resting against his knee. Like a devoted pet, Dev told himself. But he couldn’t help remembering Danny’s hand upon his hair, her soft eyes studying him with a gentleness he saw in Alistair’s gaze when he occasionally glanced down at her. Or how sometimes Tina had leaned against him at night when she was carrying Rob, seeking that reassurance and bond at once.
If Danny had reminded Dev of Grace Kelly, Alistair was Rudolph Valentino, the sculpted planes of his face immortalized in black and white. Tall and virile, he had dark straight hair that followed the shape of his skull closely, and direct, piercing blue eyes beneath etched brows. A disturbingly sensual mouth, because it was distracting to either gender. Dev wondered if God had ever created a homely vampire.
“You must be Devlin.”
Devlin turned to find himself face-to-face with Lyssa’s servant. Thomas was about his height, an inch or so taller, with closely trimmed brown hair and wire spectacles over remarkably vivid gray eyes. His brows had a golden color that suggested, if his hair grew out, it would have blond streaks from the sun. For a monk, he had an athletic, lean build and a firm grip as he shook Dev’s hand. “It’s a pleasure.” He gestured with two towels. “Why don’t you and I wade out while our host and the ladies enjoy their game of chess? As long as your Mistress doesn’t object?”
Dev slanted a glance toward Danny. “She doesn’t seem to give a rat’s arse, mate.”
Thomas looked startled by the caustic observation, then an unexpected slow smile crossed his face. “You haven’t been with her long, have you?”
“I figure it’s temporary for the two of us. I mean, it happened out of circumstances, and you, Aapti, even Nina over there, you’re all polished and groomed for this. So when she turns her sights on another bed warmer, or I get the notion it’s time to go walkabout again, it will end. But on the other hand, I want to know more about being a servant. You know, until then. I don’t want to botch the job, no matter the rest.”
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you could bury a man’s Scotch-Irish Catholic blood, but it would boil up like tea in the billy in the face of a priest. ’Course, Thomas was a monk, not a priest, but it was all the same. The monk’s first insightful observation, followed by some other pointed questions during their swim, had made it too bloody easy. Dev had nursed questions about being a servant since the beginning, and for the first time, he’d found someone more than obliging to answer them. The couple beers he’d had, plus the two rather potent drinks brought to them by Alistair’s staff, hadn’t hurt with the loosening of his tongue. Being third-marked apparently didn’t inhibit the ability to hit the turps, though he’d hardly call a handful of stubbies that.
Now they sat side by side on the tide edge, letting the ocean waves lap at their toes. It had taken him aback, the lack of swim trunks, but Thomas had patiently explained that the vampires preferred to see their servants swim naked. So, after their clothes had been taken away by the far too helpful staff, they had enjoyed a swim, though Dev made use of the towel, wrapping it around his waist when they took a seat in the sand. Thomas simply folded and sat on his, obviously comfortable with nudity, or perhaps obeying his lady’s wishes. Despite the fact he was a monk, he did have a body that would more than please a woman. Of course God had that kind of sense of humor.
Only one thing marred that perfection. Having been in war, Dev knew there were things one didn’t ask another bloke unless he volunteered to talk about it. But it was hard not to let his eyes stray to Thomas’s back as the monk leaned over to take up another, smaller towel and mop his face, reclaim the wire-rimmed glasses he’d left on them. Old scars, but they’d been deep ones. Lash marks, so many that they striped his back, made it hard to figure what the count had been.
“My fealty oath to my lady. The Ritual of Binding to a vampire queen.”
When Thomas turned, he lifted a shoulder at Dev’s expression. “The lash marks. That’s what you wanted to know. You might as well ask the question if you’re staring.”
“Sorry, mate,” Dev offered. “Bloody hell, though. She did this to you? Lady Lyssa?”
“Yes,” Thomas said, unperturbed. “Well over a century ago, when I chose to become her full servant. In order for a full servant to scar, his vampire Mistress, or Master, must mark the weapon with their own blood before they use it on the servant. She had me draw the blade across her arm, and anoint the flogger myself. Then she did the honors.”
Dev looked up the beach. He’d caught Danny indulging in a few nice, long looks at him as he swam in the waves. But otherwise she seemed unconcerned with him, playing chess with Lyssa and laughing at the dry comments Alistair was throwing in. The vampire queen even had a faint smile on her face.
“Ah, hell, I’m in the wrong bloody place.” Dev scrubbed frustrated hands through his wet hair, slicking it back. “I should—”
“Keep doing exactly what your heart tells you to do.”
Dev started as Thomas reached out and rubbed a quick hand over his head. A tousle, the reassuring gesture an older man would offer to a young boy, and strewth if it didn’t actually make him feel a bit better. The bloke had a way about him, for certain. That could be a problem. Looking down, Dev spoke to the ground between his feet. “Are you fucking with me, Thomas?”
“Excuse me?” The monk sounded startled.
“I think the lady Lyssa had the staff bring us those drinks. I think you’re getting me to talk because she wants to know more about Danny. I don’t know all the politics, as I said. But I’ve learned enough to know that it’s entirely possible every vampire she meets either wants her dead or between her legs, so if you’re up to either of those—”
“Good God, no.” Thomas’s eyes crinkled in a smile. It was reassuring, but Dev held Thomas’s gaze, saying nothing. “It’s not Danny she wants to know about,” the monk relented at last. “She already knows a great deal about her. She wants to know about you. Though I’m glad to see you’re already paying attention to what’s going on around you,” he added. “And even more importantly, what’s going on around her.”