A Vampire's Claim (53 page)

His lips twisted in a bit of a smile. “Not a whole lot of them in the Outback, love. You’re unique.”

She swallowed then, the first indication of a real emotion. “You’re an exceptional man, Dev, a treasure to any woman whose heart you steal. Seek a family again. You owe it to yourself. You have love to give.”

He swallowed as well, glanced to the left, made the automatic note that the curtains were properly sealed against the coming dawn.

Of course, he was sure Alistair’s staff was well trained in that. “Ruskin. We still need to deal with him. You call me on that mind link thing of yours when you’re ready. I’ll back you up.”

“No.” Now any softness disappeared from her gaze. “I won’t. Let me deal with him, Dev. I promise I will, and there’s no shame in you letting me do it. A human cannot stand against a mature vampire and live. I’ll take care of him in my own time, my own way.

All right?”

When his lips firmed to that thin, stubborn line, Danny had to resist the sudden, desperate urge to follow the hard jaw with lips or fingers, make the green eyes soften or fire with lust, instead of anger. But something was tearing inside her now. It was a crush, Lyssa had implied. Emotions running high and strong like a flash flood. Like a flood, it would pass, and she’d have lovely, delicate memories, like the sudden fields of wildflowers that sprang up in the red landscape after such storms.

“Your word, my lady. Or I seek him out myself, at the earliest opportunity.”

“Very well,” she relented. “When I get ready, when the timing is right, I’ll contact you. We need to get past this vampire event of his first, because we don’t want to do it when he has so many in attendance. I’ll be going to that, of course, to determine if there are other weaknesses we can exploit.”

His hand shot out, caught her wrist. “I don’t want you anywhere near that bastard.”

“That is not your decision,” she said, meeting his gaze. “But know that I will be safe from him until I choose my strategy, if that brings you comfort.”

He searched her face, nodded. “All right, then. But, Danny, it can’t be like Ian. You have to step back, keep yourself separate from it if you’re going to get where you’re going.” At her furrowed brow, he shifted his glance away. “I’ll only say this once, and only because I think you need to hear it. That’s how I hunted down the men who killed my family. I didn’t let myself feel any of it, until it was over. You’ve got to do it like a god. As if it’s all for the best, really. No regrets. That comes after.”

With the nightmares,
she thought. Who would be near him during his sleep to keep it tranquil? Hold him when the nightmares couldn’t be outrun?

Hesitating, he withdrew his hand, but then offered the right one. “My lady.”

Danny took it, but instead of a formal shake, she simply slid her hand into his palm, laced their fingers and gazed up at him. With another oath, he leaned down, took her lips in a hard, needy kiss, pulling her up against him. The sweep of his hands up her back washed all the rest away, made her long to beg him to stay, no matter what, damn the consequences to his heart and soul, or hers.

He saved them both. Tearing away, he spun on his heel, striding out of the room without a look back. Danny was glad for it, because she didn’t want the shame of him seeing the tears that gathered in her eyes and spilled out onto her cheeks at the close of the door behind him.

She stood there, her hands opening and closing. When her father died, she had hidden her grief away because her mother couldn’t bear her tears. She hadn’t cried when her mother chose Ian over her. But now, this was something she’d wanted for herself, and she’d underestimated how much. She didn’t give a damn about the vampire world and what they thought. He’d seen
her
. Liked her. Known her heart. And she’d gutted him for it. It didn’t matter that she’d had to do it. If this was all that life was, holding oneself aloof, century after century, not giving oneself a moment of intimacy, a moment of meaning, then what was the point? He’d looked at her the same way he looked upon the landscape of the bush, and he hadn’t seen emptiness in either one of them. But in the end, he’d chosen the Red Heart, because it hadn’t betrayed his, the way she had tonight. Like a sailor returning to the sea, because he was too much a part of it to refuse its call, he was going back to his desert. Which was where he belonged, where she could think fondly of him.

She’d sat down on the divan, bent over double, the pain too much to bear, when she felt Lyssa’s hands upon her. She’d given Lyssa a bloodlink, and while the queen could avail herself of it at any time, she didn’t often, as a courtesy. But apparently Danny’s pain was too loud to ignore.

What she’d never counted on her mother to give, she took from Lyssa now. Turning in the older vampire’s arms, she sobbed, while Lyssa held and rocked her silently, her jade green eyes full of sorrow and knowledge. Thomas stood at the door, his gaze locked with his Mistress’s, both of them understanding all too well the young vampire woman’s grief. And while Lady Lyssa might not fully understand what a servant provided, or how it balanced a chosen vampire’s world, Thomas did.

“Figure it out, Dev,” the monk murmured. “And come back soon.”

Lyssa had stayed until Danny was collected, then helped her wipe her tears. Said little, for there was nothing to say. By the time Danny went to bed, well past dawn, she was exhausted and thought she’d perhaps won the ability Dev had, to go to a place of nothingness in herself.

“It will be fine,” Lyssa had murmured, her last words as she smoothed a hand over Danny’s brow, dropped a kiss on her forehead and left her. “You’re so young, darling. It will be all right, I promise.” Danny sensed the presence of Thomas for a while, knew what an honor it was that the queen had left her own servant to watch over her. Or perhaps it had been a protection for her, from herself.

When she rose at dusk, she’d had a pleasant enough breakfast with Alistair and Lyssa, then bade them an affectionate good-bye, her usual composure locked in place, though it wavered when she was provided a cranberry concoction flavored with Dev’s blood.

Alistair reported that before her man had departed to attend to his duties, he’d left that with the kitchen staff, to ensure she was properly nourished by her own servant. She sat back, listening to the pleasant conversation, tasting his blood on her lips, savoring the last taste of it, aching.

When Danny took her leave, Lyssa gave her a long look, squeezed her hand before Danny turned away and let Alistair offer her a hand into the car.

She didn’t linger long at her house, finishing up with her servants and packing. The flight to Adelaide she chartered for that night was uneventful. During it, she reviewed the paperwork and found all was as Dev had promised. Everything she’d bought in Brisbane would reach Adelaide and be transported by truck train to the station in the coming days. The rest of the time, even the refueling stops, she spent staring into space, trying to think about what lay ahead of her and not about where Dev was.

Once in Adelaide, she verified what had already arrived. She also informed the charter company she’d need the plane’s use again the following week and set the itinerary for a trip to Darwin.

She’d been telling the truth to Dev, at least the part about taking care of Ruskin without the other vampires in attendance. Because when they arrived, she intended to be there to greet them—as the new Region Master, with Ruskin’s head on a pike on the front gate. Based on the savage turmoil she carried within her now, she couldn’t imagine a better time to challenge Ruskin to a duel.

When she returned to her station, she’d originally intended to divide her time between preparing for the duel and anticipating and then arranging her new items the way she desired. Making Thieves’ Station her home. If Dev had been here, she was sure he would have needled her with dry observations about females and their need to see a chair in every possible location before deciding on the spot they’d first chosen. Or quip about how she was abusing the stockmen, making them push the furniture about when she was so bloody strong she could twirl the sofa on her index finger like a circus player.

No, her heart just wasn’t in it right now. She refused to let herself think that, in such a short time, she’d decided Dev was an irreplaceable part of what she considered home. That was ludicrous. She merely had to get this matter with Ruskin out of the way first.

So she let Elisa and the house staff handle the planning for the new items, giving them a general idea of how she wanted them arranged, and turned her focus to that one thing.

But as she spent hours in the courtyard, practicing with her two sabers, she found it hard to concentrate. She imagined the crinkling around Dev’s eyes when he smiled. The way he’d doff his hat and wipe his brow before he stepped into the house in early evening, after working all day with the stockmen. The gap at his throat from the cotton shirt that lay just right along his shoulders and chest, the moleskins he’d worn at Surfer’s Paradise, just snug enough at the hips and backside, the eye-engaging groin area. Those beautiful sea green eyes studying her, thinking. She remembered the way they looked when he quoted poetry, when he shouldered a rifle to deal with the dingoes, when his lips curved in that smile.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.
She pushed herself, wondering what level of exhaustion it would take to drive him out of her head.

Her fencing match with Ruskin had not been idle play. She’d wanted to know his capabilities. His arrogance, his anachronistic grasp of himself as an English lord, would all work to her benefit, as would her defeat in their earlier round. He didn’t believe she could beat him. She was younger, female, less experienced with the blades. She’d lost with enough of a struggle to convince everyone—including Dev, with his alarmed reaction—that she’d been trying her best to gain the upper hand, perhaps slaughter Ruskin on her own property as a follow-up coup to Ian. He’d thwarted it, soundly defeated her.

If he would accept her challenge to another duel on fair ground, she could take him. She would take him. And she was counting on that fair ground, if he thought he had superior advantage and so had no need to cheat. However, she’d be leaving sealed instructions with Elisa and Willis so if she didn’t return, they would know how to handle the station. But damn it, she
was
going to return. And she was going to arrange her furniture and enjoy it, damn it. Lyssa was right. A woman’s heart could break, but it could heal. Anything could heal, as long as you were still drawing breath, and the sun was rising and setting. She’d deal with her feelings of anger and loneliness after handling Lord Charles.

Cutting off the Region Master’s head would take care of the anger. As far as the loneliness, well, she’d force herself to consider the idea of another third-marked servant. Maybe not a man. While most chose their sexual preference, she thought she might give Elisa the honor. The girl seemed potentially suited to the life, and less likely to cause Danny the same problems with her heart being involved. Perhaps she needed to grow up a little more before she could handle a male servant. And she thought Elisa would be lovely to cuddle with in bed before the dawn, her blood sweet and feminine, her arms wrapped around Danny’s waist and hips, head pillowed on her breast. She’d be devoted, loving and undemanding, but intelligent and useful as well. Everything a third-marked servant should be.

Danny went to the courtyard wall, picked up the soft cloth she’d left there and brought it to her face. She wasn’t wiping sweat, of course, because a vampire had to be sick and wounded to perspire, but she hoped her staff didn’t realize that. For she needed the reassuring touch of that cloth—Dev’s cotton T-shirt, the one she’d slept in and he’d inadvertently left behind.

23

I
T was easy enough to catch a ride out of Brisbane. He could head from there into northwest Queensland, and move at his leisure out into Western Oz again. Instead, he found himself taking a room in the hotel at Surfer’s Paradise. He watched the waves move in and out, and the other families there. As he studied the clouds floating over the blue sky, he thought of how, in the Outback, there was so much blue sky the clouds looked like a complex, shifting world of their own, suspended above the earth.

He reoutfitted himself with some new gear, drawing on his little-used bank account. Spent a couple of the nights in the hotel pubs, intending to get drunk enough to justify a harmless fistfight or two and be unconscious if she tried to speak to him during her waking hours. But then he recalled it took an extraordinary amount of alcohol to keep a third-marked servant drunk, and with his enhanced strength and speed, he might easily kill someone in a friendly brawl.

That depressing knowledge, and the fact he didn’t hear a peep out of her, just made his mood more savage. It was done, he’d said so, and it would be unkind, not to mention pathetic, for him to try to keep talking to her. Like some girl asking to be “friends” with the bloke whose heart she’d just mangled. Of course, he hadn’t mangled Danny’s heart. They didn’t love like that, the vampires.

He would have been her tool, her . . . God, he knew some of the terms for what he’d done at that dinner, and didn’t want to think about it anymore.

But as he lay there on the veranda of the hotel with other single men, at the end of a full week away from her—which would have been an accomplishment except he couldn’t get his arse to leave this damn little town where he’d enjoyed so much with her—his mind went there anyway. Remembering the glimpse in her mind, how absolutely absorbed she’d been, taking him over that way, making him the center of all that pure sexual pleasure, washing over him like the waves here. Salty, punishing, pummeling, a challenge to those who couldn’t surf well, but exhilarating and dangerous at once, something that called you back to it again.

Not a bad description of her, for that matter. He’d have to walkabout the whole of Australia before he could deal with her again, as much as she was haunting him. But he wouldn’t be given the blessing of that much time. The faces of those children pricked him hard. Ruskin would replace the ones Dev had killed; he knew it.