Vampire Mistress (28 page)

She. Not him. She. This was her mind. Anwyn’s. He was in her mind, one foot in hers and one foot in his, and he couldn’t withdraw from either, as if manacled there. He struggled up, vaguely aware of her moving off his lap as he confirmed he still had control over something, even if it was just his physical body. The shadow creatures laughed, and behind them he sensed her fear as he pulled away and left her alone with them.

Realizing his mistake, he tried to mentally lunge forward, to grab hold of that corner of fear and follow it to her, to Anwyn’s helpless mind. Instead, he was yanked forward and pulled down, a sickening falling sensation. As he flailed, his mind burned with pain, eyes blinded by blood, all of him sucked into a quagmire of hellish screaming voices and suffocating anguish.

Fuck, his jaw was broken. Gideon rolled over to his side and spat blood, then realized he’d just spit onto the carpet. Pushing up to one arm, he found he was trembling like a baby. Insects were buzzing near his ears—no, inside his ears. He shook his head, but it was impossible to dislodge something coming from inside his brainpan. His neck was aching, his jaw hurt and he couldn’t seem to get up. At least he hadn’t soiled himself, as far as he could tell.

When hands closed on his shoulders, he jerked forward, trying to grope for a knife, but he was disoriented as hell, and could grab hold of only an arm, the same arm holding him.

“Easy, Gideon.” The male voice spoke through the buzzing. Familiar, with the right touch of annoying I-know-it-all arrogance. Daegan. “Take it slow. You’re all right.”

“Anwyn . . .” He nearly groaned at the searing pain through his jaw.

“She’s all right. She’s back in the cell for the moment. But she needs you.”

“What the hell . . . happened?” Gideon gave in to the mortifying need to be helped back onto the couch, and blinked until he brought Daegan into focus. The vampire’s gaze had gone almost full black, no sign of the white sclera. It was a disconcerting effect he’d never seen on a vampire. Though their eyes were known to go completely red in bloodlust, the pupils remained the same. They didn’t expand to cover the whole eye.

“She had one of her seizures. She completed the marking, though. As you can probably tell.” Daegan studied him closely. “Can you hear her?”

“I hear . . . buzzing. Jesus, like being in a football stadium. What happened to my jaw?”

“I hit you.” Daegan glanced left, drawing Gideon’s attention to books scattered on the floor from the upended coffee table. A broken pottery piece lay beneath it. The chair was knocked over and the sofa was at an odd angle. “When she went into her seizure, you were trying to fight off whatever was in her mind. I was pulling her off of you, because she’d lost control. You wouldn’t let go of her, and she was getting more and more violent. I knew you couldn’t yet grasp what was happening, so I knocked you unconscious.”

“Half the force would have been sufficient.” Gideon wiggled his jaw.

“You underestimate how hard your head is,” Daegan returned. “Stop whining. You’re second-marked now. Your jaw should stop hurting shortly.”

Gideon would have bared his teeth at him if it wouldn’t have hurt like hell. Talking was bad enough. “I guess none of it was payback for how I pissed you off earlier.”

“Oh, there was definitely that,” Daegan said, unruffled. “But my main purpose was to protect you from her.” His mouth thinned. “She’s out now as well. When she wakes, you’ll know because her mind will open to you.”

“It’s open,” Gideon said softly. Now that he could get a breath, he was taking the time to investigate that buzzing, push past it to see the new rooms in his mind he realized were actually hers. No real images or thoughts, her mind drifting in an uncertain haze, but he could actually sense her turning toward consciousness. Cool.

What hadn’t been so cool was that descent into Hell right before he’d passed out. If that was what was happening to her during every seizure, he couldn’t imagine how she was pulling it together every time, on top of facing her fear of being trapped, restrained.

He tried to rise, couldn’t quite get there yet. “She’ll be fully awake soon. I need to go to her. She’s . . . anxious.”

“Take a few moments to steady yourself first. She’ll be all right until then.”

“I didn’t think vampires opened their minds like this to their servants.”

“They don’t,” Daegan said, a grim note to his voice. “It will take effort and training for her to learn to close the door between your minds, and make it one-way or shut it down completely when she has no desire to be in yours. That’s why most vampires don’t take a full servant, or even a second-marked one, until they’ve been around a few decades. She won’t have much energy to spare to hold that screen between you, not with the seizures and bloodlust. However, that openness will help you anticipate her needs.”

And Daegan trusted him not to abuse the privilege. It was a curious revelation. Gideon’s brow creased. “You knew it would be this way.”

“I didn’t know she’d have a seizure during your marking, but yes, I knew that your minds would be open to one another, far more than most vampires and their servants. That’s key to what will help her. Are you regretting your decision already?”

No, he was wondering how the hell he’d made this kind of impression on Daegan Rei. And why it felt oddly gratifying to have his vote of confidence, conditional though it was.

Gideon made another attempt, shrugged off Daegan’s hand as he straightened. “Piss off. I’m fine. I want to be with her.”

Why would you want that?

Those words in his mind brought him up short. While she sounded tired, her words were as welcome as the stroke of her hand. Daegan, watching his face, nodded. “She’s speaking to you now?”

“Yeah. She wants me to go to her.”

Liar.

Not a lie
, Gideon responded.
You do want me to come to you. I can feel it. If you’re looking into my head, you know I want to be with you.

“Of course she does.” Daegan gestured toward the hallway. “I left the cell door open for her. I’d recommend you help her clean up, if she’d like that, and then you both get some much-needed rest.”

“You’re leaving the two of us alone?” Gideon’s brow creased.

Daegan quirked a brow. “Yes. That was one of the points of doing this, wasn’t it? You’ll find you are somewhat faster and stronger, though not as much as you’d be with a third mark. Being in her mind, you will be able to anticipate her seizures all the better. That, and your considerable defensive skills, should help buy you time if a seizure happens unexpectedly.”

“Was that a compliment?”

“Unless I’ve experienced a head injury I don’t know about, no. If she has a seizure, call out to me for help, and I’ll hear you.” He gave Gideon a hard look. “Don’t hesitate to do so. I’ll be in my rooms. I don’t require as much daylight sleep as most vampires, so I should be back up soon.”

Turning on his heel, he left Gideon standing there, wondering what he’d just missed. The vampire was distancing himself. It made Gideon feel twitchy and out of sorts, because there was a dangerous predictability to vampires. While the shit could always hit the fan when they were around, if they were acting unpredictable, it was far more difficult to see from which direction the shit would fly, or when to duck. Daegan was already more unpredictable than most.

Maybe he’d just decided to give them space to deal with this new second-mark thing. Maybe he was tired as hell and wanted to go to bed. Maybe he was grumpy because he hadn’t had any fresh blood.

Gideon was swamped by a swirl of thoughts and images from the woman two rooms away. Part confusion, part worry. Part marveling, as he was, at their new connection and the need to sort through whose thoughts were whose. With all that in his head, he set his concerns about Daegan’s attitude aside. He had to figure this out first. Daegan had made the most important thing clear enough. He was as accessible as ever to come to Anwyn’s aid. Hell, not that Gideon cared, but the vamp might even deign to cover his back.

If it involved Anwyn, of course.

18

S
HE was on the floor of the cell, her knees drawn up to her chest as she rocked. Daegan had given her another shirt. She was sitting on a pillow, the chains back on her arms and legs. With them, she looked like a prisoner awaiting beheading. That faint hint of whispering, coming from her mind on top of a jumble of mismatched thoughts, increased to a sibilant growling at his appearance, but he realized that it was a constant cacophony, not an indication that she was still in seizure mode. Christ, had this been in her head all along? He wondered she hadn’t succumbed to more seizures than she had.

God, he hated those chains. He ignored the clutch in his gut that asked,
What if we can never completely put them away? What if she has to go back to them forever or hurt someone?
Had Daegan asked himself the same question?

When she lifted her gaze, he realized he was an idiot. Servants’ minds were open to their vampires. But how the hell could he stop thinking?

“If you figure it out, let me know,” Anwyn said, her voice muffled in her knees.

He realized he still had the manual key to her restraints in his jeans pocket. Kneeling, he unlocked the ones on her legs, then on her wrists. She started to pull back when she realized what he was doing, but he reached up, pushed back her hair so he could see her face.

“That was just while I was unconscious,” he said quietly, holding her gaze. “You’re a Mistress, and now you have a servant. If you can hold a man on his knees with just a look, you aren’t going to let this son of a bitch’s blood control you. You’re going to use me to help steady yourself. Granted, my head’s not the best one you could get, but it’s what you got. One thing I do know is how to keep my shit together in a crisis. You use my mind, my blood, whatever it is your instincts tell you that you need to get a grip on this. You’re going to be okay, because Daegan, you and me aren’t accepting anything else. Right?”

She stared at him, and swallowed. “I don’t want to be around him right now.”

So that was it. He should have known. Daegan’s involvement in making sure his second mark happened would have tripped her off again, her not entirely unjustified anger at him handling her for her own good. The bitch of it was, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have done the same thing, if he’d been in Daegan’s shoes.

She gave him a vaguely hostile look, and he lifted his hands, a truce. “While I did kind of get a thrill hearing you don’t want him around, you know you’re going to have to work this shit out eventually. He’s just a convenient target. You need somebody to be pissed off at that you know won’t give up on you.”

“How do you know that?” She wiped at her nose with the back of her arm, an indication of just how crappy she felt. The woman he’d seen walk into the Queen’s Chamber would never be that graceless.

“Because I’m more vicious to my brother than to anyone else. How about another shower? We’ll get you into some nice clothes.”

“I’ll just ruin them again.”

“You may throw up on them a few times, or tear them up, but they’re just clothes. They can be washed. Don’t know about you, but I’m also done with treating you like a rabid dog.” He kicked at the chains, sending them rolling another foot away with a harsh clanking.

“What if I try to hurt someone?” He could hear her mind wondering about Daegan’s absence as well, despite her claim to not want him around.

“He’s close enough to come help us. We’re underground, and you can’t enter the security code to get out if you’re in bloodlust or seizure mode. Daegan may have a key to override it, but he’s probably put that up his ass. I know it’s safe from me up there, and I don’t think he’ll let you get to it.”

Her lips curved, just a tiny bit, but it was enough. When she reached out, he leaned into her touch, let her stroke his brow. He’d liked her touch before, but now, with her so closely connected, it felt like contact between a hand and a musical instrument, a resulting vibration resonating between them.

“I can hear your mind, Gideon. All the thoughts going through it. You can probably hear a lot of mine.”

“Yeah.” Right now, it was like listening to static on a radio station with occasional voices coming through, the channel not yet fully tuned in. It was amazing and disorienting at once. And painful, because there were flashes of terrible things, pictures that made him want to smash faces and cause great pain to those who’d made her suffer. Then there were those shadows.

“They don’t belong to me,” she said. “I don’t know . . . Maybe they were his? Part of his schizophrenia? They seem to have picked up on my fears quickly enough. Demonic possession has a whole new meaning to me.”

He gripped her hand, hard, and she returned it, the two of them bound in a moment of silence, though the things going between their heads would have made the New York Stock Exchange sound like a temple of monastic silence. She gave a half chuckle, half sob. “My God, Gideon, I can’t believe this is happening. It’s just too much to think about.”

“Yet you’re handling it. If it was me, I’d be alternating between crying like a little girl and trying to smash my head into a wall to make it shut up.”

“I believe the smashing. The little-girl thing is just to make me feel better.” She ran her thumb over his lips, down to his throat and settled there, her fingers stroking those two marks. Gideon tilted his head, giving her access, holding her gaze.

“It’s crazy, but that feels good.”

“I know. Your body got all still and focused, your mind, zeroing in on my touch . . .” She moistened her lips, drew her hand away. “This isn’t the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to me, Gideon. If I’m handling this better than you expected, it’s because I realized a long time ago the world doesn’t stop, no matter what terrible thing happens. At first that horrifies you; then you realize it’s a relief. You can step back into the stream and let the current pull you back in. It will help you pretend that things are okay again. You can watch TV and eat at Mc-Donald’s with everyone else. Until one day you’re not pretending anymore, and it’s really okay again.”

But he saw deep clouds around those terrible things, things more recent and things past. It would take her a great deal more effort to step into that current. This room, surrounded by all the things she knew, he and Daegan, they were her insulation, but she actually wasn’t sure if she could leave this room again. Wasn’t sure how she’d handle that.

When she lifted her blue-green eyes to him, he gave her the answer, though he realized she could read it from his mind. “Because we’ll step out that door together. I’ll be at your back. I swear I won’t let anything else happen to you.”

They both knew that he couldn’t make such a promise, but Gideon knew that wasn’t why he said it, or why she’d needed to hear it out loud. She turned her hand beneath his, entangling their fingers, stroking his knuckles. “As far as the crying-like-a-girl thing, you’ve been out for a little bit. So I’ve pretty much handled my hysteria.”

He saw flashes of it in her head, saw how Daegan had held her while she screamed and bit, cursing him in ways that explained some of the strain in the male vampire’s face. This time Gideon had compounded it, her anger at the suffering she’d caused him during the marking.

“Yes, I was hard on him.” Anwyn’s jaw tightened, her eyes flashing. “Part of it is the gremlins in my brain, but you said it yourself, Gideon. They came here looking for him. You got dragged into this, and here we are, both part of this world neither of us wanted.”

Gideon sighed. “It would be really easy to let you believe that, sweetheart, but it’s a little more complicated.” He wondered how much she wanted him to talk aloud versus give her thoughts, but if he was having initial difficulties tuning in, perhaps she was as well. “I don’t owe him any favors, but I’m going to tell you something, okay? I don’t know how much of his world you know about, but my very reliable source tells me that absolutely no one other than the Vampire Council knew who he was or where he could be found. Which means someone sold him out. At the Council level, that’s not only serious; it’s extremely rare.”

Watching her digest that, Gideon gave her the truth, though he told himself he’d have been happy to have her blame the bastard. “He had every reason to think you’d be safe, Anwyn. He may be many things, but it’s pretty clear he’d do anything to protect you. I’m willing to bet if he’d
ever
thought you would be in danger from having him around, you never would have met him. Bust his balls for being an arrogant SOB, but not for caring about you. Even I can’t fault him for that.

“As for me, I make my own decisions.” He lifted a shoulder when her expression became reflective. “No, I didn’t want to be second-marked by a vampire.” He couldn’t bring himself to call it being a servant, though he knew that was what it was. “But you called it right. I’m on a one-way path to self-destruction, and tickled fucking pink to be going that way. Daegan said I’m only waiting for somebody faster to end it, and maybe he was right.”

Putting her hand on his cheek, she forced his face up to meet her eyes. “I would have been very displeased by that.”

He was conscious of the heat of her palm, the flicker inside her brain that showed him her own awareness of the texture of his skin, how close his lips were to her thumb. As if her small moment of protective possessiveness had kindled another form of marking, of taking possession. Feeling that heat grow between them, he held still, held her gaze.

“When Jacob and I were younger, when our parents were still around, one of their friends killed himself. When I asked our mother about it, she told me that while she didn’t believe that suicides go to Hell, because God was merciful, she thought the reason the Bible and everything else made it such a terrible sin was because God has a plan for us, and if we kill ourselves, we fuck that up. We gotta trust He knows what He’s doing.”

“And you believe that?”

“Hell, no.” He gave her a grim smile. “I gave up believing He was even paying attention years ago, but you’ve reminded me that sometimes there are important reasons we need to go on. Reasons that make life worth living.”

Daring, he leaned forward, put his lips on hers. By the way she stiffened, he thought she might not be used to being kissed without someone asking permission first. Or maybe she was afraid of her own reaction in her current circumstances, but for that reason he did it ohso-lightly, a brush of the top lip, the bottom, a light nip to taste her mouth. The static increased, but then he received a message, loud and clear, her voice that cocktease purr in his mind.

Gideon, stop.

He did, but he stayed where he was, so close their foreheads nearly touched, hair brushing. She put her fingers on his cheek, close to his lips, teasing that corner. All he saw was her blue-green gaze, a sea of emotions upon which his own mind sailed. It was all open to him, the turbulence of fears, hopes and weariness all wound together. Amid that fractious sea, she spoke, her voice resonating in his head as if he were underwater.

“Remember earlier, when we were talking about what belonging to me would mean? Do you understand it?”

He struggled to respond to her through that fracas, but then he saw her recognize his trouble, both from the inside of his mind and from his expression, an odd dual sensation. Her grip tightened, and he saw her do the same thing he was doing, look inward and bear down. Daegan must have given her some beginner’s instruction, because slowly she brought a very thin curtain back between their minds. The effort made her hand shake in his, but once it was there, she was able to relax a little. Though he could still hear everything, it was like listening to muted conversations instead of competing with them.

“Better?”

He nodded. “I’ve seen the relationship between a vampire and a servant, Anwyn. Between two of them who love each other. In the vampire world, you’re never supposed to say that, but since the two of them basically told the vampire world to fuck off and made their own rules, I’m going to say it for them. Watching them, I’m not so sure that kind of ownership, the Dominance and submission, isn’t a fluid thing that goes both ways over time.”

“Maybe you’re telling yourself that to help you accept it. I don’t think you can rely on that one situation to typify ours.”

“Well, that’s how I’m doing it. Your real servant will probably do it the right way.”

She put a hand on his chest, exerted enough pressure to get him to lean back and away from her. He kept up enough resistance to have her gaze sparking, both the Mistress and vampire recognizing the challenge.

“I want to be cleaned up,” she said. “We’ll get into the shower, and you’ll wash me, according to my direction.”

No Queen’s Chamber. No appointment. She was making it clear she wanted to take the reins, exercise them as a Mistress, and her mind waited, myriad thoughts tumbling, with an undercurrent of sexual intent and emotional need that he couldn’t deny.

“My pleasure. Mistress.”

She rose. “I like the water at 102 degrees. There’s a thermostat in there. Run the water for me.”

“Is there a vampire health plan for scalded skin? More important, do servants heal from it?”

She raised a brow, giving him an imperious look that gave him some perverse pleasure to see, compared to how beaten down she’d looked moments ago. “Daegan told me servants heal from almost everything, as long as the Master or Mistress’s blood is available to them.”

As she moved forward, he was ready to steady her, but she seemed to be moving far more gracefully now. Check that. She was starting to have that sensual glide that female vampires did so well, a mix between a cheetah’s movements and Grace Kelly’s. He followed her out of the cell, across the main living quarters and back to the opulent bathroom. Daegan’s door was still closed, and he hoped the male was taking some time to rest, then wondered why he cared.

The bathroom had looked much better the first time they were in it. Now it had stacks of dirty towels, discarded basins. But the tub and vanity area were still clear, and she sank down in her chair there, her back to him. She didn’t look at the mirror, but he saw the ghostlike image was gone. Now there was no reflection at all.