Debra and Brian were already in the backseat of the car, waiting on Gideon and her to finish their conversation and join them. Brian had promised to see if there was any type of modified medication, similar to what human schizophrenics took, that he could develop for Anwyn to help with her gremlins, though no telling what side effects such a serum might have. Yet another way her life might change.
Gideon could tell she was trying to quell the resentment such thoughts brought, because she didn’t want any of that disrupting her anticipation of Daegan’s homecoming. There’d be enough things to disrupt that when he got here, since he knew the two of them still had some smoke to be cleared between them. He was in her mind, after all. But it was clear, she loved Daegan.
She’d told Daegan that, and Gideon had heard her recall the conversation more than once, much as he was trying his damndest not to listen in to her thoughts uninvited. Particularly when they ripped open his gut like a box cutter. Of course she loved Daegan. That was hardly a news flash, right? He’d known that the first time he’d watched them together. A woman could love only one man with that kind of heat and passion. Gideon was serving a different role for her, one that was valued differently. How could he want or demand the same thing from her, when they all knew he eventually had to leave? He should be glad she’d have someone to give all that.
He knew in her mind that she was getting really attached to Gideon and wanted him to stay, keep that balanced triangle. He wanted to absorb the happy fuzzies the thought gave him, but she knew as well as he did that she was going into a world he couldn’t share. Eventually he was going to have to get off the train.
As he got into the passenger seat, Gideon watched her slide off her shoes and push them back under her seat with her heels, revealing her bare feet, the polished toenails with tiny flowers painted into the pedicure. She saw him looking. “So did Ella do as good a job as you could have done for me? You did say you know how to give a pedicure.”
“Fair. I probably could have done better.” He grunted, giving her a sidelong look. “I know how to paint inside the lines and everything.”
“I’ll bet.” She smiled, glanced back at Brian and Debra, murmuring over some paperwork. “All set?”
Debra gave them a distracted smile. Brian didn’t even register the comment, too immersed in whatever he was calculating on his mini-laptop. Anwyn gave Gideon an amused look and put the car in drive. They were in Daegan’s roomy BMW, since he’d had it delivered back to Anwyn after he left, so they could use it as an extra vehicle if needed. She had to adjust the seat upward, a reminder of his long legs. Gideon fiddled with the buttons, found the seat warmer and started as the upholstery heated beneath him. “Why the hell would a vampire need a seat warmer?”
“It’s possible for vampires to get cold. It just doesn’t bother us as much. Plus, it feels good to humans.” She looked back at Debra. “She’s appreciating it. You don’t like it?”
“I thought I’d pissed myself when my ass got warm.”
She chuckled, checked the rearview mirror. “What are you two so intense about back there?”
“Brian thinks he may have figured out an improvement on another project he’s been testing,” Debra said absently. “Reverting a marking so a human is no longer a marked servant, no longer connected to the vampire.”
Anwyn’s fingers gripped the wheel as Gideon turned to look back at them. “Say what?”
Debra closed her mouth, apparently realizing too late the impact of such a statement on those in the front seat. Brian gave her a censorious glance, but suppressed a sigh. “I’ve been working on it for a while, because we’ve had instances where younger vampires rashly turn a servant against his or her will. Though it only works if the servant’s bond is less than five years, there are other applications now, such as a vampire infected with the fatal Delilah virus who wishes to spare her or his servant. We haven’t been able to test it,” he added, “because in the two cases we’ve had of that, even with the bond being so young, the servant flatly refused to take the serum. They both wished to make the passage to the next life with the vampires who marked them.
“However, as far as the cases where a vampire turned a servant against his or her will and wished to undo that mistake, I tested it on several subjects recently. It worked well, but there were some unpleasant, but not fatal, side effects I’ve been trying to remedy. Nausea, headaches, et cetera.” His brow furrowed, suggesting he was now conversing more with himself than with those in the car. “Those might be because of the interaction of the memory wipe with the chemical injection, two different mediums.”
“Memory wipe?” Gideon prompted, before Brian could start his manic scribbling on the steno pad balanced on Debra’s knee.
“Yes, the Council required that, because of course we have to limit human knowledge of our world. As you know, a servant who has seen so much of it can’t be turned loose to risk sharing his or her knowledge. Even if he or she can be trusted for that, they could be used as a pawn of other vampires who want the knowledge of the particular Master or Mistress the servant served.”
Anwyn still had that death grip on the wheel. Gideon cautiously touched her mind, found it almost unnaturally still. “Anwyn—”
“So if I reach the point I’m comfortable with the management of these seizures, you could reverse Gideon’s marking. Free him from me when it’s time for him to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere at the moment, sweetheart.”
“Don’t try to cushion this, Gideon,” she snapped, then stopped, taking a breath. “If you look at that monitor, Brian, I swear I will stop this car and rip your arm off.”
Brian’s brows rose, but he still calmly checked the small hand monitor for the sensors he’d attached to her beneath her clothes. They’d discussed embedding them under the skin, but with the vampire penchant for healing, he didn’t know how her body would handle that. Plus, once they established certain patterns, she—or her servant—could possibly become as accurate as the monitor.
“Hey.” Gideon reached out, covered her hand on the wheel, brought her gaze to him. “Nothing’s changed, Anwyn. I’m here for you as long as you need me. This just means when you’re ready to be rid of me, you can really be rid of me. Though the memory thing is pointless—I already know most of the things they’d want wiped, and have for quite a while.”
Plus, there was no way in hell anyone was giving him something that took away a single memory of Anwyn.
She pressed her lips together, and her fingers shifted beneath his, overlapping and tangling. “Yes, I suppose that’s good news. My grocery bills have doubled since you moved in.”
“That’s not my fault. I haven’t been making up the grocery list.” His gaze roved deliberately over her. “Though I will point out, I’m eating for two.”
While Gideon didn’t do much cooking, Anwyn had started to do so. Apparently, it was something she’d used to do, but had gotten out of the habit with the demands of running Atlantis. As well as keeping company with a vampire who didn’t really eat. She seemed to like cooking for Gideon, though, making him things to try, even swapping ideas with Debra, who also liked to cook. It created a familiar domestic respite in their typically unusual and volatile days. He knew Anwyn thought the knotted hardness of his body needed filling out, and he liked the look in her eyes when he ate for her. He hadn’t gained much, not with how much he ran and worked out in Daegan’s weapons room, but he’d made the lines of muscle more sleek, less knotty, and that pleased her.
They didn’t say much for the next little bit. After a thoughtful pause, Brian and Debra had returned to their notes, tactfully avoiding further conversation on the subject. It didn’t matter, since it was now out in the open, but Gideon was glad to see Anwyn was putting it aside for now, trying not to let it spoil the mood. She obviously really wanted to savor being out in the world, Daegan coming home, and Gideon at her side. It gratified him, to hear that he was part of the happiness equation tonight.
Anwyn gave him a sidewise smile, a tiny curl of her pretty lips, then slowed for a light. She lowered her window, perversely liking the warming seats on her delectable ass while she felt the cool air on her face, through her hair. Now she stretched her arm out the window, fanning out her fingers. Several times this week she’d taken the elevator to the roof apartment of Atlantis and sat out by the pool, staring up at the moon and stars, but she really hadn’t experienced fresh air outside the property.
Gideon studied her profile, the firm chin and slim nose, the vibrant blue-green eyes that held so much. He knew the thoughts that moved behind them like ocean waves, liked being immersed in that flow, knowing no matter how happy or sad she was, it helped her for him to be there. He felt so connected to her this way. Even if he left, he wondered if he’d want that reversal of the marking, or if he’d prefer to carry this with him, so that when he was in range, he could have brief glimpses of the deep connection he’d shared with her, despite the abhorrent reason it had all happened.
“Look,” she murmured. Gideon tuned in, followed her glance out the window and stilled at the sight of the butterfly that had landed in her palm. Its wings pumped slowly, just like the dream he’d seen in her mind a couple weeks ago. Then, like now, she brought her fingers slowly up, formed a loose cage around the tiny creature. When she opened them again, the butterfly continued to dry its wings for several pumps before it fluttered off.
“Like your dream,” he murmured. It was a cool night, and though they were in the South, it wasn’t the usual time of year for butterflies. He told himself not to get stupid, but it couldn’t help but make him wonder. Was it all predestined, all he was doing with her? Was he meant to be with her, not just now, but more than now? That word hung on his tongue.
Forever
. Forever as a vampire’s servant. Forever as Anwyn’s.
But she wouldn’t be his. It wasn’t a two-way street, and that was what he knew kept hanging him up the most. That, and the knowledge that what they’d done with Brian and Debra had been tame next to the stories he’d heard. Anwyn had respected his wishes about Brian, but in mixed company, with more senior vampires, they’d test her by testing what she would do to her servant. She would need a servant absolutely willing to do and be everything she needed him to be, no matter his personal hang-ups. That wasn’t him. Too many years, too many scars. Way too much history. He could handle someone like Brian, even Daegan, but he knew the types of vampires she would have to meet and play politics with. Vampires like those he’d killed.
On top of that, he’d become a servant to help her, not because he was one. If he had a woman, that woman was his, not someone who could share herself with whomever she liked. Call him a Neanderthal; that was the way it worked. The bitch of it was, he knew she was it, the one he wanted. There wouldn’t be any more after her. Just more hookers, more brief hookups driven by loneliness and a need to get whatever drops of emotion he could out of the situation. He’d go mad with it.
No. No, he wouldn’t. Because he would take every second he had with her now, burn it into his memory. Not just what she looked like on the outside, but the emotional terrain of her mind, every tear and smile, every quiet or crazy moment. He’d remember all of it, and use it like a monk’s mantra to hold to a vow of loyalty to her.
Did she hear any of that? He wasn’t sure he wanted her to hear it, and was glad when it appeared that she hadn’t, her gaze on the city airport approaching ahead. Damn butterfly was just a fluke of nature, was all.
They entered the terminal drop-off area and brought Debra and Brian to their gate. Gideon got out of the car, helped Debra get their luggage to a sky cap. The equipment was being shipped by a special freight company on to Brian’s next destination, so they carried only their clothes. They packed light. Debra turned to Gideon, smiled up at him. “I didn’t know if I’d like you, but I do. You’re a good man, Gideon. I hope never to see you again.”
He blinked, not sure he’d heard her correctly, but she stepped closer, gave him a serious, straightforward look. “Don’t talk yourself into being her servant for longer than you should. There’s a lot of bad feeling among the servants toward you, particularly about what you did in South America at the Gathering. You won’t be welcomed by them, and believe me, you really need the support of other servants when you get in groups. It can be harsh sometimes, the things that go on. You’re tough, but you’re not cut out to let yourself go the way you need to do to serve her fully.”
“I know that.”
She tapped his head. “This knows that.” Her hand settled over his heart. “But this doesn’t. Good luck.”
“Why don’t
you
have bad feelings toward me?”
“Maybe because Lord Brian and I aren’t as integrated into that world. We’re a bit of an oddity. And no one I deeply cared about was killed.” She lifted on her toes, slid her arms around his shoulders, squeezed. “Plus, I care very much about your brother, and you look and act too damn much like him. Makes it hard for me to dislike you. You two are like knights from an ancient world, trying to live up to codes of chivalry long gone. Be careful, and be safe. I’d like to know you’re alive out there. Teach martial arts, go get a job at Disneyland, whatever. Just get out of this as soon as you can, and stop being a vampire hunter. You already know it doesn’t make sense anymore.”