He also couldn’t predict if the injection was something she would need forever, or if, in time, the seizures would go away on their own. The shadow creatures in her head were something that the injections didn’t change. Like the schizophrenia that had infected Barnabus’s mind and spawned their presence in hers, only human drugs could address that, and her vampire blood would neutralize them. So that one she had to handle, but she could, with Gideon.
When he was in her mind, the shadow creatures tended to cower back into the shadows, not whisper so insidiously, as if they liked her best when she felt all alone. She’d lived most of her life adamantly independent, and probably the worst part of her transition was dealing with her dependence on others, her unpredictable loss of control. It was Gideon who had quickly recognized it could destroy what was left of her mind if some remedy wasn’t found, and it was Daegan who had figured out the remedy. A third-marked servant, one who could balance and steady her, help her sort between what was real and those voices, while in theory she had command over him, a sense of control that dangerously wasn’t a complete illusion.
A fledgling never took a third-marked servant, because they didn’t have the control to keep the proper shields in between their two minds. Not only was it an etiquette issue, because no vampire was supposed to be that vulnerable and open to her human servant, but it also was hard for a servant to function if there were two running sets of thoughts going through his head at once. On a more serious note, if a vampire let her bloodlust run away with her, she might dive too deeply into the servant’s soul, damage him psychologically.
Any one of those reasons would have kept her from marking Gideon, but mortally wounding him during one of her attacks took the decision away. Daegan made it for her, forced her to mark the vampire hunter. Gideon had made his peace with Daegan doing that. As for her, she didn’t know if she was angry at the act, or if her anger was a cumulative net. She’d been blaming him for all of it, but was that just because she needed someone to blame?
Not only was she a vampire; she was starting out with three major handicaps in her scary new world. Number one: unstable, uncertain if the completion of her transition in another couple of months would bring the improvement it normally would, allowing her to take steps back into the nighttime world. Number two: a fledgling vampire with a full servant. Number three: a vampire who, more often than not, allowed her servant full access to her mind to monitor those seizures, and lend her mental and physical stability.
She did practice that curtain Daegan had taught her, to help screen her thoughts from Gideon so he didn’t always have that running ticker tape of her subliminal thoughts in his mind. She also practiced increasing the thickness of the wall, because she knew there was no sense in not honing every skill she might need.
Sometimes, though, when Gideon slept in her bed, or with her in Daegan’s, his arms curled strong and sure around her hips, his head on her breast, lips so close to her nipple it ached for him in that nonstop carnality that seemed to plague and delight the vampire mind, she’d drift in his mind and see things there she wished she could forget.
As a human Mistress of a BDSM club, she’d already been a type of vampire. Feeding on the surrender of the males who came to her, the few who’d needed something extra special to let go of the reins and let her have them. She’d understood so many things about them without vampire senses, but now that she had those senses, it was almost irresistible to use that extra ability to forage that much deeper into a man’s mind. Particularly this man.
His mind was as much a battleground as hers. Whereas her field of combat was between sanity and surrender to those voices, his was a siege force, clustered around an almost impenetrable fortress. His will to be what he’d always been was that fortress. The idea that he was becoming the antithesis of everything that had given his life purpose for the past ten years or so was an increasing horde outside the gate, growing louder and more insistent every day. It disturbed his dreams, even under her stroking hands. During their waking hours, his attention was all upon her, but she knew in the end, the battle in his dreams would determine the difference between temporal devotion to a cause and true loyalty, from his heart.
She’d been surprised, at the beginning, by how little her ability to be in Gideon’s mind seemed to bother him. He encouraged her to do it if it would help her. But as she learned to navigate the pathways of his brain ever more deeply, she was chagrined to find out why. He felt he had few secrets she and Daegan didn’t already know. He’d lost his girlfriend to a vampire in high school, and he had a brother who was now a vampire, as well as servant to one of the most powerful vampires known.
What he didn’t realize, and what pained her, was finding how many of his thoughts and reactions were practically secrets to himself, things he’d buried far below his subconscious.
At different times, she’d pore over that buried treasure. Like when she hung in restraints, trying to get a grip on herself, or in the lethargic aftermath, when she lay on the couch, her head in Gideon’s lap as he stroked it, lulling her into the deep sleep that the seizures often caused.
Like many men, he wasn’t self-analytical. He knew what he knew about himself, and he assumed that was it. The inexplicable things he did didn’t require any explanation, because that would require an examination of feelings. Amused, she thought it was fortunate men weren’t required to do self-exams on their minds as women did for their breasts, because all manner of tumors would grow unchecked when they simply refused to turn their attention to them.
He didn’t define his feelings about her. She needed help, and he helped her. That alone might have ruffled her feathers, not wanting to be some “damsel in distress” to him, but she saw other things. No matter how violent or ugly her attack, he hungered for the intimacy of the aftermath. Like when her head was in his lap, her fingers curled under his thigh, lashes brushing her cheeks, soft lips relaxed, coaxing his fingers to touch them. Every once in a while she’d nip him when he tried, playing with him when she felt good enough. But he wanted to touch her everywhere. He couldn’t get enough of having her close. When she needed him so much, so clearly, there was no conflict for him.
Though it had been a long time since Gideon Green had had a woman in his life, he remembered with aching clarity what the casual intimacy felt like, as well as what it felt like to lose her. He would never again take for granted the ability to touch, flare his nostrils to take in her scent, or do any single thing to make her smile, to make life easier for her. Heavens above, he had his task cut out for him on that one.
She knew she hadn’t accepted that this was the way the whole rest of her life could be. From that perspective, the lengthening of her life span wasn’t a boon. She might need protection for the next few centuries to keep her from harming others. She might never again move freely down a city street, enjoying the night sounds and press of city crowds, go into Macy’s and browse through lingerie or check out a new gallery.
Beyond her selfish interests, how could she ask them to commit their lives to this? Daegan, who wouldn’t even leave to go get fresh blood when he’d been here, and Gideon, who’d become her shadow, sleeping right outside the cell they’d used for her seizures, until Brian had arrived. One very beneficial thing the scientist had brought with him were two sets of locking cuffs that couldn’t be broken by her vampire strength. They allowed her to have the seizure wherever she was, rather than having to imprison her further. Being bound and caged was intolerable to her, but she’d had to bear it. Having only the restraints was at least an improvement.
She’d been able to go back to her bed during her daylight sleep, instead of staying in the cell. Still, with Brian’s constant measurements and readings, and Gideon having to stick so close, there were times she intensely missed her solitude, her sanctuary from everything. Many mornings she’d lain alone in bed reading, listening to music, thinking over the night in the club, the adventures and banter of her staff. She’d taken that for granted, that freedom and ease of existence. The ability to truly be alone. How did she wrap her mind around a few centuries, when she couldn’t conceive of living this way for a few months?
Daegan had told her the bloodlust would die down, become more manageable. Their “hope” was that the madness, Barnabus’s schizophrenic shadows, would as well, when it wasn’t fueled by that fledgling-crazed hunger or transition.
When it all became too much, she took advantage of the pleasure of her servant’s body. How easy it was to use him like that appalled her in some ways, thrilled her in others. Gideon was generous with his body, as all men could be. She wanted to challenge him more, because she’d always required more than a cock and a pretty face. She wanted the soul as well. The first night they’d met, she’d made it clear that she would always ask more than he was used to giving, and he had responded just as she’d craved, with passion and fury both. Then she’d been turned.
If she could get past her fear of her new strength, her bloodlust, she would open that pleasurable battleground again. He would fight her—she knew it—for both her pleasure as well as his. He was a quick study that way. She’d always been very sexual, of course, but with a vampire’s constitution, arousal was barely a thought away, and not in a damaging, addictive way. It was simply a part of her now, like her penchant for paintings of isolated landscapes and the fact she liked butter-pecan ice cream more than she liked strawberry. Desire was an ocean in her, always moving, always flowing.
Fortunately, a third-marked servant was well-disposed to keep up, even though she couldn’t get past her fears to do much more than savage vanilla lovemaking, an edge to it that cut her to the bone, because she wanted so much more from him. The vampire hunter, with no clear-cut mission or purpose now except seeing to her immediate needs.
It shamed her, her self-absorption. She wasn’t the only one dealing with a radical transition to what her life had been. Gideon’s conflicts could destroy him faster than a whole club full of vampires. He was her servant. She should be helping him. Though he always put her first, that dark side of him was getting stronger.
The Mistress in her had recognized it in him the first time he’d come into her club. A gravitational pull toward self-destruction.
If she didn’t figure out how to face her fears, find a balance with the bloodlust and shadow voices, she wouldn’t be the Mistress that helped him overcome that. She’d be the vampire that hastened it.
Present Day
T
HE phone by her bed was making a dovelike trilling. Belatedly, she realized it was the ringtone she’d programmed for Daegan’s calls. Anwyn groggily groped for it, but a male hand reached over her, far more coordinated upon waking. Gideon was used to sleeping lightly, in case his enemies tried to gut him. She’d pointed out, more than once, that most would prefer to torture him first. Therefore, he could probably afford to sleep more deeply.
He opened the phone, tucked it in her hand and dropped a lingering kiss on her bare shoulder before sliding out of the bed, headed for the bathroom. He didn’t always sleep with her during daylight hours, but yesterday had been a little rough. Brian had tried a different variation of the blood cocktail. It had worked in reverse, making her seize four times. Or was it five?
“
Cher
? Are you awake?”
“Yes.” It took a moment to speak, and not just because she was having trouble getting conscious. That dream of their meeting had lingered, along with a tight ache of need for Daegan in her chest. In real time, that ache was wrapped up in the barbed wire of those things that still lay between them. Things that couldn’t be resolved over a phone, damn it. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes.” But there was a pause, as if Daegan was considering the answer. “I’ll be here a little longer, but I wanted to check in, see how you were doing.”
“Brian can give you a full report. Gideon has the spectator version.”
Stop it
, she chided herself. God, what was it that turned her into a shrew every time she talked to him? In her dreams, she gave herself to him as if none of that was important.
“I’m sure. But I want to know how you are doing,
cher
.” His tone, that deep timbre, sensual and stroking, rippled along her nerves. “I wanted to hear your voice.”
She shifted to a sitting position, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “Lord Brian is helping me, just like you said. He’s letting me work in my upstairs office for a couple hours each day, as long as I take these vital readings every fifteen minutes and keep my mind open to Gideon the whole time.”
“I’m glad. It will keep getting better,
cher
. You’re strong. Is Gideon taking good care of you?”
“He sleeps with me when it’s bad. And he’s always there . . . yes. He is helping.”
A silence, full of too much being unsaid. It made her head hurt, made her want to curse, because she knew it was impossible to miss the resentment in her tone. She hadn’t meant for it to be there. Goddamn it, yes, she did, but that shouldn’t mean anything. “Daegan—”
“I’m glad he’s there, and that Brian is making progress. I’ll let you go back to sleep.”
“Come home,” she snarled. “And stop being such an ass.”