The Vampire Queen's Servant (12 page)

Jacob doubted the nagging
feeling himself at times, up until the night he first saw Lady Lyssa. The
shadow memory had shattered, drawing him to the actual woman behind it. The
feeling had only grown stronger under Thomas's tutelage. Yes, he was a drifter,
a dreamer. A man who'd been in search of a hazy sense of destiny for the almost
thirty years of his life. But that destiny was her. He was certain of it.

This, though—he glanced up at
the manacles, felt the scream of his muscles—hadn't exactly been part of the
picture.

Okay. He made himself think past
the ache, lingering panic, fury and—holy God—unabated lust. He had a lot to
learn about Lyssa's world. But she'd wanted him free there at the end so he
could touch her. He'd felt it. He knew it.

He had to earn her trust. Maybe
then she'd learn to respect him. Curl up in his arms and fall asleep with ease,
knowing he was there to care for her.

That one visual summed it up, a
physical gesture of trust meaning so much more. It had the ability to assuage
some of the emptiness inside of him, just by imagining it.

Everything else was what he had
to learn to get there.

He'd have been surprised to know
Lyssa did respect him. Enough to think she should boot him out on his handsome
ass with the driver she was preparing to meet again.

Mr. Ingram sat at the kitchen
island on a stool, yesterday's paper open. The empty plate that had held the
eggs Jacob had prepared for him was at his left. As Ingram finished each
section of the paper, he'd folded it neatly to his right. She wondered if he
was normally that meticulous or if he was trying to stave off panic at being
left with no instruction or direction while effectively imprisoned by her
wolfhounds. It was the dogs' favorite room regardless, due to its warmth and
proximity to food. Bran lifted his head in greeting but didn't move otherwise.
The floor appeared littered with long hairy rugs tossed about to land in
doglike shapes. The radio had been left on her preferred jazz station, Russ
Freeman's stirring melody about a woman with gypsy eyes filling the room.

"Your man was kind enough
to leave me a paper. It's kept my mind off my bladder, though I'll admit I was
close to using cookware. Your main fellow there likes to show his teeth every
time I shift."

"The closest bathroom is
down that hall." She nodded. "Please take as long as you wish. Bran,
off guard."

The driver jumped when the dogs
erupted as if she'd run an electric current through the linoleum. They leaped
for the dog door and charged out with repetitious thumps, yips and growls. In
less than a moment, they were alone.

He cleared his throat. "I
guess they needed to go, too."

"They tend to approach
everything with zeal," she said with a tight smile. "Please. Go take
your comfort and then I'd like to speak to you. At the very least to thank you
for your professionalism. It's been awhile since I've had one man take such
care for my well-being, let alone two in the same night."

He nodded, sliding off the
stool. From his stiff movements, she suspected he'd hardly dared shift.
Apparently his circulation had suffered as his bladder grew more insistent.

"I apologize for causing
you discomfort," she added, feeling a pang. "It wasn't my
intention."

"Well, that's
reassuring." He made his way gingerly toward the hallway. "I'd
started thinking my decision to stay and make sure that fellow hadn't kidnapped
you had ended up with me being the prisoner."

"Jacob thought I would want
to speak to you. I must feel that way, otherwise the dogs wouldn't have kept
you." When he turned, meeting her gaze with trepidation in his eyes, she
said, "They tend to understand my needs before I do."

"Sounds like the boy's got
some of that, too, if he asked me to wait."

When she didn't choose to
respond to that, he nodded and disappeared around the corner. Lyssa turned to
the bowl of fruit on the counter, picked up an orange and held it, enjoying the
feel of the rind, the smell of the juice beneath as she brought it to her nose.

The. boy
. As if the driver intuited there was a vast difference between
their ages, despite the fact she appeared a handful of years younger than
Jacob. How would he look when his hair got threads of gray in the reddish
brown, turning it silver in certain lights? She imagined the deepening crow's
feet enhancing his smiling eyes, the laugh lines around his mouth sculpting
into the deeper character lines of a man in his fifties. Inscrutability was
necessary for the politics in her life, and everything showed in Jacob's face.
Anger, passion, tenderness, concern. All of it at intense and alive high
volume. He was too impulsive, too uncensored.

These thoughts might not matter.
He could even now be counting the minutes until she released him so he could
turn his back on his offer of an oath to her, considering the never-sealed
contract dissolved.

No. If Jacob had made an oath to
Thomas, he would keep it unless she released him from it. She knew that as well
as she knew the slices of orange would glisten like clusters of teardrops when
the outer skin was gently removed, every one of them a burst of sensation
capable of eliciting a response from her.

"Ma'am?"

She opened her eyes and found
the driver in one doorway. Jacob leaned against the other.

She'd left the key on the bed.
But the manacles had been drawn taut. Even if he'd managed to get his fingers
on the key it would have been impossible for him to position it to open the
cuffs. Yet there he stood.

He studied her for a moment,
perhaps two. Whatever the driver had intended to say, he held it now,
apparently picking up on the tension. Jacob had put his jeans back on, but not
the shirt. She'd thought she could read his face, and she did read a variety of
emotions there. Simmering anger, frustration, the bite of desire. But mixed
together they made something she couldn't interpret, like a language she
recognized but didn't understand.

Straightening, he moved toward
her. One step. Two. There was a rolling grace to his gait, a trained power. Her
gaze traveled over the smooth glide of muscle along his shoulders, his waist,
the way his hips moved, drawing her eye to the curve of his groin area
demarcated by the thighs she'd felt flex beneath her own not too long ago.

When he reached her, he dropped
to one knee, surprising her no small amount.. Lifting his hand, he opened it to
offer her the key.

"I may not understand the
games you feel you must play, my lady. But this is no game to me. I've offered
myself willingly to you and will continue to do so."

She didn't look at clocks, for
she knew what time of day it was to every minute. The ebb and flow of her life
force was dependent on the rising and setting of the sun. So it seemed to her
time skipped a beat. She lost a moment or two, just studying the mystery of the
man on his knees before her.

"I'll continue to consider
it," she said at last. "But you need to think as well. The life you
enter with me would be all about games, strategizing to a level of viciousness
I suspect your soul is too pure to understand. If you stay with me, it's likely
to be corrupted. At worst, mortally wounded. I will be no friend to you. I can
be cruder than anything you've ever imagined."

"This makes you different
from any other woman, how?" His blue eyes glinted, but he held his firm
mouth in a resolute line. "A man who doesn't test the mettle of his soul
isn't much of a man, my lady. My offer to serve you stands." His gaze held
hers. "I promise I won't make it easy to refuse me."

"Hmmm." She turned
dismissively to look toward the driver. "There's a phone here if there's
someone you need to call."

She'd felt his attention
shifting between her and Jacob during their exchange. Probably trying to
determine which of them was more in need of a mental ward. She sensed a melting
pot of reaction from Mr. Ingram, but it was as uncomplicated as a homemade
soup. With Jacob, it was a potion of intricate response and intent affecting
her with its provocative scent.

"I called my boss on my
cell while I was waiting on you. Told him I'd be late, didn't know how long.
Gave him the address in case he needed to come reassemble my body from a
basement freezer."

He said it matter-of-factly,
amusing her again. He was an anachronism—competent, discreet, diplomatic but
not insincere. The room was full of anachronisms, and three very disparate ages
at that. Fate was an interesting creature.

"I'd like to offer you a
job as my full-time driver," she decided. "It would involve a great
deal of travel. I move around the southern states quite a bit. The living area
and bedrooms down that hallway, where the bathroom is, are quarters for my
staff. There are similar accommodations in my other homes.

"I know you don't have
family, except a grown son who doesn't deserve to carry your name." He
started, but she pressed on. "I'll pay you what you're worth, which is
about four times more than your current annual income, and I'll cover whatever
expenses you need. Food, gas, et cetera. Your salary will be entirely
unencumbered by daily living expenses."

"Sounds like a much better
deal than she's offering me," Jacob commented, moving to the center island
to take a seat on a stool.

"Him I have a use
for." She gave Jacob a deprecating look. "You I intend to chain in
the yard and give the scraps the dogs don't want."

"I don't get to sleep at
the foot of the bed?"

"The floor, if you're
good."

Her words brought that half
smile out to play on his lips. When he sat down, he crossed his arms over his
bare chest. His knees were splayed, one foot braced on the floor and the other
hooked in the rung of the stool. He looked as enticing as first blood from a
wound. She wanted to pour herself a glass of her favorite wine and chase her
first swallow down with a bite of him.

When she swayed at the power of
the feeling, it reminded her that feeding was a decision she needed to make
soon. Steadying herself, she didn't think she'd displayed any weakness, but a
quick glance showed Jacob's eyes had narrowed. He obviously had an exceptional
attention to details. Usually a blessing in a servant, but a curse at the
moment.