The Vampire Queen's Servant (25 page)

And I won't, because if any
vampire or anyone connected to my world knows you know about it, your life
would be forfeit.

Thomas had obviously had
enormous confidence in this man. If she didn't trust her former servant's
judgment so much, she'd be cursing the situation far more than she was doing.
Thomas had never been dim-witted, far from it. If he'd told Jacob the second
most precious secret she guarded, he'd done it to bind his candidate to her
even more securely. If he entered her service, Jacob would need the full
protection provided by all three marks to keep another vampire from compelling
him to tell what he knew of her.

It had been a rather
Machiavellian move on the part of her former servant. But if she rejected
Jacob, refused to give him the second mark and sent him away, he would not
become part of her world. The risk would be far less.
You didn't think of
that, Thomas, did you? You didn't know my most important secret, the one that
makes it impossible for me to give him three marks. A fine dilemma you've given
me, my friend
.

But she found she couldn't be
angry with Thomas's bold presumption. Not when she knew he'd been motivated by
love, wanting to impose Jacob on her out of concern for her well-being. She
supposed that was part of what had hurt so much about losing him, one of many
things. They'd been a family unit, the two of them. Far more than she and Rex
had ever been able to be.

If Thomas had sent a clone of
himself—quiet, self-effacing, brilliant—she could have easily turned him away.
But there was a sensual edge to Jacob that called to her, a fascinating
complexity.

He was looking at her too
intently, so she brushed a fingertip over his lashes, compelling him to lower
his gaze, giving her the sole privilege of scrutiny, as was a Mistress's right.
While he didn't deliberately disobey her by lifting his gaze, his hand covered
hers in the basin, his thumb stroking the wet dip between her middle and index
fingers.

"You know what a sexual
submissive is, Jacob?" she asked, forcing indifference into her tone.
Turning her hand, she closed it around his fingers, stilling him. "It
means you submit to my will in all things. Even if that will is to watch you
couple with another woman… another man… or share you with another vampire and
his or her servant. It means if my desire is to chain you to a wall and torment
you until you beg me for release, and even then deny you for the pure pleasure
and amusement of seeing your hard cock suffer for hours, you will willingly do
it."

Being whored out to others as
she desired, allowing men to touch him the way he'd only allowed women to do.
Or to have men
or
women do things to him he'd not permitted anyone to
do. She'd threatened such a thing on their first meeting, but she knew at that
point Jacob hadn't believed it was anything more than an attempt to intimidate
him. She wondered what he thought now.

It was a long moment before he
disengaged himself to wrap her hands in terry cloth. There was a tense pressure
as he dried her fingers.

"You're right, my lady. I
don't understand what a sexual submissive is."

That he admitted it impressed
her. And moved her in a disturbing way. "I'm not surprised," she said
without inflection. "I suspect for all your worldly travels, you're a bit
old-fashioned, Jacob. A traditionalist. A knight protects a woman. He doesn't
allow her to control him."

His hands stilled, his head
bowed so the fine silk of his hair shadowed the bearded jaw. "I don't
understand what a sex slave is, my lady, but I do understand what an oath of
service is. A knight swears fealty to a queen. His life is hers to command.
Whether it is to send him to his death or to a worse fate."

Catching him by the jaw, she dug
in a little with her sharp nails, bringing his head up. "That would be a
worse fate, what I described?"

"Would it, my lady?"
The fine lashes lifted so his blue eyes met hers directly, creating a quiver of
reaction low in her belly. "Would suffering for your pleasure be so awful?
Should I be prepared to bear it the way a political prisoner fears
torture?"

As Lyssa stared at him, she
resisted the urge to lift his hand to her face. Press it against her cheeks,
the bridge of her nose, her lips and chin. Feel her face through a man's
sensual touch. He'd claimed he had no gift for words, but either he was a liar
or simply unaware of his appeal.

"I leave that for you to
decide, Sir Vagabond. I want my massage now."

A muscle flexed along his jaw,
but he inclined his head and drew her hand into the clasp of his.

Lyssa closed her eyes at the
sensation. Touch was a basic need. Babies had proven it. Though a vampire's
body did not need the therapeutic effects of a massage, she loved the petting,
the manipulation of her joints under capable fingers. Jacob had very capable
fingers. Thomas obviously had taught him what she liked, but the pacing, the
feeling
conveyed through the touch, had to be genuine or it wasn't effective.

Making herself push aside the
intensity of their conversation, she cleared her mind. She focused on the quiet
of the room, the way the moonlight filled it. It was a warm night and the room
had trapped the heat of the day's sun. It would hold it through most of the
night, which was one of the reasons she liked this space. She was so rarely,
truly warm. The only thing that seemed to warm her sufficiently was a man's
body.

Jacob switched off the cosmetic
light so moonlight was the only illumination. It also gave her sensitive eyes a
rest while he did the massage. Her seizure of the other night notwithstanding,
Thomas had chosen his protege's debut well, a situation where he could prove
his attention for detail while bringing his unique, attractive style to one of
her private indulgences.

Perhaps Thomas had hoped it
would be enough to overlook the deal breakers. The fact Jacob was a former
vampire hunter, and that he wasn't very accomplished at sexual submission or
unquestioning obedience in general. Or maybe Thomas knew the contrasts would
intrigue her. Absolute loyalty. Resourcefulness. Beautiful body, clever
fingers. The mystery mixed with the pleasure offered. Razor edge intelligence,
perhaps only equaled by the monk himself.

When she closed her eyes to
escape, she found it was a mistake to do so. These past few days, Jacob had
served to distract her, but the quiet tranquility called forth the image like a
seance. The ghosts of both Rex and Thomas tended to do that, slip into the
still spaces whether invited or not, taking advantage of moments when she
didn't want to focus her mind, like now.

Brown eyes. Brown hair gone gray
too soon for a human servant's extended mortality. A face with so much
character and intelligence it defied artistic rendering. "Strong
bones" didn't cover it. In her mind, she could touch each plane of that
face. The deep set of the eyes, the line of his brows, his firm, determined
mouth.

My friend. My truest friend.
I should have protected you.

The softness of a handkerchief
brushed her face. Her lashes wet, she raised her gaze and saw Jacob touching
the cloth to the corners of her eyes, carefully protecting her makeup.

"I'm not crying."

"I know. Vampires don't
cry. Thomas told me." He was indescribably gentle. It fascinated her, how
easily he could do tenderness when so much lean musculature embellished his
shoulders, the broad chest. She'd been so used to Rex using gentleness as a
distraction for his planned brutality. She couldn't deny there was something…
remarkable about the ease with which Jacob touched her and how she accepted it.
Even Rex had never achieved that level of familiarity, in all the years they'd
been together.

"You know how he liked word
games?" Jacob asked.

She'd said nothing to indicate
she was thinking of Thomas. But she nodded.

"One day, when I was trying
to distract him from his pain, I asked him to describe you using just one
sentence." His quiet voice, the compassionate quality to it, soothed the
ache, gave her an anchor in the helpless sense of loss that suddenly threatened
to swamp her and produce more mortifying tears. "He said, 'She has the
mindless courage of a predator, the broken heart of an angel, and a woman's
unconquerable soul.'"

"Always the overly
sentimental poet."

"He was that." When she
looked away, he put the kerchief to the side and began to massage the joints of
her other hand as he'd done with the first, saying nothing further. She watched
the moon and her roses as his touch soothed the pain of the memories,
distracting her with other things.

"Will you choose your
polish, my lady?"

She chose the wet burgundy
again. He remained silent, applying the base coat. She shifted her perusal to
him, noting small scars, birthmarks, the movement of his body as he performed
his task. The deft way he managed it with those large hands. How the hose fit
his lower body.

She liked his abdomen, the fiat
expanse of it with sectioned stomach muscles and a light covering of hair. She
liked knowing she could reach out and touch any of him if she chose to do so.

"Did you win at the joust,
Sir Vagabond?"

The corner of his mouth curved
as he opened up a box holding tiny piles of glittering gem chips. Rubies,
diamonds, topaz, amber. "I did, my lady. Quite often."

"Ever defeated?"

"Every man can be defeated
if he meets a better opponent. It's been some time since I've met one,
though."

She appreciated his cleverness.
"I've found myself a Lancelot, then. Perhaps the only thing that can
defeat him is a woman."

Jacob chuckled. "I don't
claim to be exceptional in that regard, my lady. A woman can bring me to my
knees quite easily."

"I certainly hope so. But
can she make you want to be there?"

He didn't even blink. "One
look from you and I believe you could make a man want to do anything."

Sitting back with a smile, she
tapped the section holding the white diamond chips. "You're well versed in
courtly love to boot."

"One of the more effective
defenses against women's cleverness." Giving her a wry look, he snapped
off the nail dryer and pushed it to the side to work on the next coat of
polish.

She said nothing after that,
turning her attention back to her rose garden. She let her mind wander among
the blooms even as she remained hypercognizant of his touch, keeping her half
aroused even as it lulled her into this quiet peacefulness.

You need a regular dean
donor. You need…

A companion. You knew I needed a
companion. Someone who would give me the will to live. To want to be alive. All
of a sudden she wished she hadn't burned Thomas's note. She'd kept the ribbon
under her pillow, though. She wanted it in her hand now.

"My lady?" Jacob's
soft question drew her out of the recesses of her memories. She focused, seeing
with amazement time had ticked away over an hour. When she'd fallen into her
reverie, her right hand rested in the nail platform on the table. At some point
she'd curled up in the chair, her shoulder and cheek pressed into the crevice
of the winged back, propping herself for more comfortable gazing. Her right
hand rested on the chair arm now and her left hand was on the table. The nail
platform and his tools were cleared away. She looked down and saw the ribbon
trailing out from under the palm of her right hand, against the chair
cushioning.

"When…"

"I thought you might want
it, since you were thinking about him." Jacob gestured. "Are your
nails to your satisfaction, my lady?"

Against the wet burgundy color,
he'd added a feathered brush of silver on the three longest fingers of each
hand, setting in place a tiny black diamond chip at the point of each feather.

"Forgive me, but I thought
you'd like to try the black diamond against the color instead of the white. You
were so relaxed, I didn't want to disturb you."

They were perfect. The female in
her was well pleased, both with the manicure and the manicurist, as much as she
didn't want to be. He bent toward her now, his blue eyes close, that beautiful
mouth. That body, meant to please.

"Why is there no woman,
Jacob?" she asked softly. "Have you been married?"

"No." He was holding
her hand, ostensibly to check her manicure, but pressing on her ring finger,
stroking the soft skin above where a circlet would have fitted. She'd never
worn one for Rex. It was a mark of ownership she couldn't allow. "I don't
really know why. There've been women I've cared about. I've enjoyed their
company. At a certain point, I just know it's time to let go and move on. I
think I loved a couple of them, but it wasn't the type of love that would have
kept me with them. Love…" He paused, lifted a self-conscious shoulder.

Despite his training in the
Faire and circus as a performer, she could tell he had a man's reluctance to
talk about his deepest feelings. "Tell me what's in your heart," she
murmured. Vampires were un-apologetically selfish. Demanding every secret from
their servants, offering their own only when absolutely necessary. That was the
way it was, the way it had always been.