The Vampire Queen's Servant (39 page)

Bran was waiting for him in the
gravel driveway, whining. It made his skin turn to ice. Jacob barely managed to
thank Mr. Ingram before he was in the kitchen, running down the hall, taking the
stairs three at a time, Bran on his heels.

The sun was starting to emerge.
She'd broken the east-facing stained glass window in the upper hallway. Her
palms were still stained with the blood, though the wounds were healed. She
held a large shard of colored glass in either hand as she lay on the floor,
right where he knew the sun marked a big square of filtered multicolored light
each day. She couldn't walk through it when the sun projected directly on the
glass, but she could skirt the edges and enjoy the look of it.

With an oath, he pulled her out
of the dangerous area, feeling the touch of the early morning breeze coming
through the open hole as he went down on his knees next to her. There was blood
on her lips. Black and brown, it was also on her chin and the top of the loose
dress she'd donned. She'd thrown up again.

"Lyssa." He gathered
her up, lifted her despite the fire that shot through his tightly taped
forearm. She stirred, opened her eyes. The grogginess of early morning had her
firmly in its grip, and perhaps the effect of the drug he'd given her had
kicked in at last. She wouldn't have felt the sun until it had her pinned down
and burning, searing her to the bones. He would have found a pile of ash
outlining the shape of her. He swallowed, cursing himself as he strode back to
the bedroom, laying her down on the top of the covers.

"I won't become Rex,"
she whispered. "Even if I must abandon my responsibilities. This is the
way a vampire's life ends. We know it's time to go, but we cannot die, so we
simply place ourselves in the right situation to have it ended."

"No."

Elijah's words and this moment
made the truth all too clear for him. For the first time, Jacob understood some
of what she'd been trying to teach him. More important,
why
she'd been
trying to teach it to him, even if he didn't totally agree with all of it.

Gideon had once told him the
wise man knew when to let go of pride to grab hold of wisdom. Raised in a
society that held an individual's worth and uniqueness as right, and submission
to the will of another as wrong, he'd been fighting the very oath he'd taken
from the beginning, putting conditions on it.

He placed his fingers on her
lips before she could speak further.

"Forgive me, my lady."
Bowing his head, he dropped to one knee by the bed. Guiding her hand, he put it
on his head as if she sat on a throne, completely in control and beautiful and
unmarred, rather than too weak to sit up, weary and stained with her own blood.
"You were right. What I did was unforgivable. I'm your servant, and I
never should have entered your mind without permission. You won't have to guard
your thoughts against me. Ever. I'll never again try to do that without your
leave. I beg your forgiveness for my disrespect, though I shall never deserve
it."

He stayed that way for long
minutes, determined not to move until she bid him to do so, despite how
urgently he wanted to cosset her. Clean her up and take care of her to make her
feel more like herself.

Her hand slid off his head to
his shoulder. Touched his jaw.

Before the illness, there
were no slips. You never could have known so much about me, so quickly. Don't
you think that's why? This sickness…

There was a particular urgency
to her words he wasn't sure how to answer. "Well then, at least there is
something about this damnable disease that is a blessing," he murmured.
But
I think you're wrong, my lady. We would have known each other this deeply, this
quickly, no matter what. The first moment I saw you, I knew I was meant to be
with you
.

When he lifted his face, her
jade eyes were full of things that confused him as well as tore his insides to
shreds. She lowered her touch to his unbroken arm, tugged.

Uncomprehending at first, he
rose. She turned away, drawing him onto the bed to curl behind her. Encouraging
him to cradle her hips in the curve of his, press his back against hers and lay
his head over the top of hers on the pillow. When she let go of his arm, he
folded it under his head as she captured his injured forearm, bringing it
across her waist so she cradled his hand and wrist against her breasts. She
dropped her head and kissed the bandage and splint, nestled her cheek against
them.

Sleep, Jacob. You need the
sleep.

I need to care for you, my
lady.

You do, Sir Vagabond. In
ways I can't begin to explain. Obey your Mistress. Sleep. If you can bear my
stench.

I would happily join you in
a pig wallow, my lady.

The sense of her pained smile
eased the knot of tension in his chest, helping him settle in behind her,
nuzzle her hair with his nose and lips. She was silent then, for so long he
thought she'd drifted off, but then her voice came into his mind once more.

Do you know Bran broke out
the basement window that night? It was barred so he couldn't get through, but
he charged the glass, rammed his head right through it. His skull and shoulders
were bloody. He never stopped trying to protect me… You remind me of him.

"It's a good thing your
husband is dead, lady, for nothing would have kept me from killing him. Even if
I had to accomplish it from the grave by making a bargain with Satan himself.
Some acts don't deserve the mercy of love."

Like this
? Her fingertips touched his arm.

He pressed his face into her
hair, breathing her in. "That's different. I will bear any pain to be near
you, to serve you."

"It's no different. What is
it we talked about? Love is raw, not pretty. It's visceral as blood."
Another pause. "I'm glad you came back. I didn't think you would. Maybe
you shouldn't have."

"Carnal raped you."
Jacob stroked her temple, the gentleness in his hands in contrast to the rage
he felt in his heart. "He hurt you. I invaded your mind without
permission."

"No. You're nothing like
him." Her fingers tightened on his hand. "And that night was… It's
complicated in the vampire world, Jacob. You must understand that."

"My heart does not tell me
false, my lady." He gave her words back to her. "I saw it in your
eyes when you spoke to him. I even felt it when you clung to me in the woods
afterward, my body inside yours. It was a betrayal that was soul deep, a wound
inflicted on a part of you that will never heal. You're not allowed to act as
if it's a crime worse than murder, but it is, because you must live with the
violation forever. And for you, my lady, forever is longer than for most."

"You make forever seem far
shorter than I'd want it to be, Sir Vagabond." Her fingers whispered over
his bandaged arm. A quiet pause. "I'm sorry, Jacob. It doesn't make up for
it, but I'm very sorry."

Her voice was soft, vulnerable,
and he couldn't hold any anger against it. "So am I." He straightened
the arm beneath his head and slid it under her neck, taking it across her chest
to cross it with his other arm, holding her close.

"It will mend quickly, with
the second mark," she said quietly. "By the night of our dinner, it
should be little more than a twinge."

He fitted his fingers into the
spaces between her ribs, feeling the fragile network of bone that guarded her
heart. Would her heart press against those bars and reach for his fingertips, a
cautious answer to the great emotion in his own chest?

Leaves fluttered in the early
morning breeze, making shadowed patterns on the stained glass window on the
north side of her bedroom. "I wonder if I can give you anything," he
said. "Even a thought you haven't had."

She turned then, pushing him to
his back, and propped herself up on his chest to look down at him thoughtfully.
Her hair fell over her shoulders, and he gathered some of it up, spreading it
out like a peacock's plumage, holding it like the skeins of time from the
Fates' loom. With reverence and respect for the miracle it was, for the ability
to touch and influence it in any way.

"Why do you think old
people go to the park to sit and watch children play? Part of it is to remember
things they might have forgotten with the passage of time. Time and memory are
circular. Yes, you accumulate wisdom as you age, if you're open to wisdom and
not hardheaded." A smile touched her mouth as she gazed at him. He made a
face at her, reading her expression well enough on that count. "But no
matter how long I live, and how long you live, we will both look at the same
flower and see different things. You embrace life with open joy and a
fierceness I've never had, never will have. I'm drawn to that joy like a flower
is to the sun. Something I sense I need to nourish me, give me a reason to keep
blooming."

He sobered, cupped her delicate
face in his much larger hand. "My lady, I don't deserve such words."

She shook her head. "I've
seen things, Jacob. I've met Chinese dragons whose whiskers feel like feathers
when they brush them across your face. I've seen wars begin and end. Seen
people do so many things I didn't expect, and many things I did expect, and
dreaded. That is why the Ennui does not affect me. Terrible things always
outnumber the good, but the overall power of a single good thing is so much
greater."

Reaching down, she traced his
lips with her thumb, bowed her head to rub it against the back of his knuckles.
"Like this moment."

Her hair tangled in his fingers.
As he watched, she took the time to extricate it, making sure she didn't pull
on it and hurt his arm. It was a simple, tender courtesy, as gentle as earlier
she'd been brutal. Her quiet words stroked him. "Life is never as dramatic
as we pretend it is in a normal life. But it can be intensely amazing, or
quietly desperate, as Thoreau said. If you woke each day with a genuine
awareness which allowed you to appreciate everything as if you were seeing it
for the very first time… or the last…"

She bent down, pressed her lips
to his. Lightly, so lightly. Jacob, sensing her intent, remained still,
absorbing the way that bare touch felt, spreading out over his skin from head
to toe, her jade eyes so close, the slim line of her nose.

"We are so absorbed in
ourselves. In each other's creations." She whispered it, eye to eye with
him. "An incredible movie, a book, a castle… We forget the amazing
creations that were not ours—the sky, the tree… a man's lips. The feel of his
body, of the life that courses through it."

From the growing light in her
eyes, she was finding her way back to herself, and he thanked whatever deities
there were for having prompted him with the right question to ask.

"Ah, a woman's body is so
much more amazing, my lady." Moving his touch down, he cupped her breast,
his fingers passing over the nipple, kneading. He didn't have the strength to
follow through on it, but he liked being able to do it. She didn't seem to mind
either.

Twisting her fingers in his hair
with whimsical intent, she held his face still as she coiled the strands over
her knuckles. "Do you believe in other lives, Jacob? That you get more
than one life?"

He stilled. Had Thomas told her?
He couldn't tell from her expression and he thankfully didn't sense her in his
mind, seeking his reaction, since he wasn't sure of it himself. "I know
there are a lot of people who do, my lady," he said carefully. "I'm
not sure I'm one of them, but I can't say the possibility isn't there."

She nodded, propped her chin on
his shoulder. "If I could choose any life, I would choose to be a creature
in the forest. Moving through each day as part of what goes on there. Nothing
earth shattering, nothing more dramatic than the daily search for food and
survival."

"I think you would miss
having your hair brushed, my lady. Your hour-long baths."

He caught her wrist in his
uninjured hand as she tugged his hair, hard.

"Your resolve to be
respectful didn't last very long. You delight in teasing me."

"I like your smile, my
lady. Your laughter."

"Hmm. You remember at the
fountain?" She tucked her head under his chin, laid her arm across his
chest as he gathered her to him, held her against his side.

"Yes."

"Carnal was right about
that one thing. It was unwise to unleash compulsion that strong where any
supernatural being would have felt it, but I looked around at all of them, and
thought—why can't you feel it? When you see the fountains in that mall, you
know someone felt it and was striving to make a connection to a natural world
mortals abandoned so long ago. I wanted to give them that moment, that taste of
memory. Do you remember how they responded, Jacob? The way they all splashed
in, suddenly not worrying about anything except dancing in the flow of the
water, celebrating the life of it?"

"I remember." He
remembered how she'd laughed and watched them all, the feel of her hands
caressing his neck. Turning, he tugged her to lie face-to-face with him,
curling her hand in his, forming a link between them. "I've led a very
different life, my lady. At the end of it, I would like to know I've lived it fully.
And I need you to know I understand that has nothing to do with time. You're my
goal. Without you, I won't have a purpose. If there's anything I can do to help
you live to see forever, I will. But if you die, I want to follow you."