The Mark of the Vampire Queen (36 page)

“You son of a bitch,” she said quietly.

His eyes were gold flint. “If you live, you may choose, as we all can, to take your own life. But it will be your choice, as is our way. Not the way of humans, who must face the inevitability of their own mortality. I won't let you die, not knowing if it is your true wish or the disease speaking.”

“If he is dead, nothing matters. Nothing.”

“That does nothing to convince this assembly that my judgment is unsound, and if you were in your right mind, you would know that.”

“You don't understand.”

“Don't I?” This time there was an undercurrent of anger in his tone, of bitterness so sharp it could almost draw blood. She ignored him, focusing on the two Council vampires holding Jacob to the table.

“He has acted with honor his entire life,” she said in a quiet, terrible tone. “Though he's chosen to sacrifice everything for me, you treat him as a coward. Get your hands off him. If you don't, I swear if I survive this I will stake you myself.”

W
HEN
they backed off, she moved forward. She stumbled, reaching for the table, and hissed in warning as Mason stepped toward her. As Jacob watched, she worked her way around the edge until she got to him.

It all struck him as surreal. There was Brian in a tuxedo, accepting a large syringe from Debra. The cylinder appeared to contain a cup of a blue serum. It was pretty, sparkling sapphire in the dim light. A pretty potion that would kill him. Meanwhile, Uthe had been courteous enough to bring his lady a chair. Perhaps when this was over, they would all—except for him—return to the Ball. Such was the way of life for vampires. Killing and death and socializing and civility so intertwined it colored their entire world in a way that no human would ever mistake for their own.

“His shirt, my lady,” Brian gestured, looking uncomfortable but determined. “The serum is delivered directly into the heart.”

She made a threatening noise as Debra began to move. The woman immediately backed off. After a tense moment, Lyssa reached across Jacob. Her fingers trembled, though her face remained impassive. A lesion had appeared at her chin and was moving down her throat, a hateful serpent of disease eating away her beauty. Yet no physical blemish could mar the fierce beauty of her soul, the wild purity of it he'd had the pleasure to touch and experience.

“You choose now to flatter your Mistress, when you've disobeyed her to the point I don't know of any punishment great enough to inflict upon you.”

“No, my lady.” He closed his hand over hers when she rested her hand on his bare chest, the black shirt sliding free with the pull of gravity, pooling on either side of him on the table. Brian raised him enough so that Uthe could step close and slide the rest off, leaving his upper body bare. His insides felt as though they were boiling, but suddenly he was cold on the outside, feeling the surface of the table, his nerves acting up, making his jaw tremble. He was about to die. He was lying here, waiting to have his life taken from him.

He tightened his jaw fiercely and increased the grip of his hand on hers, feeling her slim fingers, the disease eating the soft skin on the top. Her nails had already blackened, and it appeared two of them had fallen off. Jesus, it was moving fast.

“I never should have given you that third mark. They couldn't have done this to you.”

“Ah, my lady.” He cupped her face, the fear washed away by the aching need to ease the pain he heard in her voice. “Look at me. Please.” When she did, he raised his head enough to brush her lips. “I would have coaxed you into it. From the day we met, you've never been able to say no to me and you know it.”

She pressed her lips together hard and managed to cut herself with a fang. She averted her face when he tried to touch the wound.

Debra approached now cautiously with stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. “To monitor the progress of the serum,” she explained. She managed to wrap it around his biceps efficiently, despite being pinioned under the cold stare of those green eyes.

“Not the usual accessory for a ball gown.” He coughed, catching the end of her stethoscope and tugging on it for emphasis. Debra's glance flickered toward him but she didn't smile. She pressed two fingers on his chest, marked with a swab the entry point for the needle where it apparently wouldn't strike a rib. Then she put the stethoscope to his chest.

He could have told her his breath was starting to labor, a symptom his lady wouldn't display. But she had ones that told them the same thing. The blackened skin on her wrists was creeping upward like the slow ooze of mud. The trembling of her hands had increased. There was a twitching motion to her head that he didn't know if she had noticed. Her fingers spasmed on him, revealing that she was fighting pain. The smell of burning flesh was getting stronger, and when her other hand went to her abdomen, her expression tightening, he knew it was spreading inside. He felt it intensifying in his vital organs, though it was not eating away his skin as it was hers. Sweat collected on his skin and his body jerked of its own volition, just as hers did the same. She grabbed at the edge of the table, trying to stay upright.

“Hurry,” Jacob said sharply.

No. No.

“We'd do this with an IV if we could, my lady, but there's no time. I need to do it.” Brian paused.

He was smart enough to wait for her word, Lyssa reflected, though she knew that wouldn't be for long. They were clustered around her like vultures. Only instead of wanting to feed on her death, they were forcing her to accept a life she didn't want.

“Did you tell her she looks beautiful?”

Brian looked at her, startled. “My lady?”

“Debra looks beautiful in her dress. Did you tell her that?”

He blinked. Debra shifted her attention to the vampire queen.

“Of course she looks beautiful.” Brian seemed to recover himself, his tone one of a person dealing with a mentally unbalanced patient. He flinched as Lyssa's hand closed on his wrist over Jacob's body, her eyes glittering.

“My mind is all here, young Lord Brian.” Despite the rasp in her voice, she conveyed menace enough to capture his complete attention. “That's not the question I asked.”

“My lady, there is no time for this,” Lord Uthe said. Lyssa followed his gaze down to her sternum where the burning pain she'd thought was only in her chest had burned through to the outside, a charred expanse of flesh visible and spreading. The fire moved with it.

Jacob caught Brian's wrist and yanked him forward, taking advantage of the man's surprise to plunge the needle into his chest at the spot Debra had marked. He cried out at the pain, screamed as Brian depressed the plunger.

“No, no…” It took precious seconds for Lyssa to fight free of Mason, who'd lunged forward to hold her back until Brian injected the serum fully into her servant's body. Lyssa shoved him away at last, covering Jacob with her body and knocking Brian's arm back just as he withdrew the needle. The syringe fell to the floor, the large glass vial shattering. Several vampires started forward, but Brian cut a sharp hand at them despite their seniority, warding them away from her.

“It's done. It all went in. Debra, start the timer.”

A silence fell over the room, the Council retreating to a tense half circle on the other side of the conference table. The stillness was broken only by Jacob's gasping as he tried to accept the pain like fire burning him from the inside.

“It's like being…branded all over for you, my lady. All over, inside and out…”

“He does not have to be conscious for this,” Debra said urgently. “Brian—Master…”

“No.” Jacob forced the word through clenched teeth. “My lady…please…will you hold my hand…?”

The way he asked, Lyssa could tell he thought she was still angry with him. She wrapped her hand around his, despite the fact she had to see the beauty of his strong fingers overlapping her hands where the skin was peeling away, exposing muscle and tissue, pink for only a moment before it, too, began to burn. She'd borne pain before, knowing it would not kill her, that it was just a period of time to bear. Now she bore it the same way. For even this was just a moment, one scant moment that might be her last with Jacob. To be part of his mind, one with his soul…

The serum was a pain like the tearing of the inside of his artery walls. Her own pain merged with it, taking her to a point beyond screaming, almost into the trancelike numbness inflicted upon those seeking visions through agonizing torture. She couldn't stop the moan that broke from her lips.

“My lady, break the link.” Brian's voice was sharp. “If you try to share his pain, you can put your body under worse duress.”

Mason's hands clamped on her shoulders. “Damn it, Lyssa. Stop it.”

Lyssa tried to shrug him off, but Jacob made a noise, drawing her attention to him. His fair skin tone had gone the white of a virgin's wedding dress and sweat pooled under his body on the table. He was bleeding from his nose, his eyes bloodshot. There was something unforgivable in making something so beautiful into this, she thought dully, tumbling in the surf of her own agony.

“Break…it, my lady. Talk to me…with your beautif…beautiful l-lips. I'll hear you…You don't have to share my pain to atone…for Thomas. He knew. He understood. As I do.”

If it was possible, the words tore into her with even sharper claws than the pain. She shook her head, clutched at his arm and watched the impressions of her fingers remain, bruise the skin instantly. “I don't want you to leave me,” she said, fighting the thickness in her throat. “You've left me…twice before. I won't tolerate it. You've disobeyed me enough today.”

His face contorted. Fire rose in her, a reflection of the fire in him. Blinding, excruciating. He was mortal. He shouldn't have to endure this.

“Please, my lady,” he pleaded. “I can't bear to cause you more pain. Please…a last request.”

With an oath, she broke the link, but only because she knew if the pain ratcheted up any further, she'd lose consciousness. As awful as this was, knowing she'd wake up on the other side of a faint and find him gone was worse.

Though his body remained rigid with physical anguish, his expression eased. Her tears burned down her cheeks.

“It never occurred to you, did it?” She spoke softly, not because she cared if they heard, but because she had no strength left to raise her voice.

His clear blue eyes found her as she stroked his cheek. His limbs were trembling, his teeth chattering as he fought to focus on her words. She suspected any other man would be screaming. Without the connection, she couldn't feel the level of his pain, could do nothing but wait to take his life force from him like a parasite.

“W-What, my lady?” His lips had dried out and now cracked so that more blood seeped from the full and sensuous bottom one she'd nipped more than once.

“That I wouldn't want to live in a world without you in it.”

Her sentimental Irishman. Her words made his eyes fill with tears, but when he lifted his shaking hand to her face, his thumb found the track of wetness from her own.

“Ah, my lady…you know you don't mean it.” Somehow he found the strength to stroke her with the reassuring, calm touch he'd always used. He even reached out an arm, drew her away from Mason and closer so she lay half on his chest and could hear his heart thundering, racing, running out of time. “Once your strength…is restored, you'll say it was…the disease. Making you talk…like this.”

Jacob could feel her weakness. It only reinforced what he knew he had to do. He would save her. She would live.

“You bastard.” She clung to him. “You know it's not that.”

He tipped her face up. He tried his best to fight past his own agony, to put his heart in his eyes. There was too much pain for him to know if she was still in his mind against his wishes. “Well…when you're…all better, I'll…My spirit…We'll wait to hear you say it again, and know you mean it. I…regret nothing except…leaving you.”
Getting hard to focus.

She swallowed. “I order you not to do this.”

“Too late.”
This you cannot command, my lady, because my first duty is to protect you. I will serve it faithfully, always.
He touched her lips with his, despite the charred skin on her face, despite the blood still running from his nose over his lips. That didn't matter. He made her hold his gaze, his shaking thumbs tracing her tears, unable to speak anymore, but still able to give her his thoughts.
In this life and the next. There will be a next. I'll never leave you alone. Not ever.

Lyssa pressed her forehead to Jacob's shoulder. “I will not tolerate this,” she said again into his flesh.

You will, my lady. 'Twill be all right. A vampire's…nature is to embrace life. Live…to the fullest.

“Shut up,” she said, a sob choking her. “I don't wish to hear such things from you now.”

Debra discreetly inserted a needle in his arm, drawing out a sample. Brian took it from her, both moving at a quick step to the microscope.

There were painful flashes of color in his vision. Sharp, knifelike silver, the red of blood, the glaring yellow of a too hot sun. Gods, he'd never hurt so much. Go on; get it over with, he thought hazily. My lady needs my blood.

Jacob…
Her sob of anguish called him back.

Sssh, my lady.
He was grateful that he could still be coherent in his mind in a way he could no longer accomplish verbally.
You always hoped that your sacrifices for Rex…that one day it would be enough. He would become the man you wanted him to be. That's not the way it works. He has to deserve the sacrifice. My lady, you deserve the sacrifice. You deserve everything I can give you and more.

When he turned his head, pressed his lips to her temple, something inside Lyssa's heart cracked, an audible sound. Why didn't any of them understand? This was
her
time to go. Had she not suffered enough loss over the past two years to prove it, lived enough centuries, completed enough?

Perhaps she would like to live in this world longer, but for once with no expectations of her. She'd been prepared to die because Jacob was going to die. She couldn't imagine what compass would be there to guide her on the other side of this. She could choose to meet the sun once she was restored to herself, and Mason had as much as said no one would stop her. But where would Jacob be by then? If they went together, as irrational an idea as it might be, it was in her mind that he couldn't be taken from her. She'd worried about the idea of Hell, of having no soul. Now she only worried about not having him by her side in the afterlife, whatever it might be.

Damn it all, she'd always provided her
own
compass. Why should this situation be so different? She was not helpless; she never had been. Jacob was right. A vampire's natural desire, contrary to their dark reputation, was to embrace life. How could she embrace it for both of them?