The Scientific Method: A Vampire Queen Novel (Vampire Queen Series Book 10) (16 page)

His eyes were starting to droop, voice starting to slur. "You have to go tonight, don't you?"

"I can stay longer." She knew she could. Brian had said so.

Her grandfather shook his head, his eyes opening again with visible effort. "No need for you to be around for this part. This is between me and your grandmother. She has help to carry the load I've become. But I'm so glad to see your face once more. You think of your grandfather now and again, all right?"

She cried again then, silent tears. When she hugged him, she felt his thin arm against her back, his fingers so tentative in their brush against her shoulder blade. He'd had such a strong grip. Now she was the one with the strong grip. Holding him, she stroked his hair until he fell asleep. It happened in minutes, just as her grandmother had warned.

She finally made herself straighten. She traced the thin wisp of hair over his brow. Bent and kissed his hand, so limp on the covers. Then she rose, turning toward her grandmother. Vivian was a quiet, brittle statue in the corner. Debra crossed the room to her, held her tight as well, as long as her grandmother needed, a million unspoken words in the embrace.

Brian heard all the thoughts in her head, all the things she wanted to say, all the apologies. She knew this would be the last time she'd see them. She didn't let go until her grandmother stroked her hair, eased back.

"I love you," Debra said brokenly.

"And we love you, Debra. Always."

Debra nodded, squeezing her grandmother's hand lightly, mindful of her arthritis, though Brian could tell she wanted to hold onto her with all her strength. It was a major act of will for her to leave the room, come back up the hall to him, every footstep resounding in an aching heart.

She gave him a nod, letting him know it was time to go. He'd already risen, but she stayed along the wall, out of reach, moving toward the door. It was clear she felt too breakable to be touched.

At the door, she stopped, closed her eyes and inhaled. She wanted the scents of growing up to fill her, the things she'd learned here, never to be forgotten. Glancing around the quiet room, he sensed her grandmother in that back bedroom, waiting because she didn't have the strength to show her granddaughter to the door. Pushing down a wealth of inexplicable feeling, Brian followed Debra out, closing the door behind him.

She moved down the walkway quietly. He shook his head at the driver, opened the door for her himself, steadying her with a hand on her elbow. As he turned to get in the limo with her, he saw Vivian at the bedroom window. She didn't raise her hand in farewell, and Brian knew she was crying again. The ache inside his own chest was difficult to manage. Like Debra, he didn't really have words for what couldn't be changed, decisions that had been made. How could Debra not have regrets?

"He said she has help?"

"Yes."

He didn't have to give Debra access to his mind for her to understand the question before it was asked. "My aunt lives here, and my mother's emails say she and her family have been helping my grandmother care for him. She's not alone."

As Brian studied her profile, her chin lifted so she inadvertently revealed eyes brimming with tears in the reflection of the dark window, he wondered if his servant felt she could say the same.

He wanted to reach out, close his hand over hers, but she still had that invisible wall around her. He knew it would only take the right combination of words to crack it. So he used them.

"You know," he said, "Just because you made your choice, doesn't mean you don't have every right to grieve for the path not taken."

She turned her head. Tears streamed down her face. He couldn't bear it.

Come here
.

He opened his arms and she went into them. He'd never held her when she cried like this. Though she didn't give in to tears often, he was sure she'd done so more than once since she'd made the choice to be his servant and turn away from all this. He knew for certain she'd cried the night he was so cruel to her.

From here forward, whenever you need to cry, I will hold you. For as long as you need it
.

Just as she had her grandmother. Strong women didn't need to be held endlessly. Just at the right moment, to give them the strength to keep going.

Her body shuddered, and he held her tighter, afraid she might physically break apart from the storm of emotions he felt rushing through her. But she was still his Debra, his spirited, impossibly strong servant. When that storm ebbed, he heard her response.

Same goes, my lord
.

He'd never known a smile could hurt.

When they landed in Texas on Butch Dorn's private airstrip, there'd been little time for anything but a few pleasantries and being shown to the guest quarters before the vampires had to retire for the dawn. She was glad for that, because the attack of weeping had left her drained. She hadn't cried so hard and so long in...maybe ever. She'd found herself crying for her grandfather, for the life she'd left behind, for the night Brian had sex with the other woman...for everything. True to his word, Brian had held her through all of it, even when she was so overcome by her emotions she could barely breathe. He'd rubbed her back, soothed her, held her. Just held her.

She'd been given a small adjoining room to his, the usual set up for vampire and servant, so Brian could call her to him at his pleasure, but once they reached their guest quarters, Brian caught her hand. "You'll stay with me, at least for a few hours."

She wasn't really sure she could sleep. She had a tension headache from all the crying, and her third mark constitution wasn't making it go away.

"You just need a change of focus." Bringing her over to the bed, he sat down, moved her between his spread knees and began to undress her.

He unbuttoned and pushed her blouse off her shoulders, unhooked her bra, then removed her skirt and underwear while she held his shoulder. She could only study him numbly, bemused as he cosseted her. He'd unbalanced her with his kindness, his attentiveness. But he apparently knew she needed more than his kindness to let go of the pain that was making her temples throb.

He laid her on her back, his eyes sparks in the darkness because he hadn't turned on any lights. She had an impression of heavy, rustic furniture, appropriate and comfortable for a Texas setting. The room smelled faintly of sage and rosemary.

Brian stretched out next to her, stroking the hair at her temple, curling a long strand around his forefinger. He hadn't undressed, but her hand rested on the first closed button of his shirt, her fingertips sliding over the warm, firm flesh revealed in the open collar above it. She stared up at him in the darkness, no words to say, just okay to be this with him, in the semi-darkness. Then his hand closed over her wrist.

"You know the best way to get rid of a headache? Other than to stake the vampire causing it?"

She smiled. "That sounds like something Gideon would say."

"Well, a scientist has to steal humor from others, because it's widely known we have none of our own. Do you know the best way to get rid of a headache, Debra?"

"No my lord. Aspirin doesn't really work for third marks."

"No, it doesn't. But a refresher on basic anatomy should. Trust your doctor."

Her lips retained a faint curve. Though his main focus was research, Brian had done as much study for medical practice as possible. The daylight requirements of internship and residency had denied him the ability to complete the degree. However, he regularly treated injuries to the second marked staff at the Council quarters and his in-depth understanding of anatomy had been invaluable to his research. Vampire anatomy wasn't significantly different from human. It was the constitution itself that set the species apart.

She knew it chafed him that he didn't have the degree, though he already had several in other fields. At some point she was sure he'd figure a way around that daylight requirement. A vampire's longevity allowed for a great deal of education, if he was willing to pursue it. And he was.

"I appreciate my servant's faith in me."

He leaned over her, clasped her hand, kissed her knuckles. Cupping the side of her head, he nuzzled her ear, then behind and below it, placing his lips just...there.

"Oh..." A faint sigh escaped her lips as he caressed the highly erogenous zone. He'd released her hand and it rested on his chest again. She wished his shirt wasn't in the way.

Unbutton it, then
.

She did, laying her hand fully on his solid chest. She averted her face, giving him better access. He was just playing in that small area behind her ear, but it was enough to make her body shift restlessly, hips pressing into the bed.

"So what part is this?" he said. "Until you remember, I can't move on to another part."

She managed a half laugh. "Mastoid process. Lowest...point of the temporal lobe."

"Hmm. No." He dropped a hand down between her legs, cupped her, pressed his fingers against her, making her moan. "Try again."

She fought through the haze of lust, realized the simple mistake. "Bone," she managed in a strangled voice. "Lowest point of the temporal bone."

"Correct. And this?" He moved to the side of her throat, his fangs grazing the muscle the turn of her head had made prominent, a long, slender cord.

"SCM."

"Full name." It was a gentle order, but he nipped her. Her headache did seem to be lessening, though she was fairly certain it wasn't the anatomy lesson doing the trick.

"Sternocleidomastoid muscle. Because it attaches sternum... clavicle... and mastoid process." She had to swallow another desperate chuckle as he followed her explanation, laying a moist kiss on her sternum, clavicle and back up beneath her ear again. "Brian..."

He stilled at her whisper, but then resumed, his kisses slower, longer, the pressure holding, such that she could feel the shell over her heart cracking, those openings growing wider, willing her to invite him in, grip that vital organ in his hand and know that it was all his, whatever he wanted to do to it. This was insane.

"No, it's not. What I've been allowing us to be these past few years; that was insane. When we could have...this." He nuzzled her clavicle again. "You're so delicate. So...breakable."

The note in his voice made her look up at him, touch his face. He lifted his head to study her. "If I'd lost you that night, with Gideon...I'm not sure if I could have looked at anything in life the same way, Debra."

"Don't. I can't...not after tonight. Not right now."

After a pregnant pause, he nodded, bent his head again. "We'll revisit that later, then." He dropped a kiss in the hollow of her throat.

"Manubrium."

He smiled against her flesh. She slid her fingers through his hair, even as she tugged his shirt off one shoulder, cupped the broad, smooth expanse. She slid the knuckles of her other hand over the firm ridges of his stomach.

"Rectus abdominis," she whispered. He was kissing his way down her sternum, tiny brushes of tongue and lips, a quick suction that had her moving in sinuous response. He kept on his downward track, mouth on her upper abdomen. Lower. Then, just when she thought he'd keep going past her pubic mound to her damp core, he moved over to her hip bone and upper thigh.

What area am I covering, sweet servant? From ear to pubis...to legs...I don't intend to miss a single inch
.

She was going to turn to flame, burn to ash right here. Her headache was gone. "Superficial front line. Connective tissue...from toes, front of legs to ASIS, the protrusion of pelvic bone...then from there to the pubic bone..."

She arched up as his mouth went back there, just above her clit. He traced the crescent of her mound, nipping at her with his lips, a fang.

"Spread your legs for me, Debra. Wide."

He spoke against her flesh, and when she complied, he settled himself between her legs, elbows on either side of her hips.

His mouth went back to her rectus abdominis, which was firm and flat. Servants as well as vampires pursued a rigorous schedule of hand-to-hand and weaponry training, for the world they inhabited could be dangerous, but even with that, her stomach didn't have the sectioned definition his did. It was ironic that female servants had to work twice as hard to build up the muscle layers the male servants did, with even more ease than their human counterpoints.

Because the gods know male vampires like their women softer to the touch
.

He moved from there back up the three parts of the sternal bone — xiphoid process, sternal body, manubrium — God. She lifted her chin to let him lick and play with that sensitive hollow in her throat, then he was back over the SCM to the mastoid process again. That wonderfully sectioned stomach was firmly against her core, and she wanted to writhe, mark him with her wet folds.

"Sure you don't want to cover the reproductive system?" she breathed. He chuckled, a masculine caress against her ear.

"I plan to cover it." He bit her ear lobe. "Explore it, penetrate it. Fuck you into oblivion."

"Okay." She closed her eyes.
Thank you
. All of it was going away except him, and she didn't have the strength to be afraid of that.

He lifted her up to turn her on her stomach, and worked back down from the nape, the spine.

"Keep your legs spread wide."

She quivered at that, obeyed. When he reached her buttocks, he adjusted himself so his elbows were braced outside her thighs. He cupped her ass, thumbs spreading her cheeks, and put his mouth on her rim.

"God..." She was so sensitive there and he knew it. She fisted the sheets in both hands, looking for anything to anchor herself.

I'm your anchor
. "Lift your hands above the bedding, palms flat, fingers open. No moving your hips."
Your Master wants you very, very still
.

It was impossible, her body making convulsive jerks as he licked and thrust his tongue inside her, strong hands holding her spread wide. She pleaded with him, she knew not for what, but she knew his intent was to completely exhaust her.