The Vampire Queen's Servant (52 page)

He wasn't certain if he was cut
out to be a human servant. What he knew for certain was he was meant to serve
her. What the hell that meant, he didn't know. Did he need to step out of the
way to let someone more suitable take care of her?

"Oh,, this is such
bullshit
.
I'm sick of it."

At the fork of each road in his
life he'd gone on his gut when every external source of information told him it
was the wrong direction. He'd have to trust it.

He rolled to his feet, strode
determinedly into the house. It took all of several minutes to stuff everything
in his duffel, shoulder it and head for the kitchen entrance and the garage
where he kept his motorcycle. Bran kept pace, following him with a stiff-legged
stately stride that said the dog knew something significant was occurring.

When he rolled the bike out, he
strapped the bag and the weapons tote on the back rack. Stood there, breathing
deep. Swung his leg over to straddle the motorcycle, feel it between his
thighs, ready to roar to life and take him wherever he wanted to go. She
wouldn't hold him, would shut down the link between them, though she'd always
know where he was and what he was thinking if she chose to do so. Wanted to do
so. Sometimes in a weak moment, maybe he'd hear a whisper of her own thoughts
in his dreams, her touch.

He would feel her. Know she was
close, watching him. She could even be standing directly behind him now, where
the bike's exhaust would make her skirt tremble around her legs when he started
it up.

He stayed where he was a long
time, straddling the gap between two decisions, somehow knowing whichever way
he went on it, it was the last time he'd struggle with it. No matter what any
of her kind or his own had to say about it. Even her.

"
What's stronger than
blood, Jacob
?" His brother's voice, angry and hurt, when he'd left
him. "
What the hell is stronger than that
?"

My feet have grown heavy and
clumsy… I'd trip over them and fall flat on my face if I got more than a
hundred paces from you…

I'm not as good as you
think. I'm no saint, and I'm far from harmless.

He hadn't had an answer for his
brother then. He did now.

The heart. That's what.

Bran sat a foot away from the
bike, alert, gazing at him steadily. He'd wondered before how she'd taught him
not to give away her presence when she was near. It was a question he hadn't
had a chance to ask her. One of the many things he'd like a lifetime to find
out. She didn't have a lifetime, though. Not even the length of a human
lifetime left to her. Or a dog's.

He thought of her all the ways
he'd seen or experienced her. Vulnerable. But not the sickness. She would have
expelled him long before now if she'd thought for a moment the main reason he
was here was pity, so he didn't waste any concern on that. She had the kind of
pride that would make her die in her bed alone, no matter how tortured by the
symptoms of her illness, rather than compel someone to her side to be her
caretaker alone.

He thought about her mannerisms
during the vampire dinner, when she forced him to couple with two women he
didn't know before the cruel eyes of strangers. Her threat at the salon to
dismember him, which was an affectionate, lighthearted memory in comparison.
The way she watched him with such close attention as if she were fascinated not
only by his words, but every minute change of facial expression or body
language. Knowing that close scrutiny was coupled with the ability to hear his
thoughts made him feel exposed and inextricably bound to her at once, a sense
of infinite belonging. Yes, he was what they called an alpha male. But he
wouldn't deny he belonged to Lady Lyssa, nor did it bother him anymore to
realize it. It didn't change anything that already existed to give it names.

He was acknowledging what was
already there, a part of their relationship that like so much of it couldn't be
adequately explained. Even by the two people who were a part of it.

In his mind were the good images.
Fewer but far more powerful than the not-so-good, as she'd said. Like making
love before the fire, after the dinner. When she waited for him, wanted him.
Letting him take her down and have her, sweep them both into a realm where
politics and their status in her world or his did not matter.

Swinging his leg back off the
bike, he set down the weapons bag and duffel. He would stay because she needed
him, but more than that, he would stay because he was in love with her.
Perversely, he realized that was what had caused the wave of doubt. Because he
loved her with everything he was, he'd finally gotten beyond himself, the need
to prove himself, to what
she
needed. While he was sure that there
were many others who could be a better human servant to her, his gut told him
in his inability to start that engine, she needed him. How or why wasn't
important. He was going to be here for her.

Bran gave him a doleful look as
Jacob started to shoulder the bags to return to the house. "Thought I was
going to go for a spin and let you give chase, did you?" He paused as the
dog cocked his head. "Well, I suppose someone has to keep you and your
worthless brothers and sisters in shape."

A moment later, Lyssa watched
while he kicked the bike into gear and sped down the mile-long driveway, Bran
in hot pursuit, his brothers and sisters materializing from all parts of the
grounds to join in the fun. When he got to the end, he put a foot down and
deftly spun the bike in a circle, spitting out gravel to make the dogs jump excitedly
just beyond range as he gunned it to shoot back up the drive. As he did, she
saw him laughing, the weight of his thoughts lifted now that he'd made peace
with them. The image before her shimmered, and suddenly she saw him coming
across the field at full gallop, his sword drawn, coming to the aid of a woman
he'd never met, whose caravan was under attack…

Startled, she blinked and the
image disappeared, but the vividness of it, like her dream of the knight the
first evening Jacob was in her home, lingered. Of course what woman
didn't
dream of her knight in shining armor? But then, there was much to be said of a
knight in a snug T-shirt and worn jeans, handling a powerful motorcycle with
callused hands and the grip of his thighs as deftly as he might a warhorse.

She'd heard his thoughts, had
experienced myriad emotions herself as he sorted through his own. A few of his
thoughts had almost tempted her to break the silence she'd imposed between
them. Watching Bran and his family give chase to the bike with that intensity
that quickly brought to mind their heritage of pulling down deer or tracking
wolves, she knew it wouldn't change her mind about her next course of action.

She just wished she could
predict it would accomplish her intention, instead of skittering off into some
altogether different direction, as her interactions with Jacob seemed to do.

There was no hope for that. The
Council Gathering was approaching. She would make a last attempt to teach him
the one lesson she'd been trying to teach him from the beginning, the one most
crucial to his survival. From there forward, he would serve her, but Fate would
be his true Mistress.

Damn it, Lyssa wasn't going to
give him up to any other woman without a fight. She couldn't let him be another
Thomas.

Open your mind, Jacob. Be
ready to learn.

Five days later, she left him a
message.

"It's time to test your
skills for the Council. Meet me at the forest edge at full dark. Wear black
clothing that allows you to move quickly. Bring your preferred weapons for
fighting vampires."

Jacob enjoyed the idle fantasy
they were going after Carnal, but since she'd said to meet her where the
thickly forested nature preserve started behind her house, he doubted that was
the case.

The security company that
regularly patrolled the outside perimeter of the fenced preserve handled
detection not prevention, for she knew no human methods would prevent a vampire
from entering and only result in loss of human life. But a vampire would have a
very difficult time getting onto her property undetected, which was what
mattered to her.

She was waiting when he got
there. His heart leaped foolishly at that first sight of her in a week.
Standing in front of the tree line, she almost blended into it, an innate part
of the woods. Her hair was loose, surprising him, but when he reached her side
he saw it fit the wildness that seemed so close to the surface in her tonight.
With no light out here save for the sliver of moonlight, her expression was in
shadow.

"Have you ever played tag,
Jacob?"

"I have." He wished he
could see her face. Her voice rasped in a manner different than he'd ever heard
it before, a creature he wasn't entirely sure he knew, and she was a mystery on
most days. Even the dogs were acting differently. Not as house pets. Snarling
occasionally at each other, reinforcing the pack's pecking order. Circling,
impatient, they'd reverted to a primeval behavior he didn't know they
remembered, but it called to mind the wilds of Ireland. As they brushed his
legs he didn't pet them, knowing instinctively it wasn't appropriate and likely
would lose him a hand. "Is that what we're doing?"

"The rules are essentially
the same. I'll give you fifteen minutes to put distance between yourself and
me. See if you can confuse me with your trail. I won't be using the mark to
find you, only my vampire senses. Confuse me as best you may."

She tugged the dress off
herself, a hard rip rather than taking it off, underscoring the primitive
nature of the game she intended to play. She wore nothing under it. Dropping to
a crouch in bare feet, she rested her fingers on the dirt and considered him,
her head c cocked, fangs catching the moonlight.

"Once I find you"—he
noted she apparently had no doubt of this—"you'll try to stop me from
running you to ground, using every weapon or method you've learned. I want to
see what your brother has taught you. See if you can evade me, thwart my
intent."

"What intent is that, my
lady?"

A flash of her eyes in the
night, and Bran whined, the sound evolving into a half growl. "To treat
you as prey. Capture you as I would if I was doing it on speed and intelligence
alone. No seductive games. No glamour. Tonight you see my true face, Jacob. I
will see how you survive it."

He considered that. "And
the dogs?"

"They'll run with the hunt,
like the Fey riders at night, for it's their nature. They like to run. But they
won't help find you. This is between you and me only."

He inclined his head and began
to remove the wooden arrows from the wrist gauntlet.

"What are you doing?"

"Preparing for the game
you've proposed, my lady." He removed the gun from his back waistband.
Then a knife with its leg sheath, several hidden stakes and the small crossbow
he carried, making a tidy pile of the weapons between them.

"I told you to bring those
for a reason."

"Which would be?" He
blinked at her.

"You realize playing dumb
means absolutely nothing when the person you're trying to irritate can read
your mind?"

"Then I suspect whether I
state the obvious or not, you're quite capable of being irritated. I won't draw
a weapon against you, my lady. Not now. Not ever."

"My point is to show your
weapons will be useless against me."

"As they've been against
other vampires my brother and I have hunted and killed?" Now his temper
flared, and he saw her green eyes fire in response. "Perhaps one day I'll
show you I'm not nearly as impotent against your enemies as you believe me to
be. But I won't use you as an example. As formidable as you are, my lady, I
won't risk you being wrong."

He removed another knife from the
harness on his back, flipped • and staked it into the dirt two feet from her
before he dropped the harness to the ground as well. "Good hunting, my
lady. Perhaps it's best you won't be listening to my thoughts for a
while."

He moved into the forest, letting
its darkness swallow him. He'd run the trails with Bran and already knew where
many of them were, since he'd explored the width and breadth of her property in
the daytime hours. That she would catch up to him quickly, he'd no doubt.
Vampire senses were keen. Hearing, sight, and of course she knew the property
even better than he did. With only a fifteen-minute lead, he'd leave enough of
a scent she'd pick up lingering traces of that as well. So he thought about an
open area where she'd have to slow her approach, take time to search, and knew
just the place.

Damnable, aggravating woman.
Sometimes the similarities between her and Gideon were far too marked, their
propensity for always assuming they knew what was best.

What does it gain to prove a
man impotent, to convince him without a doubt he's helpless? A parent will
still rush into a burning building to save his child, knowing they'll both die.
Is it an act of futility, or a noble choice imbued with its own power because
of the love that drives it?