Vampire Mistress (22 page)

“No, not like her,” Gideon spat. “More like that garbage you took out tonight.”

“Fine.” Daegan straightened. “As I told you, we all have our lines in the sand. Once you committed to it, there could be no doubts. She can’t afford weak loyalty.”

Gideon wanted to argue, but it was knee-jerk, irritation at the vampire’s tone, not at the truth of it. “If you wish, you may go now,” Daegan continued, turning away. “In fact, I think that’s best, so her dependence upon you doesn’t increase. I’ll administer the sire’s blood and care for her from here forward. We can achieve the balance she needs without your presence.”

“If anyone’s going to dismiss me like I’m some kind of bellboy, it’s not going to be you. She can—”

Daegan spun back around. What Gideon had taken for an indifferent tone was revealed as something else altogether as he saw the tips of fangs and that deadly trace of crimson in the vampire’s eyes.

“I will not allow you to work out your personal shit at her expense. She gave you a taste of something you were seeking, but, as you pointed out, she is a vampire now. You loathe everything she will have to become to survive. If you cannot set that aside, you are just prolonging a bond that will hurt her far worse when you hack it free with that dull-blade mentality of yours.”

“It’s not all or nothing. I don’t have to become her servant to prove anything to her. And I sure as hell don’t need to prove anything to you.”

“No, you don’t. But you have something to prove to yourself. That is what I will not tolerate, not here. I will not allow you to make this—make her—that battleground. Go back to your life, such that it is.”

“Fuck you.” Gideon spun on his heel, strode into the reading room. His intent was just to move away from the conversation before it got really nasty, but his gaze fell on his weapons. Daegan had left them in a chair hours ago, out of his reach as requested. Out of habit, a calming ritual, he began to strap them on, slide them into their proper places.

As he did, he imagined the day he
would
walk out of here and not look back. Headed to the next job, as Daegan had said. There was a vampire in Georgia, one that took his annual quota of twelve human lives, plus a few more. It would probably take a month to set it up, do the legwork, get the jump on him. If Lyssa and Jacob were back in Atlanta then, maybe he could visit them. And his new nephew, the one with tiny fangs and Jacob’s laughing eyes.

He kept his gaze fixed on the easy chair as he put the weapons on. The more he thought about leaving, the worse the burning sensation in his chest got. The greater the desire grew to go back down the hall, steal a look at the woman curled on the couch in her cell, surrounded by a coil of chains. To see if she was waking. If she needed him.

Fate lets you run from nothing. Run as fast as you wish, and she’ll throw a brick wall right in front of you, smash that pretty face
. Lyssa had said that to him, on a recent phone call where he’d evaded an invitation to come spend Christmas with them.

If we don’t give her back some sense of control soon, something she can use as an anchor against all the rest . . .

Hell, had he planted the seed himself? Because it seemed the damned thing was already sprouting in his brain, setting out runners. What scared the hell out of him was he’d known what Daegan was going to say almost before the words came out of his mouth. He recalled how Anwyn had asked what had drawn him to Atlantis.

What if it’s this? A destiny that’s been eating away at you ever since you shared your brother’s Mistress.

Christ, next thing he’d be getting his palm read and reading Tarot cards. It was bullshit. She was a fucking vampire. But she was also a woman who needed him. No matter how capable Daegan was, Gideon possibly could provide her something that even he couldn’t. Otherwise she would have let the vampire mark her a long time ago, right?

Oh yeah, ego stroking. His subconscious was working this angle hard. Freaking little internal hustler.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it.” He rose with an abrupt jerk where he’d sunk down on a chair arm. His muscles screamed in protest, even his bones creaking. He was really beyond exhaustion, not a great time to be having an argument with himself. He wanted to go up above, breathe in the world and get some perspective.

The sudden, urgent thought brought him up short. No, he assured himself. He wasn’t bolting. He’d come back. This wasn’t good-bye, even though he’d donned all his weapons. It was just a quick run above for some fresh air. That was, unless Daegan wouldn’t let him back in.

He strode back to the dungeon room. Over the music cabinet, Daegan had opened a panel that revealed a television screen. It figured Anwyn would have cable access in her dungeon room. Enjoy the latest
Dancing with the Stars
episode while she wrung some poor bastard out. She was still out on the sofa, her braided hair following the contour of her bosom, her hands curled under her cheek, giving her a deceptive, childlike appearance. She already had that peculiar propensity vampires had, not to breathe when they slept, the braid motionless.

Despite that, if Daegan hadn’t been between him and the cell, he would have gone to her, stroked a hand over her head through the bars as he’d done countless times over the past few hours. “I need to go up top for a while and make a phone call,” Gideon said brusquely. “What’s the security code to get back in?”

“Twelve, seventeen, thirteen, ten.” Daegan didn’t even glance at him, and Gideon’s eyes narrowed.

“Did you just make that up?”

Daegan held a disk up to the light to interpret some marker writing on it. “No need. I can change the code with a few keystrokes.”

“Are you going to?”

“Are you coming back?” Now Daegan’s gaze did alter, that lightning-quick movement that was so fucking creepy, because Gideon didn’t even see the shift of his eyes. Or the shift of his body, because abruptly he was squared toward him.

“Yeah, I’m coming back.”

“Soon?” With little effort, it felt as though the vampire’s penetrating look could peel the layers of Gideon’s outer shields like an apple skin, cycling around and around him until it dropped in an impressive, unbroken coil at his feet.

“Maybe, Dad. They’re having karaoke night at Floyd’s down the street. I’ve been itching to give them my rendition of ‘Back in Black.’ ” He let his gaze course with deliberate insult over Daegan’s opaque fashion ensemble.

Daegan’s expression didn’t change by one flicker. He would have made a hell of a Buckingham Palace guard. “AC/DC. Decent choice. If you choose not to come back, vampire hunter, do me the courtesy of calling the front desk so James can let me know.”

Fuck it, he’d said he was coming back—

“If you are coming back, come back sooner than later. You look like hell. You need sleep and a shower. She’ll be displeased if I haven’t made sure you’ve taken care of yourself.”

With that, Daegan returned his attention to the disk, an obvious dismissal. Gideon suppressed the desire to trigger the wrist gauntlet, even though it would have done his heart good to make him twitch, just a little.

He started toward the cell. He was going to touch her face, at least brush the sole of her foot, her curved toes peeping from the bottom of the blanket Daegan had laid over her.

“I wouldn’t. She appears to be sleeping rather soundly right now, and she needs it as much as you do.”

His jaw muscle might knot irrevocably if he kept clamping down on the emotions he wanted to translate into the appropriate invective, but Gideon swallowed it. Daegan was right. Again. Of course, was the bastard cagey enough to know that if he allowed Gideon anything he could rationalize into a good-bye kiss, it might increase his chances of bolting?

Damn it, he
was
coming back. Even if he wasn’t going to go for the crazy servant shit, he wouldn’t leave her until he knew she was okay. If Daegan knew anything about him like he claimed he did, he’d have known that.

Turning on his heel, Gideon moved out of the chamber and toward the elevator. It was harder than expected to take those steps farther and farther away from her, from the room where the only things that had existed for an intense day or so had been her need and his singular focus on keeping her safe. Everything else felt surreal, fuzzy at the edges and too bright in the middle. Yeah, he was a little tired.

He could handle that. It wasn’t the first time he’d run on an empty tank. He took the lift up to the next floor, stepped out into that accounting office hallway. His internal time clock was off, but it had to be daylight, because some of those doors were open and he could hear the foreign sounds of office chatter—computer keys clicking, phones ringing, conversational voices.

Assuming his presence had been cleared, he strode past those open doors without stopping, but he registered a startled pause here or there as people caught a glimpse of him. He’d put on the T-shirt he’d washed out during one of Anwyn’s unconscious spells. Since it was black, the dampness wasn’t likely noticeable under his jacket, but he hadn’t bothered to take a look at his face or hair. But then, he rarely did. He probably looked like a cross between a homeless person and an escapee from an action-movie set. One of the staggering victims of a car crash or fiery explosion. Fuck it. The most important part of his wardrobe were his weapons, and he had those. His steps quickened with purpose until he turned into the maintenance corridors.

He encountered only one person there, an older man rolling a set of chairs toward the service elevator. His back was fortunately to him. Though Gideon moved soundlessly, the clatter of the chairs would cover him. He made it to the exit door they’d used last night, not alarmed from the inside, so he escaped without incident into the alley and breathed deep of garbage and air. It was a sunny midmorning sky, moving toward noon. He wondered how Daegan had gotten back safely, and remembered he’d said he could use sewer tunnels. It suited the overgrown fanged rat.

The alley was shadowed, but filled with enough light he wasn’t barraged by the memory of finding Anwyn there. He left it behind quickly, though, moving toward the street but stopping shy of the sidewalk, propping his back against the brick wall of Atlantis and sliding down to rest his forearms on his knees and take stock.

Not a lot of movement on the street right now. Like a lot of adult establishments, Atlantis was relegated to an industrial district, even though with its high-class clientele it probably had more stringent codes of behavior inside its doors than a lot of bars and nightclubs catering to the scantily clad, hormone-infested clubbing set. The industries didn’t generate a lot of foot traffic, too many street people and criminal elements drifting around.

Gideon stared out at the street, watching the movement of cars, an elderly man rolling a shopping cart of beer and soda cans along. He had a small wire-haired dog trotting along with him. A rustle of paper snapped his attention back to the alley, and a black cat froze at his regard, only a foot away from him. Gideon lifted a brow as she resumed her approach and rubbed her face against his calf, sniffing him. She smelled Anwyn, obviously. But she still shouldn’t have trusted him so easily. Hell, the monsters that attacked her would have smelled like Anwyn, afterward.

He closed his mind to that punishing thought and gave the cat a stare. “Not a cat lover, sweetheart. You have the wrong person.”

Though he’d probably let James know that somebody should come out here and feed Anwyn’s charges. It would be one less worry on her mind. He tugged the cat’s tail, an absent offering of camaraderie for how the world sucked as he removed his cell phone from his pocket. He stared at the face, then punched the only programmed number he called these days, and that one not very often.

He had enough time to regret it, but not to cut it off, before his brother picked up.

“Which jail are you in? Or are you ice-skating in Hell?”

“Nice. Fuckface. How’s my nephew?”

“He has your stubbornness. I should’ve had it surgically removed during the circumcision, because I think it’s located in the same area.” But then, because Jacob knew his brother too well, he added, “What’s happening, Gid?”

“I don’t know.” Gideon gave a half laugh, which he was sure probably alarmed Jacob more. “Don’t start heading out the door in full panic mode. I’m okay. Not in jail. I wanted to ask you something.”

“Anything, bro. What do you need?”

Gideon took a few seconds, tried to figure out how to word it, and gave it up. “You tried to tell me, a couple times, why you became Lyssa’s servant. I didn’t really listen.”

“You tried to put my face through a diner wall.”

“You’ve always been too pretty. I was just helping you out.” Gideon rolled his head around on his suddenly far-too-tense neck. “I thought you were an idiot. Still do, by the way,” he added for good form, but then continued, “I’m listening now. Can you tell me why you did it? Did you just follow our famous gut down Hell’s paved road of good intentions, or was it something she did? Or you figured out?”

And please God, don’t ask me why I’m asking. I’ll have to hang up, and I won’t get an answer.

If Jacob had been a sister, or anyone of the female persuasion, an interrogation would have been a foregone conclusion. Gideon never would have made the call. However, as had happened often enough in their life that he sometimes wondered why it still impressed him, his brother picked up on exactly what he needed.

“At first, I tried to tell myself that it was because of what she was facing. Danger, enemies, et cetera. You know how it is. I was sure I was meant to be the person at her back. But as time went on, I knew, whatever she faced, I wanted to be with her, be whatever she needed me to be. It’s like deciding to be married. You know your lives are meant to be bound together forever so you want something to make that permanent. There’s no other possible in-between choice.”

Something in his voice told Gideon his brother was looking right at her then. Lyssa was probably gazing back with those mesmerizing jade eyes. There’d be the slight softening to her mouth that only Jacob seemed to bring out in her. Even that night the three of them had been together, she’d used Jacob to make it work. She’d made it obvious, no matter how Gideon had wanted to deny it, that somehow she and his brother were already linked; blood, bone and heart.