by Joey W. Hill
"No. Anything that comes through the fault line is always disrupted from outside eavesdroppers. That's why you hear the static on the line."
"I just figured you have a crappy provider."
"I have one of the best providers there is." Sam's tone held reproof and his trademark dry humor. "You should come visit sometime, Quinn. What you felt that night...it's far stronger here. It might bring your soul strength and ease. I think you'll need both for the path you are taking. Remember," he added, voice sharpening, "if you go to see Butch Dorn, make sure you're third marked. Or let her go alone."
"Why?" What the hell?
"You won't survive the trip otherwise. She will need you afterward, no matter what happens. That is what I feel, though I don't see the path you'll follow." Sam paused. "But keep in mind, Quinn, if you let her make you her full servant, there is a dark, brutal side to that you don't fully grasp, that has nothing to do with love and romance. You have always been a self-determined man, and one to whom being a man has a particular meaning. When you are a vampire's servant, however you define yourself is secondary. You are hers, in every single way. To use, to loan, to determine your path for you for the rest of your life. Are you really prepared for that, Quinn?"
Chapter Nine
Was anyone? Well, shit. Yeah, Sam had hit the nail on the head. Some parts of this he didn't even have to think about. He wanted Selene, wanted to be with her, care for her, protect her. But then there were the parts he didn't want to think about. He was still coming to grips with the cravings that made him get off on being topped by her, strapped by her with a belt, for fuck's sake. Threatened to be fucked by her like a man. Jesus. It made him question his manhood, even as other things overrode it. He figured Sam's unspoken message had less to do with the mark and more with his state of mind. In other words, Quinn needed to figure that shit out before he went forward.
But first, he took her out to dinner Sunday night, just as he'd said. A cool little place with live music, dancing. He hadn't been on a real date in fuckall, such that when he picked her up he felt like a giddy schoolboy. Selene took his breath away. She wore a tiny little dress that made him want to drool on her, right before he tore it off her, but he managed to keep it in check and get her to the restaurant. After a steamy kiss.
Over dinner in a corner of the restaurant, in between band sets so she could hear his low tones, he casually mentioned that he'd talked to his friend Sam, and what they talked about. Then braced himself for the explosion of shrapnel.
Her eyes had narrowed, her jaw getting that tight look. He wanted to reach out, cover her hand, but her body language said that was about as good an idea as hugging a rattlesnake. Instead, he kept going, giving her all of it, as well as Sam's background. Fortunately, she showed she could listen as well as be pissed, because her expression grew thoughtful, and she started tapping her fingers meditatively on the wood surface of the table.
"I guess I should have realized your easy acceptance of things beyond your world had a concrete source. I just figured you were a dumbass cowboy with so much of a hard-on you'd overlook crazy."
She was teasing him, though there was an edge to it that said she hadn't made her mind up about any of it.
"Well, there was plenty of that too." He cocked his head. "You going to punch me now?"
"Still considering."
"Want to dance with me while you think about it?"
She followed his nod to the dance floor. "You dance?"
"I can Texas two-step with the best of them, honey. But forget about that fancy New York hip-hop, Zumba, ass-shaking crap."
She allowed a small smile at that, and he dared to close his hand over hers. "Come dance with me, Mistress. Please."
At her bare nod, he rose, taking her hand and leading her to the floor. They were doing one of Toby Keith's more upbeat tunes, so he swung her into that. She didn't know the steps, but she was fleet of foot and picked up on things fast, two things he already knew, though fleet of foot was probably an understatement.
He tightened his arm, enjoying the feel of her. She was still thinking about the things he'd told her, deciding how pissed she needed to be, but he saw her start to loosen up as they made the turns, give him a smile as he did an exaggerated misstep that threatened to step on her toes.
"You shouldn't have done that," she told him, and he knew she wasn't talking about clumsy dancing.
"I thought a servant is supposed to do things to watch out for his vampire."
"You're not my servant. I've marked you twice, once too many."
Maybe once too few. He met her gaze as he thought it. She bit back a response, her cheeks flushing, and he saw the frustration in her gaze, felt it in the tension of her body. She was about to pull back from him, probably tell him to pull his head out of his ass.
"You know," he said abruptly, "you may be about twenty years older, but it doesn't mean I don't know anything about life. I know how hard it is to find someone who makes you feel like they're the one you're meant to be with, a down to the balls-and-guts feeling."
I'm a lot more than a dumb fucking cowboy. I also know how we all have to wear different faces to get along in the world, but if you have one person who knows your real face, no matter how many masks you wear, everything else is worth it.
He'd added that in his mind, because it made it easier to say something like that. Her gaze lifted to his, held. Frustration turned to understanding, to sorrow and yearning, to the whole map of places she'd been and endured without having that person at her side.
The band finished and the female vocalist stepped up to the mike. "This is for those lovers out there. The ones who've been together so long they creak out of bed in the morning and still hold hands over breakfast, and the ones staring into each other's eyes right now, hoping they've found that person."
Quinn's jaw tightened as he recognized the intro to the Anne Murray song Could I Have This Dance.He switched to a Texas waltz, sliding one hand up to the side of Selene's neck as he closed his other hand over hers, molding it over his waist before he slid his arm around her, taking her into the flow of the dance and the song.
She kept staring at him. Her mind had remained still, still as her body seemed, even though they were moving together. "Quinn," she whispered.
"It's okay. All of it is okay."
She closed her eyes, shook her head, but put it on his shoulder, let her body meld into his. It made his chest tight, closed his throat up. He wasn't sure the exact message she was sending. It wasn't a capitulation, but for sure it was a message of wishing the world was way different.
When the assassin killed my sire, his human servant died with him. Dropped like a stone in the same room. The third mark links you to my life force, Quinn.
"If I die, you die."
She murmured it into his chest. With the music going, he shouldn't have been able to hear it. However, thanks to that second mark, he could, because he saw the words form in her mind even before they came to her lips. Christ. That was the biggest part of it, wasn't it? She'd seen the servant die, caught in the same assassination.
He tightened his arm around her. "I get it. But you don't stop riding because a horse throws you. The worse the throw, the more important it is to get back up there."
He nudged her temple so she shifted her gaze up to him. "So if you die, I die? And you only live to be about six hundred years? Man, that's a raw deal. No wonder you're trying to protect me from that."
She thumped him with her fist. It might look like she had a petite little hand, but she put enough behind it he was pretty sure he'd have a bruise. "Ow."
She sighed against him, but he was gratified she'd seemed to become more fluid again, her curves fitting into his angles. Brushing the crown of her head with his lips, he realized he felt very tender toward her right now, protective. The vibe that was making him react that way was coming from her, underscored by her next thought.
Quinn, when Laurent finds me--and he eventually will, no matter w
hat--there's probably a fifty-fifty chance he'll kill me as punishment for leaving his territory. "It's something I accepted when I bolted." When she lifted her head again, the vulnerability had vanished. Now her eyes were steel. "I won't take you down with me."
Stepping back and away from him, she turned and left the floor. When she picked up her wine and took it out onto the outdoor patio, he followed her, despite her stiff shoulders suggesting she might not want the company. She wound through the tables, occupied by a scattering of people, and found one in a back corner. Once there, she sat down, brought the wine to her lips for a healthy swallow. Then she turned her gaze to studying the sky. Making it clear she wanted her own space.
Too bad. He dragged a chair close enough his knee slid in front of hers, and tugged her chair around so she had to see his face, the cold resolution he knew was there.
"That's not going to happen. We'll go see Butch. You're amazing and strong, he'll help you. Hell, you show him how you run a bar, he'll want you in his territory. He might be no better than Laurent, but I'm banking he will be. I only had a moment's impression of him, but Dix seemed a decent sort, and if he's associated with him..."
"If he was acting on his behalf during daylight, Dixon is likely his servant."
Right. He didn't know why he hadn't put together the obvious. Butch would tell Dix what to say on his behalf during those meetings.
"So we're going to figure this out. You're going to live. I want to do everything to help make it happen, so I need to be with you. Sam was adamant that you need to third mark me for me to go."
"I am not going to let you twist the words of a shaman to get your way."
"There was no twisting to it, honey. He said it straight out. At least think about it."
"You're willing to become my slave, my property, possibly used by others in the vampire world. Yet you're still not sure you're comfortable with me dominating you, Quinn." She met his gaze, and he had to will himself not to flinch, though with that second mark she saw his desire to do just that, damn it. "In the heat of the moment you accept it, but until you're comfortable with it during daylight hours, it's not even a remote possibility."
"I'll figure it out as I go. I'm not an impulsive twenty-year-old, Selene. Everything in my life, I've made out the shape of it before I leap, so even if I don't know the full picture, I have enough of it. The most important thing to me is you." He cupped her chin. "With you I've found the first real emotional satisfaction I've ever known. Don't take that away from me."
"I'm not." She pulled away. "But telling you about being a servant and you experiencing it are two different things. There's no trial period for this. Once it's done, it's done. You don't even know me."
"Maybe I know the things I need to know. You've told me the worst of it, right?" He twisted the spaghetti strap of the thin dress around his fingertips. "You prefer the right side of the bed. You like to be on top. You like to wear yellows and blues."
At that, her mouth twitched, heartening him, but her eyes remained serious. "The hues I'm wearing bind to my wing color when I transform into a butterfly. I've tried to be consistent around you. Have I managed it?"
He blinked. Blinked again. Set down his beer. He thought of that butterfly, the way it had stayed, hanging out with him, almost seeming to watch out for him as well. The way he'd automatically imposed Selene's attitudes and voice onto the delicate creature's actions.
At his expression, she nodded. Strange as it may seem to you, Quinn, I've just told you the worst thing about me. No one except you knows I have Fae blood. Not much, just a little on my grandmother's side, enough to give me the power to shift and travel in that form during daylight. But even that small amount of Fae blood is intolerable to vampires.
Quinn stared at her, then his gaze clocked down to his hand, drawn there by a memory. Turning his hand palm up on his knee, he opened his fingers wide, then curled them up, remembering how the butterfly had stayed so still in his hand, trusting. She trusted him, she felt safe with him. She'd said so, hadn't she? It amazed and humbled him, even as he realized she was obviously conflicted about feeling that way, probably thinking a big, bad vampire like her was supposed to be beyond things like needing to feel safe. Loved. But maybe bigger, badder vampires had similar feelings. He didn't know a single being on the planet who didn't need to feel like they belonged, who didn't sometimes seek the company of others, need to feel loved. Except maybe badgers and Annette, but everyone knew they were ornery cusses.
"Why is that the worst thing about you?" He heard himself ask the question, even as his mind was still spinning over it.
"Because vampires despise the Fae. There was a rumor last year that Lady Lyssa, the highest-ranked among us and now head of the Vampire Council, is half-Fae, and the Council tried to execute her when they found out. She disappeared for a time, but when she returned and took over the Council, the rumor vanished. Those of us who have heard it secondhand assumed that was all it was. Even if it isn't, what will be tolerated in the most powerful of us is not likely to gain the same amount of acceptance in the lowest."
She'd been so fragile in his hand; he could have crushed her. Yet from the way she'd acted in that form, the way she gazed at him now, he knew she didn't feel it diminished her power.
Why did he feel he was any different? Deciding to submit to her, to trust her with every deep, dark longing he had, didn't make him weak. She brought out the need to be himself with her, and she'd already showed how much she liked who he was, every bit of it. Being submissive to her aroused him to the point he wanted to fuck her for days, protect and keep her forever, and nothing about that felt unmanly. Far from it.
She was obviously tracking his thoughts, because when he made that connection, when it all clicked together, that stillness was back, but there was a different quality to it now. When he saw a glint in her gaze, he caught her chin again, gently guided her face back to him. Leaning forward put them almost eye to eye, and when the tear slid free, he caught it on his thumb.
"Selene. Mistress." He placed his mouth on that tear track, moved to her lips, and they parted beneath his, her breath caressing him as they shared a kiss that awoke heart and loins together. Hell with it. Sliding his arm around her, he brought her onto his lap, the armless metal chair making it possible for her to straddle him there in the shadows as he cupped the back of her head, made the kiss deeper, savored the feel of her arms winding around him. Those arms could crush him like a boa constrictor, but she held on to him now like a vulnerable woman who needed to hold on.
Give me that mark, Mistress. Doesn't matter, all the logic and arguments, my worries, your worries. You know it's meant to be. Knew it from the first.
She lifted her head, her lips glistening from the demands of his. "I like everything about you except your stubbornness," she managed.
"Bullshit," he murmured. "If I wasn't so bullheaded, you wouldn't find me half as much fun. What excuse could you use to pull out that whip otherwise?"
"I'd think of something. I'm not above making things up."
"Actually, I think you're one of the most honest people I've ever met. You told me you were a vampire on your job interview." He lifted a brow. "Kind of a weird way to hide being a vampire, if it's such a big secret."
"Actually I've found it's the best way. People assume you're a bit crazy, ignore that part of you, your little 'quirks'. It's what you thought at first, wasn't it? Most people never go beyond that. Much easier than trying to hide the need to stay inside during daylight, the paleness. Thanks to reality TV and the Internet, it's easier to hide what you really are in plain sight than ever before. Everyone has seen everything and believes nothing. Since I was human, I can play human far better than a born vampire."
He couldn't argue with her logic. Cognizant of looking like they were considering a quickie in the corner, he eased her back to her chair, grinning when she briefly tightened her thighs and arms, not letting him do it until she was good and ready. Which gave her time to do a s
exy little rotation of her hips over his lap, confirming he was hard enough to make it embarrassing if he had to get up and go get her another drink from the bar.
What an excellent suggestion, cowboy. I wouldn't mind letting these other ladies see what's mine and mine alone. As well as our waiter, who obviously prefers men, from how he kept batting his lashes at you.
He winced. "You'd do it too. Sadistic wench."
When he focused on her expression, he found her gazing at him quizzically. "A mojito, please," she said.
"Christ."
Yet as he left her to get her drink, he knew she was doing more than teasing him. He was pretty sure he had her thinking about that third mark thing. Which meant until she gave him that third mark, he was being tested for the job.
When he went back inside, headed toward the bar, he saw what she'd seen, the waiter eyeing him like he was fried ice cream with a cherry on top. His gaze zeroed right in low, telling Quinn there was definitely not enough dim light in this restaurant. The guy's lips curved faintly. He obviously knew that hard-on wasn't for him, but that didn't keep him from appreciating the hell out of it.
Quinn knew his cheeks had to be red as a baboon's ass as he hit the bar and ordered the mojito and another beer. She could have waited for the waitstaff to make another round of the outside tables, but Selene wanted to see him wait upon her like this.
She'd said it was possible a vampire more powerful than her might "borrow" him. Female or male. He swallowed, thinking that through. Could he handle that? She'd said telling him something wasn't experiencing it, and if she could track his thoughts, then he needed to give thinking this stuff through a go. As she said, he couldn't manipulate her, and he wouldn't even try. He wanted it to be all honest and aboveboard between them. So he would handle this test. And the next, and every one she threw at him.
Not everything is a test, cowboy. Some things are just your Mistress' desire to see you obey. It arouses me, knowing you're embarrassed but still willing to show off what's mine. Watching your ass flex in those jeans makes me want to take a nice healthy bite. I may have you lie face down on the bed tonight and draw blood right from that delectable butt cheek. Then I'll put my fingers up your ass, make you come as I feed off you.
