A Vampire's Claim (47 page)

“So why does she want to know about me?”

“Lyssa is very fond of Danny. She’s worried about her for quite some time. Danny is different from other vampires.”

“A gentler sort,” Dev remembered. Thomas nodded, and his gray eyes sobered.

“Yes. Which shouldn’t be a flaw, but you can’t change the reality in which you live. She has no political aspirations, but she’s not willing to have anyone tell her what to do, either. Lyssa has hoped, these past few decades, that she would find a servant to help her. On the other hand, she believes Danny held off so long in choosing a servant because she was afraid of shortening a servant’s life, if she was killed.”

Dev’s back straightened, and he set aside the beer. “What the hell does that mean?” His gaze flickered back up the sand to her, verifying she was still there, safe. As well as noting the ripple of her hair, the light smile and delicate movement of her hands as she moved a chess piece.

“It means,” Thomas said patiently, “she either has to be willing to be in charge, or bow down. If she does neither, she’s in no-man’s-land, and she will die there. Danny has traveled extensively, refusing to swear loyalty to anyone. Cut herself loose from the protection of her family with her falling-out with her mother. I suspect you don’t understand what a miracle that is, or how that makes her such a desirable feather in the cap to others. If you carry a death wish, Devlin, you couldn’t have picked a prettier one.”

Dev stared at him. “Nobody’s getting to her while I live. Or making her do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“Your lady has spoken very warmly of you. I understand why.” Thomas tapped his temple at Dev’s surprised look. “When she chooses, my lady Lyssa can allow me to hear their conversations.”

“While mine won’t speak to me at all,” Dev said, despite himself. “I feel like she’s put a fucking wall between us these past couple days.”

“She’s chosen to avoid having a full servant for nearly two hundred years. I’d say what’s remarkable is that she’s let you in at all, not that she has a few days here or there where she keeps her own counsel. She’s likely dealing with the way she feels for you. It’s difficult for vampires to figure out the relationship, the first time they have it. It’s much like a crush, very passionate and romantic.

That’s normal, but she’s worrying it’s more than that. The process of establishing some distance to prove to herself she’s still in control is as natural as any of it.”

It all sounded rational. And annoying. Dev picked up his beer, took another hard swig.

“Pay attention to my words now, because you won’t hear them from a vampire.” Thomas reached out, took the beer from his hand and set it aside. Anyone else, Dev would have thumped in the teeth for that, but Thomas’s expression conveyed the gentle rebuke and obedience only a priest could. Even sitting there without a stitch on his knackers.

“She’s your Mistress. Your employer,” Thomas amended, with a note of irony to his voice as he registered Dev’s discomfort.

“How many things in this world are labeled one thing, when we all know they are another? The human servant is the cornerstone, Dev, when a vampire allows the relationship to be what it should be. If you are the person meant to serve that role, you already feel it. That’s why you get uneasy when she shuts you out. If you both decide the bond is permanent, as it grows, she’ll do that less and less. But vampires are not humans. They’ll never feel the same responsibility to ease our worries as we do for them.”

“I guess I should count myself lucky that her silent treatment is the worst thing I’ll face today,” Dev said after a bit. “I was worried this would be another thing like that dinner with Ruskin. But you’re a monk, and now that I know Alistair’s servant . . .” He stopped. “He doesn’t make her do things
now
, does he?”

“Vampire children are rare, Dev,” Thomas reassured him. “Alistair is very devoted to Nina. If he thought something as simple as walking would cause stress, he’d pick her up and carry her everywhere himself.” He hesitated. “However, as much as I hate to do this, you
did
ask me to help you understand more about vampires. And I’m afraid you’re suffering a false sense of security.”

Dev closed his eyes. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to know more.”

Thomas chuckled. “Dev, I’m unusual in that my celibacy is permitted within the boundaries of my service to Lady Lyssa. Not that she doesn’t enjoy tormenting me with it. I help bathe her, do her hair, massage oils into her skin . . .” He blew out a breath at Dev’s look. “It amuses her, to torment me that way. That’s part of what vampires are. While I try very hard to remain humble, sometimes I feel there should be a special room in heaven for me. Or that I should have myself castrated,” he added dryly.

“You love her.”

Thomas looked toward him, some of the humor dying out of his eyes. “Yes. But I do not love God less. And so I hold to my vows.” He sighed. “My lady asked me to break my vows of celibacy once, to prove my loyalty to her. And yet, she has honored my vow ever since, no matter how others, even her own husband, have challenged it.” A shadow crossed his gaze. When Thomas turned his head, looking out toward the ocean, Dev understood that was a dark area he was not invited to enter. They sat in silence for a while, Thomas a silhouette.

“Because of her status, her indulgence of my vow is excused. Vampires do not tolerate or comprehend a vampire who doesn’t offer her servant for sexual entertainments, unless there is an accepted excuse, like Nina’s. And whenever vampires get together, there are
always
sexual entertainments. It’s like . . .” He considered it, thinking. “Like when humans get together for dinner. They eat. That’s what a dinner is. When vampires get together, they expect to satiate a different appetite.

“As a student of history,” Thomas mused, “I believe the tradition developed a long time ago, when some intelligent vampire realized that vampires would be less likely to kill one another if they could indulge a different form of lust when they gathered socially or on business of mutual benefit. Very politic.”

“Ah, Christ.” Dev lay back in the sand, stared up at the stars. “Guess I couldn’t throw a sickie and get out of it, could I?”

“Think you signed up for the wrong job,” Thomas said, with a half smile. “You’re not working on a factory line. And your head will clear within the hour. We can get drunk, but the duration is much shorter.”

“So that’s what they get with this third-mark gig. A permanent sex slave.” It sounded ridiculous, coming off his tongue, but as Dev thought of the different things Danny had done with him, the way she’d deprived him the past couple days, denying him the ability to relieve his simmering lust so it had built ever higher, it made an alarming kind of sense.

“Vampires are extremely carnal creatures, Dev. They need sexual interaction almost as much as they need blood. But a third-mark . . .” Thomas’s words stopped, his gaze drifting to Lyssa. “This isn’t just about sex, or even blood. And it’s definitely not a half-measure thing. I think you know that. Think you both know that.

“I don’t claim to understand or know why a person becomes a vampire’s servant. You just know it’s meant to be. The moment is coming, very soon, when you have to accept it, or walk away. Third-mark is being
everything
to your Master or Mistress. We help them dress, make sure they look appropriate before other vampires, since they can’t see mirrors. We run their houses, handle daytime business transactions. We serve their sexual needs and, though you’ll never hear a one of them admit it, their emotional needs.”

He nodded. “That group up there, they’re a little more informal than most, because Danny and Lyssa get along so well, and Alistair is very devoted to Lyssa. He’s almost like a son to her, because she sired him three hundred years ago and mentored him through most of his life. But vampires never truly relax their guard around one another. They can’t. They need companions, someone they can trust. They can trust us, because they can be in our heads whenever they wish. We are here for their needs.”

“Pets,” Dev said, bitterness creeping into his tone.

Thomas gave him a shrewd look. “What bothers you more? Thinking she believes that, or knowing that when she looks your way, you don’t give a damn if she does? And you shouldn’t give a damn about it. It’s bullshit, as well. We’re not pets. We’re human servants to vampires, and it’s a relationship like nothing you’ve ever had in your life. Tell yourself you love her or don’t love her, it doesn’t matter. If you are meant to be her full servant, you are bound together in a way that would tear out your heart and half the things in your gut if you decided to walk away from it.”

“Jesus, I met her a week or so ago.”

“And when she feeds, do you turn your head, offer your throat, before she even asks?”

Dev shrugged, but Thomas was watching his face. “If I were a Baptist, I’d bet good money you won’t leave her,” the monk concluded with a somber twinkle. “You’ll likely reach some point where you tear loose, needing to prove something to yourself.

But within a couple days, your gut will cramp with how lonely you are for her. Something calls a person to be a vampire’s true servant, something more than fascination or a fear of death. It’s a desire to surrender, only to that vampire.”

“I suspect I’d feel a lot more comfortable with the idea if it wasn’t put in those terms.”

“No doubt,” Thomas said dryly with a smile. “But I suspect you’re as brutally honest with yourself as a man can be. If I dressed it up for you, you’d tell me to bugger off or speak plain.” Sobering again, he looked toward Lyssa. “Vampires such as my Mistress frown on vampires who abuse or even kill their servants, though it happens, far more frequently than it should. Because it’s a betrayal, for the reasons I just noted. Whether conscious or not, when you do accept the idea, you’re offering them everything you are. To devalue that, to throw that gift away or, worse, brutalize it, a vampire might as well brutalize their own soul. Because we become that much a part of them. The question of inferiority or superiority, the right or wrong of it, becomes irrelevant. We are interwoven.”

He gave Dev another straightforward look. “As to the issue of boundaries and limitations, you’ll find eventually that doesn’t concern you as much as wanting to please her does. Even as you occasionally—or not so occasionally—have the desire to choke the life out of her for acting so superior sometimes.”

There was a glint in the monk’s eyes at this, and Dev swore he saw Lyssa flick an amused glance toward him before she returned her attention to the game. It made him swallow, because something did, in fact, cramp in his gut. He missed having Danny in his mind like that, as short a time as he’d had it. But how could he ask her to reassure him, when he hadn’t even made his own decision?

Thomas touched his arm then. “Time to go in and get ready for cocktails and appetizers. Thank you for the swim. And good luck this evening.”

“Don’t be smug.” Dev shot him a narrow look. “It doesn’t suit a man of God.”

“Are you so sure it’s smugness? It might be envy.” Thomas laughed. “I’ve seen a great deal of these vampire
social
events, Dev.

While they can be harrowing to the servants involved, one thing they never lack is pleasure. The stripping away of all shields is the most frightening part. Once you surrender to your Mistress, there’s no worry in any of that, anymore.”

“Like surrendering to God?” Dev offered the resentful barb, but the monk didn’t seem offended by his defensiveness.

“Very similar. I’m not so sure that the hand of God isn’t in this relationship,” Thomas added. “Who is to say a full servant isn’t the one who helps a vampire remember there is something in this world to embrace other than bloodlust? And if you think that is a small thing, think how powerful and intelligent these beings are, and what they could do to this world, if they put no constraints on their behavior.”

On that enigmatic note, with another affectionate squeeze of Dev’s shoulder, Thomas excused himself to change for the more formal indoor gathering.

Dev had been given a room to wash up and reattire himself as well. He was tempted to barricade himself in there. ’Course, he couldn’t argue with the household uniform for the all-female staff. Black short skirts fluffed out with a layered slip so that it was clear they were wearing no underwear. The only thing on their upper bodies was a string of pearls, run between their pierced nipples. Chiyoko had worn nipple jewelry, but he’d never seen pierced ones before. They drew his eyes, no matter how hard he tried not to stare. All the women wore their hair swept up and pinned, showing slim, artery-rich throats.

“Alistair, you
really
need some male staff.” He heard Lady Lyssa make the comment as he approached the spacious solarium. As he stepped in, Dev saw it provided a dramatic nighttime view of the ocean and white sands. After seating Lyssa, Alistair returned to the couch, where Nina was curled up on a pillow, dozing. When he sat, she scooted closer, and he gathered her in, putting her head on his thigh, his hand lying on her hip.

“Now, my lady, you know I have some excellent male flesh working in the stables. You’ve already sampled it. Don’t deprive a man the simple pleasures of his home.”

Thomas brought Lyssa her wine. When he proffered his wrist, she shook her head but held the glass as he produced a slim, elegant blade and made a deft cut, letting the blood from his body trickle into the crystal. She swirled it with her finger, but then spread the damp, wine-stained tip over his cut, brought it to her lips for a single, easy caress that clotted the flow.

It was so painfully obvious Lyssa communicated with the monk often. Though they spoke very little aloud to one another, the compatibility between their movements and actions was uncanny. More than a hundred years they’d been together, Thomas had told him. What would it be like to share that time with Danny? Cultivate that closeness?

No, he couldn’t think like that. Hell, only a few days ago, he was living basically hour to hour, and now he was thinking a hundred years? Jesus.

When Thomas bowed, and stepped back to take his place along the wall, Dev hoped to see Danny entering. He’d wanted to come in after his lady, though he suspected that was a breach of etiquette of some kind. Instead, she was exercising a woman’s prerogative to be late. Probably on purpose.