Beloved Vampire (17 page)

“He put that here, so she could see them. This breezeway was not created for him to congratulate himself.” Amara nodded to the pool. “It is for her. As he helps each one, he feels he is helping her, women like her, to have more choices than she did. It is one of the ways he honors her.” She reached out and touched one of the floating candles, sent it drifting across the small bowl. “After all you’ve been through, I understand, truly, how you feel it is safer to believe all vampires are evil than to take a chance on a new truth. But being so adamantly sure of something is another way of making yourself vulnerable, isn’t it? If that is always what you expect, it gives your enemy an opening.”

Jess closed her eyes. “As much as keeping you guessing, shifting from perspective to perspective.”

“So what’s the choice? What do you do, Jess, when you can’t afford to trust, but trusting may be your only way back to yourself, to something approximating the life you wanted?”

Jess couldn’t answer the question, but then found it wasn’t necessary. When she looked, Amara was gliding back down the breezeway.

She’d wanted time alone. But with more questions than answers now, Jess wasn’t sure if she needed solitude. Particularly not before that sacred shrine.

11

“
I
don’t want to question you, my lord, but are we sure she’s all right alone?” Through the security cameras Mason had in the underground study level, Amara watched Jessica settle on a bench by the horse sculpture. At Mason’s prompting, she’d reluctantly left the girl on her own for a while, though she was sure the vampire was monitoring her with his mind as well.

“We’ve got to give her some breathing room.” Mason leaned back in the chair behind his desk and templed his fingers. Despite his words, Amara saw a worrisome brooding look around his eyes. It was past lunchtime, and though she knew Mason didn’t have to sleep as much as younger vampires, it was still late for him to be awake.

He glanced at her. “She’s very intelligent, Amara. Her instincts are honed for survival under extreme circumstances. So though she adapts quickly, that means the damage done to her adapts quickly as well. The manacles kept her from causing herself harm, but swiftly became a liability. Having you with her gives her a sense of stability, connection and information about her surroundings, but when she shifts into thinking of you as a jailer, it can become a destructive tactic. She needs to be able to stretch her mind to know she has the right to exercise it here. She needs time to think.”

“That’s what concerns me. She keeps returning to the conclusion that she’d be better off dead.”

“Only because she doesn’t dare to believe that she isn’t with another version of Raithe. Or that Raithe hasn’t irrevocably destroyed her spirit.” He turned his gaze back to the monitor. “She doesn’t realize how remarkable she is.”

Jessica had reached out to touch the sculpture. She glanced over her shoulder, as if she thought somebody would tell her not to do so. Mason cleared his throat. “Her body is strong and healthy now, and it wants to live. That’s the strongest ally we have against her mind’s self-destructive tendencies. We keep it in the forefront. Let’s give her activity, ways to burn her energy and focus on her natural passion to live. In order to beat Raithe, she has to do it herself, on her own terms. A woman strong enough to do as she has done, has it in her.”

He swiveled in the chair to face his servant. “We have to believe in her, Amara, if she’s going to believe in herself. Tomorrow, find her some barn clothes and tell her they need an extra groom for Hasna and Coman.”

“Excuse me? Put her to work mucking out stalls?”

“She keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for me to torture her with sick games that turn her natural desires into nightmares.”

Abruptly he rose, headed across the room to a decanter of brandy. He waved Amara away when she moved to pour for him. “I’ll get it. If I give her a job doing something else, it will keep her off balance, in a good way. The hard work will condition her body again, along with her mind. The stables need painting, sanitizing. Jorge will be delighted with the extra hands. I want her exhausted at the end of the day.”

“And how will you occupy her evenings?”

Mason set down the decanter, gave her a sharp look. “Don’t go too far, Amara.”

“My apologies, my lord.” Amara inclined her head. “I shall go let Jorge know and then tell Jessica.” Turning on her foot, she moved toward the door.

“Allah save me from the pique of women,” Mason muttered. “Amara.”

“My lord?” She turned, arched a brow.

“It’s about helping her.”

“I’ve no doubt. Just . . .” Amara sighed, came back to him. When she reached out to touch his chest, she was gratified when he closed his hand over hers. He cupped her face, threading his fingers through her hair. Mason loved her hair, as did Enrique. There was nothing that gave her such contentment as the pleasure she could bring her Master and her husband. She wished Jessica could know the reward of that, of having the things one did out of love and a desire to please returned in full measure, with such caring and ardor. With love.

Mason shook his head. “You are lucky your love is so generous, Amara. And your beauty too staggering to resist.”

She smiled up at him, but she couldn’t help the worry she knew darkened her eyes. “Please be careful, my lord. I didn’t see her savagery coming, when she knocked me into the tub. If I’d been able to resist her, she might have killed me. Raithe didn’t see it coming, either.”

“He had a moment of vulnerability.”

“All of us do, eventually.”

Mason moved his touch to her chin, gave it a light squeeze of rebuke. “Let me be concerned with that. You did well today. Now, about tomorrow night . . .” In his mind, he showed her what he wanted her to wear when she danced. Despite her intention to focus

on the topic of Jessica, an anticipatory flush swept her skin. His gaze kindled, seeing it, his fingers dropping to a caress on her throat. “Did you invite Jessica to be there?”

“As you commanded. But I suspect she won’t come this time.”

“That’s all right. Perhaps another time, if we leave the invitation open.” He brushed her cheek with his knuckles, reclaimed his brandy. “Even if her life does not include vampires or servants in the future, I think seeing how it should be between them might help her heal.”

Amara put her hands over his as he raised the glass to his lips. Mason stilled, looking down at her over the lip. “Like teaching an abused woman that not all men are evil, so she’ll give a new one a chance?”

He lifted a brow. “Amara, you
do
know I can read your mind?”

“Yes, my lord. But sometimes I don’t think you realize there are times we can read yours.”

When his gaze shuttered, his mouth tightening, she removed her hands, took a step back. She’d told Jessica the truth, that she did not fear Lord Mason, but she also knew where the lines were drawn between vampires and humans. At a certain point, Mason would not be pressed, or defied. He was not a monster like Raithe, but he certainly could be as ruthless. Though it was the type of ruthlessness as provocative to a woman’s senses as a seduction.

“I mean no offense, my lord. But we do love you well, and my intentions are—”

“I know what they are.” He gestured, his desire clear. They were done. Suppressing a sigh, she turned for the door.

But as Amara left, she knew she wasn’t mistaken. More was happening here than saving a “damsel,” something far more personal.

She’d always nursed the hope that Mason would open his heart again, but this damaged girl was not the choice she would have made for him. Despite her words, it wasn’t physical danger that concerned her. For all that Mason had given her and Enrique, no one—except perhaps Farida—had accessed the deepest levels of his soul. Her loss had damaged that core, perhaps irreparably.

If Jessica found her way into it, there was no telling what further destruction she could wreak in the powerful vampire, the Master that Amara and Enrique both loved.

016

During her delightful third meal of the day, Jessica received the unexpected information that she’d been left jeans, boots and a T-shirt in her wardrobe, so that she could help out at the stables the next day. When she mulled it over, despite her suspicions, she found she liked the idea. Far too much. Though she knew Mason could read her mind easily enough, she still felt it necessary to think,
So you resurrected me because you were short on manual labor?
to see if he was listening in. But her mind was quiet tonight.

Amara explained during dinner he was otherwise occupied, which should have been soothing, because she knew vampires had an entirely different idea of dinner. If it wasn’t for blood, it was for sex. She was having a hard enough time thinking about the invitation to watch his dinner with Amara and Enrique tomorrow night, never mind that she knew she wouldn’t go.

Amara and Enrique ate with the rest of the staff when not needed by their vampire, so Jessica had found herself seated in an informal dining area populated by several tables and pervaded with the relaxed atmosphere of people who worked and lived together. She learned many had quarters here, traveling back to remote homes for their days off and vacations. After dinner there were drinks and games of cards. Others wandered off to watch television, read or enjoy arcade games in the staff entertainment room. Some worked out in an exercise room or used the adjacent indoor pool. It appeared all of the staff, with the exception of the aging cook, were trained in combat skills. Those workouts were overseen by Enrique, whom she noted had exceptional hand-to-hand skills. Once that was over, though, he retired to the couch with the local papers and to watch a televised soccer game.

Though it seemed the staff viewed Amara and Enrique as upper management, connected to the lord of the estate in ways they weren’t, the two seemed accepted and liked. And they were comfortable as well. Amara read a book, her head on Enrique’s knee, while he ban tered politics between soccer plays with the grooms playing pool.

It was surreal. While Raithe had kept her on a very short leash—sometimes literally—she was fairly certain his small, handpicked staff had never had such a sense of . . . normalcy. Amara had explained earlier that Lord Mason’s live-in staff was aware he was a vampire, and all were second-marked, to ensure their loyalty. Quite a few of them were from families that had served him in generations past.

In contrast, she felt like the heroine in a horror film, sitting on the outskirts of a campfire, the only one noticing that things were shifting in that darkness, prowling. The laughter, the announcer on the television, the
plock
of pool balls, as well as conversations that were so easy, so untroubled, began to grate.

There’d been some casual attempts to draw her into them, but she’d withdrawn to a corner to watch them all, leafing through a book to appear occupied and remain unmolested. Whether or not they believed it, they left her alone. But she still felt hemmed in, the more she stayed down here, as if she were being woven into a tapestry in which she didn’t belong.

She rose abruptly, nodded her good-nights to Amara and Enrique, and was conscious of scrutiny as she left the room. What would they say about her after she left? Why would she care? She had to quell an urge to bolt into a run in the hallway, escape the shadows at her heels.

In the horror movies, it was always the one who left the campfire first who got attacked by the monster. She firmed her chin. The stairwell was lit, and she remembered her way well enough to take only one wrong turn before she reached the hallway with her room. When she slid into her room, the dim night lamp was on. Then she froze.

The French doors were open, letting in the sea breeze, as they’d been this morning to let in sunlight. Her rational mind told her that.

Still, there was a big black hole of night yawning in the corner of her room like a vortex, and the darkness that had dogged her heels closed in. She pressed her back against the door and told her heart to calm its pounding. This was stupid. She could walk over there, close the doors, and the night would not reach in with grasping fingers. The shadows in the corners would not coalesce and grab her, blind her and hold her, come at her with pain and wicked whispers, sly laughter.

She slid down the door, wrapping her arms around her knees. Had it come to this? Needing someone in her room with her as if she were a child? She’d managed fine all those months when sick. Yes, because she’d had something worse to fear, and because she’d been careful to ensure she was in a well-lit room by the time night fell. She’d been here less than a few days and her guard was already slipping.

No, she was fine. She was going to get up, walk across the room and close those doors any minute now. Leaving them open wasn’t an option. She couldn’t possibly go to sleep with that dark eye staring, unblinking, at her. In the distance, there was a dotting of landscaping lights in the garden, a couple sconces on the verandah, but not nearly enough. She tried to listen to the ocean and be soothed by it, but instead all she heard were sibilant whispers.