Vampire Instinct (61 page)

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Authors: Joey W Hill

Tags: #Vampires, #Horror, #Paranormal, #General, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Erotic Fiction, #Erotica, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural

BOOK: Vampire Instinct
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“He didn’t . . .” Elisa bit her lip, knowing it wasn’t supposed to be the same with vampires and their servants as with monogamous couples, but then decided to hang it. She’d proceed with what
she
would want to know, if it was about Mal. “He didn’t participate. He just watched.”
Nadia studied her a long moment. However, instead of easing the set of her shoulders, she suddenly clenched her hands into fists, folded them across her body and stared back out the windows. “It would have been better if he’d fucked all of you. Then he won’t come to my bed . . . needing.”
Elisa swallowed. This woman was third-marked, so her vampire master obviously knew her thoughts. During that avoided kiss earlier, Elisa had registered only the physical act. She hadn’t thought about Lord Marshall receiving the double blow of knowing what went through his servant’s mind as she recoiled from him. However, even with just instinct going for her, Elisa wasn’t picking up revulsion. Instead, it was fear.
It was so obvious, she knew that Lord Marshall must know it as well. And there was no way, short of taking the woman by force, to get around such a fear. For all his ruthless desire at dinner, she hadn’t sensed that kind of cruelty in him.
Nadia was terrified she’d lose a part of her heart again. Or that she’d already lost it for good.
“Did he tell you why we came?”
Nadia sighed. Running a tremulous hand over her face, she gave her limp hair a harsh tug. Turning away from the window, she sat on the arm of the chair where Lord Marshall had been, as if that was her normal place. Her palm molded over the place his hand would have rested, as if absorbing the touch she wanted but couldn’t accept. “Yes. That you and . . . I’m sorry; there’s a robe in the closet there. Would you mind putting it on?”
Gladly,
Elisa thought, practically scampering over there. It was a woman’s robe, perhaps one Nadia kept here as an extra. She could well imagine her stretched out with Lord Marshall, having long, erotic encounters in front of that glass wall that looked out over the water, in the darkness where the boats couldn’t see. The robe would be for when they walked to the end of that dock hand in hand . . . Or were such romantic ideas about vampires and their servants foolish?
“I’m sorry,” Nadia said. “You’re quite lovely. I mean no insult. I just . . . It’s all so unbearable sometimes. I shouldn’t be talking to you like this.”
“I’d much rather you talk to me like this than treat me like a guest,” Elisa said honestly. “I’m worried about my two boys, and I’d rather us speak plain about them. It’s one thing if Lord Marshall wants them, but I’m more concerned if
you
want them.”
Before Nadia could reply, they heard footsteps coming down the hall, along with Lord Marshall’s voice.
“No apology needed, Malachi. For one thing, I know you’d damn sure do it again, and with more force if needed.” There was wry humor in the tone. “You need something from me, but you were only prepared to go so far to get it. If she’d truly been near breaking, you would have cut your losses and figured out another option. You have principles, which explains why you stay on your island. There’s not a lot of room for such nonsense in our world. Jonathan and Cynthia can become somewhat tiresome at times, particularly Jonathan, but they’re young. Not much older than you, but you have more self-possession, which tells me you’ve learned a few things they haven’t yet. But you don’t get on my nerves by acting like you know every damn thing, either.”
“No, my lord,” Mal said in a neutral voice.
And I heard that, Elisa.
What? I was just saying he doesn’t know you that well yet.
As they entered the room, Mal gave her a look that promised retribution, but then he nodded, drawing the overlord’s attention to Nadia. Apparently, Lord Marshall had been as lost in his head as Nadia, for he looked as startled to see her there as Nadia had been to see Elisa.
When Nadia’s Master looked toward her, it was like seeing a person who’d had half of himself amputated stare hungrily at that other half, far beyond his reach, while he slowly bled out on the floor. Nadia’s yearning was no less painful, for all that her eyes remained downcast, her fingers dug into the chair arm.
It wasn’t that difficult to understand, Elisa realized. She’d met parents in the bush who’d lost children. It was so hard for them to come back together over it, because the grief was so sharp and deep they could barely handle it themselves, let alone comfort each other. This couple had lost three. Were she and Mal going to make it worse, or better? Was this a mistake?
No.
She trusted Mal’s intuition. When he took a seat in a chair near Lord Marshall’s, she came to him. As he ran a finger over the robe’s lapel, she registered his amusement at how it dragged the ground at her ankles. Before she could make a face at him, discreetly of course, he pulled her down on the chair arm.
After a moment’s pause, Lord Marshall had taken his own chair. Nadia didn’t move from the perch that mirrored Elisa’s, but her body quivered as if undecided whether to stay or go. Glancing at his servant, Marshall laid his arm on the rest, settling his hand just above her knee. He didn’t push back the fabric of the skirt, so Nadia didn’t get the full impact of the heat of his palm, the press of his fingers into her flesh, the way Elisa did when Mal automatically slid the robe out of his way to clasp her thigh.
But Nadia at least accepted the hint of intimate contact. A promising sign, to Elisa’s way of thinking.
36
 
“
S
O tell us more about these fledglings and why you think I can provide them a safe haven,” Marshall said, making a visible effort to focus on Mal.
With a courteous nod, Mal began. He reviewed the fledglings’ circumstances, how they’d come to be at the sanctuary. He’d sent Lord Marshall that information and discussed it with him briefly over the phone, but now he gave him more detail, answered questions. While Elisa understood why he had to explain the violent catalyst that had sent the fledglings to his sanctuary as a last resort, Lord Marshall’s brief look toward her, as well as Nadia’s, was a little difficult. Particularly when Mal mentioned how she was violated and Willis was killed. But then he was past that part and she could relax again. Somewhat.
“After spending time with them, I believe the devolving bloodlust shown by the three boys has to do with how they were turned. The others have periodic bouts, but they are little different from what you see in vampires when they are first turned. Their age may keep the transition from ever fully completing, but I think it will be no worse than managing a human’s problem with epilepsy, particularly in a controlled environment. However, my gut feeling is that the transition will eventually conclude for those four; it will just take longer.”
As Mal discussed the progress the children had made since they’d first arrived, Nadia rose, moved back to the windows, staring out at the night. When she sank into her lady’s chair there, curling her feet under her, Lord Marshall glanced her way, his mouth tightening, but he gestured to Mal to continue.
Elisa listened for a few moments, but her eyes were on the woman, her attention flickering between that and the changes in Lord Marshall’s attitude. He’d gone from somewhat interested to politely allowing Mal to say his piece. It was clear that the key to his acceptance of William and Matthew was the woman who was now tuning them out.
Making a murmured apology, as if she needed a bathroom break, Elisa slipped out of the room. She hurried to her guest room, a smaller room adjacent to Mal’s. Retrieving the item she wanted, she trotted back to the study, holding up the robe so she didn’t trip over it.
“It’s a fucked situation, all the way around, Mal,” Lord Marshall said as she came back in. “It sounds like you’ve got a good handle on it. I’m not sure why you don’t keep them down there, rather than throwing them out to the wolves like this.”
“For the same reason I rehabilitate as many of my cats as possible to be released into their intended habitats. It’s the way it’s supposed to be, allowing them to maximize their full potential.”
“What about your cats that came to you from people’s homes as pets, or circuses, where they’ve performed for years? How many of those can be rehabilitated into the wild?”
“Very few,” Mal acknowledged. “Because what they were intended to be was so twisted it is very difficult to find their way back to Nature.”
“And vampires whose growth is forever stunted so they’ll never look older than children? Wouldn’t they be the same?”
It was always the same argument. Elisa bit down on her tongue, knowing she had no place to interrupt the two vampires, and would only make things worse if the perception was that Mal had no control over his own servant. But it was so difficult. More difficult now than even before, because after spending these past weeks seeing things through Mal’s learned eyes, she knew they were terribly valid points.
But she’d seen things he hadn’t—he’d as much as said so, and that was why he was here. He believed this was the right course to pursue. So instead of getting frustrated by the topic, she slid around the two males, over to where Nadia was, and took a seat on the carpet next to her chair, opening the drawing pad on her lap.
“I’ve taken to sketching the cats to help me keep track of things about them,” she said, low, glancing up at the woman’s face. “You and Lord Marshall should come visit there. It’s truly an amazing place. There are over a hundred wild cats.” She held up the pad. “These are cheetah cubs. You’ve probably seen them, but I’d never seen one outside a book. To me, they look very different from most cats. Almost more like fuzzy baboons, without the red backsides.”
Giving a tired, vague smile, Nadia leaned forward and picked up the sketchbook to politely peruse the pictures. Elisa rose behind her, bracing her hands on the chair back so her knuckles grazed Nadia’s thin shoulders. The woman shivered, and Elisa automatically began to draw back, but her hands were seized, the album almost toppling from Nadia’s lap. “No, don’t move them,” she whispered.
The poor girl was literally starved for touch. Elisa recalled then how much Mal had touched her since he marked her. He never left the kitchen in the morning without grazing her body with his own, or kissing her, sliding a palm over her backside, a hip, the line of her throat. Tonight, no more than a few minutes at a time went by without him stroking or caressing her, and she didn’t feel it was all for her own reassurance. During dinner, Cynthia and Jonathan had touched their servants frequently. And the yearning between Marshall and Nadia for it was palpable.
Mal had shown her that lions liked tactile communication, almost more than any other cat species. They rubbed faces and bodies together frequently. For all that they were solitary, vampires apparently had that in common, even if only with their servants. And their servants quickly became dependent on it, or perhaps were already naturally inclined to crave it. Without prompting, she began to rub her palms in slow circles along the tops of Nadia’s bony shoulders. “See the next one? Turn the page there.”
When Nadia did, the woman glanced back up at Elisa. “That’s not a cat.”
“Actually, it is. It looks like something between a sloth and a bear, doesn’t it? It’s called a binturong, and when it passes gas, it smells like fresh popcorn. I told Mal it must have done something that the Creator liked, since he gets a nicer smell than most of us get.”
A tiny chuckle hitched the woman’s shoulders, and Elisa moved from there to her neck. The shiver had a different component, one she well understood herself. She unbound Nadia’s hair from the ribbon that held it, unfurled it over her shoulders and began to comb through it with her fingers, taking time over the scalp, with a slow massage of the fragile line of skull. She loved it when Mal stroked her head, and Nadia seemed to respond the same way, tilting into the touch while she turned the next couple pages. As she did, Elisa explained various more tidbits about the cats. She even shared Mal’s leopard story in an even lower tone, making Nadia chuckle again. Since she knew Mal could hear everything if he chose, and Lord Marshall, too, the low tone was mainly courtesy to the males’ conversation.
She tightened her fingers on Nadia’s scalp, a brief pause, as the woman’s fingers pinched up the next page. “The next sketches are of the fledglings. If you don’t want to look, you don’t have to, but I didn’t want you to feel like I was trying to trick you.”
Nadia paused, her head inclining briefly. As she stared at the last page of cats, considering her next move, Elisa continued to stroke through the long blond strands. While not as thick and lustrous right now, it made her think of Danny’s hair. She’d sometimes brushed her lady’s hair before she went to bed, particularly if Dev had to be out on the station early mornings to go deal with the herd or check things with the hands. But she’d seen him sit on the top porch step at night, Danny leaning back between his knees while he did this, a firm scalp stroke that trailed off into the loose tresses. Sometimes he’d curl them around his callused fingers and tug.
Elisa paused, realizing the relationship she kept using as a guide of how a relationship should be involved a vampire and her servant, rather than a husband and wife. It was a startling yet undeniable fact. Before she could figure out how to react to that, Nadia drew her attention again.

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