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“Enough, habiba. Get some water and walk it off.” He nodded toward a pitcher on a small bistro table that had apparently been brought in during their sparring.
She drew a deep breath, letting her mind go blank as she turned away. Spinning, she brought her foot around in the roundhouse again, only this time she connected with that perfect jawbone, snapping his head back and causing him to stumble before she finished in a ready pose, hands up, one leg back. A follow-up was futile, for he could take her down in an instant. The point was she’d gotten one in under his guard.
Mason straightened, swiping a thumb along his bottom lip to see the blood where his fang had speared his tongue. One fucking hell of a kick. She’d caught him with the blank-mind trick, something that wouldn’t have worked if he’d been anticipating, because her intent would have flashed through her mind before the move. However, he’d been too damn worked up watching her fight, how she kept the anger and passion channeled. He couldn’t help but be stirred and distracted by the athletic precision of the slim body, how she pushed until her muscles trembled.
He bared his teeth in a smile. “Nice one. But a cheap shot, if this was an honorable match.”
“Honor doesn’t mean shit,” she said bluntly. “Winning does.”
“Well, in that case . . .”
Jessica knew it was coming, reflexively tried to dodge, but of course that wouldn’t work. He took her down to the mat on her back, sweeping her legs, but catching her on one arm, so she landed with all the violence of a babe being laid in her cradle. Which of course put him above her. The copper hair he had clasped in a tail at his nape fell forward, brushing her face.
She saw the challenge in his vibrant eyes. She’d wanted that, damn her damaged soul. She, who’d hungered for her freedom such that she’d tear the flesh from her bones to get it, needed to feel the tautness of Mason’s leash on her body. It made no sense.
Weary with it, she closed her eyes. “I know. You’re going to tell me not to think.”
“Your thoughts can be a liability to you sometimes, Jessica. You’ve been through a great deal. The soul knows how to heal itself, but often only through instinct. The mind derails it.”
“You know, your whole Yoda thing is really annoying.” Particularly when it’s obvious you don’t take your own advice.
Before he could respond to that, or she could feel moved by the shadows that passed through his gaze, she rolled away and bounced to her feet. Her body was on the tip edge of exhaustion, but she needed more. Her muscles were vibrating from the match. Or maybe it was the proximity of his body, those amber eyes that had her thrumming.
At his arch look, her gaze narrowed. Big deal. Basically it’s the taste buds responding to the smell of chocolate. Any chocolate. It doesn’t mean anything.
He cocked his head, but she was already backpedaling. Retreat was the better part of wisdom, to her way of thinking. “I’m going for a run on the beach. Unless my jailer has an objection?”
“I think he’ll run with you,” he said, thwarting her escape attempt.
Muttering a curse, because stifling it was pointless with him in her head like a parasite, she took the nearest exit to the verandah.
Not bothering to wait for him, she followed the winding steps at a quick trot, and loped across the lawn until it became sand. She reached the darkened beach with the reflection of moonlight on the pale sand guiding her.
As she moved to the wet, packed ground, she started to run, falling into a familiar, steady rhythm, recalling her daily workouts from her Rome flat. A morning jog through the narrow, uneven streets, nodding to people she knew, hurdling or sidestepping the cats.
One of the most amazing things to her about Europe had been its vast age. Particularly Rome, part of ancient civilization, a place that had seen so many things grow and change. It was a society built on history, not philosophy. As a novice archaeologist, the contrast with the States, miraculously built on principles, fascinated her.
The vampire running behind and to the right of her had been alive for hundreds of years as well, seeing things grow and change.
And yet he’d fallen in love with a young girl who’d known only the desert, her father’s tents. Maybe he’d found what all students of history did—the situations changed, but people didn’t. She wondered again how old he actually was.
Eight hundred, habiba. Give or take a few decades. As he pulled even with her, a frown crossed his face. I think I am coming up on nine hundred, but I’m not certain.
Holy crap. Raithe had been three hundred. She shot Mason a sidelong glance. Though he could move faster than any animal on the planet, and probably most cars, he was matching her pace with a comfortable stride, a little longer than hers so that she was competitively trying to keep pace with him, pushing herself harder. The manipulation should annoy her, but it didn’t.
Vampires gained in strength and power as they aged. The oldest known vampire was Lady Lyssa, the last queen of the Far East clan. Raithe had discussed her with his companions, though Jess had never met her, for of course she was far above Raithe’s station. He wasn’t influential enough to be invited to the gatherings where Region Masters, overlords and Council members would be. Since he resented that, Raithe claimed not to care about the trappings of civilized hierarchy. To him, they were a farce.
Regardless of his motives, since she was regularly subjected to his savagery, Jess couldn’t agree more.
But Raithe hadn’t completely destroyed her reasoning skills, at least not when she could exhaust herself with physical exercise and distance herself from her fears. Whether or not bolstered by Farida’s writings, her rational mind had told her from the beginning there was something different about Mason. The Council and their rules did exist, which suggested vampires might have an order of sorts. Restrictions on their behavior.
She’d felt power from Mason that would eclipse Raithe’s and that of all his friends. What did a vampire do with that kind of power? Whatever he wants, the frightened part of her mind told her.
When he lengthened his stride again, she cursed him. “You’re playing with me.”
“Helping you stretch out. Show me how fast you can run. Test the marks. Turn yourself loose like one of my horses. I want to see you fly.”
She considered him out of the corner of her eye. While he wasn’t wearing typical exercise clothing, she didn’t think he’d be kicked out of any gym, considering the way the blue jeans hugged his ass in the right way, and the black T-shirt stretched over his broad shoulders, revealing hard curves of biceps that she had a sudden desire to bite with her nails. At his sidelong look, she frowned and lengthened her stride.
He dropped back a couple paces, so she lost him in her peripheral vision. As her stride lengthened, she felt that third-mark ability kicking in, increasing her speed far beyond what she expected. She was running. Really, really running, soaring, bare feet barely hitting the wet sand, the sky and ocean stretching out before her.
There was no Raithe waiting. No sickness or death. Just her, just Jess, running under a wide-open sky, her muscles burning and stretching, and yet begging for more. She dug down to see if she could give them more and miraculously, her body responded, lengthening out, arms pumping, lungs laboring. She could fly.
In high school, and then in her first years of college, she’d been a cheerleader, a cheer coach. She’d loved the lift, the toss through the air, remembering the clasp of team member hands as she came to rest with perfect balance on their shoulders. Then the forward leap and flip, into the cradling arms of two male cheerleaders.
She ran faster, thinking about the honest enthusiasm of the crowds at the football games, how it would carry them all away. The roar of approval that came with the dramatic flips, twists and pyramids. An illusion, but an illusion that had been real.
Jessica . . .
She was already in motion when she heard his warning. She took the triple front handsprings, with a twisting layout finish, at a third-marked servant’s speed and strength. As she came over, too fast, out of control, she had the fleeting thought it had been a long time since she’d attempted the maneuver with her familiar levels of strength and speed, let alone the enhanced versions.
Oh, crap.
She came down wrong, her right leg twisting and buckling beneath her. The sharp stab of pain, certain to be a fracture, jolted through the calf and resonated up to the thigh, wresting a cry from her throat.
She rolled across the sand, but before she’d gone more than one roll, he had her, holding her while she caught onto his shirt, gritting her teeth. “Ah, goddamn it all, that hurts. Damn it . . .”
“Foolish girl. But you were running like a gazelle up until that moment, habiba. It was a sight to see.” Cradling her in one arm, adjusting so she was propped against the inside of his thigh in his kneeling position, Mason lifted his wrist, bringing it to his mouth.
“What are you doing?” she gasped through eyes tearing with the pain, though she knew.
“If you take my blood, you will heal quickly. Within a matter of minutes, in fact.”
“A third-marked servant can heal without the Master’s blood. So . . . don’t . . . need it.” She tried unsuccessfully to pull herself from his grasp as she spoke through clenched teeth. The agony rocketing up her leg was incredible. Wasn’t adrenaline supposed to numb the pain in the first few moments?
Cupping her face with a broad palm, he forced her to look at him. His silhouette against the night sky was intimidating, implacable.
“You will heal faster with my blood. You’re being childish.”
“Fine.”
“No, not fine. I will not bear your pain, Jessica. I can’t. You’ll take my blood or I’ll force it down your throat, but you will take it.” His voice sharpened, the words becoming an undeniable command. Startled, she focused through the discomfort and saw tension in his jaw, a hardness to his eyes that she suspected masked something that could unravel her. They were close enough to the tide line that saltwater spray had gathered along the strong column of his throat, the pocket where his collarbones met.
