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At one dinner party, the table settings had been exceptionally exquisite, the napkins formed into swans, the centerpiece an ice sculpture of a unicorn. One of the female vampires had worn a blue dress with a silver mesh overlay, the most gorgeous thing Jess had ever seen, even on movie stars. That same vampire had held Jess’s arm over a brace of candles until her skin blackened and charred, fell away. She remembered the sparkle of the woman’s sapphire necklace, the intricate connecting beads of jet and silver.
She’d probably bought it from Tiffany’s, for a price that ensured they sent her a fruit basket every Christmas, never knowing fruit was not her preferred truffle.
Putting her forehead down on the sand, Jess let the tide rush against her body, her face, so she could drown her tears there. It couldn’t swallow her sobs, though, leaving her soaked and rocking on the sand. Maybe because she truly didn’t want anyone near her this time, no one came. She cried and sobbed until she retched up her latest meal, until she was too exhausted to crowd her mind with anything else. When she reached that point, she stretched out, her toes still at the tide edge, and stared up into the sky.
Stripping off her shirt so the damp sand pressed against her back, she spread her arms out to either side of her, lying there in her shorts and sports bra only.
Crying was getting easier and harder, both. The tears often took her by surprise. Like when she was in the barn, finding herself suddenly flowing like a leaky faucet. Or when she’d wake up in the mornings, her face stiff with the dried tracks. She needed to run now, let the miles and physical strain take more of the unbearable weight off her mind. Perhaps she’d been better off when she’d lobotomized herself, gone completely blank and numb. Then she didn’t care, didn’t feel.
But when that moment in the alley came, she’d cared enough to grip that weapon and strike with all the fury and rage of a stolen life. If she was brave enough to do that, she had to have the courage to believe Mason was giving her another chance. She couldn’t squander her time in fear that it was all a cruel joke.
Had she become like the bird that feared going out the cage door, finally opened? Was her attachment to Mason because the limitations of an imprisoned life were safe, known? No. Okay, maybe. But there was another way to look at it. He’d told her she was a smart woman, that she understood the fragile state of her own mind. Maybe she needed the reassurance of his guardianship, to build her up to true freedom again. Give her the bravery to move beyond Farida’s tomb, reinvent herself.
She hadn’t balked at using anything necessary as a tool of survival before. Why should she resist what he offered because he was a vampire, or because she couldn’t resolve how she felt about him? She couldn’t become a coward now. Sitting up, she pushed back her wet hair. He was right. She did want to make these marks hers.
However, the design that came to her mind was disquieting, reflecting the struggle in her own mind. Rising and rubbing her face with both hands, she drew a deep breath. She would run and think. Brainstorm. She’d come up with something different, something that was hers.
Even as she had the thought, though, a new wave of despair washed through her, like the tide’s inexorable return. It might be too late to consider herself free. Maybe that had ended long ago. Maybe she needed to accept she only had the courage to accept a benevolent dictatorship now. True freedom was forever beyond her grasp.
Mason’s study window was becoming a favorite brooding ground, Enrique noted as he entered. “My lord?” Mason didn’t turn. “You’ve had news?”
“Yes.” Though Enrique knew he could read it from his mind, he spoke the words anyway. “The Council liaison said that they welcome your arrival, but not to anticipate success. It would be unprecedented not to execute a human servant for the death of her Master.”
“Like dogs. It matters not how cruelly they were treated, it won’t be tolerated.” Mason’s tone was low, cold. Enrique wisely stayed at the door.
“She has accepted your gift, my lord,” he ventured at last. “Robert will be back to perform the work in a few days.”
“Of course she has. She thinks she has no choice. She thinks Raithe has permanently broken her, and any gratitude or feelings she has toward me is part of . . . an affliction.” Mason’s fingers clenched into fists behind his back. “We need to resolve this with the Council soon and get her away from here. She cannot see her own strength in the shadow of mine.”
“With all due respect, my lord, I believe you are wrong.”
Mason looked toward the handsome Frenchman, standing in the shadows. He hadn’t turned on any lights since he didn’t need any, but a candle sconce flickered as Enrique lit one now. “Neither one of you is giving yourself enough time,” his servant said.
“What do I need time for?”
“You’ve not responded to a woman like this since I’ve known you.” Enrique doused the lighter, put it aside, and glanced toward the desk where Jessica had been working most of the day. “She calls to something in you. And you to her. I think she is your true human servant.”
Mason stared at him a long moment. “You are speaking plain tonight, Enrique.”
“You know my thoughts, my lord. There is no need to hide them. And perhaps I am saying what you wish to say yourself.” The vampire snorted, a harsh sound. “I will never seek a servant like that again, Enrique.”
“Do you think Farida would wish you to be alone forever, my lord? Don’t you think it’s odd this woman, who draws you so much, was found in Farida’s tomb?”
“You’re not going to get ridiculously metaphysical on me, are you?” Mason lifted a brow, though his chest was constricting. “A gift from the grave, Farida’s way of telling me to move on, after three hundred years?”
“Amara and I only wish you to have . . .”
“What the two of you have?” Mason took a step toward him, his face hardening. “I do have it, Enrique. You both belong to me.
The emanations of your love and devotion touch me every day. It is enough.” Enrique met his gaze without flinching. “Once a man has been given what Amara has given me, what Farida gave you, anything less is never enough.”
“You’re right. Anything less isn’t enough,” Mason snapped.
“Unless what you could have had with Farida, cut short by Fate’s cruelty, lies waiting for you in a bedroom in this very estate.”
“Did Amara send you to bedevil me this way?” Mason stalked to the desk. “You’re both getting on my nerves.”
“No, my lord. But if I have served you well, I ask that you let me have my say.” The piercing eyes were those of the determined young resistance fighter Enrique had been when Mason met him, helping to smuggle Jewish refugees out through occupied France. Since then, he’d fought at Mason’s side, protected his back. However it wasn’t until the moment Amara had crossed their path that Mason had appreciated the depth of the man’s loyalty.
Enrique’s father had been French, and that was the country of his birth, but he also carried a Spanish name, thanks to his mother being a Spaniard. Like Frenchmen and Spaniards both, Enrique loved women. As much and as often as possible. But when he saw Amara, everything he’d ever loved about women had come together, channeled toward the lithe form of the astoundingly beautiful woman who’d danced for them as part of their host’s entertainment. Mason had felt the click of something different in his servant’s mind, a tumbler that fell into place. It might happen once in a man’s life, if he was lucky.
It would have shattered Enrique to leave her behind, this woman who was obviously his mate in all ways, but Mason had read in the man’s heart that he would, if that was what his service to Mason required.
Still, for form’s sake, Mason sat down, templed his fingers and scowled. “You have served me well, Enrique. But your speech had better be short, or you may use up the favor quickly. Sixty years is barely a breath to a vampire.” Enrique moved to light another sconce. “All those years ago, when you brought me into your service, I’d never known or craved a man’s touch. I thought I’d mistaken my desire for women, but you quickly proved my lust for them had not dimmed. If anything, you took it to a higher level, by showing me the pleasures of serving a Master.” Mason sharpened his attention on him, but Enrique stayed half turned, as if it were easier to say the words to the flickering flame. “I came to you after Farida, so it took me a long time to understand, but bonding myself to Amara helped. When Farida was taken from you, something shattered. Ever since then, you’ve re-created yourself, a piece at a time, but you exist as if you think your soul is glass that can break and destroy you from the inside. Except you can’t die that way, so I think what you fear is facing that pain again.”
Putting the lighter down on the corner of Mason’s desk, he raised his dark gaze to his Master’s. “You and Jessica are drawn together for many reasons, but that may be the most important. If it was only on her side, I would say you might be right, that she cannot hope to gain her own feet as long as you are there to lift her onto them. I know how difficult it was for you while she cried today, to not even speak in her mind or send one of us to reassure her.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I have been your servant for sixty years,” Enrique said. “Because I know almost everything about you, including the fact that if I push you too hard, you will strike me back down into my place. But I also know that, after Amara, I love no one better.” He paused when Mason rose now, the two men gazing at each other over the desk. “In fact, I cannot even quantify it that way,” Enrique continued softly. “You let me have Amara, knowing I needed that kind of love, a true family of my own. I share her with you. My wife. At your behest, yes, but because she is willing and understands my love for you. The love of a human servant for his Master, which is something that cannot be described. And in return, you never take my wife alone, always using me to help sate your hungers. It is to protect your glass soul, yes, but it is a respect for me I have never failed to appreciate.” Mason came around the desk. When he let his knuckles drift down the man’s sternum, Enrique’s fingers closed on Mason’s biceps with strength, a reminder of past sensual wrestling matches. As he’d told Jessica, women had always been Mason’s preference, but on occasion the power of a man, the aggressive way they fought before willing surrender, had appealed to Mason, perhaps because of how different it was from a woman’s slick heat, her enchanting fragility and yet fathomless maze of desires. Mason had taken Enrique down on his hands and knees in more than one sweaty bout. His servant would offer his body to him, here and now, in whatever manner the vampire demanded.
