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What if it was a double-edged sword, though? What if that was what drew Mason back to her so often? And why should that bother her? Wasn’t it easier for both of them in a manufactured fantasy, rather than the stark reality where Farida was long dead and Jessica was a victim of trauma, poised on the brink of insanity?
When she got to her feet, the ballroom echoed her movements, underscoring how alone she was. If she even partially believed Mason’s words, the assumption was she would eventually leave here. But where did she go, what did she become, when she’d been what she’d been? How would she ever find anyone who could touch that part of her, so deep inside, that had once known how to love and surrender to another, if they couldn’t understand who and what she’d become to survive?
Feeling the hated tears threatening, and sick of preoccupation with herself, she left the dance behind. Maybe she’d just sleep for a while. A very long while. At least there, she had half a chance of getting immersed in a dream where being someone different wouldn’t be interrupted or questioned. She wouldn’t have to face a solitary existence, seeking purpose in a world where things didn’t happen for grand, cosmic reasons. Where Darwin’s law, of brutality and chaos, was all there was.
18
UNFORTUNATELY, it wasn’t Farida’s dreams she fell into, but her own nightmares. Her worst one—the dungeon. The darkness, the rats’ claws pricking her legs as they climbed her bare body, trying to reach the fresh blood hung in a bucket around her neck.
It was the blood of a teenage boy Raithe had killed, as part of his annual quota. While vampires could live on blood without killing humans, all vampires had to mortally drain a human at least once annually to maintain their mental acuity and physical strength.
Vampire law, however, allowed vampires to kill up to a dozen humans a year, in addition to the annual kill.
Raithe had found the boy and his girlfriend making out in the park. He liked interrupting lovers, like some clichéd horror movie monster. The teen had screamed for Jessica’s help as she stood mutely behind Raithe, watching him take his victim down, drain him into shock and then cold, blue-tinged death. Then he’d told her to pick the boy up, put him in the trunk so they could go home. His girlfriend had run off.
The rats made chittering noises. Roaches, also attracted by the food, crawled across her hair, over her eyes. They all gathered around the bucket, the rats adding to the weight when they balanced on the lip of the steel pail, their claws scratching her chest. She tried not to make a sound, but of course it didn’t matter. Raithe could hear the screaming in her mind.
It was the darkness that always broke her, though. What started as a whimper became a moaning cry and then a scream, as the rats tested her with the scrapes of their fangs, seeing if her flesh was edible as well.
No, no. Get off. Go away. Please . . . leave me alone. Please, Raithe. Let me go.
She hated it when she begged him, because that was of course what he most wanted to hear. So she cursed him, too, which resulted in him leaving her there, hour after hour in the dark, fighting off the rats with as much movement as she could make with the jerks of her restrained body.
Bastards, get off get off get off stop stop stop stop . . . There was screaming now, high, endless, agonized. And an unbearable weight, the smell of dry earth and rock . . .
“Jessica. Jess.”
Female hands, a female voice, oddly reminiscent of her mother in its soothing, firm reassurance. “Wake up, lovely. It’s a dream.
Come back to us. Wake up.”
She came out of the bed, rolling away from Amara instinctively and hitting the floor on the balls of her feet, her hands raised in defense. As she gazed wildly around the room, she knew it wasn’t just her in the darkness. The smell of earth and rock, the screaming, continued, though she knew she was awake.
“Jessica.” Amara again, but Jessica shook her head fiercely, shoved past her.
“Mason. It’s Mason.”
Before Amara could stop her, she was out the door and running down the hall. She didn’t have to remember the way to his room.
She could feel his mind, could follow it.
It was about nine o’clock in the morning. It had been after one in the morning when she’d seen him in the ballroom. He must have gone to bed about dawn, which was unusual for him. At his age, he usually went more toward midday. Had he been seeking escape as she had, and found darkness instead?
Oh, God, the blackness. It was absolute, pressing, crushing down so that even the rats couldn’t reach her. They were crawling around and over rock and her flesh at once, in that illogical way dreams had.
“Jessica.” Amara was on her heels as Jess hit the lower level and raced for his door, another oak door like the one on the dungeon.
Jess tried the door latch. When it gave way, she would have made it all the way through, except the servant caught her at last.
Seizing her by both arms, Amara swung her around and slammed her against the wall of the corridor. “Jessica, listen to me.”
“Let me go. It’s him. He’s having a nightmare.”
“Yes, he is.” Amara shook Jessica hard enough to snap her head back against the stone, and the sharp pain of it helped Jessica focus past the fear and darkness. But, gods, that endless screaming . . . The servant seized her face in both hands, made her look at her. “He has had them before. He will not recognize you, do you understand? It is why his door is solid eight-inch-thick oak, and why he sleeps so far removed from us. He will kill you if you get in his way.” Trapped. He can’t breathe. And by Allah, please stop her screaming . . .
With a fierce snarl, Jessica shoved Amara hard enough to dislodge her. “He needs me.” She yanked on the door latch and stumbled into the room, because Amara threw herself forward to try once more to pull her back.
She vaguely remembered Mason’s room from that first night, shelves of books, a fireplace with a small flame leaping to cast light over the room. Weapons and expensive artwork on the walls; heavy, dark sculptures decorating the side tables. A high bed with thick, carved canopy posts. The lair of a civilized predator.
They were fleeting impressions only, for as she came in he bolted from the bed. Wholly naked, a savage rage on his face, he flung himself at the wall, tearing down a tapestry so it twisted around him, a confusing net.
Though the fabric was thick brocade, he tore free of it in the space of an indrawn breath. He was snarling, his fangs fully exposed.
The powerful body had always been impressive, but in a state ready for violence, all muscles bunched and tensed, he was a Titan reborn. Amber eyes had gone to solid, hellfire red. It gave her pause, but only for a moment, because she could feel what was happening inside of him. Mason’s control of the block between their minds had dropped and she felt his terror . . . not for himself. I have to get to her. Have to help her. She’s hurting. Screaming . . .
Jessica clapped her hands over her ears, even knowing it was coming from his mind, pouring into hers. On her way here, it had been muted, but in the same room with him, the unearthly screeching of a woman in agony could shatter a soul. Forsaken, tormented . . .
“Mason, I’m here.” Jessica staggered forward. As Amara grabbed at her, she dodged, darted forward. She could feel Enrique on his way, for it appeared all four of their minds were linked, jumbled with the vampire who’d marked them, bound them to his thoughts.
“I’m here.” She cried it out more forcefully, trying to get through those screams. As he erupted from the shredded fabric, she ducked under an arm, sheer luck, since it was moving faster than she could follow. Throwing herself at him midbody, she tucked her head against his chest and wrapped her arms around his back.
In hindsight, she knew it had been an incredibly stupid move. If he’d caught her in the face, he would have broken her neck like a twig. While as a third-marked servant, it wouldn’t have killed her, she was sure it would have been extremely unpleasant. But she couldn’t be sensible. Somehow her nightmare screams in Raithe’s dungeon had meshed with Farida’s and made them far worse, so he was being ripped apart from the inside by them both. All Jessica knew was she had to help him, and she wasn’t letting go.
He thrashed, his heart thundering under her cheek, the strands of his loose mane brushing the top of her head. If he’d wanted her off, all he had to do was toss her away, but that was the one thing he didn’t do. As she clung like a burr he let her, backing into the wall violently enough that she muffled a cry against his chest as her fingers hit the flat stone.
Bare muscled flesh flexed under the coil of her body. Several weeks of working in a barn and a third mark were worth something, though, because she was strong enough to hold her lock on him. Mason, I’m here. Right here. Stop. Stop.
When he swayed against the wall, she bit her lip as he rocked over her knuckles. She was pretty certain the bones of her fingers were now like a crushed snack bag of crackers. But slowly, he settled, his chest expanding and deflating beneath her cheek, a fierce bellows.
Farida?
It lanced through her, the raw longing in his mind-voice, the hope and desperation, so unlike the coolly self-possessed vampire she’d known thus far. Even the various levels of his temper were easier to handle than this. She wanted to tell him yes, feeling in some odd way it was true, but it wasn’t. She couldn’t be Farida to him.
Jessica. “It’s Jessica,” she murmured against his skin, closing her eyes in relief when his arm circled her back, his palm cupping over her shoulder, then sliding up to the side of her face, grazing her jawline, orienting himself.
Mason blinked, gazing around him. He found Amara and Enrique at the doorway. Enrique was holding a sizable steel baton. At Mason’s look, he gave a wry shrug. Mason, understanding his servant would have plunged in to protect Jessica or Amara as needed, nodded his thanks and meant it. His servant tipped the baton in return. Then he withdrew, taking Amara with him.
They were familiar with his nightmares, and knew he couldn’t block his mind during them. But he hadn’t thought about Jessica experiencing them. He also hadn’t expected having such a horrible convergence of her nightmares with his own. It was as if his mind had reached out to her in his sleep, and he’d pulled hers in. Even thinking about it now he couldn’t bear it, the way the two women’s screams came together, hammering at him, at his failure to protect either one of them. It shuddered through his body, his stomach heaving in a way that made him wish he could vomit.
