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You won’t do it . . . likely take them yourself, but no one else will . . . so it doesn’t matter, does it?” Spittle drained out of the corner of her mouth, a green, foul substance. He wiped it away with a cloth. Her reflexes had dulled, because it wasn’t until well after he’d finished that she swiped at a hand no longer there. “Don’t touch me,” she repeated. “Why . . .
holding me? Stop.”
“Why are you sick, Jessica? What happened?”
“Didn’t . . . finish. He died in . . . middle of it. Third mark.” Her lips pulled back in a discomfiting feral smile. “Drove it right into his chest. One gurgle . . . dead. So easy, that night, when it had always been . . . impossible. I wanted to laugh, but it hurt so badly . . .
Jesus, it hurt. One thing. Just one thing left.”
Allah, be merciful. That was it. She was only partially third-marked. He’d never heard of such a thing happening, but here it was before his eyes. It was a miracle she was alive at all. She’d been a fugitive for months, so it seemed that half-finished third mark had been waging a tug-of-war with the death of the Master who’d inflicted it, giving her strength and leeching it at once. Of course, what he saw in those snapping gray eyes reminded him that burning hatred could keep the body going far beyond where science said it could.
She spoke again, though the words were getting lost in the heavy wheezing. “Won’t mean anything to you, won’t understand, because you’re the same as him. But will say . . . for her. I . . . She kept me alive, her story, her love for you . . . kept me going.
And now, he can’t hurt anyone else. That’s got to be worth something. Even if nothing else means anything . . . that means something.”
Mason stared at her a long moment. “Yes,” he said at last. “It does mean something. I’m sorry that happened to you. What Lord Raithe did to you was wrong. He never should have forced you to serve him, Jessica. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work, for vampires and their servants.”
That penetrated, such that those eyes came back up to him again, revealing shock. The distant smile of a woman in her grave crossed her face, startling in its sweetness, a haunting suggestion of the beauty she used to have. “You’re kind. So now I know.
None of this . . . real. ’S okay. I used to imagine I was her. Your arms . . . around me. I know she felt safe, so safe . . . and loved, with you. I wanted that. Never knew what it was to want that, until I was so afraid and alone, all the time. So alone . . . dark . . .”
“You’re not alone now,” he said. The remnants of the rage he’d felt in the tomb died away before the confusion in those dove gray irises. He wasn’t a kind man, but he wasn’t so hard-shelled he wouldn’t offer comfort to a delusional woman, even as it twisted in him, brought back dark memories of his own. “I wish I could have kept her safe. It was a lie.”
“No.” She responded immediately, though he’d expected his words to escape her notice. Her voice dropped to a bare whisper that seemed to make it easier for her to talk, overlaid as it was by that death rattle. “On the floor beside his bed, his chain around my neck so tight I could hardly breathe, I’d imagine I was her. In a tent with you, on soft cushions. Your body wrapped around mine, your strong arms holding me close. The kind of possession a woman wants . . .” She smiled that wistful smile again, and her fingers curled around his, a weak grasp. “You gave us that, my lord. I don’t want it to be a lie. I think she knew. You would have died to keep her safe. That was what mattered.”
When Mason laid a hand against her face, she turned hers into it. He could tear her skin, it was so thin and dry. Her lips were chapped, teeth bloodstained from whatever she’d been coughing up. As a vampire, he had little firsthand knowledge of death and disease, but he’d seen it claim humans again and again, been appalled at what mortality could inflict, but this was beyond that. This was an affliction caused by mortality and immortality both, a limbo state that had let her live far longer than she would have as a mere human in the same condition. And yet, somewhere in the midst of what must have been agonizing pain, chronic fatigue and debilitating lethargy, she’d followed Farida’s memoirs, stepped into her shoes.
“How did you find us, Jessica?” he asked, his voice quiet, more gentle now, letting her drift in her imaginings, since it seemed to comfort her.
“Book. Followed Farida’s book. Found book, nobody wanted it. Raithe thought it was just a silly romance . . .” Her head moved, nestling into his hand. Her face was small and thin, cupped easily in his palm. “Studied. Used to be a researcher. Must sleep now.
Time to go to sleep. Can we . . . Want to ride with you tonight, my lord. On your horse. Take me with you. That’s what she wanted, that night . . . standing at the opening of her tent. Don’t want to be alone. Not ever again.”
“No, not ever again,” he agreed, his throat constricted by her words, his memories, as she drifted off. Her heartbeat stuttered again, and his own stuttered with it. She’d be gone soon. Maybe even a few minutes. At least he’d ensured her last moments were relatively peaceful.
But was that all this young woman deserved? No one was ever going to accuse him of being a humanitarian. Killing those two in Farida’s tomb had been no more a blight on his conscience than wiping camel dung from his boots, and he’d disposed of them as dis tastefully. He had no care for who they were, or their circumstances. But this woman . . . she’d protected Farida’s body. Stood over her, with no chance of defending herself, and he’d heard the raw emotion in her voice.
Something has to be sacred . . .
Though the third mark had not set, Raithe was pulling her into the grave with him in the end. However, Mason had known of two vampires third-marking the same servant. Rare situations, usually vampires who had married or bonded, and trusted one another enough to share that link. It was typically a mistake, for if either vampire died, the servant died, and the surviving vampire endured two losses. However, if Raithe had only partially done the mark, was it possible another vampire’s third mark could heal her, keep her in the world?
He shook his head at himself. This woman was a fugitive. If the vampire world found her, she’d be executed summarily. Dealing with her, and them, would be excessively complicated. The best thing was to let her die.
Take me with you . . . Don’t want to be alone.
Some vampires believed a third-marked servant was bound to them in the afterlife. If there was any truth to it, he might be sending her back to Raithe’s keeping, in whatever Hell the vampire was in now.
What was the matter with him? He typically scoffed at such ridiculous ideas about vampire afterlife. She was too far gone, besides.
It might not work, and if it did, but left her in this state, then he would have to kill her himself to end her suffering.
Her heartbeat was a scant thump every few seconds now. He thought of her gray eyes caressing his face, the brief flash of hope in her recollections. In that second, he’d seen a glimpse of who she’d once been. The laughing woman in the photo, which had been snapped before Raithe took her. Probably when he’d been stalking her, the bastard.
He also thought of that eerie laughter when she’d realized he was a vampire, and understood the desolate irony in it now. But her hand was still gripping his. Holding on.
She knew you would have died to keep her safe . . .
“This is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done,” he informed himself, and then leaned over her. Turning her head to the side, he ran his knuckles down her cheek and jawline, soothing her. She murmured in her delirium, but when his breath touched her cheek, one weak arm slid up to his shoulder, as if welcoming him into her embrace. I imagined myself with you in your tent . . .
He bit as gently as he could. Fortunately it was merely one more discomfort among many, and it didn’t stir her from wherever her mind now wandered. He could inject her with pheromones, ease the bite’s pain with increased arousal, but at this point he didn’t think any jolt to her blood pressure would be wise. When he tasted her blood, if there was any doubt left, he knew her words to be truth. He tasted her essence, her age, felt the imprint of Raithe’s marks upon her.
At that distasteful impression, he started the first mark in her blood, overlaying Raithe’s claim. He was much older than Raithe, so even if Raithe lived, Mason could have overwhelmed his mark and had a stronger hold on her. If nothing else, habiba , I can keep you from being his in the afterlife, if such nonsense is true.
Though she couldn’t yet hear his thoughts, her fingers dropped, closed on his biceps. Her body lifted up to his incrementally, an unexpected offer of surrender that stirred his blood on instinct. But then she jerked, as if disturbed, fighting him at the same time.
“Shhh, habiba,” he murmured, keeping her in her fantasy with the endearment, drawing her back from whatever dark place his bite had started to take her. “You are in my tent, here with me. Lying upon silk cushions. You inhale the scent of rich wine, for I have poured it upon your flesh, to drink from your skin . . .”
He heard her soft sigh, and kept going, releasing the second-mark serum, giving him the ability to speak in her mind and fully seal his mouth over the puncture mark.
I kiss your mouth, your breasts, worship every inch of you even as I declare you mine, the way my heart and soul and breath are mine . . .
I am yours, my lord. In all ways. I have no fear of it.
He closed his eyes, his hands tightening on her body despite himself. Farida’s own words when he’d third-marked her, when she’d shown no fear of what he was. This woman’s mind was broken, her thoughts echoing words in a memoir. This was a mistake. He was bringing back to life a creature who needed the healing only death could provide. He could see into her mind now, see how fractured it was between fantasy and reality. But her fingers slid into his hair, and with his eyes closed, he saw not the wasted body of a stranger, but remembered Farida, even as he felt something else, something new, a different person. Taking the plunge, he let the third-mark serum go, the ethereal blue color of it staining her skin on the outside as he injected the rest.
