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"No. Anything that comes through the fault line is always disrupted from outside eavesdroppers. That's why you hear the static on the line."
"I just figured you have a crappy provider."
"I have one of the best providers there is." Sam's tone held reproof and his trademark dry humor. "You should come visit sometime, Quinn. What you felt that night...it's far stronger here. It might bring your soul strength and ease. I think you'll need both for the path you are taking. Remember," he added, voice sharpening, "if you go to see Butch Dorn, make sure you're third marked. Or let her go alone."
"Why?" What the hell?
"You won't survive the trip otherwise. She will need you afterward, no matter what happens. That is what I feel, though I don't see the path you'll follow." Sam paused. "But keep in mind, Quinn, if you let her make you her full servant, there is a dark, brutal side to that you don't fully grasp, that has nothing to do with love and romance. You have always been a self-determined man, and one to whom being a man has a particular meaning. When you are a vampire's servant, however you define yourself is secondary. You are hers, in every single way. To use, to loan, to determine your path for you for the rest of your life. Are you really prepared for that, Quinn?"
Chapter Nine
Was anyone? Well, shit. Yeah, Sam had hit the nail on the head. Some parts of this he didn't even have to think about. He wanted Selene, wanted to be with her, care for her, protect her. But then there were the parts he didn't want to think about. He was still coming to grips with the cravings that made him get off on being topped by her, strapped by her with a belt, for fuck's sake. Threatened to be fucked by her like a man. Jesus. It made him question his manhood, even as other things overrode it. He figured Sam's unspoken message had less to do with the mark and more with his state of mind. In other words, Quinn needed to figure that shit out before he went forward.
But first, he took her out to dinner Sunday night, just as he'd said. A cool little place with live music, dancing. He hadn't been on a real date in fuckall, such that when he picked her up he felt like a giddy schoolboy. Selene took his breath away. She wore a tiny little dress that made him want to drool on her, right before he tore it off her, but he managed to keep it in check and get her to the restaurant. After a steamy kiss.
Over dinner in a corner of the restaurant, in between band sets so she could hear his low tones, he casually mentioned that he'd talked to his friend Sam, and what they talked about. Then braced himself for the explosion of shrapnel.
Her eyes had narrowed, her jaw getting that tight look. He wanted to reach out, cover her hand, but her body language said that was about as good an idea as hugging a rattlesnake. Instead, he kept going, giving her all of it, as well as Sam's background. Fortunately, she showed she could listen as well as be pissed, because her expression grew thoughtful, and she started tapping her fingers meditatively on the wood surface of the table.
"I guess I should have realized your easy acceptance of things beyond your world had a concrete source. I just figured you were a dumbass cowboy with so much of a hard-on you'd overlook crazy."
She was teasing him, though there was an edge to it that said she hadn't made her mind up about any of it.
"Well, there was plenty of that too." He cocked his head. "You going to punch me now?"
"Still considering."
"Want to dance with me while you think about it?"
She followed his nod to the dance floor. "You dance?"
"I can Texas two-step with the best of them, honey. But forget about that fancy New York hip-hop, Zumba, ass-shaking crap."
She allowed a small smile at that, and he dared to close his hand over hers. "Come dance with me, Mistress. Please."
At her bare nod, he rose, taking her hand and leading her to the floor. They were doing one of Toby Keith's more upbeat tunes, so he swung her into that. She didn't know the steps, but she was fleet of foot and picked up on things fast, two things he already knew, though fleet of foot was probably an understatement.
He tightened his arm, enjoying the feel of her. She was still thinking about the things he'd told her, deciding how pissed she needed to be, but he saw her start to loosen up as they made the turns, give him a smile as he did an exaggerated misstep that threatened to step on her toes.
"You shouldn't have done that," she told him, and he knew she wasn't talking about clumsy dancing.
"I thought a servant is supposed to do things to watch out for his vampire."
"You're not my servant. I've marked you twice, once too many."
Maybe once too few. He met her gaze as he thought it. She bit back a response, her cheeks flushing, and he saw the frustration in her gaze, felt it in the tension of her body. She was about to pull back from him, probably tell him to pull his head out of his ass.
"You know," he said abruptly, "you may be about twenty years older, but it doesn't mean I don't know anything about life. I know how hard it is to find someone who makes you feel like they're the one you're meant to be with, a down to the balls-and-guts feeling."
I'm a lot more than a dumb fucking cowboy. I also know how we all have to wear different faces to get along in the world, but if you have one person who knows your real face, no matter how many masks you wear, everything else is worth it.
He'd added that in his mind, because it made it easier to say something like that. Her gaze lifted to his, held. Frustration turned to understanding, to sorrow and yearning, to the whole map of places she'd been and endured without having that person at her side.
The band finished and the female vocalist stepped up to the mike. "This is for those lovers out there. The ones who've been together so long they creak out of bed in the morning and still hold hands over breakfast, and the ones staring into each other's eyes right now, hoping they've found that person."
Quinn's jaw tightened as he recognized the intro to the Anne Murray song Could I Have This Dance.He switched to a Texas waltz, sliding one hand up to the side of Selene's neck as he closed his other hand over hers, molding it over his waist before he slid his arm around her, taking her into the flow of the dance and the song.
She kept staring at him. Her mind had remained still, still as her body seemed, even though they were moving together. "Quinn," she whispered.
"It's okay. All of it is okay."
She closed her eyes, shook her head, but put it on his shoulder, let her body meld into his. It made his chest tight, closed his throat up. He wasn't sure the exact message she was sending. It wasn't a capitulation, but for sure it was a message of wishing the world was way different.
When the assassin killed my sire, his human servant died with him. Dropped like a stone in the same room. The third mark links you to my life force, Quinn.
"If I die, you die."
She murmured it into his chest. With the music going, he shouldn't have been able to hear it. However, thanks to that second mark, he could, because he saw the words form in her mind even before they came to her lips. Christ. That was the biggest part of it, wasn't it? She'd seen the servant die, caught in the same assassination.
He tightened his arm around her. "I get it. But you don't stop riding because a horse throws you. The worse the throw, the more important it is to get back up there."
He nudged her temple so she shifted her gaze up to him. "So if you die, I die? And you only live to be about six hundred years? Man, that's a raw deal. No wonder you're trying to protect me from that."
She thumped him with her fist. It might look like she had a petite little hand, but she put enough behind it he was pretty sure he'd have a bruise. "Ow."
She sighed against him, but he was gratified she'd seemed to become more fluid again, her curves fitting into his angles. Brushing the crown of her head with his lips, he realized he felt very tender toward her right now, protective. The vibe that was making him react that way was coming from her, underscored by her next thought.
Quinn, when Laurent finds me--and he eventually will, no matter w
hat--there's probably a fifty-fifty chance he'll kill me as punishment for leaving his territory. "It's something I accepted when I bolted." When she lifted her head again, the vulnerability had vanished. Now her eyes were steel. "I won't take you down with me."
