by Opal Carew
“Yes, I do.”
Debra saw the other vampires exchange glances. Butch’s attention remained fixed on Graham, his visage unreadable.
“I am Director of the Vampire Council Research Center,” Brian said, “and a valued advisor to Lady Lyssa, the head of the Vampire Council. I’m the vampire responsible for a cure to the Delilah virus, and making significant advances on resolving vampire fertility issues, the two major threats to our species. Those contributions have earned me a rank that allows me to say no to you, Lord Graham. She’s mine, and it is up to me how I wish to share her.”
“You’re bluffing. And you’ve gone soft over your servant.” Graham sneered. “A crime that carries severe punishment. It could get her killed.”
“Only if my dead body is part of that equation.” Though Brian’s tone remained mild, his eyes sharpened to knife blade precision.
“Sounds like she owns you, rather than the other way around.”
“Those scientific advances are as much her accomplishment as mine,” Brian said flatly. “She has served our species in ways no other servant has, and asked nothing from it except wanting to serve a Master worthy of her. I haven’t lived up to my part of the bargain on that, but that will not be the case tonight.”
His lip curled back, his fangs showing sharp and deadly. “She is my servant, Lord Graham. Mine, not because I took her by force or tricked her, but because she surrendered her heart and soul to me willingly, believing I would be worth her freedom. Worth giving up any life other than to be my servant.”
The shock of it had her forgetting protocol. She raised her head, stared at his profile. His fingers tightened on her shoulder, even as he kept his gaze locked on Graham. “When a brilliant, strong woman gives you a gift like that, you damn well better be deserving of it. Which means if you lay a finger or any other appendage on her, I swear to every god of substance that you will lose them.”
He released her, but only to shift so he put himself directly between her and Graham. It put the two vampires nearly chest to chest. “So am I bluffing, Lord Graham?”
Amazement flashed back to fear. She didn’t want him hurt. The room was humming with impending violence. Her mind sifted through possibilities, contingencies, ways to head off a direct conflict, but came up against a wall. There was nothing she could do here. This was between the two vampires.
The room was silent, tense, everyone waiting for Graham’s next move. After a long moment, Graham sneered again, shifted his body away from Brian’s, putting some space between them. Not a retreat, though. He turned toward Butch. “While my young friend has forgotten protocol, I have not. As host and overlord of the ground on which we’re standing, you have the right to make the call on this.” Graham’s gaze sharpened. “Though I advise you to choose wisely, Butch.”
Debra dared a look past Brian’s hip. Butch lifted a brow at the implied threat, but otherwise his stone expression gave nothing away, his gray eyes glittering. Brian’s attention remained fixed on Graham. Though not so much as a twitch suggested his awareness of anyone else in the room, Debra felt her Master’s heat in her mind like a furnace.
Butch considered the two potential combatants, then his gaze swept the pool area. All three vampires from his territory were silent, but Debra noticed they were all looking to Butch. Their loyalty wasn’t toward Graham. Which was probably why Graham had chosen the political route, knowing that to start a fight to the death in his host’s home might have far more negative consequences.
“I think this is going to get really messy unless you concede the point,” Butch said at last. His piercing gray eyes conveyed a wealth of messages as they met Graham’s gaze. “He’s not playing. Let it go. He’s right. There are plenty other ways to seek pleasure tonight. If the man isn’t in a sharing mood, that’s his call.”
“But his rank—”
“I’m not in a position to dispute it,” Butch responded shortly. “But I do believe he’s correct. Based on his current position with Council, he likely outranks everyone here. Take it up with him when he falls out of favor. For now, let’s not piss him off. He might inject a virus in the pool and make all our dicks fall off.”
Chuckles rippled through the group, easing some of the tension. Debra remained wary though, taking her cue from Dix. His gaze on Butch remained serious and still. This wasn’t over yet.
Graham’s lips twisted, and he inclined his head, albeit ungraciously. “I will take my leave, Lord Dorn. It seems I’m not compatible with the current company.”
Butch shrugged. “Suit yourself. But nobody likes a sore loser, Graham. You’d do better to stay and make a better accounting of yourself than getting your rocks off torturing female servants.”
Graham’s face froze. As Butch stepped forward, closing the distance between him and the other vampire, the overlord looked far less friendly. The “good old boy” mien vanished, replaced by a look which explained exactly why he was an overlord. Most came to it by a combination of strategic politicking, brute force and kissing the ass of the right vampires. Based on his next words, Debra was pretty sure Butch had only used the first two methods.
“The world is changing,” Butch said softly. “Catch up, or you’ll see the sun a lot sooner than the rest of us. Count on it.”
With a snarl, Graham pivoted and marched from the room. Jia-Li gave Debra another nod, picked up her kimono and went after him. Debra watched her, her heart hurting, wishing she could have helped more. But Jia-Li’s choice had been made, as hers had.
Glancing up at the profile of her Master, she was glad she’d chosen better. With the potential threat dissipated, Brian’s words were sinking in, leaving her more than a little stunned. He’d just become one of a very small handful of vampires who’d publicly championed his servant, making it clear a Master had the right to protect his servant, keep her exclusive when he so desired, at his discretion. And he’d had the rank—or the poker face—to pull it off.
Her heart was tripping, her throat was thick. When Brian stepped back, put his hand on her shoulder again, slid his fingers along her nape, the touch undid her. She bowed her head, closing her eyes at the feeling.
My servant won’t look at me?
She didn’t want the others see how overwhelmed she was. His fingers stroked her again, a gentle insistence. But Butch came to Brian’s side then, giving her a moment’s reprieve. The Texas overlord touched her cheek with a fingertip, a surprising acknowledgement, then he addressed Brian.
“Well, damn. I was going to have her suck me off too, and you’ve just ruined it. If he hears you let me have her and not him, he’ll be pissing and moaning until Christmas.”
Despite her unbalanced state, Debra’s gaze flicked up in time to see the twinkle in the overlord’s gaze. But there was a serious message under his tone, and Brian didn’t miss it.
“I apologize, my lord,” he said formally. “While I don’t regret the act, I didn’t mean to cause discord while under your hospitality.”
Butch nodded, accepting the courtesy, but he shrugged. “He was the one being an ass. Come on, enough of this shit. You and your servant are free to enjoy the pool however you want. Let’s relax and get some enjoyment out of one another’s company before the dawn sends us to bed.”
With that, the overlord moved off, already shedding his shirt. Conversations resumed, and then the servants were back in the pool, Dix recovering the volley ball despite Reed’s best attempt to grab it. Butch paused at the pool’s edge, addressing his three territory vampires in a low voice. They glanced toward Brian. Debra noted smiles at whatever Butch said. Tia looked openly relieved, the men more relaxed. Their looks held speculation, but the overall energy felt all right, especially when the other vampires shed their clothes and joined their overlord in the pool.
Only then did Brian’s shoulders ease. Whatever immediate challenges might result from his actions had passed, and her Master could now relax as well. Sliding his hand from her bare shoulder to her elbow, he brought her
to her feet, tipping up her chin with his finger.
“You will look at me now,” he ordered quietly.
When she did, she found herself unable to say anything. Her mind and heart were torn between two possibilities. Tonight he’d made it clear which path was truth, but for so long, she’d had to believe in far less, accept that as the best she could hope to have from him.
Brian shook his head and drew her out to the patio. Sinking down in a chair, he pushed her onto the foot stool before him, stroking a hand through her hair. He didn’t say anything for a bit, and the rhythmic motion, his thoughtful gaze, steadied her enough to be practical, to think of the more important issues that had been raised.
“My lord, what you said…do you think it was wise? I don’t want your research to be jeopardized.” Or your life.
He caught her hand, brushed his lips over her knuckles before squeezing them. “It’s something I should have said and done a long time ago. A life half lived isn’t worth living. You are my other half, Debra. A true partner in every way.”
Her heart and soul simply stopped. She swayed and he dropped his touch to her hips, steadying her.
“Ssshh,” he murmured. “It’s all right. Don’t faint on me.”
Despite his grim humor, she gripped his elbows, stared into his face. “I don’t understand…why…what happened?”
He sobered. “I had to face the possibility of losing you that night, with Gideon. It unlocked something inside me I’ve kept locked down for far too long. Tonight it came to a head.”
He traced her cheek, her lips. “We’ve always had an unconventional vampire-servant relationship, because we work together. But I allowed that to blind me to my responsibilities as your vampire master.”
His expression steeled in a way that had her straightening under his hands, a nervous flutter in her lower belly. “In the future,” he said, “if you have a problem with a vampire like Graham, and if I am too caught up in my work to notice, you will bring it to my attention. I have great faith in your judgment, Debra. I trust you won’t make the serious error of deciding it’s not something I need to be bothered about. Else I will find a memorable way to correct that impression.”
His even look made her toes curl. “And if I am not strong enough to protect you from whatever comes our way,” he added, “I will take the time-honored geek tradition of availing myself of my far more physical friends. They owe me large favors, and, with the help of your exceptional mind, I intend that beneficial situation to continue to exist, far into our future together.”
She was caught between a smile and much stronger emotions. Despite the fact he sat before her fully dressed and she was in nothing but a scrap of underwear, she felt cloaked in his love and protection, in need of no other covering. At the thought, his gaze became even more vibrant. But then it shadowed.
“I’ve never offered you the choice, Debra. It’s been there, available to you for these past couple of years. You helped me create it, could have asked for it at any time.”
He was talking about the Cleves serum, which removed a vampire’s marks. Her stomach tilted, suddenly knowing where he was going with this. She started to draw back, stand, but he caught her hands, held her firmly in place.
“In the human world, you’d be at the top of your field. Here, no matter what advances we make, you will always be considered first and foremost a vampire’s servant.” He touched her chin. “I could delve to the bottom of your soul and never unravel the mystery of why you made that choice. Why you continue to make it. I only know I am grateful for it like nothing else in my life.”
Tears pricked her eyes. But he wasn’t done.
“That gratitude will never change,” he said. “However, from now until the end of your life, I’m giving you the choice all servants are told they don’t have, once they decide to serve. The choice of changing your mind.”
That serum also came with a memory-eraser, a charged potion that had blended science and magic, thanks to the help of a human sorcerer, a Guardian of the Light known to Lord Mason. But to not remember Brian, any of this…
He shook his head. “Lyssa and the Council would agree to let me do it without the memory removal. You have earned our trust many times over, plus the foundation of knowledge you carry might be of use to the vampire world in the future. I know your heart. I know you would help us if there was need. I will let you go, Debra, if that's what you want."
The sincerity in his gaze, the earnest intensity…this was the male who’d offered to make her his servant, who’d urgently wanted her to make that choice. Now that his heart was in his eyes, she saw she hadn’t been wrong about him. Or her choice.
That truth filled her, so that for a moment she couldn’t even speak. She put her head down on his shoulder, clung to his shoulders, just breathed. Tried to breathe. He pressed his lips to her temple, her bare shoulder. Stroked her back. “Debra.”
She lifted her head, touched his face. “Don’t you remember what I said when I was talking to my grandfather about meeting you? You were everything I'd ever wanted. Someone who challenged my mind. Who made my knees weak, who made me want you with every breath.”
“That’s a gift that goes both ways.” He brushed his lips over hers, stayed so close his eyes dominated her vision. “Before I made you my servant, I saw my more primal vampire urges as…not an embarrassment exactly, but not something I'd explored.” His eyes glinted. "By making you mine, I discovered that side of myself. I suppressed it, out of some mistaken belief that I was giving in to my impulses too much, endangering my plans for a facility…endangering you, if I made the mistake of allowing myself to get too besotted with you. I saw such passionate feelings as a growing pain, a young vampire’s mistake, instead of what it truly was. Letting myself fall in love.”
Her heart rate accelerated at the forbidden words, even as his fingers circled her wrist, stroked that rapid pulse, steadied it.
“But,” he added, with emphasis, “I don’t want you to think of my feelings, but your own. This is not the career or relationship you envisioned having.”
No. That was certainly true. She met his gaze, saw it darken with the pain of her thought. “Do you remember Lord Theo?” she asked. “When he contracted the Delilah virus, he chose to die with his servant, rather than taking the cure, letting her sacrifice her life for him. The ironic thing is he opposed Lyssa’s stance on giving servants more protection and rights. But when it came to his own servant…he refused to relinquish his connection to her. She told him she would take the serum, allow him to live. He told her he was worried if their connection was severed by death, he wouldn’t find her in the afterlife, and he refused to let her go.”
When his brow creased, she shook her head. “What I’m trying to say is it’s very hard to understand what love is, my lord. And focusing on what I might accomplish for myself, the recognition I receive, is not the same as the deed itself, the results of it. I may not have envisioned you as the male of my dreams, or this as my career, but before you, I imagined love according to the experiences of the human world. You opened me up to far deeper things that I wanted, that weren’t part of that world. I didn’t make the wrong choice. I have never regretted it.”
Now he was the one who looked surprised. She felt him probing her mind for the truth of it, and saw the change in his face as he realized she meant it. She trembled at that look.
“I have simply longed for more,” she whispered. “That was the source of my unhappiness, thinking I could never have all of you that I desired. I could not possibly leave you, my lord.” She reached up, framed his face with her hands again. “You are my Master, my heart and soul. Just fill them with yourself and your desires, and I will never regret anything but not having all eternity to be with you.”
The words made her twice as vulnerable as she’d been the night she’d told him she loved him. But everything he’d done these past few days, and especially tonight, had given her the confidence to hope. To believe.
His hands tightened on her, a silent acknowledgment of her thoughts. Then he drew her up to kiss her mouth, her eyelashes, her forehead, his arms sliding around her, pulling her even closer between his spread thighs on the chair. She dug her fingers into his back until he broke the kiss, pressed her head to his shoulder and just held her. She thought the world could turn forever and she’d be content just like this.
But her Master had a way of always giving her more delicious things to want.
“And just what does my servant want now?”
She smiled against his shoulder, lifted her head to stroke a hand through his thick hair. “It’s something best demonstrated, my lord.”
The flare of interest in his gaze told her she had his leave to continue. She slid her hands beneath his coat, pushed it off his shoulders. He helped her, shrugging out of it as she left him to that and began to open the shirt down the front, caressing his chest as she did so. Her fingers rested briefly on his sternum, trailed down to the base of it. “I have a great deal of interest in the superficial front line myself, my lord.”
“Hmm.” He pursed his lips. “But the superficial front line skips a key area I feel will require in-depth attention. With your mouth, your hands…”
She grinned and pushed the shirt off his shoulders as well, letting her fingertips linger on the fine architecture of bone and muscle. Crowding closer to him brought her breasts against his bare chest. She let out a tiny sigh at the wondrous feel of it. He clasped her waist in strong hands.
“You wanted me to fill you with my desires,” he observed. “Just how much filling do you need?”
“I’m not sure, my lord. Perhaps you could just keep filling the cup until I say stop.”
He chuckled at that, then he cinched her close, lifting her to her feet as he rose so her toes didn’t touch the ground when he kissed her. “And another thing,” he added. “You will never attend another vampire event without me. Period.”
She thought it might be possible to shatter from such an overload of feeling, too much to process.