by Joey W. Hill
She broke out of her self-imposed trance when they were passing through a gate. Steele decelerated on the winding road flanked by thick forest. When it opened up, she was looking at an estate with a circular drive around a terracotta fountain. Old trees canopied and framed the drive and doorway. It looked like what it was, essentially. An exclusive private school.
Steele took her down thickly carpeted hallways with elegant light fixtures, pictures and woodwork, until he reached the dormitories, twelve rooms on a grid of three hallways. Her room was a suite that held four, and three of the beds were occupied by other young women.
Nina ignored them. She folded herself onto her bed, turning to the wall, too exhausted by it all to engage or even undress. She didn’t tune into Steele’s murmurings to them, but whatever he said had them leaving her blissfully alone.
Maybe they’d leave her alone forever.
She fell into a fitful, anxious slumber that was nevertheless deep, dragging her down like a current into a cold, cruel ocean. When the nightmare woke her, she was thankfully alone, no one to witness her distress or hear her suppressed cries. It was mid-morning, but no one had come to wake her. Shrugging that off as irrelevant, she fell back asleep again.
When she next woke, it was late afternoon. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so long, and yet she just wanted to keep sleeping. She was still alone, though someone had left her a light breakfast on her nightstand and a note that Steele would deliver her to The Mistress at sunset. A blanket had been spread over her. She vaguely remembered one of her roommates doing it. With her mind less fogged, she remembered the girl, a buxom redhead who’d introduced herself as Melanie, looked barely out of school. Nina wasn’t much older, not really, but a chasm of experience put decades between them.
In Singapore, she’d learned it was the familiar rituals that could help her keep her sanity, her control, in the face of the uncontrollable insanity of wartime. So she forced herself to rise, washed up, combed her hair, brushed her teeth. Found a neat outfit of skirt and blouse, tidy canvas shoes. She perched on the edge of her bed and stared into space, and that was how Steele found her.
Whatever he saw in her face caused a flicker of something between surprise and concern on his own, but he nodded. “Good evening, Nina. The Mistress will meet with you now. Follow me.”
She could be quite mad at this point, but she found herself appreciating the man’s manner more and more. He didn’t ask her pointless, absurd questions like “How are you going?” and “Did you sleep well?”
She followed him through wide hallways, registering more details this time. Cherry-colored wood, gleaming glass and gold metal from the fixtures. An aroma like vanilla candle wax touched her nose and she realized the wall sconces were candlelit, while the elaborate chandeliers above were electric. The carpet was dark blue bordered with gold.
Apparently, the dorms were quiet because all their occupants were here. Everyone seemed busy, young men and women coming or going from tasks happening behind the array of ornate wooden doors. A comfortable chatter was happening behind most, some quick snippets of laughter. Except for the presence of the men, it reminded her somewhat of nursing school, but she refused the trap of false comfort.
Ages ranged from mid-teens to early twenties, though she occasionally saw a younger student. The first time Sher had been away from home for InhServ training was a weekend thing when she was twelve. Through one open door, Nina saw a girl about that age sink to her knees, touch her forehead to the floor and then straighten, waiting for critique. She had glossy dark hair that reminded Nina of Sher, but when she lifted her chin and gazed forward, her eyes were green and long-lashed.
An older girl circled her with a critical eye. Placing an elegant, well-manicured hand on the younger one’s back, she guided her to straighten her spine further.
“Now bend,” she advised. “Don’t curl the spine. And remember, you keep your eyes lowered unless ordered to raise them.”
The young girl bent forward again, this time the spine remaining level as a plank. As she put her forehead to the floor, her hips lifted off her heels. She held there, without an obvious quiver of effort, before the older girl nodded her approval and ordered her to sit back, lift her gaze. The younger girl beamed at the senior one’s smile of approval. Subservient and yet radiating pride, confidence, in that service. Again, it reminded Nina of Sher.
Gymnastics and dance had been requirements of Sher’s training. Nina could see how flexibility would come in handy for that bowing maneuver. Top physical condition was required by InhServ protocols…and the sexual demands of the role.
The thought sent a hard shudder through Nina from gut to knees. Only stubbornness kept her from stumbling under the curious glances she saw directed her way. She probably looked like someone’s granny in this fresh-faced group.
If protocol demanded she kneel and bow like that, she was already going to be a disappointment. But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe if she failed so miserably this month it was obvious she couldn’t be servant material, she’d become the exception they’d let off the hook, without requiring either ritual suicide or another member of her family to take her place.
Slim hope, she was sure. But slim was all she had, to the point it almost counted as none.
Steele stopped before a double pair of doors with polished gold latches. As he opened one, he gestured her forward and spoke in his deep smooth voice. “Do not speak until you are given permission.”
Nina remembered the way the little girl had lifted her chin. She lifted her own and stepped inside, off of the blue carpet onto polished wood. She’d tended boys in so much pain they gave over and screamed. She’d given comfort to those on death’s bleak door who cried for their mothers. All nurses knew it was the refuge most often sought by the despairing. Thoughts of mother and home. The safety of the womb, of unconditional love, protection from life’s horrors.
She viciously blocked the image of her own mother, but bolstered herself with the thought that nothing she faced in this room would be worse than what those boys had endured. Nothing.
The room had heavy gold curtains, an elegant tea service on the center table, and a scattered arrangement of embroidered love seats and chairs. Several of them were grouped before a fireplace with a wrought iron screen that looked like metal lace.
The Mistress stood beside the fireplace. Nina had envisioned a formidable drill sergeant, a sturdy, block-bodied nurse matron. But The Mistress was a vampire, so Nina should have known she would be stunningly beautiful.
Not in that delicate way that encouraged a man’s protective instincts. At least if he kept his wits about him enough to take a second look, and Nina expected that number was few. The Mistress had caramel-colored hair that gleamed in the firelight, the strands swept up in a loose style. Her eyes were dark amber with a striking dark ring around the irises. She possessed movie star classic cheekbones and figure, as well as a bow mouth. But the set of that lush mouth, as well as the intensity of her gaze, warned of a ruthless nature.
But that ruthlessness was part of the charisma that captured Nina’s attention, a sexual energy impossible to ignore. Though it had nothing to do with her clothing, that enhanced it. The Mistress wore tight black riding pants, shiny boots and a white corset that lifted generous breasts and highlighted a tiny waist, the flare of her hips. A necklace of black glittering stones with an opal pendant graced her cleavage.
A poignant opera piece was playing, the woman’s voice a wordless appeal to the heart, to lost dreams and disappointments. Nina immediately wanted it turned off, because it made her throat tighten and warned her just how precarious her control was.
Steele had left her side to go to his Mistress’s. He bowed his head before he stepped close to her, facing the fireplace so the two of them were shoulder to shoulder, The Mistress looking at Nina as he dipped his head and spoke in her ear.
Steele brushed his lips against her temple. A slight smile crossed The Mistres
s’s mouth, a fleeting thing, gone in a blink as she stepped forward, dismissing him. Steele moved to a corner and took up sentry duty there, motionless, watching.
As the female circled her slowly, Nina had never felt so thoroughly appraised—and found wanting. Her back stiffened, her jaw tightening.
The Mistress stopped her circling, as if noting it. Nina’s gaze flicked to her, an automatic response, and the amber eyes glittered. “Eyes down, girl. You never meet a vampire’s gaze unless given leave to do so. Your first lesson. Your second is that you will only be told something once. The first time you forget, you are punished. Typically that punishment escalates with every repeat infraction, but we have no time to initiate you slowly.”
Her voice was the sensual purr that Nina would expect, but it had a terrifyingly cold quality, too.
“It is unfortunate we have only been given a month to prepare you for Lord Alistair.” Nina detected an odd relishing of the title. “But we will do everything possible and more.”
A month. A month to endure this before she could even hope to speak to Alistair, appeal to him for her freedom. She swallowed over the bitter pill of it, as The Mistress continued.
“Much will depend on your intelligence, strength and courage. You’ve been a nurse on the front line, so you have ample amounts of all of those, and don’t insult me or waste your own energy by pretending otherwise. You will sleep and eat when you are told to do so, to ensure you are at full strength and alertness to absorb your lessons.”
“I can’t be what Sher was. I can’t be what I’m not.”
“And you do not speak unless you are given permission to do so.” The Mistress tilted her head, the firelight sending a reflected shard of light along the lock of hair nearest her high, flat cheekbone. “Did you tell her that, Steele?”
“As we entered the room, Mistress.”
“I don’t want to waste anyone’s time,” Nina said. “I can’t—”
Crack!
Her mother’s slaps had been quick, painless discipline for childhood infractions. She’d been hit in the face by a struggling soldier, nothing intentional, the poor lad thrashing from fever. The force and sting of this was targeted and deliberate, so strong that the impact jerked her head down, pressed her cheek to her shoulder.
“Don’t put your hand to your face,” The Mistress snapped, keeping Nina’s hand at her side with the vehemence of the command. “If a vampire has punished you, you do nothing to comfort or protect yourself. You stay in the position you’re in until he commands you otherwise. Now lift your head, but keep your eyes down.”
Nina managed to comply, blinking back hated tears she hadn’t summoned. She hated this woman. Hated Steele. Hated all of them.
“You will not have to be what you’re not,” The Mistress said, surprising her by answering Nina’s declaration. “Whether you have embraced it or not, it’s in your family’s blood. InhServ families are chosen very carefully, and more than the first born is watched, in case a situation exactly like this one happens. You were a nurse because you have a deep need to serve, to anticipate, to fix and care. With your new Master, those skills will repurpose themselves. You will begin to anticipate his needs more quickly than you realize.
“But for now, you are ruled by one directive alone. Whatever he tells you, whatever he expects from you, that is what you do. Until you are in his service, I and any of the staff here, represents him. We are your practice ground, and we will train you, drill you, until that natural part of you manifests fully.”
Nina’s face was throbbing. She had never been hit that way by anyone. Treated this way. The Mistress was apathetic to her feelings. The same way her parents had been, only The Mistress had no emotions to confuse Nina the way her parents had. But The Mistress’s blow had brought it all to the surface. Nina wanted The Mistress to hit her again. The pain was a detonator, and she was fast moving to an explosive point she was savagely eager to embrace.
“You only have one question to answer every day, every moment of your service.” The Mistress was reiterating the point. “‘What will please him?’”
What will please him. Because nothing about my life matters anymore. Fucking, bloody nothing.
A hundred things leaped into her head, punctuated by internal screams of denial, angry invective. But then an icy calm stole through her. Keeping her eyes down, she sank to her knees. Not as gracefully as the girl in the hall, but Nina was strong enough to manage it without faltering. She stared at the carpet and spoke in a flat voice. If a dead woman could speak, she expected she would sound just as Nina did now.
“I don’t give a shit what pleases him,” she said. “I will learn what the fuck you want me to do, for my family, a family who betrayed and abandoned me. I will do it for the honor of my sister. You can beat me for talking out of turn, for bloody well meeting your eyes, for acting like an intelligent adult with my own will, but you cannot change what’s in my head or heart. So let’s get on with what kind of puppet act you need me to learn and I’ll become the marionette you wish. But every time you strike me, I will fight back. I refuse to be beaten, by you or anyone, without a fight. Even if it means you kill me. And if not for the sake of my family, and my value of my own life, I would consider death preferable to this. So sod off, every fucking one of you.”
There was a grandfather clock in the room. The prolonged silence that followed her proclamation was abruptly punctuated by the achingly familiar Westminster chimes, followed by the sonorous gong as it counted out the hour. It finished on the eight, dying away, leaving the room vibrating with tension.
She didn’t look up. She was proving her point. She’d do as she was told. While she would feel whatever the hell she wanted to feel.
“Take off your clothes. Fold them up and place them on that chair, there.”
She lifted her gaze enough to see that The Mistress was pointing to it. Not with her finger. With a slender, flexible cane made out of a pale wood. She must have pulled it from one of her boots. Perhaps it had been on the mantle. Or Steele had pulled it out of his arse. Nina’s pulse accelerated. The Mistress was going to test her futile threat. Determine if it was a bluff.
Nina had led with her emotions. She had no idea herself if she truly meant to the soul what she said, no matter how true it felt, but she expected they were both about to find out.
She’d had to undress in a lot of circumstances more public than most women preferred, but wartime allowed little room for modesty. Though this was different, she treated it as the same. She unbuttoned her blouse, shrugged it off. Unzipped her skirt, rose to step out of it and her shoes. Folded the garments and set them in the chair, the shoes neatly aligned beneath it.
“I said undress, Nina. All of it. Gods, that is the ugliest set of underwear I’ve ever seen.”
Nina reached back, jerky movements, and unhooked the serviceable cotton bra, took it off her arms. Slid off the waist-high panties. Folded those and tucked them into the already folded outerwear.
“Bend over the chair and place your hands on the arms. Spread your feet out to shoulder width.”
No. Absolutely no. When she didn’t move, The Mistress’s hand clamped on the back of her neck. Nina spun and shoved at her, hands curling into fists to strike. She didn’t fight like a girl. Soldiers had shown her how to deliver an uppercut, a sock to the gut, a knee to the balls. Sher had taught her some of the hand-to-hand maneuvers she had learned. But those were tactics that worked against a human, not a vampire.
The Mistress seized her wrist, twisted her arm behind her back and shoved her over the chair arms with enough force to educate Nina about the chasm between human and vampire strengths. One chair arm pressed painfully into Nina’s sternum, the other biting into her hips. The shove’s force had tipped Nina forward so her feet left the floor.
The Mistress was between her knees. Struggling shot fire through Nina’s shoulder as The Mistress hiked the arm up her back, bending it at an angle sure to break bone if she kept it up. It pu
t a hard stop on Nina’s movements.
“Your resolve is noted,” the female said. “But you were making assumptions. Another rule broken. You assume nothing with your vampire, except in anticipation of his desires and needs. You thought I was intending to beat you, so you had to deliver on your threat. I will beat you for that, but I will enjoy my examination of you first.”
Nina was decisively pinned. A protest escaped her lips as the woman used her free hand to run her fingertips along the small of Nina’s back, over her buttock. Then between her open legs.
Nina snarled. The Mistress only laughed, that sultry sound. Her touch glided over Nina’s sex, the petals and that bud of nerves above them. So lightly, lightly, like a feather stroking. A very unwelcome tendril of response unfurled, a feeling that oddly increased as Nina tried to struggle again.
Steele must have brought his Mistress restraints, because she bound Nina’s arms, forearms folded over one another in the middle of her back. Then she lifted Nina like a child to place her knees on the chair seat and her upper body facing the back of the chair. When she grasped Nina’s hair, twisted a rope around it and attached it to the boxed part of her arms, it arched her so the front point of her rib cage was pressed against the chair back. Nina was staring at the ceiling, effectively prevented from seeing what The Mistress was doing.
She roped Nina’s knees to the chair arms, which spread them wide. She didn’t rush. She seemed to relish the process of binding Nina, caressing her flesh, gripping a curve, teasing and probing between her legs, playing against an upwardly jutting nipple with her knuckles.
Nina’s breath sobbed in her throat, her body quivering. She wanted all her movements to convey protest, but what terrified her was that her loss of control was more than physical. The Mistress was doing something that was confusing her mind as well as her body. The rage was still there, glorious and strong, but a terrifying helplessness was intertwined with it, as The Mistress did exactly what she’d threatened. Making Nina’s body react with desire and pulling her mind and will into it.