by Joey W. Hill
She recalled how she’d come to a halt when she realized where she was going. While she hadn’t consciously intended a destination, she’d been headed toward the hospital.
She’d stood on the footpath, people moving around her, sunlight on her head, cars moving. Everyone in the world moving but her. Then the ground had shaken, people had started shouting, and the world started moving again. The world was always moving.
As he turned into the drive, she touched Nero’s arm once more. “Thank you, Nero. If ever you need a nurse on a day when yours is off, I can come over pretending to be an acquaintance and help you out.” If Alistair permits it.
Her fists curled into balls in her lap, and she looked down at them. When she glanced up, she saw Nero studying her in his peripheral vision. Maybe he said nothing because he knew she didn’t have the flexibility, the right, to offer her time to anyone. If she did, no matter how sincerely meant, it was an empty promise.
“I think you have one of the most stoic expressions I’ve ever seen,” she told him abruptly. “Alistair says I have a transparent face. I’ll need you to give me some tips.”
Nero’s attention sharpened on the view ahead, and she followed his look. Alistair stood in the driveway. Mrs. W had implied he’d be gone a couple days, but perhaps his plans had changed. He must have been somewhere close enough to drive home after sundown. Or maybe vampires had underground tunnels running all over Australia.
For a moment, she was excited to see him. Wanted to tell him what had happened, about the men she’d helped, who they were, how they were doing. As he moved toward the car, her hand was already on the door. But when Nero brought the car to a halt, Alistair opened it. The words caught in her throat as he studied her up and down, taking in the dirt, lingering on the blood. He wore slacks and a white shirt even more immaculate than Nero’s, but open at the throat rather than graced by a tie. His hair was brushed back from his broad forehead, the silken strands falling with that artful carelessness that drew the eye to the deep blue eyes, the sensual mouth, the strong jaw and cheekbones.
A male so striking in appearance he would make any woman take a second look, but his foreboding expression would discourage a third. Her heart, which had oddly accelerated at the sight of him waiting for her there, went cold.
“I was assisting at the hospital,” she said carefully. “There was an accident, and I was nearby.”
The explanation was clearly unnecessary. She was second marked, so he could read her thoughts. He already knew where she’d been, what she’d been doing. There was no surprise or curiosity on his face, just a set look almost as hard to read as Nero’s. Instead of offering her a hand out of the car, Alistair gripped her wrist and drew her out, as if he expected her to resist. She didn’t. When she looked up into his face, trying to understand, his grip tightened.
“I didn’t give you permission to work at the hospital,” he said.
“There was an accident,” she repeated. “I wasn’t intending to work there without asking you, but since you brought it up, I did want to get that permission. They have need of help. If I—”
He spoke as if she wasn’t in mid-sentence. “What if I’d intended to bring guests home tonight, where my InhServ is expected to be in attendance?”
“You didn’t communicate that to me,” she said stiffly. “Else I wouldn’t have gone with Mrs. C to the market.”
“I don’t need to communicate that to you, since attendance to my needs is supposed to be your primary focus.”
“I’m sorry if triaging some poor blokes who nearly got themselves squashed by a building interfered with your dinner plans,” she said tartly.
She could have bitten the words back, should have, but really? He knew what she’d been doing was important. Necessary.
His cold expression became arctic. Appropriate, since she felt as if there were a wall of solid ice between them.
“Your place is here, in this house,” he said. “Unless I give you leave to do otherwise.”
“There’s not much to occupy myself with here during the daylight hours,” she pointed out, in what she hoped was a reasonable voice, not an accusing one.
“It’s not my job to entertain you. But I’ll be sure to leave you enough to do in the future. The Mistress gave me instructions on how to reinforce your training.” He jerked his head toward the house. “Go to the foyer. Take off your clothes and kneel in the required position until I decide how to deal with you.”
She stared at him, her heart thudding up into her ears. “What?”
Her first few hours in Alistair’s house, circumstances had allowed her to hold onto her indoctrination, the idea that someone could order her to do what he just had, without a blink. Spending the afternoon at the hospital had changed things, dismantled her mindset like that ruined scaffolding. He might as well have told her to strip and walk down a city street.
“I’m not clean,” she stammered, her face flooding with heat. She couldn’t bear to look at Nero, no matter that he knew how things were between vampires and servants. “I need a shower.”
“Did I bloody well ask you to take a shower?”
The snap of temper had her own back stiffening. But it wasn’t just anger that flooded into her. Everything did. Mrs. C’s earlier scorn. Winifred’s rudeness. Being unable to offer Nero a simple kindness to ease his pain. Facing the utter boredom of being in this house with nothing of any consequence to do. The idea that her life for the next three hundred years might be nothing but this, waiting on his whims, entertaining his guests in a variety of ways, all of them humiliating. Like the humiliation of what he was asking of her now.
“No,” she said, low. Then stronger. When their gazes locked, and his body tensed, she threw up her chin in challenge. “You can force me to do your will, if that’s what you’ve become. How would you like it if someone had jerked me away from your injured mates, saying I needed to help with some bloody dinner party, rather than saving their lives? Or do you even think about them anymore?”
She gestured around her, at the opulent house, the shiny car. “Does all this help you forget?”
A rage flashed through his eyes, there and then gone like the slamming of a steel door. She could feel it reverberate inside her chest, press against her heart. He shifted a step toward her, and menace was in the gesture.
“Do not presume to know what I think about.”
On another day, she’d realize just how terrifying a vampire in a temper could be. But she was riding on a pretty high wave of emotions herself. She matched him, step for step. Bumped toes with him.
“Well, that’s bloody true. Unlike you, I have no way of forcing someone’s mind open to know everything they’re thinking. I have to do it the old-fashioned way and ask you politely”—she showed her teeth on the three-syllabled word—“to pull the stick out of your arse and tell me straight out what you’re thinking. My lord.”
She heard a tiny gasp and looked toward the door to see Mrs. W standing in it, her eyes wide as saucers. Nero stood by the car, and even he looked a little tense. Nina brought her attention back to Alistair in a blink. “Forgive my breach of manners in front of the rest of the help. Allow me to tell you exactly what I’m thinking, without even opening my mouth.”
She wasn’t going to tolerate sitting around for hours with her thumb up her arse, waiting for him to need something he could likely bloody well do for himself. And she wasn’t kneeling in the bloody fucking hallway. At least until she got a damn shower.
She was shaking, her body showing more sense than her mouth. The most intimidating Matron she’d ever met looked like a simpering novice next to him.
He shifted much closer. “You are relying far too much on my self-control,” he growled. “You do not know what kind of day I’ve had.”
She saw sparks of crimson in his eyes. She also felt a full blast of what he was holding back, strong enough to send a hard quiver through her. She wasn’t a shrinking violet, but animal instinct had her heart triple
-hammering.
Fury. He was holding back fury. But about what? This was more than just her defiance.
As the seconds ticked by, really only two or three, she still had time to shift her gaze to the open throat of his shirt. She remembered sliding her fingers there, putting her mouth against his pulse. How cruel were the gods, that they made physical intimacy so powerful a magic it could convince a woman that a man had a heart and soul worth wanting?
“Do you even remember her name?” she asked quietly.
Her gaze flicked up as she asked it. If she hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have seen it. Could have left it as a rhetorical question, another jab at him where she hoped or believed the answer wasn’t as bad as all that.
However, at his momentary blank look, something crumbled inside her, crumbled and squeezed the pieces. “Oh my God, you don’t. You really don’t.”
She backed away from him. “How could you not…”
“Nina.” Alistair’s gaze flickered with something that might have been real regret, but regret was nothing more than a straw house before the tidal wave of what crashed through her.
“Her name was Sherry Evelyn Smithfield,” she said. She didn’t realize she’d shouted it until the echoes bouncing off the side of the house hit her like gunshots.
Suddenly she couldn’t even see Alistair, because of everything else that surged forth in her. He was a dark silhouette behind her memories. Ironic, because that was how much form and detail Sher had possessed for him.
“She was my twin. When we were little, she would kiss my scrapes and then mark up her own knees so we could match. I called her Sher.” She was hoarse with the tears clogging her throat. “She was connected to my heart, my blood. When I breathed, I knew somewhere she was breathing in the world. She dedicated her life to being ready to serve someone like you. To serving you. You couldn’t even be bothered to come to her funeral.
“She kept a picture of you pinned inside her clothes, against her heart. She talked about you as if you were going to be the sun, the moon, and all the stars in between. Thank God she never learned differently. Or maybe the InhServ training is all about blinding someone to the disappointing truth about your lot.”
She bolted for the stairs. He caught her, pulling her back against him, wrapping his arms around her, containing her. She twisted around, shoved against his chest with both palms. He didn’t move. His expression was rock hard, yet still he did nothing. Except make her lower belly quiver at his unrelenting expression, even as her heart was breaking just above it. Again. She hated herself for ever letting him affect her in any way. How many times could the heart break before it would stop trying to put itself back together?
“React,” she snarled. “Hit me. Punish me. Lock me into a cage. But what’s the use of that? I’m already there, aren’t I? Have you become such a bloody bastard you don’t feel anything anymore?”
One hand shot up, gripping her throat, bringing her to her toes. She bared her teeth at him, even as she felt that weird jump in her stomach. It was as if they were on a battlefield in truth, standing on ground soaked by the blood of the fallen. A matching feral response had reared its head within her, eager for the purge of combat.
“Sir.” Nero had shifted away from the car, dispassion replaced by something else, a sharp urgency to his tone.
“Stand down, Nero,” Alistair said, his eyes never leaving her. “Go into the house. Stay there with Mrs. W.”
“With respect, sir, not while I’m uncertain of your temperament toward her. I can’t stand by and let you do something you won’t forgive yourself for.”
The tips of Alistair’s fangs showed, that energy swirling around them getting even denser.
“You forget yourself, Nero.”
“Again, with respect, sir, I think I’m not the only one.”
Nina registered Alistair wasn’t hurting her, just holding her. There was a quiver in his arm, like there was something fighting inside him. Probably fighting the urge to clout her. But that was okay, because she had so much pain welling up out of her, she’d barely feel it if he crushed her larynx.
“I’m fine, Nero,” she said, despite the quaver in her voice. “It’s between him and me. Please…listen to him.”
Despite her body’s quivering response, she was somehow certain Alistair wouldn’t truly hurt her. But she wasn’t sure about Nero. The energy pumping off Alistair was pure male wild animal, who wouldn’t brook another male’s interference in this. It reminded her of the primal reaction he’d had to John when the orderly came too close to them, during Nina’s examination of Alistair’s wounds.
After a long pause, Nero’s feet crunched away on the gravel, though she could almost feel his reluctant disapproval, and fully expected he might be keeping an eye on them through the front windows.
That quiver in Alistair’s arm increased. Or maybe it was her shaking that was making them both vibrate, two electrical currents in danger of setting fire to their immediate surroundings. He’d stayed motionless, holding her rigid, his eyes upon her. He was hearing every word, even as his expression remained storm-cloud dark. Impenetrable.
Christ, he had the bluest eyes. He had to be something created by the devil, to be that soulless and so beautiful at once. “Losing her broke something inside me,” she said, low. “You all tell me I have it in me, to serve, to submit. Maybe that’s all true. But that’s missing the real point, isn’t it? What the bloody hell have you done to deserve that kind of devotion?”
With that, she broke loose, shoved at him. When he merely caught her by the shoulders, she snarled at him. Why wouldn’t he say anything? Why did he keep holding onto her like he’d never let go?
A full moment passed, her shaking like a leaf, staring at his chest, him with his hands gripping her upper arms, their bodies close together. She fought the strangest notion to put her forehead down on his chest and cry forever. It was okay. He was as immovable a column as the wood ones holding up the front veranda. Like them, he wouldn’t give her anything else back except physical support.
His breath was on her face. It smelled of a fragrant tea, some sugar, a familiarly comforting odor that felt out of place in this horrible moment. Her nose could betray her, because it smelled him and remembered safety. Warmth. A mockery.
“You’ll calm down now,” he said quietly. His voice was so steady she could feel the effort behind it, to keep it that way. “You have a right to your feelings, Nina. But not to defy me.”
Unexpectedly, he lifted her, carried her stiff body up the stairs to the veranda. Once there, he put her down on her knees, held her there, standing over her. She pushed against his hold, but she knew that wouldn’t get her anywhere. And truth, this position was too close to the fetal ball she wanted to curl into to cry. Without conscious thought, she sank into the prescribed InhServ kneeling position, putting her forehead to the deck and wrapping her arms over her head. His hand rested on the base of her neck as he knelt over her.
She felt the sheltering heat of him, his bent thigh pressed to her side. She didn’t want his shelter, the false haven it offered, the confusing mess it made of her emotions.
“I understand you were not expecting to take on this role,” he said. “But you’ll settle into it.”
A harsh chuckle ripped from her throat. “Know that for certain, do you? I wasn’t aware you’d had a lot of experience with being yanked out of your life and sentenced to three hundred years of mindless slavery as some stranger’s whore. I need to sit up. Please.”
The words were jagged, painful, but she’d given him as much respect as she could summon. Perhaps knowing that, he withdrew, let her sit up. She stared a hole in his chest.
“I’ve put up with all this bloody nonsense in a futile attempt to honor her,” she said tonelessly. “To give to you what she wanted to give so much, but I failed her, worse than you did. I loved her, but I can’t be what she was. This is what you get. So get rid of me, kill me, whatever. But I’m taking a fucking shower fi
rst.”
She struggled to get up, turning away from him to grasp a veranda balustrade to manage it. But he rose with her and took her hand, lifting her to her feet. She was numb and didn’t resist. But a part of her deep inside was surprised when he opened the door, strong fingers spreading out like a taut spider to push against the panel, open it for her. His hand grazed her lower back as she stepped past him, into the foyer.
“Go take your shower, Nina.” His voice was neutral, but there was something brittle in it, like a wall that had sustained an internal detonation of daunting incendiary proportions, but had held firm. Barely. “But tomorrow evening, we will discuss this.”
She told herself she didn’t care about that. That she wouldn’t cater to the despicable part of her that yearned toward the steady power and unrelenting authority in his tone, as if he could make the truth better.
He hadn’t known Sher’s name. There was no making that truth better.
“Please…please don’t take it out on Nero,” she said. “He was just trying to protect me. It was my fault.”
Alistair’s hand whispered across her shoulder. “You don’t decide your crimes, Nina. I do.”
His fingertips dwelled there, stroking along the delicate point, the curve of neck to shoulder. He was close again, his heat right behind her, and she closed her eyes. I want to stop feeling anything for him. If she was given one wish in the world at this exact moment, with no time to think of anything else, it would have been that.
She was in a world populated by ghosts of things she wanted, and the real things were obstacles to manage, put aside, placate so she could retreat inside to the place where things didn’t hurt quite as much. The list of things she’d mucked up, fallen short on, couldn’t understand or control, was getting unbearably long.
“You don’t need to fix or control anything, Nina. And you’ve failed no one. Go take your shower.”