by Joey W. Hill
It is also evidence of your willingness to trust me. Which would please me, except I have recently been informed of some nonsense about you I didn’t want to believe.
He almost smiled. She didn’t believe in preliminaries. “And what would that be, my lady?” He spoke aloud, to increase the clarity of the message, and suspected she was doing the same. He could even imagine the sound of her voice, an intriguing mix of sex and authority. She could rivet and paralyze at once.
He wondered if she was sitting at some elaborate dinner party, with other vampires far more important than him. There’d be some kind of decadent, sexual display happening, involving the servants at the dinner. She would appear to be attentive, even as she remained aloof, sitting back in her chair, a light smile on her lips. Her jade eyes would see everything going on around the table, with every vampire there.
“The evening’s festivities are over. I am actually now in the guest room my host furnished me. Thomas is drawing my bath.”
Her servant was a monk, a very unlikely choice for a human servant. Through the power of her position, Lady Lyssa had ensured he was exempt from the sexual demands that were part of vampire social protocol. The rumor was not even she availed herself of his body, but they seemed more closely bound than any vampire-servant pairing he knew. Which gave him another reason to make this call. Her relationship with her servant wasn’t exactly inside the boundaries of the usual thing.
“What I heard,” she continued, “Is that you decided to take on an InhServ who has a month’s training, rather than sensibly taking another. I can’t believe that anyone I sired—even a male—could be that stupid.”
“And greetings to you, too, my lady. I hope life is showering many blessings upon you.”
When he was met with frosty silence, he sighed. “Yes. Nina only has a month’s training. I met her during the war.”
“You met her during the war, and her sister was your chosen InhServ? How did that come about?”
“Entirely by chance. How’s that for Fate kicking you in the teeth?” He leaned forward in the chair. “She’s a nurse, she’s brave as hell, and has a backbone of solid steel. She also has a submissive side that’s deeper than a bottomless honey pot. I know she has what it takes to be a vampire’s servant.”
“So why not give her time to train longer, be more prepared for whoever becomes her master or mistress?”
So Lady Lyssa knew that he would not be an option, if he made that decision for Nina. He shouldn’t be surprised. The woman seemed to know everything.
“I do,” she confirmed flatly. “I spend an inordinate amount of time holding my tongue, waiting for others to figure out their own foolishness. Which is why I hadn’t reached out to you first.”
He winced, but he also felt a little surge of his own irritation. “Why should another benefit from her gifts, when her sister was promised to me? Maybe I prefer to be the one to train her up.”
“I’m sure that’s true, but it’s certainly not all of it.” Another moment of silence. “Do you know what I remember about siring you?”
His brow creased at the change of topic. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“Don’t be disrespectful,” she said coolly. “You asked me what being a vampire entailed. When I told you that it involved cutting all ties with the human world, you looked at each mortally wounded man near you on that desolate battlefield, told me about them. This one had a fiancée, this one a living mother and father, the other a deep desire to be a career soldier, a calling. I said nothing, watched you think it through. You realized one-by-one that, to any of them, being a vampire would have been a prison sentence, continuing to live without being able to have those ties or opportunities.”
“You’ve changed the rules somewhat since then. I might have made a different choice. Bob didn’t really care all that much for his parents.”
She ignored him. “Whereas you were an orphan. Your family was on that battlefield.”
Had died on that battlefield.
“It’s a pattern you keep repeating,” she replied, picking up the subtext. “As if you think the outcome will change. You have a penchant for befriending or shagging human males of military age, and humans start fights with one another quite often.”
“Isn’t befriending and shagging the same thing?” But he rose from his chair, paced to the window.
“Don’t deflect.” Her tone sharpened, but then she sighed. “The few times I have sired a vampire, it is most often on the battlefield, where a man's mettle is shown. Sometimes, though, I think he brings guilt with him. Guilt that he didn't have the courage to die with his fellows. Perhaps he even questions his own bravery, thinking his desire to live robbed them of a chance. Makes him a coward.”
He felt a surge of his own irritation. “Even if I’d had such a wobbly thought, three hundred years of perspective would have fixed it.”
“Indeed. Because it takes a great deal of courage to embrace a new life, in a world you do not know. Babies have to do that, whether they like it or not, so they never give it much thought. For an adult to do it takes a great deal of courage. Imagine being a soul who has to choose to be born.”
“Thankfully, God makes those weighty decisions. Unless you’ve received a promotion I haven’t heard about.”
“I will get on a plane specifically to come kick your obviously overinflated testicles up into your throat. Is that why you called me?”
“No.” He shook his head, propped his elbow against the window and gazed out into the night. He could see the white line of the surf. A boat was out fishing in the night, far out. He could see the running lights.
Was Nina looking at the same thing? No. A quick check showed she’d just climbed into bed, and had turned away from the window. She was doing better with the ocean, but emotional stress would set her back. She’d closed her curtains, making him grimace and curse himself.
“I’m sorry, my lady. I don’t want this to be a mistake. I need this not to be a mistake.”
“You need her.”
She nailed it, in three words. And hearing it out loud, he knew that did make him a fool. A stupid one.
Lady Lyssa’s mind voice softened. “You are not a stupid man, Alistair.
“Even if I sometimes make short-sighted decisions based on ‘self-absorbed arrogance and testosterone poisoning.’”
“Bah. I said that ten years ago. You have improved somewhat. And I have learned that following your gut is your way. It’s how you’ve gotten where you are now. Tell me what this is about, Alistair.”
With Nina, he could simply reach into her mind, and figure out what was happening, the underlying reasons for her behavior. It was why he’d made the decision he had, to put some distance between them. Well, partly. The Master side of him had made the decision, because the man simply wanted her in his bed. Lyssa could plumb for his reasons the same way, if she wanted to do that mind-rape thing, something she would not do. He’d have to put words to it himself.
“You know what I particularly like about a good footy match?”
“Oh, good God, please do not give me a footy analogy.”
He grinned, he couldn’t help it. His sire’s lack of patience for any sport other than jousting, which she still felt should be in style, was well known. “Sometimes you put together a game with the fellows who are out on the field when you get to the park. You haven’t played together before. Some you might have seen play or have brushed elbows with here or there, but you haven’t necessarily played as a team. But then, as you get to playing, you find out there’s something about this group, how they view the game, how they play it, that just clicks. And in the heat of the match, you’re hand-balling and kicking the footy back and forth, and though you’re working toward scoring a try, it’s not even about that anymore. You’re just bloody loving every minute of it, because you’re in this zone where you’re moving together, understanding one another, all connected. All easy.”
He paused, his jaw tighte
ning. “I know you’ve been alive far longer than me, my lady. And yet, of late…I feel so very old.”
He was braced for her scorn. She was over three times his age. But she said nothing. Just waited on him.
“You’re right. I’ve fought in too many human wars. Over a half dozen now, at least. I stopped counting.” He wished he could stop counting the mates he’d lost in them. “Humans kill each other. You’re right about that, too. Our Territory Wars told me we weren’t much better. This last time, I realized I had to back off. Immerse myself in our world, in being an overlord, in doing dinner parties and other glittery things. Find prey with tight arses I could feed upon and make them forget. And lose myself for a while with them. But I don’t feel…anything. And some days…some days the sunrise calls to me, my lady.”
He swallowed. Had he meant to go there? Before she could say anything else, he pushed on, fast. “I built a wall, which is what someone does when they don’t have a place to grieve. Someone to grieve with. She knows. She understands. And she…I feel that connection with her. I felt it, during the war. I feel it now, too, and I know it’s within her, even though she’s still at the point where all the rest of it is bloody well painful and confusing to her. Christ, I miss Hal. But this…I wanted her, Lyssa. I wanted her, yes, I need her, and I took her. And I’m keeping her, damn them all.”
“All right,” his sire said, after another of her long pauses. “But can you keep perspective, Alistair? You must be her Master first.”
“I know that. And I am.” He straightened. On that, he was on sure ground. “I’m not confused about what being a Master is. You know me better than that. I also have a good grasp of what I need from my servant this go round. She has it. I can make it work. I just had to…hear myself talk it out. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
“You did have to talk it out. But words spoken into a vacuum have a way of getting lost. Speaking them to someone is better. Passing a ball back and forth at a footy match gets you down the field faster, where you can score a try.”
“You’ve been watching footy, my lady.” He smiled, things loosening back up in his chest.
“I’ve done no such thing. I’ve merely picked up a few things from your incessant fascination with it. Alistair.” The way she spoke his name drew his attention. As if he were in the room with her, he could feel her regard, the touch of her cool, slim hand on his cheek.
There was a magic to her that sometimes seemed even more than vampire. He visualized her compelling jade eyes, and the long, straight dark hair that fell to her waist. When she moved, the strands tumbled over her shoulder and emitted a light, haunting perfume, like one of those flowers whose scent barely touched a person before it moved on, leaving a wish for more.
“Yes, my lady.”
“Heal your heart. But don’t forget who you are, and what you are. Call me again if you need a reminder. And I will come kick some sense into you.”
“Your affection is one of the largest blessings in my life, my lady.”
Her disconnection of their minds was as testy as the snick of a disconnecting phone, making him smile. But as silence settled back over the study, he fingered the broken pencil, thinking of the woman two floors above. And what he needed—and wanted—to do.
Lyssa felt his withdrawal. She sat in her chair a few extra moments, tapping her fingers lightly on the arm, considering. His comment about the sunrise had alarmed her no small amount. She had been around long enough to know the warning signs for the Ennui, and had lost her own mother to it. But when he spoke of this Nina, it was clear that lassitude was shoved aside. If it went well, it would help. If it didn’t…well, she would talk to him again, and more often, until she was sure all was well.
Alistair was very dear to her, a man of great honor and bravery, who had his greatest difficulties when it came to peacetimes. He was born to be a warrior, but he had the intelligence of a statesman when it came to politics, the playfulness of a boy when it came to his sports, and the heart of a male who needed a servant entirely devoted to him.
“That was an interesting conversation,” Thomas commented, coming out of the bathroom. She’d opened her mind to him, let him follow it as he prepared her bath. There was very little she didn’t allow Thomas to hear, for it saved her time. He was quiet and unobtrusive, and yet every bit of knowledge she gave him he used to serve her all the better.
“And what would your thoughts on it be?” she asked him.
He gave her his serious smile. Though most servants didn’t need glasses, he had always kept his reading glasses, and the wire frames glinted from the fire light now, periodically making his eyes disappear behind the reflection on the lens. She didn’t like that, so she reached up, drew them off his straight nose and caressed his jaw, fingertips whispering along his throat. She might not take his body, but she enjoyed it as she wished and let him struggle with his God over the temptation.
His wry look was one that was part of that ritual, one she suspected they both enjoyed though he might deny it. But then he sobered, thinking through his response. “You might not like my response, my lady. Because vampires don’t speak of love, when it comes to their servants.”
“Yet you are a servant, not a vampire. So speak your peace on it.”
He shrugged and dropped to a knee by her chair, taking up one of her feet to begin to remove her shoes. She’d worn heels for this evening’s event, and stockings. She’d require him to remove it all, enjoy how carefully he did it, how gently, and without a hint of sensual caress. She enjoyed sexual pleasures, like all vampires, but knew on the day she lost Thomas, a day she didn’t like to think about at all, she would dearly miss the way he touched her. With reverence. And yes, love.
“You can speak of love, Thomas,” she encouraged him again. “Tell me.”
He sighed. "It’s a perpetually mysterious thing, ever changing, in what it reveals about us and the world around us. You’re right, I think, in how it will help him come to terms with the losses he’s sustained. It's complicated, yet has a heartbreaking simplicity. What we expect from it, how we disappoint it, yet we always come back to its breast, for it nourishes us like nothing else. And without it, what is inexplicable, is hopeless.”
“My philosopher and scholar.” But her amusement was replaced by a frown, a tightening around her heart she knew too well. “He sounded without hope, the first part of the conversation.”
“It worried you.”
“Yes.”
He looked up at her, then bent his head again, sliding up the flowing hem of her sparkling black gown, unhooking the garter from the black stocking and working it down her leg to her pointed toe with a careful touch. “You have lost many these past few decades as well. You don’t want him added to the number. But I don’t think you will. This woman has captured his attention. Is in his heart. Can help to heal what needs to be healed.”
“Or destroy something already wounded.” She set her jaw, and what she felt was chilling enough to bank the fire. “If she does that, inadvertent or not, I will make her regret it.”
“She is a child,” Thomas reminded her. “Struggling to find her way. Alistair is her Master. He will help her. He’s a smart man, a strong vampire. He’ll help her figure it out.”
“Figure what out?” she asked. She knew what he was going to say, was already mulling it, but she liked to hear him speak. He would have been a fine orator, but she liked the low, even murmur of his voice in her chambers like this. They’d had innumerable pre-dawn debates on an endless number of topics. Sometimes esoteric, sometimes about specific issues. Like this one.
Thomas patiently folded and set the stockings beside her. He took her hand, helped her to her feet. She turned, lifting her hair so he could unzip the back of the dress. As it pooled around her ankles, she felt the hitch of his breath, the heat of it caress her nape. And then closed her eyes as he bent and pressed a chaste kiss to her shoulder. Who knew chasteness could have such potency?
“I think we can
live and find our way without full understanding,” Thomas said thoughtfully. “But we can’t do that without hope, faith, connection. Those are the things that love provides us, and are its essence and soul. It saves us, makes clear our path, even when nothing else is.”
Things she knew a vampire would never say. But a servant could.
Nina slept very little that night. She couldn’t determine what was happening, though she also knew the truth might be something she didn’t want to face. If a vampire didn’t view his servant as a relationship, at least not in the sense of lovers, then Alistair’s behavior made more sense. Brief, intense interludes, between which he had his life and she had hers. If she was a true InhServ, she knew she’d be far more involved in the demands upon him as a Region Master, but she had a disturbing feeling that by giving her the hospital work, he’d had to shut down that avenue. Hadn’t he told her earlier? Both jobs required a great deal of commitment. They couldn’t exist together.
She should be ecstatic that he’d disproven what she’d been told, that vampires put themselves first, and there was no room for an InhServ to be anything but an InhServ. Yet it felt like he’d shut her out of even more than was necessary.
But it did effectively remind her of what their relationship was…and what it was not, and never could be. She shed a few tears that night, but eventually she slept, and then it was time to go to work.
Arranging it with Tracy was relatively easy. Suddenly, for a few hours each day, Nina was “normal” again. Her experience and dedication to the job, as well as her ability to work without pay, made her a welcome asset. While there were initial misgivings about her need to leave exactly on time, she quickly proved it wouldn’t lessen the quality of her work while there.
From his tone that night, she knew she couldn’t test Alistair on it. His commands were to be obeyed, and not being able to work at the hospital for a month when they were depending on her was far more detrimental to patient care than having to promptly turn her patients over to another shift nurse at her prescribed quitting time.