Part 9 (1/2)

Over Anwyn's chuckle, Daegan shot him a dark look. ”More comments like that, vampire hunter, and your throat will look far more appetizing next time I need blood.”

”Yeah, you and your army can try to take it, anytime.” Gideon picked up the delicate winegla.s.s by the bowl, hoping he wouldn't break it, and downed a couple of swallows. ”You've had a servant before you worked for the Council, right? I mean, no vampire goes seven hundred years without one.”

At Daegan's silence, Gideon's brow rose. ”You're s.h.i.+tting me. You've never taken a servant. Ever?”

Anwyn looked between them. ”I a.s.sume that's rare?”

”It's beyond rare. So it's more than the liability and hunting thing, isn't it?”

Daegan lifted a shoulder, returned his attention to the stage, clearly not caring to elaborate, but Gideon was remembering the conversation they'd had, soon after Anwyn's attack. I'd rather have spent my whole life with no one, than have given her a moment of pain I'd rather have spent my whole life with no one, than have given her a moment of pain. In that conversation, Daegan had as much as admitted he'd not given his heart to a lover in all his life. Nor had he ever chosen the closest bond a vampire could have with another, that with a servant. He'd wanted Anwyn as his servant, but had chosen to respect her wishes.

She was apparently his one and only. It was unsettling and entirely remarkable, not only for a vampire, but for anyone who lived a life long enough to yearn for companions.h.i.+p. No matter his antipathy toward the vampire species, Gideon knew that having a servant was more than just convenience or function. It was comfort. Like sitting down with family every night for dinner instead of strangers, having that sense of connection to another.

It was so remarkable, Gideon decided to respect Daegan's obvious desire not to pursue it more deeply. He gave an offhanded shrug. ”Mind you, I'm not throwing any stones, not with the number of hookers I've chosen over an actual relations.h.i.+p. We've both chosen blood and s.e.x over intimacy.”

He wondered how an eHarmony profile application would write that that one up. one up.

”Probably for the same reasons,” Anwyn observed in a saccharine tone.

”Yep.” Gideon gave her a direct, intent look. ”You weren't available.”

He was rewarded by a softening of her expression, a mock sniff that pretended he wasn't off the hook, and a sensuous curve of those full lips.

”Well played, hunter.” Daegan smiled as well, but there were shadows in his eyes as they both touched their gla.s.ses to Anwyn's. She gave them a look torn between pleasure and exasperation.

”I think it's a matter of maturity.” Reaching out, she ran her finger and thumb over Gideon's lapel, caressing the man beneath the cloth, increasing his attention on her. ”I've only had a servant for a little while, but it's a lot like having a full-time sub. There's a certain level of trust, an acknowledgment of a need for others, an interdependency that goes with having a human servant. You have to reconcile it with this vampire sense of superiority, much as a person rationalizes the desire of having a dog or cat. But it goes to the deeper connective need, and you have to be mature enough to realize and handle that.”

”Woof,” Gideon said, covering his surprise that she'd practically regurgitated his own thoughts. It earned a laugh from her, a short chuckle from Dagean.

However, when she focused on his face with that scrutiny he found discomfiting and welcome at once, he had to ask the question that had been floating in his head since they'd left.

”So why didn't you do what you threatened . . . with the harness? I know you like that kind of thing.”

She shrugged. ”Being a Mistress isn't so much about what I want as what you need, Gideon. That's what gives me pleasure. Teaching you to trust yourself as much as you trust me. Everything we do up to that point is just an appetizer.”

The implication and threat of that stewed in his mind, boiling uneasily. She squeezed his arm. ”I'm sorry I've been too preoccupied to devote the time to it I'd like.”

”I'm not a d.a.m.n client session,” he muttered into his cup. ”As I've said, you don't owe me anything. I'm here for you.”

”We're here for each other.” Seemingly unoffended, she plucked at his sleeve. ”Like this. You helped make this happen, both of you, and it helps me. What's going to happen in the future is going to be bad, but I know as long as I can have moments like this, my pleasures won't change all that much. Maybe not even my worries, though they're a tad more intense and dramatic.”

When he shrugged, self-conscious at her compliment, Anwyn cupped Gideon's face, her fingers tracing his jawline. ”When you saw me and Daegan tonight, your first thought was you didn't belong with us. Didn't belong here, in a place like this.” She frowned. ”That's not your decision, Gideon. That's mine, and you fit perfectly.”

Gideon lifted a shoulder, uncomfortable. ”My brother's the civilized one. Took nearly a year's worth of training to know how to serve a vampire queen, but it was in him before that. He was playing Sir Galahad in the backyard when we were young, squiring around ladies, asking for their favors. Most days I don't even remember if I put on clean underwear, or any at all. I'm good at killing. That's about it.”

”I see.” Leaning forward, she met him eye to eye. He was vaguely aware of Daegan's attentiveness, their conversation taking a more intent turn. ”What do you see in my mind, Gideon?”

Since the injections, she'd gotten better at using the curtain screen between them when she was calm. While he was glad for what it meant to her, it had given him a peculiar sense of loss. He knew it was a necessary thing for her, to learn that control. To learn what she did and didn't need. One day soon, the moments he could just reach into her mind would be a rare flower, offered only when she desired it.

She'd learned something new, though, because not only did her mind open to him; it pulled him in, as if he were in her arms. He saw her reaction to him back at the apartment, when he'd been standing in his tux, looking at her as if she was the most important thing in his world. From there, she turned the wheels of her mind back and he saw her in her bed during the late-afternoon hours. The way she'd woken several times, restless, but once she'd reached out with her mind and found where he and Daegan were, she'd been able to go back to sleep, rea.s.sured by their presence. She liked the way he and Daegan bantered, how it surrounded her and made her feel even more coc.o.o.ned and protected. And now, in this present moment, as he held her one hand and Daegan the other, she felt content. More at peace, despite her unsettled mind, than she had at any other time in her life.

He raised his stunned gaze to her face. ”As I said,” she said softly, ”surrender is something different for everyone. The problem is not whether or not I need you, or the feelings I'm willing to explore with you. The problem is your boundaries, your s.h.i.+elds. You keep trying to run away before we can throw you out. You've belonged nowhere for so long, you believe that's the truth. The simple fact is you've been searching for your home all along. With us.”

”You don't know that. You can't even predict that.” Desperate, feeling like he was on quicksand, he went for the low blow of reminding her how precarious her state of mind was, how new this was to her, too new for any of them to make any kind of permanent decisions.

”That may be true.” She nodded, though he hated himself for the frisson of hurt and doubt that crossed her features. ”But before I became this, there was something between us. I wanted to explore it. Eventually, you will lose me, Gideon.” His heart clutched, his hand tightening in reflex, but before he could respond, she continued. ”Because, in the end, we always lose everyone. Isn't that all the more reason to enjoy every moment, no matter how many days, years or decades it lasts?”

A waiter brought a new sample tray then, rescuing him from a reply. She and Daegan took their time, examining the choices critically. Daegan had already given her direction on how best to enjoy and yet not overindulge in the food they couldn't really digest.

As Gideon watched the two of them, their heads bent over the tray, he felt a warring of hope and despair in him. He was accustomed to the despair only, the dull throb of it. Always before, it had been made tolerable by action, violence. In suggesting this evening for Anwyn, he hadn't counted on how it would affect him, being in such normal surroundings, doing what people normally did on a special Sat.u.r.day-night date. Or the antic.i.p.ation and affection, companions.h.i.+p and laughter. For a moment, he wasn't sure he could breathe, and he had a strange desire to bolt back to the shadows, run back to that empty existence he'd turned into his purpose. All because he wasn't sure he could handle the threat of happiness.

Her hand slid across the chair arm and closed on his wrist. She stroked the bones there, her fingers a caress he would have crawled through the desert to feel. Turning now, she brought a morsel to his mouth that looked like it had tomato and cheese on it. He opened for her, and she fed it to him, teasing him with her fingers on his lips as he tried to swallow it.

Anwyn . . .

Be still in heart, dear love / And give each beat to me. I will care for it / For I care for thee. She tilted her head, the rich brown of her hair catching the torchlight. She tilted her head, the rich brown of her hair catching the torchlight. A simple poem from long ago. A child's lullaby. A simple poem from long ago. A child's lullaby.

”I'm afraid to believe in this. And if I do, then what does that make me?” The vampire hunter who finds a home with two vampires. It sounds like a bad sitcom idea, one that won't sell. The vampire hunter who finds a home with two vampires. It sounds like a bad sitcom idea, one that won't sell.

His voice had cracked, and so he'd finished the thought in his mind, but he wondered if Anwyn shared it with Daegan. Because as her hand closed over his again, lacing with his fingers, Daegan's stretched out along the back of her chair and gave his sleeve a brief, absent stroke, the man's dark eyes finding his over Anwyn's intent face.

”It means the world is a strange, terrible and wonderful place,” she murmured. ”What did you think of that one? The bread?”

Gideon gave a harsh half laugh. ”It's a microwave pizza bite, pretending to be fancy, overly priced food.”

She snorted. ”That's a gourmet red sauce and breaded, excellent gouda cheese.”

”Red sauce, bread, cheese. Sounds like pizza to me.”

”The world's most perfect food,” Daegan commented, earning her exasperated look. The vampire leaned back in his chair, one ankle brought to the opposite knee, but the casual pose was deceptive. Gideon could tell he was keeping a constant surveillance on their surroundings, just as he was. Unfortunately, Anwyn could tell as well.

”Would the two of you stop scoping the area like you're expecting an invasion? No one is looking for me, no one knows who Daegan is, and do you really think someone with a vendetta against Gideon is going to look for him at a Gourmet Taste Fest? Only if they've never met him.”

”Did she just insult me?” Gideon asked.

Daegan's lips quirked. ”You yourself said you have no culture and cla.s.s. She was simply supporting your opinion.” However, his gaze sobered, the vampire sliding a knuckle across her fair cheek. ”I have no intentions of ruining the evening for you, cher cher, but another lesson you must learn is that vampires sense one another. Like all territorial predators, they will check each other out to make sure the vampire is one they know, or one who is permitted in the territory. The Council knows I am bringing you to them, but, by necessity, the territory overlord knows nothing of you yet. If you were thought to be a loner without protection, others might take advantage.”

”So you're both armed.”

”To the teeth.” Gideon gave her a disarming wink as he signaled to the waiter. ”Do you have beer?”

”No, sir,” the waiter said politely, though his expression held a mildly sardonic cast. ”However, there is a convenience store four blocks from here with twenty-four-ounce Icehouse and prepackaged nachos.”

”He'd be perfect target practice,” Gideon noted as the waiter moved off. He narrowed his gaze at the laughing Anwyn and grinning Daegan.

”No sport in that,” said the vampire. ”You're lying to us, by the way. Or yourself. You are are good at things other than killing.” His gaze pa.s.sed over Gideon's shoulders. ”You played football in high school. Varsity.” good at things other than killing.” His gaze pa.s.sed over Gideon's shoulders. ”You played football in high school. Varsity.”

”I can think of many things he's good at, other than killing.” Anwyn gave him a heated lingering glance. Gideon tried to ignore the feeling that she'd closed her clever, smooth fingers on his c.o.c.k and scowled at Daegan instead.

”Do you ever forget anything? Keys? Credit cards?”