Part 22 (2/2)
”Whoa. You said this was going to be an easy mop-up.”
”Yes, it is. But we both know there's more to it than it seems. Even if it's not, every fight can go wrong. If that is the case, tell Anwyn to appeal to Uthe's protection. Tell him my last wish is that he honor my mother's memory by protecting the woman to whom I gave my heart. Let her keep the servant best able to care for her in my absence.”
Though the words were spoken in a businesslike, brusque manner, Gideon was taken aback by them, the directness of Daegan's gaze. He cleared his throat. ”So if I'm just as safe, why didn't you tell me this in front of her?”
”Because we both know she is far more fragile than she will acknowledge. She is nearing the end of her patience with this Council, and that would be the final straw. You understand why it is important for her to be accepted before we leave. She does not.” Daegan lifted a shoulder. ”If the time comes that she needs to know everything, you will know when and how to tell her.”
Gideon digested that. ”You asked me if I felt you were being misled. You were willing to trust my judgment over Uthe's loyalty.”
”I have a great deal of faith in your precognition, Gideon. Don't let it go to your head, though. You're still dumb as a post on most other things.”
Daegan put a hand on his shoulder, forestalling a retort. ”As long as you tuck these thoughts in your mind somewhere and don't dwell on them, she won't see them. She hasn't mastered mind manipulation as well as all that yet. As before, Lord Brian will be useful if she has a seizure and you need a vampire's strength to help contain her.”
Gideon still didn't like any of this. He agreed with Anwyn. He'd never wanted to be out of a place more, and Atlantis was looking as close to a home as he'd had in a long time. But he sighed, curled his lip in a half snarl. ”Get your a.s.s back here as fast as you can, then. Any other rea.s.surance you want me to give her?”
Daegan nodded. Quick as a striking snake, he caught Gideon behind the neck, giving him a hard, thorough kiss, as thorough as the one he'd given Anwyn. When he let him go, Gideon was appalled to find he was clutching the male's waist beneath his duster, feeling the metal of his sheathed sword, the weapons he wore. His throbbing c.o.c.k was pressed hard against Daegan's thigh in insistent need. Daegan pushed him back gently, but with pleasure in his gaze.
”If I wanted to be a cruel Master, I would order you and Anwyn not to take your pleasure with each other until my return. But I think you've suffered enough for one day. I'll enjoy arousing you twice as much when this is over.”
Tangling his fingers in Gideon's hair to give it a hard tug, he offered one more s.e.xy smile, a flash of fang, and then was gone.
If he'd had any intention of doing as Daegan had suggested, finis.h.i.+ng with Anwyn what the vampire had started, it was halted by the immediate arrival of Lord Brian. The scientist wanted to run a few more tests and question Anwyn further on her current state, to fill in more blanks for the Council. After a couple hours of that, Gideon left them talking and prowled the suite restlessly.
Yeah, he couldn't settle down in a castle full of vampires. But that wasn't it. Those rare instances he'd ignored his gut, it had always been a mistake. Sometimes he'd very nearly not lived to regret it. Something was wrong with the whole setup.
He looked at Anwyn again. While he always worried for her, nothing raised his hackles, not even Brian's proximity. Daegan's belief in Uthe's and Brian's trustworthiness was apparently sound, because his internal concern compa.s.s showed no flags when it pointed toward her. And while Gideon didn't like keeping Anwyn out of the loop, Daegan had been right. Gideon understood a great deal about the myriad contradictions of the vampire world that she didn't yet. He and Anwyn weren't a threat to the Council. Their fate had everything to do with Daegan and the power games the Council was playing with him.
However, as he turned his thoughts to Daegan, chills ran through his lower belly. Danger was headed his way, not theirs. And Daegan thought he was G.o.dd.a.m.ned invincible.
When a quiet knock came on the door, Gideon already had his weapon out. He kept the knife at the small of his back as he went to answer. Lord Brian rose, drawing Anwyn behind him with firm courtesy. It upgraded him a notch in Gideon's estimation. The vampire's face made it clear that if there was a threat, despite Uthe's a.s.surances and Brian's service to the Council, the young vamp was ready to fight.
Gideon opened the door. His suspicions ratcheted up tenfold at the sight of Stephen's servant, Alanna.
”Let me in, quickly.” She was already moving across the threshold. Gideon allowed it, mainly because she wasn't wearing much to hide a weapon, a diaphanous creation that would have made her more at home in an Arabian Nights tale than a drafty Berlin castle. Still, he grasped her arm, controlling her movement into the room as he closed the door. ”Don't touch me,” she said sharply. ”I'm not armed, and I only have a few moments to tell you this.”
He ignored her request, but his touch did ease when she seemed willing to stay standing in the same place, far from Anwyn. Of course, logically, Anwyn had the strength to snap a human servant in half. ”Here to deliver a message for your Master?”
”No.” Her color was pale, her eyes feverish, making Gideon even more uneasy. When he worked with cells of vampire hunters, some had carried that kind of expression. They'd usually just lost someone they loved, and that f.u.c.k-it-all look made it almost a certainty they wouldn't come home from the next fight. Because that was the way they wanted it.
”Lord Stephen has deceived the Council. He is sending Daegan Rei into a trap.”
Anwyn stepped forward then, heedless of Lord Brian's hand on her arm. ”Tell us what you mean,” she said sharply.
”Lord Daegan was told this was a disorganized, weak group of made vampires. That group actually left Lord Stephen's territory some weeks ago. Instead, Daegan Rei has been sent to the stronghold of a vampire called Xavier.”
”Xavier?” Brian's brow creased. ”He has no stronghold. He's one of the lower-ranked vampires of Stephen's former overlord territory. Last I heard, he was living quietly in the North.”
”No.” Alanna shook her head. ”That is what Stephen wanted the Council to believe. Xavier has only gained in strength. Stephen allowed him to recruit and organize a military-trained force of vampires.”
”To what end?” Brian demanded.
While Gideon knew Lord Brian had seniority here, and the ear of the Council, he silently hoped he'd get past the politics and find out more about Daegan, before he or Anwyn-especially Anwyn-blew a gasket.
”I won't speak to Lord Stephen's motives. Those are obvious enough.” Alanna turned her gaze to Gideon, surprisingly. ”Xavier is a well-educated man who prefers to act as a mercenary. He and his vampire force own and operate out of a fetish club called the Coffin. I don't know his ultimate plans, but Stephen has allowed him to act as if it is his territory within a territory, so to speak, in return for the favors Xavier's vampires do for Stephen-”
”Son of a b.i.t.c.h.” The missing motive fell into place at last. Gideon gritted his teeth. ”Barnabus was a test run, to see how Daegan operates. Stephen wants Xavier to take out Daegan.”
”Yes. Because Daegan terminated Ella Maher. Stephen did not know until he came onto the Council how she died, when he learned of Council's use of Daegan Rei. Ella Maher was a lover of Stephen's. They were close, as close as my Master comes to affection. He wants the Council to cease using Lord Daegan for a.s.sa.s.sination of made vampires, but he also wants personal vengeance.”
d.a.m.n if Daegan hadn't been right about that as well. I may have been a.s.signed to kill someone they considered a friend or a preferred lover . . . I may have been a.s.signed to kill someone they considered a friend or a preferred lover . . . ”How does Barbra figure into this?” ”How does Barbra figure into this?”
”She supports Lord Stephen's objectives for made vampires, though she is unaware of his personal vendetta.”
”So Xavier knows Daegan is coming.” That came from Anwyn.
”Yes. He has had time to prepare, and has a force of fifteen combat-trained vampires.” Alanna reflexively took a step back toward the door as Anwyn moved forward, her expression forbidding. Brian put a quelling hand on Anwyn's shoulder, but Gideon didn't know if she felt it. Of course, he was having difficulty reining back his own reaction.
”But Lord Stephen is beginning to fear Xavier's strength,” Alanna continued. ”Xavier is being less respectful. Stephen did not foresee the long-term result of his actions. If he gives Xavier up to the Council for acc.u.mulating a private army, he will reveal his own wrongdoing. Xavier knows Stephen holds no power over him.”
”So while Stephen a.s.sumes Daegan will be killed, he also hopes he'll kill a big enough group of Xavier's vampires in the process so that Stephen can control Xavier's base once more.” Gideon's lip curled.
”I must go now,” Alanna said shortly. ”You do what you will with this.”
Gideon grasped her arm again. ”We need more information.”
”You have all that I have time to give you. My Master will demand to know where I've been when I return to his quarters.” As she gazed up at him, reality dawned. Gideon's gut tightened.
”You're Stephen's full servant. He'll know what you've done.”
”Yes.”
”We can protect you.” Gideon had no clue how he could do that, but the way she stood there, quiet and brave, with thin, pale arms and the eyes of a wounded doe, made it impossible for him to say anything else. But the look she gave him told him she'd already accepted whatever outcome came from this.
”No, you can't.” Her gaze s.h.i.+fted to Lord Brian now. ”I do not betray my Master lightly. At one time, I believed he cared for me. Then he denied me the right to go to my brother's funeral. He had another engagement, a dinner in France. Twelve vampires. Despite my grief, or perhaps because of it, he had me fully partic.i.p.ate in that dinner, giving me to all twelve of them. And to their servants. It went on for three days. I realized later it was to test my loyalty to him over my love for my brother.”
Lord Brian's gaze flickered, but he said nothing, nothing on his face indicating whether or not he condemned or held compa.s.sion for the woman.
At his lack of response, her face went even more wooden and she looked toward Gideon again. ”A servant serves, because she believes she is vital to the heart and soul of her Master. I was an Inherited servant, so I did not expect or ask for anything except an unconditional sense of value. Stephen does not have a heart or soul. Good-bye.”
”Wait.” Gideon stopped her once more at the doorway, his mind still sifting through possibilities, ways they could keep her from Stephen's retribution. ”Why did you help us? I was responsible for your brother's death.”
Those liquid brown eyes reached deep inside of him, squeezing his jaded heart. ”Because you told me you were sorry,” she said simply. ”And you meant it. It was the first time anyone acknowledged my grief. In your eyes, I saw you understood, truly, what it was to lose one you loved. I may hate that you were the instrument that took him from me, but in the world we live in, I know genuine feelings from false. And I have now seen the monstrous side of them that causes you to take their lives. Do not worry about me, Gideon Green. I do not want or need your help. The end will be a blessing for me. Go save your Master. Good-bye.”
Shrugging off Gideon's hand, she slipped out the door. Brian came to Gideon's side, Anwyn with him. Anwyn's eyes were angry, worried, searching. ”Anything?” Gideon asked.
She shook her head. ”I'm calling to him. He said it was fifty miles away. Maybe I'm not strong enough yet, but he can hear my mind from that distance. If I was worried or afraid, calling to him, he would hear. He would answer, Gideon. Oh G.o.d . . .”
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