“Fucking hell. She made it through. The lass did it.”
Evan wanted to agree, but he couldn’t trust it yet. Over the past several weeks, he’d endured every dismal daily report on her condition. Brian had frowned, scrubbed his hair to spikes in frustration, retooled his treatment formula. The next day, he’d prepare the same report. No obvious progress on removing the marks.
She’d just said they were gone, but they had no idea how clear she was in her own head. It would need to be verified. Stephen might have figured out a way to make her believe they were gone so they’d kill him and he’d get the last victory. He’d figured out the only reason he was being kept alive was to preserve a servant’s life, an ignominy that was small vengeance compared to the agony he’d inflicted on her.
In sync, both men’s attention went to Lord Brian. Daegan stood behind him. The Council’s assassin had his arms crossed and was leaning against one of the lab’s stainless steel counters. Out of the way, but awaiting the verdict. Earlier in the evening, when she’d first started saying Evan and Niall’s names with such determined purpose, Daegan had reappeared. Gideon sat on one of the rolling chairs at the other end of the lab, pushing it back and forth over the same yard of ground.
Brian ignored the wall of male impatience, checking the readings from her blood draw. He handed them over to Debra for a second verification. Her brow furrowed as she read the screen. Evan always watched her more closely than her Master, because it was impossible to read anything from Brian’s face. The scientist took a blood smear to a microscope, adjusted the lens, then scribbled into one of his many notebooks. He used a form of shorthand that only he and Debra knew. Evan and Niall had both shamelessly tried to translate it when he wasn’t around.
Clearing throats wouldn’t increase the scientist’s pace, nor death threats. During these twenty-two days, they’d tried all of those things, and everything in between. So Niall settled back onto his stool at Alanna’s head. As he lowered his hand to stroke her hair, there was a hesitation, a brief glance at Evan before he made contact. When she didn’t react with convulsions or terror, a sigh eased the great shoulders. Only in the last few hours had they been able to touch her without making things worse.
They’d both gone mad from her screaming, the pitiful whimpers and cries, the thrashing of her body to get away from an enemy they couldn’t see or fight for her. To make it worse, Brian hadn’t been able to use anything to sedate her. It would interfere with the experimental treatment. He’d had to put her in a soundproof room, monitoring her through machines and a window. Otherwise, she would have driven everyone but Evan and Niall out of the Savannah estate that was temporary Council headquarters. Of course Lyssa would have ordered her to be put down before that, and then Evan and Niall wouldn’t be here, because they would have had to be dead to allow that.
Well, at first. Within three days of witnessing her in such obvious agony, it was like having a preview of Hell, piped straight into the speaker system. He and Niall took turns standing outside that window, one of them always watching over her. More than once, fingers digging into the sill of the viewing window, Niall had fought the overwhelming compulsion to break into that room, to end her suffering. Evan hadn’t blamed him, for he’d fought the same feeling. Even Lady Lyssa, who’d come down to view Alanna’s condition, had compassion in her jade green eyes. The tightening of her mouth reflected Evan’s own uncertainty about this course of action, yet she’d told Brian to do whatever he could for her, to spare no expense, a high honor for the Council to bestow upon a human servant.
Evan would never forget that hasty drive to Savannah in the RV. Niall had driven the heavy vehicle like a bat out of hell, with her making those horrible hoarse, continuous screams every time Stephen regained consciousness. Daegan had used restraints that a vampire couldn’t break, put him in one of the storage lockers. Each time the captured vampire roused, Gideon would open the lid and use a pipe to knock him out again, but it was only a temporary effect. Unfortunately, once they arrived at Council headquarters and the treatment began, Stephen couldn’t be sedated for the same reasons Alanna couldn’t, and the vampire seemed determined to exercise the one power he had left, to punish her for his fallen state.
The treatment put on the back burner by Council, that Brian had been tweaking in his spare time, was the only possibility to break the mark between a servant and Master who’d been bonded beyond five years. From the first, Brian made it clear that it was untested, volatile.
“It has a slim chance of working, and even then depends a great deal on her own strength.” He’d made the case to Lady Lyssa in his lab. Evan had turned away from the window to Alanna’s soundproof room to hear his report, though Niall kept his attention on the girl. Instinctively, the men had fallen into a pattern. Evan focused on the things that would require a vampire’s approval, whereas Niall kept his attention on her. On whatever front necessary, her needs would be met.
“It’s administered over a twenty-one-day period,” Brian continued. “Two treatments a day, and it’s essentially a poison.”
Lady Lyssa nodded. “Will there be any effect upon Evan, since he’s marked her?”
“If it works, he’ll feel the break when it happens, because it will obliterate any marking in her blood. However, it should be no worse than the physical sense of severing that occurs when a servant dies.”
An experience he hadn’t had. Yet. He was keenly aware of Niall, the man’s heat and presence within a yard of him.
Lyssa looked toward him then. Though she was a slim woman and barely over five feet tall, her presence filled a room, riveting all attention upon her. Except for one. Her gaze shifted to Niall. On a normal day, Evan would have sent Niall a sharp command to show respect and attention to the vampires in the room, but she gave him a slight shake of her head before he could do it. His servant had put his hands on the window, as if he could somehow draw the evil plaguing Alanna to himself. Evan gripped his shoulder, then gave Lyssa full attention for both of them.
“You are her Master, Evan. This decision is yours.”
It was an unexpected privilege, since his guardianship was temporary. But all that mattered was Alanna. If it worked, her mind would be out of his reach, but it would also be out of reach of Stephen’s.
He couldn’t make an obvious overture to his servant, especially not in this company, but he would do it. Niall?
The man bowed his head, pressing his fingers harder against the glass. If there’s any chance she can be free of this bastard, we need to do it.
Evan met Lyssa’s gaze. “I’ve never met a servant as strong as Alanna. Given the strength of my own servant, that’s saying something. Let’s give her the chance to fight.”
If the treatment had not involved Stephen, they could have transported him outside of the range of her mind, taken him to the North Pole. But Brian needed daily samples, comparisons, brain activity readings on them both.
Though Evan knew Stephen had to remain untouched for the treatment to have any chance of success, watching her continued torment made Evan appreciate Daegan’s and Gideon’s wisdom. Throughout the three weeks, neither male told him where on the estate the vampire traitor was being held.
When day twenty-one had passed with no obvious change, Evan felt like his soul had been torn in two. Even Lord Brian and Debra, who’d given so much to this effort, looked affected by it. On day twenty-two, he would have to confront other options. No. The only other option. Near midnight, he left Niall watching over her, and went to find Daegan. The assassin was in the garden, doing graceful, lethal exercises with his katana while Gideon straddled a bench, cleaning and sharpening an array of knives. Given his reason for seeking Daegan out, the sight brought Evan up short.
The vampire’s awareness was as finely tuned as that of any predator Evan had witnessed. So he wasn’t surprised when Daegan’s attention turned to him the moment he stepped on the path toward them.
They didn’t offer small talk, empty chatter. Things were well past that. Since Evan had second marks on Alanna, he could hear what was happening in her mind, pulling him into the hell with her whenever he lowered the shield between them. At first, he’d felt he was abandoning her by keeping that wall up. Finding his way through the maze of her nightmares had been futile, though. It had made it far worse for her as well, Stephen punishing her for Evan’s competing presence, the fucking hell spawn. When Evan had tried harder to break through, it had affected Niall as well. Evan had passed out in front of Alanna’s window one night, suffering a gushing nosebleed. Debra went to get Niall and found him almost impossible to rouse, in a sleep so deep, his body so cold, she’d struggled to find his pulse.
Lyssa has forbidden you to lower the shield between your minds again. Lord Uthe had delivered the stern admonition to him in his room, while he was cleaning up. His gentle fingers on Evan’s face, the rough threading through his hair, had belied the reproof. I know you will not heed her words if you think it will help the girl, but think of Niall’s well-being. Your own sanity.
His sire was right. He hated it, though. There’d been no way to help her. Not until now.
“If this goes on much longer . . .” He cleared his throat, met Daegan’s gaze. “If we can’t sever their link, I’m going to ask the Council to spare Stephen’s life. I’ll take over any care and expense associated with that.” He’d devote his life to being the vampire’s jailer. “I want to free her the only way we can, for as long as we can.”
The second part was much harder to say. “If the Council agrees . . . you know how to take a life without pain? Any pain at all?”
Daegan’s dark eyes were fathomless, but in them, Evan sensed the poignant understanding. Gideon rose, coming to his Master’s side.
“Yeah, he can.” The servant’s midnight blue eyes revealed an empathy with Evan’s plight that almost cracked him open, then and there. “He’ll make it as gentle as a mother laying a baby down for a nap.”