Niall looked down at his hands. Evan could tell the man was struggling with something. He could have looked in his mind, but Niall was right; he was as exhausted as his servant. He waited for him to say it.
“I cannae leave, Evan. I’m not trying to be an arse about things. I’m afraid she might wake up, and say something, and that will be it. I’ll have missed it. Ceana . . . she died when I was outside taking a piss. Twenty seconds, maybe, and she was gone. I didnae ken . . . maybe she said something. Maybe she would have cursed me.”
“For being a good husband, a loving father, a man who stood by her?”
Niall lifted his head. When the Scot leaned forward, touched Evan’s face over Alanna’s thin legs, hidden in the quilt, Evan stayed still. During the past twenty-two days, there’d been no Master or servant, just two men enduring something unbearable. It was a hell he never wanted to experience again, but he had a feeling it would replay itself on a nightmarish series of works. Marcus would call it his Dark Period and try to force him to wear Goth clothing at gallery openings.
The Scot’s mouth curved in a tired, grim smile. “You’d look like shite with a safety pin through your eyebrow.”
“I should hope so.” Evan closed his eyes despite himself as Niall’s fingers slid to his jaw. The Scot had such remarkably gentle hands. They could also be rough, passionate, demanding. Evan always countered the demand with demand of his own, forcing submission in their pleasure, for that was a vampire’s nature, and Niall relished the fight, but this was simply a moment to savor. There was no energy to do anything else, but the quietness of it felt right.
Niall rose. “I’ll go, then. Aye, I’m being foolish. You’ll wake me if she . . .”
“Count on it.”
Niall nodded, then turned. Evan watched his servant move to the doorway, but once there, he stopped. He didn’t turn, but his unsteady voice came clearly over his shoulder to Evan.
“These past few weeks,” he said, “waiting on her, praying, hoping for her, wishing I could tear that bastard apart, I could see the same thing happening to you. Yet until today, until she woke . . . I reached out tae you because I needed your strength.” The Scot straightened, faced him. “You’re nae the biggest of this lot, Evan, but there’s a core to you I’ve relied on to bear all my pain and regrets. You’ve cared for me, no matter all that.”
He’d told Alanna that Jewish men were more susceptible to emotional displays, but they were never acceptable in the vampire world. However, even if every vampire Evan knew was crowded into this room, he’d still do what he did now.
Rising, he went to his servant. “You’re not being foolish,” he said, putting a hand on his jaw. Niall’s eyes closed, and he turned his face into Evan’s palm, the wide shoulders dropping, body fairly crumpling, but Evan caught his weight, held him close. It wasn’t just Alanna the past few weeks had nearly killed. He could feel Niall’s utter exhaustion, so deep. If this had shortened his life further . . . Panic at the thought squeezed him. He shared some of Niall’s same fears, after all.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, low, gripping the man’s hair. “You’ll sleep on the cot here. I want both my servants where I can see them, touch them.”
He didn’t care that the mark was gone. Alanna was his servant. He’d imprinted on her soul, no matter the lack of physical binding, and he’d do whatever he could to keep both of them as long as possible. Even if he had to make a deal with the devil to do it.
Alanna swam in that gray mist, too tired to think, but content, easy. She heard men’s voices, men she knew. Trusted. Sometimes one of them laid next to her, spinning in that world with her, one hand on her stomach or hip, the other stroking her bare scalp. Was her hair gone? She was like a babe in truth, curled up and drifting in a quiet, womblike world.
Soft rays of sunlight penetrated her gray dawn. As she rode those beams, passing her hands through them, she felt warmth on her face. The light brush of flower petals, their fragrance.
“Wake up, muirnín. Our Master needs you.”
She responded to that as she responded to nothing else, trying to push toward where the light was brightest.
“Easy. Take your time.” Her Master’s voice. “Don’t rush. Come to us like a butterfly. Just float in this direction.”
The words were spoken in a warm voice, but they were an order nonetheless. She floated, even putting out her arms like wings, entranced by the way it felt to let them glide up and back like that. She was moving toward something, something that took shape, shadows and silhouettes. She recalled nightmares, things so horrifying she didn’t dare turn around for fear they were behind her. She was moving toward safety. Toward their arms. The nightmares wouldn’t outrun her.
She opened her eyes, and there they were.
Her arms were out to her sides, just like in her mind, and now she let one of them float into Niall’s grasp, the other already in her Master’s. She wasn’t sure she could breathe. Were they real? They had to be.She spoke their names, but her voice was not her own. It was a weak, broken whisper. Evan squeezed her hand. “Lord Brian says you’ll likely get your vocal cords back once you’re third-marked again, though your voice quality might be different.”
“A sultry rasp, like a Hollywood starlet, muirnín.”
Third-marked again? The warmth she’d felt from their presence, their touch, was swept away with a renewed awareness of the cold emptiness. She had no marks at all, belonged to no vampire, was bound to no one. She clutched at their hands, panic in her grip. “Why? Can’t you . . . Master. Don’t want me anymore . . . ?”
Evan’s face changed in a heartbeat from concern and welcome to an emotion so strong she didn’t have a name to it, but it was the most reassuring thing she’d ever seen. “I will want you forever, Alanna. I’ve asked the Council to consider me as your permanent Master. But they must make the decision.”
“One which requires more input.”
Her gaze shifted to a man standing at the foot of her bed. “Cold. Cloak . . . on my shoulders. Blue eyes. Jacob.”
His blue eyes warmed. “Good to see you with us again, Alanna,” he said gently. With the ease of a man used to touching and pleasing women—in fact, she recalled his primary job was to do that for one of the most difficult and intimidating females she knew—he put his hand on her covered foot, a small protrusion beneath several layers of linens, and squeezed.
“The Council wants to ask Alanna some questions.” He directed the comment to Lord Brian, who stood back from the bed, allowing them access to her. “When will she be up to a visit from them?”
Horror flooded her. She shook her head, finding her hand fastened on Niall’s shirtfront. “No . . . Council doesn’t attend me . . . like this. I . . . get dressed. Properly. Proper audience. Go to them.”
“Muirnín, you’re weak as a newborn. Ye cannae even stand yet.”
Niall’s hand covered hers. That touch felt so good tears welled up in her eyes, despite the fact her mind was on the Council’s request. He patted them away with a handkerchief, telling her it was not the first time tears had spontaneously generated.
She looked toward Evan in mute appeal. The vampire studied her, then gave a slight nod. “Jacob, would they permit an audience with my serv—Alanna, at the midnight break? We can prepare and carry her there. She feels it isn’t befitting for the Council to come to the bedside of a servant.”
“The Council tends to make their own decisions about what befits them.” Jacob’s tone held a mild reproof, though he nodded in deference to Evan. “But I’ll advise my lady that she might be more coherent and prepared for their questions if she came to them in the appropriate setting. I’ll suggest tomorrow evening, the dinner hour, because they have plenty to keep them busy tonight.”
He gave Alanna a pointed look, then glanced at Evan once more. “If she can’t manage it then, Lady Lyssa has no problem coming to her. Don’t let her overdo.”
“We’ll make certain o’ it,” Niall said. “No matter whose the Council thinks she is.”
“Niall.” Evan shot him a warning glance.
“We’ll see you then.” Giving Alanna a warm nod, Jacob turned, putting a hand on Niall’s shoulder. No words were exchanged, but Alanna fathomed both compassion and warning in Jacob’s face. Niall’s jaw tightened, but he gave the other man a slight nod. With a cordial glance toward Brian and Evan, the queen’s servant left.
Evan shook his head, touched Alanna’s face. She leaned into it like the touch of sunlight, a trembling breath leaving her. More tears. It was ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop them. She hoped she had better control of far more embarrassing bodily functions. His gray eyes softened on her, and his voice was thicker than usual. “For as docile as you appear, you’re as stubborn as he is.”
Her attention went to the Scot, who was gazing at her with such steady intensity. Her hand was still latched in his shirtfront. When he touched her head, she made another soft sound, following his touch with shaking fingers to her scalp.
“The treatment to sever your marks was a poison,” Evan explained. “When your hair became so thin it was obvious you were going to lose all of it, I had them shave it off, so it would grow back more evenly when the time came.”
If it had come. She was realizing how close a thing it had all been. “Stephen . . .”
“He’s dead. May the devil enjoy him.” Niall bent, brushed his lips over her skull. The nerve endings were so sensitive, she shivered, particularly when his fingers trailed down the back, over the occipital bone. “You’re free of him.”
“But not of . . . you two?” She tried for a smile, and God in heaven, even the strain of that caused tears. But this time, it wasn’t a separate, merely physical reaction. Two sets of arms closed around her, the men shifting onto the bed to hold her as she cried. Her head ended up on Niall’s shoulder, her hand clutching Evan’s thigh, both men soothing her. It was nerves, and so many other things. As they rocked her between them, she noticed Niall gripping Evan’s biceps where their arms overlapped on her back.