Turning his attention to Lord Uthe, he executed another bow. “Long ago, you asked me a question.”
“If you could live forever, how far do you think you could go as an artist?” the stranger asked. “Is limited mortality necessary to achieve and maintain creative genius?”
Evan had just finished up one of his coughing fits. The stranger had calmly held his frail body, blotted away the blood on his lips, and now handed him a glass of water poured from the side table. At one time, his mother had rushed up to his attic room every time she heard one of the episodes start, but seeing her exhaustion mounting, he’d begged her to let him deal with it himself. He wanted to be as much of a man as he could manage, with whatever time he had left.
“Since I can only speak from a position of limited mortality—extremely limited mortality,” Evan replied, “I can’t say. But I do know I can stare at the same blue sky and find something different in it every moment. I don’t think it’s a matter of time; it’s a man’s relationship to time. The realization that there’s never enough, even in immortality. Look at God Himself . . . here before the very beginning of all things, and He never gets tired of meddling with us, right?”
He supposed that bordered on blasphemous disrespect, but seeing as he was poised on the edge of meeting the deity in question, he expected God Himself would address his impertinence.
His visitor smiled. “If you’re willing, I’ll give you the opportunity to test the theory.”
“And say you can do this unlikely thing”—Evan’s brows rose—“why would you offer it to me?”
“Because I want to see what a true artist will do with forever.”
“I see that same potential when I look at Niall,” Evan said, seeing the memory resurrected in Uthe’s gaze. “It’s not in every man, the wherewithal to know what to do with centuries, but there is a slow steadiness to him, like the growth of an oak over hundreds of years, where his imprint becomes a more vital part to the world around him with every year that passes. I ask that he be given the same chance you gave me, for the same reason.”
He paused. “Whereas you turned me so I could continue to put things to canvas, Niall is the canvas, the painting that I want to endure until the end of time. That way, as long as Fate permits it, he’s there for all of us to enjoy.” To love.
He didn’t add it, but he supposed it hung out there in the air, noticed but unspoken. He thought of how Alanna had put it together so quickly. A muse can be male, Master.
Should Niall agree, Evan would have two muses, and they would carry him through eternity. As long as they could put up with him. He suppressed the smile, but it didn’t dispel the tension he concealed.
“There’s something else about Niall that suggests his suitability,” he added. “He’s a sexual Dominant. He submits to me, but in those we’ve shared, it quickly rises to the top. Alanna responded to it almost immediately.”
“Explaining why she slipped and called both of you Master?”
The queen missed nothing, God’s truth. Next she’d ask if he’d catered to the notion, cultivated it in his servant, and that would be a can of worms. He’d defuse it by hinting at the truth. “Yes. I expect so. Being a submissive has never been a good fit for Niall. Because of that, as well as my travels, my art, we’ve had an unexpected relationship as vampire and servant. He has been of course in a position of service to me, but I’ve always suspected, in that particular regard, we are cut from the same cloth.”
“Very well. We will have you step outside while we discuss and come to our decision on both matters. But should we agree on all counts, I feel it would be appropriate for both of you to third-mark Alanna, to protect and facilitate her service. Do you disagree?”
“Not at all,” Evan said. He would welcome it. He was certain Alanna would as well. She was intuitive that way.
He’d rendered Niall speechless. Probably realizing that reaction wasn’t an automatic assent, Alanna bit back any congratulatory exclamation. She was watching the Scot’s face as carefully as Evan.
“Three hundred years ago, I refused to let you slip from my fingers,” Evan continued steadily. “And now Alanna needs us both . . .”
Niall’s gaze flickered, recognizing the manipulative tactic. But a vampire was a vampire. “I need you both,” Evan admitted. “But that said, it is fully your choice, Niall. Neither Alanna nor I will try to force your decision. You must come to this yourself. But there’s more to it. We would both mark you, Alanna. You would have two Masters.”
“I think you both already are,” she said simply.
“I need to think.” Niall rose.
Though he’d expected that, Evan bit back a feeling of disappointment. Instead he rose as well. “It’s not an easy decision.”
“Aye.” Niall nodded toward Alanna. “But don’t wait on me. Go ahead and mark her as soon as we reach that seventy-two-hour mark, so she can regain her strength.”
“No.”
They both looked toward Alanna. “No,” she repeated. “It feels like I should wait until the decision is made, whether yes or no. And the one choice a servant has is to be marked, right?”
Evan sat back down and grasped her wrist, drawing her attention to the pulse which was still far too thready. “Alanna, you’re very weak. The audience with the Council posed an unacceptable danger to you. Your body is human right now, and very fragile. To ensure it stays on this side of the curtain, you must be marked as soon as possible.”
When her lips tightened with uncharacteristic stubbornness, he sharpened his tone. “You’re not being fair to Niall. You’ll hasten his decision, and it’s not a decision to be made without thought. Whatever he chooses, we will respect it, and care for him as we always have. Whatever happens . . . we will bear it. As two or three, but it will be borne.”
It didn’t matter that the idea stabbed through his chest like one of Niall’s wooden stakes. He made himself look toward Niall as he said the next words. “When Niall came into my service, the choice I gave him was not a choice at all, not to a man of honor. I won’t do that to him again.”
Niall stared at him, his tawny eyes suddenly full of a great many reactions. Alanna relented, reaching for the Scot’s hand. “I’m sorry, Niall,” she whispered. “I know he’s right. But I’ve never been allowed to want, and I didn’t realize how . . . overwhelming it can be.”
Niall’s expression flickered with pain. Stepping close enough to press her head against his abdomen, he dropped a kiss on her smooth skull. “Muirnín . . .” He drifted off helplessly, but then he knelt, caught her chin, held it in thumb and forefinger, gazing at her sternly. “If ye see us both as your Master, he’ll mark you the moment the clock ticks to that seventy-two-hour mark. Whatever Fate decides, you’ll ease our minds, and it will give ye the strength tae serve one or both of us. Ye mind me?”
Her eyes closed tight, her hand clutched on his. “Yes, Master.”
The Scot needed out of here, needed room to breathe. Evan could see it. Letting him walk out without giving his answer was as hard for him as he was sure it was for Alanna. But the vampire understood how it must be.
I’ll watch over her, Niall.
Niall acknowledged the thought with a slight nod, then rose, holding on to her hand. “Remember ye only have the one job ’til you’re marked. Keep your arse in this bed and save your strength.”
She tilted her head, a wicked spark in her brown eyes. “You can’t order me around if you’re not a vampire.”
“That order came direct from Lady Lyssa,” he reminded her. But he brought her hand down to his belt, made her close slim fingers on it. Though he was as likely to use it on her in her current state as he would on a newborn, his severe look almost made Evan believe otherwise. Yes, the Scot would do just fine as a vampire. If he agreed to it.
“I can order you whether I’m human, servant or vampire, lass. If you think I willnae turn your skinny body over my knee and whale on ye until you mind, think again.” But he caressed her face. “Care for yourself, muirnín. You nearly killed us with worry.”
Her gaze sobered. Dipping her head, she put her lips to his knuckles. “I will. I promise.”
Niall stroked her sensitive scalp, but raised an eyebrow at Evan. “Either she’s promising to worry us to death or obey, I’m nae certain which.”
With a wink and a smile, he stepped back. But when he turned and strode for the door, they saw the tension return to his shoulders. It was clear the smile had only been to soothe her.
“You’re in his mind, Master,” Alanna murmured. “What do you think he will choose?”
Evan shook his head. “Some decisions can’t be predicted, even if you’re in a man’s mind.”
“Will you go to him?”
“No. But if he desires to come to me, I will be available. It’s his decision, Alanna. I must honor him enough to give him the room to make it.”
“Men put such store by honor.” She shook her head, frustration obvious on her features. “Women value love. Does he know how you feel?”
Evan cocked a brow at her. “A fairly insolent question for a servant to ask.”
She pressed her lips together. “It may help him make his decision, Master.”
“He knows how I feel. It is how he feels that is the question.”
The exertion of the conversation sent Alanna back to sleep soon after that. At Evan’s request, Debra left a trusted member of the estate staff at her bedside. He was only going as far as the gardens right outside her window, could even see her, but he wanted to know immediately if she experienced any distress. He wouldn’t have left her at all except he needed some air himself, a chance to evaluate the events of the day, as well as how it might end. The past three weeks had depleted him and Niall both, on many levels, and some wretchedly insecure part of him wondered if he should have waited to tell Niall when he was more rested, more optimistic.