“God, couldn"t you let me lie to myself once?”
“No more than you could allow Gideon to do so. It"s not in those of our nature.”
“We have to pick the flesh off the bones, take everything.” Pivoting, she strode across the garden, her fists clenched. “I told you at the beginning I wanted to give Gideon as much privacy in his head as possible, and you seemed dubious about it, like a parent indulging a child who doesn"t really understand the way the world is. But I wasn"t ready to be that much of a vampire yet, at least when lust wasn"t part of the equation.” She shook her head. She knew all about denial and reward, boundaries and consent. She"d wanted to stick with the human etiquette on those things, at the very least until she could get her own moral code integrated with her new self. But it seemed that, every day, the one was eroding before the force of the other.
“Daegan, when he resists, those voices, the blood, override everything else. They want me to push him to breaking, not the way a Mistress wants to push a submissive into his subspace, not a breakthrough. They want blood, failure, destruction. Is that what we did tonight, and we were just lucky it worked out okay? Is he right to hate and fear that part of me?”
“You didn"t let them override you. You didn"t push him so hard that you tore him to pieces.
You, Anwyn, stayed in control. Guided me, so we didn"t push him too hard. He"s in new territory, he"s bleeding from those old wounds, but it may help some of those wounds heal.
Don"t underestimate this man. There"s far more there than you realize.” He came to her, gripped her shoulders. “You"ve never been the type of woman to hide from the truth in yourself. Your predator"s blood doesn"t rule you. You do.”
“Why are you so determined to let him kill himself?” she said, frustrated. “You"d forbid me to do anything that would endanger my life. Hell, you"d use chains or whatever force necessary to keep me away from it, even if I cursed you down to your balls. Sexist bastard.”
“It"s more than that. Anwyn, the things we did for you were because you couldn"t control your seizures and reactions. You were a danger to yourself and others, and you understood that. Gideon is a warrior at a crisis of faith. You force him away from what he feels he must do, you will castrate him, and there"s nothing worse to a warrior than that.”
“Sounds like macho drivel that will only get him killed.” She swallowed. “He matters, Daegan. Don"t let him do this. You tried to convince him tonight, and I appreciate that, but he passed the test. Now he"ll be even more determined. Please, I"m begging you. You know I never beg you for anything. Help me keep him here, or at least on the plane. Keep him away from the Council.”
Though regret suffused his features, Daegan shook his head. “Anwyn, I—”
“Fine, I"ll do it myself. I"m stronger than he is, right? I"ll wrestle him to the ground, strip him naked so he can"t hide any weapons, chain him to a pole in the cargo area and tell the pilot to take him wherever he wants to go, as long as it"s back to the mainland U.S. He"s my servant; it"s my decision.”
“Anwyn—”
“This isn"t about me. It"s about him. You wanted to fuck him, because that"s what we do, isn"t it? We find their weaknesses, and they fascinate us. We have to exploit them, use them, because this blood is all about power and dominance. I"ve been a vampire for barely a blink, and I already feel that way. You didn"t even really care about fucking him; you just wanted to do it because he didn"t want you to do it, and you wanted to prove you could make him enjoy it. Just like I got off on watching, like some sick sexual predator . . .”
“It was not like that.” Daegan"s gaze narrowed. “And you know it.”
“Don"t tell me what it was like. I know it; I saw it. You"re as evil as the rest of them. We have to embrace that evil. Why do we fight what we already know is part of us, in our blood?” The shift was too quick, anger becoming something far different, and she clutched at his hands, swaying, fighting herself. No, damn it. I don’t want to do this now.
He pulled her in close to him. “Don"t let them take over, Anwyn. Breathe. Let me in your mind.”
She wouldn"t have been able to keep him out, but later she"d appreciate his courtesy. For now, he invaded like a calming force of wind. The shadow creatures, building in volume like a lynch mob, were thrown into chaos by the disruption. Her blood heated, and she felt her fangs elongating, but she was able to dig in her heels, refuse to let them have this moment. It was stress, and she could control it. Daegan was here. In fact, he"d folded her into his arms and taken them down to the ground in the way he did, where his body caged her with solid, heated flesh and comforted her at once.
It was a near thing. Sometimes it was inevitable, nothing she could stop, but tonight she gazed up at the stars, pressed her face into Daegan"s bare chest, and held on to the tail end of her sanity while those voices muttered and her blood heated to boiling, making her shake and perspiration soak through the terry cloth. But the tide was turning back, a near miss. She swallowed, digging into his forearm.
She took a deep breath, tried to calm herself. “Gideon . . . tells me things, to keep me distracted. So, tell me . . . about Gideon. You followed him for almost a year. Tell me . . .
things about him I don"t know. Things that will help me know which way to go.” She"d never felt so incapable of making decisions, and yet such an urgency to make some before she destroyed his life, her future, and everything she"d built.
“He"s given me a gift. I don"t want . . . to abuse him.”
“But it"s okay to abuse me?” His tone was light, though his gaze remained fastened on her face, his hands both soothing and a restraint, if needed.
She let out a muffled snort, her body twitching but mind calming. “You need abuse . . . on occasion. Humility is a rare experience for you. So tell me more about him. What does the Council know . . . that I don"t? Everything. Don"t . . . pretty it up.”
“Very well.” His voice quiet, he stroked her back as he held her close. “In the past two years, he"s killed a significant number of our kind, for a human hunter. With the exception of two, they fortunately were vampires who had racked up multiple violations of Council rules.
His brother, Jacob, thank all the gods, figured out a way to channel Gideon"s anger, and has been giving him the names of those who have crossed the line. Never speak that truth aloud, cher. I found that out through my own investigations and deductions. If the Council could prove Jacob had been doing that, it would not go well for him. Trust me when I tell you that Jacob Green and Lady Lyssa are the greatest friends to the survival of vampires, though not always to the Vampire Council.
“No vampire hunter has ever had the one-on-one kill rate Gideon Green has. You have seen our speed and strength. He succeeds because he is patient, methodical, and he figures out how to set up the vampire. He is also afraid of nothing. Not in the foolish way that would get him killed, but in the way that has kept him levelheaded in situations where plans went awry and he was caught. You have seen the scars.”
She nodded, remembering the burns, the lash marks. “He"s been caught twice,” Daegan said.
“In both cases, the vampire made a mistake, deciding to make him pay for his gall, rather than quickly dispatching him. In both instances, Gideon managed to escape and finish off the vampire who thought he could teach him a lesson.”
Anwyn thought of her own burgeoning vampire strengths, the ones that had nearly killed Gideon, and those merely a whisper of the formidable powers that Daegan had demonstrated.
“Oh my God,” she murmured. “It"s unreal. He should be dead.”
“Thirteen times over. He is a remarkable man.”
“Damn it, Daegan, they won"t let that pass. They"ll execute him.”
“Gideon has a better grasp of a vampire"s mind than I expected, but I don"t know why that surprises me. A successful hunter does more than have the best weapons. He learns his enemy, inside and out. He believes the Council will be far more . . . gratified . . . seeing him subservient to a vampire.”
She turned her gaze to him. “So they want to see him humiliated. Owned. A true slave. Like dragging kings through the streets of Rome behind a chariot, in chains.”
“Possibly. It is hard to predict. Council politics can be a maze.”
“Everything in me is screaming that this is a bad idea. Daegan, if they hurt him, if they try to take him from me, I won"t be able to stop a seizure. I won"t be able to stop myself from doing whatever bloody, terrible, violent thing I need to do to protect him.” Lifting her up and taking a seat on the bench, he drew her to sit next to him with his arm stretched out behind her, pressing against her shoulder blades. “What you will need to do to protect him will be what you do best. Be a Mistress. That is your greatest weapon to protect him and protect yourself. The world you"re about to enter is Atlantis, one hundred times the intensity. There are no safe words, no rigidly enforced rules when it comes to the treatment of human servants except for those things that protect vampires and their society. What you have the power to do or protect is yours. But it is still the same world as Atlantis. You may not have my physical strength, cher, but I"ve seen you tear open shields twenty inches thick over a man"s soul, and coax it to crawl to your hand. Like a wounded puppy who finally trusts a human to care for him. You use that sorceress"s wisdom you have, and you"ll be fine.” She wanted to believe him, didn"t want his words to increase her worry, but they did.
Daegan made a firm shushing noise in his throat, reminding her she couldn"t get agitated, not right now. She had a legion of demon creatures in her head that they were trying to lull to sleep. The image of tiny horned gargoyles in cradles, rocking along the vine-like pathways of her neurons, came straight from his head, but she couldn"t be amused. “Daegan . . .” He put his hand on her face, stilling her. “Think of it this way. There are two scenarios if you force him to stay behind. First, that Fate outwits me, and some harm does come to you, but he wasn"t there to try and help. Or Fate is kind, my sword is sharp enough, and no harm befalls you. Can you guess what happens after either one of those outcomes?” She set her jaw, but couldn"t refuse that direct gaze. “If I get hurt or killed, and he isn"t allowed to be there, I"ll become another Laura in his mind. That will end him. If I don"t get hurt, then I obviously didn"t need him, and he"s as inconsequential as he believes himself to be.”