“Eggs, love?”
The Aussie was fully clothed this morning, in the khaki trousers he seemed to favor, a white T-shirt and hiking boots.
“How did you know it was me?” She shook her head. “Of course, the third mark.”
“Well, it does enhance things a bit. But that jasmine soap you wear teases a man’s senses. And you carry Mason’s scent as well.
’Course I knew it wasn’t him, this time of day. Have a seat and I’ll feed you.” She wasn’t sure what to think about the curl of warmth in her belly at the idea Mason’s scent was upon her, so she focused on more practical matters. “I feel like I should be feeding you. I’m sorry you’re having to do for yourself.” The surprise in his gaze was reassuring. He swept his attention over his surroundings. “This is nowhere near doing for myself, love.
There’ve been mornings a few moths and a snake were the best I could do for breakfast, after a night on the hard ground with no warm and generous arse, like my lady’s, to snuggle up to.”
Considering she’d experienced five years where feeling safe and warm were as remote possibilities as a heavenly welcome for Raithe, she had to agree with him. The smile she gave him was genuine. “You’re absolutely right.”
“That I am. Really, this is a holiday of sorts for us. No one to impress or pretend for. No chance my Mistress can put me into unlikely situations to feed her insatiable needs.” He winked and then winced. “Ah, she heard that. Light sleeper, that one.”
“Where are Lady Lyssa and Kane?”
“Poor bloke.” Dev grimaced. “They’ll have a time of it when that one’s running about on his pins. He has the vampire aversion to the sun, so he’s sleeping with Jacob until Lyssa gets back from her morning flight. She’ll be back”—he glanced toward the window—“right about now.”
Flight? Jessica looked out the bay of windows, only to suck in an astounded breath. A creature was flying above the shore, circling down toward the sand of the beach. Blinking several times, she wondered if she was distorting a pelican into a much larger size.
She doubted it, because what she was looking at reminded her of an effeminate but still powerful gargoyle, one who’d somehow managed to free herself from the edge of a French cathedral. Sleek silver-gray skin, the small skull devoid of hair. Pointed, elongated ears, with fangs pronounced and curving out over her bottom lip. The flying creature had a long tail with a sharp spike end and lethal-looking talons for fingers. It gave the creature a deadly appearance despite a thinness that showed every rib. While Jessica could detect the mounds of her breasts, they were integrated into lean musculature. Large, round eyes, spaced wide like an animal’s, no whites, just pure darkness, riveted on the house as she chose her landing area. Leatherlike wings came to a half fold as she met the ground, exposing another wicked-looking claw on the elbow joint. Jess estimated the wings were about ten feet, tip to tip.
As Jess continued to stare, the being drew herself upright and began to move forward, such that what had been an animal crouch and stride melted into a woman’s graceful movement. The wings folded down and vanished, the gray fading into creamy skin, the talons retracting. In a blink, she was looking at a naked Lady Lyssa, who bent to retrieve the silk wrapper she’d left on the sand.
Shrugging into it, she freed her yards of silken dark hair from the collar before twisting it up in a clip.
“It’s quite something, first time you see it, isn’t it?” Dev slid a plate of pancakes and eggs next to Jess at the kitchen island, nodded to it and began to fry a couple more for himself.
“She’s . . . Is that what a Fey looks like?”
“Hard to say. She’s the only one I know. Jacob says the Fey come in all shapes and sizes. Since she’s the first ever that’s a mix of vampire and Fey parentage, she’s the only one of her kind that anyone knows about. Might want to eat that before it gets cold.”
“She’s amazing.” Jessica swallowed a bite of egg that didn’t go down as smoothly as she expected, watching the breathtaking woman make her way back up toward the house. She remembered the elegant bare body, no marks on it, sheer perfection.
“Mmm. You’re nothing to scoff at, love. Lord Mason may have a past with her, but you’re his present.” Jessica glanced at the Australian who, despite the comment, had his back to her at the stove. “Am I that pathetically transparent?” He chuckled. “Only to another servant.” But then he raised a serious gaze to her. “We all deal with it, figuring out what we mean to our Master or Mistress. It’s hard to explain or classify, based on what we knew of relationships before, so the first decade or two, we all have some confusing, bad times.”
“Like Jacob, last night?”
“Yes and no.” Dev shrugged. “That wasn’t too bad, all in all. Jacob has it figured out pretty well, better than I’d expect for as short a time as he’s been with her. But when you see those two together, it makes sense. It’s like they’ve been together since before time began. Of course, as he said, he couldn’t let that pass last night. Not only because of how he felt about it personally. He’s with a very strong woman. She won’t respect anything less from him. And no matter how things stand”—he sent a meaningful glance out the window—“don’t make the fatal mistake of thinking she’s like us servants, just because he’s marked her as one.”
“No chance of that, unless I was a complete idiot,” she observed dryly, and earned another grin. “How about you? And Lady Danny?”
At his arched brow, she bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I know I seem to be nosy, but it’s not personal curiosity. Not completely. It’s—” He waved a hand, dismissing the apology. Grabbing a pot holder, he dumped the biscuits into a bread basket and put them on the table. “We’ve all been through the Q and A period, love. In the beginning, with this lot, you have far more of the Q than the A.
Lady Danny is my Mistress,” he said bluntly. “I serve her, however she needs me. That’s unconditional, though I’m not saying she and I don’t have the occasional blue on what her needs truly are.”
When he flinched again, he tempered it with a grin. “Serves you right, for eavesdropping instead of sleeping,” he said to the air in front of him, then winked at Jessica. “You know, you women don’t always know what’s best for you.”
“Oh, really?” Jessica fired a biscuit at him, which he countered with a block by his spatula, and caught the spinning bread deftly in the air.
“Crikey, it’s a flank attack. I’m buggered now.” Taking a bite, he winked at her, leaning back on the sink. Even as she shook her head at him, she didn’t stop smiling. While vampires were all beautiful, she was beginning to appreciate their choices in servants as well. A man who looked like that, who could cook like this . . .
I can cook too, habiba.
She laughed out loud then. Dev gave her an amused look, but didn’t ask her what she was laughing at. Another intuitive sense of servants, apparently, knowing when these dual conversations were occurring.
Then Lady Lyssa came in the kitchen door. Without conscious thought, tension returned to Jessica’s shoulders. She stopped short of standing, but it was a near thing. Lyssa had gone through the outdoor shower, because she was toweling her hair and mopping at some of the beads of water running down her throat. She swept her glance over Jessica, but then found Dev.
“Eggs, my lady?” he queried. “A pancake?”
“No, I found food. A boar.”
“The whole thing?” Dev cleared his throat at her searing look. “Which is entirely appropriate, of course, because you’re eating for three. Left the hooves?”
Lyssa gave him a gimlet eye. “Danny really should have you whipped daily. I’m going to suggest it to her.”
“I promise, my lady, she chides me well and often on my many faults.”
“Hmm. I’ve never been in a temperate rain forest.” Lyssa changed subjects so easily, Jess realized the sardonic banter was a familiar ritual. The tight coil in her belly eased a wary fraction. “I’ll have to take Jacob through it tonight. Beautiful, really. Dev?”
“ ’Course, my lady.” Setting his frying pan off the burner, he came to the table where she’d found a seat. Taking up the towel, he helped dry the thick ribbons of her hair. When he nodded to the comb on the counter next to Jessica, she handed it to him, watching the big man’s hands move with ease over Lady Lyssa’s scalp, working out tangles.
So it seemed Lyssa and Danny visited each other often enough that Lyssa felt comfortable borrowing her servant. It made sense, since the four were obviously bound by a unique set of vampire- human servant relationships. Unfortunately, that was not enough to calm her suddenly reactivated nerves when Lyssa glanced at her. Before Jess could look away, avoiding the appearance of insult, Lyssa pointed in front of her. “Come here.”
Though Dev had said her vampire powers were gone, it was obvious to Jessica that Lyssa expected to be obeyed, whether as Fey or vampire. It reminded her of the memory Mason had shared. She’s always a queen, and only a fool would underestimate it.
While Dev sent her a reassuring glance, Jessica still had to force herself off the stool to stand before Lyssa. Before she could wonder if Lyssa wanted her to kneel, the female made a motion for her to turn around.
As Jess did, she felt Lyssa’s eyes boring through the light cloth on her back. “Remove your shirt. I want a closer look at that work.”
She swallowed. “May I ask why, my lady?”
“Because I commanded you to do so. I will not do so twice.”
Her lower abdomen roiled, eggs rising uneasily as her heartbeat started to do a birdlike, panicked flutter. Of course, Raithe would have already knocked her to her knees with a fist to her temple for daring to open her mouth rather than instantly comply.