Then she recalled the way Mason had touched this woman, smiling intimately at her. Vampire queen, Fey-bird . . . thing, Jessica was not going to fall apart in front of her. Pride, that ridiculous thing she’d discarded for so long, had somehow gotten a tenuous grasp on her. Even though she suspected Lyssa could shatter her pride as effectively as Raithe.
Taking the edges of the shirt, Jessica raised it. While she could have taken her arms out of the sleeves and yoked it around her neck, she didn’t. Straightening her spine, she removed the garment, laying it over the stool in front of her. She felt Lyssa’s regard on her flesh like a burn, and when the woman’s fingers grazed the scars, she jerked. She couldn’t help that, but she was surprised when Lyssa made a soothing noise, and she realized the touch was gentle.
“Easy, child. Mason has shown me some of your experiences.” Her tone became hard. “A vampire like Raithe will not be missed.
Unfortunately, not missed isn’t the same as forgotten.”
“No, my lady.” Jessica worked the words past the ache of her throat.
“The tattoo is lovely work, though. An intriguing choice. Yours or Mason’s?”
“Mine, my lady.” She wanted to ask the queen to stop, else she would crack like one of Dev’s eggs, what was barely held together inside running out before she could stop it.
“Where is your third mark? I wish to see it.”
She’d always thought of pants as a more substantial covering than a skirt, but in a situation like this, the quick ability of a skirt to be lifted and then dropped to reconceal was much more comforting. Jessica cleared her throat. “I’d be willing to let you see it, my lady, if I could go put on more suitable garments to reveal it.”
“You mistake me, Jessica. I didn’t ask if you were willing. Turn toward me.” The words fired through her mind like a shot flushing out a flock of vultures, feeding on the carrion of her memories. The room began to tilt, her palms to sweat.
No. Jessica forced the world to steady with the one word. Had Mason drifted back off, or was he seeing how this played out? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but he’d said he wouldn’t let anyone harm her. Perhaps he was listening, and seeing if she would trust in those words without his physical or mental presence to reinforce it. Or perhaps she was giving a vampire more credit than he deserved and he was snoring, oblivious in his bed.
There was only one way to find out.
She pivoted to face the seated woman. “Lady Lyssa,” she said, though her voice shook like a child’s, “as a third-marked servant, you know I obey the wishes of my Master. If he commands me to show it to you, I will do so. But until then, I don’t feel it’s appropriate for me to submit to your desires.”
Dev was still behind Lyssa, working on her hair, though Jess could sense his attention. His earlier friendliness had vanished from her mind. Now all she could remember were the servants who, at best, would only look at her pityingly when she resisted her fate.
Then there were the worst, those who’d helped Raithe find Jack, who’d hauled away his body afterward. His lesson to remind her how alone she was, how she couldn’t count on anyone to protect her.
Her hands closed into tight fists, a tremor sweeping the taut scars embedded forever in that tattoo. She couldn’t run this time.
Bolting yesterday when Mason was present had been accepted as a one-time thing. Lady Lyssa would have her down on the tile floor in an instant if she moved a foot. The dangerous vibrations from her said so.
“Dev, please leave us.”
The queen spoke with quiet firmness. The Australian moved away from Lady Lyssa to turn off the stove, then brushed Jess’s shoulder as he passed behind her. Perhaps he meant it as further reassurance, but he was still abandoning her to her fate without a look back. She expected nothing more of a human servant.“Jessica, you may put your shirt back on.”
As Jess did so, she was surprised when Lyssa sat back, and began to plait her hair, a thoughtful look on her face. The silk wrapper was loose, showing Jess the curve of ample breasts. A nursing mother’s breasts, at odds with the sleek and lean predator she’d seen only a few minutes before. Lord Mason had snorted over the idea of Lyssa as nurturing. Yet, remembering her protectiveness with her son, Jess recalled this was the female who’d rescued Mason from the rock pit, who’d led him away from self-destruction, not once, but twice.
She wasn’t sure if Lyssa was waiting, or deciding how to react to her stubbornness, like a spider contemplating how best to subdue the dinner caught in her web, but Jessica spoke before she could find out.
“If I may revise my position, my lady”—she focused hard on the slim hands, braiding the dark hair—“though I am commanded only by Lord Mason, I would honor the request of the one who saved his life.” Lyssa’s hands stilled, but Jess did not raise her gaze. She unfastened the jeans, and then, trying not to think too much about what she was doing, she slid them off, balancing to remove them entirely because she couldn’t bear to feel hobbled. Then she straightened, her lower body exposed to the lady’s gaze.
Lyssa’s jade eyes slid down the front of her T-shirt, to her exposed mons, and lower, to her thighs. Willing the shaky tremor of her limbs to cease, Jessica spread her stance, knowing the tiger mark slid too far inward to be clearly viewed without spreading the legs. It was said that vampires had no control on how a mark manifested itself, but in this case, she wouldn’t be surprised if that feature of her mark was a reflection of Mason’s appetites. At a quiet movement at the kitchen entrance, she saw Devlin deposit a folded skirt on the counter, within Jess’s reach, his gaze briefly sliding over her before he took his leave again.
“Definitely a daily flogging.” Lyssa’s voice reflected acidic amusement. But when Jessica turned her attention to the other female again, she didn’t see any of it in the queen’s face. Lyssa touched the tiger mark, impersonally enough that Jessica didn’t feel it was sexual, but the physical intimacy was there, enough to keep her from relaxing her guard. Lyssa raised her gaze to her face.
“You understand the significance of this. And yet you still intend to leave him. You may dress.” Jessica immediately turned, pulling the skirt across the counter, and stepped into it. Yanking it over her hips, she backed away from Lyssa, behind the deceptive safety of the counter. She wondered how Devlin had found her room and the skirt in it so quickly. And how he’d been that damned intuitive. “I don’t know, my lady. This life was not my choice. He is giving me a choice.”
“I understand that,” Lyssa responded, impatience in her voice. “Mason has had many human servants in his lifetime. Only two have ever born the mark of his own totem.”
“I’m not her.”
“No, you’re not. You’re stronger, smarter, more ruthless.” Lyssa rose, a quick snap of movement that suggested she might not have vampire speed, but it still exceeded mortal abilities. “If it had been you in that situation three hundred years ago, you would have found a way to contact me, to bring me and what other few friends he has to his aid. You wouldn’t have died in a futile act of nobility, plunging his soul into darkness for three hundred years.”
Jessica was too stunned by the words to remember not to meet her eyes. Lyssa’s expression was flat, but the fierceness in her gaze had all but swallowed the jade color, leaving Jess a forceful impression of darkness.
“She didn’t know about you.”
“Yes, she did. He’d told her. As much as she defied convention to be with him, she had her people’s inherent distrust of outsiders, and way too much faith in her God. Nomadic peoples like Farida’s are intensely community dependent. In the end, that was what brought tragedy upon them. When she rode into the camp and faced the hatred of her family, she believed her death, and Mason’s, was meant to be.”
Startled, Jess’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
“While she knew her love with Mason was sacred, honor to one’s family was sacred as well. She’d committed a grave sin against them, and she realized the price must be paid.” Lyssa tightened her slim jaw. “She understood by that time that the vampire world would never accept the idea that Mason loved her the way he did. So no community would have either her or Mason. If she gave herself willingly to Allah’s judgment, perhaps she and Mason might then be together in another world, a Heaven where such love would be treasured and not scorned, if she suffered enough.”
“This wasn’t . . . She didn’t write any of that down.”
Lyssa’s delicate nostrils flared, her lips thinning. “While he was still in mourning, he told me a great deal about her final thoughts, when the torture that went on for five days broke her mind entirely. All her preconceived notions were torn away, leaving her nothing but desolation, utter hopelessness. I wish her body had been as weak as her mind, and she had died much sooner, before those thoughts could torment him as they have, all these centuries.”
“She loved him, Lady Lyssa.” Galvanized by all that Farida had given her, meant to her, Jessica defended her. “She loved him to the utmost of her ability. But she was a young woman in a sheltered environment. She could only go to the limits of what she could conceive. She can’t be blamed for that.”
“No, she can’t. But I lived hidden from sunlight for over a thousand years, Jessica. The first time I felt it on my skin, I wasn’t sure how to react to it, but I adapted. I learned what its dangers and pleasures were. I pity the fact she didn’t have time to do that. But I ache for his pain, his loneliness all these years, the blame he’s put on his shoulders.” Lyssa turned away toward the window, her lips pressed together. The sunlight limned her petite oval features, bringing the jade glimmer back. One hand lay gracefully on the back of a chair, the other resting on the doorjamb. The silk wrapper molded her curves, revealed the line of one smooth leg.
She was a painting, a creature who, on first glance, wouldn’t understand limits and boundaries such as Farida and Jess had experienced, for everything about her shattered preconceived notions. But then Jessica recalled that she’d risked her life, given up her authority and exalted position in the vampire world, to save Jacob. When Mason came out of the rocks half mad with bloodlust, she’d let him tear into her flesh, held him in her arms.