Despite his lack of strength, he let her know she wasn’t alone in it. Or perhaps it was the only thing he could seize in his mind that he could bear to embrace.
She heard that thought, even as she kissed him harder, more cruelly, demanding that he surrender it all to her, let her take care of it.
So he could rest. So he could be hers.
Ah, love . . .
It was then she realized she’d actually given him that thought, and that his mind was whirling around it, caught between resistance and desire for her, caught in this moment, knowing the euphoria could lead to great foolishness . . . but he didn’t care.
I am all yours, love. Whatever’s left to have is yours for the taking.
For now, at least. Ironically, what drove him to give so much to her now would, after he slept off the exhaustion, come back to push her away. But she took now, knowing she had a foot in the door. And to think, only a few days ago, when she’d walked into Elle’s place, she’d had no desire to take a full human servant at all.
As he finished, she stilled on him, despite the demand of her own body to finish. She would deny it for now, hold the control, because she knew that would drive him crazy in itself, knowing she hadn’t allowed him to bring her pleasure yet. Give him something else to think about other than the horror of the past few days.
Of course, that would occur to him later, for his prophetic words were amusingly apparent. He was unconscious again. Quietly, she lifted off him, suppressing a needy moan at the way even the semierect state of him could stimulate her pussy, but then she knelt by the tub, picked up soap and washcloth.
As she started the pleasure of giving his fine, muscular body a thorough washing, she stopped, tracing the upper curve of the raven’s wings. They had overlaid the scars of grief he’d cut into his chest, so that the scars looked like ornamental lines, marking the raven’s feathers.
Another reminder, a disquieting one, that often there were powers above vampires as well as humans, directing things. And those powers might decide he couldn’t be hers, that she could have him for only a little time. She’d had enough temporal experiences in her life, no matter her own desires, to know it was possible. Since her mother’s death, her priority had been the punishment of Ian.
Returning here had reminded her that she couldn’t stop there, that Ruskin must be expulsed as well.
Now she had a third goal. Would she be able to have them all, or would one have to be sacrificed for another? Or would both escape her grasp, held out of reach by the capricious hands of Fate?
Her chin firmed. Well, she wasn’t one to defy Fate, but she wanted Dev to be her third-marked servant, not only physically, but in all the ways she’d ever imagined—or avoided imagining—a third-mark servant could be.
And she wanted him to want that, too. Vampires could control more things than most about their environments, and were often ruthless about doing so. She’d told Dev a partial truth when she’d implied that most vampires avoided the folly of forced human servitude. Some vampires reveled in the power of it. Others simply considered the notion of human free will a sentiment that could be indulged at the vampire’s discretion, the way a parent indulged a child who really didn’t know what he wanted.
It’s acceptable to feel strongly about human servants, as long as you don’t lose proper perspective, Danny. Your reluctance to establish total control over one is merely a sign of youth. You’ll grow out of it, the way you stopped believing your dolls are alive and have feelings.
Danny winced at the memory of her mother’s words. It didn’t matter what others believed. Either he’d come to it, or he wouldn’t.
Plus, she wasn’t about to beg a human to serve her. If he did leave, at least she’d have the satisfaction of being able to bedevil his dreams and thoughts whenever she wished . . . until he got out of range. Third-marked servants didn’t typically go far from their Mistresses, perhaps a day or two’s drive at most, for the obvious reasons. But if he did go that far—and Australia was a large country—he wouldn’t be able to hear her in his head anymore. She wouldn’t even be able to hear him in hers.
Well, nothing to be done about that. She was depriving herself of the joy of the moment. Focusing on the task at hand, she rubbed the cloth over the rounded part of Dev’s shoulder, lifted one of his arms to thoroughly scrub it. Then she worked between the fingers, ran the cake of soap under his dirty fingernails. When she eased his hand back into the water to rinse, she set aside the cloth, lathered up both hands and slicked them down the broad chest, up his neck, behind and inside his ears, over his face, touching his temples and the soft hair sweeping back from there. She noted every old scar and new wound, traced them all gently, put her lips on a few.
He slept through it all, exhaustion having claimed him even beyond her reach. However, when her finger touched his mouth, the slope of his jaw, he made a face and turned his head so it was against her palm, as if using it for a pillow. It made her throat ache.
What if he did walk away?
Total control. She knew what it meant to the likes of Ruskin and her mother. But what did it mean to her? She was a vampire. It was a natural instinct within her, as well as a sexual drive, to dominate any creature who couldn’t dominate her. But looking beneath the surface of that, she considered that she acquired total control when she had total trust from the one being controlled. Which required a willing surrender. That was the true gem she wanted. She stilled, thinking about the small handful of vampire-servant relationships that had drawn her reluctant fascination. Unlike Ian’s and Charles’s much more one-sided relationships with their servants, the ones she remembered had demonstrated that unspoken appeal, and appeal was likely far too light a word for such an incredible bond. If she wanted something like that with Dev, she had to have his willing surrender. And for that to happen, she had to win his soul, down to the darkest level.
Sliding her hand out from under his face carefully, she retrieved the cloth and began to wash him again. She was going to make sure he stayed in bed for at least a day. Once they worked out the staff issues and station operation, she’d take an accounting of the supplies she needed to make this station her home again. New furniture, carpets, artwork. She couldn’t wait to get rid of the stifling English-manor feeling Ian had so loved. She wanted pictures of beach landscapes from the Queensland coast, the lightning storms over Darwin, quiet, tranquil bush settings. Comfortable, airy furniture, like what was in her mother’s room.
It went without saying that she’d want to pick much of that out herself. So after she got things settled and moving in the right direction here, she’d head back to Brisbane for a few days to buy her furniture, and take stock of things. She would take Dev with her on the trip. If he was reluctant, she’d say she wanted to offer him a nice venture into the city to compensate him for all his trouble on her behalf.
After that, she would plan her strategy regarding Ruskin, which, as Dev had advised and she knew, would take far more careful planning than even Ian’s demise.
But for now, it was time to get Dev to bed. When she thought about how she wanted his room prepared, she remembered no one here was second-marked, where she could speak in their minds and make sure that was done. Another task to handle. For now, she rang the bell.
Elisa arrived in less than a minute. Before she could speak, Danny asked the question uppermost in her mind. “Did my mother mark you?”
“No, ma’am,” the young maid replied. “She said I was all yours, when you came. She knew you’d come.” Danny ran her knuckles down Dev’s arm thoughtfully, watching the way water beaded between her skin and his. “Why did you attack Lord Ruskin, Elisa?”
“He was trying to hurt you, marm.”
“You do realize that if he hadn’t been distracted by Dev’s arrival and my attack, he would have killed you, right? As it is, you’re very lucky the incident slipped his mind, or he would have come back into the dining room to attend to it.”
“I guess I wasn’t thinking much about that, my lady. He was hurting you,” the girl repeated.
Her mother had taken pains to make sure this one had not had the spirit beaten or frightened out of her, to the point she was almost dangerously naive. Either that, or she’d found someone as courageous as the bushman she was still caressing with her fingertips.
Now over the hard plane of his abdomen, teasing his navel, the arrow of hair that would eventually take her into the thicket over his groin. She noted Elisa was having a bit of a hard time keeping her eyes off Dev, and the wandering of Danny’s hand.
“Elisa,” she prompted gently. “Why do you want to serve me?”
“Well, your mum, she was . . . She was kind to me, my lady. She sent me off to school in Adelaide, so I’d know how to read and write. Said that way I’d be sure to be running a household of my own someday, unless I found a nice man who wanted to marry me and let me run his house. I think it was also to keep me away from here as much as possible. I wasn’t sorry about that,” she said, and Danny saw a sudden flash of fierceness in her gaze. “He was a bad ’un, Mr. Ian. I assume you don’t mind me saying he was a bad ’un, seeing as you cut his head off and all . . .” She brought herself up short, her cheeks reddening.
“It’s all right, Elisa. Keep going. I want to know your thoughts. You can be a great help to me.”
“Yes, marm. Sorry, marm. Most of them were afraid to leave. He wasn’t like you, saying it was okay if we wanted to go. And please don’t take offense if some do go, marm. Some of them he took unwilling, people who came traveling across the land.” Danny shook her head. “Please assure them they are free to go. And tell old Jim to assist them in whatever way they need with transportation or funds to return to their homes. In fact, I’ll be heading to the coast for some new things for this house in several days. Anyone who needs a ride is welcome to join me. Just ensure we have drivers who will return the vehicles to the station. Now, as far as those who are not glad I am here”—her gaze sharpened—“I need to know about them. I will not cause them harm unless provoked, but I will make sure they leave this station. And I need to mark you, to make it easier for me to communicate with you.