Jacob remembered what Rhoswen had said. A Fae would not lie, though they were masters of misdirection and misperception. So the simple answer was probably the truest thing they'd yet heard, whatever the motives behind the answer.
However, those motives were now double-edged, and he was balanced on that blade.
Lyssa spread her hands. “You were correct.
Similar things occur at vampire gatherings.
However, the difference between them and the medieval tradition is that I share my servant only in my presence. Why would I deny myself the pleasure of seeing him perform or participating as well , even if I am sharing him with another? Can you accept my offer under those terms?”
“Give me a taste of what pleasure I may expect, if I do.”
Lyssa glanced down at Jacob. “Rise. Remove your shirt for the queen.”
Jacob complied, stripping off the T-shirt. He kept his eyes ahead, on the throne, not looking toward Keldwyn or Cayden. He'd learned to handle situations such as this, but he stil wasn't comfortable in front of males, particularly adversaries, who got to stand fully clothed and watching. Even more, ones not bound to sexual submission as he was. What got him through each time was the knowledge it was about his lady's pleasure, not his pride. He reminded himself of that now.
As Queen Rhoswen approached once more, the thought helped him stand fast. Her gaze was traveling over his upper body, a slow, sultry scrutiny across his chest, his stomach, down to the waist of the jeans. They rode low enough the musculature of his lower abdomen and hip bones were visible. He saw her gaze linger on the pendant Catriona had given him. It had become a simple brown stone again, the green and amber glow obviously activated by magic unique to Catriona. However, the Fae queen obviously recognized it as something of her world, because her lips tightened at the sight of it.
Her gaze traveled downward, pausing on the cross brand. Then, as she moved around him, it was the servant's mark and the faint lash scars layering it that drew her attention. Her hands were truly like ice, such that he had to steel himself not to flinch. Trailing them down to his waistband, she played with the hilt of the scab-barded knife she found there. As she hooked her finger alongside it, sharp nails scraped the rise of his buttock.
“You have whipped him.”
“Yes, but not in that instance. They were administered by my former servant, as part of the oath Jacob took. The Ritual of Binding a ful servant must make to a vampire queen.”
“So you have learned the way to pleasure through pain, have you, vampire?”
“What pleasures my lady, pleases me, Your Majesty.”
Rhoswen returned to his front. As she did, she tracked in front of Cayden. Jacob noted the guard captain's face was wooden. He seemed as thril ed about this little tableau as he would be about having his foot gnawed off by wild dogs. Considering his jaw and gut stil ached from its contact with Cayden's sword, Jacob couldn't say it didn't give him some satisfaction, even though he empathized with the captain's reaction far too much.
“Hmm.” The Fae queen tilted her gaze, slid it down. “I want to see the entire man, make sure he is not deformed in any way.”
Jacob glanced toward Lyssa. She could tel him in her mind, but he wanted to make it clear who ordered him, which suited both their purposes. He did it with courtesy, though, knowing his lady didn't want the queen rankled overmuch. Lyssa gave him a nod, and he opened the jeans, shoving them down his thighs. It was not his favorite position, for it left his ankles tangled, but he already sensed the queen would have no patience for him to remove the boots.
She made a growling purr in her throat.
At the first vampire dinner he'd ever attended, he'd had to publicly service two women at once in front of a party of vampires and his lady. Recal ing the panic he'd felt then, he had to admit he'd come a long way. But it stil gave him that locking anxiety high in his chest, even as his cock inexplicably got hard and his heart pounded with need, knowing that he was responding to his lady's commands.
What pleasures my lady pleases me . . . In far more direct terms, her commands made him hard, made him want to do anything to earn the right to bury his cock inside of her, let him service her with mouth, hands, whatever she needed. At the beginning, it had been just a vague compulsion, hard to understand. While he stil didn't always understand it, the things he would do for her and why, the reason had become far less important over time. Like now.
The result was all that mattered.
He drew in a breath as Rhoswen's cold fingers curved around his thick, steel length, and her tongue touched pink lips. With her breasts so close, pil owed and cinched up in that corset, the trim waist that begged a man's hands and the legs beneath that looked capable of locking around a man's hips and taking him deep, it wasn't difficult to maintain the reaction.
“It seems your cock does not wilt from the touch of ice. Can it stay that way, through the coldest storm?
Can you pleasure me as I desire?”
“I can pleasure you however my lady wishes me to do so.” Looking down, he saw Rhoswen's drifting touch had limned the muscled lines of his abdomen with frost. He briefly met the blue eyes that were studying him so intently, then returned his gaze to the floor behind her. She was tal er than his lady, but not as tal as himself.
Her fingers caressed him a chil ing moment more, then slipped away. “He's tediously honorable, but his other qualities may help us overlook that irritation.
You may clothe yourself, vampire.” As he reached down to draw up the jeans, Rhoswen turned toward Lyssa.
“Whatever game this is, I accept. There are stil a few hours until dawn, when I will have other pressing duties. You have an hour in your rooms, and then my attendants will provide you a bath . . . and prepare him as I desire.” She swept her gaze back over Jacob, a feral look suggesting a dangerous hunger, then she locked eyes with Lyssa once more. “You are no fool. You know I am not very happy with the results of this meeting. Your servant will be used hard, to express both my pleasure and displeasure. Expect me to be cruel.”
Jacob looked between the two women, and saw his lady's eyes light in response to the chal enge.
Great. Her kind of party.
8
WHEN Cayden escorted them to their room, Jacob wouldn't have been surprised to find a dank cel far below the earth, with the Fae version of rats—perhaps rodents with wings—their only attendants.
But the chamber into which they were shown was smal but well appointed, with a bed swathed in a gauze canopy, and a window open to the outside fragrant air. From it they could see the Castle of Fire il uminating the darkness. A bronze-colored dragon with red swirls along his sides was coiled on the parapets of that structure, occasional y sending out a companionable spout of flame and roaring to a green dragon on the top of the Castle of Earth, who responded with a groaning snarl and another stream of fire. It was like watching a pair of birds cal ing to one another from different power lines.
Keldwyn had joined Cayden in escorting them to their rooms. Interestingly, when they'd prepared to leave the queen's hal , Keldwyn had stepped to Lyssa's side, sliding her hand into the crook of his elbow. Jacob had fol owed behind them. Cayden had taken his leave immediately upon dropping them here, but Keldwyn lingered, glancing about the accommodations. What he was seeking or verifying, Jacob didn't know, but as he wordlessly turned to fol ow in the captain's footsteps, Jacob stepped in his path.
“Making sure all the listening devices are in place?”
“Your privacy is assured here. If the queen wished to know what was in your minds, she has ways of extracting that, far more easily than vampire mind tricks.” Keldwyn gave Lyssa a short nod, made to move forward.
“Anything else about your ongoing personal drama with Rhoswen we should know?”
That got a response, but not in the manner Jacob expected. Keldwyn's gaze hardened. “Her proper address is Her Majesty or Queen Rhoswen, vampire. Neither I nor anyone else will tolerate such disrespect. I have duties to attend.” When Jacob merely blocked him again, Keldwyn's dark eyes went flat and dangerous. Lyssa had moved to the window. Jacob knew she didn't have any objection to his interrogation, though he felt a touch of caution from her. We need more information, Jacob, but as Gideon might say, don't piss kerosene on a fire unless you're prepared to get your dick burned.
Hearing the rough metaphor come through his lady's cultured mind-voice was unexpected. She rarely even swore. But most of his attention was on that very fire, flaring up in front of him.
“You know,” Keldwyn said, “the last vampire I saw annoy a Fae was turned into a merman. Ironical y, he's stil a vampire in appetites. I expect the reason the Fae felt it a just punishment was because that particular vampire disliked the sea. Now he has to settle for fish-flavored merblood to survive. One week out of the year, he can walk the earth again. I expect he spends the entire time gorging himself on blood that tastes nothing like fish.”
“That's an amusing little story. You ever notice how much effort you spend convincing yourself humans and vampires are inferior? I think what irritates the crap out of you is that though you can crush me like a bug, you and I feel the same way about things. We care, we love, we want to protect what's important.
Like a girl trapped in a tree. And it's those similarities that drive you crazy, because you can't reconcile it with our differences and your idea that you're a world apart from the rest of us.” A muscle twitched in Keldwyn's jaw, but Jacob continued. “You wanted us to rescue her because you love her. Because there's nothing you wouldn't risk for her. I feel the same way about my lady and our son.” He flashed fang. “So you remember that, the next time you send her into danger without all the information she needs. Now, I repeat. Is there anything else we need to know?”
Keldwyn's lips pressed together. “I will say one thing to your lady, but I do not do so because I fear your threat, vampire.”
Whatever helps you sleep at night, you big fairy.
He kept that little taunt to himself, and accepted the reproving look from Lyssa as his due. But he did shift out of the way, leaving the communication path clear between his lady and the Fae Lord.