A Vampire's Claim (59 page)

Lyssa was in profile to Dev now. His reaction to her words was likely no less violent than Danny’s. His blond sheila’s head whipped around, her blue eyes widening. “My lady, you couldn’t—”

“I couldn’t what, Lady Daniela?” She arched a brow, turning to look at Danny. “I will do whatever I feel is necessary to protect you. From yourself, as well as others. Before today, the general opinion was that Lady Daniela, daughter of Lady Constance, was a lovely young vampire whose main political value was whose arm she would choose or be compelled to adorn. A nonentity except for the circumstances of her birth.”

Danny rose from the couch then, and her eyes flashed in a way that had Dev tensing, particularly when he saw Thomas doing the same. “And after today, my lady?”

Lyssa considered her. “The tragedy is that as word of this spreads, many will think that has changed. That you are a force to be reckoned with. A force that should be tested and challenged, not admired like a harmless hothouse rose.”

“I am not, nor have I ever been, anyone’s political pawn,” Danny spat. “I won’t allow myself to be used that way. Vampires willing to be led hope for Fate to give them someone with fairness and intelligence,
and
the power to protect them. I don’t know if I have the power to resist every vampire who would try to take this territory from me, but I have the other two.”

“You use that intelligence to
make
them believe you have that power. That goes for your allies as much as your enemies. Because a powerful vampire has far more allies than a weak one.”

“I’ll learn—”

“Then do so,
damn you
. Before I am too late and standing over your body. Or I am forced to see you become some broken, dispirited thing subverted to the will of a monster like Ruskin.”

Lyssa’s fierce directive reverberated through the room as if a cannon had been shot off right outside the window. Dev felt the vibration through his chest, his head, the soles of his feet. And even as the power of it overwhelmed him, the tension that she actually might do something to harm his lady loosened within him.

She loved Danny. It was clear as the sky after a hard rain. While her anger was like that of a goddess, fearsome and destructive, what he was seeing was little different than two sisters in a blue, one more experienced and angered by the younger one’s inexperience and folly. Unfortunately, that was a reassurance that his lady, as the recipient of the earbashing, didn’t seem to be feeling.

Danny had flinched at the tone, but now her hands slowly closed into balls at her sides. She faced Lyssa square, her blue eyes holding the green ones. “No one will ever do that, my lady. I can assure you. But I will learn. I promise you, if you support me as Region Master for the Northwest Territory, I will not fail at it.”

Lyssa studied her a long, long moment. “Fine, then,” she said at last. “But you owe a debt to Alistair and me of a magnitude I expect you will keep in mind if he ever needs a favor.” Her glance shifted thoughtfully now, to Dev. “I will collect my payment now.

It has two parts. First, I will feed on your servant tonight, because I am going to second-mark him. I will have access to his mind when I wish, so I may check in on your progress.”

When Danny’s gaze flickered, Dev was interested to see cobalt fire there, a different kind. “My lady, you have my blood. You can have access to my mind as you wish. I would deny you nothing, but . . .”

Lyssa raised a brow. “You act as if I was offering you a choice, Lady Daniela. I will take your servant’s blood. Second, for the remainder of this night, you will follow my direction as if you were a servant yourself. I have one more lesson to teach you. To teach you both.”

Once things were settled in the household, Lyssa retired to one of the guest bedrooms, and had Dev and Thomas help Danny get there. Frustratingly, Lyssa still hadn’t permitted Dev to offer his lady blood, but she allowed him to help Danny stretch out on the bed while the queen took a seat on a nearby chair, laying her hands on the arms in a regal pose.

“Remove her clothes,” she instructed Dev. “And clean up the rest of her. You will lie still as he does it,” she commanded Danny.

Dev obeyed, because Danny appeared to be willing to submit to Lyssa’s demands, though he chafed at it on her behalf. For quite a bit after that, Lyssa was a silent presence in the room, a sensual weight like an exotic scent.

It was then he realized this was more than a lesson or payment. This was a punishment, making Danny submit to her own servant in front of the queen, forcing her to share that servant. He wanted to keep bristling at it, but as he took care of her, he sensed a quiet acceptance in Danny. As if it was a consequence to her actions she was willing to bear, much like a child realizing that the punishment could have been far, far worse. Of course, it could be his fiery lady was out of fight, worn-out by blood loss.

As for him, he had no complaints, except he wished his lady had not been so abused. When he gently divested her of all her clothes, he used a basin of warm water, salts and herbal additives provided by Thomas, gathered from the kitchen staff, to sponge over the wounds. She quivered under his touch, sometimes at the pain and sometimes at something else he sensed going on beneath the surface of her otherwise smooth face. When he turned her over, did the back, he was angered anew to see it all, to imagine what the past day must have been like for her. And he was torn between wanting to paddle her, something similar to Lyssa’s reaction, and feeling a bit amazed by her.

He was a traditional man, used to protecting women, as Danny had implied more than once. But she was different. It was almost as if Danny and he were . . . well, they were like mates, on a lot of levels. He could fight beside her, drink with her. But he could also hold her, love her. He’d known he couldn’t handle a soft one again. But her, he could want. Did want, with a fierceness that had nothing to do with logic. Thomas might be right about the vampire-servant connection being predestined, since nothing exactly explained it, but here he was regardless.

When he had finished cleaning his lady, Lyssa at last shifted. “Set aside the basin, Devlin. Take off your clothes, and then I will tell you what I intend you to do next.”

It went without saying that she overrode his lady, but he still wasn’t completely reconciled to the idea she could override him. He wasn’t sure he’d even accepted that from Danny. But as he turned toward the vampire who had implied she could rip out his heart almost as soon as he had the thought, he saw something in Lyssa’s face, the way her eyes rested on Danny’s mauled flesh, the many bruises and bites, mottled areas where bones had broken and then re-fused. Mutely, he removed his shirt, then sat on the bed to pull off the boots. Behind him, Danny remained on her side, turned away from him. He’d found it odd she hadn’t turned at Lyssa’s words, but drew her legs up closer to her body, making him think she might have dozed off. He was sliding the trousers off when he heard it. The smallest of noises, a caught breath, a tensing of her shoulders.

“Ease her pain,” Lyssa said quietly. “Start at her feet, and work your way up with your mouth. Leave no part untouched. Cherish her with your lips and fingers.”

As punishments went, he thought there might indeed be worse. Putting a knee on the bed, he noticed Danny’s tiny shudders coming closer together and more frequent. She was fighting, as hard as she fought Ruskin, to keep the sobs from becoming noticeable.

Bending, he placed his lips on her arch. The foot flexed, pressing against his cheek, another tremor.

Easy, my lady. It’s all right. Just feel.

I killed them, Dev. Him, and them. Ian.

Yes, you did. Let it go. It’s done, and we’ll make it right with the little ones
. Though he knew nothing ever really made it right.

The most damnable thing about the soul was that it went on, no matter what things it had done. Would keep doing.

As her body jerked with the next sob, he put his hands along her calves, sliding up toward the backs of her thighs. He didn’t leave an inch untouched with his mouth. Giving her his heat and comfort, he emptied his mind of everything but the need to take away those tears, the determination that he would do so. She’d drawn up her legs farther, gone to a fetal position. In some part of his mind, he realized despite her pain, this was an incomparable gift of trust, letting him see her this way. Letting Lyssa see her this way.

The three of them were enclosed in this quiet, still place in the universe, lit by candlelight as he cosseted her with his mouth.

I know this isn’t what you wanted.
He made the thought gentle, soothing
. But I’m here. I’ll be with you.

This isn’t what you wanted, Dev.

You’re exactly what I want, my lady.

He coaxed her to loosen her thighs, let him stretch out one leg, kiss all the way to the hip, slide a hand beneath to lift her, brush his mouth over her sex. He took the pleasure of a deep draught there before turning her to her stomach, licking his way over the arse and to the tender lower back area, her long, freed hair teasing his nose.

She’d clutched her hands on the pillow now, and he traced his lips up her spine, between her shoulder blades, moving the hair to the side and wrapping the silk of it around one hand as he reached her neck. Turning her on her back again, he worked back down the sternum, mouth worshipping the high curves of breast, tight nipples and tender crease beneath. Then the slope of her abdomen, the navel. His turgid cock brushed her thigh, leaving a track of moisture, he was sure.

“Now inside her, bushman. Sink deep. Danny, your hands over your head. It is all him, what I am ordering him to do to you.”

Danny held Dev’s gaze, tear tracks on her face, and slowly lifted her hands over her head, taking hold of the iron rails. Scratches on the bars told him someone had been chained to them before. It might have been Danny.

He pushed that away. This moment wasn’t about rage or fear over what-ifs. Though this was Lyssa’s punishment, he wanted Danny to feel cherished, to reduce her to mindless, trembling release, let everything bad about this night wash from her. So maybe they
both
wouldn’t be haunted by what could have happened.

“No, don’t hold on to the rail,” Lyssa ordered. “It’s far harder to simply let your hands lie above your head, surrender to what is inside you.”

New tears welled up and he turned his head to Lyssa. “Is that bloody necessary?”

The queen had blown out several of the candles, so was sitting in shadow. “Yes.”

Yes, it is, Dev. I need this. I need you.

Turning back to face Danny’s expression, he saw it there, the anguish and exhaustion, the fear she hadn’t allowed to show, the revulsion with herself. She needed him. He realized she likely had never done anything so violent in her life as what she had plotted and executed since he’d known her. The vampire that, according to Lyssa, was considered little more than an excellent arm adornment with a good pedigree.

They’ll never think that again, love. Not after this gets around.

“Do not kiss her until you are inside her.” Lyssa’s voice arrested him in midmotion, his face halfway to hers. “Hold right there, and put your cock inside her, slowly. I want to see it happen, and I want her to stare into your face while you do it.”

He swallowed and began to do just that. It was harder than burying his face in a girl’s neck and sliding in, that was for sure. There were so many expressions crossing Danny’s face, he couldn’t track them all. She was having a difficult time keeping her hands lying loose on the bed, and he missed them, touching his back, grasping his arse sure and steady, telling him what she wanted. But God, her cunt was heaven itself, distracting him from all of that.

So empty . . . I’m so empty, until you’re inside me, making me feel real again . . . Alive. Like I can feel, and love, and
laugh . . .

It was all there in her eyes, her mind, offered to him, only he wasn’t sure which of them was offering it or, like their hands when he reached up to clasp one in his, their fingers intertwining, it was what they became together.

He was all the way in, her body having tilted upward to take his girth and length. The tiny tip of tongue touched her lip in the way that bespoke the concentration and effort it took to accommodate his size. The way that drove him crazy with need.

“Take her up, now, Dev. Give her pleasure.”

That was an easy one, and he began to move, the friction between them instant and needy, sharp like the pop of a whip over his flanks, as if to break him into a gallop. But he didn’t. Despite the drive of that whip, he worked her slow, deep, absorbed in every change in her face, how her eyes got darker, more glazed, the spasmodic way her body moved, pushing out sadness for pleasure.

It was like the rocking of a boat, being inside her, how the ocean would carry them to their fate, no matter what, and for now there was just this. He wasn’t overly surprised when Lyssa’s hand touched his bare back, but it certainly ratcheted up his own response when he realized the vampire queen had disrobed. Now she put her knee between his spread ones and lay her petite body all along his back, giving him the extra weight to bear, but also the sensation of her bare breasts and smooth mons at his shoulder blades and top dent of his arse, respectively. Her thigh pressed along the inside of his, so on the withdrawals, his testicles brushed her skin.

“Feed, Danny,” she said in a soft purr, a whisper of sound in the darkened room. “Let us share this delicious servant of yours.”

The two women came from different sides. As Dev tilted his chin up, he realized Thomas was right. It had become an instinctive, automatic response to his lady’s need for nourishment. Danny’s fangs pierced one side, her mouth sealing over the heated gush of blood, as Lyssa latched on to the other, her hand slipping around his waist, her hand pressed against the raven mark on his chest to hold his body, trembling with the exertion of keeping still between the two women.

He was half on his knees, most of his weight resting on one arm, because he had to caress the side of Danny’s face, her hair, cup the back of her skull tenderly as she drank. But in the end he had to put the other arm down, needing both for support as the two vampires drank from him and he continued to move his hips, stroking his cock into Danny again and again. Feeling the marvelous slickness of her contractions on him, as Lyssa rubbed against his buttocks, her thigh teasing his testicles in light touches. The sound of the queen’s drinking became more of an animal growl, her arm constricting around him so he experienced just a hint of bone-crushing strength. Crushing, hell. He expected she could turn his into a fine powder.