She could have access to his mind and yet never anticipate such stunning insight, or how it would make her feel.

“Beg, Gideon. And I might just give you anything you want.”

27

SHE'D fallen asleep in his arms, aware of him gazing at her, his hand stroking her hair, slow, easy, giving her pleasant dreams as well as a roll of languorous thoughts in his head, almost as conflicted as what she and Daegan had experienced earlier. Wanting her, but apprehensive of wanting her too much. Needing to care for the woman, but afraid of what the vampire would demand, particularly after what she'd demanded of him in his first few conscious hours as her full servant. She was vaguely aware when he left her, how he pulled the covers up over her shoulder, dropped a contemplative kiss there and left her to her dreams.

It sent her into some disturbing fits and starts of memory and prophecy at once. She remembered when Daegan had held Gideon's cock, and again, when he'd licked the blood from his shoulder. The time Gideon had turned away, the tension in those great shoulders, his quietI can't do that again .

As good as she'd felt, bringing him to climax, letting him give her the same gift, the truth was she might be too messed up right now to be the kind of Mistress she wanted to be to him. So what did she say to him? That he needed to hang in there, doing things she had no right to ask of him, until she got it sorted out for herself? If she let him hang around too long, it was likely the vampire world would force him into such positions anyway.

It was about nine at night when she decided it was time to get up. Struggling to an upright position, she was surprised to find Daegan sitting in the corner. Her mind had been so caught in between dreams and thoughts of Gideon, she hadn't registered him there. Of course, he might be better than most vampires at blending, not being noticed. He was reading, a book in his lap. From the scent coming from the glass next to him, she knew he was drinking the last bit of blood she'd banked for him in the refrigerator.

“I really am going to lose my humanity in the end, aren't I?” It was almost pitch-dark in the room, yet she could see through the darkness. She registered the serious set of his mouth, the brief flash of pain in his gaze at the unspoken implication that he didn't have any humanity. Then it was gone, that smooth, untouchable expression back in place. The brief flicker of hope she'd felt when she'd been with Gideon, that she and Daegan might find a connection again, faltered.

“You won't lose all of it, Anwyn,” he said evenly. “But you will lose some, because otherwise you won't survive.”

“When you made me mark him, I fought it, because my mind was saying, ‘He's mine, I've marked him, and he'll do as I tell him to do.' That wasn't Barnabus's blood. That's what I'm becoming.”

“You've trained for the role of Mistress all your life. It's not unexpected that, at first, when the bloodlust is harder to control—”

“No.” She shook her head. “It's consensual, what goes on in the underground rooms. On the edge, yes—”

“For people who need that edge pushed, who want it to cut them. You know how to push them into that zone. You know when no means no, and when it means something entirely different. When it means,

‘Make me face my fear, force me to let go.' You're just accustomed to having a firm grip on the reins, not having to run totally on instinct.”

She stared at him. If he was determined to step back, be her mentor, her teacher in all this, trading what they had been for that, then she supposed she should take advantage of it. “I want to say I hate this, but I'm not sure what I feel. Nothing has changed, and yet everything has.”

When he said nothing, just continued to look at her, as two-dimensional as that stained glass angel they'd broken, she changed her mind. Damn it, no. She wasn't going to play this game. Five years, and she'd seen things, felt things from him. She wasn't going to trade that. She wanted everything. Putting her legs over the side of the bed, she slid her arms into her robe. She'd been naked when Gideon left her, enjoying the feeling of his body along every exposed inch of hers. Daegan's eyes traveled over her throat, the curve of her bosom, the way she tied the robe around her waist, a barrier between them.

She swallowed. “If I say I hate becoming this, it would mean I hate what you are. And I don't.” Her voice softened. “Though I know that's the way I've been acting.” When he merely looked down into his lifted glass, she set her jaw. “You liked the taste of my human blood. You'll miss it.”

It was obvious, the way he cradled the cup in his hands. It made her think of other times, times when he'd taken that blood fresh from her throat, her thigh.

“Yes.” He said it in a low voice. “I wanted you as my servant, Anwyn.”

“More than you want me as a vampire?”

His silence speared her in the gut, so sharply she wasn't sure she could move, go to him as she suddenly, desperately wanted to do. He glanced up at her.

“Though you will never hear any vampire admit it, the reason many of us have human servants is because it keeps something inside of us, something ugly and savage, balanced. I've never regretted being what I am, Anwyn. But I do understand what I need to stay a vampire and not become a monster. You . . .

Your humanity helped me. Nothing else ever has.”

He said it in a quiet tone, no inflection that suggested he was trying to pull any sympathy away from her plight toward his loss in all this. Yet the power of it punched her hard under her heart, woke her up even further.

She'd always thought him too much of a mystery, the way he guarded his thoughts, but it suddenly occurred to her that maybe it had always been plain how he felt, what he needed. She, the one who gazed so hard at people, learning everything about them, every nuance of their expressions and body language, had overlooked those things in him, because he simply seemed invulnerable. Or perhaps she'd had the ability all along to read his mind, and that was why she kept him at arm's length. He owned too much of her soul already.

She rose then, though her legs were unsteady, and went to him. Letting her knees fold beneath her, she sank on the carpet between his splayed knees, put her hands on his thighs. When he laid his palm on her cheek, his long fingers resting on her throat, it made her want to shatter, because though he reached out to her in tenderness, some part of him was far away, beyond her reach.

“I want you no matter what you are,” he said softly. “I always will. Never doubt it.” It was a good-bye. She could hear it in his voice, and now she knew what that message had been in Gideon's eyes, what he'd been prepared to tell her when he came into the room. Still, she wanted a few more minutes before Daegan spoke it, before it became a harsh reality.

“I've always wanted you so much I've never really sought to understand you,” she confessed. “I guess that makes me a coward.”

“No. You've learned to protect yourself, because no male has ever made you feel that you could rely on him to be there, no matter the circumstance.”Well, except James , he added in her mind, with a faint smile.

She couldn't return it. There was a tentative pleasure to it, that he'd given her a touch of intimacy in the mind-to-mind communication. Yet she was still uncomfortable with it as well, that potential for invasion she hadn't accepted. Since she knew he felt both reactions, she pushed on before he could withdraw from her again.

“I know it's not your fault, Daegan.” She stared up at him. “Gideon made it clear you had no reason to think I was in danger from Barnabus. Everything you've done since has been to protect me further. I have a choir of demons in my head.” Her voice broke, then strengthened, refusing to be overwhelmed by it. “I've got to get over my own hang-ups and realize that having you and Gideon in there as well isn't a bad thing. It may be frightening to me, but I'm not stupid. I know I need all the help I can get.” Tightening her chin, she sat back on her heels, met his unfathomable gaze head-on. “So why the hell are you leaving me?”

She'd disrupted that blank expression this time. There was a brief hint of surprise, of a shocking weariness, and then he covered it once again. “The Council is holding session in Berlin right now, and I have to meet with them. And handle some tasks they wish me to perform in Europe. I'm not leaving you and Gideon alone, however. I've already contacted Lord Brian. He is a vampire, a brilliant scientist. He conducts his research on vampire weaknesses at the Council facility, but right now he is traveling the U.S., collecting data on sun sickness.

“Gideon has spoken to his brother,” he continued. “Through Lady Lyssa's influence, Lord Brian is going to come here and stay with you. He'll figure out how to help you manage any lasting ill effects from your transition. He may in fact be far more help to you than I can be now.”

“I don't know him.” She didn't want to sound childlike, but it was an effort to firm her chin, not let it tremble. “This is our home.”

Daegan passed his thumb over her chin, touched her lips. “I wouldn't leave you with anyone I do not trust,cher . Brian is one of the few I do, primarily because Lady Lyssa trusts him implicitly. And more important, so does Gideon.”

“Gideon trusts a vampire?”

“He trusts his motives for helping you.”

“I still need you.”

Daegan let go of the glass, leaned forward so his face was closer to hers, though he linked his hands between his knees, brushing her forearm where her hand rested on his thigh to brace herself. “No,cher .

You don't. Lord Brian will figure out how to bring the seizures under control and will provide the strength of an older vampire to help contain your bouts with it until you can manage it yourself. And Gideon . . .” That faint smile touched his lips again. “Your vampire hunter can do something neither of us can. He anticipates your attacks with that precognitive ability of his. Beyond that, for as short a time as he's been your servant, you are already reaching for his strength to steady you, keep the attacks at bay. Even help you to get through them. I've taken your blood; I can feel that. This last one was bad, but before the stress of Gideon's marking, you were improving exponentially. That's not all due to the sire's blood.”