The pleasurable effects of the tea clung to her, but they were being twisted in a horrifying way into something uncontrol ed and far more terrible. A nightmarish memory she carried and he alone knew, because everyone else who knew was dead.

When he'd come into her service, he'd thought he understood submission to a vampire mistress, a vampire queen. She'd chal enged him, stripped him raw, taken away choices. But in the end, he realized she hadn't. That he'd been will ingly hers from the beginning, and the choices she'd taken were shields she'd broken open to show the depths of what he would give her.

This was different. Rhoswen was no Mistress. She wasn't seeking submission, that pleasurable, ultimately will ing surrender that Lyssa craved from Jacob. Rhoswen wanted to break her spirit, shatter the far-too-fragile thing Jacob knew existed deep inside his nearly invincible lady. Her pale face was paler, her jade eyes flaring with rage and something else . . . She didn't feel fear. This was dread, a spiraling feeling of tragedy that took her back to something that had wounded her so deeply she'd thought about walking into the sun rather than surviving it.

No. all his protective instincts, his fierce, unrelenting love for her, surged to the forefront. He unashamedly used that vampire mark to pour it into her, all the way down to the bottom of her soul, an abyss into which she was rapidly sinking. He found her there, pul ed her gaze reluctantly to his with a wordless snarl before she could look away.

Even if it happens, it's just you and me. They're nothing. When I submit for your pleasure, to others, it is all about you, your pleasure. That's what makes all of it doable.

But that was him. She couldn't do this.

This wasn't jealousy, worrying about another man touching her. It was so much more than that. There were some things she couldn't handle. He knew it, because he was inside her soul. Despite his best attempts, her gaze was dul ing. She was pul ing away. Her skin was becoming ice cold, even more so than the frost rimming his stomach muscles or stil imprisoning his cock, his charge to satisfy the Fae queen obviously not yet fulfil ed.

“Don't do this, Your Majesty.” He growled as Rhoswen responded with a punishing thrust.

Fucking bitch.

Arrdol had set aside his sword belt, was moving forward, unlacing his breeks. Jacob heaved mightily, managed to turn his head enough to lock with the queen's gaze, no matter that the tendons in his neck popped. “This is the act of a fucking monster, not a queen. Don't do this to her, damn it. Not again. She won't survive it again.”

Arrdol placed his hand on Lyssa's shoulder and Jacob whipped his head back around, hissing like a viper. “Get your fucking hands off her, or I swear to God, I will tear out your guts, you fucking bastard.” The silver bindings upon his arms and legs abruptly became so cold that fear stabbed his heart, remembering Rhoswen's threat to scar his lady. He fought past the pain of it, trying to focus on Lyssa as

his body convulsed in agony. Then everything disappeared.

He was standing in a smal field surrounded by thick forest. It was night, thankful y, the meadow il uminated by moonlight. Butterflies the color of gold dust gleamed in that light, floating up and down among flowers so iridescent in their mixed colors he could almost imagine that he was in one of those places deep under the sea, where all the creatures and plants were phosphorescent.

“This is one of many places in our world.” Rhoswen stood several feet from him. She was clad in a cloak of starlight. Through it he could see her bare body, marked with that intricate tattoo. Her hair was down, that and her bare feet making her look deceptively vulnerable, all soft female.

In two steps, he was on her. Seizing her by the shoulders, he took her to the edge of the field and slammed her against the broad trunk of a tree. The oak made a deep growl of protest, the branches quivering in warning.

His reaction had startled her, he could tel by the quick flash of it on her face, but then she was gone.

He howled as the tree staked him through the thigh, going through the bone. It snaked out the opposite side, ran diagonal y up his bare body and pinioned him against the rough bark. She stood before him once again, her eyes flashing, teeth bared, but he was in no mood for her games or the venom she was prepared to spout.

“If you're going to have her raped, if I can't stop it, at least let me be there to help her get through it.” He couldn't reach Lyssa's mind. He was trying desperately, and nothing was getting through. Where the hell were they? He leveled a look of pure malevolence on the Fae queen. “You might as well go ahead and honor that threat to kil me, Your Majesty. Because if you harm her like this, I will kil you. I'l rip your fucking heart out from behind those superior tits and turn you into vampire meat.” Rhoswen's elegant hands closed into fists. “I can easily kil you, vampire. And if you die, she dies.”

“She'd rather die than go through this. So I'd rather you kil me than do this to her.”

“You think she'd prefer death to some forced pleasuring by one of my court? The lilania will make sure it's pleasurable, no matter how she feels about him.”

“So it's emotional as well as physical rape. Good to know you're as psychotic as any human or vampire you claim superiority over.” Jacob spat in her face, earning a glorious rage in return. The tree speared him in both arms, the other leg, through the abdomen. He screamed at the agony of it, but he was stil alive. She hadn't staked his heart yet, even though he was somewhat surprised that he didn't black out.

Then he realized it was because it wasn't real.

She hadn't staked any of him.

He was on his knees on the forest floor, breathing hard. The Fae queen stood ten feet away, leaning against the same oak, its low branches rustling quietly in a tranquil wind. Reaching up, she played with a quivering cluster of leaves. Her expression was remote, the rage gone. Jacob decided she was the most schizoid female he'd ever had the displeasure of meeting.

“You cannot reach her because I stopped time,” Rhoswen said casual y. “Nothing is happening to your lady, Jacob, not yet. The same second is spiraling in that chamber, and will continue to do so, as long as I will it so.”

He rose then, eyeing her. It took a few moments to wrap his mind around what she'd said and tamp down the warrior and vampire blood lust. Having felt Lyssa's state of mind in that last moment, he didn't like knowing that was what she was feeling, but at least his lady was not being raped as he stood here in this absurdly beautiful meadow with the Fae queen. “So what now, then? You were just in the mood for a private chat?”

“Your Irish comes out in your voice when you're truly angry,” she noted.

“It's appealing.”

Straightening, Rhoswen moved toward him, slipping the cloak off her shoulders so it became a bed of starlight behind her. “Lie with me, the way you lie with her. Let me feel what she feels.”

“You want to take something from her that she considers hers exclusively. The way you think she took something of yours. Your father.” The starlight disappeared, the gentle breeze and the meadow. He stood in a desolate, frozen field, naked and shivering, despite the fact a healthy vampire typical y didn't react to cold weather—not counting enchanted ice being shoved through his nipples or in his ass. He didn't see Rhoswen but he sighed, raised his voice. “I don't care to be on the same wavelength with that arrogant bastard, but Keldwyn's right. Being pissed about it doesn't change the truth. So what's the plan? I obey you or you let Arrdol rape her?”

“If you wish to cal it that. I expected a vampire to understand such cold exchanges.”

She reappeared before him, the starlight spinning around her, making it hard to read her face. When her fingers brushed him, he realized the ice was gone. all of it. His nipples throbbed like a son of a bitch, though, tel ing him all of that part had been real. His cock was stil stiff, but it was the lingering effects of having his lady's cunt closed around him, not an erection forced by Fae ice magic.

He narrowed his eyes at Rhoswen. “Keldwyn was wrong. He said you were a good queen, one who could become a great one.”

She stil ed. “He said that?”

“Yeah. I thought he was smart. Apparently not.” He swept his gaze over her, thorough, appraising, in a disdainful way that had her mouth tightening in anger. “I can fuck you. I'd fuck a pile of manure if that's what it took, and I'l make it seem like you're the only woman in the world, if you get off on forcing a man to tel you lies. But my soul belongs to my lady.

Lust can be enchanted. Your honey-on-the-eyes trick is all about infatuation, that mistaken idea that lust is a soul-deep feeling. You could make it work for you, I'm sure. I'm not invincible. Eventual y, every torturer finds a way to break her victim, because we aren't alive if we don't have vulnerabilities.” He took a steadying breath. “But it would stil all be fake, because I love Lady Elyssa Amaterasu Yamato Wentworth, last Queen of the Far East Clan, with every cel of who I am. I was created, and have been reborn three times, to serve her. That gift comes from a power far greater than you, Your Majesty. If you act to destroy it, or mask it, or hide it, there are consequences. It tears a hole in the fabric of all our worlds. You live by rules, I can tel . And I'm believing what you're doing now is outside the boundaries of those rules. In fact, from what I've picked up from your captain of the guard, I think the way you've been acting all along toward my lady isn't the person you normal y are.”

He stopped, setting his jaw. She'd left him naked, the same as herself, as if they were Adam and Eve standing at odds in the middle of Eden, making a decision to decide their ultimate fate. He wasn't one to wait. Taking himself in hand, he gave himself a lewd stroke, cupping his bal s. “So what'l it be, Your Majesty? What do you want to do?”

“You're impertinent,” she said quietly.

Jacob gave a bitter half chuckle. Letting go of his cock, he shifted to a more aggressive stance before her, crossing his arms over his chest, unabashed by his nakedness. “I serve a true queen,” he said.