“I've hated you before,” she retorted. A grim smile touched those sensual lips.

“So you've told me.”

She swallowed, looked down at their joined hands. “I can't do it. It's not . . . Maybe in a few days.” She hated to beg, so she firmed her voice, but kept her eyes on their hands. “When I don't feel like he's still on top of me. When I don't still smell him.”When he and his monsters aren't in my dreams, laughing.

Daegan's hand tightened on hers, but it was Gideon who drew her attention as he circled around to sit at the lower end of the couch. Her cold toes were outside the blanket's edge, and he tucked them under his thigh, his fingers caressing her ankle. “There are cultures that eat their enemy's flesh,” he said conversationally. “Drink their blood. It's to ingest their power, to take it from them.” I consumed you . . .That mantra she told herself, every time she chose to drink a glass of the hated brandy. She met his direct blue eyes. He had such a strong face, handsome bones that formed that determined chin.

“Don't suggest it to the reality TV crews,” she responded. “They'll decide it's the next bigSurvivor challenge.”

He gave her a tight smile with those firm lips that were perfect for . . . everything. She could imagine a lot of things under the category of everything, but it startled her that she thought of them right now. Of course, she wasn't like most women. When under stress, sex was the first thing she thought of to resolve her tension, rather than the last. Added to that, Daegan had told her—hell, proved to her—vampires were very carnal, no matter how stressful or conflicted the current situation was.

It was actually nice to have something else to think about. Except for the unexpectedly whimsical distractions Gideon had provided her with his “car games,” her mind had been trapped with the agony and fear of those seizures, then vacillated to worries about the club. Which in turn had been bombarded with intrusive flashes of what had happened to her in the alley. Then there was the ever-present fallback subject, the knowledge her life was being altered, drastically. She didn't even know how to start thinking about that.

Unfortunately, that brought her back to what they wanted her to do.

After Barnabus had bitten her, given her that turning serum, he'd forced his blood into her mouth to complete it. He'd sliced a knife over his wrist, then dripped the generous flow of blood onto the tip of his naked cock, jutting from his open trousers. The other two had wrenched her mouth open with hard hands, held it while he pushed the broad head onto her tongue, rubbed it obscenely there. With their fingers in her mouth, she hadn't been able to snap down as she wanted to do. She'd had to lie in that terrible, subservient position . . . swallow.You wanted it. You reveled in it.

“Shut up.”

Her hoarse shout echoed in the room, but it drove back the insidious whispers for a brief second.

Gideon's sure touch was on her legs, Daegan's on her face.

“Anwyn, come back to us.”

“No.” She pushed her palms against her temples, trying to compress the image, make it go away. Heat swept through her, and she almost welcomed the oblivious anguish of an impending seizure. “No. I can't do it.”

“Anwyn, he wants you to die or go mad.” Daegan pulled her hands from her face, despite her hiss. She didn't want him touching her, but he refused to let her go. His jaw tightened. “Gideon is right. He wants to know that, by taking your blood, he took your power. That he took you.” She closed her eyes, nauseous with it. “He did. I feel . . . so empty.” “But what was taken from you is still here. He didn't take it. You protected it.” Daegan's commanding voice made the voices cower back.

Though they continued to writhe like a hive of maggots in her brainpan, she was able to open her eyes, look into Daegan's intense expression.

“You are still here,cher .” His voice was less harsh, but no less inexorable. “In the air of this room, of Atlantis, of all you created. The silver brush on your dresser, the sea pictures you picked out at that gallery we visited last fall. Your essence is being safeguarded by every single piece of yourself, everything that belongs to you. When you are ready, you will call it back into yourself, integrate it with the vampire in you and be ever stronger, because that is whoyou are.” She looked toward Gideon, seeing his agreement in his fierce blue gaze. “Everything I care about.

Everything that belongs to me. Guarding me.”

“Yes,cher . Including us.”

“Especially us,” Gideon added.

Two tall, broad-shouldered men trying to perch on the edge of her lady's couch, their legs so long that Gideon's boot was braced between Daegan's shoes, their calves brushing in wary accord. Like a butterfly, her hand drifted back down, coming to rest on Gideon's on her calf. His fingers turned, laced with hers, held.

The misinformed thought being a Dominatrix was about quid pro quo, an abused woman getting the chance to subjugate and humiliate men. For her it had always been about pushing a man into his own soul, guiding him through the complex tangle of strength and vulnerability and letting him see both for what they were.

Some girls had wanted to be an equestrian in the Olympics; others had wanted to be teachers or doctors. She simply craved to be along for that journey, because when she was immersed in a man's soul, that was where she wanted to be. When he reached that subspace peace, his body quivering with pain or near climax, his glistening muscles were knotted as if he were Atlas, holding up the world for her.

But he reveled in it, because all was as it should be; all was acceptance.

With Gideon, she'd been as much a part of his journey as he was, somehow their strength and vulnerabilities tangling so when he lay down upon her, his face so close, it had not been uncomfortable, no childhood fears resurrected. Instead, she'd felt how she expected Eve had felt in Eden, the first time Adam lay upon her and the two of them had known they were connected in an undeniable way.

And Daegan . . . Her gaze drifted to him. Daegan was the one who'd taught her the pleasure of being in the shoes, so to speak, of the men she'd Dominated. The one who'd taken her into the complexity ofher soul and shown her parts of it she'd sealed off or overlooked, opening those doors with something far more than seductive magic . . . something that had terrified and overwhelmed her at once, his unexpected power over her, giving to her.

She'd accepted it, because the laws of nature said one dominant animal bent to the will of one that was more so, when it was unavoidable . . . or desired.

“Do I . . . Can I have it in something else? You know, like taking terrible medicine in juice?”

“That, we can do,” Daegan said. “What would you like?”

It was new to her, this craving, so though she wasn't typically shy, she couldn't bring herself to ask.

Fortunately, he understood a fledgling's needs.

“How do you want my blood? From the vein or a cup?”

Daegan's casual comment was augmented by the knowledge in his dark eyes. He'd known her immediate craving would be for human blood, Gideon's, not his. But he'd also known she wouldn't force that on Gideon again. Daegan's blood would be rich, and it would certainly overwhelm the foul taste of that thing that she would never call “her sire,” no matter how merely functional a term it was.

“A cup, so we can mix it. I'd rather not use your blood as a chaser,” she said.

“All right.” Giving Gideon a glance, Daegan rose and moved away to the kitchen. Through the pass-through, she could see him taking what he needed from the refrigerator. He kept his back to her as he measured the dosage, like a nurse hiding the syringe from the patient. She'd done that as an ER nurse, when the patient didn't like sharp objects. Just like them, her gaze turned away, focusing on something more pleasant. Her subject was frowning, though.

“I would have been fine with you taking my blood,” Gideon said.

“I know you'd give me anything you thought I needed. I didn't want to take from you what I don't need to take. I don't want this to be harder for you.”

“You shouldn't be worrying about me at all. You need to focus on yourself.” His gaze shifted to her knees. “I'd like to hold both your hands. May I?”

For a man who believed in himself so little, he understood so much. Since they'd been holding her hands off and on these past few minutes, she knew he chose his words deliberately now, recognizing that it would help to coax the Mistress forth in her while she faced something this difficult.

Even more charming, his request had a touch of awkwardness to it. It was still new to him, knowing how she wanted this, what was proper. She met his gaze, keeping her expression neutral. “You may.” It was peculiar, getting well and truly aroused even with her emotions as topsy-turvy as an amusement park ride. Closing his hands on hers, he laced their fingers, his gaze on the differences between her slim fingers and his rough, strong ones. “We've been talking about the idea of you having a servant,” he said conversationally.

There was a clatter of glass in the kitchen. She glanced back. Nothing appeared amiss, but then, as fast as Daegan could move, he'd never let a glass hit the floor. He'd turned toward them, his eyes riveted on Gideon with a speculative look.

“Daegan thinks this is going to be a rough road,” Gideon was continuing. “That this asshole's blood is going to mess with your head for some time. If you had a servant's energy to balance yours—”

“No. Oh my God, no.” She yanked her hands back, drawing back against the sofa, but it was toward Daegan that she leveled her accusation. “Tell me you didn't put this burden on him.” Daegan's expression remained cool. He returned to mixing the contents of the glass tumbler. “I made the suggestion. He's a grown man, Anwyn. He can make his own decisions. You should let him finish.”

“Anwyn—”

But she rode right over Gideon's attempt to reclaim her attention. “Don't you dare tell me what to do.