Because she sure as hell wouldn't choose a woman. She'd choose someone whose cock she could have at her command, rub against like she'd rubbed against his, those slow strokes, with her lips suckling at his throat. It would make his hands tighten on her hips, make him whisper her name against her hair, drifting over his lips.

He thrust that away. “But I meant what I said earlier. I'll know when it's time for me to go. Or you will.

But that won't happen until you don't need me any longer. I promise. I need you to trust me, the way I'm going to trust you. Give me that. Okay? Let's stop going over the same ground and do this.” He took another several steps forward when he saw her gaze drift down to his throat, linger there with a hunger that tightened his groin anew.Hell, I've made decisions based on my gut all my life, not taking time to think any of it through. Why should this be any different?

Wisely, he chose not to share that with her, though he expected if she'd been looking at his face, she'd have been intuitive enough to figure it out. But he did trust his gut. It told him to do what he did now. He closed the distance between them.

“I'm going to pick you up, all right?” His voice was thick, emotions closing in on him like a fog, making her his only focus. At last she gave him a nod, her gaze fastening on his. Her lips pressed together, her face getting that resolute look that told him she was making the decision to go forward, accepting the responsibility for it, even though fear lingered in her eyes. For him. For what it would mean to them both.

He wouldn't let her worry. He'd take the consequences of all of it.

Slowly, he closed his hands over hers, loosened her fingers so the blanket slipped off her shoulders like a queen's cape, pooled around her ankles. “You're so beautiful,” he murmured. It didn't matter that her flesh was bloodstained or her hair snarled. No man would see her as anything other than a goddess. He bent then, slid his arm under her back and knees, lifted her in his arms. She curled hers around his shoulders, and when her mouth brushed his throat, he shuddered, swallowing beneath the press of her lips.

He got her to the sofa before the rush of blood from his head to his cock could make him stumble, but it was a near thing, his body going back into overdrive as if resuming right where they'd left off. He kept her in his embrace, his arm crooked over her thighs, but she turned to straddle him again, pushing him back against the couch so she could run her fingers down his chest and abdomen, pull the shirt back up and mark him with her nails, leaving red streaks that arched him up into her touch. At the look in her eyes, the intensifying color, he dropped his head back, staring up at the ceiling, giving it all to her. He didn't want to look for Daegan, see what he was doing. He wanted only this, the feel of her body on his, the slow press of her breasts to his chest as she leaned in, the heated touch of her breath against his throat.

Do it, sweetheart. Just do it. Whatever it will mean.

He closed his eyes as her fangs pressed into that same mark, bringing a rich pain. He heard a quiet male voice and then the pain was gone. Daegan had instructed her to do what all vampires could do. Erase pain with a release of pheromones, also secreted in their mouth. It would rush through the blood, take an already straining arousal to a bursting ache.

Here it came. He hadn't needed that, wanted it, but his body was helpless not to respond. A low moan escaped his lips and his body went tight all along hers. He forced himself to stillness such that the energy quickly became explosive, building as she moved against him, not releasing him from the agonizing constriction of his jeans, cruel Mistress that she was, her hard nipples pressed against his chest. She caught both of his arms, pressed them to the couch cushions on either side of his hips, her small hands curved into the crook of his elbows to hold him there. His fingers dug into the pillows.

Then the power of that second-mark serum activated in his veins, grabbing control of his muscles in a different way, constricting them, making his body jerk against hers. Her mind moved forward into his, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was as if his brain were a murky, churning pool, and she was a mermaid in truth, plunging into those waters, an inexorable force that belonged there. Though he knew what a second mark was, irrational panic shot through him.

I'm here, Gideon. Don't fight me. I know it's instinct, but you don't have to fight this.

She was talking, with a voice like velvet and feathers, equal parts unconscious seduction and soothing comfort. No, she wasn't talking. She was talking in his head, clear as if she were talking outright. His awareness of her went beyond the proximity of her body or that tempting touch. She was inside him, around him.

His mind was wide-open, like a revolving door that couldn't slow, bringing in and sending out information with no control, a wild buzzing. He could handle that, but there was something else, a sense of menace. It curled at the edges of his awareness. As she continued to press deeper into his mind, it took more form. Darkness and shadows, laughing shadows that weren't funny. Their red eyes promised madness and pain, fear and loss of control beyond anything she'd ever endured before, that would be more than she could endure, so that she would lose everything, lose it all . . .

She. Not him. She. This was her mind. Anwyn's. He was in her mind, one foot in hers and one foot in his, and he couldn't withdraw from either, as if manacled there. He struggled up, vaguely aware of her moving off his lap as he confirmed he still had control over something, even if it was just his physical body. The shadow creatures laughed, and behind them he sensed her fear as he pulled away and left her alone with them.

Realizing his mistake, he tried to mentally lunge forward, to grab hold of that corner of fear and follow it to her, to Anwyn's helpless mind. Instead, he was yanked forward and pulled down, a sickening falling sensation. As he flailed, his mind burned with pain, eyes blinded by blood, all of him sucked into a quagmire of hellish screaming voices and suffocating anguish.

Fuck, his jaw was broken. Gideon rolled over to his side and spat blood, then realized he'd just spit onto the carpet. Pushing up to one arm, he found he was trembling like a baby. Insects were buzzing near his ears—no, inside his ears. He shook his head, but it was impossible to dislodge something coming from inside his brainpan. His neck was aching, his jaw hurt and he couldn't seem to get up. At least he hadn't soiled himself, as far as he could tell.

When hands closed on his shoulders, he jerked forward, trying to grope for a knife, but he was disoriented as hell, and could grab hold of only an arm, the same arm holding him.

“Easy, Gideon.” The male voice spoke through the buzzing. Familiar, with the right touch of annoying I-know-it-all arrogance. Daegan. “Take it slow. You're all right.”

“Anwyn . . .” He nearly groaned at the searing pain through his jaw.

“She's all right. She's back in the cell for the moment. But she needs you.”

“What the hell . . . happened?” Gideon gave in to the mortifying need to be helped back onto the couch, and blinked until he brought Daegan into focus. The vampire's gaze had gone almost full black, no sign of the white sclera. It was a disconcerting effect he'd never seen on a vampire. Though their eyes were known to go completely red in bloodlust, the pupils remained the same. They didn't expand to cover the whole eye.

“She had one of her seizures. She completed the marking, though. As you can probably tell.” Daegan studied him closely. “Can you hear her?”

“I hear . . . buzzing. Jesus, like being in a football stadium. What happened to my jaw?”

“I hit you.” Daegan glanced left, drawing Gideon's attention to books scattered on the floor from the upended coffee table. A broken pottery piece lay beneath it. The chair was knocked over and the sofa was at an odd angle. “When she went into her seizure, you were trying to fight off whatever was in her mind. I was pulling her off of you, because she'd lost control. You wouldn't let go of her, and she was getting more and more violent. I knew you couldn't yet grasp what was happening, so I knocked you unconscious.”

“Half the force would have been sufficient.” Gideon wiggled his jaw.

“You underestimate how hard your head is,” Daegan returned. “Stop whining. You're second-marked now. Your jaw should stop hurting shortly.”

Gideon would have bared his teeth at him if it wouldn't have hurt like hell. Talking was bad enough. “I guess none of it was payback for how I pissed you off earlier.”

“Oh, there was definitely that,” Daegan said, unruffled. “But my main purpose was to protect you from her.” His mouth thinned. “She's out now as well. When she wakes, you'll know because her mind will open to you.”

“It's open,” Gideon said softly. Now that he could get a breath, he was taking the time to investigate that buzzing, push past it to see the new rooms in his mind he realized were actually hers. No real images or thoughts, her mind drifting in an uncertain haze, but he could actually sense her turning toward consciousness. Cool.

What hadn't been so cool was that descent into Hell right before he'd passed out. If that was what was happening to her during every seizure, he couldn't imagine how she was pulling it together every time, on top of facing her fear of being trapped, restrained.

He tried to rise, couldn't quite get there yet. “She'll be fully awake soon. I need to go to her. She's . . .anxious.”

“Take a few moments to steady yourself first. She'll be all right until then.”

“I didn't think vampires opened their minds like this to their servants.”

“They don't,” Daegan said, a grim note to his voice. “It will take effort and training for her to learn to close the door between your minds, and make it one-way or shut it down completely when she has no desire to be in yours. That's why most vampires don't take a full servant, or even a second-marked one, until they've been around a few decades. She won't have much energy to spare to hold that screen between you, not with the seizures and bloodlust. However, that openness will help you anticipate her needs.”