“So you're saying yet another person or persons is going to be trying to control my life?”

“We will speak of this later. Not right after something like this.” He didn't need Gideon's visible wince to know a command had been a poor choice.

“So that's your decision, hmm?” Her voice, velvet and breathless moments ago, was now brittle, acerbic. “When to tell me something, when not to? When to decide that I need a servant, when I need you in my fucking mind, without asking me? For five years, you tried to get me to believe you respected my independence. But it was never that, was it? You always thought you owned me. I only saw the pretty, sparkling collar, not the leash attached to it.”

His face went completely expressionless. He knew it, because Anwyn registered it in her mind. She recalled it from times in the past when she'd pushed too hard for something he wouldn't give her.

Couldn't give her. In her mind, he saw her remind herself that was why she'd sworn to herself, years ago, that she would never beg him for anything, never let him see that she couldn't stand on her own, away from him. Never give him her heart fully.

Only now he could get into her head, see the truth. Her head jerked up, eyes meeting his as she recognized that everything in her mind could be read like a book, and was being read, right now. He told himself to pull out, to shut that wall between them, but it was too late. Her next thoughts were shots right in the gut.

What makes you so different from Barnabus? How is this different?

He took a step back from her, might have even backed over the tub wall if he'd gone any farther, the first time in centuries he'd been in danger of tripping. The understandings of the past few moments, when sensuality and need were all that mattered, were gone.

“Anwyn . . .” Gideon began.

“You don't need to defend him for my well-being, Gideon. You don't even like him.” Her voice was low, strained, as her gaze met Daegan's head-on. “Last week, my life was entirely different. I don't know whether to wish I'd never met you, or that Barnabus had just killed me in that alley. I'm too tired, too numb, to decide. Please don't disturb me until I come out of my room. I don't want to be or think of anything.

“And before either of you says it,” she added, “if I go into a seizure, my mind twists open like a bubble gum wrapper. To you both now, I guess.” She shot Daegan a hard look. “So I'm sure you'll know if I need help. Until then, fuck off.”

Turning on her heel, she left the two of them standing there.

20

GIDEON caught the brief flash of pain in the vampire's eyes, an anguish so strong, it was as if she'd taken out a poisoned stake and stabbed him in the chest with it. Then it was gone. No matter how much he wanted to hate the guy, Gideon couldn't help the sympathetic pang that bound all males together in the face of female scorn.

He'd been unbalanced himself by what had just happened here. Hell, all of them were dealing with too much shit. He, being her servant and throwing in his lot, however temporarily, with two vampires. She, being raped and becoming a vampire. And Daegan, having to ride herd on both of them, and deal with the pain she was suffering, even as she kept him at a straight-arm distance, blaming him for myriad aspects of all of it. Maybe he wouldn't have seen that if it hadn't been for Mason, working with him and Jacob over those several months, having to deal with a lot of the same kind of shit.

He didn't know what to say, even if he'd been inclined to do so, but he was saved from the effort. With an impassive nod, the vampire left him there.

Great. With a lack of other options, Gideon threw his towel in the hamper and straightened up. For him, cleaning up a room meant checking out and not leaving a noticeable amount of blood on the floor. But once, a long time ago, he'd had a civilized home with his aunt and uncle, and he did know some things.

Going back to the cell, he straightened that area up. After some consideration, he moved the sofa and other furniture out of it. It looked as though she wouldn't have to go back in there again unless it was unavoidable. Progress, though of course those last few moments in the bathroom had felt like anything but.

Though she had a right to be pissed off about all of it, he already knew when she came down from those attacks, she was typically attacked by feelings of despair, a sort of postpartum baby-vampire-blues thing.

Though this time she'd had the pleasure of an orgasm tangled with the seizure, and the episode itself hadn't been one of her worst ones, that aftermath may have remained the same.

He wanted to comfort her, but knew she probably needed some space. And he didn't want to be in the personally uncomfortable position of finding himself apologizing for the guy. Particularly after he'd put his fucking mouth on him.

He did touch her mind periodically. She'd come back into the bathroom after they left and did those things that women did—powders, lotions, brushing, et cetera. Then she'd slid on a summer dress and lain on her bed. As she'd said, she was incredibly, painfully numb, and almost as tired as he was. Hell, he should probably sack out somewhere until she needed him again. But it was hard not to reach out, to say something that wouldn't infringe on her need for solitude. Before he could decide one way or another, she drifted off into a dark, whispering sleep.

As he sank down on the couch in the sitting room, he sat quietly in her mind, oblivious to his immediate surroundings, just getting the lay of the land. He wanted to stroke her in some way. Fortunately, he found a way to be useful.

Those hateful shadow things were there, slithering around like street predators in the alleyways of her brain, waiting for the reappearance of her awareness to prey on her again. He examined them more closely, was disturbed by how formless and yet integrated they seemed to be in those passageways, suggesting any treatment for them would have to be a muting strategy, nothing that could be extracted. It made him wonder if someone like Lord Brian, the vampire scientist who had worked with Jacob after his unexpected acquisition of Lyssa's powers during his turning, might have something useful to help her. He wondered if Daegan had ever interacted with the vamp geek, and made a note to mention it to him.

In the meantime, in the anonymity of her dream world, he decided to send things through that might keep those gremlins down to a dull roar. He recalled songs in his head, a way to sing lullabies to her without offending her ears. Though he hoped Daegan wasn't squatting at the fringes of her unconscious, listening, he also sent images he remembered as a kid, short home movies to go with the songs. A trip to the Grand Canyon was coupled with “Sand and Water,” a song his mother had sung to Jacob when he was younger. After she died, Gideon had continued to sing it to him, though the meaning of it had often caused a hitch in his throat. Now the notes drifted like wind currents over the wide expanses of red rock.

Then he moved onward to the California redwood forests with the strains of the Goo Goo Dolls; “Better Days” spiraled around and around that awesome girth, all the way toward the heavens.

After that it was the beach, with the smell of salt and sand, the sun reflecting off the waves, so bright and sparkling. He had no song for that one, because he always got lost in the music the wind and waves made together. With deep satisfaction, he saw the shadows melt into those corridors, stilling so that her mind could slip deeper into dreams, far beyond their reach, and the reach of her worries and fears. It amazed him to be there, to be inside her mind as if he'd walked hand in hand with her somnolent mind and escorted it to Sandland himself.

The vampire connection aside, it was one of the most awesomely magical things he thought he'd ever experienced. It gave him the fleeting, disturbing thought of how he'd ever do without such a connection once he'd had it. It also made him wonder at what he'd heard from Jacob, how the third mark was an even more profound bond.

Surprisingly unable to give himself to dreams, he rose and examined the music selection at the entertainment center. He wondered whose music was whose, as well as the movies. In light of all the things that had happened, it was bizarre to see the mundane details of their life together. Or perhaps this was all Anwyn's.

He mused on the two of them having separate rooms. They were certainly having sex, but perhaps one or both didn't encourage the intimacy of sleeping together. Only sex and companionship when needed.

Friends with benefits, she'd said.

Yeah, right.The relief and sense of balance he'd felt from her every time Daegan joined them suggested something way beyond friendship. While Daegan also didn't show much of what he was feeling, it was obvious, at least to Gideon, that what he was holding back had the force of a category-five hurricane. He remembered what Daegan had said.A warrior's courage and the fool's sense of when to use it. When it came to pushing the vampire, he thought his Mistress might be wise to ease off a bit.

Maybe that was why, when Daegan touched her, Gideon didn't feel the same sense of possessiveness he'd experienced at the thought of another male servant, or even an imaginary blood donor. He'd occasionally felt like a third wheel, but he'd never questioned Daegan's right to share her, except for the wisdom of being tangled with a vampire. Gideon wasn't sure he even wanted to explore why deeper than that, though. Maybe it was the circumstances.

She'd wanted to dance. He'd have to see if he could remind her of that later, make her smile. Sighing, he ran a hand along the back of his neck. In truth, he felt at a loss here. When he had spare time, he worked on his weapons, went out and wandered the street, watched people as his television. Their lives were far removed from his, but their stories held his fascination regardless. All those small dramas and happinesses, things like car payments and Sunday dinner with the parents, squabbles over whether the kid was going to get a PlayStation, or Xbox, or whatever the hell it was kids wanted now.

He could think about the good things that had happened in the shower, the way her body had felt, the wetness of her mouth and clutch of her hands, but there were some disturbing things about the sex, too.

Specifically, the number of participants and how his body had responded to that. So he pushed it away for now.