The Vampire Queen's Servant(47)

"I won't become Rex," she whispered. "Even if I must abandon my responsibilities. This is the way a vampire's life ends. We know it's time to go, but we cannot die, so we simply place ourselves in the right situation to have it ended."

"No."

Elijah's words and this moment made the truth all too clear for him. For the first time, Jacob understood some of what she'd been trying to teach him. More important, why she'd been trying to teach it to him, even if he didn't totally agree with all of it.

Gideon had once told him the wise man knew when to let go of pride to grab hold of wisdom. Raised in a society that held an individual's worth and uniqueness as right, and submission to the will of another as wrong, he'd been fighting the very oath he'd taken from the beginning, putting conditions on it.

He placed his fingers on her lips before she could speak further.

"Forgive me, my lady." Bowing his head, he dropped to one knee by the bed. Guiding her hand, he put it on his head as if she sat on a throne, completely in control and beautiful and unmarred, rather than too weak to sit up, weary and stained with her own blood. "You were right. What I did was unforgivable. I'm your servant, and I never should have entered your mind without permission. You won't have to guard your thoughts against me. Ever. I'll never again try to do that without your leave. I beg your forgiveness for my disrespect, though I shall never deserve it."

He stayed that way for long minutes, determined not to move until she bid him to do so, despite how urgently he wanted to cosset her. Clean her up and take care of her to make her feel more like herself.

Her hand slid off his head to his shoulder. Touched his jaw.

Before the illness, there were no slips. You never could have known so much about me, so quickly. Don't you think that's why? This sickness…

There was a particular urgency to her words he wasn't sure how to answer. "Well then, at least there is something about this damnable disease that is a blessing," he murmured. But I think you're wrong, my lady. We would have known each other this deeply, this quickly, no matter what. The first moment I saw you, I knew I was meant to be with you.

When he lifted his face, her jade eyes were full of things that confused him as well as tore his insides to shreds. She lowered her touch to his unbroken arm, tugged.

Uncomprehending at first, he rose. She turned away, drawing him onto the bed to curl behind her. Encouraging him to cradle her hips in the curve of his, press his back against hers and lay his head over the top of hers on the pillow. When she let go of his arm, he folded it under his head as she captured his injured forearm, bringing it across her waist so she cradled his hand and wrist against her breasts. She dropped her head and kissed the bandage and splint, nestled her cheek against them.

Sleep, Jacob. You need the sleep.

I need to care for you, my lady.

You do, Sir Vagabond. In ways I can't begin to explain. Obey your Mistress. Sleep. If you can bear my stench.

I would happily join you in a pig wallow, my lady.

The sense of her pained smile eased the knot of tension in his chest, helping him settle in behind her, nuzzle her hair with his nose and lips. She was silent then, for so long he thought she'd drifted off, but then her voice came into his mind once more.

Do you know Bran broke out the basement window that night? It was barred so he couldn't get through, but he charged the glass, rammed his head right through it. His skull and shoulders were bloody. He never stopped trying to protect me… You remind me of him.

"It's a good thing your husband is dead, lady, for nothing would have kept me from killing him. Even if I had to accomplish it from the grave by making a bargain with Satan himself. Some acts don't deserve the mercy of love."

Like this? Her fingertips touched his arm.

He pressed his face into her hair, breathing her in. "That's different. I will bear any pain to be near you, to serve you."

"It's no different. What is it we talked about? Love is raw, not pretty. It's visceral as blood." Another pause. "I'm glad you came back. I didn't think you would. Maybe you shouldn't have."

"Carnal raped you." Jacob stroked her temple, the gentleness in his hands in contrast to the rage he felt in his heart. "He hurt you. I invaded your mind without permission."

"No. You're nothing like him." Her fingers tightened on his hand. "And that night was… It's complicated in the vampire world, Jacob. You must understand that."

"My heart does not tell me false, my lady." He gave her words back to her. "I saw it in your eyes when you spoke to him. I even felt it when you clung to me in the woods afterward, my body inside yours. It was a betrayal that was soul deep, a wound inflicted on a part of you that will never heal. You're not allowed to act as if it's a crime worse than murder, but it is, because you must live with the violation forever. And for you, my lady, forever is longer than for most."

"You make forever seem far shorter than I'd want it to be, Sir Vagabond." Her fingers whispered over his bandaged arm. A quiet pause. "I'm sorry, Jacob. It doesn't make up for it, but I'm very sorry."

Her voice was soft, vulnerable, and he couldn't hold any anger against it. "So am I." He straightened the arm beneath his head and slid it under her neck, taking it across her chest to cross it with his other arm, holding her close.

"It will mend quickly, with the second mark," she said quietly. "By the night of our dinner, it should be little more than a twinge."

He fitted his fingers into the spaces between her ribs, feeling the fragile network of bone that guarded her heart. Would her heart press against those bars and reach for his fingertips, a cautious answer to the great emotion in his own chest?

Leaves fluttered in the early morning breeze, making shadowed patterns on the stained glass window on the north side of her bedroom. "I wonder if I can give you anything," he said. "Even a thought you haven't had."

She turned then, pushing him to his back, and propped herself up on his chest to look down at him thoughtfully. Her hair fell over her shoulders, and he gathered some of it up, spreading it out like a peacock's plumage, holding it like the skeins of time from the Fates' loom. With reverence and respect for the miracle it was, for the ability to touch and influence it in any way.

"Why do you think old people go to the park to sit and watch children play? Part of it is to remember things they might have forgotten with the passage of time. Time and memory are circular. Yes, you accumulate wisdom as you age, if you're open to wisdom and not hardheaded." A smile touched her mouth as she gazed at him. He made a face at her, reading her expression well enough on that count. "But no matter how long I live, and how long you live, we will both look at the same flower and see different things. You embrace life with open joy and a fierceness I've never had, never will have. I'm drawn to that joy like a flower is to the sun. Something I sense I need to nourish me, give me a reason to keep blooming."

He sobered, cupped her delicate face in his much larger hand. "My lady, I don't deserve such words."

She shook her head. "I've seen things, Jacob. I've met Chinese dragons whose whiskers feel like feathers when they brush them across your face. I've seen wars begin and end. Seen people do so many things I didn't expect, and many things I did expect, and dreaded. That is why the Ennui does not affect me. Terrible things always outnumber the good, but the overall power of a single good thing is so much greater."

Reaching down, she traced his lips with her thumb, bowed her head to rub it against the back of his knuckles. "Like this moment."

Her hair tangled in his fingers. As he watched, she took the time to extricate it, making sure she didn't pull on it and hurt his arm. It was a simple, tender courtesy, as gentle as earlier she'd been brutal. Her quiet words stroked him. "Life is never as dramatic as we pretend it is in a normal life. But it can be intensely amazing, or quietly desperate, as Thoreau said. If you woke each day with a genuine awareness which allowed you to appreciate everything as if you were seeing it for the very first time… or the last…"

She bent down, pressed her lips to his. Lightly, so lightly. Jacob, sensing her intent, remained still, absorbing the way that bare touch felt, spreading out over his skin from head to toe, her jade eyes so close, the slim line of her nose.

"We are so absorbed in ourselves. In each other's creations." She whispered it, eye to eye with him. "An incredible movie, a book, a castle… We forget the amazing creations that were not ours—the sky, the tree… a man's lips. The feel of his body, of the life that courses through it."

From the growing light in her eyes, she was finding her way back to herself, and he thanked whatever deities there were for having prompted him with the right question to ask.

"Ah, a woman's body is so much more amazing, my lady." Moving his touch down, he cupped her breast, his fingers passing over the nipple, kneading. He didn't have the strength to follow through on it, but he liked being able to do it. She didn't seem to mind either.

Twisting her fingers in his hair with whimsical intent, she held his face still as she coiled the strands over her knuckles. "Do you believe in other lives, Jacob? That you get more than one life?"

He stilled. Had Thomas told her? He couldn't tell from her expression and he thankfully didn't sense her in his mind, seeking his reaction, since he wasn't sure of it himself. "I know there are a lot of people who do, my lady," he said carefully. "I'm not sure I'm one of them, but I can't say the possibility isn't there."