On the third night, he lay on the grass of her back lawn, staring up at the stars in the night sky. A child had told the emperor he was naked. A fool had brought a king back from despair by the simplicity of his worldview. He'd chosen to accept the role of human servant to Lady Lyssa because his gut had told him it was where he was supposed to be. The moment he'd seen her at Eldar's Salon, he'd known it with a deep conviction he couldn't shake even now. He'd known it at the bullfight, though he hadn't known what to call the compulsion then.
He wasn't certain if he was cut out to be a human servant. What he knew for certain was he was meant to serve her. What the hell that meant, he didn't know. Did he need to step out of the way to let someone more suitable take care of her?
"Oh,, this is such bullshit. I'm sick of it."
At the fork of each road in his life he'd gone on his gut when every external source of information told him it was the wrong direction. He'd have to trust it.
He rolled to his feet, strode determinedly into the house. It took all of several minutes to stuff everything in his duffel, shoulder it and head for the kitchen entrance and the garage where he kept his motorcycle. Bran kept pace, following him with a stiff-legged stately stride that said the dog knew something significant was occurring.
When he rolled the bike out, he strapped the bag and the weapons tote on the back rack. Stood there, breathing deep. Swung his leg over to straddle the motorcycle, feel it between his thighs, ready to roar to life and take him wherever he wanted to go. She wouldn't hold him, would shut down the link between them, though she'd always know where he was and what he was thinking if she chose to do so. Wanted to do so. Sometimes in a weak moment, maybe he'd hear a whisper of her own thoughts in his dreams, her touch.
He would feel her. Know she was close, watching him. She could even be standing directly behind him now, where the bike's exhaust would make her skirt tremble around her legs when he started it up.
He stayed where he was a long time, straddling the gap between two decisions, somehow knowing whichever way he went on it, it was the last time he'd struggle with it. No matter what any of her kind or his own had to say about it. Even her.
"What's stronger than blood, Jacob?" His brother's voice, angry and hurt, when he'd left him. "What the hell is stronger than that?"
My feet have grown heavy and clumsy… I'd trip over them and fall flat on my face if I got more than a hundred paces from you…
I'm not as good as you think. I'm no saint, and I'm far from harmless.
He hadn't had an answer for his brother then. He did now.
The heart. That's what.
Bran sat a foot away from the bike, alert, gazing at him steadily. He'd wondered before how she'd taught him not to give away her presence when she was near. It was a question he hadn't had a chance to ask her. One of the many things he'd like a lifetime to find out. She didn't have a lifetime, though. Not even the length of a human lifetime left to her. Or a dog's.
He thought of her all the ways he'd seen or experienced her. Vulnerable. But not the sickness. She would have expelled him long before now if she'd thought for a moment the main reason he was here was pity, so he didn't waste any concern on that. She had the kind of pride that would make her die in her bed alone, no matter how tortured by the symptoms of her illness, rather than compel someone to her side to be her caretaker alone.
He thought about her mannerisms during the vampire dinner, when she forced him to couple with two women he didn't know before the cruel eyes of strangers. Her threat at the salon to dismember him, which was an affectionate, lighthearted memory in comparison. The way she watched him with such close attention as if she were fascinated not only by his words, but every minute change of facial expression or body language. Knowing that close scrutiny was coupled with the ability to hear his thoughts made him feel exposed and inextricably bound to her at once, a sense of infinite belonging. Yes, he was what they called an alpha male. But he wouldn't deny he belonged to Lady Lyssa, nor did it bother him anymore to realize it. It didn't change anything that already existed to give it names.
He was acknowledging what was already there, a part of their relationship that like so much of it couldn't be adequately explained. Even by the two people who were a part of it.
In his mind were the good images. Fewer but far more powerful than the not-so-good, as she'd said. Like making love before the fire, after the dinner. When she waited for him, wanted him. Letting him take her down and have her, sweep them both into a realm where politics and their status in her world or his did not matter.
Swinging his leg back off the bike, he set down the weapons bag and duffel. He would stay because she needed him, but more than that, he would stay because he was in love with her. Perversely, he realized that was what had caused the wave of doubt. Because he loved her with everything he was, he'd finally gotten beyond himself, the need to prove himself, to what she needed. While he was sure that there were many others who could be a better human servant to her, his gut told him in his inability to start that engine, she needed him. How or why wasn't important. He was going to be here for her.
Bran gave him a doleful look as Jacob started to shoulder the bags to return to the house. "Thought I was going to go for a spin and let you give chase, did you?" He paused as the dog cocked his head. "Well, I suppose someone has to keep you and your worthless brothers and sisters in shape."
* * *
A moment later, Lyssa watched while he kicked the bike into gear and sped down the mile-long driveway, Bran in hot pursuit, his brothers and sisters materializing from all parts of the grounds to join in the fun. When he got to the end, he put a foot down and deftly spun the bike in a circle, spitting out gravel to make the dogs jump excitedly just beyond range as he gunned it to shoot back up the drive. As he did, she saw him laughing, the weight of his thoughts lifted now that he'd made peace with them. The image before her shimmered, and suddenly she saw him coming across the field at full gallop, his sword drawn, coming to the aid of a woman he'd never met, whose caravan was under attack…
Startled, she blinked and the image disappeared, but the vividness of it, like her dream of the knight the first evening Jacob was in her home, lingered. Of course what woman didn't dream of her knight in shining armor? But then, there was much to be said of a knight in a snug T-shirt and worn jeans, handling a powerful motorcycle with callused hands and the grip of his thighs as deftly as he might a warhorse.
She'd heard his thoughts, had experienced myriad emotions herself as he sorted through his own. A few of his thoughts had almost tempted her to break the silence she'd imposed between them. Watching Bran and his family give chase to the bike with that intensity that quickly brought to mind their heritage of pulling down deer or tracking wolves, she knew it wouldn't change her mind about her next course of action.
She just wished she could predict it would accomplish her intention, instead of skittering off into some altogether different direction, as her interactions with Jacob seemed to do.
There was no hope for that. The Council Gathering was approaching. She would make a last attempt to teach him the one lesson she'd been trying to teach him from the beginning, the one most crucial to his survival. From there forward, he would serve her, but Fate would be his true Mistress.
Damn it, Lyssa wasn't going to give him up to any other woman without a fight. She couldn't let him be another Thomas.
Open your mind, Jacob. Be ready to learn.
* * *
Five days later, she left him a message.
"It's time to test your skills for the Council. Meet me at the forest edge at full dark. Wear black clothing that allows you to move quickly. Bring your preferred weapons for fighting vampires."
Jacob enjoyed the idle fantasy they were going after Carnal, but since she'd said to meet her where the thickly forested nature preserve started behind her house, he doubted that was the case.
The security company that regularly patrolled the outside perimeter of the fenced preserve handled detection not prevention, for she knew no human methods would prevent a vampire from entering and only result in loss of human life. But a vampire would have a very difficult time getting onto her property undetected, which was what mattered to her.
She was waiting when he got there. His heart leaped foolishly at that first sight of her in a week. Standing in front of the tree line, she almost blended into it, an innate part of the woods. Her hair was loose, surprising him, but when he reached her side he saw it fit the wildness that seemed so close to the surface in her tonight. With no light out here save for the sliver of moonlight, her expression was in shadow.
"Have you ever played tag, Jacob?"
"I have." He wished he could see her face. Her voice rasped in a manner different than he'd ever heard it before, a creature he wasn't entirely sure he knew, and she was a mystery on most days. Even the dogs were acting differently. Not as house pets. Snarling occasionally at each other, reinforcing the pack's pecking order. Circling, impatient, they'd reverted to a primeval behavior he didn't know they remembered, but it called to mind the wilds of Ireland. As they brushed his legs he didn't pet them, knowing instinctively it wasn't appropriate and likely would lose him a hand. "Is that what we're doing?"
"The rules are essentially the same. I'll give you fifteen minutes to put distance between yourself and me. See if you can confuse me with your trail. I won't be using the mark to find you, only my vampire senses. Confuse me as best you may."