"Ma'am? Do you wish to go home now?" Jacob looked up at the driver, whose gaze encompassed both of them. "Ma'am?" he repeated.
"She's sleeping," Jacob responded. "Yes, she wants to go home."
"All due respect, sir, you're not my client. She doesn't look asleep. She looks like she passed out. A lady like that has a lot of secrets. I don't want to know any of them, but I aim to see her home safely."
When Jacob shifted, the driver's eyes sharpened, warning him.
"Son, I've got a Beretta up here, pressed against the seat cushion. You can get out of the car without her, or you can tell me something that will convince me you should stay. You and that semiautomatic you have under your shirt."
"Good… driver."
Jacob glanced down and saw Lyssa's catlike eyes were open, fixed on the man. When she lolled her head around to look at Jacob, her features were so perfect and delicate she could be set on a shelf with a trio of china dolls. He would have to look twice to make sure she was real. But when a man felt the energy around her, it was forcibly clear how alive she was.
"He's… mine. Okay. Take us home. Keep me safe. Good driver. Must sleep now. Won't wake for a while."
Her eyes drifted closed, her head falling back on Jacob's shoulder. In the same movement she nestled in under his chin, letting him tighten his hold over her shoulders. One hand latched loosely inside his shirt front, her fingers brushing his bare skin. The other hand drifted into his lap across his thigh, her touch an inch or two from his groin.
Whether her affectionate body language was done strategically to reassure the driver or from her own desire, Jacob didn't know, but it did the trick.
As the driver raised a brow, Jacob heard the Beretta uncock. Mr. Ingram shook his head. "If you ain't hers, son, you're soon going to be. Hope you know what the hell you're doing."
Jacob wondered the same thing himself. As they pulled out of the parking lot, he felt burned to ash by her touch and those two simple words.
He's mine.
* * *
Chapter Six
Lyssa's sleep was deep and long, filled with interesting dreams. Of a knight with pale blue eyes who tucked her in before he went off to battle. She dreamed long enough that her dream brought him back to her. Wearing full-skirted chain mail with a tunic of the Crusades over it, the field of white bearing a red cross as pure as blood. She helped him out of it in the sanctity of their chamber, removing his gauntlets from his large hands, massaging her fingers over the calluses he'd earned from wielding sword and mace.
When she unlaced the mail and he lifted it off, she noted the dirt in the creases of his knuckles, the lines that heat, wind and cold had etched on his handsome face. Reaching up, she touched his lips, framed by the soft down of his beard and moustache. He kissed her fingers, his tongue playfully teasing her skin.
A bath steamed behind him. As he stood before her gloriously nude, muscular, powerful, aroused, she tried to tease, to slip away. But he was having none of that. He seized her waist in hands as gentle with her as they were powerful in the service of his Lord. Drawing her into his arms, he pulled her full against him, her breasts pressed into his skin, rising above the velvet and ribbon edge of her scooped-neck dress. His lips sought hers when he pushed her gown away and held her. Tighter. Even tighter.
Too tightly. He was hurting her, and she couldn't get free. She threw her head back, crying out. It was Rex's dark face, his lips pulled back in a snarl as he crushed her, her ribs breaking beneath the iron band of his arms while her heart beat frantically like a bird trapped in a cage getting smaller and smaller.
It's astounding the pain a vampire can endure, isn't it? Almost nothing can actually kill us.
He would not take her in her dreams. Not there, not in her life, not anywhere. Pulling her lips back in a matching snarl, she met his gaze.
As you found out. Didn't you, dearest?
His eyes glowed red. With a roar, he broke her rib cage like a frame of matchsticks, his touch separated from her heart by shards of shattered bone and so much more…
Lyssa woke, opened her eyes. Well, the first part of the dream had been nice. She could still feel that knight's rough palm, the strength of an eager male lover instead of a…
No, she wouldn't dishonor Rex's memory by venting her rage on him with name-calling. She dwelled instead on the knight, as if the other part of the dream had not existed. His blue eyes and copper hair.
Her fingers moved down her body, bare beneath the sheets. Finding her smooth sex wet, she shuddered at just the touch of her fingers. That knight of her dreams had reminded her of someone. Of…
She bolted upright in the bed, a motion too rapid for the human eye to follow if any humans had been present. She was alone in her bedchamber, which was an appropriate name for it, since she had it appointed like a medieval fantasy. Heavy canopy drapes for the large bed. A massive stone fireplace, the tapestry hung near it depicting hunting scenes in the bold colors and poor drawing style of the early centuries of the second millennium. Stained glass on her windows kept light filtered during daylight hours. Lit candles on the dark wood dresser and the faint smell of smoke lingering from matches being struck told her she hadn't been alone for long.
He'd gotten her home somehow. Gotten her to her own bedroom. Had Thomas described it to him, or had he wandered through the rooms, carrying her in his arms until he found the one that felt just right, like the fairy tale?
Well, Goldilocks she surely wasn't. As she turned and put her feet on the floor, she grasped the tall post, feeling the carvings of clematis flowers and leaves twining around it. Her hair fell forward, tangling in her nails as she swept it from her eyes. If she was cast in a fluffy animated retelling of one of those grim fairy tales, her character would be a wicked witch, a darkly dangerous stepmother. The thought almost made her smile.
She wondered what her knight would do when she took him to her bed. Chained him as she'd imagined, making him wait upon her pleasure. Even when he was allowed to sleep in her bed less encumbered, she'd still require him to sleep with one wrist cuffed and chained to the bed, a nominal reminder of his devotion, of the fact that he was her property.
Or perhaps she wouldn't chain and cuff his wrist, but his fine cock and scrotum. Jacob. When she thought of the personality he'd shown, the temper, her hunger stirred. She was ravenous. A side effect of the powder, she knew, but it was further stirred by her dream and memories of the things that had happened between them before she fainted.
While the malady she suffered had many drawbacks, including the inability to predict these attacks, one of its better aspects was that the spells, like the tides, fully receded after they'd run their course.
Her strength and potency had returned with her hunger. As well as the sharpness of her faculties, her ability to think and question.
Bran? How had Jacob gotten past him? How had he gotten in, period? Why was she thinking of him as if she'd already made the decision to keep him? He hadn't even told her the full truth of why he wanted to be her servant. She knew almost nothing of him. Thomas's endorsement held great weight, but normally she would have investigated far more about the man before bringing him into her home. Perhaps desperate times called for desperate measures, though she disliked thinking of her situation as desperate.
After brushing out her hair and sliding on a black satin robe and some jewelry to armor herself, she left the room and the west wing for the stairwell. She liked her Atlanta mansion, built in a fortress style with stone. While she'd have preferred it situated even more deeply in the woods than it was, at least it backed up to thirty acres of forest she'd had fenced, the outer perimeter regularly patrolled.
As she walked down the stairs, she knew it was still night. Probably about two thirty in the morning, given that the medicine usually knocked her out for two hours. The outside landscaping lights mounted beneath the stained glass windows threw light before her on. the curving stairwell and into the foyer. Reds, blues and golds merged with the shadows.
Stopping halfway down the staircase, she cocked her head, her exceptional senses picking up music from a radio and voices. And… aromas.
He was cooking eggs. Speaking to someone. Who? She deepened her probe, the possible need for aggression rising in her. Then she relaxed. It was Mr. Ingram. The driver. With Jacob. Brow furrowed, she went to the base of the stairs and headed for the kitchen.
Since she hadn't sent a compulsion to Bran to conceal his response when he sensed her approach, there was a sudden thunderous bark, followed by several slightly less vocal ones and a surprised yelp from what sounded like Mr. Ingram. Then there was the clatter of toenails. Many toenails.
Stopping in the wide hall, she braced herself for canine assault.
Her hellhounds, Rex had called them. He'd actually been fond of the two girls. Not as fond as she was of all of them though, finding herself unable to suppress a smile as the pack of Irish wolfhounds came racing out of the kitchen. Graceful as deer when they had traction, they galloped pell-mell down the slick wooden floor of the long hall that was the central feature of her home. She winced as Maggie skidded into one of the mounted suits of armor and knocked the pike loose, sending it clattering to the floor after it bounced off of Fionn's head, which deterred his speed not a bit.
She suspected Rex's affection had to do with their reputation from ancient times of being able to rip an enemy's head off in battle. Plus the fact that, at one time, only royalty could keep them. Even when Irish nobility had been allowed to have them, the quantity of the dogs they were allowed depended on rank. While she found their ferocity very useful, their heritage noble, she'd found many other reasons to love them.