Evan hadn’t taken her body yet, had barely touched her. But it made sense. He had a servant for his sexual needs. Her Master had committed crimes against the Council, but that changed nothing about her own status in the vampire world. She wasn’t clean. She was a traitor. For Evan, she was simply an assignment, an intriguing diversion until her fate was determined.
It shouldn’t matter. But she’d woken from Stephen’s torment with the memory of Niall’s and Evan’s hands haunting her. She didn’t know if that one kindness among the nightmares had inflated their importance, but she no longer knew herself. Pleasure on demand was a switch she’d learned to flip on and off, compartmentalized when her Master didn’t need it. It didn’t come unbidden, until now. In this early dawn hour, she was overwhelmed by it.
She remembered Niall pressed against her back, Evan’s damp brush sliding over her flesh. She imagined that brush, coated with paint, following the curves of her body, adding her into the landscape, making her a permanent part of the forest, the mountains.
“Lass? You’re all right?”
Straightening, she looked toward the door where Niall stood, his tall form cloaked in shadows so she couldn’t really see him. But she could feel his heat, even from here. His voice stroked her like soft fur.
“Yes. I’m fine.” Even if she had to stake herself, she wasn’t going to fall apart again like she’d done earlier tonight. “Did I wake you?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
She closed her eyes. She’d woken Evan. There seemed to be no way to avoid being shamed by her weaknesses. At least in her little room in Berlin, she’d been ignored.
Evan could close the connection whenever he wished, so her thoughts wouldn’t disturb him. Why would he care about them anyway, this temporary servant who didn’t really fit in his household? But of course he had to monitor her status in case Stephen came for her.
“I deeply apologize to your Master.” She was already kneeling on the floor, her failsafe response. Even though Evan was not physically present or speaking in her mind, if he’d sent his servant, he was participating in this conversation. “I can’t control the dreams, but Lord Brian gave me some medicine so I can sleep more deeply. I will start taking it.”
“Why aren’t you taking it now?”
When she hesitated, lifted her gaze, she saw Niall’s tawny eyes glitter in the dim light, not without sympathy. “No sense lying. Ye know that.”
“Of course. I . . . it’s hard to wake up. I don’t dream with the pills, but . . .” Yet that darkness became the nightmare. A coffin, endless death. When it became too much and she wanted to scream, she couldn’t, as if her lungs had stopped functioning. She was a corpse, unable to react, or make a sound. The pills also made her groggy, an unacceptable state if she was to perform her duties.
She deserved to be up here in the woods in this totally unorthodox situation, because she was obviously coming apart at the seams, something no InhServ would ever do.
“Come up here.” He’d moved, was standing over her. All he wore was a pair of worn flannel boxers, the elastic shot so they hung low on his hips. When she started to rise, he squatted down, bringing a wall of chest muscle into her field of vision, as well as the faintly sweaty but welcome male scent of him. “Put your arms around my neck, muirnín. We’re going on a little trip.”
He lifted her the way he might lift a child, fitting her to the front of his body, guiding her legs around his hips, his palms cradling her bottom and the small of her back. It was natural to slide her arms all the way around his shoulders, her face pressed into his neck. She was tired.
He rubbed her back as he maneuvered out of the room and down the hallway toward the back bedroom. She remembered he’d said this back room was suitable for Evan, at least for early morning. Since it was overcast, she wondered if he’d be there, but when she didn’t sense him, she realized he was probably still in the cellar, working on the day’s pictures.
It was a large bed, the headboard a crisscross of tied branches, interwoven with a string of small white lights that cast a dim light in the room. Niall sat down with her straddling his lap, her knees pressed into the mussed covers.
Stroking her hair away to massage her nape, he continued to hold her that way, her head resting on his shoulder, face pressed into his neck. She remembered her thoughts and dreams, the yearning, and felt an unsolicited contraction between her legs at the position. His cock was firm and promising beneath her, making her want to rub. Knowing she would die of mortification if she did such a thing, she tensed, determined to lock down even the most innocuous twitch. Niall’s arms tightened around her, a brief warning before he shifted her. Now they were lying down, her body spooned inside the shelter of his.
“Why don’t ye sleep here with me for a bit? Maybe having someone warm and breathing next to ye will help with the sleep. Imagine I’m a big, smelly bear.”
Her lips quivered against that near smile she kept experiencing around him. With the only thing between them being her thin nightgown and his flannel shorts, there was a great deal of long thigh against the back of hers, his hard furred chest against her shoulders. It was natural to shift her hips closer, pressing her backside to the heat of his groin.
“You keep wiggling like that, muirnín, you’ll get us both in trouble. Easy now. Just sleep.”
Bit by bit, she relaxed. When he put an arm around her waist, cinching her in closer despite his warning, he nuzzled her hair. Settling his head deeper into the pillow, he blew through the loose strands as if they were in his way. It made her squirm, and he tightened his arm, blew on her some more, tickling her neck.
“Stop it,” she told him. Warmth settled in her lower belly when his chuckle rumbled against her back.
He had that smell of forest and earth, like Evan. Beneath whatever shampoos, colognes or body washes they used, most vampires smelled of dry, cool . . . nothing. Another reason they were called the undead in lore and legend. Of course, having to dispose of Stephen’s annual kill for him for ten consecutive years, she could say for an unpleasant fact the dead did not smell like nothing.
The Council allowed every vampire to take thirteen human lives per year without consequences, as long as they observed the protocols for remaining undetected by the human world, but only one of those deaths was necessary. The annual kill. A vampire needed to completely drain a human once a year to rejuvenate his mind and body, keep them in peak condition.
Niall had been with Evan three hundred years. Unbidden, she imagined a stack of bodies, like a wall of sandbags, and it speared straight into those nightmares Stephen had given her. A wave of blood, washing over the bodies . . .
“Wheest.” The shushing noise made his breath a soft stroke on her skin. “I’ll sing you a song if you keep doing that.”
Evan was still in her head, letting Niall hear her thoughts. She squeezed her lids tighter, trying to dispel such images. “You’re not smelly,” she whispered.
“Yes I am. Go to sleep.” Niall’s gruffness helped that warmth to return. “God knows what Picasso will want when he gets up tonight. Probably have me scaling the highest peak to strap a camera on a mountain goat’s arse.”
He trailed off at the end of the sentence, punctuating it with a half snore. At first, she thought he was teasing her, then she realized he’d truly fallen asleep in midsentence. She envied him the effortlessness of it. His unconscious state eased her somewhat, though. She was glad to be sharing the bed with him, but she wasn’t sure what she’d do with the intimacy if he stayed awake. In Stephen’s house, she hadn’t had any difficulty avoiding unmandated physical contact with other servants, but here was an entirely different matter.
Evan had left her wanting, but that was her fault. No matter how shamefully poor her impulse control had become, she wasn’t going to shame herself further by acting on her impulses with his servant.
As she worked through a calming meditation, her body relaxed further into Niall’s. Servants never slept together. She was glad Niall and Evan didn’t know that, and hoped she could sleep here every night, no matter how weak a thought that was. He’d been right—she felt sheltered here, safe from the nightmares.
Eventually she dozed, but when she woke, she didn’t think she’d been out long. She was still firmly held in Niall’s arms, his breath on her neck and shoulder. The bedroom door was open, but she didn’t see daylight in the forward part of the house. The rumble of thunder told her it was storming, explaining the darkness. She became aware of the patter of rain, falling on the tin roof. A moment later, she realized Evan was in the room.
Niall had taken the center of the large bed, putting her on the right side. Behind them, she heard Evan shedding clothes, the metallic clink as he removed his watch. When she turned her head, the lights woven through the headboard allowed her to see him, down near Niall’s feet. He was shirtless, the top of the pants open so they fell low on his lean hips as he dug out whatever he was carrying in the pockets. Some change, possibly some keys. Very normal things, things she wasn’t used to vampires carrying.
When his gaze lifted, she didn’t immediately think to look away. Instead she lingered on his brow, the way his hair fell over it, the straight shape of his nose and mouth, the sculpted cheekbones. His upper body, while lacking Niall’s bulk, was strong and lean, with pleasing curves and ridges of muscle.
Niall tended to let his clothes stay where they fell, because he’d kicked them aside when he’d brought her into the room. Evan folded his, laying them over a chair. She should do that for him. It wasn’t proper for him to be doing the task while his servants lay there.
It is if I enjoy watching them twined together, waiting for me. Well, you’re waiting. I could be falling off the mountain toward a ravine of sharp tree branches and Niall wouldn’t rouse. Unless I give him proper incentive.
The mattress shifted as Evan slid into the bed. Reaching over Niall’s body, he touched her arm, let his long fingers slide over her elbow, her hip. Though the blanket was covering her, it was thin, and the night rail even thinner.