5
THEIR destination was a rocky ledge, with tufts of silver-limned grass spiking from the overlapping stones. The trees fell back, no longer a thatched net above. Now she was beneath a wide black sky, illuminated by plentiful stars scattered in so many patterns, it would take a lifetime to draw all the pictures they created.
Niall bade her take a seat on one of the flat rocks and watch how he set up Evan’s equipment. While she accepted that as a useful course of action, she wondered if he’d done it because she still looked like a good breeze could send her off the cliff.
She assumed Evan intended to photograph the surroundings here as well, and he did take some shots as Niall was unloading the backpacks, but then she saw the servant setting up two easels, stretching canvas over pegged frames. A folding table came next, with brushes, assorted tubes of paint, palette, rags, a bottle of water.
Fishing out his pocketknife, Niall used the corkscrew to open a bottle of red wine, sitting it on the table with a stack of plastic cups. The vampires she knew would have packed wineglasses and an expensive cheese and fruit tray.
“Too uncouth?” Evan lifted his head from his camera.
Never knowing when he was listening—the one disconcerting thing about having a vampire in her mind.
“Only one?” His handsome mouth curved.
“Of course not, my l—” She stopped. “Sir.”
Niall chuckled. Done with his tasks, he flopped down next to her, leaning back on his elbows, propping one giant hiking boot atop the other. She guessed he wore a size thirteen, since his foot looked twice as broad and long as hers. “Most times, he uses the cups to clean his brushes and chugs the wine straight from the bottle. Does anything about him say his lairdship?”
“His ownership of me . . . and you,” she said stiffly. “It demands respect and honor. Service.”
“I knew slave owners in my time. Some of them needed to have their testicles hacked off and their throats cut. In that order.” Removing an apple from the pack she’d brought, Niall cut a slice, offering it to her. “Want a bite?”
Evan appeared to be involved in his paints. Even so, Niall’s blatant rudeness shocked her.
“No. Our Master isn’t that type of vampire. Why would you say such a horrible, disrespectful thing?”
Niall stopped chewing. His suddenly cool expression made her color rise in contrast. She’d just asserted she knew far more about Evan than his three-hundred-year-old servant and, even worse, criticized Niall’s service to him.
I don’t need a champion, Alanna. Though I thank you for the thought.
If her cheeks could burn hotter, she was sure they would. When she lowered her gaze with a nod, she hoped the ground would swallow her. She didn’t know how to deal with a servant who didn’t act like a servant at all. Even so, Evan’s lack of reaction to it made her wonder. Stephen would have had any servant with half that insolence whipped until blood ran down their backs.
“Alanna.”
She lifted her confused eyes to the vampire. She sincerely hoped he wasn’t going to say that thought out loud. She’d never thought of having to guard her thoughts from what a servant might think of her.
“Evan,” the vampire said. “Say my name.”
“Evan.” She managed it, though it felt clumsy, wrong. “Sir.”
At Niall’s snort, she quelled sudden anger, an unexpected emotion for her.
“My apologies. Evan.” She said it carefully, like a foreign language, and it was. “I’m accustomed to referring to all vampires as my lord.”
“Because all of them were.” Evan nodded, unperturbed. “Born vampires, territory overlords, or Region Masters. It’s understandable. I don’t mind if you slip. Just keep correcting yourself.” His tone became dry. “The more time you spend around me, the easier it will get. As Niall pointed out, the differences will be quite obvious.”
He was different. But it wasn’t because he was ill-mannered, unrefined. It was something hard to define, something that held her attention, like the puzzle of how to best serve him. That challenge, such a change from what she’d known, made her cautiously like the difference.
A strange thought. She hadn’t thought about liking or disliking things in quite a while. That path was best pushed aside. The best way to do that was to perform some task for her new Master, yet at the moment she saw nothing to hand.
Niall had left her side. Finished with his apple, he headed farther down the rocky grade, apparently to toss the core off the ledge for the wildlife. The Scot turned his head at her regard, gave her a wink that reassured her that his offense with her comment was short-lived. She let out a sigh of relief, just as his knee went out from beneath him and he lost his footing.
As he skidded down the precipitous grade, the distance was so short there was no time to cry out. He went right over it, in a shower of dirt and rock. She jumped to her feet with a cry, spinning to look at Evan. The vampire was mixing his paints, not the least bit concerned his full servant had toppled off the edge of a mountain. Her eyes narrowed. Looking back toward the cliff edge, she saw Niall’s fingers appear, digits curving over the stone lip.
“A wee bit of help, lass?”
She told herself he was fine, but it looked so dire, that deep gorge just beyond the rock edge. Imagining his feet dangling free over a yawning drop, the sharp pines and firs ready to catch him in their teeth, she quickened her step. Of course, with her diminished strength, she wouldn’t be able to do much if he truly needed help. Since Evan appeared to have no plans to leave his work in progress, Niall might have to hang there for a while.
She knelt on the ledge carefully by Niall’s hands and leaned out, fully expecting to see him dangling. Instead there was a generous shelf of rock jutting out below that one. He stood on that, his fingers curled on the rock. He was leaning, not hanging from it.
“I like the way ye look when you hurry, lass,” he noted. “You’ve a lovely shape.”
“Why would you do that?” she demanded. As she straightened, she did her best to step on those fingers, but he moved them, anticipating her.
“If you want to push him off for real, Alanna, that’s fine with me,” Evan noted. He had the palette in hand, was dabbing some color on the canvas, considering it critically.
“Without my usual strength, I need the element of surprise,” she responded. When she gave Niall a condemning look, he chuckled.
“She’s serious, Evan.”
“So am I.” The vampire shifted to study the canvas from another angle. Alanna couldn’t help but notice how the pants creased attractively over his groin, displaying what was there. It cooled her irritation with Niall, yet heated other parts of her.
Evan glanced up, giving her an appraising glance that increased that heat. “I now have a new servant who treats me with proper deference and respect. She also has a gorgeous body and miles of lovely hair. Why do I need your ugly face and poor manners?”
“Because ye need a pack mule. Remember?” Hauling himself back up on the ledge, Niall planted his backside there, feet dangling. He gave the bemused Alanna a wink. “You have to be hungry after that marking. How about a light supper while Evan works?”
They ate their picnic at that same spot. Niall was pleased when Alanna sat next to him, slim legs and new hiking shoes dangling over open space. As he cut up another apple and gave her the lion’s share of it, she gave him the bulk of the sandwiches, though he coaxed her to eat two before she insisted she was stuffed.
It was absorbing to watch her, and not only because of the expected things. Her training controlled everything. No wasted gestures, such that she had an exceptional stillness to her, almost like a vampire. No fidgeting or shifting. Even when she blinked, it seemed a deliberate movement, the feather of the dark lashes pressing along her cheek before the rich brown irises were revealed again.
He’d compare her to an automaton, except there was so much vibrating beneath her skin, a chaotic emotional and sexual energy. It spun a fascinating net, drawing the casual observer closer, waiting for any move she made, any word she spoke.
When he’d apologized to her in the Rover, telling her he’d been an arse, Evan had echoed it in his mind. Yes, you were. Don’t take out your anger with me or the way the vampire world is on her, neshama. If you need a fight, I am right here. Always.
Always. What was it she’d said? A full sense of the servant’s soul, resting in their hand, to do with as they will. The servant’s complete submission to that idea. Their unconditional devotion to the vampire’s care. That is what they seek.
Her words had taken him back. Had it been 1754? He didn’t remember dates all that well anymore. They’d been on a hilltop overlooking Florence, the city bathed in moonlight, much like this. The vampire was working on a stark black-and-white landscape, not the usual thing for artists at that time. But Evan had been experimenting with those haunting contrasts even then . . .
“Ye want me to describe what?”
Evan gestured to the tree line. “I need you to describe the way the light hits the trees at sunrise. What it looks like, every detail that seems important. How it makes you feel. What it smells like, what it makes you want to do.”
Niall drew his gaze away from the nighttime view of Florence. It was so different from Scotland, everything warm, prosperous and colorful, the town full of intellectuals and laughing children. Earlier that evening they’d been at Ponte Vecchio. Evan had wanted to see the Pasquino, a sculpture of Menelaus supporting the body of Patroclus. While Niall found it heroic and romantic, Evan explained it was based on a fragment of an ancient Roman sculpture. That fragment was simply a headless warrior the archaeologists had deduced had been supporting the body of a fallen comrade, because the shards remaining showed his hand upon a piece of the torso.
The spirit endures through the physical, no matter how time has decayed the original vision. It still inspires statues like this, an echo.
Niall turned his attention back to the pair of rabbits he was cleaning. He intended to prepare them for dinner, have them with the bread they’d bought in the last town. The baker’s wife had a generous bosom, gleaming like a pair of butter-glazed loaves, thanks to the perspiration caused by her ovens. He’d wanted to taste the damp salt on them, but he’d stopped at his imaginings. He didn’t dally with what belonged to another man.
“Pay attention, lazy servant.” Evan drew him out of the pleasant recollection. “Tell me how sunlight hits a tree.”
“How does that help you know how to paint it?” Niall’s tone was deeply suspicious, such that Evan laughed at him.
“Trust me, it does. You’re a hands-on man. You’ll understand it more after you see it. When the sun comes up tomorrow, think about it. Make notes. Practice your writing.”
Like most Scottish lads, Niall had learned his Latin and letters, but it hadn’t stuck that well, since he’d had little use for it before he met Evan. The vampire had tutored him, though, helping him improve such that now he could handle functional correspondence.
“I dinnae have to wait. I’ve seen the sunrise every day since I was old enough to help my da. It falls the same way that moonlight you’re looking at does it. Except, there’s more brightness. The greenness of the leaves, they melt with the gold summat, so you get both colors.”
He paused, thinking it through a bit deeper. “Ye start to see the outline of the trees, gradual-like. They’re dark against the dark, and then ye notice they’re becoming more defined, the sky a soft gray, like a cheetie’s fur.”
In the beginning, he’d been self-conscious about giving such descriptions, but then he’d learned Evan was evaluating his described emotional response to help paint the picture, not make Niall more vulnerable. That was when he’d become more confident with it, though Evan had embarrassed him by saying he’d finally found the poet in his soul.
“Ye feel a sense o’ sadness, because there’s always that in the gray predawn light. Your chest gets tight, and there’s a hitch in your wame, like something’s about to be lost, or something that was lost is so close ye might be able to touch it, there on that dividing point between light and dark. Then the colors start to change. It’s different every day. This morning ’twas a blue with some rose mixed in, and the rose took over, washing over to blue, blending with it so it shimmered like pearl. Then comes the fire. The streaks of clouds, the hints of light t’come. You can feel the heat, and ye know God’s given you another day to do His work.”
Evan’s gaze was fixed on him, so still it made Niall shift uncomfortably.
“One day,” the vampire said, “I expect there will be a way to capture an image on paper with a machine, so it replicates it exactly. But even so, it won’t show what you just described.”
Niall shrugged. “I described it as ye asked. If you want sonnets or science, you’ve chosen the wrong man to ask.”
“You mistake me. No machine will ever be able to show an image the way the soul sees it. And that’s the picture an artist seeks.”
“Most artists I know are seeking coin. Hoping for fat commissions from titled lords.”
“So I’m not an artist?” Evan arched a brow, emphasizing those patrician features, the straight nose and high cheekbones. Ach, but the man needed a broken nose or a scar to make his face less . . . distracting.
“Not the usual kind.” Niall cleared his throat. “For one thing, ye came to Scotland to paint landscapes. Most of the English look at Scotland in horror and flee back to their estates with their smooth green gardens.”
Evan smiled. “I’m not English, remember? If I do it right, the subject itself infuses the brush with life, from the first contact with the canvas. That connection makes all the difference. And I didn’t initially come to Scotland to paint landscapes. I came to see the Book of Kells.”
“Aye, so you said. Fascinated because they used thousands o’ wee dots to form a letter. I’ve seen thousands o’ ants carry grains of sand to make their house, keep the rain out and the food in. That seems far more practical than wasting all that effort on a letter of the alphabet.”
“Pict barbarian.”
“You said the Picts had admirable methods o’ stone carving.”
“Uncouth Viking, then.”
Niall snorted, but left the rabbits, coming to Evan’s side to see what he was doing with the information he’d given him. Of course, he was probably mulling it for a future painting. There was no way to predict how the vampire’s mind worked, unless unpredictability itself could be considered predictable.
Evan was painting a tree, a hardy Caledonian pinewood as he’d seen it in Scotland, but he’d painted it against the picturesque spires, domes and bridges of Florence. Even though he’d done the picture in grays and whites, somehow he’d captured the sense of bright daylight over the city. But as the eye traveled up the hill toward the misplaced tree, the sky became more turbulent, the tree an angular soldier standing alone from all the rest. Out of place, yet enduring, strong.
Niall had found a disconcerting kind of peace, watching Evan work. There was no denying or describing it. Fortunately, Evan asked plenty of questions about light and trees and such, but he never asked Niall what he thought of a painting. The one time he’d volunteered a comment, it had been about a commissioned portrait of an Italian noblewoman and her two ratlike dogs. He’d told Evan it was nice. Evan had just arched that fine brow, offered a neutral sound and gone back to it.
Now, though, Evan’s fingers had stilled. The vampire’s attention was on him. Niall didn’t look toward him, keeping his eyes on the canvas. When Evan touched his face, he quivered. He knew he was that tree, out of place, yet captured on that canvas by the truths that Evan saw.
“What do you see in it?” Niall asked gruffly.
Evan’s touch moved to his jaw, guided his face toward him. Niall was startled to find the vampire’s face so close to his own. While he was a couple of inches taller than Evan, and looked a decade older, the male had a way of making it clear who was the more imposing of the two, on every level.
Niall made a noise, an uncertain resistance. Evan closed the distance, bringing his mouth to his. Coaxing Niall’s stiff lips open, he teased his tongue with his own, tightening his fingers on his neck even more, letting him feel their strength. Evan had the ability to bruise and force, but now it was reined back. Instead, he shifted a step closer and let his other hand slide to Niall’s back, take a firm hold of the stuff of his shirt, twist with the deepening pleasure of the kiss. That twist constricted into a tight fist when Niall exploded into life, kissing him back.
He finally let himself feel it, get lost in it. For the first time in his life, he could steep himself in another man’s desire. As a result, it felt much like the sunrise he’d described. An unfolding moment of possibilities, stretching out before them.
Evan threaded his hand into his servant’s hair, taking a firm hold as he explored him thoroughly with tongue and fangs, obviously enjoying the taste of him against that dark tapestry of trees waiting for the kiss of dawn.
Waiting for the possibilities of God’s work, for the sadness of endings. For the ephemeral and yet eternal nature of it all. That’s what affects your wame, neshama. The forest will be here long after both of us, but this moment will be part of the impressions that linger here, that an artist will sense, even if he hasn’t witnessed it firsthand. Our passion will guide the brush.
“You asked what I see,” Evan murmured, at last pulling back. Niall realized he was gripping the male’s shoulder in one hand, a lifeline. “I see your soul, Niall. That is what I see.”
It was their first kiss.
So aye, he kent well what Alanna was saying. Vampires had a peculiar obsession with the human soul, particularly their servant’s.
The first time Evan had seen a camera, a huge piece of machinery with a cover in the back, Niall had thought the vampire was going to dismantle it right there to figure it out. It still surprised him when Evan experienced the same wonder at a new invention that a human would have. He expected vampires to reach the point where nothing seemed new or different, but that never happened with Evan. In fact, Niall was far more likely to react with jaded cynicism than his Master.
Coming back to their present-day surroundings, Niall saw Alanna leaning back on her arms, tilting her face up to the moonlight.
The spirit endures through the physical, no matter how time has decayed and destroyed the original vision. Reaching out, he touched her bare throat. When she stilled, registering the questing nature of his caress, he stroked down that graceful line to her sternum, tracing the curve of her right breast under her rib cage. He remembered how he’d quivered under Evan’s touch, understood when she did so now. He’d grown up since then, and understood even better the feeling that swelled in his chest in response to it, the desire to take what she was unconsciously offering. Instead he rose, leaning over her. He caught a brief glimpse of the deep brown eyes, the dark rings around the irises that made them even more compelling, before he brushed his lips over her forehead and straightened. Pressing his hand into her shoulder, he left her, seeking a higher spot to take a nap. The fragrance of her skin, her hair, would be pleasant company in his dreams.
Alanna turned to watch Niall go, her skin still tingling along the track his fingers had made. When he stretched out on the grassy knoll to the left of Evan, forming the center point of a narrow triangle of space between the three of them, she shifted her attention to Evan. The vampire didn’t react to his servant’s familiarity with her. However, she agreed with Niall’s warning. There was something about Evan, even when he wasn’t looking in her direction or Niall’s, that made her certain the vampire was aware of every move and thought they had.
Niall’s sexual caress made her feel uncomfortable, but only because she wasn’t sure how to classify it. She sighed. What did it matter? Even now Lord Daegan was hunting Stephen. She could be in the middle of deciphering her precious structure and rules, and drop dead. Her heart did a funny jump, as if she could feel it getting ready to explode in her chest, supposedly what happened when a vampire Master was staked. She knew better than to think about this.
Alanna, do you paint?
She looked toward the vampire. “I can sketch. I was taught the basic arts.”
Come up here then.
She rose, moving up the slope. Following a compulsion, she deviated from her track enough to stop where Niall reclined. As she stepped over him, he cracked his eyelids and gave her an absent half smile. Bending, she studiously brushed away a cadre of bread crumbs caught in the stubble of his hard jaw. Satisfied, she straightened, leaving him with a curious look on his face as she quickened her pace to make up for the delay.
Evan was using quick brushstrokes on the clean canvas to mock up a subject. As she came to stand beside him, she saw a rough but excellent rendering of Niall’s profile. The one the vampire had pulled off the easel and propped at its base was a study of the sky, nothing but moonlight and stars. As she bent to take a closer look, she saw the shadows of the mountains and something else . . . something in flight above them. Perhaps a bird, dragon . . . or even a man, arms flung out against the darkness.
Evan drew her attention to the upper canvas. “I started the face, and thought you might want to fill in the details, draw out the torso.”
She hesitated. “For what purpose . . . Evan?”
“I’d like to see you do it.” He proffered the brush.
Taking it, she considered Niall. Whether by the direction of his Master or some other reason, he was propped on his elbows, but still in a half doze.
She was tempted to respond to the command as she would any other task, focused primarily on precision and response time, being ready for the next order. Yet when Evan painted or took pictures, he took time before pressing the button, or making the first slash of paint. He was reaching for something else, something deeper.
You’re on to it, Alanna. Keep following that.
She gave a slight nod. Despite Evan’s teasing, Niall was far from ugly. No vampire’s servant was ugly, and they didn’t age. Even so, there was a weathered, rugged look to Niall’s face, lines that gave it depth. She could see the trained focus of a scout’s eyes, even now when they seemed deceptively unfocused and lazy. His mouth had a capable intent to it that made a woman think of his possibilities as both protector and lover. The solid jawline complemented it. He was power, strength, steadiness . . . and stillness. He’d teased her, tried to play with her. The laugh lines around his mouth and eyes said it wasn’t artifice, but there was something else that became obvious when his face was at rest like this. Something deep . . . painful . . . magnetic.
His gaze shifted then, focusing on her face, and it clicked. They were both servants, both knowing what that meant. He knew all about the hunger and need, the inarticulate wanting . . . the sorrow and disappointment. The rage.
As surprising as that was, what startled her was realizing she was more like him than she was like the other Inherited Servants. None of them had understood, sympathized or cared. That wasn’t their job, though, so that wasn’t supposed to bother her.
She’d stepped back, clutching the brush hard against her chest. When Evan’s hands settled on her shoulders, she almost wrenched away. Recalling herself in time, she went wooden, holding it all in. Evan’s hands withdrew, leaving her standing on her own, all that energy pulsing around her. “I . . . ah . . .”
“Take a few breaths. When you’re ready, paint.”
She wanted to put slashes of red, black, brown on that canvas. A reflection of something else, not someone’s face. The colors of a soul.
“If that’s what you see . . .” Evan shifted behind her once more. When he touched her waist, a gentle pressure, she found herself doing as she’d wanted to do before. She leaned into his body as he closed his hand over hers. Lifting it with the brush toward the rough rendering of Niall’s face, she knew she couldn’t do it. Her hand was trembling, fingers clutched hard on the wooden stem.
“You’re overthinking it. Take your mind out of the equation. If you were a portrait artist working on commission, it wouldn’t matter. Most patrons don’t want you to paint their soul. They want you to get rid of those unsightly pounds, the wart on their nose, the blemishes.”
She drew a shaky breath at the warmth of his tone. His body was also warm. Warm and solid behind hers, his other hand sliding around her waist to hold her more firmly against him, make it clear he wanted her to lean, to press her backside against him. “See that hump of a nose, broken one too many times? The patron would want that straightened . . .”
“This patron wants it documented. You were responsible for one of those breaks, after all,” Niall commented.
“You had it coming.”
“That’s what all the wife-beaters say.”
She drew in a breath as Evan, ignoring him, bent to kiss her throat, nudging past the braid. His tongue traced her major artery as her blood pressure ramped up. Her fingers tightened on the brush. “All the lines around his eyes would be gone,” Evan continued, breath heated on her skin. “You’d leave or create ones that make him look serene and wise, handsome. We do the best with what we’ve been given, and the good thing about painting is you can take artistic license.”
She steadied, pulled from the storm by the calm, matter-of-fact explanation. When her gaze went back to Niall, the Scot crossed his eyes.
Her lips twitched. He saw it, his own curving, eyes warming to enhance all that character in his face. It told her everything was okay. She was allowed to feel whatever she was feeling.
She couldn’t trust such an unlikely message. The very fact the thought had crossed her mind was enough to knock the floor out of her world. Her feelings weren’t safe at all. That’s how she’d arrived at this point, wasn’t it?
“I don’t want to ruin what you’ve already started.” She recognized the desperate tone in her voice, struggled to dispel it.
“It’s just a practice canvas. Here, look.” Evan took the brush, made a smiley face in one corner, then turned it into a vampire cartoon face with slashed downward eyebrows and two points jutting from the curved mouth for fangs. Paint whatever you like. It doesn’t have to be Niall.
Shifting away from her, Evan picked up his other in-process canvas and started to work on it on the other easel, leaving her to her own devices. In the meantime, Niall sat up. Taking out a whittling knife, he began to shape a fallen branch. She blanched, realizing he was sharpening it into a wooden stake. As always, Evan seemed unconcerned. They really were an odd pair.
Testing the brush’s movement, she executed a smooth glide along the side of the canvas, below the smiley face. Evan had offered a second palette and a selection of tubed colors. She mixed some muted earth tones, experimented to come up with crimson and different shades of blue. Using a toothpick-sized brush, she dotted dark blue in the depths of the brown eyes Evan had created for Niall. Using her fingers and earth tones, she sketched out Niall’s reclining body, giving more definition to the braced arms, the long thighs.
Though he wore a T-shirt, she left that out, intrigued by the body beneath it that she’d not yet seen. If Evan had done a quick rendering of the body as he had the face, he would have known by touch and instinct how the broad back and shoulders curved, how the line of thigh connected to hip and buttock. But she could explore, based on her own eyesight, her own instincts, remembering the press of Niall’s body behind hers during the second marking.
She filled in a brown-tinted flesh tone, making him darker than he was, but scratching across it with nails and toothpick to create different textures, an abstract interpretation. When Evan touched Niall, did he imagine the smooth curves and ridges of muscles in paint?
She gave him longer hair, dark strands tangling down his back. She imagined him in kilt and hunting gear, traversing the craggy terrain of Scotland. He’d have scars from before he was a servant, but they might be faded by now.
Vampires might talk about things that had happened to them five hundred years ago, but an amenable servant would answer questions about that time period, providing fascinating specifics. She recalled making breakfast for a visiting Random one morning and learning about his life with his Mistress in Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. Another time, she’d had the opportunity to talk to one who’d been in the industrial North with her Master during the American Civil War. Those discussions were a chance most human historians, unaware of vampires or their servants, would sell their souls to get.
As educated as many vampires were, most didn’t pursue scholarly endeavors. For example, Lord Brian’s scientific efforts had only been lauded in recent decades by the Vampire Council. As such, vampires didn’t maintain detailed histories. Was it because immortals didn’t feel the need to leave a record when they might be around forever, or at least far beyond when such a thing would matter to them?
Since Stephen had had so many second-marked servants, she’d often had to initiate useful activity for herself. She’d started documenting some of the things she learned, thinking it might be useful to him, the history of different vampires with whom he’d interacted politically. She supposed the Vampire Council had confiscated her handwritten logs when they ransacked his home for any clues to his whereabouts.
She’d sketched out Niall’s lower torso bare, massaging the paint into thigh and buttock, but now she added a dark kilt, one that slid up to his thighs as he sat in his bent-legged position. The knife driven into the ground next to him said he was ready for defense or dinner. His fingers lay light and ready on it, like how they felt on her skin.
It was rough, but her sketch practice had served her well. As she studied it, she realized Evan was standing there again, looking at her work.
“Not too bad,” he said, with an approval that warmed her. “If you enjoy it, you can continue painting while you’re here, whenever you wish.”
At this time of night, his gray irises were like the silhouettes of the mountains, illuminated by the moon and stars. “Thank you, sir. I won’t let it interfere with my assigned duties. Whatever they will be.”
He cocked his head. “Was that a push to give you duties?”
She bit her lip. “I am here to serve you, however you need, sir. I merely want you to be certain of my willingness to do so.”
“It’s bugging the hell out of her that you havenae given her a detailed list. That was her very polite way of nagging you for one.” By now, Niall had broken the branch and whittled it into three sharp stakes.
Her lips tightened. “It’s my duty to serve,” she said. “Not to be insolent.”
“You’re right. That’s my job.”
Obviously. She bit back the word before it crossed her lips, but from Niall’s bland look, that touch of coolness again, he’d caught it. Why did she keep responding to him like this? Yes, he was mocking everything she was, but that shouldn’t matter. She knew better than this.
“My apologies.” She nodded toward Niall stiffly, then Evan. “I was not intending to insult your servant, sir. Or you.”
Evan touched her chin, drawing her gaze back to him. “I haven’t given you any specific duties beyond supporting Niall’s efforts because I expect you’ll see where and how you might be useful even better than I would. Trust me; if I need something specific from you, you’ll know it. Like right now. Take off your clothes.”
Despite the fact that his words brought the confusion in her head to an abrupt stop, he maintained the same relaxed tone. That bare hesitation was all she allowed herself before she obeyed, reaching for the hem of her shirt and pulling it over her head, the braid falling loose against her bare back and bra strap, teasing the waistband of her trousers.
“Stop.” Evan tapped her shoulder with the tip of his brush. It was cool and damp from his last cleaning of it. “Move out in front of the canvas, toward that patch of grass where Niall is. Then I want you to take your time removing the rest. Do it as it feels right.”
“Do you wish a striptease, Master? I am trained for that.”
“No. Focus on the view, the moon and stars. The night air, the sounds. Not me. I’m not here. Neither is Niall.”
Uncertain, she shifted to the spot he wanted, her hand resting on the slim belt of the cargo pants, fiddling with the button. He’d gone silent, giving her time to think over his words. Lifting her arms, she pulled the braid loose, began to unravel it. She dropped to one knee to do it, bowing her head as she combed the strands with her fingers. She’d liked how it felt when he did that, so it seemed a good way to find the track of what he was seeking.
Most women feel a primal connection to the moon, if they give themselves the time and exposure to feel it. Feel its light on your bare back, every exposed inch of your flesh. Feel the elements around you, the trees, the breeze, the temperature. The aroma of the forest. It’s all around you, like the paint that creates a full picture.
“You can paint the wind? The smells?” She whispered it.
“If I do it right, yes. The mind creates the picture, with all the senses at its command. In the end, everything is visual, even with your eyes closed. I’m going to be silent now. Take your time with it, and when it feels right to you, remove your clothes the way the elements direct you.”
Niall knew exactly which words had stumped her. When it feels right to you. Whenever Evan tried to get her to act on her own desires, that tension returned to her shoulders.
When the vampire shifted his gaze to Niall, he anticipated what he wanted, no thoughts needed. He removed his shirt, dropped it over a rock. As he crossed the ground, he knew she could hear him coming, for her head tilted, eyes still closed. Standing behind her, he touched the curve of her spine, bringing her to her feet. He slid his fingers into the spaces between her rigid ones, lifting her arms out to her sides. It brought their bodies into alignment, his chest and upper abdomen against her shoulder blades.
“Use my hands and body for balance. Feel the wind, sway like the trees do. He likes to watch the human form meld with the natural one. That’s what he’s ordering ye to do.”
Her shoulders immediately eased.
That’s cheating, Niall.
We have to help her get started. She doesnae ken how to make a choice that belongs to her.
She does. She did. For one key, fateful moment.
Aye. Look how that turned out for her.
He knew Evan wasn’t really pissed that he’d helped her out; it was why he’d wanted Niall to go to her. She’d begun to sway, and was using him for balance, her fingers curled over his straightened ones, her shoulders brushing his chest, her hair teasing his stomach, blowing against his thighs. Lord God, she was beautiful. Like some lovely Fae spirit, so fragile and elusive. Not even real.
But that wasn’t a beauty thing. It was as if her spirit was already half gone . . . or had never been called fully into her body. Perhaps she was a changeling, only she was pure sweetness, not a drop of evil to her. Her tongue could be sharp on occasion, but that was a woman’s way. That sharpness had surprised her far more than it had him.
Her arms dropped, elbows bending so she could slide her hands over her stomach. Niall unhooked the lacy bra she was wearing, stroking the straps off her shoulders. When he dropped it to the side, she straightened, stepped away from him. As she did, she lifted her arms the way she had when their hands were laced in the forest, only now she reached up alone to cup the moon in her palms.
As Niall stayed in her shadow, Evan watched them both. The Scot was one of the most graceful men he’d ever known, a fact made even more entrancing by how big and powerful he was. Guided by the touch of his hand on her bare waist, she molded her body back into the lines of his like a trusted dance partner. Opening her trousers, he slid them off her hips with her underwear, leaving all those pale curves exposed to the moonlight and their mutual male pleasure.
Niall left the garments gathered over her hiking shoes, so now she was like one of the slender trees Evan had photographed, the shoes and clothes keeping her rooted in place, contrasting with the slim beauty of the torso and limbs rising above them. She swayed against her pinioned state, caught in her own erotic response. Niall backed off a few feet, dropping to a knee to watch her. Evan snapped a couple of shots, knowing he could do a great deal with the expression on his servant’s face as well as Alanna’s profile when she finally turned to look at Niall. The wind lifted her hair off her shoulders, rippling it across her back. Even with his second mark, she was cold, a shiver rippling along her skin, but other parts of her were warm. And about to get warmer.
“You were rude to my servant,” Evan said.
Alanna’s head rose. A languorous movement, showing her sensual immersion, but as Evan’s words settled into her mind, she straightened, despite the clothes hampering her legs. Her head dipped down again, her hands going to her sides. A cultured and highly trained servant responding to his command, she was part of the power of the Vampire Council, those who knew nothing of quiet mountains and a moonlit gleam on a woman’s skin. Their loss, and he wasn’t in a mood to share. At least not with them.
“Niall will punish you on my behalf while I watch.”
“Yes, Master. I apologize. To you and Niall.” It had bothered her, the way she’d treated Niall, and she wanted to make amends. But he also picked up an undercurrent of anxiety.
The second mark gave him access to her thoughts, the snarl of emotions there. While punishment and pleasure were bonded in the vampire world, and she was fully capable of integrating them, the damaged part of her remembered Stephen’s torment, his idea of punishment.
Sexual sadism was part of both human and vampire races. Vampires tended to indulge it a little too enthusiastically at times, whereas humans tried to suppress and deny it. Most servants had a built-in facility for embracing the vampire version of it, but what Stephen had inflicted on her was equal to the seven levels of Hell. Rather than giving him a reason to back away from punishment, however, it was the most important reason Evan had to remind her of the type of pain that she would welcome. His servant had his own tastes for inflicting sexual punishment, the kind a woman like Alanna would be helpless to resist, the pleasure absorbing her as much as that moon miasma.
“Niall.” He spoke aloud when the Scot didn’t move. The man’s cock had leaped at Evan’s decision, but he wasn’t sure of the timing. Even without direct access to her mind, Niall was picking up on the same warning signs as Evan. His honorable servant.
Do it. Trust me.
Niall went to her. In one fluid movement, he went to one knee again, bending her over it so her palms were flat on the ground, her hiking shoes digging into the earth on the other side to hold her balance, body tented over his thigh. The pants at her ankles, the sweet, vulnerable curves of her ass and the pink folds revealed by the tear-shaped opening between her thighs, created a memorable picture, one that hardened his own cock.
Niall was very good at spanking women. It never failed to arouse Evan to watch him do it, but more importantly this time, it should push Alanna past the lock she’d put on her own desires. Another vampire might scoff, reminding him that she’d been trained to let herself go for pleasure. But what Evan saw was a show pony, one who would run if commanded to gallop, but she never forgot where the fence was, modifying speed and direction to stay within that boundary. He wanted her caught up in the euphoria, running full tilt at that fence. He and Niall would help her soar over it.
It was the key difference between InhServs and a servant like Niall, and why Evan would always prefer the latter. InhServs were for those with ambition, and he was sure they did their jobs wonderfully. But unlocking passions Niall had suppressed for so long, helping him discover those he’d never even suspected existed within him, giving him free rein to explore anything that interested him . . . Rousing him to a fight, enjoying the plethora of emotions and passion that tangled between commands and service, anger and passion . . . That was what made having a servant such a deep, damn pleasure.
Evan sensed it in Alanna, like a masterpiece waiting to happen. He just had to figure out which colors, which approach and medium to use.
Niall wrapped his hand in her hair, pulling on it to hold her head down, even as he kept his forearm pressed against her upper body. He wouldn’t let her fall, but he was making sure the position felt precarious, exposed. “How many?”
“Until I say stop. Alanna, count them off.”
“Yes, Master.” Her voice was even, precise. Her mind was in the same state. She knew how to handle this. There was little performance to it, because the visual was what stimulated a vampire. She was only required to experience it as he desired.
As he desired . . . Evan frowned, nodded to Niall.
Niall’s large hands were the key to his effective technique. He would sweep up from beneath and hit the widest part of the buttock with an effective smack that would resound through all the nerve endings between p-ssy and ass, up through the lower belly, even making the nipples tingle. Evan shifted position so that he saw the pink tips harden from that first stroke. She let out a small gasp, her fingers digging into the earth.
Niall alternated sides. Thwack. Thwack. Her breath started to labor, because he knew how to make it hurt as well. However, between hits, he would rub both buttocks, kneading firmly to make her shudder, writhe, then force herself to stillness when he hit again, a reproof for her movement.
“Legs spread out more, lass. Your Master wants to see your p-ssy cream.”
Niall didn’t help her, not obviously, for that awkward wriggle was part of the punishment. Then he was at it again. Evan’s nostrils flared, taking in her arousal. Trained to please, to perform . . . Her mind was doing something different, though, something unexpected. Her head dropped lower to the ground, and the gasps became harsher. She wasn’t rising up to Niall’s hand; she was bearing down, as if she was trying to grip his leg with her body, hold on to an anchor in a world that was starting to spin too fast.
Her arousal was building so fast, already stoked from the earlier marking, the way they’d touched her but not allowed her a release. That spin was uncontrolled, a hazy, disorienting world.
Evan’s eyes narrowed, watching her come apart. Her p-ssy was wet and getting wetter, but her fingers were in tight balls on the ground, her hair falling forward over her face. Her breathing was hitching in her throat, close to a sob. Niall hit her twice more, but his servant was keyed into it as well.
Something’s wrong.
Yes. Bring her to climax. Hard and fast. Give her no choice, no time to think. Let’s see if we can bring it to a head.
Three more flat-handed strokes, her white buttocks now rosy with his handprints, and then Niall stroked through her wet folds, three fingers pushing into her p-ssy like a cock, working and teasing the walls within as his thumb found her *. He clamped down on it, squeezed and worried it. Alanna’s cry broke forth as if it had ripped a strip from her heart.
“Noooo . . . no, please . . .”
Evan was sure she wasn’t even aware of what she was saying as the climax tore through her, her body well used to obeying skilled physical manipulation. But the heart and soul couldn’t be trained, and they’d been sorely treated, too fragile to handle an assault like this. As the climax shuddered through her, her forehead was pressed to the earth next to her closed fists. He knew she was crying, trying to hide it, her mind a maelstrom of things she couldn’t understand. She’d been tortured by her former Master, was facing the possibility of death with every breath she took, trying to understand her new Master and his servant in ways far beyond her depth . . .
She couldn’t hold a lock on her emotions in the face of a powerful orgasm. Confused and frightened, she rode a tide of harsh emotional response that blasted through the wall of her training. The aftermath left her aching, throbbing with need. All alone.
I truly am ruined. Broken. Dark emptiness closed over her mind.
Niall had turned her in his arms, was trying to cradle her, but Evan wasn’t surprised to see her struggling to get out of his arms.
Let her go, Niall. She needs to breathe.
He didn’t want to do it, his arms reflexively tightening. Niall.
With an oath, Niall let her go, though it wasn’t from his sharp directive. The Scot knew Evan was right.
Stumbling a few feet away, she fell hard to her knees because the pants still hobbled her. Bending over, she folded her arms across her stomach, began to heave.
Niall . . .
The Scot was already there, scooping her hair out of her face as she retched into the grass. She put shaking fingers down, tenting them to hold herself when it was done. She was shivering, her eyes glassy, lips wet with her stomach’s refusal to accept any of this.
“I apologize, Master,” she gasped. “I . . . will do better.”
In her mind, he saw she had no idea how she was going to manage it. It was just the only thing she knew to say.
Don’t comfort her, Niall. That will make it worse. He opened the link between the two servants’ minds so his hardheaded servant could see it. She was like glass. The least pressure was going to break her. There will be time to comfort later.
“You didn’t displease me, Alanna,” Evan said evenly. When her head came up, brown eyes staring at him, he nodded, let her see it in his calm expression. “Put your clothes back on. We’ll be heading back to the cabin within the next hour.”