You were promised to someone else before you were even born, so she’s like you. She not only has to act a certain way, she has to be that way, feel it. You were never hers. You were hers to train, to guide, to teach, to prepare. If she doesn’t do it right, it could go badly for you, be harder for you. Your dedication, your ability to compartmentalize and focus on one goal utterly . . . you got it from her. Adam had told her that.

Chloe was looking at her expectantly. “Yes,” she agreed. “I’m sure it would be difficult for most mothers.”

Chloe nodded. “Brendan is blood and bone on the submissive side of things, like you, if it doesn’t offend you for me to say it that way.” When Alanna shook her head, thinking it was the greatest compliment anyone could give her, Chloe forged onward.

“He has this desire to serve, to please, but he’s a guy as well. So protective, always thinking about what’s best for me. It took me a while to agree to marry him, because I wanted to wait, to be sure he’d be happy with me. He was such a dedicated sub at Tyler’s club. So many Mistresses wanted him, I was afraid I wouldn’t be enough for him. I can play at it and have a good time, but I’ll always be just Chloe. Never ��Mistress’ Chloe.”

She straightened, doing a credible imitation of an imperious Mistress, an obvious emulation of Marguerite. “But even when you decide you’re sure, you’re not really sure, right? You have to take the leap of faith that it’s going to work out, that you’ve done everything that you can.”

When she stopped and looked expectantly at Alanna, Alanna thought it through before answering. From what she’d learned about Brendan—and she was fairly sure Chloe had crammed everything about the purportedly most wonderful man on the planet in those twenty minutes—she could see why he’d fallen for her. Chloe had qualities that would attract a certain type of submissive male. The kind who was ultimately more interested in service and care, in making a woman happy, than in having a Mistress wield her power over him. Alanna had seen a few of them in the InhServ program. If her evaluation of her soon-to-be husband was accurate, Chloe had been his unlikely and unexpected deepest wish.

“I think you’re right,” she said, and received a grateful look from Chloe, another impulsive hug that warmed her. She really was a genuine spirit, her optimism infectious. Even the stressed-out Gen bent to kiss the top of Chloe’s head.

Alanna thought of Evan, his decision to make Niall a third-mark servant. She was fairly certain that, unlike Chloe, Evan did nothing impulsively. Niall might have been on death’s doorstep, but Evan had weighed the choice, determined if Niall would truly be able to accept the life of a vampire’s servant and find value in it. Though she’d seen friction between the two men, she also saw the synchronicity that existed in vampire–servant pairings. Niall had told her Evan taught him to read; Evan had told her he’d merely improved Niall’s literacy.

As she imagined the two men sitting side by side by candlelight, Evan watching Niall’s profile as he worked through a page of words, she realized every experience they’d shared had integrated their personalities to create that synchronicity. But it wasn’t an automatic result of such a pairing, as Stephen had proven.

There were times early on, when he was frustrated with our arrangement, that I might have released him from his oath. It was before the Council’s restrictions on such an act. But I didn’t. It was the first time I realized I’d truly become more vampire than human.

She hadn’t expected Evan to be listening in. But she thought her Master might be wrong. If a human had the power to hold on to something they wanted, the way a vampire could, she expected they would . . . and did.

Therein lies the issue of moral character.

She didn’t think about morality when it came to vampires. There was what they wanted, and that was it. Mortals were absorbed in issues of right and wrong. In the vampire world, there was no room for it.

That’s not true, Alanna. When Stephen became a traitor to the Council, you embraced your moral character, rejecting his lack of one.

Where was he that he could conduct this involved conversation with her? Of course, vampires could multitask. He might be doing a tango with a wedding guest.

If I knew how to tango. She’s waiting for another response from you.

Case in point. She snapped her attention back to Chloe, but the pause had become too protracted. The girl didn’t seem offended by her apparent lack of attention; in fact, the inquisitive brown eyes were riveted on her face. “Is Evan telepathic? The reason I ask is Niall does that, too. It’s a lot more subtle, but they’ve been together longer, right? You catch it, here and there. It’s like he’s tuning in to something in his head, and then all of a sudden he answers the question you’ve asked him on Evan’s behalf, and it’s always what Evan wants.”

Alanna blinked, but Chloe shrugged, relieving her of having to answer. “Gen says I’m nuts, that I believe in aliens and magic, but why not? If we only use 10 percent of our brains, and some of us way less than that, then there’s 90 percent we don’t know and understand. Everyone who meets Evan can tell there’s something very different about him. There’s this deep river thing happening, as if he’s filing and comparing everything with this vast well of knowledge in his head. I think he’s carrying around the Alexandria Library in there.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “You don’t have to answer. I’ve been around enough subs of über-Doms to know it puts you on the spot if I ask anything too personal. Have you been with him and Niall at the same time? Because, oh my God, what woman wouldn’t die for the chance at that? Niall is just sheer Chris Hemsworth sexy, and Evan has that Adrien Brody intense artist thing happening, sans cheesy goatee . . . I think you’d just die from pleasure, having them both inside you.”

“Chloe.” Gen cast Alanna an apologetic look. “I’d smack you in the head, but it would muss your hair. Do you have any kind of filter?”

“No.” Chloe shot Alanna a mischievous grin. “C’mon, give me a couple details. Brendan and I’ve been apart three days, with nothing to think about but being with him forever and ever. At the rehearsal dinner, he smelled so good I wanted to bite him. When I get him alone, I swear I’m going to eat him alive.” She winked. “Here come Mom and Cherry, but I’m not letting you off the hook. I’ll pester you later on for deets.”

Alanna couldn’t refuse her. Leaning forward, she clasped Chloe’s hand, brought her lips to her ear. The girl, her eyes alive with pleasure and happiness, grinned even wider as Alanna murmured into the delicate shell.

“When they are both inside of me, it’s what I imagine Heaven is. A Heaven I never want to leave.”

As Chloe gripped her shoulder, holding the private, intimate pose, Alanna felt an unexpected but overwhelming desire to linger in the embrace of a girl who knew what it was to fall in love, who lived so exuberantly. Chloe picked up on the desire immediately, her arms encircling Alanna’s shoulders in a gesture overflowing with care and friendship.

“I hope you never do, then.”

Out under the night sky, Evan sat in a folding chair at the back row of the assembling wedding guests. He was gazing out toward the marsh when her words hit him in the chest. And not just him. He’d kept his mind open to Niall, so that he could also track her whereabouts. If she needed anything, it was best to have Niall handle it, because though he could move among humans, Evan knew he had to maintain a certain reserve.

At the moment, his servant was having a discussion with Thomas about proper tires for the RV. Though Thomas was a celebrated artist specializing in male–male erotic paintings, he was an adept mechanic as well, like Niall. The shy yet down-to-earth North Carolinian was also the spouse and submissive of Evan’s current art broker, Marcus Stanton, who was New York to the bone, neither shy nor down-to-earth. Yet the two men were an obvious fit. Marcus was across the room, comfortably talking to a trio of elderly women who looked like they were old Southern money. Every once in a while Evan would see Marcus’s or Thomas’s attention shift, touching base with each other, holding that connection. The two men were so closely bonded it often seemed they could read each other’s minds like vampires and servants.

If the third mark were taken away tomorrow, would he and Niall know each other that well, or did the mark allow an illusion of what Marcus and Thomas had?

Hearing Alanna’s words, the Scot now looked toward Evan, his tawny eyes reflecting the same strong emotions her feelings stirred in the vampire.

We cannae let Daegan kill him, Evan. She’s nae dying with that bastard.

I know. He just didn’t know how to stop it. He’d already been back in touch with Lord Uthe, exhorting him to protect her as much as he could, but for a human servant, only so much could be asked.

Niall shot him a look, but then his face became bland, pleasant, as he turned back to Thomas. His thought came through as sharp as a knife drawn across a major artery. Yet the bloody lot of you dinnae hesitate to ask everything of us.

A human wedding was a fairy tale. Caught up in it, Alanna sat between Niall and Evan. The men had tried to give her the aisle seat so she could see even better, but Niall needed it for his long legs and she insisted. Being on the back row, her view of the bride’s entry would be unimpeded regardless. Plus, she didn’t mind being between the two most handsome men at the event. Evan wore a yarmulke, which surprised her, but Niall explained that Evan still observed certain tenets of his faith, like wearing the small skullcap for sacred occasions. In his well-tailored tuxedo, his hair styled in rakish disarray across his brow, the vampire looked like he’d stepped out of a black-and-white 1920s film. All that was lacking was the cigarette in his elegant fingers.

His eyes gave her a start. He was wearing colored contacts, a vivid green. Niall quietly reminded her that close proximity to large numbers of humans could trigger his bloodlust. “He can control it, but he cannae control his eyes. The gray starts turnin’ red. So he wears the contacts.”