Daegan raised his gaze, studied him. “No, you're not. But you've decided to do it.”

“Isn't that what I just said?”

“Wisdom is a product of the heart, not the mind. Which is why it so often leads to unavoidable regret.”

“You could put that on a greeting card. Seriously. The new slit-your-wrists-today Hallmark line.” Daegan's rueful expression surprised Gideon, a departure from the pretty constant poker face the vampire had adopted until now. Bending over, the male stroked Anwyn's hair from her cheek, sliding his fingers beneath her head to raise her up into his arms with tender care. Despite her animosity toward him in her lucid moments, there was no doubt of her feelings when she was physically depleted, because her arms curled around his body, burrowing into him, her torso still shuddering as he stroked her, moved her around into a cradle so he could lift her slim frame. “You've done so well,cher ,” he murmured. “But you're not going to have to be alone in there anymore. Gideon is coming.” Gideon nodded, mostly to himself, and when the vampire looked toward him, he took a deep breath.

“No time like the present, right?”

“Yes.”

“It will make her better.”

“We both know it will help her. If you are sure, come into the cell now.” Yeah, he was. After seeing the convulsions nearly tear her newly immortal body to pieces, he wasn't going to fuck around about it anymore. If she'd been human, the violence of the convulsions would have stopped her heart, killed her outright. It didn't make it any less painful or traumatic for her. Rising, Gideon opened the lock and entered the cell. He spread a blanket out on the couch as Daegan lowered her, pulling it around her. Her hands slid away from him, her eyes half-closed. “Filthy,” she murmured.

“No, just a little mussed.” Gideon knelt at her head, took the place of Daegan's hand with his own, stroking her hair back. Her eyes still had a hint of red, but they'd been solid crimson for half an hour, as the three attacks had come right on top of one another. Her physical body was exhausted, he could tell.

Course, they were all tired as hell. After this, it was going to be naptime, no cookies or juice boxes required. “You need to give me those two marks, okay?”

She opened her drooping eyes, studied his face. “This is wrong, Gideon. You know it is. I don't have the strength to refuse.”

“You don't refuse a gift,” he returned, keeping his voice low and gentle. “Especially when it's from a guy who doesn't give them out often.”

“Gideon . . .” She shook her head, looked toward Daegan. “Tell him not to do this.”

“He doesn't take orders from me,cher . He has made that quite clear.”

“Damn straight.” Gideon quirked a brow, but his heart twisted at the anguish in her eyes. “I'm going to make you a promise, okay? This is going to be all right. It's going to be the right thing to do, because it's going to help you get back on your feet, and because I'm not going to regret it. You're worth this, you know? Let me do something I haven't in a long, long while. Let me save someone. I'm begging you. And you know you can't resist that.”

She licked her lips, moistening them, and pushed herself up, the blanket falling to her hip. Daegan had taken the robe off of her to save the satin, so she was naked and blood streaked beneath it, her hair falling loose to her hips so she looked like a wild and savage creature of the forest, unashamed of her nakedness. Gideon was reminded of his earlier arousal, how much he'd wanted her.

Down, boy. Definitely not the time.

“You think you know so much about a Mistress.” She traced a nail down his jugular with unsettling accuracy, barely glancing at it. “I won't do anything I don't want to do.”

“I know that. It's why I begged.” Energy was gathering between them. She was going to do it. He was going to let her. And everything was going to change. Daegan was a palpable force to the right of them, probably in case she seized again and went for his throat, but as she reached out, Gideon leaned in, let her snag his shirt collar and draw him closer.

“Let your instinct guide you,cher ,” Daegan murmured. “You can smell his pulse, the blood pounding through it. Your fangs will lengthen, make it easier to penetrate.” A few things went through Gideon's mind. His conversation with Jacob, the way his life had gone for the past ten plus years. How the hell that path had brought him here. Why he wouldn't countenance any other vampire touching him, let alone biting him, but he was encouraging her to do it.

He wanted to take care of her.

Her blue-green eyes were close now. He wanted to touch her face. When he lifted his hand, her lips parted. “Stay still,” she said, her voice that sinful purr, anticipating pleasure. He touched her temple anyway, feathering his fingers through her hair, all those shades of dark brown. When she turned her face into his palm he wasn't surprised to feel her teeth capture the pad of his thumb, the base of the finger, and tighten there, letting him feel the sharp prick of reproof. The churning in his lower belly became a more organized storm, a hurricane of feeling forming and rising into his chest, even as his cock started hardening.

She nuzzled him where she'd bitten his flesh, slanted a glance up at him through her thick lashes. “These feelings inside of me, Gideon. Not Barnabus. The vampire blood. It tells me if I do this, I'll consider you mine.”

He nodded, one small movement. “I'll be here as long as you need me.” Reaching deep inside for the calm he used before setting an ambush or facing odds not in his favor, he drew a deep breath and turned his head away from her, baring his throat inches away from those tempting lips, the hint of fangs that began to be more pronounced beneath them.

Averting his eyes meant he was looking right at Daegan. The vampire kept his attention on Anwyn, but he spoke. “Have you ever given blood directly from the throat, Gideon?”

“Not given it. No.”

“Your blood was taken when you were captured by Mitchell or Sorensen?”

“Yes.” He didn't want to cross those memories with this one, though. Anwyn leaned in, putting her lips to his jaw, caressing and teasing with the tip of her tongue. Her hand cupped the opposite side, increasing the pressure, the sense of sensual urgency. He shouldn't have been surprised that she knew the right thing to say to bring him out of those dark memories before he could even step through the door.

“This won't be like that,” she whispered against his skin. “I can hear it, Gideon. Just like he said. It's not just your blood. I'm hearing the life flowing through your veins, the strength. It's as if all your energy is centering toward me, ready to give me what I need. It's the most erotic thing I've ever felt. Stay still; just let it flow over you. Goddess, I could have stopped a moment ago. I don't think I can stop now.”

“I don't want you to.”

He let himself get lost in the feeling, trying to focus on that and not what she was doing, not a vampire marking a servant, but a woman reaching out and connecting to him in a way that, while it lasted, would be a unique bond between them. He wanted to feel the touch of her mouth and hands forever, put his hands to her waist, turn her beneath him on the soft couch and sink into her, deep as he could go, as she drew blood from him, twined around them, binding them close. But he stayed still.

“The three serums are secreted up behind your fangs, small glands. Use your tongue to express the one farthest back first.” Daegan's voice, barely a rumble of sound. “You don't want to do them at the same time, because mixing them creates an acid reaction. It will cause great pain to a servant.” Unsettling though it was, Gideon couldn't deny that velvet timbre was as sensuous an input into this as all the rest.

When her fangs sank into Gideon's throat, there was no hesitation, no painful puncture as might happen if she'd jumped the gun through nervousness or uncertainty. She sank into his flesh as naturally as though she'd done it all her life. But then, how often had she done bloodplay or flogged a slave? She knew how flesh reacted, and she knew how to follow her instincts. It was still Anwyn.

A tingling came with it, a frisson of champagnelike reaction in the blood around the bite area that spread into his chest, drifting out to his fingertips, then turned around and came back through his blood as she slid her hand over his chest, splayed her fingers out wide over his heart, connecting to the beat there. She shifted upward, moving closer, and it was easy to slide his arm around her waist, help her move from a reclining position to a straddle of his hips. She came in close, so she rubbed against his cock, the denim the only thing separating them.

“Pull back,cher ,” Daegan said quietly. “Occupy yourself for a few minutes while the first mark circulates. Then you can do the second one. You have coagulating agents in your tongue. Use them to control his blood flow.”

Slowly, she retracted, and Gideon felt his cock jump against her at the sexual overtones of something hard and unyielding pulling out of willing, moist flesh. Her hand cupped the side of his throat, keeping his head tilted as she licked him, taking her time with it.

His eyes lifted, not intentionally, but the pause made him want to take stock of his surroundings. Daegan met his gaze, his mouth a line, his eyes that distant and yet intensely present combination that was so unsettling. His focus shifted back to the woman on Gideon's lap, coursing down the curtain of her hair, trailing down her pale, slim back, to her bare buttocks around which Gideon's arm was securely cinched, keeping her steady, though it was the last thing he himself was feeling.

Was the vampire disturbed by this? It might give Gideon some sense of gratification to think so, but the way Daegan was directing her suggested something else. Gideon was becoming a human servant. Her possession, as she implied, and the way Daegan was leading her, teaching her . . . It implied that Gideon's submission was a given, a human servant obediently allowing an older vampire to help a younger one learn on him, because that was what servants did. They served their vampires, no matter what was asked.