It was the only way to process it. It had to have been a nightmare, one of the most hideous in the history of all nightmares. It had seemed like five years, because one could live a lifetime in a five-minute slumber. Proof that bending time was possible, since it happened in dreams all the time.

Though the rest of her was light, supple, ready to shake off that dream and head out on her daily routine, her eyes were still caught in that other reality. Heavy, unwilling to open, as if they knew it was best to stay like this, in this suspended state of belief, where everything was still possible.

“It’s okay,” she murmured, reassuring them. “It was just a terrible nightmare. Wake up now.” Reluctantly, her lids opened. She saw a hazy, pale blur that didn’t clear as she blinked, but then she realized she was in a canopy bed with gauzy curtains drawn around it. The covers were all white, but when she looked up, she found the canopy was open and she was staring at a painted blue sky, where a pair of swans flew, their bills and bright eyes glossy as they twined about each other in the surreal sky.

She swallowed. The curtains were moving, caressed by a gentle breeze coming through a pair of open French doors. The murmur of the ocean, the smell of salt, reached her senses.

Blood. Harry screaming. Help me, Anna . . . for pity’s sake. Sheltering a dead woman with her body. A man’s hands on her, lifting her. No, not a man.

Yes. A man, a man, a man, a man—not a vampire; vampires don’t exist. It was a dream, it was a dream, it was a dream . ..

She closed her fists on the blanket, her breath shuddering in her chest, hyperventilating with a young woman’s healthy lungs. But as she shifted, she felt the stiff pull of the scars on her back. Amber eyes had watched her die, his voice comforting her with romantic imaginings.

I kiss your mouth, your breasts, worship every inch of you even as I declare you mine, the way my heart and soul and breath are mine . . .

His mouth on her throat. Her head tipping back, surrendering . . .

Dropping the cover, she closed her hand on her neck. Two puncture wounds, not quite healed over, because a marking took longer to heal than a Master’s simple feeding bite. Swallowing, she tried to ignore the yawning abyss opening in the base of her mind. But it was impossible to ignore a Hell pit, filled with writhing maggotlike bodies. She’d fall into them, and they’d squirm all over her flesh, feeding while she still lived, while she cried for mercy. Raithe would laugh at her, raise his wineglass and tell his house slave to bring him a different vintage. Bordeaux goes so much better with her screams . . .

A girl born in quiet, middle-class America hadn’t been prepared for such casual cruelty, something she’d seen depicted only in the dramatic world of movies and books, or histories that happened then, not now. Not to her.

“Stop it.” She made a strangled sound, grappling with her reeling mind. What . . . what had she been doing? The bite on her neck.

She had to look, see if he’d done what she’d feared. She tore back the covers.

She was naked, and it was a distracting shock to see smooth skin, long limbs, straight and strong, ready to serve her. No, not her.

A new Master.

For so long, her body had been a compendium of desecrations, scars, disease, putridity. Now, it took only seconds to find an aberration. She stared at the tiger mark high on the inside of her thigh, one paw resting with provocative intent on the crease next to her sex.

“Miss? Lord Mason said you were stirring. Can I draw you a bath?”

Jess raised her gaze to the slender form of a woman, standing on the other side of the sheer curtain. She had an impression of dark hair, beauty. Of course. Vampires didn’t believe in ugliness. She’d learned to hate beauty. It was the strongest weapon evil had, for the fucking mind refused to believe something beautiful could be all bad, no matter how often predators used it.

A laugh croaked out of her throat. Jess scrambled to the side of the bed, stumbling off the high perch and tangling in the gauze like a shroud. She saw tall windows, beveled glass inlaid with gold and steel dividing lights. Beautiful. More beauty. She was surrounded by it. And she was beautiful again, which meant she had value.

“Miss?” The woman had circled the bed, was trying to help her as she spun in the veil. Instead, Jess ripped it down, took it with her. Her gaze swept the walls. Ah, there. Perfect.

Vampires were used to being on guard, rarely having a room where they didn’t keep a weapon of some kind. It was too bad the human world didn’t believe in vampires, because she’d become such a student of their sociology in the past five years she could have headed her own research department.

Lord Mason believed in subtlety, or multipurpose interior decorating. The weapon was a wall vase, holding a spray of fresh tropical flowers, lush fuchsia blooms. Ten inches long, made of beaten metal, the vase had a point at the base, perfect if a vampire needed to seize something from the wall to fend off an attack. But since it was metal and not wood, it couldn’t be used against him.

Fortunately, it could kill a servant.

The woman was moving more swiftly now, but not fast enough. Jessica lunged, snatching it off the wall. The blooms and water showered her as she plunged the lethal tip toward her own breast. It was sharp, and would plunge through the tangle of gauze, through flesh, to the wildly beating heart. So strong and healthy. She was laughing again, and she couldn’t stop. She’d die with that laughter on her lips.

We will die the same way, Raithe. You should get some pleasure out of that, you sadistic bastard. If you’re waiting in Hell, I’ ll consume myself in the fires before I will ever be bound to you, or the likes of you, again.

She was seized from behind, a large hand closing on her wrist just as the tip pinked her flesh. She howled, struggling, fighting. “No.

You won’t . . . do this to me . . . again. No!”

“Manacles,” he barked, and her howl became frenzied screams. She spun, tearing at him with her fingers, striking at his face, kicking his shins, knowing her skills were too rusty. She’d taught herself to fight, but during her sickness she’d barely had energy to walk most days.

It didn’t matter. At the height of health, she stood no chance toe-to-toe with a vampire. He took her to the ground, pinning her on her stomach, resting his hand on her nape, a knee in the small of her back.

Dignity abandoned, rationality gone, she kept screaming, the shrill, thin cries her only comfort. Saliva whipped into a froth on her lips. As metal cuffs clamped onto her wrists, her legs were parted enough to lock a thigh cuff on each leg, the wrist manacles then locked to them, keeping her arms immobile at her sides.

Her struggles increased, her mind willing to dislocate bones to get free. Those strong hands pressed her shoulders to the ground as he shifted his body to hold the rest of her still, preventing her from hurting herself. Her vocal cords burned; her eyes were blinded by tears. Her nose had begun to bleed, for she tasted it on her lips.

“Hurry.” He spoke again, his voice, tense, clipped.

Another pair of cuffs was fastened onto her ankles. A short chain between them prohibited her from anything but the mincing steps of a slave. They were long enough to spread her to be fucked, though, whenever, and with whatever, he wanted. She kicked her legs violently. She wouldn’t tolerate being trapped. The metal cut into her ankles, her movements jarring her knees and hip joints, but she embraced the pain.

The short chain was removed, her thrashing legs hooked together at the ankle cuffs. Realizing she’d been immobilized, the fight over, her mind crumbled. She couldn’t bear any of it. His touch, the chains, where she was. Why wasn’t she dead? Her bladder voided itself like a frightened animal’s. The sickening warm wetness of it bathed her thighs, pooling beneath her.

“I won’t go through this again.” His face was a blur. She panted it, ten times, twenty, until her head was bobbing uncontrollably with the mantra. Emotions suppressed for months squeezed her chest so hard that she’d have been driven her to her knees if she were standing. Only she’d never kneel before a vampire again. He could cut off her legs first.

She’ d loved him. Farida had loved him. Oh God oh God oh God, let me just go there. If I have to live through this again, let my mind shatter. Let me be there, in their world, not in this one.

Mason, alarmed, slid his hands up her arms as her breath strangled in her throat. Her heart was thundering, near explosion. Then her head dropped back, eyes rolling up as her body began to buck. She was having a seizure. “Jessica.” In the absence of anything suitable within reach, he forced the side of his own hand into her mouth. As her teeth sank down, his blood seeped out. Some of it would get on her tongue, down her throat. Despite Amara’s gasp, he knew that would help.

It took only a minute or so, but it felt like infinity, watching her convulse, her jaw clench, the whites of her eyes roll and tears pour out of them. When she at last began to wind down physically, she was still careening through her mind, mumbling things he didn’t want to hear.

When Amara had called for him, her urgent cry had only increased his pace, for he’d already been on his way. He’d been tuned to Jess’s mind when she woke. Her meandering ribbon of thoughts intrigued him, until they’d turned toward darkness and he realized he needed to be there. Damn it, he’d thought she’d be calmer if she saw a human first. But now he knew the ripple of unease in his gut when he’d left her in the room before dawn had been a warning. He should have stayed with her, helped her come to grips with the reality with a firm hand. Not like this, chaotic confusion and mindless panic.

Enrique had been right on his heels and, thankfully, had closed the French doors while they struggled with her, so the tendrils of sunlight wouldn’t turn him into a barbecue. Even in the shade, Mason felt the punishing reach of its heat. He’d thought she’d like a room full of sunshine, not thinking he might need to get into it before sundown.

Though Jess’s body was bound, Amara still held her legs in reassuring hands to prevent further thrashing. His servant looked up at him, her eyes sheened with tears. “What did he do to the poor child, my lord?”