“I wish it thoroughly cleaned during dinner, Dev,” Danny said. “Please see the housekeeping staff about that as well.”

“My lady,” Dev murmured.

“You are determined to make this unpleasant, aren’t you?” Ian eyed her. “And while I’m entertaining guests. Your timing couldn’t be worse.”

“What guests am I entertaining, Ian? What other vermin do you have sullying my carpet?” His lips stretched in an unpleasant smile, his eyes glinting in anticipation. “Our Region Master, Lord Charles. I believe you’ve met him? He’s joined us for the weekend for some fox hunting, his favorite pastime.”

“While Lord Charles and I do not see eye to eye, I am certainly honored that he has chosen to visit my home.” She visibly relaxed, cocked her head. “Perhaps your standing in the world has improved since I saw you last. Is it deserved, or have you learned to play your underhanded games that much better?”

“Perhaps you will find out at dinner.” Ian managed to cover the flash of surprise passably well, though Dev caught it. In a less belligerent tone, the vampire added, “You will honor us with your company, I hope? I would suffer even a venomous tongue for the pleasure of looking at you.”

“A nice touch of charm. You’ve always had that. Very well.” She shrugged. “I will join you for dinner. If you come down here and welcome me properly, rather than standing up there like a gorilla in a tree, about to beat his chest.” Ian’s lip lifted in a sneer, and then he was directly before Danny. It was a movement so rapid, Dev hadn’t seen him leave the step.

Whereas Danny hadn’t so much as twitched. When Ian stood before her, only several inches between them, she tilted her head back to study his perfect face, eyes roving over his high brow, the straight nose and firm lips. His challenging look became more speculative as she took her time about it. His hand closed over hers at her side, lifted it toward his mouth. Since they stood so close, his knuckles brushed her sternum, the curve of her breast, before he brought the fingers to his lips, lingering over them, even giving her a little nip with a fang, though he didn’t break the skin.

She raised a brow, pressing her lips together, moistening them. “I’m no longer a child, Ian,” she murmured. “Forty years have taught me many things.”

Dev pushed down the simmer of irritation. She’d said that vampires played games with one another. She had to figure out how to outmaneuver him, get him to leave her property. To do that, she might have to cozy up to him some. It didn’t mean Dev had to like it. In fact, he was quite certain he was revolted by it. The Region Master’s visit seemed to be unexpected, and though her reaction appeared neutral, he suspected the chess pieces were scrambling in her busy little brain.

He missed that cave.

“I look forward to learning what those things are. Your mother found me a willing pupil. Perhaps in time you will consider me the same.” His jaw hardened. “But I’m not a fool, Danny. Don’t take me for one.”

“I don’t take you at all, Ian. Not yet.” She extricated her hand in a smooth slither. “Since this is my home now, I suspect you need to prove to me it’s worth my while to keep you around. Or kill me. Though I’d prefer you wait on that until after I’ve had a nice bath.”

Moving around him, she nodded to Dev, then proceeded up the stairs without so much as a dismissive glance at the other men, making it clear she didn’t consider any of them a threat of consequence. “I hope you haven’t disposed of my mother’s clothes. I’d like to select something suitable to wear for dinner.”

Dev noted not a one of them, even Ian, could keep his eyes off the curve of her perfect backside, the pendulum sway as she gracefully ascended, letting her slim fingers slide along the wood railing. When she reached the front screen door, she gave the man closest to it a significant glance. He jumped to open it, tipping his hat. It was one of the men who’d tried to kill her. An ironic smile twisting her lips, she swept inside.

Though Ian had enjoyed the view, cold calculation took over when he turned to face Dev. While he’d love to plug him full of holes right here, Danny had said decapitation, burning or staking were better methods.

He was sure he could find a match somewhere.

“You are Lady Daniela’s servant?”

“No,” Dev replied. “She hired me.” He steeled himself to immobility as Ian drew closer, far closer than most men would stand to another male. His nostrils flared as he inhaled.

“That may be. But she has marked you. In multiple ways.” The words were spoken in a feral, suggestive manner that had Dev’s hackles rising. “Interesting. There were times I thought her cunt was a block of solid ice. Apparently you know the rare art of ice fishing.”

When Dev locked eyes with the vampire, the men on the porch shifted, muttered, a warning. Ian’s gaze frosted. “I’ve no chance of holding my own against you,” Dev said. “But each time you insult her, one of your men dies. Good stockmen are hard to find.” Ian’s lips lifted in a fang-baring sneer. “You’ve got Buckley’s of outdrawing—” The fire of the pistol was loud in the echoing dome of the night, a sound that would carry for miles, make the heads of night creatures jerk up, looking for danger.

He managed two quick shots, but almost as the second one left the chamber, Ian shoved him back five feet, slamming him against the old ute with bone-crushing force. His arm compressed Dev’s throat, cutting off breath. Only the sound of two heavy thumps on the porch saved the windpipe. The vampire’s head whipped around, in time to see two men drop to the porch boards, the pair who’d been part of the aborted attempt on Danny’s life.

“You said one, human.”

“Well, they botched their job,” Dev rasped. “So I figure you’d consider them the same value as one.” Plus, he knew he was saving Danny time and effort later.

Ian’s lips curved in an unexpected, cold smile. “You’ve no fear in you. That’s unusual. What if I sank my fangs into you, tasted the blood-of-the-moment Lady Danny seems to fancy?”

Dev got one finger on his knife but that was all. He was thrown face forward into the dirt, the vampire’s boot on the back of his neck, the other pressed hard on the small of his back. “All I have to do is lean, and your cracked back will turn you into a helpless crab. I could order every man here to bugger you while you lie like this. You’d die long after you wished you were dead, and at dawn I’d have you tossed outside the gate for the dingoes to finish off.” He stepped back and spat, the saliva striking near Dev’s face. “Don’t you ever look me in the eye again.”

“Ian.” Danny’s voice came from inside the screen, and though Ian’s tone had been cold, hers was arctic. “I’ve not given you leave to take up a grievance with my employee. You have a problem, you address it with me.” Ian muttered an oath, but left Dev with a short kick that effortlessly flipped him over onto his back.

Red rage clouding his vision, Dev had his hand back on the knife, ready to stick it into the arrogant bastard’s hamstring while he was distracted.

Easy, Dev. The thought was a sharp command, sharp enough to stop him. This is the way the game is played. Believe me, at this point, it’s all fun and games.

His fat aunt. He didn’t hear any indication in her thoughts that she considered this fun and games. However, he cleared his anger enough to note the other hands were pressing close, bodies ready for violence. Neither one of them had a friend here. Except each other.

He looked up toward her, met her eyes. I’ ll race you back to that cave. Last one there has to wet the billy.

Her delicate nostrils flared and she glanced toward the fallen men. “I want to taste the blood of those who tried to kill me. Tell the kitchen staff to draw me some of it. Dev, supervise that personally. I like to know my blood is clean.” Her gaze came back to him.

“Bring it up to my room. I think I’d rather take my tea up there, with my bath, Ian. Before I can be polite company, I need to wash off this filth.”

With that, she turned and disappeared in the recesses of the house.

9

ONCE he’d gone to a fair where they had a tent show with a rotating stage. Each scene in the rotation was different, as if the audience sat outside the Wheel of Time, watching its progress. He had that same kind of rotating stage in his mind.

One scene was sunlight and quiet, the winds moving grasses on the earth, the sheep calling out placidly. Then the sound of surf hitting the shore as he shouldered a board, nothing on his mind but showing his boy the way to ride the waves. Next scene, finding his wife and that same boy in the eerie stillness of a house that had seen unspeakable violence, all the elements of a peaceful life shattered in the form of dishes on the floor, the excrement of men left behind as a taunt. A territorial marking saying they’d claimed all that was of value here. Then there was war, the sound of bombs and gunfire almost reassuring against the eternal silence of that house, which had relocated and buried its foundations deeply into his mind.

A hundred different scenes like those, rotating around one another, connecting, touching, bumping, overlapping. Reality versus the surreal, until he’d realized one could be a mask for another. Sometimes he thought it was always a mask, and a man was no different from the mouse circling the snake lying still in the grass. Innocuous as the log it impersonated, it was ignored while that mouse climbed over it, playing, foraging. Spinning mouselike dreams, until the snake turned and struck, and the mouse realized he’d always been food . . .

So given all that, maybe he was uniquely prepared for a vampire dinner. Taking a leisurely meal in the open maw of a poised tai pan was okay, as long as a bloke ignored the venom and hungry saliva dropping off its fangs onto the shoulders of his elegant dinner jacket. Oh, yeah. He’d have a ripper of a time.

After Ian had followed her into the house, Dev had obeyed her unlikely instructions, even though he’d dearly wanted to stay at her back to keep that bastard away from her. But she was counting on him to keep his wits and not go all wobbly on her.