“I suspect I’d feel a lot more comfortable with the idea if it wasn’t put in those terms.”

“No doubt,” Thomas said dryly with a smile. “But I suspect you’re as brutally honest with yourself as a man can be. If I dressed it up for you, you’d tell me to bugger off or speak plain.” Sobering again, he looked toward Lyssa. “Vampires such as my Mistress frown on vampires who abuse or even kill their servants, though it happens, far more frequently than it should. Because it’s a betrayal, for the reasons I just noted. Whether conscious or not, when you do accept the idea, you’re offering them everything you are. To devalue that, to throw that gift away or, worse, brutalize it, a vampire might as well brutalize their own soul. Because we become that much a part of them. The question of inferiority or superiority, the right or wrong of it, becomes irrelevant. We are interwoven.”

He gave Dev another straightforward look. “As to the issue of boundaries and limitations, you’ll find eventually that doesn’t concern you as much as wanting to please her does. Even as you occasionally—or not so occasionally—have the desire to choke the life out of her for acting so superior sometimes.”

There was a glint in the monk’s eyes at this, and Dev swore he saw Lyssa flick an amused glance toward him before she returned her attention to the game. It made him swallow, because something did, in fact, cramp in his gut. He missed having Danny in his mind like that, as short a time as he’d had it. But how could he ask her to reassure him, when he hadn’t even made his own decision?

Thomas touched his arm then. “Time to go in and get ready for cocktails and appetizers. Thank you for the swim. And good luck this evening.”

“Don’t be smug.” Dev shot him a narrow look. “It doesn’t suit a man of God.”

“Are you so sure it’s smugness? It might be envy.” Thomas laughed. “I’ve seen a great deal of these vampire social events, Dev.

While they can be harrowing to the servants involved, one thing they never lack is pleasure. The stripping away of all shields is the most frightening part. Once you surrender to your Mistress, there’s no worry in any of that, anymore.”

“Like surrendering to God?” Dev offered the resentful barb, but the monk didn’t seem offended by his defensiveness.

“Very similar. I’m not so sure that the hand of God isn’t in this relationship,” Thomas added. “Who is to say a full servant isn’t the one who helps a vampire remember there is something in this world to embrace other than bloodlust? And if you think that is a small thing, think how powerful and intelligent these beings are, and what they could do to this world, if they put no constraints on their behavior.”

On that enigmatic note, with another affectionate squeeze of Dev’s shoulder, Thomas excused himself to change for the more formal indoor gathering.

Dev had been given a room to wash up and reattire himself as well. He was tempted to barricade himself in there. ’Course, he couldn’t argue with the household uniform for the all-female staff. Black short skirts fluffed out with a layered slip so that it was clear they were wearing no underwear. The only thing on their upper bodies was a string of pearls, run between their pierced nipples. Chiyoko had worn nipple jewelry, but he’d never seen pierced ones before. They drew his eyes, no matter how hard he tried not to stare. All the women wore their hair swept up and pinned, showing slim, artery-rich throats.

“Alistair, you really need some male staff.” He heard Lady Lyssa make the comment as he approached the spacious solarium. As he stepped in, Dev saw it provided a dramatic nighttime view of the ocean and white sands. After seating Lyssa, Alistair returned to the couch, where Nina was curled up on a pillow, dozing. When he sat, she scooted closer, and he gathered her in, putting her head on his thigh, his hand lying on her hip.

“Now, my lady, you know I have some excellent male flesh working in the stables. You’ve already sampled it. Don’t deprive a man the simple pleasures of his home.”

Thomas brought Lyssa her wine. When he proffered his wrist, she shook her head but held the glass as he produced a slim, elegant blade and made a deft cut, letting the blood from his body trickle into the crystal. She swirled it with her finger, but then spread the damp, wine-stained tip over his cut, brought it to her lips for a single, easy caress that clotted the flow.

It was so painfully obvious Lyssa communicated with the monk often. Though they spoke very little aloud to one another, the compatibility between their movements and actions was uncanny. More than a hundred years they’d been together, Thomas had told him. What would it be like to share that time with Danny? Cultivate that closeness?

No, he couldn’t think like that. Hell, only a few days ago, he was living basically hour to hour, and now he was thinking a hundred years? Jesus.

When Thomas bowed, and stepped back to take his place along the wall, Dev hoped to see Danny entering. He’d wanted to come in after his lady, though he suspected that was a breach of etiquette of some kind. Instead, she was exercising a woman’s prerogative to be late. Probably on purpose.

“So you’re Danny’s servant-in-training, so to speak. Come over here and let me have a closer look.” Definitely on purpose.

He’d stood quietly by the door, thinking that was the most unobtrusive location. He wasn’t a coward, by any means, but he had a healthy sense of self-preservation. Nevertheless, there was no mistaking Lady Lyssa had issued it as a command, one she expected to be obeyed. Trying to quell his uneasiness, Dev moved around the chair and came to stand before her. She was petite, and it seemed logical and not too much of a compromise to take a knee before her. As she watched him in that peculiar, still way, again he couldn’t imagine any human spending more than a breath in her company without realizing she wasn’t mortal.

“Nice. You have manners, and can think on your feet, perhaps a little too much. You’re very rough around the edges as of yet. But I’m not surprised at Danny’s taste.”

“I agree,” Alistair observed. “He’s got a style to him. Very . . . appealing.”

“Hmm.” Lyssa touched Dev’s face, the sweep of hair he’d had the rare occasion to brush, settling her hand on his shoulder. It was peculiar to sit still like this, her tracing the bones of his face as intimately as a lover while she studied him like a bug under a microscope.

He’d donned the broadcloth jacket over shirt and slacks again, the clothing Danny had provided him at her Brisbane home. Her gaze coursed over him now, slow, taking an accounting of every length of limb, the broadness of his chest, lingering at his groin in a most unsettling way. “I’ll be interested to see how she lets us play with you tonight. She told me you were fearless. I think she told us that to give us a challenge. Do you agree? Are you fearless, Dev?”

“Depends, love. I—” He about bit through his tongue as her brow lifted and Alistair choked on his wine. “My lady,” he corrected himself hastily, feeling a flush stain across his cheeks. Hell, he didn’t know how to deal with this class of people. “I’m sorry. I meant, it depends, my lady.”

Dev glanced toward Thomas. The monk’s face was mostly impassive, though his gaze flickered, a warning. Bloody hell. Dev jerked his attention back to Lyssa.

“Keep your attention on the vampire who is addressing you,” she rebuked him, confirming his error. “But it’s good for servants to have mentors among our ranks, to help you understand us better. You chose wisely with Thomas.” Shifting her attention, she nodded toward Nina. “Alistair, let Thomas rub Nina’s feet. She’s been overdoing it in the kitchen again, to make sure the appetizers and sweets your chef has prepared please us.”

“I’d be grateful.” Alistair nodded, then gave Nina a light pat on the bum. “I’ll punish you for that later.” He gave her a warm look that made Nina smile a shy but entirely unconcerned smile, lowering her eyes so her lashes fanned her cheeks.

Thomas moved to comply, kneeling at the woman’s feet to begin a massage of swollen ankles. Lyssa turned her attention back to Dev, and something shifted in those unnatural eyes, something that had tension drawing up from his testicles to his throat like a rubber band that would snap and sting the hell out of him. However, she merely waved him off.

“You may rise and return to the door. She’s coming down the stairs now, and no vampire likes to see her servant at the feet of another female when she enters a room.”

He returned to his position, relieved, as Danny did in fact make her entrance. The one thing about these gatherings he could honestly admit liking was the way she dressed for them. Tonight she wore a black dress with spaghetti straps. The deep-cut neckline was draped, the skirt of the dress so snug it was obvious she wore nothing beneath it. She also wore stilettos that put her eye to eye with Dev as she stopped before him, gave him an assessing glance. The only jewelry she wore was a tiny gold cross on a long chain, giving him another myth about vampires to discard. Simple gold dangles adorned her ear lobes. She didn’t have pierced ears, so they were affixed with a gold cuff high on the curve of her ear, and attached with another cuff a little lower, decorating the entire shell. Her hair was up, and scattered with gold dust, further adorned with a comb that had a porcelain blue bird in it. He thought she looked somewhat like a dark elfin creature from the Underworld.

“You must have an excellent lady’s maid, Danny,” Lyssa observed.

“Thank you, my lady. Actually, this was thanks to the help of one of Alistair’s people.” You look beautiful.

You look positively edible. After several days of nothing more provocative than instructions on shipping furniture, she staggered him with a flash of images, goading his cock to instant attention.

Christ, love. You might want to tone it down.

She smiled, moved into the room to take a seat in a wing-backed chair, leaning back and crossing her legs with a show of thigh that Dev sourly noted Alistair openly appreciated. The downside to her distracting fashions—he had to share his enjoyment with other leering buggers.