Or Jessica’s damn mind was playing tricks on her again, trying to turn him back into the romantic hero she’d wanted him to be, not a bloodthirsty vampire.
Amara continued their trek to the stables. Around the building and paddock, Jess saw at least two groomsmen restocking the barn with hay. Her steps quickened at the sound of a snort, despite the fact she knew Amara would give her Master every scrap of information about Jess’s reactions, her interests.
Why do I need that, habiba, when I’m already in your mind?
She almost started. Instead, she muttered a vile curse. Don’t you have other things to do?
I am doing them. But seeing my home through your eyes is a pleasant diversion. Enjoy my horses.
Then he was gone again, but as he withdrew, it was as if he’d caressed her mind, an absent touch similar to him passing a hand over her hair or sliding his fingers down her arm before he moved away, only this was inside of her. It made gooseflesh ripple on her skin.
“What is he?” She brought Amara to a halt again with a hand on her arm. “I know he’s a vampire, but what else? He’s a magic user of some kind, isn’t he? The preservation of the tomb—”
“That is for Lord Mason to tell you, not me. Look.” Amara pointed. While normally she wouldn’t have been dissuaded by the distraction, when Jess looked, she saw a snow-white head peer over a stall door. When the female Arabian saw them, she trilled, and abruptly a jet-black head was next to hers, the taller male looking out with her. Bright, intelligent eyes, soft noses, manes combed to silk. Jess’s feet were in motion before she even thought about it.
Vampires liked keeping pets. Dogs, mainly. Predators with a pack mentality meshed well with vampires’ dominant personalities.
The Rottweilers had been castoffs from one of the vampires who bred the dogs. While he’d given that pair to Raithe because of some slight imperfection they had, he prized and babied the ones without imperfections. The line between brutality and pampering was very thin in the vampire world.
However, the Bedouins of the past had treated their horses as members of the family, and she saw that care here. When she put out her hand, the female touched first, bringing her muzzle to Jess’s palm. “Oh, you’re lovely, you are,” she crooned, sliding her hand up the mare’s forehead. “And someone gives you love regularly, look at you, you spoiled thing.” The black pushed her arm insistently, so she gave a hand to each, stroking, rubbing, reaching up to the ears where she knew they liked it, the curves of their powerful necks, as their soft rubbery lips explored her shoulders and hair.
“Did you have a horse of your own?” Amara had taken a seat on one of the hay bales. The grooms kept a respectful distance, like the other staff members, for which Jessica was glad, but she wondered if they’d all been warned to give her space.
“Growing up,” she relented. “Before I went off to school, my family ran a horse farm. We raised quarter horses, but the neighbors had Arabians, so I was familiar with both.”
It was a taste of home, here so far from it, and not just geographically. She’d never see that home again. Even if she could safely visit again, she wasn’t sure if it wouldn’t look like some transparent, ghostlike reality. She was dead to that life now, or all who were part of it were dead to her. No. She was the ghost, not them. Jess put her forehead down on the nose of the white. A brief touch only, because Amara was watching her.
While Jess knew Mason didn’t need Amara’s eyes to see her, Jess took her hands away anyhow, reluctantly. “We can go on now.”
Jessica learned that the estate was two hours from any town, so she could save herself the trouble of trying to escape on foot.
While there were vehicles for the laborers to come and go, the roads through the forest were unmarked and twisting. Though it was her habit to note such things, she reminded herself again it was a moot point. A fully third-marked servant had no escape. Even if she had the fortune she’d had with Raithe, killing Mason would only kill them both.
Perhaps Mason had read her acknowledgment of that, for Amara surprised her at the end of the tour by indicating she had a few tasks to handle. “There are many more rooms I haven’t shown you, but you’re welcome to explore on your own or we can continue our tour later.” Apparently reading her expression, Amara added, “Lord Mason wants you to consider this your home, until you are able to choose another. We’ll be close, but you should be able to relax in your home, have some measure of freedom.”
Jessica relished the idea of an hour or two on her own to get her thoughts in order, look at her surroundings without being so obviously under a microscope. That way, if Mason was studying her like a bug, at least she didn’t have to acknowledge it.
“We’ll cut through here to get to the kitchens, and give you another snack now. We typically take our meals at regular hours, out of courtesy to the kitchen staff, but for today, I think they won’t mind making an exception.” Amara directed her through an arched portico that led to a breezeway. Jessica could see a segment of the ocean around this corner of the estate, feel the breeze through the pillars. As she walked, she trod on flat gray stones. Embedded in the interlocking design was an occasional golden tile. Words in Arabic script were on those tiles, made by different hands, if the shapes and sizes of the handwriting were any indication. The dates varied, from the past five years to more than two hundred and fifty years ago.“These are names,” Amara said. “Women’s names.”
Though Amara said nothing further, Jessica knew this was the harem she’d intended to “show” her. The walkway was paved with approximately forty marked tiles.
“None of them chose to stay with him, be his third-marked servant?”
“Some would have, if he’d only asked.”
Jess looked toward Amara. The woman’s eyes were reflective, a bit sad. “Most vampires prefer their servants willing, Jess, but the vampire must acquiesce as well. Lord Mason does not desire that singular bond with another woman. I was marked because I was already Enrique’s, so to speak.”
“So he never marked any of these?” Jess couldn’t keep the disbelief from her voice. Amara shook her head.
“A few who were in more precarious circumstances when he helped them were second-marked, so he could locate them, hear their thoughts if they were in distress. But that is all. You are the first, since me, he has marked three times.”
“He said he did it to save my life. So if I believe all this”—Jess glanced at the flagstones dubiously—“then I’m another damsel in distress. Wouldn’t he have let you marry Enrique without being his servant?”
“Yes. But I begged to serve him eternally, share that responsibility with Enrique as part of our marriage. I do not think that is what swayed his decision, however. He wanted me to have a similar life span, rather than Enrique outliving me by so long.” Despite Amara’s words, knowing the sexual drive of vampires, Jess was sure Mason had claimed Amara’s body. He wouldn’t be a vampire if he hadn’t. “How did Enrique feel about you and Mason . . .”
“If you come to see me dance, that question will be answered. Enrique will be there.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“As I said earlier, you do, but the question is, do you want your life back, Jess?” Jess snorted, but the empty anxiety in her stomach contracted. She stopped on the breezeway and faced Amara. “My life is gone, Amara. My fiancé, my family, the career I intended to pursue. I can’t go back to any of it.”
“Your fiancé may be dead, but Lord Mason will work hard to give you back as much of the rest as possible.”
“Sure he will.” Jess turned in a circle, which made her feel slightly sick and more off balance. “Because he’s miraculously different from every vampire I’ve ever met. I mean, he could have his own weekly TV superhero drama. There’s a pilot and two seasons here on these tiles.”
“Perhaps you should ask her whether or not he’s different.” Ignoring her caustic tone, Amara nodded. Between the next set of pillars a sandstone wall had been built, and there was a small alcove inside it at waist height. The recession held a shallow stone dish filled with water. The dish was ringed with stones, and a handful of lit candles floated in the water. Jessica approached it slowly, conscious that Amara stayed where she was.
The etching in the stone above the shallow pool was also in Arabic, but she’d studied enough to recognize Farida’s name, though she couldn’t decipher the script beneath. “What does it say?” she asked. Petals floated in the water. Somehow she knew no staff member was given the task of keeping this water clean, the petals fresh, the candles lit. Only one person did that.
“ ‘My heart, my soul, my life. Forever yours.’ ”
He couldn’t have created all this just to fool her. She knew it, but it was far too soon to believe her rational mind. Raithe and death still hovered too close for her to have that courage. Amara had drawn close again, so Jess saw her in her peripheral vision.
“He put that here, so she could see them. This breezeway was not created for him to congratulate himself.” Amara nodded to the pool. “It is for her. As he helps each one, he feels he is helping her, women like her, to have more choices than she did. It is one of the ways he honors her.” She reached out and touched one of the floating candles, sent it drifting across the small bowl. “After all you’ve been through, I understand, truly, how you feel it is safer to believe all vampires are evil than to take a chance on a new truth. But being so adamantly sure of something is another way of making yourself vulnerable, isn’t it? If that is always what you expect, it gives your enemy an opening.”
Jess closed her eyes. “As much as keeping you guessing, shifting from perspective to perspective.”
“So what’s the choice? What do you do, Jess, when you can’t afford to trust, but trusting may be your only way back to yourself, to something approximating the life you wanted?”