Vampire Mistress (Vampire Queen #5)

But weapons . . . He found he'd shifted to the cabinet holding Daegan's cache. Opening the wooden door and examining the safe's combination lock, he spun it, wondering. Twelve. Seventeen. Thirteen.

Ten.

As the lock made that whoosh noise, Gideon shook his head. Daegan really needed to work on his password security. Course, in all fairness, the code he'd given to Gideon had apparently never been given to anyone before. Which suggested again that Daegan had given Gideon a level of trust he hadn't granted to anyone else, like the uncontrolled access to Anwyn's mind. Another mystery.

Nonplussed by that, but suffering no guilt at breaking into the safe, Gideon opened the door. Holy mother lode. Crossbows with beautifully engineered draws and balanced arrows. Guns, of quite a few types and sizes. But of even greater interest was Daegan's ammunition. Gideon lifted one of the capsules to the light, looking at the dark movement of liquid inside. There were knives, of every possible description, weight and curve. He picked up a misericord, examining it. Hanging behind the knives, on another backboard, was the collection of swords. He expected he was looking at weapons that might have belonged to warriors of old. Of course, if Daegan was born in 1310, they could be his—

Gideon dropped and rolled a second before the vampire reached him, his precog sense alone helping him avoid that snatch and grab. He was able to get the sofa between them, made a well-aimed jab with the misericord that almost snagged Daegan's shirt, but that was as far as he got. Daegan had him against the wall, another weapon against Gideon's throat. A nice six-inch wooden blade that could punch right through the neck.

“It's good manners to ask a man before you handle his weapon.” Before Gideon could think of a suitable retort to that, Daegan backed off and tossed him the knife.

When Gideon caught it, he realized it was his own wooden knife. “It served the purpose you wished,” the vampire said briefly. “I took Barnabus's blood with it, though I am keeping him alive in a holding facility until we are certain we no longer need him.”

“Good.” Gideon hadn't expected him to honor his request, but Daegan had taken it seriously, warrior to warrior. While he couldn't bring himself to say thanks, Daegan seemed indifferent to his response. The vampire had changed clothes, now wearing faded blue jeans, the cuffs worn and frayed with age, and a white muscle shirt. His feet were bare. The casual, contemporary look might make him seem as approachable as a Gap commercial, except for that stalking-game walk and his closed expression.

“You've got an impressive amount of hardware here,” Gideon observed, returning Daegan's daggers to the safe. “What's in the bullets?”

“Acid.” Daegan moved to join him. “They explode in the vampire, eat away flesh. It won't kill him, but it hurts. Works for a distraction, slows enemy response time.”

“Hmm.” Gideon grunted. “And these?” He reached out, touched a small metal capsule.

He yanked his arm back as it became a whirling dervish at the pressure of his fingers, catapulting out of the box with a pinwheel of lethal blades. Daegan caught the ball in a move too fast for Gideon to follow.

Whatever he did retracted the blades and saved his fingers, though he noted a stripe of blood across three of Daegan's knuckles.

“A version of a throwing star. It handles somewhat like a boomerang, and you release the trigger as you throw.”

“Can it decapitate?”

“Nearly. It's more effective for removing limbs. It's difficult for a vampire who has suffered an amputation to fight back immediately. As you know, several seconds are usually the only advantage you need, if you're doing it right.”

Gideon looked at the array of weapons again.Fucking awesome. He cleared his throat, shrugged his shoulders. “Pretty good arsenal.”

“Mmm.” Daegan replaced the capsule and slid his hands into his pockets, heedless of the blood spatter he might put on the denim. He stared down at the weapons. “With these, with my hands, with my body, I can kill anything. But I have no ability to turn back time or to heal her body, her mind.” There it was, the thing that had Gideon wandering, and had brought Daegan back out again, both of them acutely aware of the woman in the other room, the many things she might be suffering, and how she'd shut them out.

“You think she really wanted us not to be around her, or was that the female way of saying, ‘I want you to insist'?”

Daegan arched a brow at Gideon. “Anwyn is not like normal women. She says exactly what she wants, when she wants it. The games she plays are clear challenges, as straightforward as a knight throwing down a gauntlet. As wonderful as that sounds”—his gaze returned to the weapons—“it means that she does mean what she says. She doesn't want us near her.”

“Son of a bitch.”

Daegan made a grunt of acknowledgment. Then he glanced at Gideon again. This time his look was penetrating and far more personal, reminding Gideon of earlier, when Daegan's mouth had been on his shoulder, only Anwyn's hands between Daegan's and his ass. He'd tried not to think about that much, because it didn't bear thinking about. It had been what they did for her; that was all.

“Becoming her servant was very noble. She may think I planted the decision, influenced you unfairly, but even she knows that's wrong. You despise my kind. Only a true belief that it was the right thing to do would have moved you. That, and your feelings for her. I hope you don't regret it, because regardless of my motives, she needs a man like you as her servant.”

Gideon shifted, not wanting to get into that. “You've been watching us both like you're waiting for another shoe to drop.”

Daegan lifted a shoulder. “You know a lot about our world, Gideon. I may have to take her before the Council to have her validated as a made vampire. Either way, they will have a hand in deciding how she will be integrated into the vampire world. She can't exist in a territory as a loner. You know this.”

“Shit. Yeah, I know.” But he hadn't thought that Daegan would broach it so soon. “If she has to appear before the Council, I'm going with her.”

“That would be the height of folly.”

“Yeah. I'm going. If the seizures keep happening, she'll need me. We both know it.”

“We will speak of it soon. Not now, though.” When Daegan continued to stare into space, Gideon felt that unwilling twinge of male empathy.Fuck.

“You know, she's not going to be pissed at you forever.”

“With a woman, a moment can feel like forever.” Daegan gave a rueful smile, making Gideon feel less like a fool for offering woman advice to a vamp who was obviously . . .

“How oldare you?”

“Older.” Daegan cocked a brow at him. “Much older. Tonight, I don't feel those years have given me any wisdom. For all of this, I've only found one consistent truth. No matter how strong and fast I am, being too late makes everything else irrelevant. And there will always be times I am too late.” Gideon understood that feeling, so powerfully that he had a horrifying impulse to reach out to the other man, grip his shoulder in silent empathy. Fortunately, he didn't have to cut off his arm to curb the impulse, because Daegan spoke again.

“I would just . . .” He shook his head, closed his eyes. “I almost wish as she did. That I'd never met her, never brought her into my life. I'd rather have spent my whole life with no one, than have given her a moment of pain.”

Gideon's brow creased. Surely he didn't mean . . . Daegan had never letanyone get as close as Anwyn?

That was unusual in itself, but it was even more unusual for a vampire to say something like that straight-out, especially about a human. It confirmed his suspicion, that there seemed to be quite a few things about Daegan Rei that didn't fit vampire etiquette.

“So if you love her, whydidn't you ever mark her?”

“You heard why. I agreed not to do so. She didn't wish to be my servant.” He hadn't denied his love for her, a human. But he'd never told her outright, obviously. Christ. No wonder things were so twisted up between them. Gideon gave him an exasperated look. “I'm not saying you're like that scum that attacked her, but I know the dynamic. You're not the kind that asks. You overwhelm until you get what you want.”

Daegan shook his head. “Yes, but the victory is not true when it's won that way. Regardless of how my nature compels me to take Anwyn over, before I cross that line, she has to make the vital decision to invite me over it. As you did, when you met her.”

“I never said—”

“Very often, it's not spoken.” Daegan reached out, slid his fingers down the blade of the misericord. “A good Master or Mistress knows how to read every flicker of the gaze, shift of the body. Very often a submissive needs to fight before surrender occurs. He must prove that Master or Mistress is the one who has the essential arsenal to defeat his defenses, deserve his surrender.

“She's a Mistress, Gideon. A very strong one. Though my nature makes me stronger, such that she has submitted to me under certain circumstances, I never intended to force her acceptance of a life that is against her true nature. It would dishonor the very reason she drew me to her in the first place.” He suppressed a sigh. “And yet, now, she is part of a world where Dominance and submission often walk the line of tyranny and brutality. She will see things in my world that will be a sacrilege to someone like her.”

Gideon knew there was no arguing with that, and they stood in silence for several more minutes, staring at that cache of weapons. At least crossbows and guns were something he could understand, though he often employed them against an incomprehensible world. He wondered if Daegan ever felt that way. He was definitely getting that feeling, which gave him more of that unwelcome sense of bonding. He moved slightly away from the other male, but Daegan didn't appear to notice. Gideon cleared his throat.

“You met her here?”

“Yes. Five years ago.” He lifted his gaze back to Gideon. “She's a sorceress, one who weaves a very dark and tempting web around herself. Only certain people can get to the center of that web. Before this happened, I was as close to that center as our relationship permitted, but now it seems she is doing her best to restructure that web so I cannot get back to her heart.”