“I'm not a servant, Gideon. No vampire owns me.”
“So you're just his drinking buddy.” Gideon's gaze flicked down to her thigh. Since she was up on her knees now, not delectably on her back, he couldn't see the dual puncture scar. “Unlock my chains and I'll let go of your arm.”
“To do that, I have to go there.” She nodded to a panel in the wall, beyond the range of his bindings.
“You will have to trust me, Gideon. Just as you did a few moments ago.” Her brow rose. Her armor was a foot thick, no evidence left of the vulnerable woman who was about to give in to something they'd both wanted. “If this was some elaborate trick to kill you, I expect we could have done that earlier, or on any of your other visits here.”
“Vamps like to play with their food,” he said flatly.
“In which case, the security outside the door will kill you, no matter what you do to me.”
“I've gotten out of tougher spots.”
“Let go of me, and you will walk out the same way you walked in. You are in no danger here, which you would see if you weren't obsessed with your hatred of an entire species because of the life of one girl.” Gideon's expression froze. In that blind second he was gripped with the damning desire to do her real harm, just as he had in that crazy moment when he'd ripped up the prayer bench. Seeing it, she threw up her chin, dared him, her eyes flashing.
“You don't know shit about that,” he gritted out. But she did, didn't she?Warrior, killer. She'd called him that. Lost in a haze of lust, he'd thought she was role-playing, rather than exposing her knowledge of who and what he was.
“Why do you think you're not dead, Gideon? One man dedicates himself to a personal war against the vampires, and there's no Council decree to hunt him down? No territory that decides to pull together a posse, of sorts, and take you down?”
This bitch had known all about him the first time he'd walked in the door. Probably because of whoever was sucking her blood on a regular basis. He'd been unbelievably stupid. He hated her.
“Because vampires are very clannish,” he retorted. “If you don't take out one of their own, they don't give a shit. They also see it as a sign of weakness when the vamp loses to someone like me.”
“Yes, there is that. But for many vampires, it is a regrettable part of their life that they have to take an annual kill. They don't hold your grief against you.”
“How fucking noble of them. Let me go.” He snarled it, his patience at an end. “Whatever game you're playing with me, it's over. Unlock the chains from here.” He seized her beneath the chin, his grip tight enough to pull her head up, strain tendons. “Or I break your pretty neck.”
“I can't.”
Gideon tightened his fingers, so her air became constrained. “I'm not playing.”
“Neither am I.” Her breath rattled over his grasp. “Are you ready to cross the line and become the monster, Gideon? Or are you already there, so you don't care?” Her eyes were hard stone, the color brilliant. “You do whatever you're going to do, but I'm not going to playyour game. You have been treated fairly here. What happened here happened as you experienced it. There is no trick. Everything is not about you.”
When he sneered at that, her voice remained even, despite her obvious disadvantage. “The fact that one of my associates is a vampire is irrelevant, as it is to any patron of Atlantis. This is my club. My decisions, my choices.”
He could do it, break her neck in less than a heartbeat. She wasn't even lifting her hands to defend herself, simply hanging in his grip, but her lack of fear was a defense strategy all its own. She was so pissed off, it penetrated his suspicions. “Let me go,” she repeated. “Right now.” He held her gaze another long minute; then, with an oath, he dropped her, drawing back as if he'd touched poison. She rocked back on her hips, but recovered her grace quickly. Rising, that mask in place, she didn't even bother to pick up her oil-stained clothes, no attempt to shield or protect herself superficially. As she turned away from him, walked toward the wall panel, his gaze latched onto the taped square of gauze on her back. There was a bloodstain in the center where the wound had been aggravated. Now he knew why she'd changed shirts. He remembered them hitting that alcove together, her shoulder leading the way.
Fuck, he hadn't even thought about it. He'd hurt her, and she'd . . . He gritted his teeth. She was a vampire's bitch, probably took worse from him. It didn't mean shit. It shouldn't bother him, but since he couldn't avoid the truth that he hadn't known about her association with vampires then, it meant he'd carelessly hurt a woman in his need. Something he would never,ever do.
Reaching the panel, she flipped a switch. The camera lights flickered back on. When she pressed another button, he heard the latches releasing the collar and remaining cuff. The sound was loud in the silence. Gideon pulled them away from his body and stood, facing her.
“You're free to use the locker facilities to wash off the oil and get dressed,” she said. “There will be a cleaning crew coming to prepare the chamber for our next guest, so please don't linger. When you're dressed, stop at the accounting office to pay your bill for the room damages.” The frost in her voice, the cold detachment in her gaze, penetrated his own anger, made him want to howl. Ask questions. “Why are you with him?”
“I'm not with anyone, Gideon. I think you've demonstrated why I'm not. I saw something in you that convinced me to cross the line. It was a mistake, as it always is.” When she drew in a breath, her nostrils flaring, he saw her consider him, an inch at a time, from head to toe. Where her gaze had been appraising earlier, as if she were caressing him with every movement of her thick lashes, now it was clear she was doing a far different type of evaluation. “Chantal was right. You don't belong in a place like Atlantis. This is for people who have the courage to reach for something more than what they know.” She turned as Madelyn entered from the staff door. The woman looked neither left nor right, holding out a robe. The Mistress slid her arms into it, regal as a queen. Madelyn placed another robe on a hook, apparently for him so he wouldn't have to stride naked through the hallways to the locker area, or put his street clothes over his oily skin. He didn't give a rat's ass. The shirt was ruined anyway.
Madelyn drew the sable hair out of the robe's collar, let it fall. Despite himself, Gideon couldn't help a twinge of lingering hunger.
Now that he was free, his mind was considering the possibilities. He was the one who had come here initially. He hadn't been lured. It was possible that she might be telling the truth, that who she spent her time with had nothing to do with his presence here. It didn't make him any less wary, because she obviously knew who and what he was. A vampire knew of his comings and goings here, but for whatever reason, the vamp hadn't taken advantage of it.
Nevertheless, probably proving how stupid he was, he couldn't stop the ache in his lower belly at what he'd just denied himself. He'd get over it. It didn't really matter, because it would have been an illusion.
Right?
“What's your name?” he demanded.
“You don't have the right to ask me any questions. ‘Mistress' was more than sufficient, and more than you deserved.” Her gaze could freeze tree trunks, let alone his shriveled libido. “Good-bye, Gideon.
Don't come back here. Since you are determined not to accept what you need, I hope that you at least get what you want.”
“What the hell do you think that is?”
He hadn't meant to ask the sudden, desperate question. He expected the same smart-ass retort she'd given him earlier, about him already knowing the answer. Of course, the way he'd asked, he might also get another fuck-you look and nothing else, but she surprised him. As she glanced back over her shoulder, her face remained carefully expressionless.
“Death. While fighting the fight you have allowed to consume your soul.”
6
IT was surreal. What had happened in the past few minutes, and what he was doing now. Maybe he was slipping, because in a similar situation he would have scooped up his things and beat it out of there, his surroundings no longer known or trusted, infected by a vampire presence. Instead, he went to the damn showers. He was covered in oil like a greased pig, and he didn't have many clothes to his name, as he'd told her. He had to travel light, after all.
When he reached the shower area, which he was relieved to find was vacant except for himself, an Atlantis staff T-shirt had been left for him. Black and in his size, with a vellum card perched atop it with his assumed name.Compliments of Atlantis, for Mr. Jon Smith . Picking it up, he brought it to his nose.
New T-shirt, straight-from-the-factory smell. Disgusted with himself, he balled it in his fist. Of course it wouldn't smell like her. One of her lackeys had brought it, and why should he want her scent, anyway?
She was a damn vampire groupie.
He'd run into a few of them, but they were always marked. Vampires were a secretive lot, and they usually didn't permit anyone in their inner circle who wasn't blood-linked to them. Despite what she said about not belonging to anyone, she was likely carrying one or two marks from the bastard.
He stepped into the shower, let the spray rain down on him. Second shower of the night. First to wash off blood, now to wash off . . . Hell, he didn't know what to call it. Another form of damnation, maybe.
His cock was pissed as hell at him, so close to the golden gate before his mind had fucked it all up. But he couldn't stomach the idea of sliding into her, having his balls or any other part of his anatomy brushing against that mark, wherehe'd suckled her. Or fucked her. Of course, if he hadn't smelled the evidence of male seed, he'd say it could be a female vamp. She was hard-core, and she had issues with men. That flicker in her eyes when he'd been above her had told him. She didn't trust a male easily, if at all.
