“So here it is. I don’t require much. Help Niall with the tasks he performs for me, and let us know if you notice anything that indicates Stephen’s presence.” Evan turned, his piercing eyes suddenly upon her. “I do understand certain things about Inherited Servants, Alanna. As you regain your strength, your need to be of ultimate service will grow. Even if you think it will hasten Stephen’s capture to forgo it, you will take the blocking serum Lord Brian gave you. If you put yourself at that kind of risk, you are disobeying me, and I will not be pleasant about it.”
She nodded. “Yes, Mas— sir. Evan.” Damn it. A simple thing like a name shouldn’t be giving her this much trouble.
“If you have any questions, you can ask Niall or me, if I’m available to answer,” he continued. “They told you that I’ll be giving you the first and second marks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Brian was certain they wouldn’t cause you ill effects, but we’ll do the first mark now, and the second one later tonight. I want some spacing to be sure it doesn’t upset your system.”
“I’m sure I can handle them both right now, sir, if it’s more convenient for you. I am quite recovered.”
“Well, just to be sure, we’re doing it my way.” Picking up a cloth, he wiped his hands on it, took a sniff at the results. “Oh, that’s terrible. Hold on.” Going to the sink, he washed them more thoroughly, using the soap there. Noticing the paper towels were at the end of the counter, she picked them up, brought them to Evan such that they were handy when he finished washing his hands. The soap had a fragrant citrus scent.
The vampire gave her a sweeping glance that held her in place and spread warmth over her skin. As he bent his head to pull a few towels off the roll, the straight strands of hair over his forehead caught her attention, the way the ends teased his slim black brows. “Thank you.”
A thank-you from a vampire? No vampire thanked a human. It didn’t matter what rank they possessed. Then she realized she’d committed a grave faux pas herself. She’d done something for Evan before looking for verbal cues from Niall, his fully marked servant.
Glancing quickly toward him, she was relieved to find the Scot unperturbed. However, there was a different quality to his regard. On the plane he’d been genial, attentive, but now she was aware of how alone she was with the two males.
It was a ridiculous thought, given that a vampire could do anything he wished to her, whether in the presence of his servant or the entire vampire populace. Her nervousness wasn’t fear, not exactly. She didn’t know how to classify the unfamiliar emotions coursing through her as Evan took the towel roll from her hands. The cellar seemed smaller, a dark, intimate den within the earth, far away from anything else.
The vampire surprised her by bending and sliding one arm behind her legs, the other around her back to lift her in his arms. Her arm landed on his neck, her hand on his shoulder. Though all vampires were stronger than humans, something about the angularity of his frame made the ease with which he lifted her unexpected.
It was barely a step to Niall. Her quick look at him through lowered lashes must have conveyed her curiosity, because Evan looked quietly amused. “I wanted to see what kind of armful you are. As you can guess, I have little occasion or desire to scoop Niall up in my arms.”
When he put her down, she was so close to Niall she was leaning against him. The servant put an arm around her waist. With his hips propped on the ladder step, his legs stretched out on either side of her, she found his thigh the best resting place for her hand. Beneath the utilitarian cargo pants, he was hard muscle. On the plane, when he’d retaliated against her strike, he’d controlled her easily with that power, holding her like an egg inside a grip she couldn’t break.
Evan lifted her other hand, his thumb sweeping over her pulse, registering the increase in the beat. She was trained to respond sexually to a vampire’s touch, as long as it was her Master’s will. Yet it had been months since she’d been required to respond. Even after the blocker started working, she was in the monastic solitude of her room, or the central garden, the only place at the Berlin castle that received much sun.
Arousal was more than training, however. It was also an instinct, when the stimulus was right. She wasn’t afraid of her ability to respond; she was worried about her ability to channel it properly. Her pulse was definitely tripping as Evan kept his thumb gliding over it, his eyes tracking her expression, her elevated breathing. When Niall slid her hair over her left shoulder, freeing the strands from their wide silver clip, the vampire watched the red curls tumble down over her breast. Now Niall’s breath was on the right side of her neck. As his lips settled there, gooseflesh spread out from the point of contact. She hadn’t been touched in months. Months.
The body was anatomically designed to experience pleasure. It was never to be resisted in a vampire’s presence, unless they ordered that as a form of torment, because vampires relished seeing their servants surrender sexual control at their command.
But Evan’s simple touch roused something different than that. In Stephen’s service, she had no trouble channeling her responses to his requirements. Yet she’d noticed servants outside his household who experienced orgasms with tears, looks of clinging adoration toward their Master or Mistress, impulsive acts of devotion in the aftermath.
InhServs were taught that “natural” servants were much less disciplined, so such emotional reactions were to be expected from them. It was not a failing, but a sign of why an Inherited Servant was a cut above. No InhServ would say that outright, because it suggested ego, but it was generally understood. Then she’d seen Adam with his Mistress. He’d pressed a fervent kiss to her foot, rubbed his cheek there as she touched his hair . . .
Why was she thinking about something like that now? What was Evan expecting, looking at her the way he was? Was she supposed to be doing something she wasn’t? The best InhServ anticipated her vampire’s need before he had to tell her. She’d been one of the best, but now she had no frame of reference.
Niall’s mouth opened, a heated moistness on her throat that tightened her nipples, drew in her breath. An electrical current ran between that contact and Evan’s thumb stroking her pulse, a current branching out, building a response in her lower belly, her thighs. She was dampening because she was supposed to respond that way, because he would require her to be wet if he wished to take her or have Niall take her, but it felt . . . She was afraid.
No. She was never afraid, not of this. But they were making her feel something different from what she was used to feeling.
“Shhh . . . you’re tensing, muirnín.” When Niall ran his hand down the arm she had propped on his thigh, she realized she was gripping him with tense fingers. It horrified her. He covered them, interlaced them with his own. “Let’s change this up a bit, aye? He’s a voyeur, and ye need to get lost in your heid.”
Sliding down the side zipper of her skirt, he moved their linked hands under the waistband. Touching the lace band of her panties, he traced the soft skin, then pushed farther beneath the silky fabric, guiding her fingers over her smooth mound, the tender petals beneath. She swallowed as he tapped her clit, then slid his middle finger below it, teasing wetness. “There ye go. Lie your head on my shoulder, close your eyes. Pleasure yourself, lass.”
She flicked her glance up to Evan, saw his slight nod, the intentness of his face, the firm set of his mouth. He brought her hand up to it, teased the palm with his lips, tasting her.
His fingers were truly extraordinary. Elegant but capable, like the hands of a master artisan, or a tree spirit. She remembered a card Adam had sent her, showing a male dryad coming to life, the branches of his tree becoming arms, wrapping around the body of a human woman. She was kissing his face, evolving through the bark, a powerful, graceful spirit that shared life with the tree. Evan’s hands reminded her of that. He also smelled like the forest.
The hard enamel of his fang slid over the pad of her index finger, a reminder that she’d been told to do something for them. Stephen had rarely commanded her to masturbate before him, but Niall’s hand was sliding between her fingers. The roughness of his skin was a friction that created another indrawn breath, a shuddering lift of her bosom under his appreciative gaze, if the near growl he made was any indication. She began to massage her clit, a tiny noise catching in her throat.
“Head on my shoulder.”
She obeyed, closing her eyes. The darkness intensified the aroma of developer chemicals, mixing with the earthy underground. Niall and Evan bore the scent of the earth as well, the mountains, the trees. It was new to her, people who didn’t smell of the civilized world. Houses, cleansers, paint, furniture upholstery, shower products from fancy salons.
His thighs steadying her with their bracket around her hips, Niall cupped her breast through the stretched fabric of the yellow sweater. As he explored the curve, stroking with his knuckles, the nipple stiffened, begged for touch through the thin stuff of her bra.
“Keep stroking yourself, lass.”
She’d almost forgotten, a little lost under their caresses. Teasing her clit, she dipped her fingers into herself and rubbed the moisture on the outside, giving herself lubrication. Her hips lifted at the stimulation, and her other hand curled in Evan’s grip, a reaction of pleasure. It made her fingers brush that sharp slash of cheekbone.
He’d moved his mouth from her fingers down to her palm, and the hair that had caught her attention earlier now feathered over her knuckles, a pleasant sensation. Her fingertips brushed his eyebrow.
His fangs teased her pulse, once, twice, and then he punctured flesh, the pain drawing her up in an arch toward him, a shudder passing through her as his tongue swirled over the area, his lips sealing down as he began to taste her. She stiffened as a burning sensation rippled up her arm, the geographical locator, the first mark. It hurt more than expected, as if her body was fighting any mark other than her original Master’s.