Are you going to stand over there and beat a dead horse all night?

He narrowed a glance at her shadowed silhouette, heard her chuckle at his retaliatory thought. Now that wasn’t nice at all, Dev. I might be of a mind to make you pay for that one. Then she straightened from the tailgate. Even in the darkness, her movements suggested the deadly purpose to her, that stillness that reminded him forcefully, when he was of a mind to forget, that she wasn’t human.

Grab your beer, bushman, and let’s go.

When they at last reached Alice Springs, they had a private berth on the train to Adelaide, two narrow stacked beds and a sitting area by the window. They boarded at night, but when daylight came, he pulled the curtains. Not for the first time, he thought of what she’d said, about how few vampires risked living out here, where it would be easy to get marooned during the daylight hours.

Even now, all he had to do was reach over her and pull back the drapes to puncture her body with an unrelenting square of bright sunlight. Why did she trust him so? Why did the idea of someone doing such a thing to her send his hand automatically to the knife at his side?

The trip by vehicle had been long, so almost as soon as she washed up, she’d lain down on the long seat by the window, blinked sleepily at him.

Come take off my boots, Dev.

He’d arched a brow at her. “Expect you’ve known how to do that since you were a little one, love.” I have. Come take them off.

Meeting her eyes, the blue that could pull him in so deep he was reminded again of swimming in the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef, he’d put his swag and weapons in the corner and moved toward her.

“You playing games with me, love?”

“Would it be easier for you if you thought I was?”

He shook his head. Not a denial, but a resignation to the peculiarity of her ways that compelled him to go to one knee by the long seat, shifting her sole to his knee so he could unlace the boot and slide it from her dainty foot. He unrolled the sock as well, letting his palm slide over the ankle and smooth flesh of her sole, tease the tips of her toes. She stayed on her side as he shifted farther down the cushion, worked the boot off the next one. On impulse, he bent and put his lips on her insole, teasing it with the tip of his tongue, feeling a tremor run up her calf beneath his hand. Then he laid his head there, feeling a temporary easiness to it.

“What will you do while I sleep?” Her hand passed over his hair, grazed his shoulder before he straightened.

“You brought along some books. I’ll probably read. Get some sleep myself.” He gave her a half smile. “You know, they say mothers need to sleep while their babies are sleeping, to keep up with the little tykes when they’re awake.” She gave him a soft smile. “I’ll bet they tell them a story before they go to sleep. Tell me a story. Come up here. Let me put my head on your leg.”

When he obliged, sliding under her, she coiled her arms around his hips, her fingers stroking his buttocks in a very distracting way.

With her cheek pillowed on his thigh, he told her one of the Dreamtime stories, the story of creation, when the Father of All Spirits woke the Sun Mother and had her create all living things . . .

When he was done, she was quiet for a bit, her breath even, and he laid his head against the wall, his hand absently tracing her temple, that baby-fine hair that everyone seemed to have there, human and vampires. As well as every man he’d killed . . .

Shh . . . Not asleep, obviously. She began to sing to him, this time in his mind, a peculiar but soothing sensation as she chose another lullaby, all about a cradle rocking in the clouds, carried along by the wings of angels, never to tip, always to have sweet dreams, of unicorns and birds, bright sunlight and sparkling water . . .

He was starting to rely on it, another coping mechanism, the way she had of drawing a curtain over his memories. “You can wander the train a bit if you get restless,” she murmured at last.

“I’m fine.” He wasn’t leaving her alone while she was sleeping in a strange place.

Another moment of silence. “Dev, you did what you had to do. And you did it for me. To protect me from having to swear loyalty to Charles. As well as to save your own life.”

“One of me for six or seven of them.”

“Who all tried to kill you. That was the point. To run you down and make sure you didn’t survive. Worse, they did it as a game.” No. Men don’t play games like that. If they call them games, that’s just a ruse for what they’re really about. Dev turned his gaze down to her, found her half-open eyes watching him. “Like having me take off your boots, right?”

“Mmm.” A light smile touched her lips. “There are places I could take you, where I could chain you up, and tease you to hardness, over and over, until you’d beg for the barest friction of a wet pussy against you. Make you mindless except to my commands.

Work you so hard I’d break down your mind, let all the shadows escape. After that, all you’d have is my commands to obey, nothing else, until you could get enough rest from the chatter in your head that you’d become the man you were meant to be again.” The berth had grown much smaller, warmer, as his body warred with his mind over the unlikely words. He noted the faint sheen of moisture on her lips, and wanted to taste it. Instead, he curled his hand into a knot and stared down at her. “Promise me you won’t do that. Chain me up.”

She held his gaze. “I promise I won’t, until I know you trust me enough to let me do it.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath for me to say those words, love. Nothing personal.”

“I didn’t say I’d be waiting for your permission. I said I wouldn’t do it until I know you trust me enough. That day will come, Dev.

And when it does, you’ll be scared, and furious, and gloriously violent, but you’ll also be yearning toward me, daring me to take everything, your heart, mind and soul, and make it part of myself. Then, when I unchain you, it won’t matter.” Her hand reached up, traced his throat. “The collar will still be there. Forever. It doesn’t take anything away from those you’ve loved before. Every experience you’ve had before this moment has made you who you are, what I want. What any woman alive would want.” Her fingers settled on his shoulder, the dangerous light weight of a spider, drawing his attention to the coolness in her eyes. “But which I alone will claim.”

Turning his head, he brushed his lips over her fingers. “I told you, I’m no one’s possession.”

“That’s only because you hear the word and you think of a loss of freedom. With surrender comes release, Dev. Remember that.” When she slept at last, he was loath to move from his position. Feeling around in her travel bag, he came up with Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. He wondered if she cared for it, or if she’d brought it from her library, suspecting he would find it enjoyable.

Taking him back to a time when his life was all about study, debating points of philosophy with fellow students, or playing English rugby. Of course, he’d also introduced his classmates to aerial pingpong, the chaotic Australian footy rules. In wry hindsight, he realized his knowledge of that sport had been good preparation for the battlefield. He’d just begun to teach Rob before . . .

As the train rumbled, he opened the cover and moved into Whit-man’s world, before he could get pulled into his own dark one.

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough . . . His hand drifted over her hair, down her back. How often he’d had thoughts about that, when he took his trips in to Elle’s place, or walked with the clan for a day. Or when crossing their tracks, he’d stopped to examine the different patterns of their feet, identifying who was heavier or lighter, who bore a burden and who did not.

Who was in good health and who might be feeling poorly. A way to connect, without being with them.

This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman, This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.

Then, regarding women . . . You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

“The gates of hell and heaven both,” he murmured, his hand resting upon her. “And when you possess our soul, we will follow you to either one.” I know what being possessed is, Danny. I do. He just didn’t know if he was that strong.

By my side or back of me Eve following, Or in front, and I following her just the same.

She shifted then. Moving with her, synchronized with her body as if he were the wind and her limbs the branches of a tree, flowing together, he brought her up into his lap. Leaning against the back of the sleeper, he let her dream on that way, her body laid out between his spread legs, her upper torso propped against his. One arm was hooked loosely at his waist, the other resting in her lap, her cheek pillowed on his abdomen. At this angle, through the curtain’s crack, he could see Uluru in the far distance—or Ayer’s Rock, as most of the whites called it—the vast formation of sacred rock. The sun was starting to spill out over it, an awe-inspiring sight, even at this range. He’d stood in its shadow, knew what had once rested there, so many sacred items and stories of the aborigines, many of those spirited away before others could remove them for museums, souvenirs. You had to protect what you treasured. Otherwise it would be taken away when you least expected it.

No, he couldn’t afford to be possessed again. But he was well aware the choice might no longer be his to make.

17

IN some part of her subconscious, Danny was aware of the many hours he spent, letting her pillow upon him while he read. The rails clacked beneath them and the train halted and started again for the few stops along the way, a comfortable rhythm.

After watching him deal with the aftermath of Ruskin in his own stubborn way for the week, then seeing the darkness pour off him at Bob’s, she’d realized it was past time for her to lance the boil. The verses he’d found in the poetry to stir the things festering in his soul were the final sign. She let it percolate in her mind now, gave herself the luxury of a slow rousing while the brooding man remained oblivious to her state of wakefulness.