Stepping into the study, Mason eyed the stack of invoices waiting there. He toyed with the idea of threatening to rip the roofing contractor’s throat out if he didn’t repair his shoddy work on the pool house, versus having to find a replacement for his crew, but then discarded the idea of dealing with it at all. He didn’t want to do this right now. He wanted to find Jessica, spend more time with her, even though that was probably the last thing either of them needed.

As he reached out to her, looking for her whereabouts, fear and distress flooded his mind. Terror. Her madness closing in, along with a terrifying resolve.

Cursing his inattention, Mason bolted out of the study, already knowing he would be too late.

She missed the first strike. She’d made it so determined and vicious, the blade punctured skin but hit the rib bone and skittered off, the blade going in at an angle. The pain was intense, but she jerked it out, blood spattering over her hands, and prepared to stab herself again.

Jessica, for the love of Allah. Don’t do this. Don’t let him win.

“He’s already won.” She snarled in frustration as the weapon slipped out of her grasp because of the blood on her hands, her despicable shaking. She’d crumpled on the ground beneath the weapons rack, so it fell in her lap, jabbing her thigh, creating another bright bloom of blood. She fumbled for it.

Talk to me, Jessica. Please talk to me.

“I’m broken, Mason. I want you . . . I want you to do the same things to me that made me kill him.” Though her desolate voice echoed in the empty chamber, mocking her, she spoke aloud because she couldn’t bear being in her own head. “You’re—I don’t know what you are, what you want, but I can’t go through it again. I’m too frightened, too weak . . .” You are not weak. You are one of the strongest women I have ever met. You are strong enough to get through this.

“I don’t want to be strong anymore.” She screamed it, harsh fury splintering her words, tearing her throat raw. “I was a s-student. I was supposed to b-be m-married . . . travel around in a sailboat . . .” She cried now, her chest aching around the wound. “I wasn’t supposed to be anything special or different, or b-brave . . .”

Gripping the knife again, she fumbled to position it correctly this time. Her heart beat frantically, a bird pounding to get out of a cage before she took away all choices. As she’d beaten on the bars of her cage with Raithe, hoping for a choice. This choice.

Jessica. Hold on to my voice. Please.

She shook her head, but it was difficult to hold the blade steady. Dully, she realized the blood from the first puncture had soaked the front of her shirt. Had she gotten a lung after all? Her breathing was labored. She couldn’t talk anymore.

What will help, Jessica? What can I do or give you that will help? One thing. Think of one thing. Don’t give up on me.

She closed her eyes and leaned forward. The tip went in, an inch’s worth of pain. What are you afraid of, Mason?

Right now, I am very afraid of losing you, habiba.

No, not that. Are you afraid of anything?

A pause. Yes. I am afraid of . . . I do not care for small spaces.

Perhaps it was the hesitation that caught her attention, the fact that his male pride, even in this terrible moment, made him revise the way he said it. “You’re claustrophobic?” Her eyes opened, and though wavering with tears, she blinked them away. The blood from her shirt was forming a small pool in the vee between her bent legs. Looking at that was easier than looking at what else was in the room. Her hands stayed locked on the dagger, but she didn’t go further, yet. With the tip in, all she had to do was push. No one could stop her now. “Well, that’s . . . pretty typical. For humans.” She giggled at her own joke. Now she felt the darkness of his worry, his urgent pull at her to put down the knife. She cradled it closer, but the motion dislodged it. It raked a stripe down her abdomen, parting her shirt. Dizzy, she rested her wrist on her knee.

Dropping her head on top of the steel pommel, she let it press into the concave bone over her eye. It was likely a lie. Vampires feared nothing. But she was curious, in a drifting sort of way. What story would he tell her? He’d told Farida stories at night.

When I was young, I played with the children of my parents’ staff members. They had read the human stories about vampires, how they slept in coffins. When a born vampire is young, we sleep heavily during daylight hours. You cannot rouse us. So as a lark, and a curiosity, they put me in a wooden crate and buried it in a hole in the back garden. They were not intending to be cruel. They were children.

She eased down to her side, curling into a fetal ball. Cool stone lay against her cheek, while she stared at the polished upper points of the St. Andrew’s cross in front of her. Don’t believe it, Mason. It’s always about cruelty. Power. Even when they act like it’s just play. Just harmless fun.

No, habiba . Not always. My parents found me. I’ d figured out how to escape, but it took a while. I kept passing out from the panic attacks. They found me as I was emerging from the ground with bloody and torn fingers. Fortunately at night.

Are they still alive, your parents?

No. They were killed a year later, by vampire hunters. Jessica, open the door.

“Can’t,” she said drowsily. “Can’t get up. Heartbeat . . . putting me to sleep.” Then don’t be alarmed.

Before she could process that in her sluggish brain, the floor shuddered. Thunder reverberated through the chamber and the door splintered inward. The iron bar hurtled free, stripping the screws on the braces. It clattered down the stone steps amid a froth of wood pieces. In the next moment, the wreckage of the door was screened by Mason’s wide shoulders, his concerned, handsome face as he bent over her.

“Give me the knife, Jess.”

As befuddled as she was from blood loss, she realized he could take it from her. But he waited, his mouth a thin, hard line, his eyes fierce as his gaze swept the blood soaking her shirt. “Jessica, right now.” When she lifted a trembling hand, his fingers closed over it. As he lifted her in his arms, her heavy head lolled against his shoulder.

“You’re angry,” she whispered.

“Of course not. I should thank you. I was thinking two hours of paperwork were going to be torment. You quite selflessly proved something else could be far worse.”

“Could help,” she managed. “Good at paperwork.”

“Consider it added to your current stable duties.” Sitting down on the top step, he cradled her in his lap. He still smelled like the sea, where they had walked earlier. When he shifted her in his arms, she watched him nick the artery in his throat with the dagger, then toss it away in a jerk of movement.

“You’ve lost too much, habiba. You need to drink from a richer source. Now.” He’d placed pressure on the wound in her chest, but with the other hand he cradled the back of her head, holding her steady and bringing her up to his neck.

The smell of it was too intoxicating, and she was too far gone to resist or despise herself. She latched on to his flesh and drank him in, aware of how his breath left him, his heart rate increasing, the thigh muscles hardening beneath her as his grip around her back and waist also constricted. His strength flowed into her for the second time today.

Every time she took more of him, it increased the binding between them. She knew that, but she didn’t know how not to crave that.

It brought tears and desire surging forth at once. I’m broken, Mason.

No, habiba . Nothing can break you. You need time, and rest. You need to stop worrying so much, learn to trust me.

But you have this room. Like him.

His lips brushed the top of her head. “Jessica, every tool can be used for good or evil. When you look at the things in here, what I see in your mind is evil.” He paused as a growl entered his tone, an underlying fury she sensed him trying to contain before he continued. It made her glad her face was hidden where she couldn’t see his. Not because she feared his anger, but her reaction to it. She was all too aware it made her feel protected, not afraid as it should.

“But imagine this,” he continued. “Imagine I have bound you on that cross. I kiss your wrists, below the cuffs, teasing your pulse with my tongue. Then I do the same all over your naked body, pleasuring you as long as I wish, until you are begging for release, but not release from that cross. For a climax, at my touch, at my command.” Her body quivered, nerves warring with reaction to the sensual picture. She was done drinking, though her lips still pressed against his throat. He rested his cheek on her head, continued in that husky murmur.

“After your climax, I would adjust the cross so you are lying down, and use warm fragrant water to bathe your skin, still vibrating with your release. My touch promises you more of the same, over and over again, until you are as exhausted as you are now, though from something far more lovely. Your own mesmerizing responses.”

“But why would you want to do that?” she whispered. “Why wouldn’t you want to hurt me? He liked making me come while he hurt me. And sometimes, with you . . .” A shudder of denial jerked her against him.

Mason stroked her hair, his fingers delving deep to fondle her neck in a slow, soothing rhythm. He knew he had to keep it like this, casual, relaxed, balancing her again. Even though they were both soaked in her blood, and her memories were making his own boil.

The hated knife still lay too close to them, but too far for him to give it a vicious kick.

“Raithe and his kind were monsters, habiba,” he managed. “But you do take some pleasure in pain. It is part of who you are. I could put you on the cross, do as I said, but also introduce some pain into it. Perhaps a light flogging that striped your pale skin with faint red lines, or a nipple clamp that pinched you enough to make you gasp. The very act of binding you, taking away your control with the straps, is a form of torture, but one you would embrace, if done the right way, by the right person.” By him. Only him. He pushed away the possessive surge. “But it is your pleasure for the pain and restraint that would drive me, not my need to see how much power I could take from you, how much pain I could inflict upon you. It is a key difference. Willing submission is a gift of the gods, habiba. Forced servitude comes straight from Hell. It is not you who is broken, Jessica. It was Raithe. If I could help you believe one thing, it would be that. What you have is a gift to a Master.” She shook her head, wearily closed her eyes, her mind. “I don’t know what’s right or wrong.” Mason drew a deep breath, hitched her more securely into his lap, worried by how pale she was, how limp in his arms.