Perhaps she was a child who'd not yet mastered running, but she could careen out of control and it would stil be thril ing, her blood surging with youthful invincibility. It had been a very long time since she'd felt that way, and having Jacob here with her only spurred it.

She hadn't been surprised that Jacob had taken it upon himself to join the conversation with Keldwyn when he did, to provide a physical show of support before Keldwyn's imperiousness. Even so, she decided it might be time to remind him who held the reins on their relationship. For her own pleasure as much as for the lesson.

He'd halted on the opposite side of the trel is.

Now, his gaze locking with hers, he stepped to the right to fol ow her in a circle around it, a far-more-adult version of ring-around-the-rosy. A bench was built inside of the trel is. In his mind, she saw them both naked on it, her straddling him, holding either side of the trel is as if restrained, yet using it as a bracing point to shove herself down on him. It underscored the point that they were bound together, locked into one purpose, one soul. She answered that chal enge with one of her own, no less intense.

With his precognitive ability, Jacob sensed the change before it happened, but her magical reach was greater than his speed. He sprang back, but the roots snaked out from the trel is, cinching around his biceps. They slammed him against the right side of the frame, flush against the crossed oak pieces.

Capturing his wrists, they drew his arms up, tightening in swift loops and knots so that he was arched against the wood, making his body an offering to her. Another speared out to loop around his throat, holding it fast. Others wrapped around his legs, all the way up his thighs. The surface of the strong roots was rough enough to cut through the thin denim of his jeans in several places, biting into his flesh, tempting her to taste.

She was stil enough of a vampire to savor Jacob's blood. But a servant savored a vampire's blood as well , and she was both, wasn't she? When she'd turned him and lost her vampire powers, she'd been pregnant and nearly defenseless for a short time period. Jacob had redefined being a servant then. He was there to protect and care for her, no matter if that meant he had to reverse their roles.

He'd marked her as a ful servant. Though that meant he could delve deeply into her mind, whether she will ed it or no, he didn't do that unless she invited him to do so, as she had during her conversation with Keldwyn.

Wel , amend that. He didn't do it except when he thought her well -being was more important than her orders. Her presumptuous, delectable servant.

“With all those fine muscles, you might be strong enough to tear loose,” she purred. Moving closer, she savored the danger in his vibrant blue eyes. “But Mason does love this trel is, and we've already done quite a bit of damage to his property.” Trailing her fingers down his sternum, she registered the rapid beat of his heart. “Can you submit to me, as you did when I was your vampire Mistress?”

“You've never stopped being my Mistress, my lady.” His mouth was taut with a perilous desire that made her tremble low in her bel y. “Even when I found you in the forest, your body weak and carrying my son.”

No matter the role he played with Keldwyn, now the possessiveness was there in ful force, his reminder of the claim he'd put upon her that no other male ever had. It got her even hotter. “There's nothing I won't do for you,” he said. “Except let you leave me behind again. You'l have to kil me to do that. You will kil me if you do that.” Since she knew it was the truth, it was like a knife twisting hard in her heart, tempering the moment with far more than violent lust and predatory games. That knife was always there, ready to stab her with the likelihood of losing him in the dangerous life they led.

But she didn't want to give herself to painful sentiment. She didn't want the softening of his mouth, the compassion in his eyes as he registered her feelings. It wasn't tenderness she craved right now. If things weren't going to go her way in this, she was going to exact a price for it.

He recognized her shift, whether through vampire mind games, his own intuition or the fact they seemed to share the same soul. The softness disappeared into a far more feral expression as he bared sharp fangs at her. Crimson light glinted in his eyes.

“Show me that upper hand, my lady. Do your worst.”

He was irresistible, the beautiful layers of muscle, firm skin, blood and bone. The heat of an aroused male. Sliding behind him, she put her knee on the bench. Reaching through the cross pieces, she threaded her hands beneath his T-shirt. She started at his armpits, enjoying the sense of those layers over his rib cage, down to his waist. Because of his stretched position, the jeans had fal en lower so she could tease the bare hip bone. From the very beginning, she'd liked that look and preferred him without underwear. Knowing that, he honored her desire as often as possible. She couldn't see his front, but it was a familiar path, her knuckles fol owing a straight line from his hip bone to the upper thigh, though the line was disrupted by his arousal, the fabric straining.

It made her press her lips together, wanting to taste. She thought about letting her fingers wander over to stroke that engorged organ. Instead, she drew back and changed her target. The leaves brushed her forearms as she found his lower back with both hands. Pressing her thumbs into the shal ow val ey there, she dropped her grip to his ass, sliding into the loose hold of the jeans to take hold of the firm buttocks and squeeze. His muscles flexed in reaction, tension strumming up his thighs.

“You are the most beautiful man,” she murmured.

“In my dreams about you, I'm stil fully vampire. I have you stretched and chained on a table before me, naked and vulnerable. I've torn into your flesh, devouring you bite by bite as if I'm a ravenous monster. I bathe in your blood, shuddering with desire, and then the blood becomes tendrils like these vines, winding around me, my limbs, my throat, binding me to you . . .”

Rising onto her knees, she reached through higher openings to settle her grip below where the vine col ared him. Her fingers teased the strong column of his throat, knowing how erogenous a zone it was for both a vampire and servant. “I drown and shatter at once, dying from the pleasure, the lack of air.”

“My lady.” His rough voice betrayed a need matching hers.

“You understand the meaning of the dream. We will die together, because we are the same being.

The hunger will never abate. Knowing that truth doesn't make me accept putting you in danger any more graceful y, Sir Vagabond.”

“Then you know how I feel, my lady. Come be one with me. If I don't get inside you, I'm going to die right here, right now.”

It gave her a painful smile, even as her inner muscles contracted eagerly, wanting the same. She slipped off the bench. Despite her urgency, she stepped out far enough that he could watch her as she approached him straight on. The sway of her hips, the tilt of her head and arch of her back were all designed to catch a man's gaze. But she liked the way he looked at her, how he saw those things as part of everything she was, not just the purely sexual being she was right now. Everything she was . . . all of it was for one particular male. For him.

He made no apologies for being in her mind right now. Those fangs were sharp and glistening, his eyes like blue lasers. “Now, my lady,” he demanded, his fingers curling in his bindings.

She placed her fingertips on his chest, a tiny pressure. Dug her nails through the thin cotton, and then lower, until she found the hem and raised the shirt. Keeping her upper body away from him, she nevertheless stepped onto his booted feet and pressed her lower body to him, feeling his cock against her bel y. Using a tight grip on a handful of his jeans, fingers curved in a belt loop, she rubbed, enjoying the feeling as he growled low in his throat.

She dug her nails further into his flesh, pushing the shirt up to the base of his throat. When she put her mouth on his skin, her hair fel down over her shoulder to caress him as the wind blew it against his abdomen.

Tell me how you will fuck me, Jacob.

Deep . . . hard . . . I want to claim you to the point of blood and pain. I want to push you far beyond that, give you so much pleasure it takes you into a place beyond fear. I can smell how wet you are.

Your cunt is dripping for me. I want it.

She bit him hard enough to leave marks, tasting the salt of his flesh. In her Fae form, she not only had fangs but also talons that could tear his flesh. They had, in the past. She'd licked away the blood as the wounds healed, as he quivered beneath her, as his cock spurted inside of her. Though he was not a natural submissive, he served her and so understood the way of it, an instinct that could command his body when she desired it.

She teased him further, bending her knees for a sinuous dance against him, dragging her breasts over his abdomen, then lower, pressing aroused nipples against what was beneath the denim.

Shifting her hold, she fished out the switchblade he kept in his front pocket, caressing the impressive organ within tempting distance of the weapon. As she flipped open the blade and used it to cut the T-shirt away from him, he fol owed her every move with a man's lust and a warrior's alertness, a thril ing combination. She recognized the stil ness that held him now. He was done playing. He was waiting for opportunity, and it only excited her more.

Tearing the rest of the cotton away, she attacked his flesh anew, keeping her head tucked beneath his jaw as she tasted, bit, licked. When she was a vampire, she'd given him the second mark around his nipple, and though the scar was no longer there, the memory was, such that he always shuddered hard when she mouthed him there. Then she went back down, sinking to her knees to press her mouth over the brand above his hip bone, dragging on the waistband to pul the jeans even lower. The brand was a cross, a symbol of faith she'd placed there herself.

“Take off your clothes, Lyssa. Let me see you.” He did that sometimes, cal ed her familiar, always in deeply intimate moments like this. It was an indicator of the unpredictable nature of their relationship, the exchanges of power, determining who would surrender and when the next battle would be. She wanted him to see her. Restrained as he was, she could torture him to madness with the way she unbuttoned her blouse, letting it fal open to reveal the cream-colored bra, which pushed up her smal breasts. The cups were low enough to expose the areolas. The blue color of his eyes was black in the darkness of their shared desire. As she shrugged out of the blouse and released the bra, her nipples got even tighter, bared to his gaze.