So Gideon could be close, without being in the Council headquarters itself. That was reassuring, since she"d already been dreading the fact that Gideon couldn"t be with them. She saw Daegan glance toward Gideon, an unfathomable look, but she"d investigate whatever testosterone-inspired meaning that had later. She had enough to think about right now without delving into Gideon"s head or interpreting Daegan.

Daegan had shifted positions, parting the towel to show a lean and powerful thigh. She was already holding Gideon"s hand, stroking his fingers, and now she ran her other hand along that expanse, which reinforced their connection, while stirring her nerves in a pleasant way. She needed the calming effect of both reactions, because her stomach was knotting. Daegan"s words had reminded her how those shadow voices could make her a prisoner of her mind, helplessly watching from inside, like she had as she beat Gideon to death.

Memories like that, ambushes on who and what she"d been, chipped away at the foundation she was building, allowing those full-blown attacks in. Who was she kidding? It was going to take every ounce of her energy and focus to prepare and then hold it together for the Council visit. Her idea to go out to dinner tomorrow night was a bad one, indicative of how much she needed to work on her judgment. Her, in a restaurant? The things that could happen . . .

She couldn"t overlook the fact she"d already be starting with a handicap when she traveled to Council headquarters. She"d have to go without Gideon. But he could stay somewhere nearby, where she could access the steadying influence of his mind, as Daegan had suggested.

It wouldn"t be the same as his physical presence, but it would be all right.

Yes, it was all going to be fine. She just needed more practice. She pushed aside the tired despair that tried to creep into her mind. Everything for the past month had been about learning to control this, and she longed for just one night of something different, something not these four walls. But she hadn"t been trapped here for decades, only for a few weeks. She"d get by. It didn"t matter that this transition had felt like decades, each day another ordeal of uncertainty and worry that she might accidentally kill someone.

As often as she"d had the affable desire to choke vendors or the occasionally difficult employee, who could have guessed what a stressor a true homicidal urge would be? Her humor fell flat, though, because it was truly awful, knowing what it felt like, the craving to snap the necks of her friends and coworkers with barely a thought. Inside her mind was a rabid cheering section, wanting her to do just that 24/7.

“Hey.” Gideon put a hand on her bent knee. His concerned look told her that, even if he wasn"t reading her mind, he was seeing her thoughts reflected on her face. “We"ll get this worked out. Strategy is the stuff I"m good at. Much better than fixing your hair or helping you dress, like other servants probably do.”

“If you occasionally brushed your own, you might be more aware of how it"s done,” Daegan observed. He mirrored Gideon"s touch on her opposite knee, closing the circle between them.

“I can do a ponytail,” Gideon defended himself. “Haven"t tried pig-tails, but if you"re planning a Catholic schoolgirl fantasy, I"ll do my best.”

She closed her hand over his, her other over Daegan"s, and lifted them both to press a cheek to either set of male knuckles. “I"m not sure what I did to deserve the two of you. And yes, I intended that to be interpreted both ways.”

“Ouch,” Gideon said mildly, but she heard Daegan"s chuckle. Even though the walls felt closer and darker than ever, she tried to believe that they were right.

But she couldn"t help wondering. Had the mythology about vampires and coffins come from the way it felt to be a vampire? Already dead and shut away from the world, long before the grave had ever been dug.

6

“WE need to take Anwyn out to dinner.” Gideon pushed open Daegan"s door with a knee as he thrust his knife into his back holster. “Before we leave.”

Daegan was standing in front of his closet, dressing. The male was shrugging into a shirt, his jeans still open. “Oh. Sorry.” Gideon glanced left quickly.

“Teach you to knock, vampire hunter. Do you usually blush in the locker room?”

“Piss off,” Gideon mumbled.

“You want to look, Gideon. So look.”

Instead, Gideon stared harder at the wall. “Just put your clothes on, will you? Stop flaunting it.”

An irritating chuckle, but he heard the rustle of the shirt being buttoned, then zipping and buckling, though he could imagine in great detail the way all of it looked. Daegan tucking his shirt in, his hand sliding over his cock to position it, the smoothing down over the zipper, the tightening of the belt on the lean, muscular waist. Jesus, he couldn"t keep his mind off of sex, with either one of them.

While he"d been more than eager to satisfy Anwyn"s continuous desires in Daegan"s absence, his return had ratcheted up all of their desires in an inexplicable way for the past few days. It had Gideon so wound up he had a compelling desire to go out and kill something just to relieve some of his tension, which was maybe why he"d felt the need to arm himself in the relative safety of the underground apartment. But there was no ignoring it. If it wasn"t the soft fall of Anwyn"s hair, her curvy body and that Mistress"s way of getting his cock to rise on command, it was Daegan . . . being Daegan.

Reluctantly, he acknowledged Daegan"s absence had given him a temporary reprieve from a variety of disturbing issues and realities. In a way, Gideon understood what had sparked Anwyn"s temper with him in the shower on that first night of Daegan"s return, when she"d wanted him to take Daegan"s blood. It hadn"t been so much about him letting Daegan drink, but about how Gideon viewed her. During that time when it was just the two of them, Gideon could focus on her as the victim, not the vampire she was becoming or even the Mistress she hadn"t exercised as fully due to the circumstances. Daegan"s presence underscored the vampire and dominant side of her. The moment he"d come back, she"d noticed the return of Gideon"s wariness with her, something that hadn"t been there, at least not as obviously, in the past several weeks. Part of it was him not trusting vampires, but part of it was something deeper, something he rebelled against even more violently.

When the three of them had been on Daegan"s bed, ostensibly talking about Council matters, Gideon had been tense as a board, wondering how he"d deal with it if she tested that side of herself. In Daegan"s absence, he"d told himself, a hundred times, if she played that game with him again, allowing the male vampire a few intimate touches, some seductive moves to get her juices going, he"d tell her flat out that wasn"t his thing and back away from it.

Now he wasn"t sure what he"d do, and that scared him to the bone. He"d rather face three vampires than deal with that.

Guys had a compulsive need for sex, right? They responded to it, whenever it happened. It explained why sailors at sea for a year or two would sodomize one another. Or some priests, obeying a centuries-old, now-irrelevant political mandate to remain chaste, started to see altar boys as Penthouse pinups. It didn"t mean anything. But hell, he wasn"t even like that, because he"d never had a glimmer of interest in guys until he got around Daegan and Anwyn. It was the way the two of them played off each other; that was all. In a sexual situation with them, his cock was going to respond to stimulation, whoever offered it, but it was Anwyn he wanted.

That was that.

He ignored the fact his mental argument was getting old and thin. Especially when it was just him and Daegan in this room, and he was having a hard time keeping his eyes off the guy"s body. Maybe it was something chemical about the third mark, and he just had to shut it down. He"d been good at shutting things down for a long time, right? This was some sick, twisted-shit side effect, no different from what Anwyn was fighting in herself. He could do it, too.

Damn it, that wasn"t why he was here. Anwyn was occupied, working on her computer, so he had to deal with this, not his own baggage.

“We can"t risk it,” Daegan was saying. “It"s too soon. It may be many months—”

“It may be never,” he said, more brusquely than he intended. “She can"t handle never, Daegan. That"s why she went upstairs to the club, that day she had to give me the third mark. I still feel guilty as hell about it, but it was a sign. As intolerable as confinement is to her, she"s handled it pretty damn well. Now we"re going to go see the Council when she"s barely adjusted to all this. We"re going to have to test our preparedness, and I"d rather test it here than at the Council. We all know we"re about to go into a situation that"s going to be pretty high-risk, a lot of stress and tension. It will be able to trip her off faster, and knowing that is worrying her more and more. She needs a night to see what the good possibilities are, and that we"ll be an effective safety net for her, so she can enjoy those possibilities. It will reassure her like nothing else.”

“She tried that when she went up to visit her club.”

“We weren"t prepared then. She hadn"t accepted it could happen anytime, or that she needs to depend on us to help deal with it. She has now.”

Daegan gave him a narrow look. “If you want her fully prepared for the Council, it is past time to tell her you intend to walk into Council chambers with us, not just stay somewhere nearby. It"s been nothing short of miraculous that she hasn"t already figured it out. It will not be pleasant if she looks into your mind at an inopportune time and discovers that.”

“She"s been preoccupied and I"m good at not thinking about things I"d prefer to avoid.”

“No argument there.”

Gideon set his jaw. “I plan to tell her. Sometime after this dinner. Let her have something before she has to freak out over something else.”

“We don"t eat, Gideon.”

“No, you don"t. But you do like the taste of food. There"s a food and wine fest in town, and tomorrow night, for an exorbitant all-for-charity cover charge, you can attend it.” Gideon pulled the flyer from his back pocket, tossed the folded card onto the table between them. “A fancy black-tie thing where you get bite-sized pieces of a few different foods to sample, and a whole lot of wines. In addition to your cover charge, it"s expected you"ll buy a few bottles.”