He"d pushed his cock only halfway into Alanna"s mouth, since he was a lot for a woman to take. Lady Carola made a satisfied comment about his diameter. Darkly, he wondered if she was going to send someone over with a tape measure. He"d happily strangle them with it.

Lord Uthe brought up something about the quality of the cheese they were eating and suddenly they were discussing which country had the best reputation for cheese production.

Gideon might have been astounded, but his shock meter had overloaded and blown a gasket three courses ago. Just your typical vampire dinner.

He could steel himself to handle all that, blank his mind enough to get through it, but what he couldn"t ignore were Alanna"s hot, hitching breaths on his cock, silent sobs. Or the tears running down her cheeks. It didn"t matter that she was another brainwashed human servant to the damned vampires; he didn"t treat women like this, force himself on them when they wanted nothing to do with him. He wasn"t supposed to have an enormous erection, or be fighting his desire to thrust, rough and fast, into that wet mouth. Damn third-mark made it impossible not to be aroused, but what was making him hotter and harder had nothing to do with that, not really. It was something far more disturbing.

Her fists had clenched in frustration at her sides and he wanted to do the same with his own.

Looking down, he saw her feet were bare. Since the other women servants wore shoes, he assumed it was a further punishment, no emotional or physical armor. That was what vampires were all about, weren"t they? Stripping their servants down to a shivering soul. The vulnerable pink soles, the round heels, made him wish he could be anywhere else. Jacob, how did you do this? How do you do this?

Hang in there, Gideon. Anwyn again . Focus on my mind. You’re doing fine.

Don’t worry about me. I’m all right.

I know you are. You are a brave, good man. When we get through with this, I will personally hold your head while you throw up.

He closed his eyes, his throat tightening. Yeah, he hated this. But the trigger factor here wasn"t the physical stimulation. It was that Anwyn had commanded it. That was what had him thick as a steel beam, stretching Alanna"s jaw. The aphrodisiac was doing this at a Mistress"s demand. No. His Mistress"s demand.

A pause, where he felt his acknowledgment of it hit Anwyn. Her internal reaction made him want to groan in need. But she kept her mind voice steady, cool. You understand why that is.

It’s in your unconscious, but every day it comes closer to your subconscious. It’s why you can do this now. It’s why you sought me to begin with.

He wanted to keep his eyes closed, but that made the sensation that much more acute.

Taking advantage of the fact that the vampires were still involved in their inane small talk, he laid his hand on Alanna"s hair. Curling his fingers around the shell of her ear, he grazed the side of her throat where he could feel her swallowing back the sobs.

“I"m sorry,” he murmured.

“Torrence,” Lord Stewart spoke then. “With Lady Helga"s permission, I"d like to add to Lord Stephen"s little sculpture. Let"s see how the vampire hunter endures being staked himself.

Go replace that dildo with your ample attributes.”

Fuck. Helga"s servant, Torrence, was a mountain. When Helga nodded, the man wasted no time, unbuckling the kilt he wore and draping it over the back of her chair, his eyes alight with vicious anticipation. Great. Gideon figured he"d probably blown up one of his family members, too. So much for Hell being an after-death experience.

Torrence bent over Helga, much as Gideon had touched base with Anwyn first. She stroked a hand up his chest, cradling his jaw with affection. Her favorite pet grizzly. As he moved away, she leaned back against the kilt, watching him.

So did Gideon, because when Torrence emerged from the cover of the table, rounding the corner around Lord Belizar, he revealed an organ the size of a fucking tree branch. However, it wasn"t that which put Gideon"s mind into full refusal mode. He knew he should be able to do it, that it was just putting Tab A in Slot B, and a whole fucking heap of pain, but as Anwyn knew, it was a hell of a lot more than that. It wasn"t sex Barnabus had been after. It had been humiliation, subjugation, torture . . . It was different, so different, from what he"d allowed Anwyn to do to him in the bathing chamber and every day since, no matter how compelled he felt at times.

The barbaric anticipation in the room was suffocating. This was only the beginning. It was a test to see what he"d endure, for their obscene curiosity as well as punishment. They intended to see his blood tonight, one way or another. He"d known it, thought he"d been prepared for it, but the reality was different from the plan, right?

He shouldn"t be thinking these thoughts, should be able to close it all down. Probably for the first time since he"d been marked by her, he wished with every cell of his body that he could keep Anwyn out of his mind. He didn"t want her in there when this happened. He couldn"t even look toward her, afraid of what he"d see, or not see. He was starting to get the shakes, deep in his abdomen and spreading out to his chest. In a few minutes he was going to shame himself by letting it get to his limbs. Then he"d go ballistic and tear Torrence"s head off. He just couldn"t do this.

Anwyn had tried so hard to keep him from coming to Berlin. Better than anyone, even himself, she knew this wall existed in him, a wall he couldn"t push past. Yeah, Daegan had broken through further than expected, and so had she, but they"d made it past the castle walls, not into the inner bailey that guarded those really essential things, the ones that made him who he was. He was going to fail her because of what he couldn"t give up there. He"d fail her, as he"d always failed the people he loved most.

Lord Welles had a quirt lying by his plate. He was toying with it, his eyes lingering on Gideon"s shoulders and ass with unmistakable intent. Maybe that was the follow-up, to fuck him until his internal organs bled and then open up his flesh on the outside. Bring it on. What was the big deal, after all? He couldn"t be killed by such minor things.

“Lord Stewart, I don"t believe you asked my permission to use my servant this way.” Anwyn"s voice was strained, making Gideon curse his weak mind anew.

“I don"t have to do so, Anwyn.” Stewart"s voice was cool. “Until you achieve a certain rank, higher-ranking vampires may engage your servant in whatever games they desire. Because you don"t know the etiquette, I am going to assume your question was ignorance, not disrespect.

Seasoning a new servant is a very valuable exercise, so sit back and observe. If you do in fact get the right to keep him, it will help you prepare for interacting with other vampires. He is a valuable distraction for gaining power in the ranks of your territory. As Lord Daegan pointed out, it is not every day a vampire calls a vampire hunter to heel.” It’s all right, Anwyn. Gideon viciously pushed everything else away, including his rising certainty that he was going to grab the nearest steak knife and fight his way out of the room.

Maybe it’s tit for tat. Those hookers I told you about, that I had before I met you...I used some of them pretty hard. And I killed this girl’s brother, even if he did make the wrong choice of friends.

Shut up, Gideon.

Anwyn kept her face still, but her mind was far from placid, hearing everything going on in the rising tornado of his mind. He wasn"t going to be able to do this—truth, she"d been impressed with his ability to handle Alanna. Her fierce vampire hunter had difficulty looking at female slaves being flogged for their own pleasure in Atlantis.

But what made this intolerable to her was how he thought it was his defeat, not a reflection on the very wrongness of what was going on in this room.

There was a line between compelling someone"s surrender for a fight they wanted to lose, and knocking them to their knees, forcing them to give up a fight that was everything of who they were, right down to the core. Gideon thought he was about to lose control, but he didn"t realize she was perilously close to the same. It had nothing to do with those shadow voices or Barnabus"s blood. It had to do with her blood, and for once that vampire blood was brewing because of what she knew a Mistress was supposed to be.

Neither Gideon nor Daegan relaxed in the company of vampires, probably because they were both far too aware of these kinds of excesses. They were a lot like the cops she"d seen come through Atlantis. The ones checking for violations as well as the ones who came in as clients. Never trusting, because in their experience, there was no one deserving of trust. So far Gideon had surrendered his trust to her, a couple of brief, precious times. Gifts. Doing that was so new to him, making him so vulnerable. She valued his trust and she couldn"t bear to see it stomped upon like garbage, his will held hostage to her well-being. Closing her hands on her chair arms, she began to rise.

“This is not happening,” Daegan said.

The pleasant chatter that had started up again after Lord Stewart"s well-meaning instruction to Anwyn stilled. All eyes moved to the end of the table. Daegan had been quiet for most of the meal, watching, listening. Few of the Council members engaged him in conversation, except Lord Brian. Daegan rose now, gave a half bow to Lord Belizar.

“Most vampires who value their servants know that they must be trained and brought along like a prize Thoroughbred colt. You don"t push too hard or too fast, or you ruin all his potential.”

“If he is not strong enough to handle such games, then she needs to know quickly she needs a different servant.” Belizar shrugged. “I personally feel she might do better with one of the trained servants who are part of the Inheritance, like Alanna. Those who"ve been raised under Council guardianship as a first-mark, with the intent of graduating to a third-mark when an appropriate vampire is assigned to them.”

“The mettle and strength of made vampires must be tested. She must earn her way, learn to get along.” This was added by Lord Uthe, though his expression remained dispassionate. “You have not been part of such rituals, Lord Daegan. It is understandably difficult to see the first few times, but it has good purpose.”