When they'd put her in here, she thought she was going to lose her mind in truth, break her sanity with the fear of being chained, caged. It was still there, a panicked animal hidden in the corner of her mind, whimpering, exacerbated by the betrayal of her own body, but he was here. He was with her. He was helping her not think about the horrifying reality of the other things she couldn't stop.

“Gideon.Talk .”

He braced a hand on the couch by her knee in his squatted position. A position that made it clear he was ready to retreat if needed. She wished that didn't prod something savage inside her, something that wanted him to try to run.

“Most the time, these past few years, when I needed to fuck, it was with paid women.” He put it out there quickly, maybe for his sake as well as hers, as if it embarrassed him to admit it. “I chose women in pretty good circumstances, maybe not the best, but not in the gutters, either. That night . . . She had an ex-boyfriend who was giving her a hard time, so for whatever reason, after we'd done our thing, she said she liked my company, and if I wanted to stay the night at her place, it would give her a night off from worrying. She said I looked like I might need a night off, too.” Remembering the jaded weariness in his more unguarded moments during their session, Anwyn could imagine what the prostitute had seen. A good man who could be trusted, who could use a bit of mothering in exchange for the protection of his presence.

“She made me soup,” Gideon confirmed. It was crazy, that she could feel amusement while her internal organs were cooking and she was worried she'd tear into him like a rare steak. “Anyhow, she had to redo her toenails that night and asked if I'd mind doing the foot that's harder to do with her dominant hand. I told her I'd probably mess it up. She thought, with instruction, I'd be pretty precise.” He would indeed. Feeling a surprising lick of lust become part of the turbulent sea of responses within her, she let her gaze pass over him. “I thought the same thing when I first saw you. Next question—oh hell.”

Laying her head back on the couch edge, she pressed hard, stretching out her neck, all of her body, spasms working their way through the muscle groups like electric shocks. Over his protests, she forced out her questions between gritted teeth.

“Why . . . did you come . . . here . . . last night?” She snapped out the last two words through a locked jaw. “What . . . were you . . . seeking?”

Had he known a game that involved uncovering personal truths would help? She could survive the pain, the pounding and white noise that made it seem as if a construction crew were frenetically working inside of her, if she could draw truth out of him. Never mind she was relying more on his compassion than her finesse as a Domme. She just prayed he would speak before her mind was sucked into a vortex of pain.

His blessedly cool hand touched her hot face. She latched onto it with both hands, rocking against the pain. “Easy,” he murmured. He stayed on the floor where he could see her eyes. Probably anticipating that change that coated everything in her vision red. Still, she knew it could leap, not crawl, into her gaze.

Heso shouldn't be here, but she didn't have the courage to tell him to leave her.

“You were right,” he said quietly. “Once, a long time ago . . . I spent the night with a woman like you.

She was a vampire, and she flat out took the reins away from me, took every choice away. It took me a long time to admit it, but I was at peace that one night. It's dogged me ever since, no matter how I tried to push it away. No one—not until you—made me feel they could take me to that place, whether I wanted to go or not.”

He stroked her brow, drifting down to her temple. The pain ebbed off, and that whirlpool settled down, slyly slinking back into the shadows. Anwyn took deep breaths, leaning into Gideon's touch. Her chains clanked when she moved, but she forced herself not to recoil. She put her fingers against his firm mouth.

“You can find peace there.”

“It's still wrong.” He shook his head. “I don't deserve that peace, and I shouldn't be wasting energy looking for it.”

“Hmm.” It struck a hard, resonating chord inside of her, but peace was something she thought Gideon had deserved for a long, long time. Her fingers moved against his lips, the texture of them strumming through her nerve endings. When he instinctively parted them, her stomach fluttered, heat growing in her lower abdomen.

She knew what Daegan had said about chemical reactions, but a determined mind could do a lot of things that science said it couldn't, right? She followed his nose, an uneven line where it had once been broken, up to his forehead, then traced that slope back to his lips, which remained taut beneath her touch. If he parted them, tasted her, would they slacken, grow sensual in their teasing, the suckling of her slim fingers? He was on his knees to her already, had placed her on the couch above him. For comfort, yes, but was it more than that? An instinct?

Dangerous waters, for while the heat in her stomach expanded at the mere thought, so, too, did those violent whispers. Fire was washing over her anew. Lust was a craving she'd always trusted, but would she know the difference between female desire and a predator's urge to take?

Placing his hand over her wrist, below the manacle, he caressed her pulse, and her breath shortened.

“My turn, one question for your two. When did you know you wanted to be a Dominatrix when you grew up?”

“Probably when I had Barbie torture my Ken doll.” When she gave him a tight smile, she noticed how it felt, her lips stretching over the slick enamel of her fangs. She moistened them with her tongue. “It's always been in my blood, Gideon.”Red, rich blood.

Those blue eyes didn't waver, and she suddenly realized, with a lurch that somersaulted her heart into her throat, that he knew. He could feel it coming, but he wouldn't leave her, wouldn't go until she said it was okay. Impossible, crazy man. Hers, in a way she'd never experienced before.

“Trust is . . . part of it. A sacred gift. I swore never . . . to abuse it. Which is why you need to leave, right now.Go .”

Thank Goddess, he obeyed instantly, in a way she was sure was a rarity for him. The flush she'd been experiencing was nothing next to the sudden spike of body temperature, a burning all over as if she'd been dipped in liquid fire. Unexpected nausea hit her stomach so hard it was as if she'd been punched there. It was a blessing, because the bloodlust that roared in over top of the transition convulsion, distinctly different from the pain spasm, would have propelled her after him much faster if she hadn't been doubled over from it.

As it was, she fell a few inches short. He made it to the cell door, slammed it after him. Snarling, she was jerked to the ground by the snap of the chains pulling tight. Madness closed over her, drowning her, and she went down into it fighting.

Gideon hit the control, dragging her slowly back to the wall. As she shrieked and writhed like a mythical animal, she bared long fangs, her body deeply flushed, her unhealed scars turning crimson and beginning to drip fresh blood down her skin. As Daegan had predicted, she threw up on herself. Blood started to come from her eyes and nose, alarming him, because he'd never seen that happen. Then he realized that, while the scars were leaking blood, her pores were oozing it, thin smears showing up across her limbs, her hands and feet, almost like stigmata.

Christ, sweetheart.He wasn't sure what he'd been trying to prove to her, but he hoped it had helped, letting her make the call. He knew he wouldn't be able to risk that again, for a couple reasons. When they'd been eye to eye and he'd felt it coming, it had crossed his mind, what dying at her hand would feel like, letting her have it all. Something in him had yearned for it.

I know many things about you, vampire hunter. Which is why I have my doubts about having you near her.

Daegan had meant his penchant for killing vampires, not self-destruction. This guy wasn't crawling around in his head, for Chrissakes.

She howled like a demented animal, jerking his attention back to her and away from Daegan's words.

When her bloodred eyes focused on him, he saw no vestige of Anwyn, just a hungry creature who wanted to kill. An entirely different instinct kicked in, pushing away all those other twisted feelings.

Though he'd divested himself of his weapons for this very reason, he hated that the compulsion to have one in hand returned instantly. Even more shameful were the other thoughts that flooded his mind.

When the transition was complete, she would be one of them. Whether she wanted to or not, she was going to have to take at least one life a year to survive. Would she want that? Worse, she would be allowed up to a dozen corpses a year. She was a made vampire, who, as opposed to born vampires, habitually had a much harder time with impulse and bloodlust control. She would also be part of an underground world with only a thin veneer over its feudal system of power and violence. They could take what she was, a female Dominant who thought trust was a sacred gift, and turn her into a fucking sadist in truth, one who took whatever she wanted.

He could end it for her before she ever had to face that, or those unbearable choices. He clenched his jaw, remembering Daegan's other words.She is becoming what you kill, vampire hunter . . . Desperate, he reached for thoughts of his brother. He'd seen Jacob come to grips with the human and vampire parts of himself, and while he had sacrificed some of the former to embrace the latter, he was still Jacob.

Just as Anwyn was still in there, damn it. Becoming something different and the same at once. While she screamed and thrashed, her expression monstrous, her upper body soaked in blood and vomit, his eyes clung to one small part of her. The straining tendons in her delicate wrists, a reminder of the resilient femininity and dedication he'd seen in her. How she'd made him feel.

He couldn't take the choice away from her, but not because of some nobility on his part. She needed him, and he couldn't resist that connection between them, pathetically temporary though it was. When she fully embraced being a vampire, and she would, he couldn't be with her. Just like he couldn't be around Jacob anymore. No matter what vestiges of his brother remained, there were certain things he just couldn't accept and handle about him being a vampire.