“Remember the night with the cookies, how I asked you for only one thing?” Slowly, her cheek moved against him. A nod.

“I shall ask it again now. Learn to trust me. I promise you, if you can do that one thing, you will be able to use that trust to trust yourself again.” He raised her shirt then, relieved to see the wound was closed. “Good. Let’s get you into some different clothing.” 023

She was too weak to walk without aid, so Mason carried her through the house, back to her bedroom, where Amara was waiting.

As the servant cleaned and dressed her, Jessica was too drained to do anything but lie there like a doll. Mason was at the periphery of her awareness, but she was beyond wanting to think, to look at him. She should have finished the job. She was so tired. Too tired. How many episodes like this had she had in these past weeks? How many more would she have, and would she ever get a grip on her life again? She knew these things took time, a great deal of time. But she’d lived ten lifetimes in the past five years.

“Sorry about that,” she mumbled. “Sorry about door.”

He bent over her then, Amara stepping back. As Jessica lifted her lashes, she was conscious that her upper body was bare, Amara having removed her bra and shirt. Mason’s gaze slid over her breasts, the pink nipples, before returning to her face. His expression was unreadable, but not frightening. Putting a hand on her forehead, he held her gaze in his. She wanted to cling to it like a cradle in a tree, forever rocked by the reassuring whisper of his breath, the warm blanket of amber sky. “Don’t worry, love. Sleep now.”

“I hate this. I hate being weak.”

His jaw tightened. “You are not weak, Jessica Tyson. Just impatient. Though I am happy my mark made you physically well, it might have been better if your body had improved by degrees, instead of all at once, to give your mind time to catch up. Time is no longer your enemy. What did I tell you?”

She swallowed. “You said to learn to trust you, and use that to trust myself again.”

“Good.” He bent, and his lips brushed her forehead. “Do that, and all will be well.” But it didn’t work that way. There were no knights in shining armor to come and surround her with safety and care, hold her in their arms, real and metaphorical, until she could stand on her feet again. They didn’t exist. Even if they did, they came too late. The evil had circled, waiting to puncture her with its claws, poison her mind with insidious whispers, and it had succeeded, again. It would never let go. She’d never feel safe again. No one could make that go away.

Even as she had those thoughts, though, her hand closed on his wrist, clung with desolate hope.

Mason shifted to the right to allow Amara to finish, but covered her hand, stroking her knuckles as her despair gave way to uneasy unconsciousness. Amara glanced up when she realized Jessica had passed out, but her words died in her throat at the expression on her Master’s face. “My lord?”

“She’s right,” Mason said flatly. “We are always too late. And I am goddamned sick of it.” He knelt. Because he wanted to be sure she heard him on all levels, he spoke aloud, though he was aware of Amara’s intent gaze upon him. “You have a candle in your darkness, habiba, one that will never be extinguished. You saved yourself. Even if a hundred knights in shining armor had come, you are your own savior. Because it is not the body that resists and defeats the evil and despair wielded by someone like Raithe.” Or Farida’s family. “It’s not even weapons of steel and wood, or fire. It is the spirit, and each spirit wages that war. What we have is each other, to make that war worth fighting.” He drew her from Amara, held her close. He willed his own heat into her, and thought their heartbeats might have synchronized.

“Your war is over, though you have fought so long you cannot see it yet,” he murmured. “What I can give you now is rest. Let me protect you for a while. Do me this honor, and I will not fail you. I swear it, even if I have to destroy my own spirit to make it so.” 024

But his words did not ease her dreams. While Mason forced himself to leave the room and go change, assigning Amara to remain at her side, he stayed closely linked to Jess’s mind. He was determined not to withdraw until his heart stopped racing from their near miss, which likely meant he’d be in her brain for the next century.

Therefore, he didn’t need the servant’s communication when Jessica started tossing and turning, crying out in her sleep. The nightmare that had started in the dungeon area was returning to haunt her, with more crowded visions of blood and pain, cruel laughter and helpless agony.

How could she escape being drowned completely in such madness? She was capsized in an ocean of it, and each time she struggled back into the flimsy boat she’d created, another wave could submerge her again.

And how could he bear it? Her every cry, every wave of fear and pain, resonated inside him as if it were his own. Was she right? In the end, would it have been better to give her the mercy killing she wanted in Farida’s tomb? When Farida had died . . .

He drew back his lip to snarl at himself. She isn’t Farida. She can beat this, if you have faith in her. Perhaps that was why Farida had suffered as she did. Perhaps he hadn’t been strong enough to endure what he must. Perhaps that is why Allah has sent her to you.

Ah, by Allah indeed, he was losing his mind, as surely as Jessica was.

Amara, ease her. She responds to sensuality, and a woman’s touch will not frighten her as mine does.

He sensed a hesitation from his servant, a flicker in her mind he ignored because there was no room in his churning brain to hear it, but then Amara rose from the chair where she’d been reading. Going to the bed, she settled on one hip next to Jessica’s restless body.

She stroked the young woman’s hair, traced the delicate shell of an ear, picking up her Master’s desires and following them, a conduit for his need to touch the troubled girl. Down the throat again, a fingertip sliding on the artery, then out to the collarbone.

She’d put her in a light cotton gown, so it was easy for Jessica’s flesh to feel the caress.

Mason stayed in both minds, his willing servant and unwilling one, weighing the dual responses. He’d made it no farther than his upper-level study, but now he was back outside her room, sitting in the hallway, no more than fifty feet from her bed. Dawn was still far off, and he wasn’t going to go below anyway, not when she was like this.

Jess’s dreams paused, disrupted by Amara’s skillful fingers. The woman moved down the sternum, to the abdomen and back up, letting the hint of intimacy draw the attention of Jess’s body in an easy, dreamlike way, taking energy away from the nightmares.

Returning to the neck, she caressed Jess’s throat and the girl’s chin slowly lifted, arched in an unconscious invitation that made Mason’s fingers curl in a fist on his thigh. The throat was one of the most erogenous zones she had, always craving a collar, whether it be of flesh or gems, steel or velvet.

The buttons of the cotton gown slipped free under Amara’s hands until the two sides fell back and Jess’s body was bare, her legs moving restlessly for a different reason. Amara cupped her breasts, thumbs moving slowly, not quite touching the nipples, the teasing touch making them harden and Jessica’s thighs loosen further.

Amara’s mind said she could smell the girl’s arousal. She was wondering where her touch and Jess’s dreams had taken her. Mason knew, and it took willpower to stay where he was. If Amara’s stirring caresses had taken Jess deeper into the twisted carnality of her nightmare, he would have commanded her to stop, but the images in Jess’s mind were now of him. His mouth drifting down her skin, his hair tangled by her fingers as he moved between her legs, tasted the sweet honey gathered on her labia. His tongue nudging her clit, so she arched and spread further for his pleasure, her body begging to be swept away, given pleasure that would drown her, that would not bring fear and pain in its wake.

Amara’s mouth was on her now, following that track, following where his mind had unconsciously bade her go, and he closed his hand into a fist as she molded her hands on Jess’s hips, and Jess’s fingers found Amara’s luxurious mane. Amara loosened her barrette, let the dark tresses of her hair fall against Jess’s flesh. The sleeping woman sighed with pleasure, feeling the fall of Mason’s hair against her skin. Amara made another nip, a tender kiss above her mound, brushing the sensitive bone with her chin. But when Jessica moaned, Amara stopped, for a name had slipped from between the young woman’s lips. Mason.

My lord, come to her. She does fear male touch, but she does not fear yours. You are what she wants.

When Amara straightened, keeping a hand on Jess, she turned her head to find her lord already in the room. She would have smiled, but there was a powerful yearning hovering in the air. Bowing, she slid off the bed, giving way to him. She did not wait for the order to leave, but gathered her book and slipped out the door, closing it behind her.

Mason put a knee on the bed, staring down at Jessica. She was not the most beautiful woman in the world, though she was lovely.

It was the strength in her face, the resilience in the chin, the fire in her eyes when open. Allah, her tears alone had the power to strip him raw, for they were hard tears, tears of fury and anger with her own weakness, not the easy tears of a woman who trusted herself enough to let them fall.

It was not her pain that held him mesmerized, though, but her capacity for pleasure despite it. He had told her to learn to trust him, and here they were, him knowing consciously what that meant, and her unconsciously. It wasn’t what most people understood trust to be, what it meant in the dark regions of her soul. That was the part of her he had to reach to help her trust him, utterly and completely. Consciously, as well as in her dreams.

He hadn’t demanded such faith from a woman in a long time. For three hundred years, he’d been afraid to do so. But at the heart of it all, vampires were closer to beasts than men, and he didn’t question instinct. Territory. The need for blood or possession.

Bending, he placed his lips on her abdomen, and it contracted beneath his mouth. You are so lovely, habiba . Give yourself over to me. Let me give you pleasure, take away your nightmares.