“But you ordered . . .”

“Yes, I did. But who holds the control? You or me?”

She swallowed. “You, Master.”

“Good.” His fingers tightened on her face, his expression getting that hard look again. “You’re not unclean to me, Alanna. Nor a failure, not in any way.”

Rising after that surprising statement, he took a seat in the chair again. “We’re going to let you ride this feeling for a while, I think. But I want you to wash my cock. Niall put bloody garlic in that stew. I think he does it just to annoy me.”

“The fact that it’s not kosher doesn’t bother you, but the garlic does.” Niall snorted.

“Your kills are humane, thanks to your excellent hunting skills. That honors the spirit of Jewish law.”

“I’m thinking the drinking of human blood puts ye outside o’ most religions, let alone their dietary restrictions. The Satanists might welcome ye, though.”

“Particularly if I offer a big, strapping Scot as a sacrifice.”

“Heathen.” Niall had gone into the bathroom. When he came back out with a basin of steaming water and a washcloth, he set it on the ground next to Evan, who’d returned to his chair, his knees spread, waiting for her. His cock had returned to a somewhat softened state, but she could scent the remains of his seed on it, the earlier lubricant he’d used to fuck Niall, and, as he’d said, the faint smell of garlic from Niall’s mouth.

Sliding over to him on her knees, she wrung out the washcloth. Niall took a seat on the bed behind her. As she felt them both watching her, she wondered what they were thinking, if they were discussing her. Her hands were shaking a little, her body hot with need.

Putting her hand on Evan’s knee to scoot forward a few more inches, she wrapped her hand around him. His cock stirred, interested under her touch, and she had to resist the urge to explore further, bring it back to life. She shifted, her pussy rubbing against her calves, gooseflesh rippling across her lower back from her reaction.

“Yes, I did his tattoos.”

When she dared a glance up at him, she saw the vampire’s jaw was set as if resisting his own response to her touch. It made things coil even tighter in her lower belly. These two made her act so strangely, out here in this rustic cabin in the middle of nowhere. A pair of owls hooted at each other outside.

She liked handling him, liked the feel of him. Like most vampires, he didn’t become immediately flaccid after climax, part of why she expected they recovered so quickly, capable of fucking a servant countless times in the same night. The thought made her nipples tighten, particularly when her left breast brushed against the inside of his thigh. Vampires had no hair other than what was on their heads, so his smooth marble flesh slid easily beneath her skin. Sensing his sharpened regard, she focused harder on her task. Up, down, a careful rubbing to remove all trace of Niall’s saliva, his semen, though Niall had done a good job taking his Master’s seed down. She envied him that honor.

Glancing back, she saw Niall was still naked. Though he hadn’t come, his arousal from the tip had leaked over the head, painting small lines on the ridges of his stomach. He was still hard, making her swallow.

“After I clean our Master, I can do the same for you . . . if you like. If our Master approves.”

Niall’s brow lifted. He was a servant, so why would she offer such a thing? She didn’t know, so she bent her head again.

“That would please me,” Evan said neutrally. “You may serve us both, Alanna.”

It eased the band in her stomach. She wasn’t useless.

When he tugged her hair, brought her head up, she met that cool stare again. “Alanna, you and I are going to make a pact. It’s a devil’s bargain, because I’m fairly certain you’re going to break this rule often, and Niall and I are going to reap the pleasure of you doing so.”

Bargain? Pact?

“You won’t think of yourself as useless, unclean, traitorous, or deprecate yourself in any way. Not while you’re with me. You understand?”

“How can I be what you desire, sir, if I have no standards to strive for?”

“You follow my lead. Be who you are, Alanna, and I’ll let you know if I require anything different. The real question is, do you know who you are?”

His hand on her face had gentled, at odds with the spear of pain that came with the question. Fortunately, he didn’t require her to answer. “You break this rule,” he continued, “you won’t like the punishment I mete out. It will be severe, because I intend for you to remember it. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. Now go tend to Niall. You’re trying to get me hard again, and it’s far past dawn. Time for me to go below.” He rose, picking up his clothes. As Alanna turned to watch him go, she was aware of Niall’s attention on her. The vampire turned at the door, gave his servant a significant look, then shifted it to Alanna. “During the day, when I sleep, you obey and serve Niall as you would serve me.”

Her fingers tightened on the cloth, not sure she entirely understood. “Master, do you mean . . . ?”

“Whatever he orders or desires, you obey as you obey my will.”

She swallowed. “Yes sir.”

7

AFTER he left, she went to the bathroom sink, washed out the basin and retrieved a new cloth. Niall was still sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her in a way that made her skin warm.

He was an extension of her Master. It wasn’t difficult to think of him that way, not when she was this stirred up. She already dropped her gaze when he spoke to her in certain ways, and the way he’d held her, spanked her . . . My servant has more than a touch of the sexual Dominant . . .

But had Evan meant . . . anything?

She thought of how it had felt, lying on her back beneath them, feeling Niall’s muscles flexing beneath the dragon tattoos as he serviced Evan, the jut of his unsatisfied cock between his thighs. The way that cock had felt, penetrating her hard and deep. Her fingers trembled anew as she knelt between his legs and closed her hand over it as she had Evan’s. While she washed the organ, he was still staring at her, and it was a little discomfiting. He was getting even harder. Should she offer, since Evan had said . . . whatever?

No. If she was to treat him like Evan, it was his place to tell her what he wanted. Otherwise it would be too easy to confuse her own wants with his, and she was already far too lost in that regard.

Finishing the cleaning, she patted him dry with a towel. When she was done, Niall rose, taking the basin from her to walk it into the bathroom, dump it.

“Go to bed,” he said shortly, nodding to his bed. “I’ll be back.”

Niall secured the bar over the front door, then went to the cellar. When Evan had left them with that unexpected directive, she’d missed Niall’s what-the-bloody-hell look, which he supposed was a good thing. It was also a good thing she didn’t have third-marked senses to overhear the upcoming conversation, though of course if he yelled, she’d hear him well enough. Her and the deer on the next mountaintop.

Evan was sitting on his cot, doing something to one of his cameras, something he’d probably mess up and Niall would need to fix. The male was an outstanding photographer, but he had as much mechanical aptitude as a wizard with a wand. He’d drawn on those cotton drawstring pants he often wore to sleep. As he sat on the edge of the cot now, one leg crooked under him, the other braced, Niall could see the upper curve of his buttocks, the precise curve of his spine. He knew the vampire had a particular liking for this mountain location, because the ancient earth covering the back bedroom and surrounding this cellar allowed him to stay up longer and get up earlier than he normally could. Even so, he was pushing it. His pale skin tended to look thin, his angular features more prominent, if he didn’t go under when he should.

Over the years, he’d studied the vampire a good deal, and yet Niall still couldn’t quite explain what made Evan so mesmerizing. At times he seemed almost too lean, and his movements could be as graceful and refined as a woman’s. But that predatory glance, the solid jawline, the broad shoulders and sheer intensity of him—all of that was purely male. That and his thought process. Deliberate, decisive, unapologetic. There wasn’t an ounce of give to him. No submission in his demeanor at all. Not that all women had that, but there was a give to women, a complementary softness to men’s hardness.

Centuries ago, before he met Evan, he’d convinced himself that was the way it was always meant to be, that any thoughts men had toward one another were the devil’s work, condemned and unnatural. Like the desire to lie or cheat, it was a sinful, base weakness that should be resisted.

As Evan had just noted in their exchange about kosher meat, vampires were outside the realm of religious structure, not because they were damned, but because they, like gods, saw a much bigger picture, one of the gifts of immortality. During their first years together, Niall surmised that faith mattered more to those with shortened life spans. But after spending three hundred years with the vampire, he knew Evan was one of the most spiritual and least religious men he’d ever met. At other times, one of the most profane. He still had a strong grasp of the faith of his childhood. Though he’d reconciled himself to being outside its requirements, there were odd, unexpected things he did that honored it. Three centuries, and there was still too much to pin down about the male. But for all that, Niall knew Evan like no one else. Which was why he had a bone to pick right now.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?”

Evan didn’t look up. “I told her to serve you as she serves me.”

“I dinnae want a bloody trained poodle.”

“You think that’s the kind of Master I am?” Evan held the lens up to the light, frowned at it. Swore. He’d obviously found a scratch.

“Ye know what I mean. One minute you want her thinking for herself, the next you tell her to treat me like she treats you. As if the whole bloody world revolves around my farts. It’s a total cock-up.”