This, as well as everything before it, would be part of her as well. She didn’t have to figure it all out now. She just had to do one thing at a time, and when it was all said and done, she’d face whatever she had to face.

“There’s my girl,” he said softly, but he kept holding her, letting her subside into the occasional hiccup of a sob, his fingers taking away the tears as he stroked the side of her face and kept holding her cheek to his chest. “I’m sorry, Elisa. I’m sorry to give you so little time to learn how to be a third mark, making you handle this all at once. I know it makes you feel alone, because no one here can relate to what you’re facing. I can call Thomas, if you’d like him to come back to the island. Dev may even be able to come for a while.”

She shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t possibly ask any of them to drop what they’re doing just because I’m a bit wobbly over this. She’ll be apples; you’ll see.”

Her occasional lapse into Aussie-isms always gave his dark eyes a softer light, and she took strength from that when he tipped up her chin. She dwelled on that stern mouth, the beautiful strength of his face. “I’m not sorry I marked you,” he said softly. “I like the fact you belong to me. I’m discovering I have far more vampire in me than I ever expected; the things I want from you are limitless. You sense it, and you respond to it, and the more you respond, the more I want.”

She trembled at it, feeling it. “Would you like me to try these things on for you, Master?”

His answer to that was a resounding yes, but she only got to the first peach set. When he saw what the bra did to her generous breasts, and the way the lace of the panties outlined the upper curves of her buttocks but left the lower curves on full display, he had her bent over a pile of pillows on the bed, her arse in the air. He sank his fangs into one of those cheeks, licked the blood away; then his tongue teased the satin crotch, a delicious friction that had her crying out until he made that pinprick mark again. He was considerate, though, careful not to snag the delicate fabrics with his fangs or create bloodstains on them. But then he set aside consideration and made good on his threat to teach her what the endurance limits of a third-mark truly were.

When he left her, she was boneless and limp on his bed, incapable of further thoughts, good or bad, though she knew that dark, swirling storm would uneasily rise again. Third mark or not, there was a part of her hiding in a room in her mind, a part that didn’t fit with all of this. That part was afraid it would stay forever locked in that room, because what it wanted could never be part of her life again, no matter how much of her heart it had once held.

She told herself that was okay, that she would take this driving pleasure to serve him, in both passionate and simple ways, as a close second. The craving need for him never went away. He aroused her just by existing. For his part, he seemed to have summoned up a libido he’d been keeping under wraps on the island. But even when it wasn’t about the physical, she listened for his step, his voice, his scent. She was as fully besotted with him as she’d ever been with Willis, only it brought her a pain she couldn’t describe or explain, because of how different it was.

She’d met plenty of women who’d set aside one dream in favor of a more practical one, and lived long and happy lives for it. For this immediate moment, she resolved to go about her duties . . . once she had feeling in her extremities again. Chores were chores. She could take care of others, enjoy each day God gave her, and let the rest be what it was. She couldn’t change it.

The girls did very well on their trip into the house. In fact, Nerida and Miah ended up at Kohana’s elbows, watching him make cookies with wide-eyed fascination, and Mal had to intervene to explain their constitution could handle only one cookie, not twenty. Thereafter, they sat perched on stools, noses lifted like the lion cubs, inhaling the scent in a state of absorbed bliss. They touched everything. Books, furniture, carpet, walls, window treatments, pictures, dishes . . .

It was obvious how long it had been since they’d been allowed inside any type of civilized human habitation. Elisa tried not to let that twist her heart in pity, at least not in any detectable way, mindful of Mal’s reminder to act as if all of this was quite normal. For the most part, he sat quietly in his chair, reading the papers from the mainland, though Elisa knew his attention was fully on the girls at all times. They were calmer than she’d ever seen them, however, such that when she sat down near him to sew, they eventually approached and settled with her. She was able to show each how to do the stitches, and gave them swatches of fabric on which to practice, their heads bent attentively.

It was likely the first time since their kidnapping they’d been given something to do that any human girl might learn to do, to help keep the family’s clothes in good order.

Elisa watched Miah’s head, the sure fingers. Remembering the way she’d tried to wheelbarrow away from Leonidas, she couldn’t bear to think of how many times she must have been subjected to the foul appetites of Ruskin’s adult male vampires. When the girl’s head rose, apparently feeling her regard, Elisa met her gaze. “I’d like to brush your hair. It’s so pretty, we could put ribbons in it. See, I have these blue satin ones.” She pulled them out of her “magic basket,” as well as her wooden brush, and immediately the little girls’ fingers were all over them. Miah stole a glance at Mal, then turned her attention back to Elisa.

“All you have to do is nod if you’d like me to do that. If not, it’s completely okay. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

A choice. Did anyone really understand the value of it, until they faced the loss of it? These children had woken up from a brutal turning to find they’d never again see sunlight, never again stuff themselves on chocolate chip cookies. Even in her narrow life of being a domestic, there’d been choices. Only in that brief moment with Leonidas and then Victor had she known what it was to be relegated to complete insignificance, to know that her desires and wants didn’t matter in the least, that whatever they’d wanted to do to her, they would. It was a feeling that couldn’t be described, a hellish experience, and these girls had lived it for God knew how long.

She could feel Mal’s attention on her, and she stilled the faint tremor in her hands such thoughts raised. She didn’t want to agitate the girls. Miah was studying her face too closely already. However, a moment later the older girl turned her upper body enough to look toward Mal again. She didn’t meet his gaze, but instead fastened her eyes briefly on his chest, a message of sorts. Which Elisa figured out when the girl turned back to her and slowly, slowly reached toward Elisa’s hand, the one holding the brush.

Elisa watched the slim brown fingers close over hers. Then Miah made the same gesture toward Elisa’s head that she’d made toward the girls. “Brush . . . yours.”

29

ELISA looked toward Mal, and he gave her a slight nod. She smiled toward Miah, trying not to show how emotional such a request, such perception of her state of mind, made her. Instead, she shifted to make it easier for Miah to get behind her. She hadn’t had her hair cut since she’d been here, so she usually kept the unruly longer curls pinned up with creative use of bobby pins. Now Miah plucked them free deftly, handing them to Nerida with soft murmurs of noise that passed for language. When they were all out, she started to brush Elisa’s hair.

Elisa had shifted her body such that she was facing Mal. As she raised her attention to him, she saw he was watching Miah with that peculiar stillness vampires had. It meant he had all his considerable senses focused on her, ready for anything unexpected. She had no doubt if Miah twitched in an improper manner, he’d have her whisked across the room from Elisa in a heartbeat. But she was more resilient now. She was a third-mark servant, could feel that additional strength pumping through her, even though she knew it didn’t make her invincible. She was quietly ecstatic that Mal was letting this happen, and that Miah had felt secure enough in his presence to try it. She took it as a good omen for their upcoming trip, what they would tell Lord Marshall about the fledglings. Hopefully the boys would do as well.

Nerida was fishing in her basket, and had come up with several different-colored ribbons in addition to the blue. The child held them up for Elisa’s inspection and she nodded. “Those would be lovely. I’ll be so fancy Kohana will think I’m going to a station social instead of planning to peel potatoes. Course, I bet you’d make short work of those mountains of potatoes, wouldn’t you, you clever thing?”

Nerida studied her, head cocked, and then the small mouth bowed. Elisa stilled at the hint of a smile; then the girl ducked her head and fished in the basket again. Now she pulled out something else, several strips of tanned leather that had some sparkles on them, beadwork.

“Oh, that’s—” Elisa grimaced, catching herself before she made the abrupt snatching movement that could startle the girls. Too late, Nerida caught her mild dismay.

In a flash, she’d dropped it. Not only had she jerked away from the basket, but she’d curled in her habitual ball on the floor, her head ducked down from Mal’s retribution. Miah froze, but unlike her sister, she held her position, tense, right behind Elisa. Mal’s attention locked on her like the site of a rifle. All of this in less than a second.

“Here, now, none of that,” Elisa said quietly, before anyone could decide to do anything. She lifted the beaded strip from the basket, catching Nerida’s attention between the arms folded over her head. “I wasn’t at all angry, Nerida. This is something I was making Mr. Malachi for Christmas, and I just didn’t want to give away the surprise. Which is really kind of foolish, considering he can read my mind and certainly probably knows I’ve been working on it during off-hours. Chumani and Kohana have been helping me learn the beadwork, which is fairly straightforward if you already know quite a bit of needlework, but I’m sure mine is not so fine as someone who’s been doing it for a while.”