He wasn"t oblivious to their speculative glances, or Janet"s appealing smile, which made it clear, if he weren"t involved with Anwyn, she"d be more than willing to keep him company.

Only if you want an appendage removed. With a dull steak knife.

Meow. Gideon gave her an arch look as Anwyn shot him a warning glance. I’m all yours, sweet Mistress. Just nice to know I have options. She does have incredible tits. Not better than yours, of course . . .

You do know I can read your mind? You better put down that shovel before the hole gets deep enough to put you in it.

He gave her another grin, returned to his reading, an article about a teary-eyed starlet who"d broken up with a top action-hero actor after a grueling six weeks of marriage. Against the cushion of female chatter, he realized he was almost relaxed. Knowing she was safe and everything was okay for now didn"t happen often, these lulls. And not just with her. When he"d been on his own, he"d had one here or there, like when he"d visited aquariums or parks where he didn"t have to be hyper-vigilant. But he"d always been alone there. He didn"t feel alone now.

Of course, Daegan was coming back. That thought tightened up his gut, and he wasn"t sure how he felt about it. Relieved, because Daegan could handle anything that came at her that might get past Gideon"s guard? Or apprehensive and disappointed, because he"d sort of had her to himself for a month, no competition for her affection? The explanation didn"t quite fit, because from the beginning, while he"d occasionally felt like that third wheel, he"d oddly never felt it necessary to challenge Daegan"s claim. What went on between the three of them was different from that, as if he and Daegan fit the “apples and oranges” idiom, two different things she needed.

Or maybe he was just kidding himself, and Daegan"s return just underscored the fact his days of truly being needed were numbered. Those gremlins quieted down when Daegan was in her mind as well, though not quite in the same way.

He was the understudy, whereas the main player was returning home tonight. Sourly, he turned the page, and wondered if he had room to criticize the teary starlet, since he might never reach six weeks with Anwyn . . . or any other woman.

“Okay, I said I wanted to do this. Demanded it. Now I"m scared to death. I feel like such a girl.” She stared at the car keys in her hand. “Brian said this would be okay, right?”

“You are a girl, thank all the gods, and yes, he said it would be fine. He"s dedicated his every waking moment to testing you like a lab rat, to the point you should have whiskers and a tail. He"s 99.9 percent positive you are deep in the green zone for the next five to six hours. It"s eleven o"clock at night. We"re making a very brief stop to drop Debra and Brian at the main airport, and then we"re going to go pick up Daegan at a private airstrip, where there will be few people. The risk is minimal. I have the restraints in the back. If we get a hint of something going south, we can get them on you and put you in the backseat until it passes. But unless you have an unexpected stressor, you should be fine.”

“Should, minimal risk, less than a hundred percent positive. That"s all I"m hearing. I should stay here. I"m going to bring on that stressor just thinking about it.”

“Okay.” Gideon shrugged, took the keys from her hand. “I"ll go get him. And while I"m out, we"ll stop at the Blue Room, your competition. Daegan and I will see if we can"t find a Mistress with some balls. You know, you say I need a pretty firm hand, and since you"re becoming a real chickenshit—”

The keys disappeared from his hand, and he let out a yelp as his testicles were given a sharp pinch by a hand that was gone as fast as it gripped him. She appeared at the driver"s side, eyes shooting daggers at him. “Get in the car,” she ground out.

Gideon grinned at her, a baring of teeth. “And she"s back.” He sobered, drew close, even though he knew he was risking further retaliation, temper still in her gaze. “You can trust Brian on this one. The past few days, he"s been spot-on, right?”

Debra and Brian were already in the backseat of the car, waiting on Gideon and her to finish their conversation and join them. Brian had promised to see if there was any type of modified medication, similar to what human schizophrenics took, that he could develop for Anwyn to help with her gremlins, though no telling what side effects such a serum might have. Yet another way her life might change.

Gideon could tell she was trying to quell the resentment such thoughts brought, because she didn"t want any of that disrupting her anticipation of Daegan"s homecoming. There"d be enough things to disrupt that when he got here, since he knew the two of them still had some smoke to be cleared between them. He was in her mind, after all. But it was clear, she loved Daegan.

She"d told Daegan that, and Gideon had heard her recall the conversation more than once, much as he was trying his damndest not to listen in to her thoughts uninvited. Particularly when they ripped open his gut like a box cutter. Of course she loved Daegan. That was hardly a news flash, right? He"d known that the first time he"d watched them together. A woman could love only one man with that kind of heat and passion. Gideon was serving a different role for her, one that was valued differently. How could he want or demand the same thing from her, when they all knew he eventually had to leave? He should be glad she"d have someone to give all that.

He knew in her mind that she was getting really attached to Gideon and wanted him to stay, keep that balanced triangle. He wanted to absorb the happy fuzzies the thought gave him, but she knew as well as he did that she was going into a world he couldn"t share. Eventually he was going to have to get off the train.

As he got into the passenger seat, Gideon watched her slide off her shoes and push them back under her seat with her heels, revealing her bare feet, the polished toenails with tiny flowers painted into the pedicure. She saw him looking. “So did Ella do as good a job as you could have done for me? You did say you know how to give a pedicure.”

“Fair. I probably could have done better.” He grunted, giving her a sidelong look. “I know how to paint inside the lines and everything.”

“I"ll bet.” She smiled, glanced back at Brian and Debra, murmuring over some paperwork.

“All set?”

Debra gave them a distracted smile. Brian didn"t even register the comment, too immersed in whatever he was calculating on his mini-laptop. Anwyn gave Gideon an amused look and put the car in drive. They were in Daegan"s roomy BMW, since he"d had it delivered back to Anwyn after he left, so they could use it as an extra vehicle if needed. She had to adjust the seat upward, a reminder of his long legs. Gideon fiddled with the buttons, found the seat warmer and started as the upholstery heated beneath him. “Why the hell would a vampire need a seat warmer?”

“It"s possible for vampires to get cold. It just doesn"t bother us as much. Plus, it feels good to humans.” She looked back at Debra. “She"s appreciating it. You don"t like it?”

“I thought I"d pissed myself when my ass got warm.”

She chuckled, checked the rearview mirror. “What are you two so intense about back there?”

“Brian thinks he may have figured out an improvement on another project he"s been testing,” Debra said absently. “Reverting a marking so a human is no longer a marked servant, no longer connected to the vampire.”

Anwyn"s fingers gripped the wheel as Gideon turned to look back at them. “Say what?” Debra closed her mouth, apparently realizing too late the impact of such a statement on those in the front seat. Brian gave her a censorious glance, but suppressed a sigh. “I"ve been working on it for a while, because we"ve had instances where younger vampires rashly turn a servant against his or her will. Though it only works if the servant"s bond is less than five years, there are other applications now, such as a vampire infected with the fatal Delilah virus who wishes to spare her or his servant. We haven"t been able to test it,” he added, “because in the two cases we"ve had of that, even with the bond being so young, the servant flatly refused to take the serum. They both wished to make the passage to the next life with the vampires who marked them.

“However, as far as the cases where a vampire turned a servant against his or her will and wished to undo that mistake, I tested it on several subjects recently. It worked well, but there were some unpleasant, but not fatal, side effects I"ve been trying to remedy. Nausea, headaches, et cetera.” His brow furrowed, suggesting he was now conversing more with himself than with those in the car. “Those might be because of the interaction of the memory wipe with the chemical injection, two different mediums.”

“Memory wipe?” Gideon prompted, before Brian could start his manic scribbling on the steno pad balanced on Debra"s knee.

“Yes, the Council required that, because of course we have to limit human knowledge of our world. As you know, a servant who has seen so much of it can"t be turned loose to risk sharing his or her knowledge. Even if he or she can be trusted for that, they could be used as a pawn of other vampires who want the knowledge of the particular Master or Mistress the servant served.”

Anwyn still had that death grip on the wheel. Gideon cautiously touched her mind, found it almost unnaturally still. “Anwyn—”

“So if I reach the point I"m comfortable with the management of these seizures, you could reverse Gideon"s marking. Free him from me when it"s time for him to leave.”

“I"m not going anywhere at the moment, sweetheart.”

“Don"t try to cushion this, Gideon,” she snapped, then stopped, taking a breath. “If you look at that monitor, Brian, I swear I will stop this car and rip your arm off.” Brian"s brows rose, but he still calmly checked the small hand monitor for the sensors he"d attached to her beneath her clothes. They"d discussed embedding them under the skin, but with the vampire penchant for healing, he didn"t know how her body would handle that. Plus, once they established certain patterns, she—or her servant—could possibly become as accurate as the monitor.