You’ve never failed, Gideon. Daegan shifted, and Anwyn took his place, letting him lean into her soft abdomen, his head below her breasts. Perfect. The male musk and enticing hardness of Daegan replaced by female perfume and soft flesh. The best of both worlds, as long as both worlds were named Daegan and Anwyn. God, his brain was turning into a sentimental mush. He"d never hurt so much in his life.

Then he felt two things. The first was Daegan, behind him now. At the first touch of the male vamp"s lips, he shuddered, somehow wondering if he should object. He"d said he didn"t want Daegan marking him, drinking from him, but this was different, right? His tongue sliding along those welts, gathering the blood, licking it away, soothing, using the blood-clotting agents in his tongue. Anwyn brought her wrist under his nose and Gideon smelled that rich burgundy of her blood, a vein opened for him.

Drink, Gideon. It will take away the pain, and you’ll heal more quickly.

She pressed it to his mouth, and it was easier not to resist, to simply seal his mouth over it and drink. It tasted so much different than he"d expected blood to taste. It tasted like her, the best chocolate and whipped-cream dessert, flavored with exotic female sex.

Daegan"s sensual firm mouth, following each welt, tasting his blood, made him tremble with pain and desire at once. God, he was hard as nails. If anyone touched him right now, he"d go off like a geyser, despite the fact he hurt like he"d been hit by a truck. Jesus. Those third marks were something else. He should be half-dead, or all the way dead, not even thinking of his cock. Instead, he wanted to plow into Anwyn"s sweet, slick cunt, feel her arms wrap around him. He"d maybe even be okay with Daegan there. Gideon could sink between her legs, and then maybe Daegan would guide himself into Gideon, so they were locked together and Gideon was between them, full and complete, the center of everything they needed. Like the weapons room, except maybe he wouldn"t fight so much this time. See where surrender took him.

But that was just more pain-crazed talk, wasn"t it? He"d lost his mind. It floated away from him like a child"s balloon on the wind. He lay down and watched it drift ever higher, until he couldn"t see it anymore.

Daegan rose at length, his slacks refastened and belt buckled. Gideon was slumped against Anwyn, unconscious, his arms still wrapped around her waist and hips, his large body partly leaning against Daegan"s leg now. Putting his hand on Gideon"s shoulder, Daegan experienced a tender and dangerous protectiveness toward the man that he"d felt only toward one other, and he was clasping her shoulder with his other hand, a united front.

He"d done many things in his life, experienced horrors and wonders great and small, but he wasn"t sure he"d ever felt such an explosive mix of emotion as he carried within him now.

Putting a mask over it was perhaps one of the hardest things he"d ever done, but he did it.

“Did that prove what you needed proving, Lord Belizar?” He hoped his tone accurately conveyed that if it wasn"t, the Russian wouldn"t be keeping all of his appendages.

Belizar leaned back in his chair, looking sated with the aftermath. In fact, there was a fairly weighted silence in the room. The servant Alanna looked stunned and pale. Drained in some odd way.

“Indeed,” Lord Belizar murmured. “I think you and the fledgling have provided us a more intense entertainment than we have experienced in some time. Far more emotional than I expected between ones with such a short history together.”

Daegan knew it wasn"t always the amount of time that formed bonds, but the circumstances.

He inclined his head, though. “Then, if that is all, I will take them back to our quarters to recuperate. I expect to take my leave tomorrow night, unless there are other matters to address.”

“You expect?” Lady Barbra rallied enough to send him a sharp look. “You may request to be excused, Lord Daegan, but you never presume to expect anything of us.”

“I believe I was addressing Lord Belizar,” Daegan said shortly, making it clear how much authority he gave her. While he hadn"t held much doubt, the moment he"d met their gazes, he"d known Stephen and Barbra had been responsible for Barnabus. Like Gideon, he understood that meant they were responsible for Anwyn as well. For that alone, they"d earned a death sentence, and as soon as he could figure out how to administer it so it didn"t endanger Anwyn and Gideon, he"d carry it out.

“Though I do concur with Lady Barbra"s admonishment,” Belizar said, in a reassuringly mild tone, “I will allow for the fact that, if you have amazed and depleted us, you have likely depleted your limited diplomacy skills as well. Go to your quarters, Lord Daegan. I will send word as to the Council"s pleasure regarding you and your charges before dawn.” 16

WHEN Gideon surfaced, it was to a gentle hand on his brow and cool cloths on his back and buttocks. He was facedown on a bed and bare-assed naked. When he tested movement, he found he could move far more easily than he expected. Reaching back, he found one of the deeper stripes along his rib cage was already a pink strip of healed skin.

“The blessing and curse of being a third-marked servant. They can beat the hell out of you, torture you all they want, and after a day or two, they could do it all over again, your skin completely unmarked.”

“Not entirely,” he murmured, finding her hand, whispering over her stroking fingers. “My Mistress gave me some permanent ones. You did good, Anwyn. They"re the jerks, not you.” She paused, adjusting the packs on his back, though he thought the whisper of her fingers felt even better over his flanks than the ice.

“Let me amend that,” she said. “You"ll be fine in a day except for your brain damage. That"s inoperable because no surgical saw is strong enough to cut through your thick skull.”

“Nice.” Gideon cracked his eyes open at last to see her lovely face. “Hi there.” Her eyes crinkled, though he saw the strain around her mouth, in the blue-green depths.

“Hey yourself. I can probably remove the towels if you want to sit up.” She stroked his brow again. “Gideon, I"m so sorry.”

“Not your doing, Mistress. I"m just grateful you remembered you have a vampire"s strength before you started swinging that thing, else you might have had to reassemble my ribs like bowling pins.” With a cautious groan, he pushed himself up, giving Anwyn time to move the packs. Except for an initial moment of light-headedness, he was remarkably himself. “Wow. I feel like a superhero. How did I get here?” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Please don"t tell me that you carried me. Flesh-ripping pain I can handle; being carried by a girl will require ritual suicide.”

“Worse than that. Daegan did.” She gave him a mock grimace. “And though you weren"t carried by a girl, you were carried like a girl. He cradled you in his arms as gently as a mother.

It was very touching. And impressive, considering how big you are.”

“Christ. Tell him next time to just drag me by one boot heel.”

“Letting your head thump, thump, thump down the stairs?”

“Well, you said that couldn"t hurt anything, right?”

Anwyn put a hand on the side of his face, her gaze sobering. “I am sorry.”

“Sorry for having to do it, or sorry for the fact you kind of enjoyed it?” He kept his gaze level with hers, no condemnation in the simple truth. She cocked her head, stroking her knuckles through the hair at his temples, teasing the light scattering of silver strands, and passed her thumb over his lips.

“I was immersed in your thoughts there at the end,” she murmured. “Though I"ve always known the relationship between pain and surrender, pleasure and release, there is something about what I am now that has made testing those boundaries that much keener. I felt how you let go to me, and to Daegan, and for a moment, despite how horrible it all was, it was . . .”

“Perfect.” He finished it for her, lifted a shoulder. “Whatever it is that you have in you, combined with what was before, found an answer somewhere inside me. Don"t know how to deal with it, how to talk about it. Hell, really don"t want to talk about it. Would rather just leave it there, you know. It happened, and that"s that.”

He was right. On the surface, the horror of it should have sent her straight into a seizure, watching his flesh slice open at her hand, the blood running down his back. Yet somehow, somewhere along the way, she"d let go of that as well, her consciousness and Daegan"s twining around the chaos of Gideon"s pain-wracked brain. A thought had come to the top of that spiral, from her servant"s mind. Something his brother, Jacob, had apparently said. The true meaning of utter trust and surrender, Gideon. Being stripped so bare that a Mistress could walk the avenue straight into the darkest room of a man’s heart, and he would want her there. Need her there.

“It happened, and that"s that.” He"d repeated it. She knew it was far more complex than that, yet she found his way of summarizing it uniquely him, and therefore appropriate.

“You"ve never been very verbal.” She watched him lace their fingers together, bring her knuckles to his lips.

“No, I"m not. Mistress.”

It flickered in her heart like a warmed flame, made her fingers tighten on his. His lashes fell against the proud cheekbones as he pressed his mouth harder to her flesh, holding it there.

“Well,” she said, somewhat unsteadily, “I"ve had one good thought, sitting here with you.

As long as the two of us are connected to a supersecret agent like Daegan, it"s not likely we"ll often be required to be part of the vampire social scene.”

“Supersecret agent.” He gave a muffled snort against her hand. “I guess there might be one perk to hanging around with the arrogant bastard. Now all we have to do is get out of here alive to enjoy it.”

“True enough.” She spent several more precious moments stroking his face, the line of his shoulder; then he lifted his head.

“I seem to be wearing nothing, so maybe I should put some clothes on. If you have no objections.”