“What?” She felt the dull pain she always did at that side of Gideon, that stubborn wall he refused to break down. She could get around it in myriad ways to the soul beyond it, but it was always temporary, and the wall held firm, no obvious door or window through it.

“I found it very interesting that he didn"t say anything about what would happen if you wanted to lock him into it.”

She lifted her head, met Brian"s eyes. “You think I"d force him to that?”

“I think it would be easier for him to do what he truly wants if you did. I think he will spend the next three hundred years with you, Anwyn, always claiming he"ll only hang around „as long as you need him." A caught bird who just needs the illusion of the open door.”

“That may be true,” she said. “But if he does that, he"ll never know the pleasure and happiness of true surrender. He"ll never get past his wounds and heal.” She pressed her lips together. “And, selfishly, I"m not that kind of Mistress. I won"t be able to tolerate him standing, straddling a threshold, for much longer. I"ve never wanted a male to surrender to me the way I want him to do it. He"ll do it in temporary fits and starts, but it"s not the same as him stepping all the way across. We both know it.

“My need for his total surrender may be the vampire blood, or the way I"ve always been, just waiting for the right guy. In that case, his timing sucks or is a great coincidence.” A tight smile touched her lips. “Regardless, soon I"ll want all or nothing, and I think he knows that.

We had one night, one session, before this all happened. He"s seen the Mistress in me come forward in various ways since then, but his responses have been buffered by a different perception.”

“He rationalizes his responses as helping you cope, rescuing the damsel, not truly surrendering as your servant.”

She cocked a brow at him. “You"re a little scary, you know that?” When Brian had been staying with her, she"d occasionally been able to surprise a rare smile out of him, one that was uncalculated and genuine. He was attractive, as all vampires were, but the curving of his lips emphasized his unique, handsome appeal, and gave her a glimpse of the younger, less regimented side of Brian. One that she saw sometimes in his interactions with his servant and probably explained why Debra was more attached to him than the girl thought was wise for her heart. Brian wasn"t the only observant one.

His usual serious mien settled back in place. “Your ultimatum, whenever you feel it"s appropriate to deliver it, may be what he needs. That"s more your area of expertise than his.

However, as far as your discomfort with what occurred tonight, I can tell you that whenever it involves your well-being, there is nothing he will not do for you.

“During our month together, he did a wide variety of things I never expected to see a hard-core vampire hunter do, particularly this man. I admit it was all I could do to keep my eyes from bugging out of my head when I saw him behind your chair tonight. Then there were the things he did to keep you from despairing when I was treating you. Your seizures, the aftermath—you only truly tolerate Gideon"s or Daegan"s hands upon you. No matter how gentle I tried to be, you"d become so violent at my touch we had to abandon that in favor of getting you restrained as quickly as possible.”

“The problem isn"t what he"ll do for me. It"s what he"ll give himself.” Brian nodded. “That"s my hypothesis as well. Though I"ll leave the testing to you.” Giving her a sedate wink, he made another note on his laptop. “Given the fact you already knew all this, why does tonight disturb you so much?”

“I hope that"s a clinical question, because I would think that"s obvious,” she responded dryly. “Yes, he"s been everything I need right now. But he"s my third-marked servant. I can read everything in his mind, down to his soul. Gideon never wanted to be any vampire"s servant. There"s far too much water under that bridge. How many vampires has he killed? How much carnage has he seen of those who take their full quota or exceed it? Or even one innocent, annual kill he was too late to save? I think he loves me,” she admitted, aware of Brian lifting his brows. “Or rather, he loves Anwyn, the residual human woman that lies within this new form. But he can"t accept the rest.”

“Do you think he has a choice?”

“As long as I say he does.” She gave a tight smile. “That"s the vampire talking, right? I may give up every other aspect of my humanity, but that was the core of who I was, Brian.

Everything I did in those rooms as a Mistress, I knew was consensual. It was what the man who submitted to my touch wanted, even if he couldn"t bring himself to say it. I knew that with Gideon, too, the night he came to me. Now I truly have full access to his mind, and I don"t have to be guided by instinct alone; I can"t fool myself about what he is or isn"t. If I give him that ultimatum, and I will, he"ll walk.” A tight smile crossed her face. “No matter what rules you or Daegan „spouts" about allowing a servant to walk away, I"ll let him. And have to hope he"ll come back.”

“Hmm.” Lord Brian sat back, crossed his legs. He pushed the laptop aside, instead picking up a steno pad to jot some handwritten notes. Anwyn had noticed that Debra kept a healthy stack of them, because the scientist"s mind was constantly figuring some random problem, the way someone else might do crossword puzzles as they multitasked. He seemed to prefer an organic connection with paper and pencil.

“Did you know one of the most difficult variables in scientific inquiry is subjectivity?” he asked, sketching something out that looked like a chemical formula. “Many scientists consider it a plague they go out of their way to avoid, such that they actually incorporate it unconsciously. For instance, the fear of anthropomorphizing animal behavior out of sentiment means we often dismiss out of hand the ways species are obviously similar to us in how they feel pain, express emotions and needs, leading to horrific cruelty. When they do things like that, scientists ignore a basic truth. That all life is connected, and there are similar motivations between many species. Including vampires and humans.

“Your fear of becoming something that takes choices away from him can cloud your judgment. Yes, he wants nothing to do with our world. No, he may not be suitable servant material. But that"s only one side of the scale. If his love for you exceeds his aversion of our world, if his ability to accept our world is greater than his ability to give you up, then that changes things for him. I was there in that room tonight. I know you felt what the Council required was horrible. But I also saw a chance for a knight to prove his worthiness to his chosen lady . . . and lord”—his gaze flicked up, quick and intense—“and as such, he embraced it, lost himself in it. That"s the sign of a true servant, some of the best ones I"ve met. Including his brother.”

Anwyn had felt it, seen it, as well, but he was right. She was so afraid of what she was becoming, she couldn"t fully accept it as truth. But hearing it from Brian, she knew he was right.

“If he did love you enough to truly become your full servant, despite what you feel inside of him, his feelings toward our world . . .”

She bit her lip. “No matter his love, I"d know I was destroying his soul a little bit every day.”

“But perhaps his love will protect his soul. Perhaps you would need to trust that. Perhaps you would have to believe in his choice, accept his gift.”

“Ignore what"s in his mind.”

“Accept that humans are more than what they seem, at face or thought value.” Lord Brian shrugged. “Think of behaviors you may have, entirely at odds with what you believe about yourself. Humans only use a small percentage of their brains, and we don"t use much more.

That means a great deal of it is uncharted territory, and I expect much of that has to do with the true needs of the soul, which they spend a great deal of time denying. One of the things pleasant about vampires is that there are many things we don"t deny ourselves. We accept what is rightfully intended to be ours.”

“That"s incredibly egotistical.”

“Yet it"s incredibly straightforward. We don"t waste a lot of time agonizing. And it"s amazing how often it works out exactly as it should.” He gave her an absent smile, still looking down at the pad. “I know you"re making faces at me.”

“Can"t prove it.”

He chuckled. “You obviously had siblings.”

“Yes. I did.”

He lifted his gaze, met hers. After a moment, he gave her a nod. “I"m sorry for your loss, however it happened. It doesn"t change the fact that our lives don"t always go the way we intended. But sometimes the path we end up following was meant to be. Human obsession with sacrifice can be a not-so-good thing sometimes. Desires also have the ability to be God"s road map to show us which direction to go.”

At her ironic and curious look, he lifted a shoulder. “The best scientists firmly believe in a Divine Principle. There"s entirely too much order and well-timed chaos in this universe to be otherwise.”

Anwyn cocked her head. “Did that balanced perspective come from your human mother, your vampire father, or neither?”

He looked momentarily surprised at the intimate question, but before she could think she"d offended him, he gave her a light smile. Fishing a pewter disk out of his pocket, he handed it over.

The etching was small, words circling around a tiny heart. Death’s wisdom is finding, at the end, that you think only of those you loved, and why you didn’t love them more. Love is the only true force that endures.

“When I turned twenty, she gave me that. I think she was trying to tell me something, more about servants than vampires. We are not a sentimental species, and my blood is more aligned with my father"s than hers. But it is an unwise scientist who discounts wisdom when he hears it, merely because he doesn"t yet fully understand or see it manifested in his life. Don"t close yourself off to that.”