You won"t free yourself until you"re ready.” Her emotions spiraled upward, like there was a geyser in her heart, needing to release pressure, but she fought it back down, kept her voice steady. “Remember that first session between us, when I walked out because you wouldn"t give me your real name? This is that, all over again. I need you to admit what you really want, surrender that to me.”

“That isn"t a choice. And this is bullshit. You"re just ready to be done with me and choosing a chickenshit way to do it. Hell, Anwyn, it hasn"t been that long. I can"t just change overnight—”

“No, you can"t. But I can"t change at all. You were right, what you saw in my mind in the Coffin. I am a vampire, Gideon, and that will continue to grow stronger inside me. I hope it won"t change certain things about me, but it has changed other things, and will continue to do so. Gideon, I need a true, dedicated servant.” I need you. Though she held that yearning thought back. “A servant is my link to my humanity, to the values and beliefs that have guided me throughout my life. I"m going to need those. I need to hold on to some of what I am, figure out what parts are really, truly me. I need a servant to help me do that, but one who will, at the same time, accept whatever I"m becoming fully.”

She took a step forward, holding him in her gaze, suffering, wanting to hold his rigid, angry body in her arms, soothe all those tense muscles. “When a person gives another time to change, Gideon, it"s because they can’t see into their head. They"re just nursing hope that something about that person will alter. I can read your mind, your thoughts. Hating and killing vampires, seeing their excesses and violence, is something trapped so deeply inside of you.”

“And what about those gremlins in your head? You know I"m the only one—”

“I"ll manage. I have serums to help, and Daegan will help. I don"t need you for that.” His features tightened as if she"d struck him. Anwyn swallowed the pain with the lie, tried to steady her voice again. “I could give you more time, both of us more time, but my heart won"t take it. I already care so much for you. It may be selfish and cruel of me, but as you said, that"s what vampires are. I don"t want to wait. I want it all, and I want it now, or I want you gone. If you come back, you come back to me forever, with full commitment to those three things, no matter what. I know this hurts.” Her voice quavered, despite her best efforts, and his gaze snapped to hers. She was going to die inside in another few moments. She managed the rest in a whisper. “But doing this now will be less cruel, to both of us.”

“Fine. If you want me out, I"m out. Go back upstairs with Daegan. When you come back down, I"ll be gone.” He stepped forward, but she shifted, moving in front of him.

“I"m not done. I need to say something else to you, something I think you need to hear.”

“I don"t need your psychoanalysis,” he snapped. “Just get the hell out of the way.”

“No,” she said, her tone becoming even softer. “When I"m done, I"ll move, but you"ll hear me out. I know you, Gideon. You won"t strike out at me.”

He planted his feet, his face hard as granite. “Fine. Say it so I can get the fuck out of here.” It almost stole her breath, the vicious anger in his voice, the fact that for a moment, he had wanted to hit her, strike her down, knowing she"d get back up without a mark on her, because a vampire couldn"t be wounded, not by a lowly human. The shadow creatures in her head stirred restlessly, anticipating. Soon he would be gone, and the battle to fight them would be hers and Daegan"s alone. They could do it. They would have to, because she couldn"t bear this.

She made herself pull out the harder edge of the Mistress she knew she could be. He needed it now, but more than that, it was the only way she was going to get through this without breaking down.

“It isn"t that vampires repulse you, or that you can"t let go of what happened to Laura. The largest part of it isn"t about that anymore. It"s because you want to be my servant. You want to belong to me, and more than that, you want to belong to us. Both of us. It scares the shit out of you. The only way you can handle that is to keep acting like a foster kid forced to be part of a family he knows he really can"t do without. So he pisses and moans about how he hates them, even as he hopes they"ll always be there.”

His jaw flexed and he crossed his arms over his chest, walling himself off to her.

Deliberately, she curled her fingers over the rigid forearm on top, felt the quiver of reaction.

“Surrender is your choice, Gideon. That"s the thing you want the most and can"t accept. If you ever accept it, you come back to us. But until then, we"re done playing Mommy and Daddy to you.”

“Go to hell.”

Anwyn thanked all the years she"d had to practice a neutral expression in volatile circumstances, because she had to draw on it as she never had before when the venomous words pierced her. His mind was pure roiling emotion. She could handle all that, the usual rage and fury, but not the sudden panic beneath the anger. He was realizing that she really meant it.

Except he believed she truly wanted him gone, because his mind wouldn"t accept her words.

Oh, Gideon.

He recoiled from her touch. “I was around when you needed a nursemaid, or a big brother, or a quick fuck to scratch your itch,” he spat. “I was your babysitter for Daegan. Now all you need is each other. You don"t get to make yourselves feel better by telling me it"s for some fucking magnanimous reason. You"re tossing me out of the nest because that"s what you want, what"s easiest for you both. Well, you didn"t have to come up with some sentimental excuse. I told you I"d eventually leave.”

She moved in again; he moved back again. One more step, and he had nowhere but the corner, unless he wanted to knock her down. She lifted her chin so their faces were inches apart. His body was vibrating with fury, and a heartbreaking need to reach out, to offer

something to her to change her mind. She visualized herself encased in solid ice, and was glad Daegan wasn"t here, because she didn"t think she could handle any acknowledgment of the pain she was feeling.

“I wanted to do the same thing. Rationalize it, tell myself to give you more time, the time you say you need. It was a comfortable idea. You"ve lived your whole life under one belief system, and it"s difficult to change. You"ve never doubted your instincts as a hunter. It"s what you know best. This transition threw me off, but somewhere along the past three days, I remembered that, as a Mistress, I never doubted my instincts. And I shouldn"t have forgotten that. You"re ready to make this decision, Gideon. This is a thorn that has to be drawn out immediately, no matter how much pain it causes. Leaving it in, hoping it will work itself out, will only lead to festering, infection. For all of us.”

He was staring at the ground to the left of her body, closing himself off to her. But she could tell from the cock of his head, the thrumming tension of his body, he was listening to every word. Probably looking for a way to change her mind, refute her logic, but he"d remember the words later. She hoped.

“As I told you from the beginning, you"re not a submissive, Gideon, but you are a servant.

You serve. That"s your deepest dream, to protect and serve the love and needs of another to the fullest extent of your soul. And I think Daegan and I are the ones you wish to serve. But you have to believe that yourself. A Master or Mistress can help you with your belief. It doesn"t have to be perfect from the very beginning. But you have to accept it exists before we can do anything else.

“I think I told you once it"s easier for some submissive males to be forced. You give them the safe word they"ll never use, and then you have a license to beat them, chain them, drag them to you by their balls, no matter how much they fight or struggle or curse you. Because nothing is more frightening to them than being forced to face the fact they need, they suffer.

They love.”

He was drawing darkness around him with every word, shoving her away from his mind, shoving her back from him. She stopped, bit her lip, gave herself a full moment before she spoke again. He stayed silent, waiting. Waiting to escape.

“Go, Gideon,” she said. “Because you"re not a submissive, I won"t grant your wish. You"re my servant. I want your obedience and surrender, freely given.” Stepping back now such that she drew his attention to her face, she hardened her tone. “And I want it for both of us. You give it to me and Daegan, belong to us both the way I know your cock, heart and soul want to, or you don"t come back. We are a family,” she said, her voice laden with emotion. “But one of choice. You no longer have my permission to dishonor that with lies to yourself. Choose, or go with my love and best wishes.” Choose. Yeah, right. With her three freaking bullet points, she"d set an impossible bar.

Probably because she knew it was impossible. They didn"t want him here. But for a few moments, he was paralyzed. He guessed he"d known all along. The pain had been building for these three days, so now her words froze every nerve ending, made it hard to breathe or even function.

She"d turned on her heel without another word, and left their quarters. Leaving him to pack up his few belongings and get out. It took only minutes, something that felt like hours. When he was done, he didn"t let himself look at anything. Not the morning paper Daegan had left on the sofa so Gideon could read it, a new routine they"d adopted, or the silk robe Anwyn had draped on the back of her vanity chair, visible through the open door of her bedroom. The fabric would smell like her, and he had to fight the desire to steal it, ball it up and stick it in his bag to take with him.

The stuffed gremlin he"d bought her was sitting on her bed, staring at him in a way that felt smug, not cute. Which just confirmed he was about two clicks from losing it.

All the items in these rooms had meanings and significance, things that identified them as Daegan"s and Anwyn"s. He"d seen into their minds, when they"d let him, and he"d had a precious few weeks to experience being a part of them. Maybe being one of those items, in a weird way.