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A s soon as he was certain Lyssa had retired for the day, Jacob headed out with a list of errands When he was done, he dropped the Mercedes off at the garage for a transot a lift don froram The limo driver Lyssa had hired to periodi- cally drive her around while she was staying at her Atlanta ho by the stores to pick up the items he&039;d purchased and then pick up Jacob in a couple of hours She was indifferent to how domestic tasks were performed unless they were done inefficiently God have ue certainly wouldn&039;t He had to suppress a s else, yet so unaware of her royal hauteur Also unaware--at least for the moment--about this particu- lar self-imposed last errand Tomorrow the vampire scientist Lord Brian and his servant Debra would be leaving Atlanta for Tuscaloosa They&039;d been waiting for a shipment, the carefully preserved cadaver of the Russian vaarding the only disease known to affect their species The Delilah virus While Lyssa could certainly find out what he was about to do if she looked in the right corner of histhe useful skill of not focusing on things he didn&039;t want her to know so they didn&039;t catch her eye when she was taking a stroll through his head

And to hell with it if she found out He&039;d rather ask forgiveness instead of perh the two of the the third ly accepted the fact that the end of her life would be the end of his The mark linked their physical flesh irrevocably Some felt it even linked them spiritually, such that whatever the vampire&039;s destiny in the afterlife, the servant followed That was the way he wanted it to be, because she wasn&039;t go- ing anywhere without hiion and the society she&039;d helped build was now her primary concern, and he&039;d sworn toto have two first priorities, one of the to see if there was a way to save her life Jacob purchased coffee and a couple of donuts to co outside Debra and Brian&039;s hotel He didn&039;t have long to wait Debra headed out around nine o&039;clock and walked seven blocks to the library, carry ing a stack of books Jacob followed at a distance, wanting to approach her when she was inside the building He found her curled up in a comfortable chair in a secluded cor- ner While an open scientific journal and notebook with scribbled calculations were open on her lap like a security blanket spread across her legs, he was be a romance novel As he took a seat in the chair across froh for a discreet conversation, she closed the paperback, eyeing him warily Fro the dinner party where they&039;d recently met Servants provided sex- ual entertainatherings, so at one point he&039;d had his hand deep inside of Debra, her pussy clutching his fingers as she screamed out her climax While Brian, her Master, suckled the taut points of her breasts, Jacob&039;s Mis- tress had watched it all, drawing in the energy like blood

Such was a hu Arranging a table centerpiece and then replacing that cen- terpiece to perforuests All in a day&039;s work "Are you doing well?" Seeing the trepidation in her face, his reas- suring tone was instinctive Some of her apprehension appeared to recede "Yes Thank you IWhat are you doing here? Is Lady Lyssa displeased withwe may do for her? We leave tomor- row for Alabama, but I&039;m sure he&039;ll be happy to--" Jacob shook his head "I&039;m not here in an official capacity I&039; if you could answer so his hands loosely between his splayed knees "I hope I didn&039;t hurt you the other night I&039;m new to this, and" "I&039;ve been Brian&039;s servant for four years, " she adaze to worry the corner of the book with a short nail "That was the first timeI&039;d heard of it, of course It&039;s considered standard practice to use human servants for thatButI was Brian&039;s lab assistant before I becauess for the most part it&039;s just the two of us and the research Of course, he has" The color deepened in her cheeks "But nothing like that I guess I&039;d rationalized it You knoo lab partners blowing off stress at the end of a long research session, but of course, when it happens, it&039;s nothing like that I mean, he&039;s utterly brilliant, but when that part of him rises, I mean, the vampire part" Now she did flush all the way to her roots Jacob bit back a grin Beneath the pretty exterior, she was a sta out ofWell" She raised the ro his amusement, she shook her head "I&039;ies I wouldn&039;t usually talk about this, butWell, you&039;re the first servant I&039;ve met that&039;s newer to this than me Most are so sophisticated and cal pity Like Lia to the other two servants who had been at the party, servants of Lord Richard and Lady Tara, the Alabaed--and co Seanna and Debra to climax at the same time He&039;d succeeded, but like Debra it had been his first exercise in sating va a deep breath, she laid the book flat on top of the note- book and folded her hands, s a little "Of course I&039;ll be happy to answer your questions, Jacob Though I doubt I can answer any- thing that deals with vaet out of the lab that , " he assured her Tak-ing his own deep breath, albeit a ent need he felt for answers, he aze "My lady won&039;t tell me much about this Delilah virus, and I want to know more " "If she&039;s made a conscious decision to withhold the information from you, it&039;s not my place to offer it " Debra&039;s direct answer told Ja- cob she was back on solid ground, but she tempered it with a quick touch on his are is vital to Brian I can&039;t do anything to offend her that ht risk that " Her eyes widened in sudden alarm "Perhaps even this conversation is inappropriate, if she doesn&039;t know you&039;re here She doesn&039;t, does she?" "Hear me out Please " Jacob quelled the compulsion to try and block her way as she made to rise While he couldn&039;t appear desper- ate or overly deter here without answers "Lady Lyssa finds it a, my desire to protect her to the best of my ability But I do consider that part of my responsibilities I sup- pose hable our Masters and Mistresses find the idea " That apparently hit a chord with her She sank back down, her eyes intent behind her wire-fralasses At the dinner party, Brian had taken them carefully off her face and set theesture, he&039;d returned to his chair, de his ruthless support of Lord Richard&039;s couests and allow Jacob, a total stranger, to inti her to clie world Innocence and dark carnality intertwined like a yin and yang DNA strand, creating an alternate reality with endlessly unpredictable twists and turns

"I want to kno to protect her blood sources The more I know about the virus, the ht?" He kept his expression neutral, twisting the truth he had to safeguard He was treading a very dangerous line Froht, he knew if even a hint got out that the queen of the Far East Clan had the disease, all her work to protect her Region could topple There could be other repercussions as well Those who opposed the "civilized" structure of the current vampire society could erupt into bloody conflict with those who supported it, view- ing her in that the Council had been severely weakened "I give you my word, if Lyssa has any displeasure with our con- versation, she&039;ll take it out on my hide " In spades "Not yours or Lord Brian&039;s I wouldn&039;t speak to you, not another word, if I thought I was going to jeopardize your lord&039;s standing with her " That intent look again, telling hiraces, her IQ was off the charts "You have an honest face, " she said at last "Very open Most servants lose that quickly You&039;d do well to do the same Other vampires pick up cues froainst your Mistress " Jacob inclined his head, despite the clutch of worry the admo- nition created inside hi about the ability to read his face "I&039;ll work on it, believe me Tell me about the virus How do I protect my lady from it?" "I find it hard to believe that Lady Lyssa needs any assistance in protecting herself, " she responded dubiously She paused, then let out a sigh "But I&039;ll tell you what I can " Taking her advice to heart, Jacob h he wanted to shout out questions that would tell him how best to help his Mistress&039;s specific syets its name fro off Sa away a superhero&039;s power, his immortality so to speak That&039;s the key to it In a normal human it&039;s a dormant condition, no more harmful than any other part of them But if they have it and a va likelihood the vampire will contract the dis- ease Our research indicates that the doryour Mis- tress&039;s blood sources even ed "That&039;s the type of thing that&039;s hard to prove,it easy to jus we don&039;t know about adaptation and evolution I know the news reports more and more mysterious deaths where the victims have been bitten, their blood drained Hun that to hu- man psychotics, killers with illusions that they&039;re va Council laws and taking more human kills to test their authority So perhaps the virus is a defensein the human DNA It would be a rapid adaptation, but we have proven to be a remarkably resilient species " Debra&039;s expression hardened "Everything we&039;re seeing in the lab tells us if vans, they&039;ll have an epi- demic That&039;s why Brian is in such a rush to meet with the Tusca- loosa facility He wants to be ready with asOur only blessing so far is that the virus is a limited, one-way street It can only be passed froious to another vampire and can&039;t pass it to a human Perhaps because once it&039;s in a vampire&039;s system it attacks the brain more than the blood, as far as we can tell " Her face clouded "However, with a human servant it&039;s different " "What do you mean?" She considered the notebook spread out in her lap this time, her brow furrowed "Jacob, some of this isn&039;t validated So please" "This conversation remains between us Please I couldn&039;t bear to lose ed to bite back the word can&039;t The hitch in his voice caused her gaze to flick back up

Fro of her expression, she seemed to take it as an emotional reaction "Once contracted from a `normal&039; human, we think a vampire has about ten years before he or she succumbs to it However, there&039;s a far more virulent strain We&039;ve only discovered it recently In the Russian vampire Ironically, Brian&039;s excited about it because he said that difference could provide vital clues to a cure " A brief hesitation, then she said through stiff lips, "Lord Andrev got the Delilah virus frohty-six years " "How?" Jacob&039;s brow furrowed "If they have the condition dormant in their blood, then wouldn&039;t he have contracted it almost immediately, the first time he drank fro hi "There&039;s research on this disease going on elsewhere In the labs of vaured out a way to inject the dormant condition into a human Lord Andrev was not a very compassionate man Helina could have just killed herself to escape him, but apparently she" Debra shook her head "I love my Master, Jacob I could never coun- tenance such an idea, but I also know there are servants who are taken unwillingly into ser vice They come to accept the idea over time But when Masters are like AndrevHelina apparently was brave enough to decide she wasn&039;t going to let anyone else be brutal- ized by him " "She had to be extremely clever as well Focused " Jacob consid- ered the effort it took hihts fro he didn&039;t have a chance in hell of doing it when she was paying attention "That&039;s an understatee and retribution constantly Like staking hi vah on the thoughts A very deliberate `Peter and the Wolf &039; strat- egy Her vindictiveness and apparent cowardice amused him He used it to taunt and torment her further " "Why didn&039;t he just kill her?"

"Andrev took joy in her ot off on punishing her for her ard, disloyal thoughts He didn&039;t take her seriously, overestimated his ability to read her should she actually try to do so to him " "Did she tell you all this?" "No " Debra clasped her hands together, fingers pressing white circles into her flesh "When he started having the first effects, she told hi of his territory over- lords, like our dinner the other night Laughed in his face Spit on hiht there " She shook her head "She had a knife with her Master&039;s blood--God kno she got that--and was going to plunge it into her heart, one sure way to kill a full servant, but unfor- tunately they stopped her He had her tortured to death Because of our resilience to wounds, it was a good two months before she died And when she did, she wasn&039;t recognizable as human Some of the researchers were allowed to visit her, question her" Debra swal- lowed "I&039;lad I wasn&039;t one of them, as cowardly as that sounds " Jacob closed his eyes Ree we areHis Mis- tress&039;s oords, when he was learning his role in her household "In the end, he went to extra lengths to help us understand the disease, even at the expense of his own coe on her, to make sure another servant couldn&039;t have this power over her Master again, or if he was trying totheir own end soardless Except to the two of them "Based on the tests those researchers did, we know that a huet e call the Delilah-B virus The symptoms are somewhat different, but from the samples of her blood they took, they estimated she would have died in less than two years Unlike a huene, who isn&039;t affected by it at all " Thomas had died in less than two years Jacob forced hiht Fortunately, Debra was focusing on the in- for in her mind "It also accelerates the Delilah virus in a vampire They don&039;t have ten years Lord Andrev was dead within two years as well If he&039;d had a full servant at that point, it&039;s possible he ns of the disease, for as you probably know, a vay of a full servant

"He didn&039;t want to ask the question, but he did "How does the disease progress, symptom-wise?" It was the most perilous question, and he knew he&039;d ave him He kept a quizzical expression, as if he asked purely for curiosity&039;s sake "It starts with a need to sleep longer The vaht and affected even when screened from it As it advances, there are sudden spells of weakness that can cause faint- ing, vo of blood You&039;ll remember Lord Richard talked about that with his friend Antonio " She sighed "They start to lose the ability to control and guard their thoughts from a human servant Andrev marked a volunteer human test subject so Brian could hts degraded A va will escape his mind if he doesn&039;t wish it But a sick vahts to those connected to histhem As we know, in a healthy va down the path is as easy as closing a book for you and athered in his lower belly as Jacob ree of Rex, her late husband, torturing her It was an ie she&039;d obviously not intended Jacob to see She&039;d reacted violently when she&039;d discovered him in her mind uninvited His forearm still occasionally ached fro powers that came with the second and third marks "Because the attacks are so severe and abrupt in the first stages, " Debra continued, "it&039;s reth and self-possession between the Then suddenly the vampire doesn&039;t recover the sa drastically The time between the episodes will be harder to predict They can happen daily, soe Three Mood swings will be so sharp they can occur midsentence " Given his lady&039;s personality, Jacob reflected with griht take so "When the physical attacks come quickly on the heels of the ee It will be es In the fourth, inificantly noticeable There will be hallucina- tions, distorted reality, paranoia Even bouts with suicidal thoughts, melancholy Extreme emotional dependency Neediness, " she clari- fied "Wouldn&039;t that be nor to feel a connection to so death all alone?" She raised a shoulder "Yes, but it&039;s unusual for va predators, they don&039;t gracefully depend on others " They also typically didn&039;t face the overwhel emotional drain and fear that could coress of a ter he needed Debra&039;s help, he held that layes Three and Four are so close together and the sy on the vampire, we debated whether to separate the control of the er, followed by a total lassitude Some have no interest in blood They&039;d essentially starve themselves, but at that point they&039;re very close to the end One sy reaction which starts burning away their skin It eats its way inward until there&039;s nothing left to hold in the organs, the blood It&039;s as if they&039;re turning to dust in slow , so to speak Then it&039;s over Stage Four can occur and be over in less than a couple days Sometimes hours " When Jacob spoke, he considered his even tone a major accom- plishment, based on the visual overlay Debra had just put on his la- dy&039;s body Her lovely face "How close do you think you are to a cure?"

"That&039;s the million-dollar question for any disease, isn&039;t it?" She pushed her hair back from her forehead "It could be today, tomor- roenty years from now We&039;re more likely to find ways to pre- vent it, slow it, treat it, before we find a way to eradicate it Like cancer Though I&039;ll say Brian&039;s very excited about the connection between the servant and master What they know in Tuscaloosa will be critical, how it meshes with his research " "Have you found ways to slow it down, treat it?" Regret crossed her face "So far, no Just the basic techniques of pain ement we use on humans, which have so a full servant can help prolong the life of the infected va the one annual kill all va the number of full kills in a year doesn&039;t see, of course, because you know some of the vampires would have used it as an excuse to up the annual quota, like a pre- ventive vitariured out a way to test humans for the dormant virus We don&039;t even kno vampire hunters isolated it, or if they even have It&039;s more likely they found the blood source of an infected va that human&039;s blood as a host to make up their vials If they do, they could conceivably wipe out a significant nu to find that research subject " "No wonder you&039;re concerned, " Jacobif the disease is contracted by an incautious vampire Entirely different if the hunters choose to pursue a farour Masters and Mistresses That&039;s why finding a cure is h li blood donors to one&039;s own servant and a carefully picked annual kill is the safest bet for the latter We&039;ve had some reports that it&039;s only an isolated cell of hunters trying this out right now The majority of them still seem to have a fortunate aver- sion to it because of its siical weapon We all kno those can backfire " Reaching out, she touched his hand "The best thing you can do is to be very careful with your extracurricular bedsport, Jacob You never have any idea who is watching Lady Lyssa, and she&039;s very pow- erful

So you, inject you" "I won&039;t be with any other women " Then, because the exception to the rule sat before him now, he added uncomfortably, "Unless she commands it " "Oh So your Mistress requires fidelity That&039;s interesting, consid- ering how old she is " "No, she hasn&039;t commanded it Not specifically " Debra cocked her head, considered hi look you just said you get froht It&039;s very pa- tronizing And annoying " "Do you knohy I&039; this?" With a faint smile, she lifted the romance novel "Part of it is escapism Part of it is to re- mind me what my relationship with my Master isn&039;t The bond be- tween servant and vampire is unique Not family, not spouses, not lovers The excess sex drive vampires have can force us into a decep- tive intimacy We convince ourselves we&039;re lovers, probably because the reality is beyond our ken and we don&039;t kno to classify it Since we can&039;t reconcile the feeling with the reality, we use sex to Band-Aid it " She tapped the top of the book again "If you allow yourself to believe it&039;s so different from what it is, you&039;ve fooled yourself in a way that will only bring you heartbreak In the worst cases it&039;ll result in bitterness They&039;ll drive that lesson ho the knife " At his speculative look, she nodded "The first time I assumed more about our relationship than there was, Brian invited a vampire home from the lab and took her to his bed He co the tray while he put whipped crealanced away, obviously e picture "Later that same dayHe took me He hadn&039;t even cleaned himself, so I could smell her It was a lesson to show me the two acts had no relation to one another Mind to mind, a vampire feels a closer bond to his or her servant than with anyone else

I can deny hi he&039;d been with another woman " "I would have pureed a full box of laxatives into the whipped creaers over her lips, glancing around in apology at any readers close enough to have been disturbed "You&039;re incorrigible " But then she sobered "We&039;re toys in the beginning Soe in the pleasure of et caught up in it for a while But we&039;re tools Very i too , Jacob still wanted to deny it "You&039;ve made it sound like a terrible fate " "Then I&039;ve spoken of it wrongly " She shook her head "I&039; research I would never achieve on my own in the husExperiences I never would have had But in order to fully eive you, don&039;t get bogged down in what she can&039;t " "You knohat I think?" He covered her hand "Maybe you should think about this as a scientist Why did your Master go to such great lengths to convince you of your place? If he&039;s not an An- drev, who gets off onhis servant&039;s emotions--" "He&039;s not " Debra&039;s response was quick Jacob inclined his head "Then why did he feel it necessary to drive it home so cruelly? You&039;re bound to him forever Why does he care what you think your relationship is, as long as you&039;re serving him? Maybe because he has to remind himself of it, and that pisses him off So he&039;s cruel about it " She pulled free abruptly "I need to go " Putting the athered her tote bag to slide the notebook and journal into it Jacob rose in autoue with her, but wryly he realized it was his Mistress he wanted to convince, not Debra

"I think your desire to care for your Mistress is commendable But just to prove the point" She hesitated, then cupped his chin and kissed hiainst his be- fore she pulled away "That would offend neither rasp at some level of sophistication that would make Seanna and Liaht Wewith our Masters and Mistresses, but we can be with each other " She shouldered the tote bag "You&039;ll be treated with high regard, high value, because of who you serve, Jacob But always as property " She gave hiet that " "Thank you for the information, " he ventured "All of it " As she turned aith a nod, he caught her elbow "You forgot this " He&039;d picked up the romance novel she&039;d left on the table Debra shook her head "I think it&039;s time I leave that for soence " Before he could offer anything in response, she&039;d turned on her heel and strode away, hurrying for the door Jacob sat back down Despite his resistance to Debra&039;s words, he couldn&039;t completely erase the doubts they&039;d created Could any evi- dence that Lyssa felt more for him than what a vampire was expected to feel for her servant be a sy- mentHallucinations, distorted reality Extreme dependency"Bullshit, " he muttered viciously There had been no distorted reality the other night, after his lady gave him the third mark on the meadow floor of her forest preserve But he was disturbed enough to take the tiive hi he was trying to embrace reality, not escape it