Do you object to that?”
Elisa flushed again. “Uh . . . n-no, marm. I just . . . Well, I’m Catholic.”
“Really?” Danny suppressed a smile. “Elisa, you’ve fallen in with a strange household to be devout in your faith.”
“Yes, my lady.” The girl shifted, twisting her hands in the white apron. “I didn’t know if it mattered to you. About me being Catholic.”
“The one thing about being a vampire, Elisa, is you live long enough to see as many faiths rise and fall as governments, and very often their motives overlap. I don’t care if you worship beetles, as long as you serve me well.”
“Yes, marm.” Danny could have sworn she saw a twinkle in the girl’s eyes, and it was an unexpected blessing, a pinpoint of light in the darkness of the past few days. Then the maid turned a brighter shade of red, her hands twisting in the apron again. “I just don’t know if I can . . . Those things . . . like Mary . . . I’ve never been part of that.” Even more intriguing. Most vampires considered sexual experience in humans a plus, yet her mother had obviously gone to great pains to protect this girl. “Elisa, what you saw tonight with Mary was not usual. Most often, that activity is confined to third-marked servants or willing human participants. I find females stimulating as an occasional diversion, but when I mark you, it will be to make it easier for me to communicate my needs quickly.”
“Oh. Very well then, my lady.” Screwing up her eyelids, Elisa jutted out her chin, averted her face and revealed her neck.
Danny hadn’t meant this second, but then she reconsidered. Elisa was going to be a valuable resource to her, and there was no reason to put it off. Until she had access to the minds of the staff, she didn’t know whom she could trust. Still, she seemed so young to Danny. Since she was two hundred, that wasn’t unusual, but Dev inexplicably felt so much closer to her own age.
Rising, she moved to face the girl, touched her chin, leaned in to brush her cheek with her nose. When Elisa stiffened, Danny made a soothing noise. “Easy. It will only hurt for a second. I promise you that.” Though for that to be true, she might have to compromise her Catholic virtues somewhat. The hard injection of pheromones at the bite site left a lasting impression that tended to make her second-marked staff bond with her more quickly, even if they tucked away the experience behind their sense of propriety.
“It’s all right, my lady.” But the young woman closed her hands into fists, fingers tangled.
Danny laid one hand over both, steadying her, and then bit into the artery. The girl cried out, but Danny gave her the pheromone at the same moment, easing in the serum of the first mark, letting it rush through the bloodstream. Elisa’s fists unknotted, then one hand found its way onto Danny’s hip, digging into her waist, the bare skin beneath her loose shirt as the girl gasped in the throes of the rush of irresistible arousal. Danny slid an arm around her, bringing her closer, breathing on the bite mark even as she released the second mark injection. As the girl swayed, her mind unfolding to Danny, she saw a simple life, filled with hard work but a driving desire to be more, to travel, to love . . . all of a young girl’s dreams laid out before her like a child’s picture book. It was poignant and lovely, especially given how difficult a life she’d actually had before Danny’s mother had found her.
But Danny’s pleasure turned to something deeper when, seeing her mother through Elisa’s memories, she realized her mother had seen her daughter in Elisa, the daughter she’d alienated and driven away. Was Elisa her gift of regret?
Easing the girl away from her then, Danny soothed the bite marks with her tongue, making the blood clot over the vital artery before she lifted her head. Elisa was still unsteady, so she held her for a moment, stroking her hair back, letting her lean into her like she would hold a younger sister.
“Oh. My.” Elisa at last lifted her head. “I’m dizzy, m’lady. And I feel . . .”
“Like I can read your mind. I can. But I’ll mainly use that second mark to communicate what I need to you. You don’t need to worry, you’ll be able to tell it’s me speaking to you.” And as proof, she showed her how she wanted Dev’s room laid out. Danny chuckled at the startled look on Elisa’s face.
“You put that in my mind, just like that. And here I was thinking, ‘What if I can’t tell my lady’s voice from all the other bees Mrs.
Pritchett says are always buzzing in my head?’ Mrs. Pritchett’s the head housekeeper, marm.”
“Once we get Devlin settled, you’ll take me to Mrs. Pritchett, and I’ll make bees buzz in her head also.”
“You’re nicer than the others,” Elisa said suddenly, then reddened once more.
At her averted eyes, Danny touched her face and brought her eyes back up to her. She saw the girl focus on her lips, saw Elisa’s desire to kiss her. Indulging herself a little, she brushed the sweet mouth with her own. The girl’s discomfiture grew with her desire and Danny reluctantly pulled back. Tempting, Mother. Far too tempting.
“Elisa,” she said gently. “Your reaction is normal, caused by what I used to dull your pain. It might give you a little crush on me for a while, but it doesn’t mean anything. You’ll be mooning after Willis again in no time.” At the mention of the lean, silent stockman she’d seen featured prominently in Elisa’s thoughts, the maid went crimson to the roots of her hair, but she gave a little laugh as well. “Sure enough, my lady. Of course, it doesn’t matter. Willis don’t . . . doesn’t have time for me. And he’s far older, nearly thirty. He’s very experienced in the world and probably has far grander ladies interested in him.”
Because there are such a plethora of them out here, Danny reflected dryly, knowing that the ratio of marriageable young women to men was such that it made it hard to keep white stockmen for any length of time. And while aborigines were brilliant stockmen, they had an unfortunate tendency to go walkabout and apparently a justified aversion to Thieves’ Station. She kept those thoughts to herself, though. Problems for another day when she announced her intentions to make the station a fully operational sheep concern again, no longer Ian’s play hobby. “All right, then. Let’s call some of the men to get Dev to his room. I can carry him myself, but it will bruise his pride if he comes to on the way.”
Elisa bit back a smile, but as she turned to go, Danny halted her with a hand on the arm and a fixed look. “One more thing, Elisa. I may be ‘nicer’ than the others. I am fair, at least by vampire standards. I am definitely not Ian. But don’t ever make the mistake of thinking a vampire, whether it’s me, or my mother, or Lord Charles, is nice. Humans are useful to us, valued by us because they are useful. You understand?”
When Elisa would have looked away, Danny held her gaze, made her see what was there. “It’s important you understand that. You are very open with me, and I want you to remain that way. But if I tell you to do something, I also expect it to be instantly obeyed. I will punish disobedience.”
“Yes, my lady.” Elisa bobbed a curtsy again, her gaze somber. “I’ll do my best to follow your wishes.”
“Hopefully you’ll do better than this one.” More relaxed now, Danny turned her gaze to Dev. “He’s stubborn as a bloody rock.”
“But thank the Lord he’s a rock, my lady,” Elisa pointed out. “Because they did their best to smash the poor bloke to bits.” Children with sharp teeth, tearing flesh. Tearing his son’s flesh. Rob screaming. Tina staring at him with accusing, lifeless eyes. A man’s arms pinwheeling as Dev’s bullet found him, ended all that he was. Bombs blowing someone into chunks, so that in some places you couldn’t walk without having to nudge the body parts out of the way. Hiding in the water where he had to remain completely still, the enemy too close. A disembodied head floating past him, brushing his brow, up against his eyes. A handful of fish had been worrying on it, hanging on to the dead flesh as it rolled past him, their bodies wriggling against his own neck, a couple taking a nip or two to see if his was still attached, if he was still living . . .
Rob, backing toward a well hole with no wall or cover, calling, “Dad, throw it, throw it.” And the ball left Dev’s hand, even though he knew his son was going to fall down that dark, endless hole, into the depths of Hell where he couldn’t follow, where he couldn’t help him . . . But it wasn’t Rob, it was him, and hands were grabbing at him, tearing him apart, endless horror and pain . . . A bomb shattered and the noise sent him into screaming, scrambling panic. He was falling, rolling, trapped . . .
Dev. Dev. Wake up. I’m here. Wake up, bushman. I’m right here.
He woke fighting for his life, fighting for air, tangled in the sheet that had gone with him as he fell off an unexpectedly elevated bed.
When he kept flailing, the hand helped, removing the sheet, shifting him bodily. As soon as he was free, he was scrambling forward toward the closest source of light, the window, though the curtains were drawn. He went for it, tearing at the cloth, and throwing open the sash to draw in a breath. But he couldn’t stop there, clambering out the window and sitting on the sill on the steep slope of the porch roof, drawing in deep gasps of air.
As his heart stopped racing, the wide landscape he knew steadying him, the open spaces where you could see enemies coming, he started to recall his whereabouts, the happenings of the past few days. A dark-haired stockman, whittling while sitting in a chair propped up against the barn, considered him curiously, and Dev realized he was buck naked.
It occurred to him then whose hands had freed him from the stranglehold of the sheet. And even as he figured out who that was, he registered it was bright daylight. Probably early afternoon.
Spinning, he leaned back in. She was backed up against a far corner, trapped by the bar of sunlight he’d sent spilling across the guest room. While she looked a bit disconcerted by that, she also had that faint amused look he found so damned appealing.
