Elusive Hero

  She couldn't do that to anyone she loved.

  He'd given her access to his mind, heart and soul, so there was no way to deny it. She was falling in love with him, and he was falling in love with her. Nothing to hide, but it had to be denied.

  There were sacrifices you made when you loved. While those sacrifices might break the heart, what was worse than a broken heart was the poison of regret, of a choice that couldn't be unmade or forgiven. By the time Garron understood the reality the way she did, there would be no going back. She'd have three hundred years, a servant's normal lifespan, to see that poison grow in his gaze, and root in her own heart. Or less than five, if Richard's prediction came true. Best to leave it all here, untouched by any of that.

  There was no way he could understand. She had to accept that. The man who was such a hero that he rescued a baby when he was little more than a baby himself, who'd come back from a near death injury that had lost him three close friends, would never believe there was a challenge that could break him beyond bearing.

  She drew her hand away from his, stepped back. Closed her mind down to him and lifted her chin. She kept her eyes flat. She imagined she was back in that drawing room with Greg, every decision calculated inside an impenetrable shell. "It was only supposed to be ten days, Garron. It wasn't supposed to even touch what was going to happen when I left here. What I wanted was a ten day fantasy. Not a gateway back to my reality. There is no gateway there. Not for us."

  She took a breath. "You've opened me up to...possibilities. I'm grateful for that. Maybe I can find something like it in my world. But I won't bring you into it."

  His eyes snapped with temper. "Possibilities? Like a vampire Master, one who can force you into things, overpower you?"

  "No. Yes. It's for me to figure out. No more arguments. Please." She held an even tone, her blank face.

  He studied her. Though it took a visible effort, he reined back his temper. As his attention on her sharpened, she remembered his ability to read auras. She remained still, hurting for them both, but she knew the moment he read her resolve, and truly understood she couldn't be budged. While his ability to recognize that should have been a blessing, it felt like anything but.

  His expression suddenly became as impassive as hers. Not cruel, not unkind, simply neutral. "If you're any indication, I don't think all vampires can be classified one way, any more than humans can," he said, low. "If what you truly desire is a vampire Master, one who won't use your submission for political gain or a power trip, it's merely a matter of time and looking."

  It was impossible. Almost as impossible as her finding a human Master in a handful of days at a paradise resort who could break her heart. "I can always hope." She made herself say the words, suffered through the slight tic under his eye, a masked flinch. "Though it's not as easy as that."

  "No. Nothing worth having ever is." He straightened, and she steeled herself not to take a step back. "So this is your decision."

  "It is." She put out her hand, a gesture she realized was ridiculous. He stared at it, let it hang in the air long enough she was about to draw back, but he closed his fingers over it. Lifted it to his mouth, pressed his lips against it. She closed her eyes, imagining herself as tightly furled as a flower bud, not destined to open until spring. Until the sun came out again. An ironic thought for a vampire.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw he was studying her face. He wasn't one to give up easily, auras or no, but he was also an exceptional Master. One who knew exactly how much or how little to push a submissive and when she'd reached her limit. When she could go no farther.

  She was sure he knew she was breaking apart inside. The question was her resolve, and no matter what else she wanted or needed, that was bone deep. He wasn't going to move her on it. She just wanted to get away, was even now drawing away from him.

  When he let her go, she'd rather have been stabbed through the heart with a wooden stake than lose the touch of his hand. He kept those shrewd eyes on her, and though she felt stripped naked, she managed to stay on her feet, keep her chin up. Dignified.

  "If you're taking any advice, my lady," he said at last, "I'd say look for love first, then a Master. Because if you find love first, it will help pave the way to the other." There was a slight softening to his mouth, which made her yearn to touch him, but she didn't. She imagined herself rooted to the ground.

  He cleared his throat. "Maybe you needed a few days here to understand that your submission truly needs to be a bigger part of your life, my lady. You need to figure that out before you reach a dangerous breaking point again. The kind that brought you here."

  He was as calm and closed off as she was. Only suddenly she remembered she had access to his mind. He couldn't close it the way she could. If she could reach out for just a moment, she could figure out what was going on behind that passive countenance, touch his heart, his emotions. She had no right to do that at all, but she couldn't bear this to be her last impression of him.

  Her mind was closed tight as a safe, and yet he proved just how good his intuition was, his ability to read her. An expression crossed his face that was dangerous, dark.

  "Don't," he said softly, a command that was a threat.

  She recoiled, physically stepped back. "I'm sorry. I will...do as you suggest. You showed me...so much. I didn't intend for any of this to hurt you," she added desperately. She wanted to say so much more, but she knew she was floundering.

  "I know that, my lady. Are you still leaving at dusk tonight?"

  "Yes." Though that word weighed a thousand pounds on her heart as well.

  He nodded again, the same wooden gesture. "I'll make sure those arrangements are made. The phone in your suite will be reactivated so you can call the main desk if you need anything. If you change your mind about staying, you can let them know that as well. We won't be booking anyone in that suite since you paid for the full ten days. You'll have access to the club if you wish to join Richard and Tara, or if you desire to play on your own."

  "I won't," she said, too quickly. But it was true. Not here, not without him. Maybe no one else, nowhere else, ever again.

  He moved, brushing past her to the door. His scent, the heat of his skin, almost made her sway on her feet. She tried to keep her eyes on the wall of books so she didn't have to watch him leave, but she couldn't stop the shameful words that came to her lips. "Will I see you before I leave?"

  When he said nothing, she turned. He'd stopped at the doorway and his dark eyes had fire in them. Hellfire. "No, my lady. We're done."

  He said it in that same neutral tone, but she flinched anyway. His jaw eased, though only a fraction. "I have a few more days of vacation. I'll be spending it elsewhere. I think that's best for us both, don't you agree?"

  She nodded, her throat too tight to speak. A sigh lifted his massive shoulders and he gave her a different look, one full of so many emotions she couldn't bear any of them.

  "From here forward, I'll have two girls to pray for. I'll think of you often, my lady, and hope for your happiness."

  The door closed behind him. Kaela stared at it. Was there anything as wrenching as the symbolism of a closed door, one never to be opened again? The likelihood of her ever finding a Master like him...in her world... The odds were better that she could turn back time for him to go back to that alley, find those abandoned babies earlier so he could save them both.

  "Lady Kaela?" She blinked, realized she'd zoned out for about ten minutes. Now a middle-aged woman was standing at the door. Despite the late hour, she was dressed as if for a full day at the office. This was likely one of Vardalos's admins.

  "Is everything all right?"

  No. Of course not. What a stupid question. But she answered appropriately. "Yes, thank you."

  He hadn't touched her again. Just a terse good-bye. She'd known him less than a week. It should hurt like a splinter under a fingernail, sharp but not fatal, something that once removed would ebb off quickly. Instead the splinter was the si
ze of a railroad spike and it was lodged in her heart, making it difficult to breathe. But she didn't need to breathe. She was a vampire.

  The admin hesitated. "Mr. Vardalos said he would refund your trip in full, as a courtesy."

  She shook her head. "No. Tell him he can keep it. I got what I paid for, and more. I have one condition, though. Pay Master Garron. This was no vacation for him."

  Brushing quickly past the bemused woman, she headed for those endless spiral of stairs. She didn't want the elevator, which would still have Garron's lingering scent. It was time to go back to her room, to pack. Once she rose at dusk, she could return to reality. The sooner the better.

  Everyone knew it was best to rip off a Band-Aid quickly.

  SS

  At dawn, she stripped and laid on the bed. She was tempted to burrow under the covers but she lay on the top, exposed and cold, staring at the ceiling. It was pressed tin that glinted from the candlelight wall sconces. She hadn't wanted the electric lights. When the dawn came, the waterfall sparkled with the sun's rays. Turning on her side, she watched.

  Jared had said she was a creature of the night, one who embraced the moon more than the sun. "My witch," he'd called her, on a night when he left their bed to find her sitting on the porch steps in her night rail. She was watching the moon soar across the star-strewn sky. He'd sat down on the step above her, his legs on either side of her body, and stroked her hair. "My red-haired witch."

  Was it eternal, the struggle to know what to do, how to live, how to exist in a way where there was a balance? Was there any place where the weak weren't preyed upon, and where the strong weren't always trying to beat them down from weakness into nothingness?

  She was one of the strong ones, impossibly strong. She knew she was capable of going on for centuries more, serving Lady Lyssa, protecting those whose care was charged to her, or whose care she assumed. Like Garron with those twin babies. They were so alike in some ways. In many ways. Fighters, killers. Saviors, but not in the grandiose, messianic sense. More like the basic Webster's definition as one who saved something, someone, because the circumstances allowed it to happen. She supposed it amused the Powers That Be when someone was proclaimed a hero, since They knew it would take only a flick of the dial of Time to make it a second too late. Then the hero was just another face in the crowd, someone too slow to act.

  What if Garron hadn't looked in the trashcan? The second baby would have died while he slept fitfully only a few feet away, his dreams plagued by what tomorrow would hold for a runaway. Or what if he'd had a few more terrible life experiences under his belt, such that when he saw the baby in the trash, he'd thought, "she's better off dead" and replaced the lid?

  Was there anything worse than the death of hope?

  Kaela turned away from the water, closed her eyes. She'd get some sleep, get on the plane. She'd have a few days before Fran returned. She'd do paperwork, follow up on several territory matters. Maybe read some books or visit a couple gardens in the area she'd been meaning to check out at night, when she could slip in and dwell there, a shadow among the shadows.

  "Garron, I wish..."

  She took a breath. She didn't have her mind closed to him, a final act of respect to her Master, but she'd also respected his demand she stay out of his head. So she spoke to him in her own mind, in the forlorn hope he might be listening.

  I want you to know there's nothing another vampire could do to you that would make me think less of you. As cliche as it sounds, I know this is about me, not you. I don't know if it's possible to love someone after only a few days, but I know I think too much of you to ever pull you into my world. I wish I could be with you once more. I know that's wrong and cruel of me. Selfish, because I know I hurt you. But I miss you so, Master. I feel like if I could be yours, just one more time, I could endure everything else. I don't want my last memory of you to be in Vardalos's office.

  From his closed expression at that last moment, she was sure he wasn't listening. This was just her way of comforting herself, rambling on like this. She even hummed a little song, trying to get herself to sleep. Would Garron like her to hum him to sleep? She had a good singing voice and had done that for Jared, wrapping her arm around his waist, resting her cheek on his back, letting the vibration of her voice take him into dreams. She hadn't had the pleasure of watching Garron sleep yet.

  If he had come home with her, she would have wanted to do things for him, the way Fran did things for her. There were too many demands on her as an overlord for her to do all the things that Fran did, but she could make him breakfast, taking tiny samples of the food herself to ensure it was fit for human consumption. It had been so long since she'd cooked... One didn't tend to cook for one, and a vampire didn't cook at all. Though sometimes hot chocolate spiced with blood was good...

  She was thinking nothing but nonsense. She shut her eyes tighter, hoping, wishing for oblivion.

  I didn't give you permission to sleep, my lady.

  Thank God. She shuddered. The reverberation of his voice in her consciousness brought an ache into her throat so strong it choked off word or thought. She wanted to tell him he didn't have to do this, but she would have lost that fight. She wanted him so much that when his fingers slid along the arch of her foot, she quaked all the way down to her bones. Her small cry cut through her from mind to core.

  He slid onto the bed behind her, and another wave of relief went through her at the warmth of his naked body against hers, legs under her hips and fitted to the backs of her knees, chest against her shoulders and blessedly hard cock against her buttocks. He was a furnace.

  "Christ, you're freezing." He wrapped his arms around her, held her as she shook.

  "I--"

  "No talking unless I tell you." Pushing her hair to the side, he put his lips against her throat. She didn't think anything could surpass the excruciating, bittersweet pleasure of him being here with her, granting her last wish, but then her heart broke as she felt him wrap the choker around her neck, re-securing it.

  "I told you it was yours to take with you, my lady. So you can always remember who your Master is."

  Her eyes closed in painful bliss as he put his mouth over it. When he slid his hand down her hip, around to her ass, she opened her legs to him.

  "Good, my lady." She arched against him as he probed her cunt, stroked her rim, exploring and reacquainting himself with what was his. She felt it in his touch, heard it in his head, and wholeheartedly agreed. Yes, she was all his. It wouldn't matter if she left tomorrow. She'd never again feel a touch like this, the one that told her she'd found her Master. God bless his memory, even Jared had not awakened this level of submission, a hunger to give him absolutely everything he demanded, even if he asked for her very life.

  "Good. Because I plan to be very demanding. Beyond what even you think you can give."

  He pushed her onto her stomach, stretched her arms out to either side. He left the bed only to pull cuffs out from beneath the mattress, two at the head, two at the foot. He locked her in them, adjusting the ties with a sharp pull so she was stretched out to the muscle-straining point.

  She turned her head, but he slid a full mask over her head, closing her into darkness. It only had a mouth opening, so her enhanced senses of hearing and smell were muffled, her sight taken away. The inside of the mask smelled like cinnamon and heat. She didn't have to be told to stay out of his head, though the temptation to try and figure out what he had planned was fierce. She didn't have long to wait, though.

  She cried out at the strike across her hindquarters. The switch, she was sure. That lick of fire was unmistakable, followed by another one.

  "You won't break those bonds, my lady. If you refuse or disobey a single thing I demand of you before sundown, I leave."

  He spoke against the mask so she could hear him and she could tell he meant it. He wouldn't be taking any shit from her. He was showing her just how hard a Master he could be, fully unleashed.

  "Now stay still. Absolut
ely still."

  She froze in place, even though it was a struggle as he doled out the punishment, five strikes, ten...fifteen. She was shrieking, the pain incredible, and when he reached twenty-five and stopped, her ass and thighs were on fire.

  "Too much noise." Her head was pulled up and a large ball gag forced into her mouth. Steel, cold and smooth, and immediately slickened by her saliva. She made an involuntary grunt as he cinched it around her head, tight. Tighter, the size of the ball pinning her tongue down.

  "Those straps will leave an impression at the corners of your mouth. Until they disappear, it will remind you you're such a bad girl your Master had to gag you."

  The switch came back, three more times. Her eyes almost rolled back at the pain. He replaced the switch with his mouth, and her body caught fire a wholly different way.

  Licking, nipping, suckling. He adjusted the straps holding her ankles so he could slide his hand beneath her mound, lift her up enough to nuzzle her cunt, start eating her pussy as if it was the only thing he planned to do with his day. She writhed, and his mouth and touch disappeared.

  "Five more strikes to teach you to stay still. I've been holding back, my lady, being overly gentle. I think you need to understand just exactly what you've taken on."

  By the time he was done, he had her trained to stay motionless while he sucked, licked and tongue-fucked her pussy to near climax, even as she quivered like a tuning fork. She lost track of the number of switch marks it took. Even with her healing powers, her ass was so tender that on the last few strikes she'd had all she could do not to crack her enamel on the ball.

  He rubbed his hand over her abused ass, gave it a smack. "I think you're wrong, my lady. You have very impressive self-control. I can reinforce that with lessons like this, teaching you how not to interfere if some of your vampire friends are giving me a workout."

  No. She'd made her decision. This wasn't about that. She bit back a howl as the switch cut into her backside.

  "Your hand curled, my lady. You're a statue until I say otherwise."