the vampire hunter growled, the warning of one male predator to another, but it only spurred daegan further. of course, he had no intention of doing more than what anwyn had intimated, using his power and gideon's apprehension to make the man's cock harder, his reaction more intense.

anwyn parted her knees then, draping her legs over the arms in a flexible display that caught both males'

attention. while they watched, she sucked on her fingers and trailed them down to the pink petals of her sex. four of them disappeared into that wet opening, her thumb beginning a slow massage of her clit as her hips lifted. she bit her bottom lip, showing a bit of fangs, her breath easing out, slow and sensual.

"i'm imagining this is you, gideon."

"i'm right here. all you have to do is ask." his muscles twitched under daegan's hand.

"no." she shook her head, her voice catching. "i want to see your seed spurt out of you. rub harder, stronger. handle yourself like another male would. like daegan would." his arm jerked in reaction to that. daegan moved in, bringing his body up against his back, brushing the bare ass with his thigh. gideon cursed, but anwyn must have been saying something in his mind, bidding him to be still. while daegan wasn't in her head right now, her face was concentrated, eyes locked with her servant's, holding him still.

daegan put one hand on gideon's shoulder, his other sliding under gideon's arm, his palm traveling across the abdomen. his fingers teased the coarse hair above the impressively engorged cock.

"stop," gideon snarled, but there was a catch to his breath that kept daegan pushing it. it was a precarious line, knowing they might be about to disrupt anwyn's pleasure, if gideon decided to turn around and throw a punch, even bare-assed with his jeans caught at his knees. but daegan obeyed his intuition and didn't stop, sliding his hand down so he covered gideon's. he coiled his own long fingers around gideon's fist, increased the pressure on the aroused organ.

he wasn't stroking gideon's cock directly, but he was vicariously feeling the give of that velvet skin stretched on the steel shaft. the heat was as rich as blood. the hunter kept his gaze locked on his mistress, as she'd ordered, but daegan thought it might be almost impossible to look away. she had most of her right hand sliding in and out of her pussy, her knuckles glistening, and she was starting to quiver and gasp with the impending orgasm. gideon's hard pumping increased, with daegan's unsolicited assistance. gideon's buttocks flexed beneath the pressure of his thigh, his cock jumping under their combined touch.

you are not as dedicated to one sex as you believe yourself to be, vampire hunter.he could send that over the bridge of anwyn's mind, but he kept that knowledge to himself, dealing with his own unexpected arousal at the thought and at gideon's response to him. the man was shaking, a fine tremor running through the broad shoulders, rippling over the biceps, his emotional turmoil manifesting itself physically. daegan didn't have to be in his mind to know that the hunter was fighting three forces. his overwhelming instinct to serve anwyn's will, his unexpected desire for daegan's presence, and his own will, so confused that it was the sensitive time bomb that could detonate at any moment, ending this for all three of them.

in truth, he was impressed gideon had made it this far. he wondered if gideon realized he was proving that he might in fact have what it took to be a vampire's servant, to hold still at her command and submit to the games that vampires liked to play, all for her pleasure.

it was also proof of the kind of trust he had in anwyn, and perhaps in some way in daegan, remaining still only on their insistence that daegan wouldn't drink from him.trust didn't have to be all or nothing, after all. he put his mouth on gideon's shoulder, using his tongue, a firm stroke along one of the scars there.

gideon groaned, hand flexing beneath daegan's. "let go of me," he muttered. in answer, daegan just tightened their grip, made it more of a slick glove, pushing gideon to take it all the way back to the tip and back, faster.

"jesus christ."

"you don't come until i do, gideon," anwyn reminded him on a sharp gasp.

"tell that . . . to your . . . damn boy here."

daegan slid the other hand down, gripped one firm ass cheek as an anchor, a counterpoint for the stroking of gideon's cock.

anwyn arched up, a cry breaking from her throat. "n-now, gideon . . ."

with a rough groan, torn from him like a battle flag of surrender, gideon did. his cock spewed a fountain of white fluid that gushed over his hand and daegan's, down to splatter on the stone floor. it was intense enough to convulse his body, and daegan clamped his arm across the man's chest, giving him a wall to brace against as the orgasm pumped forth, draining him dry.

as he did, the slamming of his heart against his chest, the way he pressed his head down hard against daegan's shoulder in the involuntary search for an anchor point, made daegan want to bring him to his knees. he'd order him to put his head in his mistress's lap, let her stroke his hair tenderly while daegan rutted on his ass. he'd watch gideon lick her pussy under her ministrations, drive her up to climax again.

he'd command him to stop just in time, though, and daegan would take her, fucking her to climax, making sure he'd depleted them both, taken them to fully satiated exhaustion.

by the holy relics, what am i thinking?though his cock was about to explode, that wasn't why he sought the steadying admonishment. he considered himself bound to anwyn in a way he'd never been to anyone, though there'd always been that barrier between them as human and vampire. now, with her as vampire, and this man as her servant, a male who inexplicably fascinated each of them, daegan felt a hint of something he'd never had. the fulfillment of a yearning, something within reach, an answer they didn't have singly, but they might have together, as a trinity.

or, as gideon would say, he was losing his fucking mind.

by the time he was done, gideon was leaning full into his body again, gasping, his head turned away so daegan couldn't see his face. it affected him oddly, the hunter in his embrace this way, shamed. anwyn, in contrast, curled up on her hip, pulling her skirt back down, her gaze lingering on the two of them, obviously approving of the sight they made. but the moment was short-lived.

gideon pushed away from him, and yanked his jeans back up with an awkward movement. though his back was still expanding and contracting like a bellows, he kept his head down, his body turned away from them. "i can't do that again," he said. "this isn't who i am." he was speaking to anwyn, even though he was looking at neither of them. but she didn't hear him.

"gideon," daegan said urgently. "a nother time."

gideon glanced up sharply. daegan realized it revealed just how upset he was, because he hadn't anticipated the seizure this time. it had already gripped her with both hands, propelling her out of the chair with a snarl, her eyes red and fangs bared.

"stay back." daegan intercepted her before she could launch herself, taking her back down to the ground, pinioning arms and legs. "get another vial of the sire's blood."

"death!" she screamed. "we must die!"

"everyone does,cher ," he agreed, as gideon bolted.

this attack had come on the heels of pleasure, stealing its memory. as her agony tore into his heart, daegan wondered how they would convince her life was worth living if his worst fear came true. if she had to live with the seizures for the rest of her life. a vampire's immortal lifespan.

22

gideon strode through the streets. it was light, headed toward lunchtime. he felt decent, finally having a solid eight hours' sleep, because they'd all agreed that he and daegan would take shifts with her.

everyone could stay on the top of their game that way. since it limited his exposure to the other male, he didn't mind. but he'd told the vamp he'd relieve him at noon, so he needed to get back shortly.

every time she was given her sire's blood, the seizures were more intense than at any other time. and she was getting that blood every few hours, far more often than a normal transition vampire. daegan apparently had seen bad transitions before, and indicated that giving more of the sire's blood, more often, could sometimes help.

daegan needed to go out for fresh blood tonight. gideon knew anwyn was prodding him to do just that.

the vampire might be like some freakishly engineered supersoldier, even for a vamp, but he needed something more than sleep. he was pale.

gideon had been braced for anwyn to try to get him to donate, but she hadn't. it had surprised him enough to ask her about it, and she'd told him that daegan flatly refused to consider it. which prompted two sets of disturbing thoughts. one, that she had possibly offered him the option, even knowing how gideon felt about it, and two, that for some inexplicable reason, he didn't want gideon's blood.

why the hell should he care? because it was a puzzle that didn't have an answer, and gideon wasn't fond of those. not when it came to vampires. unanswered questions tended to come back and smack you in the ass, and not in any kind of pleasurable way. not that he would find being smacked in the ass pleasurable. he was just saying . . .

christ. as he had for the past few days, when his thoughts tried to go back to that night, to the sight of a male hand wrapped around his cock, the feel of a hard, muscular body behind him while anwyn's tempted him in front, he broke into a jog. then a flat-out run. he called on as much speed as his heart could give him, tearing past the startled gazes of human denizens of the day, sent even the more aggressive shrinking back into the shadows with his cold stare. despite his need to escape, he was aware that his feet directed him in ten-block laps, never going farther than that from atlantis. occasionally, he reached out, touched the open door to a sleeping woman's mind.

she wasn't having nightmares right now, thank god. as he slowed to a half jog, he received a drift of innocuous images, no real connection, like clouds in the sky. when one did form a coherent picture, it was an unsettling and yet compelling one. she dreamed of a black car, a shiny bmw, that had slowed to a stop in heavy traffic. surrounded by tall buildings, people, acres of concrete, it was closed in and crowded. even as an observer, he needed to draw a deeper breath than his exertion made possible.