it wasn't natural to adam like it was to her, but he'd been assigned to a well-placed mistress, a born vampire who was an overlord of a territory in spain.

and now he was dead.

that was why she'd done it, gone to lord brian when she'd learned of lord stephen's deceit against the council. her own selfish pain for adam. a servant accepted that a master's or mistress's sins were their own. there was no need to make a decision between right and wrong. the master's will was the only compass. she lived to serve him in every way, regardless of what kind of person he was. the point was the service.

it had been a moment of unforgivable weakness, a purely emotional decision. adam had loved her so much he became an inhserv with her. even knowing they wouldn't share the same household, he'd chosen to share the same life she did, the same world. her master had refused to allow her to grieve him, had even forced her to . . .

refusing to go any further with that, alanna began a meditation discipline, intended to center and focus her mind. whether a mockery or not, her training had become the puppet strings that kept her moving.

a knock on the door interrupted it. it was debra, bringing her several months' worth of blocking treatment. lord brian had made it clear she must take them religiously. if that wall fell, stephen could not only set upon her mind and soul again; he might tear her apart if he detected the challenge of a second-marking from evan.

as debra emphasized those instructions again, alanna nodded. "i understand. can you tell me anything useful about my service to . . . my new master?" she'd never served a vampire without the title of lord, and she didn't know evan's last name, so she went with the honorific. "did he . . . paint on me?"

"yes, he did," debra said. "at that point, lord brian was willing to attempt anything that might salvage your mind, no matter the scientific merits."

she wasn't sure how to respond to that. "and niall is scottish?"

"yes. he's a forceful personality, for a servant. much like jacob." debra's serious eyes twinkled. "a definite alpha."

alanna remembered niall's large hands on her face, the way he'd spoken to her. she'd responded as if his words were commands, so perhaps debra was right about that.

"you calmed under their touch, when not even our strongest tranquilizers had an effect. it influenced lady lyssa's decision about their custody."

debra's expression changed, that inward look when a servant was receiving a communication from her vampire. it filled alanna with envy. the emptiness of her soul and the solitary state of her mind were a daily ache, even if the last time a vampire had been there it had been to shred them. "my lord brian is coming," debra said. "he has lord daegan with him."

alanna wanted to know more about niall and evan, but that would have to wait. she'd seen lord daegan only briefly at a couple of council meetings. his anonymity was necessary to do the council's bidding, so he wasn't a regular visitor at the castle. as he slid into her room, she noted the tall, dark-eyed vampire's purposeful way of moving, the emotionless countenance that suggested he could decapitate or stake one of his brethren with the ease of breathing.

sliding from her chair, she went to her knees in automatic deference, a graceful fold of motion.

"none of that, now. he'll get delusions of grandeur, expect that bullshit out of me."

gideon, daegan's servant, put his hand under her arm, brought her back to her feet. the strength of his grip, tempered by the fact that he was handling a woman, was familiar. even if she didn't glance up into the same midnight blue eyes, she would have known jacob was his brother. gideon had a harder, rougher look, but the steady attention that could fluster a woman was the same.

jacob and gideon were not like her and adam. they hadn't become servants at the same time, nor for the same motives and circumstances. gideon had been an exceptionally successful vampire hunter, slated for death by the vampire council. he'd been part of the team who'd set explosives at the previous vampire gathering, where adam and his mistress had been killed.

she'd wanted to hate him, but the world was more complicated than that. ironically, he was the first who understood and acknowledged her grief over her brother's death. in a surprising twist of fate, he now had two vampire masters, lord daegan and anwyn. anwyn was still a fledgling by vampire standards, but she'd been a mistress and owner of a bdsm club as a human, so her direct look and air of dominance had made her a complement to the vampire world from the beginning. she stood at the door, watching the proceedings silently, but alanna could feel gideon's connection to her and daegan like a three-pointed star, shining painfully bright.

drawing her hand away from gideon, alanna stood alone. her job was service, not to be comforted. it was forgivable, their lack of understanding, because he, jacob and debra were randoms, those who'd come to their vampires by happenstance and choice, not selected from birth as she'd been. however, that didn't absolve her of the requirement to courteously rebuff such gestures. that was what set an inhserv apart, made them the elite in the servant ranks.

it's a charade, all of it.

she was too tired to block the thought.

"while lord daegan is not going to mark you, alanna, he is going to taste your blood."

while she didn't require an explanation, gideon added, "it's similar to giving a bloodhound a piece of clothing. he can pick up your scent easier later if needed."

she nodded. she'd kept her eyes down and now sensed the three men exchanging glances with debra. whatever they were communicating apparently did not delay what they intended, for gideon's hands were on her shoulders, steadying her as lord daegan swept her hair away from her neck. as she automatically tilted her head toward gideon, giving his master access to the artery, her chin brushed both men's fingers. daegan's hands overlapped gideon's on either side. it was an interesting intimacy, because she picked up reassurance in it.

stephen had certainly never cared to reassure her when he marked other servants, for he had a household of second-marks. perhaps the vampire assassin was not as emotionally detached as he always seemed. flicking her gaze up to gideon's face, she saw he had his eyes on the vampire. from his intent focus, she was sure they'd locked gazes, something she never did with a vampire. some vampire-servant relationships were different.

"if anything starts to feel wrong, or you're in pain, he wants you to tell us." gideon shifted his attention to her. "that's an order. got it?"

she was surrounded by exceptionally authoritative servants of late. jacob, gideon . . . niall. that dynamic wasn't uncommon in male vampire-male servant pairings, but it was for female vampire-male servant bonds. another reason lady lyssa and jacob were an anomaly.

"yes, my lord." she directed the response to the vampire. "but i can bear pain. i've no wish to inconvenience you any more than i have already."

she sensed another exchange between the men. as daegan's fingers tightened over gideon's, a warning, she saw the servant bite back some comment, a flash in his blue eyes, though his temper didn't seem directed at her or his master.

"it's important that we not disrupt the blocker, alanna," lord brian said. "remember, physical or emotional stress can weaken its effect. protecting your health and state of mind is how you can best serve us now."

"yes, my lord." daegan's breath was on her neck, fangs unsheathing, such that she anticipated the pain as he sank into her flesh. however, the discomfort was less than expected, for he didn't go as deep as a vampire went for a feeding. of course. lord brian was monitoring her reaction; it was a clinical situation. to them, there was no intimacy in this exchange, no sexual significance to a deep penetration of fangs. but lord daegan's body was powerful and warm behind her, gideon's hands against her flesh solid and real. her body stirred to it, as it always did when she was serving a master.

not wanting to embarrass herself, she shifted into a meditative state, while staying tuned in to her surroundings. she'd stood behind stephen at meetings for hours that way. motionless and unobtrusive, until the vampires would turn their attention to entertainment, the highly politicized, sexual games she would perform with others at her master's direction.

twelve servants . . . her mind got trapped in the memory of that fateful dinner party after adam's death. a dozen closed in on her, took her down to the floor at the end, overcome by their lust, goaded by their masters and mistresses, until there was a screaming in her head she bit through her tongue to hold back. she blindly followed what was expected of her . . . her every orifice penetrated, her mouth working over cock after cock, tasting her own blood, each climax feeling like her heart was being torn from her chest, a betrayal so deep . . .

"shhh . . ." gideon's lips brushed her cheek, taking away a tear as his master finished, licked over the puncture wounds to coagulate the blood. five minutes had passed without her even noticing. so much for staying tuned in to her surroundings.

"i'm all right," she said, every muscle tightening up.

"yes, you are." daegan ran a hand over her hair, a brief stroke down her back, flummoxing her. had the assassin himself just reassured her? there was something to his tone, as if he'd learned something from tasting her blood. something that had earned his approval.

"i won't be far, alanna," he said. "follow lady lyssa and evan's direction, and you'll be fine."

of course she'd follow their direction. but she responded as she should. "yes, my lord."

when daegan captured stephen and the council executed him, she would die, because a fully-marked servant's life force was linked to her master's. but that wasn't the end of it, was it? servants were bound to their vampires in the afterlife, so she'd be with stephen wherever he went, forever despised by him, forever a failure.