The Mark of the Vampire Queen Read Online Free PDF Page B

her head. “I’m quite the unworldly fool, aren’t I? My apologies. I wouldn’t usually talk about this, but…well, you’re the first servant I’ve met that’s newer to this than me. Most are so sophisticated and calm, they just look at me with this infuriating patronizing pity. Like Liam and Seanna,” she added, referring to the other two servants who had been at the party, servants of Lord Richard and Lady Tara, the Alabama territory overlords. Jacob had been challenged—and commanded—to bring Seanna and Debra to climax at the same time. He’d succeeded, but like Debra it had been his first exercise in sating vampire lust in a group setting.
    Taking a deep breath, she laid the book flat on top of the notebook and folded her hands, smiling a little. “Of course I’ll be happy to answer your questions, Jacob. Though I doubt I can answer anything that deals with vampire politics. As you can tell, I don’t get out of the lab that much.”
    â€œIt’s your experience in the lab I’m seeking,” he assured her. Taking his own deep breath, albeit a mental one so he didn’t betray the urgent need he felt for answers, he met her gaze. “My lady won’t tell me much about this Delilah virus, and I want to know more.”
    â€œIf she’s made a conscious decision to withhold the information from you, it’s not my place to offer it.” Debra’s direct answer told Jacob she was back on solid ground, but she tempered it with a quick touch on his arm. “Lady Lyssa is very powerful, and her patronage is vital to Brian. I can’t do anything to offend her that might risk that.” Her eyes widened in sudden alarm. “Perhaps even this conversation is inappropriate, if she doesn’t know you’re here. She doesn’t, does she?”
    â€œHear me out. Please.” Jacob quelled the compulsion to try and block her way as she made to rise. While he couldn’t appear desperate or overly determined, he wasn’t leaving here without answers. “Lady Lyssa finds it amusing, my desire to protect her to the best of my ability. But I do consider that part of my responsibilities. I suppose most of us servants do, no matter how laughable our Masters and Mistresses find the idea.”
    That apparently hit a chord with her. She sank back down, her eyes intent behind her wire-framed glasses. At the dinner party, Brian had taken them carefully off her face and set them aside. But after that tender gesture, he’d returned to his chair, demonstrating his ruthless support of Lord Richard’s command that she strip in front of the assembled guests and allow Jacob, a total stranger, to intimately fondle her body and bring her to climax before them all.
    He’d become part of a strange world. Innocence and dark carnality intertwined like a yin and yang DNA strand, creating an alternate reality with endlessly unpredictable twists and turns.
    â€œI want to know how to protect her blood sources. The more I know about the virus, the more likely it is I can do that, right?” He kept his expression neutral, twisting the truth he had to safeguard. He was treading a very dangerous line. From his conversation with Lyssa last night, 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, viewing her imminent demise as a possibly correct sign that the Council had been severely weakened.
    â€œI give you my word, if Lyssa has any displeasure with our conversation, she’ll take it out on my hide.” In spades. “Not yours or Lord Brian’s. I wouldn’t speak to you, not another word, if I thought I was going to jeopardize your lord’s