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  Even though he said he was leaving, he didn’t move, nor did he drop his hand from her chin. Forgetting to be afraid, she watched him curiously as his gaze roamed over her face. He touched her lips with his thumb, and a slight frown came between his eyebrows. Then his eyelids lowered, hiding the expression in his eyes.

  She held her breath. The pressure against her lips from the ball of his thumb was so slight that if she wasn’t looking directly at him, she wasn’t sure she would have felt it.

  It wasn’t quite a caress. She didn’t know what it was.

  His hand dropped away, and he inclined his head to her. Then he walked to the window, folded his lean body to slip through the open space and dropped out of sight with a boneless, catlike grace.

  The room echoed with emptiness. She went to the window and looked out. He stood underneath, hands on his hips. As he watched, she closed the window and latched it. He nodded to her and walked toward the main house, where the music still played.

  She watched until he had left her angle of sight and pulled the curtain closed.

  Only then did it occur to her that he might have been fighting his Vampyre instincts as he held her chin and touched her mouth. But that didn’t feel right to her. He hadn’t looked as if he had been engaged in an internal struggle, and she hadn’t felt any real threat from him.

  Instead he had looked troubled, perhaps even sad.

  Even as the thought occurred to her, she frowned. That couldn’t be right. Why would looking at her sadden him? It reminded her of earlier, when she had thought she’d caught a hint of something wistful about him.

  She had to let it go. Xavier was much too complicated for her to figure out after only a few meetings. For now, she needed to crawl back in bed and be grateful for the fact that, despite everything, she hadn’t managed to get herself kicked off the estate.

  SEVEN

  Mid-February

  Tess hit the training mat so hard it knocked the breath out of her. Wheezing, she rolled onto her stomach and struggled to suck some air into her cramped lungs.

  Raoul stood over her, his arms crossed. “That’s a wrap for the day.”

  She coughed. “Give me a few minutes. I can go again.”

  He shook his head. “We’re done here. After you recover, please make up the time on the shooting range.”

  Please do this. Please do that.

  Raoul had turned out to be a sadist with the most impeccable, old-school manners.

  Please schedule an hour before breakfast for your morning run.

  Please remember we will be focusing on weapons training on Monday. Please join me on the shooting range at one o’clock, after lunch.

  Please protect your left side while you block me. You’re very clearly right-handed, and your entire left side is much too weak.

  It was like no other training she had ever heard of, and she was in a class of one. He threw her, beckoned her to attack him from a different angle then threw her again. He kicked her, pinned her to the mat, gripped her in headlocks, slapped her against the wall, and gave her knives in practice bouts only to take them away from her with a confidence-crushing ease, and he did all of it so politely.

  “Shooting range,” she said. “You got it.”

  Still prone, she watched his shoes turn as he walked away.

  Diego’s head came into view, angled sideways. Squatting, he deposited a cold bottle of water on the mat beside her.

  “You saw all that, did you?” It was still hard to talk, and her voice came out strained.

  “Hard to miss it, chica. Watching you crash and burn has become a daily thing.”

  When she felt ready, she pushed onto her knees. “I would almost say I can’t remember the last time I was pain-free, except I can—it was the night I arrived here.”

  “That’s right, Xavier left right after you got here.” He shook his head. “Normally people start feeling the benefits from a blood offering right away, but it must not have taken hold for you yet.”

  She didn’t even want to get into that subject. Shaking her head, she screwed off the top of the water bottle and drank. “I guess I was naive, because I thought I was in shape.”

  “You weren’t bad. Thing is, around here ‘not bad’ isn’t good enough.” He looked at her sidelong. “Are you sorry you came?”

  She ran the cold bottle over her hot forehead. “I don’t know how I feel.” A quick glance around the large area told her that she and Diego were the only ones around. She confessed, “It’s almost like Raoul wants me to fail. Like he wants me to reach the point after another hard, bruising fall when I’ll throw in the towel and quit.”

  Diego glanced around too then shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. He does seem to be riding you pretty hard.”

  “Well, if he is, to hell with him,” she said between her teeth. “I never quit anything just because things got rough. I don’t know how.”

  “Good attitude, chica, except for one thing. There’s lots of easier ways to live life. You don’t always have to go the hard way.” Before she could react, he slapped her lightly on the back, straightened and walked back to the weights.

  Scowling, she finished off the rest of the water and headed out to the shooting range. Maybe Diego was right. The problem was, she didn’t know anything but the hard way.

  After living her childhood in a series of foster homes, she had worked multiple jobs to get through school and had graduated with two bachelor’s degrees, one in computer science and the other in accounting. Nobody had ever given her anything. She’d always had to fight to succeed, and this would be no different.

  As she had promised Xavier, she did everything Raoul asked of her. When at first she couldn’t run for an entire hour every day, she ran and walked as fast as she could, often battling a stitch in her side.

  Then came the daily weight training sessions, both on machines and with free weights, and swimming, three times a week. After cardio and muscle-building exercises came the training sessions—hand to hand, small weapons training and the shooting range.

  At the end of some days she could barely climb up the stairs to crawl into bed. At least severe exhaustion had stopped the nightmares with Malphas, because as soon as her head hit the pillow each night, she slept like the dead.

  As for Malphas, despite being an all-Powerful Djinn, either he was completely out of touch with how a mere human might be able to hide, or retrieving her hadn’t become that important to him—yet.

  At the end of January, she had received her first stipend for a thousand dollars. When Raoul summoned her into his office, which was located off one end of the gym, and he handed her the receipt, she stared at the number for a while, too shocked to say anything.

  Everything she needed had already been bought and paid for. She had even been given new clothes for training, along with three pairs of excellent running shoes. The stipend was just for discretionary spending.

  Raoul asked, “Do you want the money deposited into a bank account?”

  She shook her head numbly. If it went into one of her accounts, she wouldn’t be able to touch it. Worse, the account activity might attract attention.

  “Very well,” he said after a few moments. “Until you decide what to do with it, I’ll keep a running total of what you’re owed.”

  “Actually, could I have it on a prepaid Visa card?” she asked. At least then she would have the money readily at hand, in case something untoward happened and she had to leave. “I might want to order some books, or maybe a portable stereo for my room.”

  “Of course. I’ll get one ordered for you.”

  The card arrived at the end of that week, and Raoul gave it to her one night after supper.

  She didn’t order anything. Instead, she tucked the card away in her underwear drawer. If the position fell through, that anonymous Visa card was her lifeline away from the estate
. She intended on collecting as many of them as she could get. Even if she lasted only as long as the trial period, when the year was up, she would have twelve thousand dollars to help her relocate somewhere else.

  She liked the shooting range. It was the only time during the day that she could stop straining her whole body, all except for her arms and shoulders. Even then, sometimes those ached so much it was all she could do to aim two-handed with a small Glock 17 that weighed less than two pounds. She also discovered she was good at target practice, and she liked the work with the handguns, although she struggled with the larger automatic weapons.

  Throughout her training, people drifted in and out of her lessons, some joining her for the morning run while others participated in other activities, until gradually she grew acquainted with the other eleven inhabitants of the estate.

  There was Raoul, of course, the polite sadist who was clearly the acknowledged manager in Xavier’s absence. Raoul’s deputy was Diego, who was responsible for all the vehicles and for maintaining the indoor pool. There were also Angelica and her assistant, Enrique; Jordan and his assistant, Peter; and Marc, Jeremy, Aaron, Scott and Brian, the five she had been cloistered with until Melisande and Justine had left the estate.

  Angelica, the only other female, was a reticent, gray-haired woman of Hispanic descent with a rounded form that was nevertheless toned with muscle. Tess wanted to ask her why there were so few women on the estate, but there never seemed to be a good time to talk with her.

  To a person, they were all uniformly friendly toward her and also a bit distant, and she was under no illusions whatsoever. She didn’t fit in, and probably, as far as they were concerned, she wouldn’t truly belong until at least after her trial year was over.

  That was okay. She had never really fit in anywhere, certainly not in any of her foster families. She didn’t need to fit in or belong. She just needed to survive.

  Midafternoons, right around the time when she could hardly walk anymore, it was time for the other lessons—Elder Races history, politics and inter-demesne conflicts. Memorizing the different races and their predilections, strengths and weakness. Information about each Councillor on the Elder tribunal. The power structures in each demesne, along with the heads and their heirs.

  After supper came the lessons in etiquette. The ideal attendant was the invisible one who anticipated her patron’s needs and fulfilled them without needing to be asked.

  One never spoke until one was spoken to. Always serve drinks from the left, food—for those visitors who partook of food—from the right. The dagger set at the top of every supper plate was symbolic (of what, she hadn’t yet figured out, and no one had told her); no one ever used them, or if they did, it was considered gauche and the height of rudeness.

  An attendant might disregard any request or order from another Vampyre (or anyone else, for that matter) outside of the house, but if that Vampyre was a guest in her patron’s house, then as an extension of her patron’s hospitality, she must do everything in her power to make that visiting Vampyre (or other creature) feel at home.

  Out of the entire six weeks of training, that was the one time she balked.

  She said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Everything.”

  Raoul said, “Everything that your patron would wish you to do, you should do.”

  “Oh, come on.” She gestured with a stranger’s arm that was slim, tanned and rippling with toned muscle. Between the insane amount of training and truly excellent nutrition, the entire landscape of her body was changing dramatically. “Sex. Blood. Anything?”

  He gave her a severe look. “What do you think Xavier would want for you to do?”

  She hesitated, as she remembered the talk she’d had with Xavier in his study.

  I will never bite you without your permission. I will never take anything from you that you do not want to give.

  Feeling only slightly chastened, she muttered, “You’re saying he wouldn’t want us to give in to another Vampyre’s demand for sex or blood, but would the other Vampyre know that? What if they didn’t care and pushed for it anyway?”

  “That would be a most extreme mistake on their part,” said Raoul, his face stern. “If any guest tries to press you to do something you don’t want to do, you must tell me or Xavier immediately.”

  She watched him narrowly. “But what about what happens in other Vampyre households?”

  Raoul lifted a shoulder in a very Gallic shrug. “To each house, its own rules.”

  “That sounds almost like a motto.”

  “It’s an ancient saying and lies at the root of Vampyre diplomacy. Old Vampyres are not only Powerful and opinionated, but they have lived through huge societal changes. What is normal for them may not be so in modern society.”

  Even though it was considered the height of bad manners to put her elbows on the table, she did it anyway and propped her head in both hands. “What if they’re trafficking? Slavery was pretty prominent once, and a societal norm.”

  “That’s another matter entirely.” For once Raoul didn’t admonish her for her incorrect posture, and he seemed happy enough to just talk, as he leaned back in his chair opposite hers. “You’re no longer talking behaviors or who has the authority to dictate what customs to follow in a house. If someone is breaking the law and they get caught, they have to face the consequences.”

  But how often were they caught? She scratched her fingers against her scalp. “Thinking about all of this makes my head hurt. I feel like I’m training for war and a house party all at the same time.”

  “That’s a fair description,” he said. “Sometimes relations get strained between Vampyre houses, or between creatures from different demesnes, and occasionally violence might break out. While that’s relatively unusual, if a human is caught in the middle and doesn’t know how to handle herself, she’s as helpless as a six-week-old puppy. No patron with any kind of conscience would allow for that to happen.”

  Conscience. There was another concept that messed with her simple idea of what a monster should be. Irritably she pushed the thought away. “So all of this is just an extended version of basic training.”

  “In some ways, yes.” He regarded her with an unfathomable expression. “And like basic training, we’ve barely scratched the surface. It will be some time before you’re suitable to be taken out in public.”

  She bristled for more than one reason, but mostly because, despite her attempt to keep up emotional barriers, she was starting to look for Raoul’s approval, and his words stung.

  Clearly everyone else in the household thought highly of him, and she was beginning to respect him as well. He was always patient, always courteous, and indefatigable. But despite the fact that she threw everything she had into every single day, she had almost never heard a word of praise from him.

  Her mouth tightened. “And here I thought I was doing rather well.”

  She had meant to sound flippant, but it fell flat. He met her gaze, his face devastatingly dispassionate.

  “You are, by far, the weakest link in this household.” His voice was just as dispassionate as his expression, which made his words all the more cutting. “You are much weaker and slower than the rest of us, and far less trained, and at best, your loyalties are undefined and uncommitted. As long as you refuse a direct blood offering, you will retain the worst of a human’s frailties. With Xavier’s bite, you would become faster and stronger. The hour-long run that you struggle to complete every day would become merely routine, and all the aches and bruises you’ve suffered in the last few weeks would heal overnight. While I like you well enough, and I don’t necessarily think you’re a bad person, I see you as a dangerous liability.”

  She would not let his words hurt. Balling her hands into fists, she breathed evenly until the heavy ache in her gut passed. After a moment, she said, “Xavier has already told me that if I can’t let him take a
direct blood offering, freely and willingly, by the end of the trial year, I’m out. Now I even understand why. It’s for all the reasons you just listed. But it’s also early days yet. Despite everything you’ve thrown at me, I’m still here. I’m still training.”

  He studied her. “Fair enough. I think we’re done for the day.”

  She stood with poorly disguised relief. “See you in the morning.”

  “And you.”

  As soon as she reached her room, she brushed her teeth, fell into bed and was out like a light again.

  Six A.M. came hard these days, but one good thing about rising early for a run—she was a good fifteen minutes into her hour before she fully woke up.

  If she weren’t so sore, she would grow to love those early morning runs. It was the only time since she had arrived that she went outside the walls of the estate, and it was quickly becoming hypnotic.

  That early in the day, sunlight had barely begun to filter through the tall redwood trees on the east side of the curving, remote road, and to the west, more often than not fog rolled off of the ocean like a crowd of ghosts. Whenever any of the others joined her, usually they wore headphones and listened to music, but she didn’t have an MP3 so she listened to the sounds of the wind and the ocean, and the rhythm of her own breath.

  After a quick shower, she dressed in plain black exercise pants, tennis shoes and tank top, breakfasted on a hefty helping of oatmeal, raw walnuts, fresh fruit and prescription strength Aleve, and arrived at the training area in the gym, ready for another day.

  As had happened several other times, this morning Raoul greeted her with a nod and gestured her over to where Marc and Jeremy were sparring with knives. Relieved at the small reprieve, she reached his side.

  She noted, and not for the first time, that everybody else maintained their physical regimen while working at their jobs on the estate. Of all the attendants, she was the only one that trained all day long, and she was all too aware it was because she was so new and had so much to learn.