Page 125 of Vampire's Choice
He noted the dirt on her gloves and the garden apron she wore over jeans that fit her curvy body well. “I was looking for Mal.” He dipped his head toward the hallway leading from the living room, where he could sense the vampire.
“He’s in his office,” Elisa confirmed. “He’ll call me if you need anything.”
Ruth’s father was leaning back in a squeaky and ancient-looking metal office chair. He had the tip of a lethal-looking and sizeable knife balanced on the desk blotter and was turning it in meditative circles, obviously a routine habit while thinking. Though if it did double duty as a warning for his daughter’s chosen, all the better.
Merc could respect that.
“Did you sleep well?” Mal asked courteously.
“Your daughter gave me three marks,” Merc said.
He had no patience for small talk. Mal gestured him to a dilapidated sofa across from the giant desk that looked like a sea chest.
“We thought she might. What’s on your mind?”
He asked Mal to explain vampire overlord protocols and “expected” servant behavior, so he could support Ruth as needed. Much of it wouldn’t apply to him, but Merc was thinking of what Adan had said. Mal confirmed the line Ruth needed to straddle. “They won’t expect you to act as a typical servant, but they also won’t expect her to act submissive. If she does, or you dominate her before them, she’ll lose any respect they have for her.”
“I can fix that attitude,” Merc said darkly.
Mal appeared to appreciate Merc’s opinion, but he shook his head. “That would end her ability to be part of the vampire world in any meaningful way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When the two vampires tried to take advantage of her,” Mal’s jaw tightened, telling Merc his feelings about that, “she was seen as a vampire, one of us. If you take violent action as you describe and she encounters vampires on her own, without you, she won’t be seen as one of us. She’ll be prey.
“And if you do encounter vampires when you’re together, they’ll respect and deal with you. She’ll be dismissed, as if she’s the servant. Titles in our world are a front. The vampire that holds them always has to back them with the appropriate power. It’s the only thing a vampire’s nature truly respects. It’s a hard bias to overcome, no matter how conscious we are of it. Even Ruth, for all of her challenges, has her share of it.”
“You’re a confusing race, full of contradictions.”
Mal lifted a brow. “Do you know of one that isn’t? I expect angels and incubi have their own challenges. And we all know how confusing humans can be.”
“Including your servant.”
Mal’s lips quirked. “A female of any race is confusing. Human or vampire.”
Ruth was up. Merc could feel her leaving the bed, figuring out what she was going to wear. She also reached out to him. She didn’t interrupt his conversation, but the touch of her mind was almost as pleasant as the touch of her hand. He “touched” her back and her pleasure flooded him. She liked being connected to him.
As Mal had just dryly pointed out, he’d likely have to put some work into keeping it that way. Merc rose. “I understand her desire to stand on her own two feet in her own world, and ask for nothing that she didn’t earn. I’ll do my best to respect that.”
Mal’s eyes glinted. “Did you just share that with her, or did you keep it between us?”
Merc pressed his lips together. “I think it’s better if she just assumes I’ll always step in when she’s at risk. Whether she wants me to or not. Because if it comes to a conflict between vampire protocol and that, there’s no question as to what choice I’ll make.”
“I don’t necessarily disagree. Just make sure you think it through, before you make that choice for her.”
Merc could tell Mal understood. Because it was male logic.
Simple and straightforward.
Lady Kaela’s home was in Monterey, perched on cliffs overlooking the slate-blue Pacific surf. When they landed in the driveway, Ruth had a question for her angel incubus.
“So do angels have built-in GPS? You’re given an address and you just know where it is?”
“You scoured my soul a few hours ago. I choose to keep some things a mystery, so you don’t tire of me and cast me aside too soon.”
“Is that your way of saying you have no fucking clue?”
She dodged his attempt to grab her, laughing. However, when the front door opened, she had the somber mien appropriate for meeting an overlord. Years of adopting the habit for their many vampire island visitors made the transition seamless. Locking down the trepidation vampires she didn’t know provoked within her was part of the same process.