Page 143 of Vampire's Choice
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re young, Ruth. I don’t mean that in a condescending way.” Kaela gestured to the chair across from her. “Will you sit? Or does my presence offend you?”
“No. Of course not.” Ruth perched on the chair, uncomfortable. “I don’t know exactly how to begin, except to say I know I owe you an apology.
“You understand submission to someone more powerful than you. But to a human, that you don’t understand.” Kaela gave a bitter half laugh. “Garron knew I was acting too precipitously. When I recognized it in you, I couldn’t contain myself, the desire to connect to another vampire that…was like me. Only you’re not like me. And I’m far old enough to know better. Your desires are a different shape from my own."
Kaela’s gaze became flint. “Garron’s life is in your hands, because of my foolishness. He submits, when there is no submission in him. As Merc noted, he has a great deal of ‘service Dom’ to him, which is what makes this work, but there is enough pretense to it, for both of us, to make it…difficult. He does it for me. Because he loves me."
Kaela took a breath. “I like being an overlord, and I'm damn good at it. But in our world, it's incomprehensible that I could also desire submission, when I’m not holding those reins. They don’t see how a submissive soul can wield power, hold her own, and determine her own path. Not and equally desire someone I can trust, who will let me surrender to his care, his attention and demands, and find peace in myself.”
Kaela’s words echoed inside Ruth’s soul, matching the thoughts she’d struggled with ever since she’d felt the first stirrings of a desire to submit.
“My lady…” Ruth spoke slowly, “I’m not sure if that’s true. What you said about us…being different. But I just…I’m just not sure.”
Kaela’s gaze flickered. “You want me to explain why I submit to a human.”
“I do. If you can forgive my unkindness enough to tell me.”
Kaela studied her another long moment. “You like to fight, Ruth. Perhaps as an alternative to fear or uncertainty, but you also enjoy it. It’s evident in your manner. I’ve been fighting all my life. Before I was turned, I saw war and bloodshed. Death, in extremes no one can imagine unless they experience it. Even then, it defied comprehension, the horror of it. To be who I need to be now, I need a place to go where there is no fight required, nothing to prove, except my devotion to my Master.”
Clouds passing in the sky outside the window shadowed her face. “We live in a world where power is used to take whatever is wanted, including a servant’s submission. What my heart craved was a Master who took what I needed him to take. Gave me what I needed to be given. Who I could serve because my service answered something for both of us, not just him or me. I found that in a human.”
Which was what Merc had pretty much suggested to Ruth, hadn’t he?
I’m always right. You should just accept that.
Eavesdropper. Go away. But hearing him in her head helped that raw feeling in her stomach, she had to admit.
“You would tell me you submit to Merc because he’s stronger,” Kaela continued. “I don’t question that you have that need. But it’s more than that. He can overpower you, but he doesn’t overpower those things you need him to respect. To recognize, trust and honor.” Her luminous gaze rested on Ruth’s. “And eventually, to cherish, as something vital to your relationship with one another.”
Hadn’t Ruth always told herself a Master would have to deserve her submission? And that was a list far longer than just his ability to physically overpower her.
Her mother had good-naturedly chided her for her vampire-human bias. No secret there, something they laughed about. But right now, it wasn’t a laughing matter. Ruth realized how that bias had blinded her, creating a wall between her and a woman who knew exactly how Ruth felt.
Neither of them was alone in those feelings.
“Ah, to hell with all of it.” Kaela shook her head and stared out at the night again. Ruth saw her eyes glisten as the overlord revealed her woman’s heart. “When I took Garron as my servant, knowing he was my Master, it was a step I never thought I'd get the opportunity to have, so for a little while, it was everything. Then, over time, knowing that you can’t have more, that that’s the limit… It wears you down. It wears us both down.”
The slight break in her voice made Ruth want to reach out in comfort, surely not a wise move, but then it was gone, and Kaela was in control once again. “I think Lady Lyssa knows,” she said abruptly. “I think she’s always known.”
Kaela didn’t dwell on the shocking declaration. Instead, her lips curved in that sad smile as her eyes came back to Ruth. “Does my explanation help you, or simply make you more confused?”
Some of both. But while a lifetime of viewing things the way Ruth viewed them didn’t change in a single moment, it could start her down that road. And she knew what the first step was.
Ruth shifted. “Everything you just said, it may look different, the way I pursue it, but I think what’s inside of me isn’t that different from what’s inside of you. I also think you know that.”
She managed a tight smile for Lady Kaela. “I wish our world was a different place. Or parts of it. I wish I hadn’t reacted the way I had, but I hadn’t seen the possibility for this in a human and vampire relationship. Now I do.”
As Kaela’s gaze flashed with surprise and myriad emotions, Ruth held out a hand. “You gave me the gift of your trust, and I didn’t respond well. I apologize to you and to your Master. Perhaps when the business that brought me here is done, we could plan to get together again. Here, or at my family’s island. Get to know one another better. Find out if we could become friends, my lady.”
A slight smile appeared on Kaela’s face. Less sad. She freed a hand from the blanket and clasped Ruth’s.
“Just Kaela,” she reminded her.
The following sunset, after Ruth rose, Kaela invited her and Merc to breakfast with her and Garron in the upper dining room. They enjoyed coffee and relaxed conversation, a new ease to it. Ruth entertained Kaela with stories of the Circus and encouraged her and Garron to attend another show.
While she was mindful not to treat Garron as anything more than a servant before other staff, Ruth included him in the conversation when it worked to do so. The subtle hints of appreciation from him and Kaela gave her even more to think about. Merc watched it all in his usual impassive way, but the approval in his mind was undeniably uplifting.