Free Beloved Vampire by Joey W. Hill Page A

returned now, as he looked at her. Yes, she had some extraordinary qualities, but determination and a fierce resistance were typically not assets in a servant. So why had Raithe wanted her, badly enough to take her by force? Raithe had kept six second-marks in his household, all beautiful women, all willing.
    As Jessica reached the proper dosage of blood, the power of the binding that came with the third mark rushed through him. It shimmered in his blood, caused an acceleration of his vital organs as they accommodated the meshing of souls. He closed his eyes, his hand sliding down to rest on the sweet curve between shoulder and neck, his thumb teasing the base of her throat, an instinctive proprietary response. The third mark would put her under his protection for the duration of her life.
    Surprised at his strong reaction to the thought, struggling through the physical transition, he reminded himself she was going to present quite a challenge, what with the whole vampire world looking to kill her. But once he got that resolved, he would figure out a way to set her up in a situation where she could reclaim as much of the life she’d wanted for herself as possible. He didn’t intend to keep her, after all.
    He had a pair of third-marked servants who served him well. They were husband and wife, so they fulfilled each other, while his emotions were kept out of the equation. That was best, when it came to humans. If no other lesson had proven that to him, Farida’s death had. He owed it to her, to honor her that way.
    But those rational thoughts faltered when the third mark appeared, high on her inner thigh. After a third mark completed, there was always a visible reflection of it on the servant’s body, something that looked like a cross between a scar and a tattoo. It was a mystical thing, for the vampire had no control over it. To date, none of them knew why it occurred. The husband and wife’s marks had been a pair of mated wolves, appropriate to their relationship with their Master.
    But Jessica’s gave Mason pause, for it was a silhouette he knew far too well. It was a small replica of the decorative scarring that had been carved into his back, using his own blood, centuries ago. The mythical desert tiger. Only one servant had ever carried it for him. Farida, in exactly the same place.
    He almost dropped her, recalling himself just in time to keep holding her. He supposed, as old as he was, perhaps the marks recycled themselves. He was not given to mystical fancy, and he was not going to imagine that the woman he’d lost three hundred years ago was sending him a message through this woman’s flesh.
    Fortunately, when he shifted Jess, something else caught his attention. Frowning, he drew her up to his chest, leaning her against his shoulder to see what his hand had touched on her back.

    His mark would take away the sickness that Raithe’s death had inflicted on her, and the gunshot damage. Wounds on a third-marked servant disappeared within days, hours or minutes, depending on the age of the servant, the severity of the wound and if the blood of the Master was available to the servant. A servant would heal from most everything except a heart staking with metal. But a third-marked servant would scar, if the wound was touched with the Master’s own blood. Some vampires branded their servants, holding the brand with that blood. He knew Lady Lyssa had done that to Jacob, just above his hip bone.
    What he was looking at took him a moment to digest, and then when he did, Jess stirred restlessly in his arms, probably feeling the wave of fury from him, even in her deep, unconscious state. Eleven scars, running from her shoulders to the rise of her buttocks, like the evenly spaced bars of a prison. Raithe had skinned her, and marked each strip with his blood to hold them there.
    The number of scars broke something else loose in his memory. The background data on her said she’d run away from Raithe, unsuccessfully, eleven