If I dream, I don’t remember it. The only thing I remember is being wrapped in a warmth that feels both foreign and familiar at the same time.

WAKE resounds through my mind and though I try not to obey I fail. My eyes flutter open and this time I can see. Where I was certain that my room was nothing but a huge bed in an underground tomb, what I see when I awaken would make any sixteen year-old girl feel like a fairy tale princess. This room is completely done in shades of pale purple and silver filigree, delicate cutouts showcase prancing animals, and everything is light and airy. I am also different; no longer sprawled artlessly across a sumptuous expanse of bedding, I’m tucked delicately into a ridiculously lacey nightdress that covers me from neck to ankle while simultaneously showing off much more skin than I ever would out in public.

“I’m not going to squeal with girlish delight, if that’s what you’re waiting for,” I mutter and a masculine chuckle answers me from behind the headboard.

“It was worth a shot,” Jarvis rumbles and I fling my arm over my eyes to shield me from the sight of him. It’s too much. Whereas before (when I was a human) I only ever studied his shirts and his shoes—maybe the occasional photograph of his gently waving sable hair, midnight blue, compelling eyes, or the dusky, flawless pale of his skin stretching over six feet and two-hundred fifty pounds of muscular male—I can look at him without being Enthralled by him and I refuse to do it. “Why won’t you look at me, Solaine?”

“Why won’t you stop looking at me, Jarvis?”

“You’re lovely,” he purrs and I snort. Resisting the urge to throw off the blankets he’s tucked me into so neatly I put my arm down but keep my eyes firmly shut. “You don’t believe me?”

“You always were a flatter, Jarvis.”

“Master,” he corrects and my eyes fly open. Oh god, whispers across my mind and his answering smile is pleased and feral. He’s even more handsome than the few pictures of him I’d seen. An intriguing blend of man and animal, Jarvis’s smile drips with pure male attraction and photographs simply never captured the feline grace and magnetism that comes from staring into those shimmering, midnight blue depths. Instead of losing myself—as some weak, female, secret part of me longs to do—I snarl,

“Never my master,” and instead of becoming enraged he smiles with a hunter’s knowing.

“Maybe not yet,” Jarvis says and before I can grin with triumph he adds, “you don’t know, yet, what being mine entails. You’ll think differently once I show you.”

“I’ll think differently when I’m dead,” I mutter and he replies,

“There’s that too,” his condescending tone spurs me to action and I start to throw off the covers, swinging my feet to the floor and making all of two steps out of bed before my legs collapse me to the soft, Aubusson rug separating me from the cold stone.

Or I would have collapsed, if Jarvis hadn’t used one of those lightning-fast vampire tricks to scoop me up before I could fall. Cradling me against the firmness of his chest, he chides me by saying, “You’re still weak.”

“Obviously,” I snort and he rubs his chin against the crown of my head—fatherly—and it’s almost more than I can bear.

It’s not that I haven’t had my share of liaisons, I have. But it’s been an eternity, maybe 10 years or more, since I’ve been held like I matter. The Unveiling did more than decimate the ranks of mankind, those of us who survived did only that. We didn’t have time for softness or tenderness, not when each child who was left ended up burying their parents because no one else would do it. There were lucky ones—mostly children too young to fend for themselves—whose parents made the necessary mental adjustment and stuck with them. My parents, however, did not. They even tried to take me with them when they…left…but for some reason the tea that took their lives was not strong enough to take me.

“What makes you so sad, Solaine?” Jarvis asks and I stiffen. I didn’t realize that, even without speaking the words in my head he’d so easily invade my internal landscape.

“Let me go, Jarvis,” my voice cracks like a whip and his arms tighten instead of releasing me.

“You might hurt yourself,” he murmurs, breathing into my hair, “I can’t have one of my own hurt…”

“Except for those two NewBlood assholes I slaughtered,” my reply does not do what I intended. Scratch that, I didn’t INTEND anything with that statement—it just kind of slipped out—but I didn’t mean for him to lean me back against the bed and pin me beneath his immense weight.

“Does that mean you want to make amends for what you did?” Jarvis purrs, turning the full force of his deep voice against me and making me quiver even though I know it’s just more vampire tricks. “How do you propose to…compensate me…for your transgression?” His breath tickles my ear and I fight a losing battle against the heat uncurling in my belly and snaking tendrils outward to my extremities.

Jarvis nuzzles my ear again, tongue flicking out to tease the column of my neck and I shudder, trying desperately not to respond and failing miserably. I would like to blame my new vampire body’s sensitivity but no man’s ever been as skilled as drawing a response from me as Vampire Master Jarvis is. His arms lock around me, rolling me on top of him and when I try to push away they band more solidly than steel. Instead of punishing me with his strength, his large hands splay across my back, molding me to him and I feel his desire quite plainly against the gauzy lace separating us.

“Jarvis, NO!” my exclamation falls on deaf ears as his hand works its way into my now shoulder-length mahogany curls and fists; yanking my head back, exposing the line of my throat and inadvertently forcing my eyes to roll back.

“You have to pay me back for destroying my minions…” he whispers, punctuating the statement by gently tugging on my hair; riding that fine line between pleasure and pain. My back arches reflexively and presses me more firmly against him and the small cry (a breathy, desperate sound) that escapes my throat infuriates me even as it arouses him. Jarvis rolls me onto my side—bending me backward until I’m almost completely bowed—and I kick a leg out ineffectually, trying to get him to let go. Instead my struggles seem to excite him and as he levers himself up—raising his body over mine once more—I cease struggling completely and lay still, unmoving and limp.

“Solaine,” the word drags out of his mouth in a sharp staccato and I turn dull, glassy eyes toward his sculpted profile. Jarvis trails the back of his hand up my side, nails grazing the tender flesh through the gauzy lingerie, as he works up my hip, my side, my shoulder—lingering on my neck—before finally cupping my cheek and staring into eyes like mirrors, revealing nothing of the depths within. “Solaine look at me,”

“Yes Master Jarvis,” I reply; my voice a cold, dead thing. I’ve somehow shut him out of my mind—or his desire has clouded his ability to read me—but either way I snarl and taunt and scream at him from the safety of myself as his face betrays his doubts.

“Tell me what it is,” his tender tone is a remarkable facsimile, cultivated over years I’m sure, and I smile inside but stare up at him with sorrow cloaking my true emotions. When I still neglect to answer him his hand travels down to my neck and I feel each one of his fingers find purchase around my throat. “Answer me,” Jarvis commands and I let words tumble out of my mouth that have no emotion, no inflection, and no meaning to me,

“I have to pay,” I reply tonelessly. “I killed your people—not just once, but many times—and now you have the right to demand I make amends. Since I have nothing you want…except my body and my blood…you’ll take whatever payment you desire. I can’t stop you,” I smile sweetly, but it’s the smile of the brainwashed minion and from the way he grimaces it’s the last thing he wants from me, “so I won’t try. Do with me what you will, Master, and let my debt be paid.” The gamble has paid off; my words do more to extinguish his desire than all my protestations and he releases me, disgusted, and sits on the edge of the bed.

“You don’t mean that,” Jarvis growls from between clenched teeth. “You’re just toying with me,” his words are pleading, as if what he truly desires is my unwilling submission more than submission itself. I continue to lay immobile, pretending not to care if he rips my clothes off right now and has his way with me while I’m both screaming and gibbering with animal terror from the safe confines of my mind. After an interminable length of time he snarls, “What do you want?”

“To serve you, Master,” and I fear he might have struck me, if he hadn’t caught a glimpse of something flashing like fire behind my eyes.

“Another time, perhaps,” Jarvis says, returned to that unflappable calm I used to expect from him. He tosses his head casually, but the satisfied darkness in his eyes belies his air of nonchalance as he rises to leave. “I have other matters to attend to as it is. I will see you later this evening,” he doesn’t quite command me, but his tone holds a sharp edge I might once have feared to tread. The large door glides shut almost silently, but when it locks the sound is deep and final.