Nightmaster

And she’d become invaluable to Ares. So indispensable, so trustworthy and useful that she’d make it impossible for him to resist her.

He’s only the means to an end, she reminded herself. And she was a soldier of the Enclave who hated everything he stood for.

And always would.

Chapter 6

Ares summoned Cassandra six hours later, after Trinity had retired to rest. He ordinarily avoided taking blood from his Favorite more than once a day, but his body’s other hungers had become too demanding to ignore, and he knew that Cassandra would never object.

He had spent those six hours pacing his room, trying to concentrate on ancient human texts, receiving his client Freebloods, taking reports and drinking wine until he could drink no more.

Every hour he had considered calling Trinity to him. His entire body throbbed with wanting her. She moved him not only physically, but also emotionally, and that made no sense to him.

He had told her the truth: he wanted to know her thoughts, to hear her views of things about which he could not be objective. But, above all, he needed to understand why she could be so unwillingly attracted to an Opir, especially when he owned her very life. She had every reason to hate him, like any of the humans in Erebus. But he had smelled her arousal, heard the rapid thrum of her pulse when he came near. She seemed to be giving way to some primal urge within herself that had little to do with gratitude.

He wondered if she was drawn to him because he was different.

From the beginning of human civilization, when the first Opiri had begun to gather in groups and hunting parties, Ares had been branded an outsider. The earliest Bloodmasters had declared that he could not be full-blooded because of his hair and eyes—that he was, as Palemon had called him, a “freak of nature” and a throwback to some ancient, more primitive species no Opir wanted to remember.

Many had tried to kill him, but he was strong, and he had fought all the harder to prove himself. Fought to show he was more a true Opir than any of them, in every way that implied. He had fought and killed until no one dared Challenge him again, and he had remained awake while the vast majority of other Opiri had taken the Long Sleep.

In all those years, weary of bloodshed and battle, he had lived alone, making no contact with the other Bloodmasters still roaming the earth. Since the Awakening, he had maintained a solitary existence within the Citadel, devoting himself to study and intellectual pursuits.

That had directly led to his choice to treat his property with decency and avoid unnecessary conflict. It was simple logic that one’s life ran more smoothly without such complications, and he despised any alteration of the Household routine.

Now, merely because of her arrival, Trinity had completely unsettled it. “My lord?”

Cassandra, dressed in a sheer sleeping shift, her eyes heavy and her hair tousled, stood in the doorway to his bedchamber. She had never looked more beautiful.

“Come in,” he said. “Wine?”

“Please.” Cassandra glided toward him, the diaphanous fabric sliding over the lush curves of her body, concealing and revealing naked flesh with every step. Smiling seductively, she lifted the glass of wine he poured and watched him over the rim of the goblet.

“How may I serve you, my lord?” she asked, her full lips stained red with the wine.

Before she could answer, she set down her glass, undid a tie at her neck and let the shift fall into a foamy puddle at her feet. As he had expected, she clearly had no objection to sharing his bed again after only six hours.

He had never asked her why she had been Deported, but she had been both experienced and unafraid when he had claimed her. She had told him more than once, when they were entangled in the bed and the barriers had fallen, that he was a superb lover.

Without waiting for his suggestion, she climbed onto the bed. She seldom required any foreplay, and she seemed far more eager than usual.

Because of Trinity, he thought. She believed she had a rival.

Refusing to think on it further, Ares began to shed his clothes, hardly aware of what he was doing. When he joined Cassandra on the bed, he wasn’t thinking of her at all. It was not her hips he caressed as he positioned himself behind her, not her lovely back or the elegant lines of her neck.

“My lord,” she said, squirming to entice him. “Please.”

He rolled off the bed, leaving her looking after him in confusion. He dressed with his back to her.

“I have no need of you now,” he said, more roughly than he had intended.

“My lord?” she said. “How have I displeased you?”

He forced himself to look at her. She seemed very small, very vulnerable, all her sophistication and provocative manner gone as if she had shed it along with her shift.

“It is not your fault,” he said, belting his tunic. “Go to your room, Cassandra. I have asked enough of you today.”

Cassandra stared up at him, tears leaking from her eyes. Ares had never seen her cry.

“How long will it be my room?” she asked, clutching the sheets tightly above her breasts. “I knew this was going to happen ever since I saw her. She’ll have my place, won’t she? You’ll send me to the harem, and I—”

“Silence,” Ares snapped. “You will do as I tell you. Go to your room.”

She climbed down from the bed, dragging the sheets with her. “I know you,” she said, her voice trembling. “She can only cause trouble here. Why did you fight for her?”

“You would be wise to hold your tongue, Cassandra,” he said.

“I know she excites you, but she’ll never let you have her the way you want her.”

“She is a serf. She will obey me.”

“But you don’t want it that way, do you?” she laughed bitterly. “She isn’t afraid of you. She’s not afraid of anything. You could take her if you wanted, but you expect her to come crawling to you and beg. You never had to do that with me.” She took a step toward him. “There is something wrong about her, Ares. If you can’t see it...”

All the tension in Ares’s body seemed to explode out of his skin. He strode to Cassandra and grabbed her wrist. The sheets fell to the floor.

“I have given you every privilege,” he said. “Every comfort, the highest status a serf can possess. But you will not speak to me this way, Cassandra. You will never challenge or question my decisions again.”

She stared down at his hand on her wrist. He let her go, sickened by the look of despair on her face.

“I have no wish to cause you pain,” he said as gently as he could. “Trinity will live in the harem quarters. Her value to me is in her knowledge.”

“You are generous, my lord,” Cassandra said, bending to pick up the sheets. Ares got to them first and stood holding them in his hands until she took them and covered herself again. “I shall never forget your kindness. May you always find what you seek.”

She walked through the door to her room, the sheets sweeping behind her like a train. Her parting words rang in Ares’s ears.

They made no sense to him. Had he not just told her that Trinity would never fill her role in his life? Yes, he wanted his new serf, and badly. But it was all part of the experiment to test Trinity...and himself.

Wasn’t it?

* * *

The next morning—or what passed for morning in this city of perpetual darkness—Trinity woke to the sense that she had been asleep far too long. She kicked the sheets away and rolled off the bed, instinctively ready to fight.

But there was no one here to be afraid of, not even Ares. She was already in a position that would make it much easier to do her work, as long as she didn’t goad Ares into the kind of jealous possessiveness he’d briefly displayed when he’d shown her the city.

I intend to keep you, Trinity, he had said. You will never hold any secrets from me.

Little did he know just how well she was keeping them.

She yawned, sat down on the edge of the bed and glanced at the ornate clock on her bedside table. It was just past 5:00 a.m. She’d fallen into a fitful sleep not long after Ares had dismissed her, though it had still been early in the evening and only ten hours since Ares had claimed her.

Just before Trinity had given into exhaustion, Elizabeth had brought a selection of sleeping shifts, loose tunics and pants and another gown from Abbie. She had informed Trinity that she was to remain in her room until Ares summoned her, but had seemed relieved that Trinity appeared well and unafraid in her new surroundings.

As if for the first time, she glanced around the room. It was luxurious, with attractive paintings above the bed, a small Persian carpet and furniture that might really be Louis XVI. Several dozen books stood on a small shelf against one wall. A dresser, supplied with various kinds of makeup and skin lotions, supported a large mirror. A side door led to a private bathroom.

Fully awake, Trinity went to shower and prepare herself for her second day as Ares’s serf. She sat in front of the mirror and, ignoring the facial enhancers, combed out her hair and pulled it behind her head. She didn’t intend to make herself look seductive; she had to play this out carefully, because Ares was bound to make the next move in their “game.” The one he’d told her she couldn’t win.

She put on the serf’s tunic, pants and slipper-like shoes, tying the tunic with a colorful sash that marked her “uniform” as slightly different from the ones she’d seen most of the other serfs wearing. The neckline of the tunic was low, exposing her throat,

All the better to bite you with, my dear, she thought, still dizzy in the midst of such contradictory feelings. She thought she might actually have to lie down again.

Someone knocked on the door and Trinity shot to her feet. Daniel stood in the doorway.

“I’ve been told to escort you to breakfast,” he said.

“Am I...dressed properly to meet Ares again?” she asked, pretending unease.

“You’re not going to Ares,” Daniel said. “He’s ordered that I take you down to the serf’s dining area.”

For a moment Trinity was completely startled. Was it really going to be that easy for her to make contact with the other serfs and scope out the Household?

“Is he dismissing me?” she asked as she joined Daniel at the door.

“I told you I don’t know his mind,” Daniel said stiffly, leading her toward a side entrance within the empty harem quarters. “He didn’t take your blood, did he?”

“No, but—”

“Did you refuse?”

“No. I offered. He still wouldn’t take it.”

Daniel snorted. She stopped him with a touch on his shoulder.

“You don’t want me here, do you?” she asked.

“Not if you disturb his peace and give him nothing in return. He’s been happy as he is.”

“Are Opiri ever happy?” she asked.

He began to walk again. “Until you know him,” he said, “you can’t understand him.”

“Then help me know him,” she said, catching up. “I have to live here, and I don’t know what I—”

“I’ll help you enough so that you don’t make too many stupid mistakes,” he said, “like interfering in a Challenge.”

“Ares already warned me about that,” she said. “You care about him, don’t you?”

“We’d all be much worse off in any other Household.”

Which wasn’t much of an answer, Trinity thought, but she’d begun to realize that she might learn a great deal about Ares from Daniel. If he was willing to tell her.

Still, she remained silent until they entered one of the narrow side corridors reserved for servants. Soon they reached a back staircase that descended to the floor below. Trinity memorized their path.

Instinctively she turned toward the delicious scents she knew must lead to the kitchen, but Daniel hung back.

“I have other duties,” he said. “The mess is through that door. Try not to make any trouble.”

Then he was gone, and she was left angry and frustrated by his unwarranted hostility. He was clearly very protective of Ares, and for some reason he thought she would be a detriment to the master’s life. The question was...why would he jump to such a conclusion?

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