Page 36 of Vampire's Choice

She left him reluctantly. Learning from a passing bearded lady in a satin dress and combat boots that Gundar was in the Big Top, she headed in that direction. As she strode toward it, she noted Charlie sitting at one of the picnic tables set randomly throughout the campground. The rough surface had been covered by a thick tablecloth, and she’d spread a shimmering length of fabric over it. From watching her mother make clothes, Ruth knew she was pinning and marking a pattern.

“Dressmaker and healer,” Ruth remarked, stopping beside her. “Why do I expect that’s only two of many jobs you do?”

“When you serve a vampire who’s the Mistress of the Circus, you do whatever is required. My lady.” Charlie spoke amiably, but she also started to straighten from her task to give Ruth her full attention.

She may have been raised in far more informal circumstances, but Ruth knew what the healer was doing. “It’s Ruth,” she said. “And while I’m here, treat me like other Circus employees. Unless we’re around the stodgy vampires who get their knickers in a twist about it, you don’t have to do the vampire-servant protocol thing.”

“Thank you, my lady. Ruth.” The second marked servant returned her attention to the fabric, feeling her way along the edge. “Cai tells me the same, when he is here.”

Ruth propped a hip on an unoccupied corner of the table. She could see Gundar in the entryway to the Big Top, talking to six roustabouts in tool belts. She had a moment to kill. “Cai, as in the vampire who pisses off stodgy vampires, but hasn’t been staked the way he deserves because he has the sexiest lupine servant in the world?”

Charlie smiled. “Yes, that Cai. You might get to see him and Rand while you’re here. They don’t perform with us anymore, but they stop in, as good friends and family will.”

“They’ve been to our sanctuary quite a few times.” The acid-tongued loner vampire preferred the wild spaces more than settled, urban ones. As a wolf shifter, his servant Rand’s preferences walked the same lines. Though Rand appeared more amiable than his Master, if the moment called for it, he could be formidable and intimidating as hell. Whether in wolf or human form.

They’d let Ruth run with them, allowing her to test herself against their speed and strength. He might be edgy, but Cai was never cruel to her.

Not the way she could tell Merc wanted to be. Or struggled against, depending on whose story you believed.

“My father is keenly interested in the wolf shifters. Beyond his island family—blood born and acquired—he’s always preferred the company of four-footed species.”

“Sensible. The animals we have here are usually far easier to get along with than the humanlike races. That includes the dragons. If they exterminate you in a puff of flame, you know exactly why.”

“No psychological analysis required?”

“None. Oh, I’ve left several shirts in your quarters. For performances, the security team wears black slacks or jeans, and a black golf shirt with the Circus logo in red embroidery on the pocket.” Charlie paused. “I’m glad you’re here, Ruth. Clara seems to like you.”

“I like her, too. Everyone seems worried about her.”

“Yes.” Charlie’s face reflected the added concern of a healer. “Seeing what she is seeing is traumatic, mentally and physically. Her gift has imposed an isolation upon her, no matter that she’s surrounded by friends and those who would protect her. She’s extraordinary, but we can all see she’s reaching the end of what she can endure.” Charlie’s lips tightened. “She has accepted the inevitability of her death.”

Ruth rejected that kind of thinking. She expected she wasn’t the only one. “How does Marcellus feel about that?”

“He’ll fight for her, even if his greatest opponent is Clara herself,” Charlie confirmed. “However, because he loves her so deeply, if her pain becomes more than she can bear, and he cannot bear it for her, he won’t hold her just to keep her with him.”

“Makes sense. He’s an angel. He can just visit her in a different neighborhood, right?”

Charlie’s eyes filled with sadness. “It doesn’t work that way. He’d see her again, but it would be a long, long time before it happened. The part of heaven where the Legion angels dwell is not where souls go to await reincarnation. When she assumes mortal form again, there are rules against him approaching her unless the Fates decree it. It interferes with her path to ultimate enlightenment, when she can be with him forever.”

“That’s bullshit. And even if it’s not, it sucks.”

“Yes, it does.” Charlie cocked her head. “I assume she told you about Maddock’s solution?”

“Yeah. And that she’s not going to take it.”

“They could force her, but self-determination is the one abiding rule here.” Charlie gave her a look. “Much like for a vampire’s second or third marked servant. One key choice is ours.”

“To belong to the vampire or not.” Ruth nodded.

After that all the choices belonged to the vampire. The dressmaker’s behavior toward Yvette had already confirmed that she found the Circus owner a fair Mistress. Charlie was content with the binding.

Clara had said that Charlie and Maddock had a relationship, but most vampire masters or mistresses were open to that for permanent second marks, servants the vampire had no intention of taking to the soul-binding level of the third mark. If servants pursued such relationships, they were almost always with another marked servant, or someone vetted to have knowledge of vampire existence.

Even for a third mark, it was possible, because most vampires had the “approved” kind of relationship with their servants. Her father’s reaction to that would be far different. As she suspected Lyssa’s would be with Jacob. Nothing about the queen said she had any intention of sharing her servant’s affections.

Gundar had finished his meet with the roustabouts. As Ruth bade Charlie good-bye and headed for the Big Top, she knew she’d find plenty to keep her engaged here.

Merc flitted through her mind, no help for it. Could she safely act on the insta-sexual attraction, let it burn out and move on? On such occasions in the past, she’d stifled her yearning for submission, never giving it enough room to determine if her reaction to a dominant male was an opportunity to exercise it. Too dangerous.

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