Danse Macabre (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #14)

Danse Macabre (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #14) Page 19

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I TOLD REQUIEM to lie down on the bed, and he did, without hesitation. Elinore was right. He was like a human hit by a vampire's gaze. I knelt beside him, the robe tucked up under my knees, tied close around my waist. I stared down at him and wondered if there was anything I could ask him to do that he would refuse. Was there really no limit to it? I'd seen humans rolled by vampires who had turned on their friends in the blink of an eye, and tried to kill people they loved. Would Requiem have killed for me? For no reason than that I asked it of him? I wanted to know, and I didn't.

I looked at Jean-Claude. "Is this just about sex, or would he do anything I asked, like a human rolled by a vamp?"

"I do not know, ma petite."

"If you never plan to do this on purpose, what does it matter?" London asked, and he let me hear all the distrust in those words. I didn't really blame him.

"I wouldn't do it to any of our people on purpose, but sometimes I'm on my own in a nest of vamps that I'm supposed to kill. They get testy about stuff like that. I'm just wondering if I could raise the ardeur as a weapon? Is there a way to make it an asset instead of a disaster?"

London frowned at me, but said, "I don't believe you, Anita."

"London," Elinore said, "never use that tone again with her."

"I've seen what the ardeur can do, Elinore. You haven't, not really." His face tightened in lines of anger so raw it almost hurt to see it. "I've seen my face look like Requiem's. I remember what it feels like." His hands gripped the bedpost until the skin changed color, just a bit. The mottling would be more after he fed. The wood creaked in protest, and he dropped his hands. "Part of me still wants to feel like that. It's like being on a drug all the time. Being pleasantly high, pleasantly happy. It may not be real happiness, but it's hard to tell the difference when you're in the middle of it." He hugged himself tight. "The world is a colder, darker place without it. But with it, you're a slave. A slave to someone who makes you do things..." He shook his head, so hard it looked dizzying.

"Maybe London should go before I start this," I said.

"No," he said, "no, if I can't bear to watch you feed the ardeur on someone else, then I need to find a new master, and a new city. If I can't bear this, then I need to go somewhere where no one carries the ardeur."

"Jean-Claude is your master, London; you will need his permission to leave," Elinore said.

"We have already discussed it," Jean-Claude said.

"When?" I asked.

"He is an addict, ma petite, an addict to the ardeur. I saved him from Belle Morte, who would have addicted him again, but London and I discussed that even your ardeur, and mine, might be too much for him. If it is"--he gave that graceful shrug--"I will find him some place far away from such temptations, but it will take time to find a home for someone as potentially powerful as London. Especially someone with his bloodline, and male. If he were female, there is a waiting list."

"But not for men," I said.

"Non, ma petite, the female masters seem convinced they would become bespelled by males of our bloodline. The male masters seem convinced they could master the women of our line."

"Well, isn't that just typical," I said. I looked back at London. "If this gets to be too much for you, promise me you'll leave."

"Why do you care?"

I raised a hand before Elinore could chastise him again. "Because I'm going to have enough trouble freeing Requiem's mind; I don't want to have to do it twice today."

He nodded. "I swear to you that I will leave, if I feel it is too much." The look on his face was very solemn, with none of that dark defiance, or anger.

I took a deep breath and turned back to the man on the bed. He gave me peaceful, eager eyes. It was as if the lamb wanted you to slit its throat.

I moved up beside him, so I could touch the unbruised side of his face. I cupped his face and he leaned into that touch, eyes closing for a moment as if that one innocent touch was almost too much to bear.

I called to him. "Requiem, Requiem, come back to me."

He laid his hand against mine, pressing me tighter against his face. "I am right here, Anita, right here."

I shook my head, because this wasn't him. It was his body, but whatever made Requiem who he was, that wasn't in his eyes. It was a stranger's face. What makes people people is not just bone structure and eye color, but the force of their personalities. The years of experience painted on their faces. Them, for lack of a better word. Them.

"Oh, Requiem, come back to us."

He gazed up at me, so puzzled. He didn't understand that he was lost.

I closed my own eyes, so I could concentrate and not have to see his eyes, so trusting and empty. My necromancy was unlike any other power I had. Maybe because it was mine. Whatever the reason, I didn't have to decide to use my necromancy, I just had to stop fighting it. Stop blocking the power. Blocking my necromancy was like making a fist, tight-clenched, squeezing, squeezing, so hard, so the power didn't get away from me. I spread that metaphorical fist wide, let go all that effort and the necromancy just was. Before, with Auggie, there had been so much happening, so many different powers, that it had distracted me, but now there was nothing but the necromancy. It felt so good to finally let go. So amazingly good.

I opened my eyes and stared down at Requiem. "Come to me," I said, "come to me." He rose up, off the bed, arms reaching for me. I put a finger on his chest, and said, "Requiem, stop." He stopped instantly. As if he were Some sort of toy; hit one switch and he goes, another and he turns off. Sweet Mary, Mother of God, this was so wrong.

"Ma petite, ma petite, have a care."

I turned and glanced at Jean-Claude. "I'm a little busy here," I said, and couldn't keep the impatience out of my voice.

"I would be more specific with your calls, if I were you. You told only Requiem to stop. The others are still compelled." He motioned at the other vampires. London had a death grip on the bedpost. He looked panicked. Wicked and Truth were fighting at the edge of the bed. Truth wanted to get on, and Wicked was holding his brother back. Truth looked scared, and Wicked looked angry.

I found Elinore standing by her chair, holding on to it, as if only the chair's weight kept her from coming to me.

I felt myself go pale. "I didn't mean..."

"Your necromancy has gained in power, ma petite, as have your beasts. Be more specific on your orders; use his name."

I looked at Elinore. "If I called you, would you have to come to me?"

She swallowed hard enough for me to hear it. "I would fight, but the compulsion would be strong. I am not yet a Master of the City. As you must be of a certain level of power to rule a city, so the ruling of it, and the oaths that are taken, the magic that binds, gains a vampire more power. I do not have those ties, yet, so I... I am not Augustine, or Samuel. I think if you forced the issue it would be difficult."

It was my turn to swallow.

"We are all blood-oathed to Jean-Claude," London said, through gritted teeth. "I think her call is stronger for her ties to him."

Truth broke from his brother, and went to the chair by the fireplace. He strode to it, and hid his face in his hands. Wicked turned back to me. "He wanted to go to you. We are both blood-oathed to Jean-Claude. Why was my brother more drawn to your call?"

"He fed on ma petite, when he oathed to us," Jean-Claude said. "You took my blood."

"I told you when you brought him over that I had to be brought over in exactly the same way. You assured me that it wouldn't matter." He gestured angrily toward his brother. "This matters."

Requiem wrapped his arms around me, and laid a kiss upon my neck. He was bending his stomach to do it. Didn't it hurt?

I said the only thing I could think of. "I didn't know."

"We must always be bound the same," Wicked said, "we must always be the same. It is our strength. It is who we are. Whatever you have done to him, you must do to me, or undo to him."

I nodded. "I'll try."

"I'm beginning to understand why we used to kill necromancers on sight," London said.

"Is that a threat?" Jean-Claude said, voice mild.

"No, no, master."

But I understood what London meant. Requiem licked along my neck, and that one touch made me shiver, just a little. "Requiem, stop touching me."

He froze against me, but he was still touching me. He simply stopped kissing and licking me. I guess I'd have to be careful how I worded things. I had to find Requiem. Not just a vampire, or the dead. I needed him, his individual self. I'd done something similar once in the Church of Eternal Life, when the police and I were searching for a vampire murder suspect. I'd sought the flavor of one person, and that had been someone I hadn't known. I knew Requiem. I was holding him.

I wrapped my arms around him, moved all that thick hair to one side, so I could bury my face in the bend of his neck. I breathed in the scent of his skin. He didn't smell warm. I could smell his cologne, the soap he used, his shampoo, but underneath all of it was the faint smell of death. Not of corpses and rot, because vampires did not do that, but the scent of long-closed rooms, vaguely like the smell of snakes. Musty, not warm, nothing that you could cuddle. Yet his arms were strong, the edges of his wounds on the one arm catching in the silk of my robe. He was real, but he wasn't exactly alive.

I held him close, and pushed my necromancy into the body I held. Pushed it carefully, just into this one body, nowhere else. I searched not for this befuddled stranger but for that spark that was truly Requiem. I found him, in the dark, inside himself. He wasn't afraid, but softly confused, lost. I called to him. I felt him look up, hear me, but he could not come. I could see his prison, touch the door, gaze at him through the bars, but I did not have the key. Then I realized what we needed. Blood. No matter what type of undead you're dealing with, blood is usually the key.

I rose up from his neck, and swept my own hair to the side. "Feed, Requiem, feed from me."

He showed me a face with eyes wide with shock, as if he couldn't believe I would let him do it, but he didn't ask me to repeat the order. His hand wrapped in my hair, his other hand at my back. He pressed me tight against him, holding my neck to the side, and he brought me down to him, for he was sitting and I kneeling. He brought my neck down to his mouth, the way you would do for a kiss. He could not roll me with his eyes, and he didn't try. There would be nothing to change the pain to pleasure. I felt him tense, and I tried to relaxed, but you never relax. You tense up, just a bit, and it hurts more.

He bit me, fangs sinking in, pain sharp enough to make me push at his shoulders, as I tried to get away. I just couldn't take that much pain out of the box without pushing against it. I felt him begin to drink me down, his throat convulsing, swallowing. Something that could be so erotic, and it just fucking hurt like this.

But it was just like beheading a chicken to raise a zombie, or spreading blood on a vampire's lips to heal him. It was blood with a purpose, and I sent my magic down with that blood. I used it, to call Requiem. Used it to find him in the dark, and set him free.

He drew back from my throat, gasping, as if he'd been running. There was blood on his lower lip as he stared up at me. One moment he still looked dazed, the next he spilled into his eyes. They flared with blue fire, with that hint of turquoise in the center. His power danced over my skin like a cold, prickling breeze.

"I am here, Anita. You have cleared my mind. What would you have of me?"

I moved back from his arms, touching my neck, and came away with blood. Remus was already sending the young guard Cisco to the bathroom for gauze and tape.

"I wanted you free, and yourself. We've got that."

He shook his head, and winced, as if only now did the bruises hurt. He leaned back against the mounded pillows, favoring his stomach and chest, holding his injured arm carefully. "It was like being on drugs; nothing hurt that badly, when you touched me. I am free, but everything hurts."

"Isn't that always the way," I said, but I smiled. He was himself again.

I looked around at the other vampires. I looked at Elinore still gripping the back of her chair. I felt her. Felt her as if she were a flavor of ice cream that I could have put in a cone and licked. Mostly vanilla, but with chocolate chips. I looked at London. Not vanilla, definitely something darker, chunkier, full of hard crunchy bits. Wicked filled my mind like icing, chocolate icing to spread on skin and lick clean. I shook my head at the imagery, and looked for Truth, still huddling by the fireplace. Something fresh and clean, strawberries, maybe, strawberry ice cream to melt down the skin, and be licked away, so you could suck the cold around the nipples...

"Anita"--and it was Jean-Claude's voice--"Anita, you must stop this."

He never called me Anita. It made me look at him. "Why can't I taste you?" I asked.

"Because I am your master, and not a toy for your power."

The look on his face frightened me, because he was frightened. I licked dry lips, and said, "I guess this answers the question. I don't touch anyone else's vampires."

"No," he said, "no." He was at the edge of the bed. "Now shut it down."

It took me a second to realize what he meant. My necromancy, I needed to turn it off again. I closed my eyes, and drew it back in. I drew in tight and tighter, closed and squeezed that metaphysical fist tight and hard. But it was like the hand wasn't big enough to hold it all now. I could squeeze it down, but it leaked through as if the fingers were trying to hold sand. No, not true. I didn't want to stop. It felt so good to wander through the vampires, better than playing with zombies. The moment I realized I was the one letting the fist leak, I was able to shut it down. It almost hurt, but I did it. I could do it. But I wondered if there would come a day when there was so much power that I wouldn't be able to shut it down completely? I needed to talk to my magical mentor, Marianne, about that, sooner rather than later.

I opened my eyes and said, "How's that?"

"Good," he said, but his voice was not happy.

"That was frightening," Elinore said. "I felt your power, as if you were licking along my skin, my..." She shivered, not in a happy way.

"Sorry," I said.

"You could roll me," London said, "roll me the way I can roll a human. You could, I felt it."

"You must undo to my brother what you have done to him," Wicked said, "or bind me as you bind him."

I nodded. "We'll discuss it later, okay? I've got a full plate today."

"You promised me," Wicked said.

I sighed. "Look, I didn't know that taking blood from me instead of Jean-Claude would be that big a deal, okay? I'm doing the best I can here, Wicked. Truth was dying when I offered him blood. I saved his life, if I remember correctly, so stop being so pissy about it." I was getting angry, because I felt guilty, and that almost always led to anger for me.

"Anita can work on your problem another day," Requiem said. "Today is mine."

Something in the way he said it made me look at him. He lay like he hurt, but the look on his face wasn't about pain. It was almost anticipatory.

"What are you thinking, Requiem?" I asked.

"That you still need to feed the ardeur in front of all these good people."

I shook my head. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"The test is to see what will happen if you feed the ardeur in front of our visitors. You know not to use your necromancy in front of them now, but this question has not been decided."

I nodded. "Yeah, I think it has."

"I'm with Anita on this one," London said, "no ardeur in front of the guests. No anything much in front of the other masters."

"That is not your call to make," Elinore said.

"Do you think I'm wrong?" he asked.

No one answered. So I did. "No, you're not wrong. My powers are too unpredictable to use in public right now. I just have to shield like a son of a bitch."

"Perhaps you can control the necromancy to that degree, but the ardeur is not broken to bit and bridle, yet," Requiem said.

"She just freed you," Wicked said. "How can you want her to enslave you again?"

"I don't want to be enslaved, but I do want her to feed. I want it more than I've wanted anything in a very long time."

I looked at Jean-Claude. "Is he free, or not?"

"You called me back so I could choose, Anita."

I looked at Requiem. "I don't understand."

"You said you would never feed the ardeur on me again, unless I broke free and could choose. You said it would be like rape, unless I could choose."

"I wasn't sure you'd remember everything I said."

"I remember," he said.

"I think it's too dangerous to feed the ardeur on you."

"You swore that you would feed from me, if I broke free. I have broken free."

"I broke you free."

"Are you certain of that? Are you certain that my will did not help you some little bit?"

I started to say no, then hesitated. "I don't... know."

"Then I choose for you to feed."

I was shaking my head.

"Feed, Anita, feed upon my flesh, drink deep of my will until it doth spill upon your body like blood."

"You're not thinking clearly." I started to get off the bed.

He grabbed my arm, in one of those too-quick-to-see movements. He winced, showed that it had cost him. "I have not made the choice you would make, if our places were reversed. I have not said what you wished me to say, but I have chosen."

"Let go of me, Requiem."

He looked at me, and smiled. "I do not wish to, and I am free not to obey. I fought to come back because you said only if I did, only then would you feed from me. Would you deny me now that I have fought the battle and won?"

"What if one feeding undoes it? What if the ardeur consumes you again?"

"If I am never again to be consumed by love, then what better than to be consumed by the ardeur?"

"You sound like a junkie who's had another taste after a long dry spell."

"My heart has died twice. Once when my mortal life ceased and the second when Ligeia was taken from me. I have felt nothing for so very long, Anita. You make me feel again." He sat up, drew me in toward him.

I put a hand on his chest, missing the knife wound by fractions. "The ardeur makes you feel again."

He touched my face with his wounded hand. "No, there is something about you that has awakened my heart."

I had a panicked feeling he was about to profess undying love. Maybe Jean-Claude did, too, because he moved forward and laid a hand on my arm.

Requiem kept his wounded hand against my cheek, but let go of my arm. He reached out to Jean-Claude, laid his hand against the other man's waist. I knew he couldn't feel much through the thick robe, but it was still the most intimate gesture I'd ever seen him make toward Jean-Claude.

"Always before your ardeur tasted of hers, Jean-Claude."

He wasn't talking about me. He meant Belle Morte, because her without appellation always meant Belle for them. "Last night, Jean-Claude, you did not taste of her. You tasted of no one's power but your own. I knew you were a sourdre de sang, but until last night you were still a planet circling the sun of Belle Morte's power. Last night you became the sun and she the moon."

"Belle was the moon," I said.

He looked at me, smiling. "No, Anita, you were the moon. 'The moon's an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.' "

"You're quoting something," I said.

"Shakespeare, ma petite. He's quoting Timon of Athens."

"Haven't read that one," I said. My pulse was in my throat, and it was making blood trickle from the wounds he'd made in my neck. "I don't need to feed the ardeur right now, Requiem, and with everything going all weird, I think I'll wait until I have to feed."

"That is sense, Requiem," London said.

Requiem gazed at the other vampire. "Would you wait?"

"With permission," London said, "I would like to leave the room."

"Go," Jean-Claude said.

London didn't run for the door, but he didn't stroll either. Hell, if I could have run from it, I would have. But you can't run from yourself.

"Any who wish to go, go," Jean-Claude said.

"The test will not work if we are not here," Elinore said.

"The test is over. We are too dangerous, and we know it."

Elinore didn't argue, she just walked out. Wicked took his brother by the arm, and led him out. Truth seemed to be weeping.

"What do you want us to do?" Remus asked.

"Guard us, if you can."

"We can guard you," he said, sounding slightly offended that Jean-Claude doubted it.

"Can you guard us from ourselves?" Jean-Claude asked.

"I don't understand," Remus said.

Cisco had the gauze and tape. He stood by the bed, as if unsure what to do with the bandages. I touched my neck and came away with a little blood, but it had been a clean bite. It wouldn't bleed all that much, not if it had been done right, and knowing Requiem it had been.

"Do you need antiseptic?" Cisco asked.

Remus came to the bed, impatient. "You treat Anita like another shapeshifter."

"Oh," Cisco said. He started to set the first-aid supplies on the bed, then hesitated as if he didn't want to put them between Requiem and me. He was still wearing a gun, but the confident guard had vanished, replaced by an awkward eighteen-year-old.

"Give her some gauze so she can hold it against the wound," Remus said. "The bandage is mostly to keep the cleanup to a minimum, not really for the wound."

Cisco nodded like he understood, but he held the gauze out to me with his eyes nowhere near my face. In fact, he was sort of studiously trying not to look at me. I finally realized part of his problem. More of my chest was showing than when I'd started. Requiem's feeding had moved the front of the robe around, so that a lot of breast was showing. Not all, not more than a really low neckline would show, but it was distracting him. He was both trying not to stare at my chest, and staring at it, as he warred with himself.

I pressed the gauze to the bite, and closed my robe up with the other hand. I'd need two hands to retie, so all I could do was hold the robe closed. That let Cisco know I'd noticed what he'd been doing. He suddenly met my eyes, and he was embarrassed. It showed in the almost panic in his own eyes, and the dark blush that crawled up his neck. The panic turned to anger, and he looked away, as if I'd seen too far into his soul.

Remus took the first-aid stuff from him. "Go to the coffin room and tell Nazareth to send someone to take your place on this detail."

Cisco protested, "Why?"

"You're staring at her chest. She's not a piece of ass, kid. When you're on the job, you're on the fucking job. You can notice she's pretty, but you don't stare, you don't get distracted."

"I'm sorry, Remus, it won't happen again."

"No, it won't," Remus said. "Go to the coffin room."

"Please, Remus..."

"I gave you an order, Cisco, follow it."

Cisco lowered his head, not a bow, but dejection. The gesture itself, at something so small, said how young he was. But he didn't argue again. He went for the door.

When it closed behind him, Remus turned to me. "Are you still bleeding?"

I let go of the gauze; it stayed in place, pasted there by blood. "Hard to tell," I said.

He started to touch the gauze, then stopped, letting his hand drop to his side. I actually looked down to make sure my chest was completely covered. Nothing was showing. So why did Remus seem as reluctant as Cisco to touch me?

"Can you take the gauze away?" he asked.

I didn't argue, just pulled it off. It didn't hurt to move it, so I wasn't bleeding that badly. Good.

"Turn your head to the side so I can see." He added, "Please."

I did what he asked, which put me watching Jean-Claude. He looked way too solemn for comfort. "What's wrong now?" I asked.

"Are you so ashamed of us that you would hide our mark of favor under bandages and tape?"

I frowned at him. "What are you talking about?"

Remus touched more gauze to my neck. "Can you hold it in place while I get tape?"

I put my hand up to the gauze, automatically.

Jean-Claude motioned at my hand, at Remus, who had his back mostly to the other man.

Remus moved in to tape the gauze in place. I stopped him with a hand on his arm. He stepped back immediately, out of reach, the tape still in his fingers. I glanced up at his face, but he wouldn't give me a direct look, so I didn't know what was in his eyes. He'd stepped back like I'd hurt him. I hadn't.

I turned away from the guard, to Jean-Claude. Remus's problems were Remus's problem, not mine. I had enough problems. "You mean why am I bandaging the bite?"

He nodded.

"I always bandage the bites."

"Pourquoi?" he asked. Why?

I opened my mouth, closed it, and thought about it. "It's a wound. It usually pierces a vein or artery. You smear antiseptic on it, and slap a bandage on it to keep it from getting infected."

"Have you ever known a vampire bite to become infected?" he asked.

I frowned, and thought about it. It took me nearly a minute to say, "No."

"Why is that, ma petite?"

"Because vampires have a natural antiseptic in their saliva. Vampires actually have fewer types of bacteria in their saliva than the average human."

"You are quoting now," he said.

I nodded, and stopped because the bite was a little tight. It didn't exactly hurt, but it let me know it was there. "Yeah, they had an article in The Animator. Some doctor actually wondered why vampire bites don't get infected like an ordinary human bite, or an animal bite. They've known for a while that you guys have an anticoagulant in your saliva, but this was the first study on other properties of vampire saliva."

"So, I ask again, why are you hiding our mark of favor?"

I thought about it, then shrugged. "Habit." I took the gauze off the bite mark. It had two small round red circles on it, but it had almost stopped bleeding. They usually did unless you were cut up. A violent vamp bite was more like a dog bite; it bled. The two neat holes stopped sooner than you'd think, and rarely re-bled without the wound being reopened. I'd known vampire junkies who tried to hide their habit by having a vampire bite the same wound several times. It didn't really work if you knew enough about vamps to know what a bite should look like, but it fooled the tourists, or the boss at work on Monday. Repeated trauma to an area is still repeated trauma, and that was one of the few times outside of violent attacks when a vamp bite started to bruise and tear.

I handed the used gauze to Remus, who took it gingerly from me as if he didn't want to touch my fingers. "I don't need the bandages. Thanks anyway, Remus."

Jean-Claude came to me, smiling. He touched the bite delicately, coming away with minute drops of blood on his fingertips. He lifted them to his mouth, and I knew what he was going to do before he licked so delicately. I watched him lick my blood off his fingertips, and wasn't sure how I felt about it. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't not enjoy it. I felt neutral about what he'd done, but why had he done it? He usually went out of his way not to spook me, not to be too vampiric.

He leaned over me, put his hands delicately around my face, and tried to raise me up for a kiss. Normally, I would have met him hallway, but I didn't do it this time. I stayed sitting, forcing him to bend down for me. I kept my hand on the robe, holding it in place, and watched him bend lower. He stopped just before he would have kissed me, and drew back enough so I could see his face clearly. "You have kissed me many times with the taste of your sweet blood upon my lips, but now, I see reluctance on your face, feel it in your body. Why?" He searched my face, though I knew he could drop his shields and know exactly what I was thinking. Maybe he was afraid of what he'd find.

Why, he'd asked? Because he'd licked my blood off his fingers? I'd kissed him when he'd come directly off my vein. I'd kissed him when one mouth or the other had gotten nicked on his fangs. I'd learned to think of a little sweet copper taste as almost an aphrodisiac, because I'd begun to associate it with him, and others. Even Richard liked a little taste of blood; he hated that he liked it, but he did.

Jean-Claude drew back, letting my face slide between his hands as he stood. A look of such sadness came over his face. I grabbed his arm. "Don't."

"Don't what, ma petite? Don't stop hiding what I am? I cannot be human, ma petite, not even for you. I thought the worst of playing human for each other, you and I, was the crippling of our power, but that is not what hurts my heart."

I let go of his arm. I didn't want to ask the next question, but I knew I had to, or be branded a coward. I swallowed hard enough that it hurt, and asked, "What hurts your heart?" It was a whisper, but I asked it. Brownie points for me.

"That you turn away from me, for such a small thing. I licked your blood off my fingertips and now you will not kiss me."

"I would have kissed you."

He shook his head. "But you did not wish to."

That I couldn't argue with. Part of me wished I could have, part of me didn't. "What do you want me to say?" I asked.

"I want you and Richard to embrace yourselves, and I am out of time to await this miracle."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"You promised to feed the ardeur from Requiem, if he fought free of your power. Will you go back on your word?"

I glanced at the other vampire, lying on the mounded pillows, then back to Jean-Claude. "The ardeur hasn't risen for either of us, yet. I think we should use the time we have before it does to plan strategy."

"Strategy for what, ma petite? This is not a battle of guns and knives. This is battle of a softer sort, though no less dangerous in the end."

I was shaking my head, and felt the first little trickle of blood down my throat. It wasn't the shaking that was making me bleed a little more, but the fact that my pulse was speeding up. "We are not going to feed the ardeur before we have to."

"Your power rises, and you are more like Belle Morte," Requiem said, and he sounded sad.

I glanced at him. "What are you talking about?"

Requiem answered, "Belle used to promise to feed the ardeur on us, then say she had not meant right this moment, but later, always later. Later could be very late indeed when she wished to play cruel games."

"I'm not playing," I said, "I'm scared."

"If you feed from him, and he becomes besotted again, then you cannot feed off any of the pomme de sang candidates. We will show them Requiem's state of mind and tell them you have grown too powerful for such games."

"And if he doesn't fall under my spell again?" I asked.

"Then you may taste some of the candidates without sex."

I was shaking my head.

"The ardeur is growing, ma petite, you must accept that. What we have seen today and last night proves that pretending will no longer work."

"I'm not pretending," I said.

"You are pretending."

"Pretending what?" I asked.

"I am sorry, ma petite, so sorry, but we must accept the truth."

I had crawled to the foot of the bed. Blood was trickling down my throat, like tickling fingers. I was so scared I could taste metal on my tongue. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You are succubus to my incubus, ma petite. You feed as a vampire feeds, but on sex instead of blood."

"I know that," I said, and sounded angry, because I didn't want to sound scared.

"You say you know, but you know here"--and he touched his forehead?not here"--and touched his heart. "You do not truly believe you are vampire."

"I'm not a vampire."

"Not in the traditional sense, non, but only because you have Damian and Nathaniel to draw upon. Without them to draw energy from, when you did not feed the ardeur in a timely fashion, your own body would feel the weakness."

"You went for years without feeding the ardeur for real. The old Master of St. Louis wouldn't let you feed the ardeur, not completely."

"Oui, Nikolaos feared what I would become if she allowed my powers full rein. The Master of the City that traded me to her feared me, as well. He sent me to Nikolaos because he knew that her child's body would not be something I would willingly seduce."

"She looked about twelve or thirteen; that's legal in some places."

He shook his head. "Not for me," he said, then he shivered. "You met her, ma petite; could you ever see me purposefully doing anything to draw her attention to me in that way?"

I shook my head. "No, she was creepy as hell, and not in a fun way."

He nodded. "Oui, creepy will do as an appellation, though there are other words." He shook his head, as if to clear his mind from such thoughts. "If you were a different woman, one of more casual lusts, then your being succubus to my incubus would not be a hardship. You would simply feed from whomever you wished. You are human, so your use of vampire trickery is not illegal."

"Not true," I said, "it is illegal to use magic or psychic ability to induce, or bespell, into sexual acts. It's looked on like a date-rape drug."

He nodded. "I had not realized the law had been broadened to include that."

I shrugged. "I keep track of the new laws, part of my job."

He nodded again. "But still, ma petite, there are many who would come eagerly to your body. You would not lack for food, if you were willing to feed on strangers."

I frowned at him.

He gave a small smile. "Do not frown so, ma petite, I know you do not do casual. In fact, you are the least casual person that I have ever met. So serious, you are, so deadly serious about everything."

"Is that a complaint?" I asked.

"No, but it is the truth."

I nodded, and put a hand to my throat to try to stop the blood from getting onto the silk robe. I looked for Remus. "Gauze, please, or this will have to be dry-cleaned."

Remus handed the gauze over without a word. I tried to stop the blood, but my pulse was pushing it out. I couldn't seem to calm myself enough to slow my pulse. So much for the meditation practice I'd been working on.

"What's your point?" I asked.

"That you need food that you know, and are comfortable with. A pomme de sang is never meant to be the only food for a vampire. It is more like food you always know is on hand. But it is assumed that the vampire will feed off many humans."

"Casually feed, you mean?"

"Oui."

"I don't do casual, sorry."

"True, and that is why the pomme de sang candidates are even more important for you than for a normal vampire."

"I'm not following you," I said.

"You must pick pommes de sang, and other food. You must choose enough food that you are not a danger to others."

"You're babbling."

He came around the bed so he could touch me, but I moved out of reach. "If you bespell Requiem again, then you cannot seek a pomme de sang among our visitors. Your food will have to be chosen even more carefully, and quietly, behind the scenes, from the very few masters I trust. But it would be better to do it now, while we have so many willing princesses for our Prince Charming. Because choose you must, ma petite, choose you must."

"I thought the whole pomme de sang choosing was a trick to make every-one behave. Nobody wants to piss off their prospective in-laws, that sort of thing."

"Anita"--my name, not good--"we must know how dangerous you are, before Augustine wakes for the day. If you can feed from Requiem and not bespell him, then you can free Augustine. But if Requiem is not free, then he, and Augustine, will be like humans that we have let go, but we know that we can call them to us at any time. We take away our mind spell to please the human police, but we know which ones are so deeply ours that we can still whisper through their dreams. We can still call them." He stood at the foot of the bed, letting me see how scared he was, but under that fear was eagerness. "If we can control this, then we are powerful beyond my wildest dreams. If we cannot control this, then we are dangerous beyond my deepest fears. If Requiem falls to the ardeur again, then we must cancel everything. I dare not even take you to the ballet among so many vampires."

"And if Requiem is okay?"

"Then it is controllable, incredibly powerful, but controllable. It is something our enemies and allies will fear and lust after, but they will not fear us too much, or lust too greatly. It is the difference between having a weapon that one can use, and one that you dare never use."

"Like nuclear bombs," I said.

He nodded. "Oui."

I frowned at him. "Define 'feed the ardeur'?"

He made a sound that was half tsk and half throat sound. "Feed, feed, ma petite. He is not ugly. Feed upon him, completely, no tasting, no holding back. Feed, and if he can withstand it, then the ballet tonight goes on, the party after."

I looked behind me to Requiem. He was trying for a neutral look, and failing. "Let me test my understanding: you want me to make love to another man, and feed the ardeur off him?"

"Yes," he said.

If Ronnie had been there, she'd have shot herself, or maybe shot me. I wasn't planning on keeping Requiem. This was supposed to be like a one-night stand. But I didn't believe it. I'd never had sex with anyone just once. "I can't do another permanent man in my life, Jean-Claude. I can't."

"Think of him as you think of Jason. What did he call himself, your fuck buddy?"

I raised my eyebrows at him, then turned and looked at Requiem. "Did you hear that?"

"I did."

"Do you understand what the term means?"

"It means someone who is your friend, that you sometimes have sex with, but it is not a relationship. Though I prefer the term fib for it."

"Fib?" I made it a question.

"Friends in bed, fib."

"Prettier," I said. "Fine, you okay with just being my friend in bed?"

"Your heart speaks to others, Anita, I know this. My heart speaks to no one else. But this is not a matter of hearts, but a matter of flesh and blood." He held his hand out to me. "Come to me, Anita, please. I have thrown off your silken chains for this chance to be with you; do not deny me."

Maybe it was the way Requiem talked, all poetry and so emotional sounding. I was a modern girl; I wasn't used to it. Jean-Claude could talk pretty when he wanted to, but he was my serious sweetie, and hearing it from someone who was supposed to be casual just didn't ring right. It was as if the words didn't match the situation. How could you talk about silken chains if you weren't serious? Fuck buddies didn't say things like that, did they? Of course, my experience with the whole concept of fuck buddies was pretty limited, so maybe I was just wrong. Wrong about so many things.

I stared at Requiem, and felt nothing. He was pretty, but pretty had never been enough for me. I was almost perfectly happy in parts of my personal life, for the first time in a long time. I did not want to screw that up, and I'd learned that every new addition had a chance of blowing it all sky-high.

Requiem let his arm fall. "You simply do not want me, do you?" He sounded sad, and more lost than when I'd rolled him.

I don't know what I would have said, because the door opening saved me. Asher glided in, as if his feet weren't quite touching the ground under the golden satin robe. His hair spread out around the robe, putting the shiny cloth to shame by contrast. He glanced at the bed and flashed a wide smile. "Oh, good, I'm in time to watch."

I gave him an unfriendly look.

He shrugged and smiled, way too pleased with himself. "Elinore has filled me in on what's been happening in here. When I woke early, I realized that if I was awake then so was Meng Die."

That stopped us all, made us all turn to him. Remus actually stepped away from the wall as if he'd go running.

Asher waved him back. "She's still in the coffin, though she does want out. She's agreed to behave herself."

"She vowed she would kill me, or scar me so badly that Anita would not want me," Requiem said.

Asher went to Jean-Claude where he still stood by the bed. He hugged the other man from behind, laying his head on Jean-Claude's shoulder, so that his scarred cheek was bare to the light. "Yes, I was there when she made that particular threat. She looked at me, and said she'd forgotten that Anita liked scars." His face tried for neutral when he said it, but failed. A flash of anger flared through the paleness of his eyes, making them flicker for a second like icy sapphires caught in light.

Jean-Claude hugged his arm where it lay across his chest. He leaned his face against the top of Asher's hair, and said, "How did you get Meng Die to see reason?"

"She said, for such power as she felt when you did Augustine she would play virgin. There's always another lover, but this kind of power is rare."

I looked at the two of them standing there, the light and the dark, entwined. I realized in that moment that I had never seen Asher enter a room and simply go to Jean-Claude and touch him like that. I had never seen them hug, let alone more. They touched, but it was seldom this deliberate.

Did they touch like this when I wasn't around? Did they do more? Did I care? Maybe. But did it bother me more that they were lovers, or that they were doing it behind my back? Doing it without me?

Jean-Claude pulled away from him. Asher held on for a moment, then let him go with a flash of annoyance on his face, but he didn't fight to stay closer. He simply let Jean-Claude move a little closer to the bed, and me.

I wanted to say, You don't have to hide, but I wasn't sure about it. I wasn't sure how I'd feel watching them act all lovey-dovey around each other. But the thought that they couldn't touch in front of me bothered me, too. I sighed and hung my head. God, I was confused even in my own head without any help from anyone.

I felt the bed move, and looked up to find Requiem getting off the bed. He stood carefully, showing how much he hurt, but he stood straight, his pale untouched back military straight like most of the older vampires. They came from a time when good posture was beaten into you, sometimes literally.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

He turned his whole body, rather than just his head, as if he knew that it would have hurt to do it otherwise. "I see how you watch Asher and Jean-Claude. I said that you do not want me, and you do not. It is plain in your face, in your lack of reaction to me. The irony cuts deep, Anita. So many women have wanted me over the centuries, but I did not want them. Now it is my turn to burn and be unquenched."

"Non," Jean-Claude said, "you are not going."

Requiem motioned with his good hand. "See her face, taste her lack of pulse. Her body does not respond to me. She does not even see me in that way."

"Anita sees you, or you'd have never gotten to feed the ardeur twice for her," Asher said. He walked wide around Jean-Claude, to climb onto the bed with me. There was a look in his face that I hadn't seen before. It was eager, almost angry, but not unhappy.

He touched my face, and his hand was cool to the touch. He hadn't fed. "I woke before noon today for the first time since I died." He leaned in toward me, as if for a kiss. "So much power running through my veins, even without blood. I feel wonderful." He stopped with his mouth just above mine, so close that it seemed wrong not to close the distance and kiss. So I did.

I meant it to be a good-morning kiss. Good, but not too sexual. But it takes two people to keep a kiss chaste and Asher wasn't feeling the least bit chaste.

He explored my mouth with lips and tongue. I melted into that kiss. I danced my tongue over the dainty points of his fangs, slid between them, deeper into his mouth. He pressed us together, hands urgent on my body. One hand undid the sash of my robe. The nude fronts of our bodies were suddenly touching. I didn't even know when he'd undone his own robe, only that the naked press of our bodies drove my hands under his open robe to slide along the smooth skin of his back and buttocks. When I cupped the tight smoothness of his ass, he drew back enough to see my face. Whatever he saw there painted a fierce look across his own. His voice came harsh and breathless. "Let me feed."

I just said, "Yes."

He wrapped his hand in my hair, hard enough for it to hurt, just a little. That little bit of hurting made me gasp, but it wasn't just the pain. It was the feeling that with that one harsh grasp he could expose my neck and hold me exposed while he fed. I might never have admitted it aloud, but there was something about a little bit of force that just flat did it for me. Asher dug his hand deeper into my hair, jerked, brought a cry from me. It wasn't exactly a cry of pain.

His free hand found my wrists, held them behind my back, while my robe slipped down my shoulders. He stretched my head to the side so that I could no longer see his face. I saw us reflected in the full-length mirror on the other side of the room. My robe had fallen like a dark frame around the paleness of my body. The robe covered our hands, and not much more. It looked in the mirror like my hands were bound. The sight of it made me strain to be free, and Asher tightened his grip, bruising my wrists just a little, just enough to let me know I couldn't get away. I trusted him. Trusted him enough to let him trap me.

Movement in the mirror, and I saw Jean-Claude reflected there. His own robe was tight in place, but his eyes glowed with midnight blue fire.

"The audience is a little large for ma petite."

"She's not objecting," Asher said.

"And do you not find that strange?" Jean-Claude asked.

Asher seemed to struggle to think, then finally said, "I do not know. I can't seem to think with her here in my arms." He looked out into the room. "Their presence seems to make it harder to think."

"The guards, or just certain guards?" Jean-Claude asked.

"Remus"--and he looked to the far corner of the room--"and the new one."

"And what of Pepito? Do you sense him as strongly?"

Asher's body began to relax against me. I didn't want that. I wanted him to feed. Needed him to feed. "Don't stop," I said, "please, don't stop."

Asher looked down at me with those glowing eyes. He seemed to be searching my face for some sign. "You wish me to take you here with the guards watching?"

Of course I did. "Yes," I said, "yes, God, yes."

He looked at Jean-Claude. "Something is wrong."

"Wrong, and right," Jean-Claude said. He came to the edge of the bed. "You have possessed her, completely. You could do what you wished with her, but when she sobered, then she would never forgive you."

Asher turned back to me. Whatever he saw there calmed him, tore the light from his eyes. "Anita, are you in there?"

The question made no sense at first, then I said, "I am here, Asher, right here." Some part of me heard me say it, and thought I'd heard that phrase before. I closed my eyes, tried to not see Asher's face. It helped, to look away. I knew where I'd heard the words now: Requiem. I was echoing Requiem when I'd rolled his mind. Asher had rolled me before, but not like this, never like this.

Remembering Requiem helped me think, but closing my eyes helped more. I was too big a fish for Asher's gaze to keep, but staring into his eyes had lost me, myself. I'd stared into Augustine's eyes and not been swept away, so how did Asher's gaze rate higher than a couple of thousand years of Master of the City? I was supposed to be immune to vampire gaze. My necromancy and Jean-Claude's marks should have kept me safe.

Asher let go of my wrists. I felt him move back from me. I opened my eyes and reached for my robe, drawing it back around me. "What's happening?" I asked.

Jean-Claude spoke from beside the bed. "Are you yourself, ma petite?"

"I think so." I glanced up at Asher's face, but he turned away, the spill of golden hair hiding his face. "Look at me, Asher."

"I did not mean to bespell you with my gaze. I did not even know that my gaze could capture you."

"It's never been able to before," I said. I looked at Jean-Claude. "What is happening? I was as bespelled as Requiem before I freed him."

"Non, you were able to fight free, once you realized what had happened."

"Yes, but why did it happen in the first place? What just happened, and why? And don't avoid the question again, Jean-Claude, I mean it."

He made a gesture that was half bow and half shrug. Managing to make it both apology and an I-don't-know gesture.

"Not good enough. You do know what's going on."

"I know what I believe has happened."

"Fine, tell us." I slipped off the bed so I could tie the robe in place better.

"All our people gained from what we did last night with Augustine. Asher has been a master vampire for a very long time, but he has never had many of the master-level powers that are taken for granted among many of us."

"His gaze has gone up a few notches, I get that," I said.

Jean-Claude shook his head. "Now, ma petite, it is more than that. What is Asher's greatest vampiric ability?"

I thought about it for a second or two, then said, "His bite is orgasmic."

Jean-Claude gave a small smile. "That may be his most alluring power for you, ma petite, but it is not his most powerful."

I thought harder. "Fascination. He makes you fascinated with him, once he's fed off you using full power. Once he's made love to you, it's like a sort of love spell, but it works the way that love spells never work."

"I believe his ability to fascinate has grown in power."

I glanced at Asher, who was still sitting on the side of the bed, but carefully not looking at me. I shook my head and walked closer to him. "Look at me, Asher, please."

"Why?" he asked, in a very still voice, carefully not looking at me.

"I have to know if your gaze can just roll me, or if it happened because I don't protect myself against you."

He almost glanced at me then, but gave me only the perfection of his profile and a wave of shimmering hair. "What do you mean, you do not protect yourself from me?"

"I trust you, so I don't shield from you. I want your power to take me. I don't want to fight it. But before it was a choice. Now I need to see if it's still a choice, or if you've just outgrown me."

"Give her the weight of your gaze, mon ami, let us see."

Asher turned, reluctance plain in the way he held his body. He gave me a face as blank and unreadable as any I'd ever seen on him. I'd perfected the art of looking at a vampire's face without meeting their gaze years ago. I was a little out of practice, grown arrogant with power, but old skills never truly desert you.

I studied the curve of his lips, then raised my eyes slowly to meet his. They were as beautiful as always, such a pale, pale blue. A pure, clear blue, but pale as a winter's dawn. I stared into those eyes and felt nothing.

"This won't work unless you try to capture me with your gaze."

"I do not wish to capture you," he said softly.

"Liar," I said.

He managed to look offended then.

"Don't try to kid me, Asher, you like power games entirely too much. You love the effect you have on me. You love that you can do to me what Jean-Claude can't. You love the fact that you are the only vamp who can vamp me."

His face went to cold neutrality. "I have never said such things to you."

"Your body said them for you."

He licked his lips then, an old gesture that he still made when he was nervous. "What do you want from me, Anita?"

"Truth."

He shook his head, and looked solemn. "You ask for truth a great deal, but it is seldom what you truly want."

I'd have liked to argue that, but I couldn't, not and be honest. "You're right, probably more right than I want to know, but right now, try to capture me with your gaze. Really try, so we'll know how careful I need to be around you."

"I do not want you to have to be careful around me."

I shook my head. "Please, Asher, we need to know."

"Why, so you can hide from me? So you can deny me the gaze of your own eyes?"

"Please, Asher, just do it, just try."

"I will ask as a friend," Jean-Claude said, "but the next request will be as master. Do as she asks." His voice sounded so sad. Sad enough that it made me look at him. I felt like I was missing something.

Once I would have just ignored the warning in my head, but I'd learned to ask questions. "Am I asking something bad here? I mean, you're both way too bothered by this. Am I missing something that's going to come back and bite us on the ass?"

Jean-Claude smiled, almost laughed. "Ah, ma petite, how delicately you phrase it."

"Yeah, yeah, just answer the question."

"We fear what your reaction will be if Asher can indeed capture you with his gaze."

I looked from one to the other of them. Jean-Claude's carefully pleasant face. Asher's arrogant blankness. I caught sight of Requiem against the far wall beyond them. His face was as blank as theirs, but it wasn't pleasant like Jean-Claude's or arrogant like Asher's; he simply tried to show nothing. His upper body was still decorated with the wounds Meng Die had given him. For the first time I wondered: if I fed the ardeur off him, would the wounds heal? I'd healed before with metaphysical sex. I frowned and turned back to Jean-Claude. "You had more than one reason for me to feed the ardeur from Requiem, didn't you?"

"You are not going to do it, so what does it matter?" There was the slightest flavor of anger to his words.

I turned to him. The pleasant mask was gone, and in its place something close to the arrogance that Asher hid behind. "I know I'm difficult, but let's pretend I'm not. Let's pretend that I'm not a huge pain in the ass. Just talk to me. Tell me your reasoning."

"My reasoning about what, ma petite?"

I walked toward him, talking as I moved. "All the reasons for me to feed from Requiem now. All the reasons why you're so nervous about Asher being able to capture me with his gaze." I was in front of him now, and realized that he must have moved back from the bed at some point, and I didn't remember him moving away. I'd been too caught up in Asher's eyes. "Just tell me. I promise not to panic. I promise not to run away. Just talk to me like I'm a reasonable human being."

He gave me a look, and it was an eloquent look. He let me watch thoughts chase over his face, but finally he said, "Asher is correct, ma petite; you ask for truth, but you often punish us for telling it."

I nodded. "I know, and I'm sorry about that. All I know is that I'll try to stop being a pain in the ass. I'll try to listen, and not overreact."

"Good intentions, ma petite, but you do know the old saying."

I nodded, again. "Yeah, the road to hell is paved with them, I know." I touched his arm where it lay folded across his chest. Even his body language had closed down. "Please, Jean-Claude, I feel like we don't have time to play to my insecurities. If we crash this weekend with all the other masters here, I don't want it to be because you were afraid to be honest with me. I don't want the disaster to be my fault. Okay?"

He uncrossed his arms, and touched my face. "So sincere, ma petite. What has come over you?"

I thought about that, then said it, out loud. "I'm scared."

"Of what?"

I put my hand on his, pressing his touch against my face. "Of failing us all, just because I didn't want something to be true."

"Ma petite, that is not it, not entirely."

I looked away from those suddenly knowing eyes of his. "I think it's the baby thing." I made myself meet his eyes. The gentleness in them was both easier to meet and harder. "If we really are going to do this, keep the baby, then we have to make this work. We have to make it all work. I don't have the luxury of being a pain in the ass, if it's going to get us hurt."

"You find out but hours ago, and you are suddenly more willing to compromise." He looked at me, considering, serious, tender, all mixed together. "I am told that pregnancy changes a woman, but so quick as this?"

"Maybe I just needed a wake-up call."

"Wake up to what, ma petite?"

"I keep telling Richard I've accepted my life, but he's right, I'm still hiding from parts of it. You"--and I looked at Asher then--"are all still tiptoeing around me afraid of what I'll do, aren't you?" I turned back to Jean-Claude. "Aren't you?"

"You have taught us caution, ma petite." He tried to hug me, but I stepped away.

"Don't comfort me, Jean-Claude, talk to me."

He sighed. "You do realize, ma petite, that these demands for complete honesty that come over you from time to time are another way of being a pain in the ass?"

I had to smile. "No, I hadn't realized that. I thought this was being reasonable."

"Non, ma petite, this is not being reasonable. This is another way of being very demanding."

"Well, hell, then tell me what to do, because I don't know how to be anything else."

"You are a high-maintenance item, as they say, ma petite. But I knew that before we became a couple."

"You're saying, you knew what you were getting into."

He nodded. "As much as any man can when he decides to love a woman. There are always mysteries and surprises in every love affair. But, yes, I had some idea what I was getting myself into. I did it willingly, eagerly."

"The difficulties were outweighed by what, the power you might gain?"

He frowned at me. "See, already you grow angry. You do not want truth, ma petite. You do not want lies either. You leave us all with no clue to what will take us safely through your rocky shoals."

"I've never heard you use a sea metaphor before."

"Perhaps seeing Samuel reminded me of my voyage to this fair land."

"Perhaps," I said, and even to me it sounded suspicious.

Asher made a sound low in his throat. "You seek a reason to be angry, so you can blame us, and run."

"Like Richard was trying to pick a fight earlier," I said.

Asher nodded.

I thought about that for a second or two. "It's not that Richard and I are too different, we're too much alike."

Jean-Claude gave me a look, like I'd finally come to something he'd understood long ago. "Too much alike in many ways, but you have compromised more, and your very alikeness in character makes him keep trying to force you to make the same decisions he has made. He sees the echo of himself in you, and understands even less why you do not see his rightness in all things."

"And it's maybe why he frustrates me, too. He's enough like me, so why can't he make the decisions I've made?"

"Oui, ma petite, I believe that is part of your immense anger toward each other."

"He's right, I'm trying to make him into something he's not, and he's trying to do the same to me. Shit."

"What, ma petite?"

"I hate being this slow about something that feels so obvious."

"It is only obvious once you have thought of it," he said.

"I'm not sure that makes sense, but okay, fine. I'm not saying I'll like hearing it, but tell me why you're so worried about Asher using his gaze on me."

"I'll answer this one," Asher said. He came to me, his robe still open over his body. It took more concentration than I'd have admitted out loud to give him eye contact and not look lower. "If I can capture you with my gaze, we are both afraid you will exile me from your bed. Your bed, and Jean-Claude's."

"I'm not in charge of Jean-Claude's bed. You and he sleep together in your bed whenever I sleep by day in his bed."

The two men exchanged a look I couldn't read. I touched Asher's arm, brought his attention back to me. "What is it?"

He looked down at me, using all that gold hair to cover the scarred side of his face. He didn't usually hide from me anymore. "What do you think that Jean-Claude and I do in my bed when you are asleep in this one?"

I frowned, then couldn't quite meet his entirely too-frank gaze. Vampire powers didn't make me look away, embarrassment did. "You're right, I don't want honesty, I just think I do."

"You are blushing," Asher said, and he gave a delighted laugh. "You think we are lovers, don't you?"

I was blushing so hard I was dizzy, and I felt like he was making fun of me. So I got angry. I crossed my arms over my stomach, and said, "Yeah."

Asher looked at Jean-Claude. "She believes what most believe of us."

I finally looked at Jean-Claude. His face was very empty. I had to lick my suddenly dry lips to say, "Are you saying that you're not doing it, when I'm not around?"

"All the touch I am allowed is when you are with us," Asher said, and it was his turn to sound angry. But his anger had warmth to it, to fill his voice.

I kept staring at Jean-Claude.

"You do not believe us?" Jean-Claude asked.

"It's not that, it's..."I tried to put it into words. Finally, I said, "How could you be so close to him and keep turning him down?"

"Thank you for that," Asher said.

"And what would you have done, ma petite, if you had found us in an embrace?"

"I... I don't know. I guess it depends on what you mean by embrace."

"Sex, ma petite, sex."

I opened my mouth, closed it, and didn't know what to say. "I don't know."

"I do. You would have stormed away. You would have abandoned my bed, damaged our power base, the triumvirate. You might have run to our so-conservative Richard, or left us both again. So shocked you would have been, so unready to conceive of such things."

"Maybe, but I didn't freak about you and Augustine."

"You were involved. We shared him. If you had come upon the two of us alone, you would have taken it differently."

"Well, yeah, he's a stranger for one thing."

"Wait," Asher said, "are you saying that you would share Jean-Claude with me?"

"We share each other now."

He shook his head. "We share you, Anita, we barely touch each other."

"Do not do this tonight, Asher. I ask this as your friend, and as your master. When our guests are gone, then we will continue this discussion."

"Your word on that," Asher said.

"My word."

I nodded. "When we're not ass-deep in alligators, and I've had a few days to digest the news."

"Is this news to you, that I want him as my lover?" Asher asked.

I shook my head. "Truthfully, I thought you guys were doing it like bunnies behind my back. You know, the whole don't ask, don't tell policy. It never occurred to me that all the touching you did was with me."

"I thought you would see it as cheating," Jean-Claude said.

"With another woman, yeah, but I don't have the same equipment. I mean if guys do it for you, I don't have those parts. But it wasn't guys I thought I was sharing you with, it was Asher. He's not just one of the guys to us."

"Are you saying that Asher is your exception to the rule?"

"I'm not sure I had a rule, but I won't share you casually with anyone, any more than I'd expect you to share me. But I assumed that you and Asher were lovers, without me." There, that was the truth.

"Why did you assume it?"

I motioned at Asher. "Look at him. Look at the way he watches you."

Asher laughed. "Are you saying I am so adorable, how could anyone turn me down?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I am."

His face softened, and he came to stand beside me. "Oh, Anita, you make my heart young again."

I took his hand in mine. "And sometimes you make me feel like such a baby."

"Pourquoi?"

"That I can take you both to bed, but I assumed you were doing each other behind my back, to save my sensibilities. It was a neat, clean solution, I thought. I didn't have to decide how I felt about you two being a couple, but we all got what we needed. Instead, Jean-Claude has been a very, very good boy, and you've felt neglected."

"Rejected," he said, and gave Jean-Claude a dark look.

I touched his face, turned him back to face me. "That was my fault, not his. He's right, Asher. You know me. I can ignore the elephant in the living room until I'm eyeball-deep in shit, but if you make me look at something before it's that big, sometimes I take it badly. If I'd walked in on you guys together, I'd have used it as an excuse to run for the hills. Jean-Claude's right about that."

"And now?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. That's the truth. Before I saw Jean-Claude kiss Auggie last night, before we shared him, I would have just said no. Not only no, but hell no." I looked down, not sure if I was embarrassed, unhappy, or just out of my depth. "But I want everyone that I love to be happy. I know that. I want us all to be happy, and to stop running." I touched my stomach, so nice and flat with all the exercise. "To stop pretending that we're something we're not." I looked up at him. "No one asked you how you feel about the baby thing. I mean, you have as good a chance at it as Jean-Claude. Being the father, I mean."

He smiled at me. "I am a selfish clod." He dropped to his knees, gazing up at me. "I wake power drunk, and forget you have been through so very much in the last few hours. Forgive me."

I shook my head. "No, I've been ignoring your problem for a lot longer."

"I am in the bed of two people I love, there is no problem. I am luckier, and happier, than I ever dreamed to be again."

"But..."

He put his fingertips against my mouth. "Hush. You ask how I feel about your pregnancy. How could I be anything but happy about the possibility of a little you, or Jean-Claude, coming into our lives? Julianna regretted that she never gave me a child." He said her name without aching sadness, for the very first time.

I kissed his fingers and moved his hand so I could say, "You're happy about the pregnancy."

"Not happy, or unhappy, but I am very happy with you right now. I am very proud to call you my lover. You truly want us all to be happy, Anita. You have no idea how rare it is for two people in a relationship to truly want the happiness of the other, but you juggle many hearts and seek happiness for all. It is a rare gift, this desire."

"How could you love someone and not want them to be happy?"

He smiled up at me, his hair falling back. He smiled broad enough to flash fangs, which he did rarely. A smile this broad stretched the scars, made him notice how tight the skin was, but it was the effect on others that made him not do it, or the perceived effect on others. I remembered this smile from centuries before I was born. It was a smile he had before Julianna died, before holy water was trailed over him to try to chase the devil out. I smiled back, because it eased something in my heart to see that smile again. I was almost certain that the feeling of ease was Jean-Claude's and not mine, but it felt real.

Asher hugged me, putting his face against my stomach. He went very still, as if he were listening. I stroked his hair, always a surprise, because it was soft and foamy, not as soft as Jean-Claude's, but as soft as mine. Hair that looked like spun gold shouldn't be that soft, should it?

He spoke low and soft, in French. I caught the word bebe. Baby. I waited to be irritated, but all I could think while I stared down at him whispering to my stomach was how cute it was. That didn't sound like me. I looked across the room, and found Jean-Claude's face gone soft with emotion. I knew who thought it was cute, and it wasn't me. But with that much of Jean-Claude's emotion going through me, I had to agree. I held my hand out to Jean-Claude, while the other hand stroked Asher's hair. Jean-Claude took my hand and hugged me from behind, pressing his body to Asher's arms around my waist. So happy, Jean-Claude was so happy. It filled us both, so warm, so good, like being wrapped in your favorite blanket cuddled against someone you love. I leaned into Jean-Claude's arm, and he laid a kiss against my neck. Asher raised his face, and smiled up at us both. His face somehow looked younger, the way he must have looked centuries ago when he was alive.

The happiness was real, touchable; then the thinnest slice of regret crept into Jean-Claude's mind. I caught the thought before he could hide it, that happiness like this does not last. That the last time he'd been this happy, it had all gone horribly wrong. He buried his face in the crook of my neck to hide his expression from Asher. I touched his face, gave him my eyes, and let him see that I'd "heard" his thought, and it was all right. It was all right to fear the-great-bad-thing coming to get you, because I believed in the-great-bad-thing, too.

When I was younger, I'd wanted someone to promise me that things would work out and nothing bad would ever happen again. But I understood now that that was a child's wish. No one could promise that. No one. The grown-ups could try, but they couldn't promise, not and mean it. I stood there between the two of them, and knew that I would do whatever it took to keep them safe, to keep them happy. I'd been willing to kill for the people I loved for a very long time; now I had to start living for them.