Serpentine

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "Yes."

  "You didn't push the topic until he understood what you were worried about, did you?" Nathaniel asked.

  "I talked to him," she said, scowling at him.

  Nathaniel faced her angry face and smiled. "But you didn't push."

  She glowered at him. He just looked at her and smiled, and gradually the anger left her, so that she looked chagrined, a look that I'd never seen on her face before. "Maybe not as hard as I should have."

  "Why not?" I asked.

  Her eyes flicked to me and then to Nathaniel, who seemed to already know the answer. Pride touched her arm, lightly, and said, "You need to tell Micah and Anita."

  "Tell us what?" I asked.

  "I assume you're headed back downstairs to sleep," she said.

  "Yeah, trying to get there."

  "Let's talk on the stairs, then," she said.

  We didn't argue, just moved for the door that she and Pride had just come through. If they didn't like the idea of going back down the stairs after just getting to the top of them, neither of them showed it. The rest of us just followed them back down the steps until Claudia thought we were far enough down to not be overheard from above.

  She turned, leaning against the wall while the rest of us fanned out along the steps. "I didn't push the topic because Jean-Claude makes me nervous," she said, looking at the floor and then up at me as if daring me to make more of it than there was to make.

  I met her angry, defiant look and didn't know what to say. I finally looked at Nathaniel. "And you knew this how?"

  "I've been in the room for a lot of her reports to Jean-Claude," he said.

  "God, I hate that it was that obvious," she said.

  "It wasn't that obvious--I swear."

  She looked at him as if she didn't believe him, but then some tension left her. She was like most powerful shapeshifters and could smell when someone was lying. Apparently, Nathaniel was telling the truth.

  I started to ask, Why does Jean-Claude make you nervous? but Nicky touched one arm and Nathaniel touched the other. I looked from one to the other of them. What was I missing?

  Micah asked, "Has Jean-Claude done anything to make you nervous around him?"

  I frowned at the two men touching me, as if to say, See, it wasn't just me.

  "No, he's always the perfect gentleman."

  "It's not just you that's nervous around him," Pride said.

  I looked at him. "What am I missing here?"

  "It's not just Anita who has gained power as our evil queen," Rodina said.

  "Will you please stop calling me that?" I said.

  "As you wish, but you are heir to our dead queen's power, and through you it flows to all of those metaphysically tied to you."

  "We all share power, so what?"

  She looked at me as if I were being silly, or deliberately stupid.

  Nathaniel answered, "Jean-Claude's sexual attractiveness has gone up."

  I frowned at him. "That's not possible."

  "It's possible," Pride said. "I'm completely heterosexual, but I'm noticing Jean-Claude in a way that I didn't before Ireland."

  "Pride is right. It all started after Ireland," Claudia said.

  "Are you saying that Jean-Claude's natural charisma has gotten that much better?" I asked.

  They both nodded.

  "And when was someone going to tell us that?" I said.

  "They just told you," Nicky said.

  "Are you both having trouble being alone with Jean-Claude?" Micah asked.

  They exchanged looks with each other. Claudia shook her head and said, "I make sure I'm never alone with him."

  "Are you saying you don't trust him alone with you?"

  "Anita, don't make me say it."

  "I'll say it for both of us," Pride said.

  "One of you say it," I said.

  "It's not Jean-Claude that we don't trust; it's us," Pride said.

  "Are you saying that you're afraid that you'll . . . what? Throw yourself at him?" I asked.

  "Not exactly," he said.

  "Then what?" I asked.

  "If he asked us to donate blood to him, I don't think we'd refuse," Claudia said.

  "You don't donate blood to anyone," I said.

  "I know."

  "We're saying that if Jean-Claude wanted to take advantage of the leveling up that you've all done, he could," Pride said.

  "Are you having issues around any of the rest of us?" I asked.

  "Not like we are with Jean-Claude," she said.

  "I like women and I'm still not having as much trouble with you as I am with him," Pride said.

  "Good to know," I said.

  "Are you truly happy knowing that they are more attracted to Jean-Claude than to you?" Rodina asked.

  I nodded.

  She laughed.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Most women would be bothered by that," she said.

  "I'm relieved," I said.

  "Why?" This was from Ru.

  "I don't want people attracted to me by magic; that's just creepy."

  "There are men and women through the ages that have paid fortunes to seek out the very spells that you do not want," Ru said.

  "Love potions and charms and all that kind of stuff are illegal for a reason," I said.

  "It's illegal because people will use love spells, if they can find ones that work," Rodina said.

  "I didn't think there was such a thing as a real love spell," Micah said.

  "Not true love," Rodina said, "but lust; there's plenty of those."

  "Lust is easier than love, always has been," Ru said.

  Rodina nodded, face solemn.

  I looked at the siblings and felt like there was a story there. I debated on whether it was any of my business. Ru looked at me. "I feel your curiosity. I would ask what I have no right to: Please do not ask this story of us."

  I looked into his black eyes with the guy-liner done heavy around them and thought that if he was going to do the eyeliner, he needed to do something less conservative with his hair. Out loud I said, "You can keep your story, Ru."

  "Thank you, my queen." He did a bow that went with the title.

  "No need to bow," I said.

  "You are being generous in your treatment of us. I wish you to know that I appreciate it."

  "Okay, and you're welcome," I said.

  "Do you want us to talk to Jean-Claude about this?" Micah asked Claudia.

  She looked shocked. "About the payroll and the guards, yes, but about the other, absolutely not."

  "Pride?" he asked the man.

  "No, not unless it gets worse."

  "Promise to tell one of us if it does grow worse," Micah said.

  They both promised and went back up the stairs. We continued down them toward our bed. I was suddenly tired.

  "I'm sorry that seeing Melanie bothered you," Nathaniel said as we walked down the endless steps.

  "I'm sorry that seeing her interact with you made me feel sort of jealous."

  "I was never with her while we were dating."

  "I believe you," I said.

  "It bothered me, too," Micah said.

  "Why? You've seen me with ex-lovers before."

  "I'm not sure I have," Micah said.

  "He didn't come to town until after you were with me," I said.

  He hugged Micah. "I'm sorry, I forgot."

  Micah hugged him back, smiling. "It's okay. I didn't think it would bother me this much."

  "I think what bothered me was that you called Melanie a fuck buddy, but she seemed to be a lot more serious toward you than that," I said.

  "I noticed that, too," Micah said.

  "I can't help what she thought or even felt. I can only tell you that I was sleeping with a lot of people at the same time."

  "Did she know that?" Micah asked.

  "Yes," he said. "I was still working as a paid escort, for one thing."

  "Were you sleeping with other people off the clock?" I asked.
r />   "Yes, and I made no secret of it. I was slutty, but I made sure everyone that was interested knew it before I slept with them. I'd stopped taking drugs and was in a program to stay off of them, but I was using sex as my drug; I just didn't realize it."

  I wasn't sure what to say to that and finally settled for, "Yay, therapy."

  He nodded. "I was afraid to sleep alone, and the only reason that people sleep with someone is sex, so I made sure I was having enough of it that I was never alone. It was all pretty desperate."

  "I'm glad you don't have to be desperate anymore," I said.

  "Me, too," he said, smiling.

  "Me, three," Micah said, and came in to take us both into a hug. We held on to one another on the stairs. It felt so good, I just wanted to go back to the bedroom and curl up between them and sleep.

  "Would it be really weird to say I'm tired and I just want to curl up between the two of you and sleep?"

  "That would work for me," Micah said.

  "I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't disappointed," Nathaniel said, "but we did have great sex earlier, so you might persuade me to just sleep if you promise to wake me up with great sex."

  "I think we can manage that," I said, half laughing.

  "I'll do my best to make sure the sex is great when we wake up," Micah said.

  "Then let's go to bed," Nathaniel said, grinning at both of us.

  And for once, the three of us stripped off our clothes, crawled into the big bed in Jean-Claude's room, and just slept. We were waiting for him when he finished his meeting, just before dawn. He stripped off his clothes and crawled into bed next to Micah with a murmured, "So warm." He had time to fall asleep with us in a tangle of arms and legs and spooning bodies before the sun rose aboveground and he died for the day.

  15

  MICAH AND I talked to Jean-Claude about the security hiring issues before we had to fly out on Friday for Edward and Donna's wedding. A phone call for another treaty-dispute issue between animal groups out west came up as we were packing. Normally, Micah would have blown off the wedding to take care of it, but he sent Jake and Kaazim in the private jet. They'd both been with him on the last trip to deal with the same two groups, so they knew the situation as well as he did. That meant that we suddenly had to find tickets on commercial airlines to Key West. Having to do last-minute ticket shopping helped us make the decision to limit the number of bodyguards we were bringing with us. On one hand we were all feeling a little suffocated about having so many bodyguards around; on the other hand, we'd had a ton of bodyguards in Ireland and still almost come to grief. Choices, choices.

  Nicky and Bram were givens, but after that it got trickier. Jake and Kaazim would have been our next top picks, but they were handling Coalition business so Micah could enjoy the trip. Jean-Claude insisted if we were taking so few guards that two of them be Harlequin. I couldn't argue, but then Micah insisted that none of the extra guards be ones we were sleeping with since this was supposed to be a couple trip for the three of us. That was fair, but one or more of us was sleeping with the rest of the Harlequin we trusted. Yeah, yeah, we've got to stop sleeping with our employees or we're going to need an HR person. Because I couldn't come up with a better idea, Rodina and Ru were in coach behind us.

  They'd shown up in oversize black T-shirts with young-angry-person slogans, baggy khaki shorts, and combat boots. The 5.11 boots were the only thing that was part of their normal clothes--well, and the black eyeliner. It didn't look very bodyguard professional, but honestly what bothered me most was that I was wearing almost the same outfit, except I was wearing a plain black tank top over blue jean shorts with a black boyfriend-style black shirt over the tank. I was even wearing my own 5.11 boots, the pair with side zippers, perfect for going through the airport. If I'd seen their clothes first, I might have changed, or made them change. I was supposed to be the boss, after all.

  I hadn't chosen my clothes just for comfort; I'd chosen them because I knew they'd help hide the gun at my waist. I had the sky-marshal training, so I was allowed to carry on the plane, but a lot of people get nervous around guns, and the last thing I needed was some Good Samaritan thinking I was going to hijack the plane while Nicky and Bram were only a few seats away. The poor Samaritan wouldn't know what hit him. So, in the interest of everyone's safety, I chose clothes that would keep the gun our little secret.

  Bram was the only one of us in jeans with a white tank top tucked into them, and a black shirt unbuttoned like a jacket over the first shirt. He was wearing black 5.11 boots just like the three of us. Nicky had a black tank top with a large Hawaiian shirt in a bright pattern unbuttoned over it. The bold pattern would hide his gun, as would Bram's black shirt--once we landed and they could get their weapons out of the checked luggage. Nicky's thighs wouldn't fit in most shorts, so he was wearing jean cutoffs that he'd sort of made himself. He'd gone for black slip-on Vans instead of combat boots.

  I'd known the wedding was in Florida. I'd known that the closest airport was in Key West. What I hadn't realized was that the airport isn't big enough for really large airplanes, so it was two seats on one side, a single seat on the other side of the aisle, and a round metal tube that was far too small for my claustrophobia. I wasn't the only one I knew with a fear of flying, aviophobia, but I was the only one I knew with the combination of phobias. I'd thought I was getting better at flying because of how well I'd taken the flights to New Mexico and back, but this trip was teaching me that though my fear of flying might be easing through a sort of immersion therapy from all the business flights, the claustrophobia hadn't really improved much. I'd loved small spaces until I'd had a diving accident that involved a cave underwater, in the dark. That had been the start of it, but I'd also woken up in a couple of coffins when vampires captured me and decided to save me as a snack for later. Waking up in the pitch black with a dead body beside you that you know in a few hours will come to "life" and feed on you . . . I'd earned my claustrophobia.

  I sat in the small airplane thinking this was so much better than being trapped in a dark coffin with a vampire. It was, it really was, and this plane was fully functional, not like the one that had nearly crashed with me on it a decade earlier that had given me my fear of flying. I'd been in a helicopter that crash-landed more recently, but it hadn't made the phobia worse. It just hadn't made it any better.

  I sat beside the window because that helped ease the claustrophobia. If only looking out and seeing clouds and the ocean so far below didn't make the aviophobia worse. I closed my eyes and tightened my death grip on the arm of my seat. I tried not to grip Micah's thigh quite as tight as the chair arm. I'd been holding his hand, but he'd lost feeling in his fingers, so he'd moved my hand to his jeans and the thigh underneath. On one flight I'd actually bled him through a pair of jeans, so I was really trying to monitor my grip. He shouldn't have to bleed because I was a great big baby on planes.

  The plane shook and then hit some bumpy air, like a car hitting a rough spot in the road. With my eyes closed, my stomach rolled from the movement, so I had to open my eyes. I'd never thrown up on an airplane and I didn't want to break that streak.

  "Anita, honey, it's okay," Micah said.

  I turned and looked at him. Sunlight from behind me spilled across his face, making the pupils of his eyes spiral down to a pinpoint so that the green and gold of his irises filled his eyes. They were framed by his new glasses. We'd finally persuaded him to get colored frames. They were a mix of brown and green tortoiseshell that made the green in his leopard eyes more prominent than the yellow, but maybe that was partly the forest green T-shirt he was wearing and the tan. As a human he'd had perfect eyesight, but cats, even leopards, are nearsighted, and now so was Micah. I was actually feeling better, just gazing at him, when the plane shuddered again. It sort of slid sideways as if there were ice on some invisible celestial highway. I suddenly didn't feel well again.

  "It's okay, Anita. It's just a little bit of turbulence."

  "Easy for you
to say." It sounded grumpy even to me, and I didn't want to be grumpy at him. A few nights sleeping home in St. Louis with us had helped chase away the dark mood he'd been in about the Florida case. Some really great sex as a threesome had helped, too. I didn't want to rain on his brighter outlook because I was being cranky.

  His smile widened, as if I hadn't just grumped at him. "You know how I feel about your fear of flying."

  I frowned at him because I couldn't help it. "You sort of like that I'm afraid of it."

  "I don't like that you're afraid, but that I can be brave for you is kind of nice."

  "We could talk about work; that usually distracts me."

  Nathaniel leaned across the aisle from the one seat on that side and said, "I like that you're both big and brave for me, but no work talk. You promised." He smiled and offered a hand to Micah, who took it, and between them they had enough reach to be able to hold hands across the aisle. I'd have had to squeeze Nathaniel's hand and let it go.

  Since Nathaniel was the only one of us who didn't have a concealed-carry permit, he didn't have to stick with dark colors or patterns that would conceal things later, so he was wearing a pale lavender tank top, black khaki shorts, and purple jogging shoes. The tank top showed off the muscles in his shoulders and arms and the shorts managed to be tight across his ass but loose elsewhere. I wasn't sure how the shorts managed that, but it meant that he looked great coming and going.

  "No work talk at the wedding unless something new happens with my . . . clients," Micah said. His face was already losing some of its happiness, the tension singing down his body where I was touching him.

  "Thank you," Nathaniel said, and lifted Micah's hand up so he could plant a light kiss across his knuckles. Micah smiled and some of the tension eased away. I kissed him on the cheek and he turned and looked at me, smiling again.

  The announcement for landing came on, and my pulse instantly tried to climb out of my throat. It was so ridiculous that my phobia was still this bad. I clung to Micah's thigh through his jeans, took a few deep breaths, and concentrated on controlling my breathing. He put his hand over mine, which made me look into his eyes. He smiled and there was such confidence, such surety that we were going to be fine. In the face of his calm it was hard to be afraid. He'd been my steadying force from almost the moment we met. He fit a role in my life that I hadn't even known I needed filled, as if he'd shown up for a job I hadn't been advertising but that I really needed someone to do.