It was the most careful kiss I'd ever been given, and one of the most frustrating. I was making small noises deep in my throat, because I wanted more. I wanted so much more.
When he drew back, he held a spot of my lipstick like a crimson stain in the center of his lips. There was the tiniest bit of color to his cheeks. He was like the cold of winter touched by the barest breath of spring, so that warmth was only a promise, not real, not now, but a distant hope. But hope is better than the alternative.
He swallowed convulsively, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment, before he straightened and his hands on my shoulders were firm. "That is but a taste of what I need, ma petite. "
"Don't stop," I said.
He smiled, but it was sad. "Let the effects wear awhile, then give me an answer about more."
I shook my head. What was he talking about? Of course, of course he could have more.
"It is my fault, ma petite. I asked you to let me in your shields. I did not mean for you to drop all the defenses in your considerable repertoire. It was nearly overwhelming for both of us." He looked at me as if he saw something new there, or someone new. "I must attend to our fair audience." He almost came to me again for a good-bye kiss, but he pushed away, and he called to someone, "Attend her until she recovers. No, not you, not until she is herself again. I fear what she would do if you touched her now."
His voice when it came again, filled the club, echoed into the shadows of it, and yet, seemed intimate, as if he whispered it against your skin, and only your skin. "Primo has walked through fire and blood to be reborn for you tonight. Transformed before your eyes from the warrior of nightmares to the lover of dreams."
"They're too scared, they won't believe it." It was Nathaniel's voice.
I turned toward that voice, but met a different face. Nathaniel was standing just beyond, out of reach, but Byron was standing so close that it startled me. He wasn't quite three hundred years old, and I normally heard him move as if he were human. He wasn't powerful, and never would be, but tonight, I hadn't even known he was standing nearly touching me. That helped sober me up more than anything else. I hadn't heard one of the weakest of the new vamps that Jean-Claude had welcomed to town. Bad necromancer, no cookie.
"You've never seen him after he's fed like this," Byron said in that nicely accented British voice, "watch."
I fought not to look at Jean-Claude. I looked at the audience instead. Their eyes were wide, their faces pale, or flushed. Some of them were still hiding under the tables. If the fight hadn't taken place between them and the most obvious door, they'd have probably fled. All they needed was a sign above them that said "scared shitless." It was probably the most spilled blood that any of them had ever seen. Scary stuff.
As long as I looked at the audience I agreed with Nathaniel, but when my eyes drifted to Jean-Claude's back as he spoke with them, well... I had to look away. I had to not look, because the craving was still there. I'd been told that my desire to touch him had been part of the same craving that any servant felt for their master, but I hadn't really believed it. This, this was craving.
I found myself staring at Primo, who was still on his knees, looking confused, a half-circle of black-shirted security guards standing around him. He looked up at me, and his eyes held something like pain. He spoke, and no one at the tables heard him, just me and security, and the vampire and wereleopard at my back. "You have trapped me."
I opened my mouth to say, "I didn't mean to," but someone touched my left wrist, and it hurt. A sharp immediate pain. I whirled and found Byron touching me. "Let go of me."
He opened his hand and just let my arm fall back. He whispered, "You're bleeding. Jean-Claude told me to attend to you. Let me tend your wound." Here was a face younger and more innocent seeming than Nathaniel's. He'd been in his late teens when his master had brought him over. His hair was a soft brown that fell in loose curls just past his ears, leaving his slender neck bare and showing the V of white skin at the neck of the robe he wore. I remembered that someone had said the college students were heckling Byron. He must have been the one on stage.
He was shorter than I was, and slender, not preadolescent, but young, unfinished, and he'd be unfinished forever. Whether his shoulders would have broadened, or he'd have gotten taller, we'd never know. He could lift weights and add definition, in fact, he had, at Jean-Claude's insistence, but he'd never have the body he might have had if the vampire that killed him had waited a year or two.
His eyes were gray and seemed to take up most of his face, huge, soft gray. The color that fog can have when it's at its thickest, that close suffocating wall of mist.
I had to shake my head and draw back. Shit. Byron had almost rolled me with his eyes. That shouldn't have been possible. Jean-Claude had said that I'd let down all my defenses. I hadn't meant to. It was more as if Jean-Claude had taken down all my defenses. But Byron was no Jean-Claude. Him I could keep out.
I actually closed my eyes and did the deep-breathing exercises that I'd learned. Draw yourself to the center of your body. Draw yourself in and center yourself down a line that goes into the earth itself. Marianne called it grounding, and it was. Grounding, as in being grounded, solid on your feet, secure.
But it was hard to stay focused, because Jean-Claude's voice was still there, and closing my eyes didn't get rid of it. "Who among you has not wished to tame a savage heart, to take a man and change him beyond reckoning? To make him into what you wish him to be? Primo kneels before your beauty, and he is what you will make of him. He will rise and fall to your desires."
I felt Jean-Claude walk between me and Primo. Even with my eyes closed, even with me trying to anchor myself, I felt him like a hand sweeping all my concentration away. I looked up and saw him touch Primo's face, the lightest of touches. "Show them that magnificent body."
Primo shook his head. He did not want to play.
I felt Jean-Claude's will flex, like a muscle squeezing around Primo. I felt that flare of warmth spill out from him to the bigger man. I had actually stepped closer to them, when Byron pulled me back.
"I wouldn't advise that," he said, and again I felt the pull of those soft gray eyes, like being wrapped in the warmest of blankets.
Primo stood, and that turned me back to them. The big man balled his hands into his black, blood-soaked shirt, and tore it like it was paper. Naked from the waist up, he was magnificent, if you were into giants. It wasn't the hugeness that came from weight lifting. It was just how big he was.
"Who will be his first kiss?" Jean-Claude asked.
I felt the movement before I turned and saw the audience. There was no fear now, Jean-Claude's voice had taken their fear. All I saw now was eagerness, at worst, uncertainty, as if they just weren't sure. The first few hands went up with money in them, and once that happened, more followed. No one wants to be first, but no one wants to be left out, either.
Byron pulled gently on my shoulder. "We need to bind that wound, Anita. Let's go backstage."
"He's right," Nathaniel said, and he was closer now. Close enough that I could see that there was some blood spattered on his lavender shirt. He must have been closer to Primo than I remembered. But I wasn't thinking well. It was as if I hadn't been quite myself since I got out here. What was wrong with me?
I nodded. "Okay, okay, yeah."
I let Byron and Nathaniel lead me away, but my glance stayed turned to the room. The brunette from the alleyway was running her hand up Primo's skin, and that skin was clean and smooth, no blood, no signs of the struggle. She ran her hands over his skin, but his glance was for me. His eyes held a mute appeal for help, and I didn't understand why.
Jean-Claude touched the big man's bare back, and Primo's face turned back to the woman. There was no confusion on his face now. There was nothing but lust, and in that moment I understood. Jean-Claude was controlling Primo. He was manipulating the vampire more than he had ever manipulated the audience. They'd come for a little bit of lascivious fun. Primo had come
to be Master of the City, but instead, he was just another act at Guilty Pleasures. He kissed the brunette like he'd breathe her in, as if to kiss her were life itself. When he let her go and one of the security guards eased her shaking body into her seat, money sprang up in hands throughout the room. Welcome to show business, Primo, I thought.
36
The door closed, and like magic it was quiet. The backstage area was soundproofed, but it was more than that today. It was as if with the closing of that door I could think again, really think. I knew that proximity to Jean-Claude could make things worse, usually proximity meant touching. Tonight, in the same room was too close.
I shook my head. "What the hell is happening?"
"We have a first aid kit in the dressing rooms," Byron said. He tried to lead me toward one of the doors on the right.
I took my arm out of his grip and looked at Nathaniel. "Did I hear Jean-Claude tell you not to touch me?"
He nodded. "He's not sure what will happen right now." His face was very solemn, serious, closed. He was being careful around me again, and I didn't know why.
"Have I missed something tonight?"
"You're dripping blood," Byron said, and he motioned at my arm.
Blood was trickling down my hand to drop, drop onto the white floor. The hallway was so white and so empty that the spot of crimson seemed loud, as if color were sound. I shook my head again. "Something's wrong."
"You've lost more blood than you realize," Byron said.
"Anita," Nathaniel said, and it seemed like it took longer than it should have for me to turn and look at him. "Anita, come into the dressing rooms. We'll take care of you."
I nodded and raised my arm up to about chest high. It would help slow the blood loss. The sleeve of my jacket was a bloody mess, and I hadn't noticed until now. Something was terribly wrong, and I didn't know what it was. I knew that making a new triumvirate with Damian and Nathaniel was probably the cause, but that only told me why it was happening, not what was happening. Why didn't matter very much to me right that moment; what was happening, that mattered a great deal.
Byron touched my arm, only enough to guide me through the door that Nathaniel opened for us. As I walked past Nathaniel, I felt something open between us, as if there were a door in the middle of our bodies. A door that wanted to close around us, to press us tight together.
Byron literally put his body in front of mine and kept me from touching Nathaniel. I growled at him, and Nathaniel echoed me at his back. "Ease down, kitty-cats, I am only doing what the Master of the City ordered me to do." His eyes were a little wide, and I got a whiff not of fear but something close to it. "Do you remember what Jean-Claude's kiss felt like out there?" He grabbed my hurt wrist and ground his fingers into it.
"That hurts," I said, and I turned on him, angry, ready to be angry.
"But you can think now, can't you?"
That made me take a step back into the dressing rooms beyond. Byron followed, a hand still on my wrist, but loosely now, not to hurt, but more to guide.
"What's happening to us?" I asked.
"It looks like you've all hit a new power plateau," Byron said, as he led me between the little lighted tables scattered with makeup and bits of costume.
"Which means what?" I asked.
He stopped in front of a big gray metal cabinet that was at the far end of the room. "Which means, answer my question. Do you remember what the kiss felt like in the other room?" He opened the cabinet, and it seemed to be full of cleaning supplies and extra bits of things that people might need. On the top shelf, so he had to stand on tiptoe, was a first aid kit, a big one.
"It was like he drank my soul," and saying it out loud was too poetic for me. I blushed and tried again. "I thought he'd fed the ardeur during sex with me, but if that kiss was feeding the same thing, he's been holding back."
Byron tried to find enough clean space on the nearby tables to open the medicine chest, but gave up and asked Nathaniel to hold it, while he rummaged through it. "He's been holding back, luv, trust me on that."
"How do you know?" I asked.
He gave me a very flat stare out of his big gray eyes. "Jean-Claude liked London once, he liked it a very great deal, and I liked that he liked it." There was something almost unfriendly in the way he finished that sentence.
"Why do I feel like apologizing?" I asked.
"Just hold your arm up higher," he said. He had his hands full of things, but still wasn't satisfied. "Nothing to apologize for, duckie. Except for Asher, Jean-Claude prefers his meat of the gentler persuasion, always did. Ah, here it is." He held up an unopened package of gauze pads. He smiled at me, and the smile was so harmless, so not matching the situation. "Now, let Uncle Byron see to the big, bad boo-boo."
I gave him a look that wasn't entirely friendly. "I'm bleeding, not brain damaged, can the baby talk."
He shrugged. "Whatever you say, lover."
I started to correct him, but Byron used pet names, mostly the same pet names, for everybody. If I took it too personally, it would be impossible to have a conversation with him. I was tired tonight. I let it go.
"Why doesn't he want me to touch Nathaniel?"
Byron looked at me like I was being slow. "Because, luv, if Jean-Claude's kiss is suddenly more, then maybe yours will be, too. The servant rises in power with his master." He looked at everything in his hands, then shook his head, looked impatient and dumped it all back into the box. "Hand me things when I ask for them," he said to Nathaniel.
Nathaniel nodded, but he was looking at me. I found myself staring into those lavender eyes.
Byron snapped his fingers in the air between our faces. It made us both jump. "The two of you are so not touching right now. Dangerous is what it would be. Now take off your jacket."
I did what he asked, and it hurt to get the sleeve off, but it wasn't until I saw my wrist that I gasped, and Nathaniel said, "Oh, shit."
Most vampire bites are neat, almost dainty things. This wasn't. It was as if, even once his fangs sank home he'd used his other teeth to bite down, so that it looked more like an animal bite. A big, angry animal bite. Blood was seeping out of the two deepest fang marks, seeping in a nice steady line. The moment I saw it, I was dizzy, and it hurt like hell. Why does it always hurt so much more when you see the blood?
"You are lucky you're still standing," Byron said. He hooked a chair with one naked foot, and said, "Sit."
I sat. Because truthfully, I was a little shaken. It was a bad enough wound that I should have noticed it sooner. Really noticed it. A fraction of an inch better, or worse, or just deeper, and I could have bled nearly to death before I noticed it.
"Why didn't I notice sooner?"
"I've seen bespelled humans bleed to death from tiny wounds, a smile on their face all the way to the end, duckie." He ripped open the sterile gauze pads. "Put this on it, and press hard. You've lost enough blood for one night, let's see if we can save the rest." When he was serious, the nicknames vanished. He'd only been in town a few weeks, and already I knew that when the duckies, luvs, and crumpets disappeared, things were bad.
"What can I do to help?" Nathaniel asked.
"Find more gauze pads. That's the only pack in here, and she's going to need more."
Nathaniel put the first aid kit on a chair that he moved close to Byron, then he went for the door. Apparently he knew where they kept the extra gauze. "How bad do you guys get cut up here?"
"Usually scratches," he said, "though you'd be surprised the number of women that try to bite."
I looked at him.
He grinned. "Now, duckie, why would I lie?"
One second I was looking at Byron and thinking nothing really. My wrist hurt, and I wondered why I hadn't noticed it sooner, and then suddenly I was wondering if he was naked under the robe, and I was hoping he was.
I closed my eyes and tried to shield. Tried to nail anything and everything I had between me and Jean-Claude, but his voice came through. "I am sorry, ma p
etite, so sorry, but Primo is still fighting me, and I have not fed enough. I cannot feed and control him, but you can feed for me. You can give me what I need, ma petite. Please, please, do not deny me. If I lose control of Primo now, he will slaughter these women. He will see himself humiliated by them. Please, ma petite, hear me, and know that I speak only truth. Help me!" He cut contact abruptly, and I got a glimpse of Primo's rage stabbing at the lust that Jean-Claude had fed him. It was as if Primo were a human besotted, but still fighting, fighting to break free.
"Damn you, Jean-Claude," I whispered.
Byron touched my arm. "Don't faint on me."
I opened my eyes, and his gray ones were so close to mine. He was so close. I don't know what showed in my eyes, but he let go of me like I'd burned him. His eyes were a little wide, and his voice was breathy when he said, "I don't like the look in your eyes. It doesn't look much like you."
I leaned into him, and he leaned back. I kept moving forward, and he kept moving back, so that I slipped out of the chair, and he ended up on the floor for a second, before he rolled to his feet. I was left kneeling on the floor, but I had a handful of his robe. The cloth stretched away from his body, and I saw that he was wearing something under it, but not much. It was lust, but it was more than that. It was lust, as if sex were food. I'd thought the ardeur was the worst of it, but this felt... less, worse. Except for that first time I'd had some control over the ardeur. Not liking someone, or knowing someone helped me fight it off. This was different. It wouldn't have mattered. This was need so raw that it just wouldn't have mattered.
Jean-Claude screamed through my head, "Anita, help me!" He'd used my real name, and his desperation cut through me like a knife.
Some of that desperation fell into my voice. "I'm sorry, Byron, but Jean-Claude is about to lose control of Primo. He needs more food."
"And who gets to be the food?" he asked, and there was that edge of fear to him.
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