I sighed, and let him see that I was tired, and sad, and sorry. "There was a time when I would have agreed with you, but I like parts of my life a lot, Richard. I hate the ardeur, but I don't hate everything it's brought into my life. I'd have liked to try that whole picket-fence thing, but I think even without the ardeur and the vampire marks, that it wouldn't have been my gig."
"I think it would have been," he said.
"Richard, I don't think you see me. I don't think you see who I am."
"How can you say that to me? If I don't shield I share your dreams, and your nightmares."
"But you're still trying to shove me in a box that I don't think fit me even when we met. Just like you're trying to shove yourself into a box that doesn't fit you, either."
He was shaking his head. "That's not true. That's not true."
"Which part?" I asked.
"I think we could have made it, our version of the white picket fence, without him," and he pointed at Jean-Claude.
Jean-Claude was giving his most peaceful, empty face, as if he were afraid to do or say anything.
"Don't try to blame all our problems on Jean-Claude."
"Why not, it's true. If he had left us alone, not marked us."
"You'd be dead," I said.
He frowned at me. "What?"
"Without the extra power of the marks with Jean-Claude you'd never have had the power to kill Marcus and keep the pack."
"That's not true."
I just stared at him. "Yeah, Richard, I was there, it is true. You'd be dead, and I'd still be living alone sleeping with my stuffed toys and guns. You'd be dead and I'd be dead inside, dying of loneliness, not just because you would be gone, but because my life was empty before. I was like a Jot of people who do police work. I was my job. I had nothing else. My life was full of death, and horror, and trying to stay ahead of the next horror. But I was losing the battle, Richard, losing myself, long before Jean-Claude marked me."
"I asked you to give up the police work. I told you it was eating you up."
I shook my head. "You're not listening to me, Richard, or you're not hearing me."
"Maybe I don't want to hear you. Or maybe I'm right, and you're not listening."
We stood barely two feet apart, but it might as well have been a thousand miles. Some distances are made out of things bigger and harder to travel across than mere miles. We stood and stared at each other across a chasm of misunderstanding, and pain, and love.
I tried one last time. "Say you're right. Say if Jean-Claude had left us alone you could have your perfect picture. I still wouldn't have given up the police work."
"You just said, it was destroying you."
I nodded. "Just because something's hard doesn't mean you give up on it." Somehow I thought I was talking about more than just police work.
"You said I was right."
"I said, say you're right. Let's just pretend that without Jean-Claude here, we would have found a way. But we are bound to him, Richard. We are a triumvirate of power. What we would change if life were totally different doesn't really matter."
"How can you say that?"
"What matters, Richard, is that we deal with the reality of our now, this minute. There are things we can't undo, and we all have to work together to make the best of what's true in our lives."
His face was cold with his anger. I hated his face like this, because it was both frightening and more beautiful, as if the anger cleaned away something that distracted the eye from realizing just how amazingly handsome he was. "And what is true in our lives?" His power began to flow through the room, hot water, hotter than you'd want in the bath. The guards around the room shifted uneasily.
"I am Jean-Claude's human servant. You are his animal to call. We are a triumvirate of power. We can't change that. Jean-Claude and I both carry the ardeur. We both need to feed the hunger, and that's not going to change."
"I thought you were hoping to be able to feed from a distance at the clubs, the way Jean-Claude did under Nikolaos."
"It crippled his power, which is what the ex-Master of the City wanted to do. I'm not going to cripple us magically because I'm squeamish. No more hiding, Richard. The ardeur is here to stay, and I need to feed it."
He shook his head. "No."
"No, what?"
He let down his shields. I don't know if it was on purpose, or his emotions got the better of him. Whatever the cause I suddenly heard his thoughts like clear bells in my head: he thought that once I got die ardeur under control I'd dump Micah and Nathaniel and live with him. Be with him. He still hoped, seriously, that some day we'd be a nice little monogamous pair.
It took only seconds for me to get all of it, but his shields coming down had brought mine down, too, and he felt my shock. My disbelief that he still thought, seriously, that that would ever happen.
I felt the next thought forming, and tried to stop it, tried to keep it half-formed, or to shut him out, but the emotions were too raw, and I wasn't fast enough. The thought was, Even if I am pregnant, it would never work.
Richard's face showed the shock now. He gaped at me, and whispered, "Pregnant."
I said the only thing that came to mind. "Fuck."
15
I SLAMMED EVERY shield I had in place, shut, tight, metal, closed. I thought metal, smooth and thick and impenetrable. I stared at the floor, afraid to meet anyone's eyes. Afraid of what I'd see in their faces, or what I wouldn't.
"Anita," Richard said, and his hand reached for me.
I stepped out of reach. I was shaking my head. I didn't know what I wanted out of this moment, didn't know what reaction would please me, and which one would piss me off. I'd hoped to keep it secret until I knew for sure. I did not want to open this can of emotional worms until it was a done deal.
It was Samuel who broke the silence. "Congratulations to both of you. A baby, joyous news indeed."
I turned slowly to look at him, because of anyone in the room I cared least what he thought about the news. Him, I could look at. Him, I could be angry with.
Sampson was already touching his father's shoulder. "Father, I think we should leave now."
Samuel was looking from his son, to me, to Jean-Claude, to most of the people around the room. He looked utterly confused. "But this is wonderful news, and you're all acting as if someone has died."
"Father," Sampson said, soft and warningly. He was looking at my face, and whatever he saw there made him grab his father's elbow and try to get him on his feet.
He stared at his son's hand until Sampson let it drop away. Samuel then met my gaze. His eyes didn't look friendly now. They looked older, full of some deep knowledge, and sad around the edges, and angry. "Why such anger, Anita?"
I started to count to twenty, knew it wouldn't be enough, and just said it, in a voice that was choking with anger, confusion. "Don't tell me how to feel, Samuel, you don't have that right."
He stood up, and pushed his son's hands away from him. "Think how powerful a child you and Jean-Claude could have."
"There's no guarantee it's his," I said.
"The odds are that if you are pregnant, it won't be any of the vampires," Richard said. His voice was low and careful, but there was something underneath all that that I hadn't wanted to hear—eagerness.
I turned to him, and I don't know what I would have said, or even done, because Jean-Claude was just suddenly there between us. "Do not do anything rash, ma petite."
"Rash, don't do anything rash!" I pulled away from him. "He's not unhappy about this and you're locked down so tight I don't know what you're feeling."
"I feel that anything I say, or do, in this moment, will upset you." It was the most diplomatic way I'd ever been told that I was a pain in the ass.
I fought the urge to scream at him. I managed a voice that was strangled low and tense with the effort not to yell. "Say something," I said.
"Are you with child?" he asked in that neutral, pleasant voice of his.
&
nbsp; "I don't know, but I missed October."
Richard came closer and he tried for neutral, failed, but he tried. "Have you ever missed a whole month before?"
I shook my head. "No."
Emotions fought on his face, and finally he had to turn away, as if whatever expression he had, he was sure I wouldn't want to see it.
"Don't you dare be happy about this, damn it!"
He turned back, face mostly under control, but his eyes held that look. That soft I-love-you look that once was meant just for me, but which lately I hadn't seen much of. I'd seen lust, but not this.
"Would you prefer me to be angry, or sad?" he asked.
"No, yes, I don't know." There, that was the truth. "I don't know."
"I'm sorry," he said, and he looked it around the edges. "Sorry if I'm making this harder, but how could I be completely unhappy if we made a child together?"
He would pick the very worst way to say it. The way most guaranteed to panic me. "It's not a child, yet. It's a bunch of cells smaller than my thumb."
His eyes got more careful. "What are you saying, Anita?"
I hugged myself tight and wouldn't meet anyone's eyes. "I don't know what I'm saying." But I was beginning to have more sympathy with Ronnie's idea about just going away and making the choice without any of the men.
"Would you really be able to kill our baby?" he asked, and I didn't have to see his face to know he looked hurt; I could hear it in his voice.
"Mon ami, you put the cart before the horse. Let her find out if she is pregnant before we make plans." Jean-Claude tried to move between us again, tried to block my view of Richard, as if that would help.
Richard moved around him, so he could still see me. "Anita, could you really kill our baby?"
I wanted to scream yes, just to see the pain on his face, but on this I couldn't lie. I already knew the answer, I just didn't like it. "NO!" I yelled it, and the sound echoed against the stones without the hanging drapes to soften it.
Richard's face softened and he started to walk toward me, around Jean-Claude. The look on his face was almost beatific, as if all his dreams had come true. I felt as if I were suffocating in a nightmare, and he looked like that. I had to wipe that look off his face, I had to.
"What if it's not yours?" I asked, and my voice was ugly. I wanted it to hurt.
He hesitated, then got a look that was almost smug. "The odds are in my favor, Anita." He looked entirely too pleased with himself.
"Why, just because Jean-Claude and Asher, and hell, Damian are several hundred years old? That doesn't mean it's not theirs; look at Samuel. He has three sons, two separate pregnancies."
Richard started to frown. He wasn't walking closer now. Good.
Jean-Claude sighed, and stepped back as if he'd given up trying to stop the fight.
"And what about Micah and Nathaniel?" I asked. "They're not vampires and I've had more sex with them in the last two months than with you." I was happy when he flinched. Ugly, but true.
"Micah's fixed," he said, and his face darkened. "That leaves Nathaniel." There was such anger in those three words, that I wished I'd left it alone.
As if on cue, Micah and Nathaniel came out of the far hallway. They looked at all of us and Micah said, "Is this about what I think it's about?"
"You knew about the baby?" Richard asked.
"Are we sure?" Nathaniel asked.
"No," I said.
"You both knew?" Richard said, and his power started up again. I was suddenly standing too close to the metaphorical fire.
"Yes, we knew," Micah said.
"You told them before you told us?" Richard said, and he gestured at Jean-Claude.
"They live with me, Richard, it's harder to keep a secret from them. I didn't want any of you to know until I did a test. I didn't want to deal with all this crap, if I didn't have to."
"Let us calm down until we know for certain," Jean-Claude said.
"Doesn't it bother you that she told them before us?" Richard said.
"No, mon ami, it does not."
Richard glared at Micah and Nathaniel, but his gaze finally settled on Nathaniel. Not good. "You know that if she is pregnant, it's probably you, or me," Richard said. The words were neutral; the tone wasn't. The tone was a warning as clear as the heat rolling off his body.
Nathaniel had one of the most careful looks I'd ever seen on his face. He looked blank, pleasant, but not sorry, not submissive. Always before when dealing with Richard, Nathaniel had given off subservient vibes. Now, suddenly, there was nothing subservient about him. He might still bottom to me, but his days of doing it for Richard were over. It was there in the set of his shoulders, the eye contact he gave the bigger man. He wasn't being aggressive, but he wasn't giving off those subtle submissive signals either. His attitude said, clearly, he wasn't backing down. On one hand I was happy to see it, on the other hand it scared me. I'd seen Richard fight and I'd seen Nathaniel fight. I knew who would win.
Of course, if Richard started the fight, he would win the slugfest, but he'd lose the girl. I hoped he understood that.
IS
I DON'T KNOW what would have happened. Something bad, almost certainly, but help came. "You guys are all being assholes." It was Claudia.
Everyone turned to look at her.
"How dare you make this about some macho ego shit. Can't you see she's scared?" She gestured in my direction. "Ulfric, if you think a baby will make her give up the police work and the execution work, or the zombie raising, you're wrong. Do you see a baby fitting into Anita's life? Are you going to quit work and stay home and play nanny, because Anita sure isn't."
We all looked at Richard. He was scowling at her.
"Well," she said, "are you? Are you willing to completely disrupt your life if it's yours?"
He scowled harder. "I don't know," he said, finally.
"I will." Nathaniel's voice, turning us all back to him. "I'm already the wife, why not the mother?"
"Have you ever taken care of a baby?" Claudia asked.
He shrugged. "No."
"I had four younger brothers, trust me, it's harder than it looks."
"I will," Micah said. "Whatever Anita wants, or needs."
"Stop being perfect," Richard said.
"You work days, Richard," Nathaniel said, "and you work a regular weekday. I can make more part-time at Guilty Pleasures than any teacher's salary I've ever heard of."
"So you'd be a good provider," Richard said, and his voice was full of scorn.
Nathaniel smiled, and shook his head. "Anita provides for herself just fine. She doesn't need my money. What I meant was that dropping my work hours down won't affect my job that much. It would ruin yours."
Richard didn't want to be mollified. He wanted to be angry, so he turned to Micah. "And what about you? You work as many hours as Anita does."
"I would need more help running the hotline and the coalition. We would
have nearly a year to train someone to help me, or even replace me, if that's what was needed."
"It can't be your baby," Richard said.
"Genetically, no."
"What does that mean, genetically?"
"It means that just because it's not blood of my blood doesn't mean it's not mine. Ours."
"Yours and Anita's," and the words singed along my skin. So much power, so much anger, it actually hurt.
"No," Micah said, "Anita's and Nathaniel's, and Jean-Claude's, and Asher's and Damian's and yours, and mine. Leaving a little bit of sperm behind doesn't make you a father. It's what you do afterward, Richard."
"You can't bring up a baby with seven fathers."
"Call it what you like," Micah said, "but the only two men in this room able to totally disrupt their lives if there is a baby are Nathaniel and me." He looked at Jean-Claude. "Or am I wrong?"
Jean-Claude smiled at him. "No, mon chat, you are not. I do not believe that a baby could spend all its time in the underground of the Circus of the Damne
d and be"—he seemed to search for a word—"well-balanced. Visits, oui, many visits, but the world I have built here is not"—again he searched for a word—"conducive to the upbringing of small children."
"I'm a small child," came a small sweet voice from behind us. Apparently we'd all been so caught up that we hadn't heard the approach of the tiny girl. Of course, Valentina was a vampire, and the undead are quiet bastards.
Her dark hair curled just below her ears. She'd cut it recently, to look more modern. Her face was round, and soft, not long past being a baby. She was five, and would always be five, at least physically. She was wearing a red dress with white tights, and little white patent leather shoes. When she came to us she'd worn nothing designed after 1800. She still wouldn't wear pants or shorts, because it wasn't ladylike, but she had arrived in the twentieth century, at least in fashion. She blinked large dark eyes at us, her face perfectly innocent. At Belle's court she had tortured people for information, for punishment, and because she enjoyed it. Jean-Claude told me that all the child vampires go mad eventually. It was why it was against their laws to bring anyone over before puberty.
Valentina had been made by a pedophile who happened to be a vampire. He had been given an isolated territory, and there he had made his own special playmates for almost fifty years before someone discovered what he was doing. Valentina had been one of the lucky ones. He'd brought her over, but hadn't made her one of his brides, yet. Most of his "brides" and "grooms"
had to be destroyed. Too mad, too savage, for anything else. That one of "her" vampires had done such things was one of her few things that Belle Morte seemed to feel guilty about.
"Yes," Jean-Claude said, "of course you are. You are our petite fleur." He moved forward as if he would herd her out of earshot of the grown-up talk. She may have looked five, but she was over three hundred years old. The body was a child's, the mind was not. But unless we were careful, most of us had a tendency to treat her like she looked, not like she thought.
She turned that tiny face to mine, with those solemn eyes. "Are you going to have a baby?"
"Maybe," I said.
She smiled, flashing fangs as delicate as needles. "I would have someone to play with."
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