I was on my knees, too, and didn’t remember falling. Micah was there, taking my arm, I think to help me stand, but the moment he touched me the ardeur leaped, and he fell to the floor beside me, like someone had struck him with a hammer; his legs just stopped holding him. He whispered, “Oh, my God.”
The bodyguards moved in then, and I had to scream, “No!” There must have been something in my voice, because all three of them froze in mid-motion. “No one touches us, no one.” My voice was high, frantic. There was a very real chance that the ardeur could spread through the whole room, one touch at a time. We had enough problems without that.
Micah had released my arm, his hands nerveless in his lap, but the tie had been made, and the act of touching, or not, didn’t change it.
Jean-Claude crawled from the bed of glittering cloth, slowly, every move something graceful and dangerous. He’d never looked more predatory than he did at that moment.
“Jean-Claude,” I whispered, “don’t.” But I couldn’t move. I watched him like a tiny bird fascinated as the serpent glides closer, caught between terror and the sheer beauty of him.
Asher was suddenly there in the space between the cloth. Jean-Claude froze, but it wasn’t that stillness that the old vampires could fall into, there was a thrumming energy to him, more like a big cat about to pounce than something cold and reptilian.
“Jean-Claude, you must control the ardeur better than this.” He was hugging his arms as if he felt at least a brush of it himself. He’d noticed the new faces and used a practiced shake of his head to spill his golden hair across the scars, only revealing the perfect half.
Jean-Claude’s voice came low and harsh. “I cannot.”
I’d been afraid; now it was sheer terror. I looked up at Asher and saw him through a film of all the times we’d touched him, all that beauty, all the beauty that I still saw. I whispered, “Help us!”
Asher was shaking his head. “If I am dragged in as well, it will help no one.”
“Asher, please!”
“Once he feeds, all will be well, simply let him feed.”
I shook my head. “Not here, not like this.”
Micah said, “If it will help, why not let him feed?”
I looked at him, and just turning to him made my mouth part, my breath catch. It was almost like the ardeur remembered him, like a succulent food that it wanted to taste again.
It took two tries to say, “You don’t understand.”
Zane said, “Anita doesn’t let Jean-Claude feed off of her.” He and Cherry were sitting on the far edge of the couch, watching with wide eyes, not coming near us.
“I thought she was his human servant,” Micah said.
“She is.” Jean-Claude whispered it.
Something in those two words made me look at him, made me stare into those glittering blue eyes. He couldn’t trap me with his gaze anymore, because I was his human servant, but tonight there was a pull to those eyes. I wanted to cradle his face in my hands, wanted to taste those half-parted lips.
“Anita!” Asher’s voice jerked me around, made me look at him.
“Help me.”
“He can feed on me.” Micah said it, voice soft. We all turned and stared at him.
He looked a little less sure. I think something he saw on our faces made him hesitate, but he said it again. “If a little blood will cure this, then I’m willing.”
“He has fed on blood tonight already,” Asher said. “It is not blood he needs but . . . voir les anges.”
“English, Asher, even I didn’t understand that one,” I said.
He waved his hands as if erasing what he’d said. “He needs release, a . . .” He said several things in rapid French, and I couldn’t follow it. Asher was in great distress if his English had abandoned him.
I was careful not to look at Micah when I tried to explain. “It’s the ardeur that Jean-Claude needs fed.”
“He needs sex, not blood,” Nathaniel said. His voice was soft, but a glance showed him standing as far across the room as he could get. I didn’t blame him a bit.
“The first time you fed on me it wasn’t intercourse, just contact,” he said.
I nodded, still trying not to look at any of the men. “I remember.”
“Contact is okay,” Micah said.
I had to look at him, and the surprise was great enough that for just a second I almost fought free of the ardeur, I could almost think. “What kind of contact?”
“Sexual contact.” His face was very serious, eyes solemn, as if he, too, could think again. “I said I would do anything to be your Nimir-Raj, Anita. What do I have to do to convince you I mean it?”
“What are you offering, Micah?”
“Whatever you need.” He looked past me to Jean-Claude. “Whatever you both need.”
I felt Jean-Claude’s attention sharpen, almost like a physical force, and the ardeur was back, thick enough to drown in. My breath froze in my throat, my pulse was too fast to swallow. Jean-Claude’s voice came, I think in my head, because his lips never moved. “Be careful what you offer, mon ami, my control is poor tonight.”
Micah answered, as if he’d heard Jean-Claude too. “You were a ménage a` trois with the Ulfric. He’s gone. I’m here, and I’m staying. I will be Anita’s Nimir-Raj, whatever that means.”
I managed to say, “Who said that we were a ménage a` trois?”
“Everyone,” he said.
I wondered who everyone was, because I knew it wasn’t everyone.
Jean-Claude was moving forward again, painfully slow, every movement so full of energy, so full of potential violence and grace, that it almost hurt to watch. It made my pulse race, my breath hard to take—made my body run moist. Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit.
“Jean-Claude, no,” but my voice was a whisper.
His mouth hovered over mine, then his face turned for a second to Micah. I watched the two of them gaze at each other from inches away and felt the power pulsing in the air between. Jean-Claude moved so slowly to close the distance between them that it was like watching slow motion. Micah sat there, waiting. He didn’t move in to him, but he didn’t move away either. I thought at first they’d kissed, then some trick of the light let me see a thin line of space between their mouths. Not touching, not yet. I watched their lips so tremblingly close, and part of me wanted them to touch, but Jean-Claude held his place, held his place until Micah closed his eyes, as if he couldn’t stand to meet those glowing orbs, like looking away from the sun, too brilliant to bear.
And still Jean-Claude did not close that small distance. It was the distance of a breath, the flick of a tongue and still he held himself almost touching, almost there, but not quite. The tension grew, grew, grew, until I wanted to scream. I didn’t realize that I’d moved in towards them, until they both turned at once and looked at me from inches away. My eyes flicked from one to the other. Eyes like blue fire; eyes like yellow-green clouds. Micah’s eyes grew more green as I watched, until they were pale, pale green, like spring leaves. He focused on me. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew that this was the look he hunted with, that sharp focus, the pupil nearly lost in the color of his eyes.
I realized that I’d pushed the ardeur back. I was attracted to both, but I could think again, feel something besides the burn. You practice one kind of metaphysical control, and I guess it gives you an edge on all of them. The relief made me feel weak, as if I could have curled on the floor and slept. We weren’t going to fall on each other like ravening lust-monsters. Yippee.
I eased away, started to crawl backwards. Jean-Claude’s gaze followed me, but he made no move to touch me. There was something about the way he stayed on all fours that let me know the ardeur was still riding him. But if I could keep from touching him, we’d be alright. He watched me, like a starving man, who was watching his first meal in days crawl away. But he played fair, he stayed where he was, he let me crawl away. He knew the rules. Micah didn’t.
He reached for me, and I threw
myself back to the floor in a blur of speed that I’d never had before, but Micah wasn’t human either. He followed me in a movement that was too fast for my eyes to follow, so that he was above me before my mind could see that he’d moved. It was magical.
He was frozen just above me, his body balanced on hands and feet, almost like he was doing a push-up. I reached out, around him, trying not to touch him. I had time to say, “No, don’t,” then two things happened at once. Micah dropped his body on top of mine, and Jean-Claude took my outreached hand. Maybe he thought I was reaching for him, I don’t know. But the moment we touched the heat ran over us, through us, and there was nothing but the need.
50
WE KISSED , AND it was like melting from the mouth down. My hands slid over the silk of Micah’s shirt, and it wasn’t enough. I ripped at it, tore it from his body until my hands spilled over the solid smoothness of his chest, his skin like warm satin under my fingers. Micah was suddenly grinding me into the floor, so heavy. I opened my eyes and found Jean-Claude above us, over Micah, pressing us both into the floor. I had a moment of meeting his eyes, a moment to see the rage in that blind blue fire, then his arms were around Micah, and he was jerking the smaller man backwards.
I sat up, watching them roll across the floor, fighting. Anger, frustration, and just sheer tiredness welled up inside me until there was no room for the ardeur. I was tired of fighting, so tired of it.
I smelled blood like a hot spike through the center of my body; the smell was almost sexual. That was enough. I drew the Browning and sighted around the room. For a split second, I had the two of them at the end of the barrel. For a split second it occurred to me. Then I moved the gun around the room, registering for the first time that there was no one left in the room but us. Good to know we didn’t have an audience. I pointed the gun at the overstuffed white couch and fired. One of the small gold and silver pillows jumped upward with the impact. The noise was thunderous in the stone room, as if the heavy drapes caught the sound, held it around us.
They froze. Micah’s hands were claws, shredding across Jean-Claude’s back, because that was all he could reach. Jean-Claude’s face was buried in Micah’s neck, his body wrapped around him, so that everything vital was hidden while he tried to tear Micah’s throat out.
I sighted on them. “Stop it, stop it, both of you, or the next one goes in one of you. I swear, by God, that I will shoot you.”
Jean-Claude raised up, blood in a crimson wash across his mouth, chin, down his neck. There was so much blood, it made me afraid to look at Micah’s neck. Micah’s claws stayed in Jean-Claude’s back. I could see the tension as if every muscle were poised to drive the claws farther in.
“The Nimir-Raj holds me in place, ma petite. I cannot move.”
“Micah, let him up.”
Micah didn’t move, and I guess I couldn’t blame him, but . . . I aimed the gun at his head because that was the only clear shot I had. I had a small spurt of panic that I might have to pull the trigger, then a calmness welled over me, and I stood in that well of silence, that buzzing white noise that I went to when I killed. There was no feeling here, there was almost nothing here.
“I . . . will . . . kill you, Micah.” My voice sounded as empty as I felt.
Micah turned his head slowly to look at me. Blood flowed from the left side of his neck down his shoulder, his chest. He was drenched in his own blood. I could see more of it welling up, sliding down, but not constant; the blood pumped out with his pulse. Shit.
“Let him up, Micah, he’s pierced your carotid.” I lowered the gun and started to close the distance between them.
Micah looked up at the vampire, still poised with his claws in Jean-Claude’s flesh. “If I die, I want him to go with me.”
“It should be simple enough for a Nimir-Raj of your power to heal such a small wound,” Jean-Claude said, still pressed around the other man’s body, intimate.
Micah withdrew the claws from Jean-Claude’s back. Jean-Claude moved enough to prop himself up on his hands. I saw Micah tense a second before his arm swung in that unbelievable speed, so fast, so fast. Jean-Claude’s throat hadn’t even started to bleed when Micah’s hand was back at his side. Then blood spilled in a fountain from Jean-Claude’s throat.
“Heal that,” Micah said.
I was left standing there, watching them both bleed to death. Mother fucking son of a bitch.
51
JEAN -CLAUDE HALF FELL , half moved off of Micah. Blood sprayed in a red rain as he knelt on all fours, coughing, as if he were trying to clear his throat. It made the blood pump faster.
I screamed, at first wordless, then I thought of something better. I screamed, “Asher!”
Micah was already rolling in black fur, bones sliding in and out, muscles rolling in glimpses of pinkish flesh. He’d shapeshift and heal himself, but Jean-Claude couldn’t shapeshift.
I grabbed Jean-Claude’s arm, and the moment I touched him the marks flared between us. I was choking on my own blood, drowning in it. Strong hands were digging into my arms, fingers like cold stone. I blinked and found Jean-Claude’s face glowing like carved alabaster with white light inside it. His skin glowed behind the coating of blood on his lower face, like rubies spread across diamonds. His eyes were pools of molten sapphire flame, if fire could be cold, achingly cold. A wind sprang from his body, from our bodies, and it was the cold of the grave that danced around us, fluttered our hair around our faces. We reached that cold power out, out, to find Richard, and as before the answer came against our skin. Jason was kneeling beside us. I didn’t have time to marvel that he was healed. He touched us and the mark that was Richard flared through his body, a warmth to dance with our coldness. And I knew Micah was kneeling behind me, furred and clawed. I felt him at my back the way I felt Jason, as if he were tied to us.
Micah fell back, screaming, “Nooo!” The tie was cut and for a second I swayed, as if part of my support was gone, then Nathaniel was there, and the world was solid again.
We knelt, bound by flesh, magic, and blood. I watched the flesh in Jean-Claude’s throat reknit, reform, remake, reshape itself until the flesh was perfect and white, surrounded by a coating of wet blood. He’d healed so fast that the blood hadn’t had time to dry.
I smelled roses, not the faint perfume of potpourri, but thick, melt-on-your-tongue, old-fashioned garden roses, as if I were drowning in the cloying sweetness of them. It was like being dipped in honey that you knew had poison in it.
Honey, honey brown eyes. I remembered the pale honey brown of Belle Morte’s eyes. “Do you smell the roses?” I asked.
Jean-Claude turned drowning blue eyes to me. “Roses? I smell nothing but the scent of your perfume, and skin.” He scented the air, “And blood.”
Nathaniel and Jason were lost in the wonder of the power rush, but no one smelled roses but me. Once upon a time I’d smelled perfume when a certain Master Vampire had been using her magic. My friend and fellow animator, Larry Kirkland, had smelled the perfume, too, but no one else around us had been able to scent it.
I looked into Jean-Claude’s eyes, not with my sight, but with my magic, and found something, something that wasn’t him. It was subtle. What she’d done with me earlier had been like a sledgehammer between the eyes; this was a stiletto in the dark.
I found the thread of her power coiled in him, and the moment my magic, my necromancy, hit it, the power uncoiled, opened, and it was like a window thrown wide. I saw her sitting in her room by fire and candlelight, as if electricity hadn’t been invented. She was dressed in a white lace dressing gown, all that black hair falling around her, and a bowl of pink roses next to her pale hand. She turned those huge pale brown eyes to me, and I saw the surprise on her face, the shock. She saw me kneeling with the men, as I saw her before her dressing table with her roses.
I cut her off, cast her out of Jean-Claude, as I’d cast her out of me earlier. It was easier, because she hadn’t tried to possess him, only to tamper with him, to be th
at dark voice in his ear that pushed him a little over the edge.
Jean-Claude slumped suddenly, as if dizzy. He raised eyes to me that were as normal as they ever got, his usual midnight blue. There was fear on his face, no hiding it. “I thought I saw Belle, sitting before her mirror.”
I nodded. “You did.”
He looked at me, and I think that only all our hands on him kept him from falling to the floor. “She weakened my control of the ardeur.”
“And your control of your temper,” I said.
“What has happened?” Asher asked.
I looked up to find that everyone was back in the room. “Any of this blood yours, ma’am?” Bobby Lee asked.
I shook my head. “Not a scratch on me.”
“Then I guess we won’t get blacklisted from the bodyguard union for leaving you alone with a shapeshifter and a vampire, so they could fight over you.” He was shaking his head. “The next time you ask us to leave you alone because it’s your love life, we aren’t going to listen to you.”
I shook my head, again. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“No, ma’am,” he said, “we won’t.”
I let the argument go. There was always time to fight later. Besides, he was too close to right. If I’d gotten between them at the wrong moment, who knew what accident might have happened?
Jean-Claude spoke softly, voice urgent, to Asher. They were speaking French and I still didn’t know enough to catch more than a word here and there. I heard Belle, clearly, several times.
In English Asher said, “Do you remember Marcel?”
“Oui. He went mad one night and slew his entire household.”
“Including his human servant,” Asher said, “which is what killed him.”
The two vampires stared at each other. “No one ever understood what had caused it,” Jean-Claude said.
“So fortuitous,” Asher said, “only two nights before he would have fought Belle for her Council seat.”
Jean-Claude took Asher’s offered hand and let him help him to his feet. Asher had to steady Jean-Claude with a hand on his elbow. “So fortuitous that many tried to prove she had poisoned him, or some such,” Asher said.
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 249
