"I know," he said, and the way he said it made me look at him.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means, ma petite, that you may know Nathaniel's heart's desire, but I do not think you truly know him."
"He doesn't know himself," I said.
"In part that is true, but I think he will surprise you."
"Are you hiding something from me?"
"About Nathaniel, no."
I sighed. "You know on another day I'd make you tell me what that cryptic remark meant, but damn it, I want a little comfort from someone right now, and I guess you're it."
His eyebrows raised. "When you ask in so flattering a manner, how can I refuse?"
"No games, please, Jean-Claude, please, just hold me."
He drew me back into the circle of his arms, and I moved so that the bite mark wasn't hurting, or rather wasn't hurting more than it already did. It had turned into a throbbing pain, sharp when touched. It did hurt, but a part of me found that satisfying. It was a confirmation of what we'd done, a painful souvenir of something that had been amazing. If my morals hadn't gotten in the way, I could have just marveled at the whole thing.
"Why am I pleased that Nathaniel marked me?" I asked it in a small voice, because I wasn't a hundred percent sure Jean-Claude shouldn't have been jealous about it.
He stroked my hair, as his other arm held me close. "I can think of many reasons." His voice vibrated through his chest against my ear, mingling with the sound of his heartbeat.
"One that makes sense to me would be enough," I said.
"Ah, one that makes sense to you, now that is a different question."
I squeezed my arms around his waist. "No games, remember, just tell me."
"It could be that you are truly becoming his Nimir-Ra." His arm tightened around me. "I do feel something different in you, ma petite, some wildness that was not there before. It does not feel like Richard's beast feels, but it is a difference. It may simply be that as Nathaniel's Nimir-Ra you want closer contact with him."
It made sense. It was hard to argue with the logic of it, but I wanted to. "What could be the other reasons?"
"Belle Morte treated you as a vampire of her line. If through the marks or your necromancy you have some of the powers of a vampire, you may have others. It could be that leopards will be your animal to call. I admit that the first is the more likely reason, but the second is also possible."
I leaned back enough to see his face. "Are you attracted to the wolves?" I asked.
"I find it pleasant to have the wolves around me. It is comforting to touch them like a ... pet, or lover."
I wasn't sure how I felt about him using pet and lover in the same sentence, but I let it go. "So you want to have sex with the werewolves?"
"Do you want to have sex with Nathaniel?"
"No ... not exactly."
"But you want to touch him and be touched?"
I had to think about that for a few seconds. "I guess so."
"In a true joining of animal and vampire, there is a desire in both to touch, for one to serve and the other to take care of them."
"Padma, the Master of Beasts, treated his animals like shit."
"One of the many reasons that Padma will always be a secondary power on the Council is his belief that all power must be taken, that all power must come through fear. True power comes when others offer it to you and you merely accept it as a gift, not as the spoils of some personal war."
"So the fact that you treat your wolves better than most is just, what, a political decision?"
He shrugged, still holding me against him. "I do not know how other vampires feel. I know only that Belle Morte felt attracted to her cats and I feel the same for my wolves. Perhaps it is only her line that turns the bond between animal and vampire into something like lovers? Much of her power fed into sex, or at least, attraction, and perhaps that is not how others feel?" He frowned. "I had not truly thought about that before. Perhaps it is another benefit of her lineage--or a shortfall of it--that most of my powers turn to something resembling sex."
"Does Asher feel the same way about his animal to call?"
"He has no animal to call."
I widened my eyes. "I thought all master vamps over a certain age had an animal to call."
"Most of the time they do, but not always. Just as his bite can give true sexual release and mine cannot. We have different powers."
"But not having an animal to call is like a major ..."
"It means he is weaker than I am."
"But he could still be Master of the City somewhere else. I mean I've met Masters of the City that had no animal to call before."
"If there was a territory vacant in this country, and he would be willing to leave us, then yes, he might rise to Master of the City."
I started to ask, Then why doesn't he go? But I was pretty sure I knew the answer, and it was a painful answer, so I left it unsaid. Maybe I was growing up at last. Not every thought that came into my head had to come out of my mouth.
"Or it could simply be that you've wanted Nathaniel for a very long time. There is satisfaction in finally giving in to the desire."
I pushed away from him. "You know, you're not very good at this comforting stuff."
"You said no games. Isn't a lie the same as playing a game?"
I frowned at him. "I did not have sex with Nathaniel."
"Come, ma petite, you did not have intercourse, but to say you did not have sex is splitting the hair a little too fine, no?"
I glared at him and tried to be angry, but there was something closer to panic than anger making my heart beat faster. "Are you saying that what we just did qualifies as sex?"
"Are you saying that it did not?"
I turned so I couldn't see his face, hugging my arms around myself. I finally turned back to look at him. I tried leaning against the wall, but the tiles were cold and I was still naked. I needed my clothes, but they were out in the other room, and I was so not ready to see the other men again.
"So you're saying that we had sex--all of us?"
He took a deep breath. "What answer do you want, ma petite?"
"Truth would be nice."
"No, you do not want the truth. I thought that you did, or I would have taken better care about what I said." He looked tired. "I am glad you are the woman that you are, but there are moments when I wish that you could simply enjoy something without being chased around the room by your guilt and your morals afterwards. What we did tonight is a glorious thing. A thing to be shared and treasured, not something to be ashamed of."
"I was doing better with it before you told me it counts as sex."
"And the fact that I had to tell you that it counts as sex means you are still lying to yourself more than I have ever tried to lie to you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He held up a hand. "I will say no more about this. You do not want the truth, and you told me not to lie. I am out of options."
I hugged myself and frowned at the floor. I tried to wrap my mind around what he'd said, what we'd done, and I just couldn't do it. We needed a change of topic, fast.
"Jason acted like a power substitute for Richard," I said.
"Oui." He let me change the subject without a word or a change in expression.
"I didn't know we could do that."
"Nor did I." He took those few gliding steps that put him beside me again. "If it is comfort that you want, more than truth, then I can do that." He touched my chin, raised my face so that our gazes met. "But you must tell me when you do not want the truth, ma petite. It is usually your greatest demand on me."
I stared up into his beautiful face and understood what he was offering-- comfort, but not honesty. Comforting lies, because I didn't want to hear the truth. "I don't want you to lie to me, but I'm about at my limit for hard truths for the day. I need a breather."
"You want a space of calm to think about everything. I understand that. I can even give it to
you for a few hours, but you have to confront Richard at the lupanar tonight, and I fear that more hard truths await you there."
I put my face against his chest, cuddled into the smoothness of his skin, caught between the furred lapels. "Your bringing up Richard isn't going to make me feel better."
"My apologies." He was rubbing my back with his hands, over and over. The movement made the fur on the sleeves rub up and down my body, from my butt to my shoulders. It was soothing and not soothing at the same time. I looked up at him and didn't know whether to cry or scream. "I thought I fed the ardeur."
His hands went still against my body. "You have, and you have fed it well, but it is always just below the surface. Like being full but still admiring a beautifully made dessert."
I didn't really like the analogy, but couldn't think of a better one. I pressed my body into his robe, let him cradle me against his body, and listened to the comforting beat of his heart.
I spoke with my face pressed against his chest, the black furred edge of the lapels tickling my lips. "Why didn't you warn me that she could do that?"
"If you were a vampire of my line, then I would have warned you, but you are not vampire, you are human, and it should not work that way for you."
I leaned back enough to see his face. "Can she enter any of her ... children?"
"No, her ability to look in upon her children only lasts for a few nights. Once the new vampire is strong enough to control its own hunger, then she is unable to enter, as if some door closes that was held open before."
"She called my beast, or beasts, or whatever the hell is going on with me. She called it to the surface like she knew what she was doing."
"Her animal to call is all great cats."
"So, leopards," I said.
He nodded. "Among other things."
"I thought only the Master of Beasts could call more than one animal."
"It was the ability he came with from almost the beginning, but many of the oldest grow into a variety of powers. She began, as I understand it, able to call only leopards, then one by one the other great cats answered to her."
"If I really am a wereleopard, will she be able to control me--if she meets me?"
"You cast her out, ma petite. You can answer your own question, can you not?"
"You're saying I kicked her butt once, I can do it again."
"Something like that, oui."
I pushed away from him, my fingers trailing down his arms under the heavy robe until our hands touched. "Trust me, Jean-Claude, one victory doesn't guarantee you'll win the war."
"This was not a small victory, ma petite. Never in all her two thousand years of life has any of her line defied her as you just did." He'd bent at the waist just a little to kiss my hands, showing a long, thin triangle of his chest and upper stomach. My gaze followed that line of pale flesh down into the shadow that hid the rest of him. For once I didn't want to undo the robe. Part of it was that I was well ... satisfied, and part of it--most of it--was that I had just had sex with four men at once, and my discomfort level was just a little too high to think about any sex for a while.
"I knew that vampires could make the bite pleasant, but I never dreamed it felt like that," I said.
"It is one of Asher's gifts to make his bite orgasmic."
I looked at him.
He nodded. "Oui, ma petite, I can make it pleasant, but not that pleasant."
"Asher bit me once, and it wasn't orgasmic."
"He drew back when he realized he had rolled your mind without intending to. He ... behaved himself."
"I raised my eyebrows at that. If tonight was the real thing, he'd more than behaved himself. "You fed off of it, too, and Belle Morte, as well."
"It was a feast, was it not?" And something in the way he said it made me blush. "I do not mean to embarrass you, ma petite, but it was glorious. I have not shared Asher's gift in over two hundred years. I had almost made myself forget what it was like."
"So you can't do this without Belle Morte."
"One of her gifts is to be a bridge, a connection, between her children. That allowed the sharing of gifts."
"I cast her out, Jean-Claude, it won't be happening again."
"And we are both thrilled. I do not think you understand the risk we all took, ma petite. If you had failed to cast her out, then she could have done things to us, even from such a distance. We are the only two of her line that ever left her side willingly. Some were exiled, but none simply left, and she is not a woman that takes rejection well."
That was an understatement. "She saw Asher through my eyes. I felt her regret that she'd let him go, that she hadn't seen him the way I did."
He turned his head to one side. "Then perhaps even a very old dog can learn new tricks."
I swallowed, and something about it made me very aware of the taste of blood and other things in my mouth. I had to get cleaned up.
I went to the sink and watched him in the mirror behind me. I'd known I was nude, but it wasn't until I saw myself in the mirror that I really noticed it. I'd managed to wipe most of the blood off my mouth with toilet paper, but it was still clinging to my chest and my neck. "I really need a robe of my own," I said.
"I would offer you mine," he said.
I shook my head, reaching for the toothbrush. Normally, I would have washed the blood off first, but I wanted that taste out of my mouth more. "You naked around me right now is not what I need."
"I will send ..." he hesitated, "Asher for a robe for you."
"You started to say Jason, didn't you?"
He looked at me in the mirror.
"I know he'll heal, but ... I could have really hurt him," I said.
"But you didn't, and that is what matters."
"Pretty to think so," I said.
He smiled, but not like he was happy. "I will send Asher for a robe."
"Great. Thank you."
I squeezed toothpaste onto the brush as he went for the door. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "Normally you would owe your pomme de sangs some gift or show of gratitude for serving you."
"I think they've had all the gratitude they're getting from me for one day.
He laughed, and the sound rode over my body like a caress of silk. "Oh, yes, ma petite, and I think they would agree, but I tell you this for later. You must reward your pomme de sang for his, or her, services."
"Money wouldn't do it?" I asked.
The look on his face said he was truly insulted, outraged, in fact. "You have just shared something more intimate than most people will ever know with another being. They have given us a great gift this day, and they are not whores, Anita." My real name, I was in trouble. "They are pomme de sangs, think of them as beloved mistresses."
I frowned at him.
"Today the sharing of pleasure was reward enough, but you will need to feed the ardeur every day, and unless it is a feeding worthy of the thirst, more than once a day for a few weeks."
"What are you saying?" I asked.
"I am saying that it would be best if you chose a pomme de sang and kept him near you, for you do not truly know yet what your hunger is like. It may be a light thing, easily tended, or it may not."
"You're saying I'll need to do this every day?"
"Yes."
"Fuck."
He shook his head. "Was today so horrible, ma petite? Was the pleasure you gained so very small?"
"It's not that. It was glorious, and you know it. But we'll never be able to duplicate that, not without Belle Morte, and I don't want a return visit from her."
"Nor do I. But there are many things that can be done to feed, and when you have some control I will teach you to feed from a distance."
"When?"
"A few weeks."
"Shit." I turned back to the mirror, not looking at him. "How do I pick a pomme de sang?"
"I think you already have," he said.
I looked at him. "You mean Nathaniel."
He nodded.
"No, I ... I don't trust myself not to lose control and ... you know what I mean."
"He is lovely to the eye, and he cares for you. Would it be so very wrong?"
"Yes, yes, it would be like child molesting. He can't say no. If a person can't say no, then it's the same as rape."
"Perhaps what you do not wish to acknowledge, ma petite, is that Nathaniel knows exactly what he wants, and what he wants is you."
"He wants me to dominate him in every sense of the word."
"It is best if a pomme de sang is submissive to you."
I shook my head.
"Then who else would you want to risk being carried away with, your Nimir-Raj?" This time there was something in his voice.
"You are jealous."
"The Nimir-Raj is not a pomme de sang, a mistress, a dessert, no matter how delectable. He is an entree, a very, very main course, and I wish to be the only entree at your table."
"You were sharing me with Richard, and he certainly wasn't just dessert."
"Very true, but he also had ties to me. He is my wolf to call, and that is a different ... relationship to me, to you, than some stranger."
"I know it was the ardeur, but damn, I've never ..."
"You are not a woman of casual lusts. No, ma petite, you are not. And I fear that this Nimir-Raj is no more casual than the rest of your lusts." He looked so serious when he said it, solemn.
"What do you mean?"
"If you are truly his Nimir-Ra, then you will be drawn to him. There is no help for it. And truthfully, I cannot fault your taste. He is not as fair of face as our Richard, but he does have certain compensations." The look on his face made me blush again.
I turned to the sink and started brushing my teeth, and he took it as a dismissal. He went out laughing. When the door was closed behind him and I was alone I stood for a long time looking at myself in the mirror. It still looked like me. But I could taste Jason's blood underneath the toothpaste. I started scrubbing and spitting and running the cold water, listening to the sound of the water instead of the screaming inside my head.
When Jean-Claude came back into the room I was rinsing the blood out of the washrag I'd used and had three different kinds of mouthwash sitting beside the sink. I'd used all three, and I couldn't taste anything but minty freshness. You could scrub yourself clean of the blood and the taste of it in your mouth, but the stains that really mattered were the ones that no amount of soap or water could touch. I'd have said that things couldn't get any worse, but I knew they could, and rapidly. If I locked myself away for a few days until I could control the ardeur, the werewolves would vote without me there, and they'd execute Gregory. If they killed Gregory, it wasn't just Jacob that I'd kill. It would be war between me, my pard, and Richard's pack. Richard was just Boy Scout enough to get in my way, and maybe force me to kill him. Something inside of me would die if Richard died, and if I pulled the trigger ... some things you recover from, some things you don't. Killing Richard would be one of those things I wouldn't recover from.
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