I glanced at Jean-Claude. “He’s not feeding any of these people.”
“Non, ma petite, he is ours, and ours alone, but we do not want to have to undress him either. If all of us keep our clothes firmly in place, then so will they. It would be a faux pax of gigantic proportions if they undress their food and we do not. It is our house, and our rules.”
Put that way it was hard to argue, but I still wanted to. Then I looked at Micah’s face more closely. “He’s wearing eye makeup.” I got off the chair that I’d sat in while Stephen fixed me and walked closer to Micah. He was wearing more than just eye makeup, but it was all so artfully done that you didn’t see it at first.
“I could not resist those eyes,” Jean-Claude said, “they deserved to be decorated.”
Micah’s hair was tied completely back from his face in a bun that was a graceful mix of French braid and sheer art. “Where did all the curl go?” I asked.
“It has been blow dried straight,” Jean-Claude said. He came and almost touched Micah’s hair, to show how lovely it was. “He did not protest anything that we did to make him so pretty.” Jean-Claude gave me a look, out of his own black-lined eyes. “It was a refreshing change.”
Micah blinked those amazing eyes that someone’s art had made even more amazing. “You don’t like it?”
I shook my head. “No, I like it. I mean, you’re beautiful.” I shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just a very different look for you.” I turned to Jean-Claude. “I’ve never seen you in this much makeup.”
“Belle Morte broke me of wishing to see myself this way.” He was shielding as he said it, as if whatever memory went with those words was nothing he wanted to share.
“So why pretty Micah up like this?”
“You don’t like it,” Micah repeated.
I frowned. “That’s not it. Why do it now? What do we gain by having you look like this, because don’t try and tell me there’s no purpose to it.” I turned to include Asher in his chair across the room in the look I gave Jean-Claude. “Neither of you would go to this much trouble tonight without a reason. I’ve heard nothing but both of you complaining that we don’t have enough time to get everyone presentable for the banquet.” I gestured at Micah. “This took a lot of time that could have been used elsewhere. So I’m asking, both of you, what gives?”
They exchanged a look, then Asher looked studiously at the floor. He pretended to be studying his perfectly manicured fingernails, but I wasn’t fooled.
I turned back to Jean-Claude. “Out with it,” I said.
He shrugged. It wasn’t so much graceful as almost embarrassed. “Musette was finally forced to give us the complete guest list. She has withheld only three names, because they are part of the gift from Belle.”
“So three mystery guests, what does that have to do with why you dolled Micah up?”
“One of the vampires coming tonight has an eye for a beautiful man. Both Asher and I fell afoul of him, more than once.”
“And,” I said.
“To flaunt such delectable meat in front of his table, yet not allow him a taste or a touch, pleases us.”
“So you’re being petty,” I said.
Jean-Claude was suddenly angry, it showed in his face, filled his eyes with blue fire. “You do not understand, ma petite. Belle has sent Paolo to torment us. He is to remind us what we were, and how helpless we were. We went to anyone that Belle gave us to, anyone. She did not do it casually, but if our bodies in another’s bed would gain her something she wished, then she used us, and let others do the same.”
He stalked in a tight circle, the black coat floating out around him like dark wings. “The thought of sitting at the same table with Paolo again sickens me, and Belle knew that it would. I loathe him in a way that I do not wish to describe. But we cannot harm him, ma petite. Belle has sent him to torment both of us by his mere presence. He will smirk and leer and remind us with every look, every touch of his hands on someone else, what he once was allowed to do to us.”
Jean-Claude came to stand in front of me, his anger beating in the air like invisible flames. “But this we can do, ma petite, we can flaunt the bounty at hand. We can show Paolo what I am able to touch, and Asher is able to touch, but Paolo cannot have. Paolo is one of those men who always wants what others have. It eats at his soul if he cannot have, in every way, whomever he desires.” He touched fingertips down my neck and left a trail of heat on my skin that made me gasp, almost pain, almost pleasure. “I want Paolo to suffer, if only a little, because I do not have it within my power to make him suffer a great deal.”
I looked up into Jean-Claude’s angry, angry face, and sighed. “It’s going to be like this all night, isn’t it? Belle’s only sent people that make you uncomfortable, or that you hate, or hate you.”
“Non, ma petite. We fear Musette, and Valentina. I believe Bartolomé came because he is bored. Paolo is the first name that truly incenses me.”
I touched Jean-Claude’s face, holding that anger against the palm of my hand. His eyes bled back to normal, or as normal as they ever get. I looked past him to Micah. “You okay with fang-teasing some male vampire?”
“As long as I don’t have to come across, I’ll play.”
That made me smile. “If Micah’s okay with it, so am I.” I cradled Jean-Claude’s face between my hands, but was trying for eye contact not a kiss. “But let’s keep our eye on the ball, revenge is not why we’re here tonight.”
He put his hands over mine and held them both against his face. “We are here tonight because Belle Morte is le sourdre de sang of our line, and we cannot refuse her right to send visitors our way. But make no mistake, ma petite, Musette and her company are here to have revenge upon us.”
“Revenge for what?” I asked.
Asher answered from across the room, “Revenge for us leaving her, of course.”
I looked at him. “Why of course?”
They exchanged another look, one that I couldn’t read. It was Jean-Claude who said, “Because Belle Morte believes herself to be the most desirable woman in the world.”
I gave him raised eyebrows. “She’s beautiful, I’ll grant you. But the most beautiful woman in the world, come on! I mean it depends on what you consider beautiful. Some people like brunettes, some people like blonds.”
“I said the most desirable, ma petite, not beautiful.”
“I don’t get the difference.”
He frowned at me. “Men have killed themselves when she exiled them from her bed. Wars have been fought between rulers who were driven mad at the thought of any other man sharing Belle Morte’s favors.”
It was my turn to frown. “Are you saying that once you’ve had Belle Morte that no one else will do?”
“That is her belief.”
I looked at him. “You and Asher left, twice apiece.”
“Exactement ma petite, do you not see?”
“Not really.”
“If we left her bed, if there is any touch that we prefer to hers, then perhaps she is not the most desirable woman in the world.”
I thought about that for a second. “So, this entire expedition is to punish you two?”
“Not entirely. I believe Belle does want to test the ground, as it were, before she visits herself.”
“Why does she want to visit at all?”
“It will be something political, of that you can be sure,” Jean-Claude said.
“So punishing the two of you this time is what, an extra treat?”
They started to do another of those looks, but I touched Jean-Claude’s face, forced him to look at me. “No, no more mysterious looks, just say it.”
“Belle is the most desirable woman in the world, her entire power base, her entire self-image is built on that. She must find a way to understand why we left, and why we prefer to stay away, even now.”
“So,” I said.
“You are being too subtle,” Asher said, pushing himself to his feet and striding over to us.
<
br /> “Fine, you tell me,” I said.
“Just as Belle saw Julianna as a threat, so she will see you. But we hope to convince her that it is not another woman alone that keeps us entertained, but a man. Belle never did see men as competition, not as she did a woman.”
“So that’s why you’ve prettied Micah up.”
“And others,” Asher said.
I looked at Jean-Claude. “Others?”
He had the grace to look embarrassed, but it didn’t work completely, his eyes looked pleased. “If Musette can report to Belle that I have a harem of men, then Belle will cease to be worried about you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so, Jean-Claude. I think she’s got a taste of me now. She’s either going to be afraid of me, or attracted to the power.”
“I believe she marked you once to torment me, ma petite. She does not truly want you as her human servant, but she is angry with me, angry with you for having me.” He shook his head. “She thinks like a woman, ma petite, and not a modern one. You think more like a man, so it is hard to explain to you.”
“No, I think I’ve got an inkling. You’re going to try and convince Belle’s people that you didn’t dump her for any woman, but for a lot of men.”
“Oui.”
“And if the sight of a lot of gorgeous men torments Paolo, too, so much the better.”
He smiled, but it left his eyes hard and unpleasant. “Oui, ma petite.”
I didn’t say it out loud, but Belle Morte wasn’t the only one who rarely did anything without having more than one motive.
44
THE BANQUET WAS in one of the inner rooms of the Circus. One I’d never seen before. I knew that the place was huge and I’d seen only a fraction of it, but I hadn’t realized I’d missed a room this size. It was literally cavernous, because it had originally been a cave, a huge, towering, space that water had carved out of solid stone over a few million years. There was no water now, only rock and the cool air. It was the way the air tasted, the way it touched your skin that let you know somehow that all this dark splendor was nature’s handy work, not man’s. I don’t know what the difference between natural caves and man-made ones is, but the air feels different, it just does.
I expected torches for the night, but was surprised to find that there was gas. Gas lamps placed around the room, chasing back the dark. I asked Jean-Claude when he’d installed the gas, and he said that some bootleggers had done it during prohibition, that the cavern had been a speakeasy. Nikolaos, the Master of the City before Jean-Claude, had let the bootleggers pay rent for the space. Her vampires had also fed on the drunken revelers. It was a good easy way to feed without getting caught. Since the prey was already breaking the law, it wouldn’t go to the police, to say where the vampire attack had happened.
I’d never been in a room that was lit entirely by gas lamps. It had that soft edge of firelight, but it was steadier and burned cleaner. I’d half expected there to be an odor of gas, but there wasn’t. Jean-Claude informed me that if I smelled gas it would mean there was a leak, and we should probably run like hell. Okay, what he actually said was we should leave as quickly as possible, but I knew what he meant.
The banquet table was both beautifully—and oddly—arranged. It gleamed with golden flatware, and the gold picked up the delicate gold pattern in the white fine-boned china. There were gold napkin rings around white linen napkins. The tablecloth was triple layered, one long and white that nearly dragged the floor, a gold edge of leaves and flowers embroidered around its hem. The middle layer was a delicate gold lace. The top was a different layer of gold—white and gold—as if someone had taken gold paint and dabbed it sponge-like on white linen.
The chairs had white and gold cushioned seats and richly carved backs in a dark, dark wood. The table sat like a gleaming island in the midst of the gaslit dark. But two things confused me. First, there were way more golden utensils at each place than I knew what to do with. What the hell do you use a tiny two-tined fork for anyway? It was set at the top of the plate, so it was either for seafood, salad, dessert, or something I hadn’t thought of. I was hoping for seafood or dessert, since I thought I knew which fork was for salad. Having never been to a formal vampire banquet, I tried not to speculate on other possible uses for the two-tined fork.
Secondly, there were a number of complete place settings on the floor. Each setting had a white linen napkin spread under it, like miniature picnics. The place settings on the floor were spaced between the chair settings, so there was room to pull the chairs in and out. It was . . . odd.
I stood there in my black and royal blue gown with its faint sparkles of deep blue, tapping the toe of my black high heel, trying to figure out why there were plates on the floor.
Jean-Claude glided through the long black drapes that covered the entrance between this room and the smaller adjacent chamber. Everyone was mingling in the other room. I hated mingling under any circumstances, even at normal dinner parties. But tonight was like small talk, combat style. Everything had double or triple meanings. Everyone was trying to be subtly insulting. All so polite, so back-stabbing, so painful. My small talk skills were pretty limited, and among Musette and her crew, I was unarmed. I’d needed a break, before I started breaking things for real. At least Musette’s underage pomme de sang was missing from tonight’s festivities. We’d been told the girl had been sent back to Europe because her presence seemed to upset me so. My guess was Musette just didn’t want to lose her toy, if things went badly.
Asher slipped through all that blackness like a golden vision, but he didn’t glide after Jean-Claude, he hurried. Musette wasn’t entirely ready to believe that Asher was truly ours. Since I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he was either, it was hard for her not to smell a lie on me, even though it wasn’t exactly a lie. I should never have left Asher on his own, but I was tired. Tired of vampire politics. Tired of digging out from problems that I didn’t start, and didn’t truly understand.
“Ma petite, our guests are asking after you.”
“I’ll just bet they are.”
Jean-Claude did that long, slow, graceful blink that usually meant he was trying to figure out what I’d meant with a bit of slang or sarcasm. I used to think the blink was to show off his impossibly long eyelashes, but trust him to make something enticing out of what for anyone else would have been an irritating habit.
“Musette really is asking after you,” Asher said, and he imitated her voice, “Where is your new beloved? Has she abandoned you so soon?” His pale blue eyes flashed white, showing that edge of panic that was just below the surface.
“It is not like you to wander off on such an important and potentially dangerous occasion. What is the matter, ma petite?”
“Oh, I don’t know, an international terrorist following me around, the vampire council back in town, an evening of some of the most politely vicious small talk I’ve ever heard, Asher being his usual temperamental self, one of my friends and favorite policemen having a nervous breakdown, a serial killer werewolf on the loose in my town, oh, and the fact that Richard and his wolves haven’t arrived yet, and no one’s answering their phones. Pick one.” I knew the smile on my face wasn’t pleasant when I finished. It was a challenging smile. It said why wouldn’t I be uptight?
“I do not believe anything has happened to Richard, ma petite.”
“No, you’re afraid he’s going to take a pass on the whole evening. That would make us look damned weak.”
“Damian flies almost as well as I do,” Asher said, “he’ll find them, if they are close.”
“And if they’re not? I mean, Richard is shielding so hard that neither Jean-Claude nor I can reach him. He doesn’t usually do that without a reason, usually a pissy one.”
Asher sighed. “I do not know what to say about your wolf king, but I know that he is not our only problem.” He looked at me, and there was a stubborn set to that handsome face. “I am not being temperamental.”
I didn’t b
other to debate him. Asher was temperamental, he just was. “Fine, but the problem is that Musette can smell this lie. She asks me if you’re mine, I say, yes, she doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t believe me because I don’t quite believe it. You aren’t totally mine. It’s too new to feel that real, and that’s what she’s picking up on. She’s practically chased me around the room finding new ways to ask if I’m fucking you, and even that caught me.” I shook my head, and missed the feel of my hair against my skin. I touched the back of my bare neck and it felt vulnerable.
“If it is only for their visit, I understand,” Asher said.
“No, no, damn it, it’s that we haven’t had intercourse.”
Asher looked at me, then raised his gaze to Jean-Claude. “In this she is very American. If you have not had intercourse, you have not had sex with ma petite. It is a very American mind-set.”
“I covered her back in my seed, and that does not count?”
I blushed so suddenly that I felt dizzy. “Can we please change the subject?”
Jean-Claude touched my shoulder, and I jerked away. I desperately wanted comforting, and thus I couldn’t let him do it. I know it made no sense, but it was still true. I’d stopped trying to talk myself out of myself and begun to try and work with what I had. I was a mess of contradictions. Wasn’t everybody? Though admittedly, I might be a teensy bit more contradictory than most.
I walked away from him, from both of them, but that also took me away from the lights, closer to the waiting pools of darkness. I stopped. I didn’t want to walk into the dark. I spoke half turned around, as if I didn’t trust my back to the dark completely. “Why are there plates on the floor?”
Jean-Claude moved towards me, graceful in those amazing boots, the dark coat swirling around him, the embroidery catching the light here and there like faint blue stars. The blue shirt seemed to float from the darkness, bringing his face to my almost painful attention, emphasizing how truly lovely he was. Of course, he’d probably planned for exactly that effect.
His voice seemed to fill the cavern like a warm whisper, “Be at peace, ma petite.”
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