Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

“Meng Die threw both Requiem and Asher around like dolls in front of humans. We will be lucky if your police do not come calling and asking questions. She tried to kill Requiem, ma petite, not wound him. She did not care that there was an audience, but Requiem and Asher did not want to kill her in front of an audience. I had the same problem when I arrived on the scene.” He was angry now, the first thread of it filling his eyes with light. “She is even now locked in a cross-wrapped coffin. But it is a temporary measure. I must let her out tomorrow night, or kill her. She will see one night as a fit punishment, but beyond that it will be an insult, and she is too powerful to eat such an insult.” He fixed those brilliant eyes on me. “So, I ask again, what will you tell Requiem when he tells you that he is free of Meng Die? What excuse will you give?”

  “I’m dating three men, living with two more, and having occasional sex with two others. That’s seven men. I’m like a pornographic Snow White. I think seven is plenty.”

  “But it is not, ma petite. Emotionally it may be too many, but metaphysically, and for the sake of our power base, seven is not enough. You must add a lover who is not metaphysically connected to you, and you must pick a new pomme de sang now that Nathaniel is your animal to call.”

  “I thought this was optional—you’re making it sound like it’s almost an emergency. And wait, did you say add a lover and a pomme de sang? I thought I was adding just one, if I added anybody.”

  “I tasted your power tonight, ma petite; it needs to be fed and fed well. You are like one of those dieting women that thinks she can survive on lettuce leaves and water. It may feel like food, but your body dies anyway.”

  “I’m not dying,” I said.

  “No, but your power is seeking a new pomme de sang. Don’t you understand what is happening, ma petite? The ardeur is seeking for you.”

  “Okay, I’m confused now.”

  “It is not like Augustine to lose control. He is over two thousand years old, ma petite; one of the first vampires Belle made. You do not thrive for so long if you make such mistakes as he did this night.”

  “Belle messed with him, and with me.”

  He shook his head. “He raised your ardeur first, before she appeared, did he not?”

  “Yeah, he said now he could do what he’d wanted to do all along, and no one could be mad at him.”

  Jean-Claude laughed, and it was just humor this time. He could control his laugh if he worked at it. “He doesn’t know you very well yet. But when I said Augustine is my friend, I meant it. He would not have overstepped his bounds as my guest, not without something being wrong.”

  “And what’s wrong?”

  “The ardeur needs more food, ma petite, and like any predator it is seeking prey.”

  “It’s just a metaphysical ability, Jean-Claude, not its own entity.”

  He gave me a look, and it was eloquent. “You know exactly what the ardeur is, ma petite. You know that it has a mind of its own, similar to the beasts you carry. But I believe that the ardeur can do something your beasts cannot. It is, I believe, putting out the welcome mat.”

  “Welcome mat?”

  He sighed, and slid down in the water until his chin touched it. “You may not like Meng Die, but she is…proficient in bed. I find it inexplicable that Requiem would leave her body, on only the chance that he might be your lover. As I find it inexplicable that Augustine would purposefully insult me by raising the ardeur in you. He, in effect, attacked you, and through you, me.”

  “He told me to feed from him, because then I’d win the fight, and once you got into the room he said you’d lose.”

  Jean-Claude sat up so abruptly that he sloshed water in my face. I brushed my eyes clear, while he said, “He said that?”

  I blinked at him, still trying to keep water out of my eyes. “Yes.”

  “Then it is as I have feared. The ardeur is seeking what it needs.”

  “Are you saying that the ardeur is putting out, what, pheromones?”

  “I do not know this word.”

  “Pheromones, it’s a chemical or hormone that some animals give out. The scent attracts mates. I think it was first discovered in moths.”

  “Yes, pheromones then, yes.”

  “I’m not agreeing with you, but say it is true; why does it only seem to work on certain people? I mean, it doesn’t work on Clay, and I think Graham just wants to fuck. Why Requiem and Auggie?”

  “What do they have in common?” he asked.

  “They’re both vamps of Belle’s bloodline, and they’re both masters. But thanks to all our imports from London, there are a couple more vampires in town who qualify. They aren’t buzzing around me.”

  “But they do not approach the power level of Augustine and Requiem.”

  “Are you saying the ardeur is shopping for powerful food?”

  “I offer it as an idea.”

  I thought about it, but finally looked at him. “If this is what’s happening, and I’m not saying it is, then is it only vamps from Belle’s line, or any master vampire of a certain power level?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Then we need to know before tomorrow’s big party,” I said. “If there is even the faintest chance that the ardeur is going to do some funky shit with every master vampire above a certain power level, then no way can I go to the party tomorrow. We’re going to be neck-deep in Masters of the City. It would be bad if they all decided they wanted to be my sweetie.”

  He nodded. “There is one other thing they both have in common, ma petite.”

  “And that would be?”

  “They have both been with vampires who held the ardeur.”

  “You said vampires, plural. You don’t mean just Belle, do you?”

  “Requiem had a lover who meant as much to him as Julianna did to Asher and me. Her name was Ligeia.”

  “He told me that Belle killed her out of jealousy.”

  “Oui. Ligeia was the only woman of her line to acquire the ardeur. It wasn’t the full ardeur that Belle, you, and I carry, but there is more: Requiem refused Belle’s bed for her.”

  “And she killed her for that.”

  “You have been inside Belle Morte’s head, ma petite, how can you sound surprised?”

  He had a point. “It still seems pretty petty for a vampire who’s over two thousand years old,” I said.

  He nodded. “Oui, but many of the old ones can be extremely petty.” He held his hand out to me.

  I stared at that hand for a heartbeat, then I took it. I let him draw me through the water and in against his body. Let him press me to the front of his body, wrap his arms around me. “You’re afraid,” I said, my cheek pressed to the firmness of his chest.

  “Oui, I am afraid.”

  “Why?”

  “There are others here who have tasted the ardeur and are masters. We need to test our theory, ma petite, but I fear we run the risk of having you tied permanently to someone, or they to you.”

  “Auggie isn’t tied to me.”

  “He did not want to leave our side, ma petite. If he does not recover, then he will be as Belle made her victims, hungering for us forever, willing to do anything to be back between us.”

  “You sound sad.”

  “He was my friend; I did not mean to enslave him as Belle would. I saw her victims give up everything, betray every vow, every trust, for the sake of her body.” He held me tight against him. “It is not a power I ever wished to possess.”

  “You hold the ardeur.”

  “Oui, but this is a level of the ardeur that only she possesses. We all believed that only Belle Morte could wield it at such a level.”

  “You don’t want it.”

  “I want to be so powerful that no one dares challenge me or our people. But I am afraid of this, and what it will mean.”

  His heart was beating too fast against my ear. Had it been beating all along, or had it just started? “Mean, how?”

  “There are those in Europe who already fear my growing powe
r. Knowledge that I wielded the ardeur at the same level as Belle Morte might tip the scales in the council’s voting. They might vote to kill us all rather than risk me making a power base in America, as strong as Belle once possessed in Europe. Or the other American masters might collude to kill us, for fear that we would become like the tyrants of the European council.”

  “How likely is all this?” I asked.

  “Possible.”

  “How possible?” I asked, suddenly realizing that an accidental pregnancy might not be the worst disaster we could have.

  “We must understand these new powers, and quickly, ma petite. We must experiment with a master we trust before I allow you to go to the party tomorrow. We must know what we are dealing with, if we can.”

  Raised voices on the other side of the door. Claudia yelling, “You can’t just go in there!”

  Richard’s voice, angry. “Watch me.”

  Jean-Claude sighed, and I settled lower in the water. I did not want to fight with Richard tonight. But from the feel of him through the door, we weren’t going to have a choice.

  Jean-Claude called, “Let him in, Claudia.”

  The door opened, but Claudia came first, as if she didn’t trust Richard in there with us. His power rode through the door like the heat edge of a forest fire, something that should have choked and killed anything in its path. We’d raised his power level along with ours, and we were about to find out how sorry that was going to make us.

  11

  CLAUDIA STOOD BETWEEN him and the tub, and because she was about five inches taller, she blocked our view of him. Of some of him. She was the more serious bodybuilder, but he had broader shoulders. His shoulders and what I could glimpse of his lower body let me know he was wearing blue jeans and a red shirt. There was a herd of black in the door, where the other guards waited to figure out what to do. Some of them were werewolves and he was their Ulfric; you don’t stand in the way of your king, not and survive.

  His power swirled through the room like invisible fire, as if the water should have boiled with it. Then I realized, it wasn’t just Richard’s power. Claudia had been my bodyguard off and on for months, maybe a year, but until this moment I hadn’t really understood how much power was in that tall, muscular body. It was her power, too, burning down the room. She wasn’t just physical muscle. The air was hard to breathe, as if it were too hot to pass over my lips, like coffee that you want to blow on before you drink it. I don’t know what Richard had done outside, but it had made Claudia drop all her pretenses and show her power, like a preview, or a warning.

  Her voice echoed in the room. “No farther, until you prove you’ve got your shit under control.” Her legs bent, her body going into that partial crouch, legs moving in the space she had between the raised tub and him. It was a fighting stance. Jesus.

  “Move!” Richard shouted it, in a voice gone bass with growling. Not good.

  Jean-Claude and I exchanged looks. He gave a small shrug. I tried. “Richard.” I had to raise my voice, and say his name three times, before he answered.

  “Tell her to move, Anita,” he growled.

  “What will you do if she moves?” I asked.

  I felt some of that burning power hesitate, grow weaker. His voice was still growly, but less sure of itself. “I don’t know.” He said it as if he hadn’t thought beyond getting to us. That wasn’t like Richard, to have no idea what he planned to do.

  “Are you going to try to hurt us?” I asked, sitting up in the water enough to peer around Claudia’s body. I caught a glimpse of his face. His hair was a foamy mass of waves, all brown and gold. In sunlight there would be more gold to his brown, and strands of coppery red. His hair was brown, but as if it could never quite decide if it might be blond, or auburn instead. It had finally grown back to brush the tops of his broad shoulders. The bright crimson T-shirt strained around his upper arms, because he was holding his hands in tight, tight fists. It looked as if the seams of the shirt weren’t going to hold the muscles’ strain. His summer tan was dark against the red of the shirt. He looked at me then, the full force of his eyes, and the shock of it thrilled down my spine. His eyes were wolf eyes: amber, gold, and no longer human. It was the beginning of the change. No wonder Claudia was on alert.

  The dimple in his chin usually softened the sharp perfection of his cheekbones, and the utterly masculine beauty of his face. He, more than almost any other man in my life, was handsome, not pretty. Nothing would ever make you mistake Richard for a girl, not even from the back, not even with the hair. The body was too masculine to be anything else. Tonight the dimple didn’t soften anything, because the anger in his face was too raw. Had the anger fed his power, or the other way around? Who knew; who cared? Dangerous either way.

  “Control yourself, Ulfric,” Claudia said.

  He turned those golden-amber eyes to her. “If I don’t, what then?” For the first time since I’d known him I realized he was spoiling for a fight. It wasn’t like him. It was like me.

  Jean-Claude and I both started to climb out of the tub at the same moment. He went for one of the huge fluffy white towels, wrapping it around his waist as he cleared the water. Shapeshifters aren’t usually bothered by nudity, but tonight he might be, at least by Jean-Claude. Richard was a touch homophobic; what he’d felt us do tonight wouldn’t help that.

  I left the knife and the gun on the edge of the tub. I wouldn’t kill him, and he knew it. One, there was a chance that if one of us died, the vampire marks would kill us all; two, most of the time I loved him too much to want him dead. Right at that moment was not one of those times. That moment was one of those times when I wished he had fewer hang-ups, and had had more therapy. He was in therapy, but not enough therapy for what he’d felt Jean-Claude and me do tonight. He was the last third of our triumvirate. Of all the ones we’d shared power with, Richard would have gotten more sensations, more real physical feedback of what we were doing. He was the one who would hate it the most and he got the most complete ride. Unfair, but true.

  Jean-Claude stayed near the back wall with its mirror. It was the largest place to stand. He handed me a towel but I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I stood there, framed by the black marble, nude, water dripping down my body, glistening in the light. My hair plastered to my face, leaving my eyes huge and dark in the paleness of my face. I could almost never resist any of my men fresh from the tub or shower. There was something about water streaming down naked skin that was just yummy. Here was hoping that Richard felt the same way.

  “I won’t ask you again, move!”

  “She is doing her job, mon ami.”

  “Shut up,” he screamed, “shut up, I don’t want to hear you right now.”

  Oh, boy. I moved around the narrow edge between tub and wall on the closest side to the door. I stopped on the raised platform so I was totally framed by the cool black marble with its white and silver streaks. My pulse was in my throat, because even a few inches closer made their power hotter, like moving closer to that open flame when your skin is crying out, Hot, hot, don’t touch.

  “Richard.” I whispered it, but he heard me.

  He looked at me with that rage-filled face, and the moment he saw me, his eyes filled with such pain, as if the sight of me like that was a knife blow straight through his heart. I was sorry for the pain, but happy about the reaction. Almost any emotion is better for a shapeshifter than anger. Anger feeds their beasts quicker. We needed to slow things down.

  “How could you do that? How could you do that with him?” I thought he meant Auggie, until he pointed a finger at Jean-Claude.

  “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘that,’ Richard.”

  “Don’t play me, Anita,” and this was a yell. He covered his face with his hands, and staggered back a step. He screamed, wordless, and so full of pain. He dropped to his knees, and screamed again. His power filled the room as if we’d all been plunged into boiling water. It felt as if my skin were being cooked. I’d felt Richard’s p
ower before, but nothing like this. How much power had he gained from our feed on Auggie?

  Claudia stayed in a fighting stance, and I didn’t blame her. Graham was just inside the door, rubbing his bare arms, looking conflicted. He owed Richard his allegiance, but he was paid to keep us safe. He also knew that Richard would never forgive any of the wolves that allowed him to hurt me. Jean-Claude I wasn’t so sure about, but me, he’d regret it later, and his regret had a way of raining all over everybody. Lisandro was in the room too, near the sinks. There was no conflict on his dark face. He was tall, dark, and handsome, with the longest hair of any of the male wererats. If Claudia said jump, he’d do it.

  Clay was in the doorway, as tormented as Graham. We needed fewer wolves in here, and more wererats, or werehyenas, anything but people who would hesitate.

  Richard lowered his hands, and his eyes were pure chocolate brown. He’d swallowed some of that awful, burning power. “You helped him rape the Master of Chicago.” He wasn’t yelling now, and I almost wished he had. It would have been easier to hear than the anguish in his voice.

  But what he said made no sense to me. “It wasn’t rape, Richard. You know that. You felt some of what Auggie was feeling. Hell, Richard, Auggie started the ball rolling. He raised my ardeur on purpose, picked a fight with me.”

  Richard looked at me, and I watched him want to believe me, but be afraid to. “Do you really think I’d rape someone?”

  He shook his head. “No, but he would.” He pointed toward Jean-Claude, who was standing very still behind me.

  His voice came neutral, as empty as he could make it. “I have done many things over the centuries, Richard, but rape has never been to my taste.”

  I remembered Jean-Claude’s memories with Auggie. Belle had wanted him to rape Auggie, and Jean-Claude had changed it to something gentler, or as gentle as he could make it with Belle watching. I opened my mouth to say something, but knew somehow that telling about the other two times that Jean-Claude and Auggie had had sex wouldn’t help us.

  “See, Anita, you can’t defend him either.”