Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Can you take the gauze away?” he asked.

  I didn’t argue, just pulled it off. It didn’t hurt to move it, so I wasn’t bleeding that badly. Good.

  “Turn your head to the side so I can see.” He added, “Please.”

  I did what he asked, which put me watching Jean-Claude. He looked way too solemn for comfort. “What’s wrong now?” I asked.

  “Are you so ashamed of us that you would hide our mark of favor under bandages and tape?”

  I frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

  Remus touched more gauze to my neck. “Can you hold it in place while I get tape?”

  I put my hand up to the gauze, automatically.

  Jean-Claude motioned at my hand, at Remus, who had his back mostly to the other man.

  Remus moved in to tape the gauze in place. I stopped him with a hand on his arm. He stepped back immediately, out of reach, the tape still in his fingers. I glanced up at his face, but he wouldn’t give me a direct look, so I didn’t know what was in his eyes. He’d stepped back like I’d hurt him. I hadn’t.

  I turned away from the guard, to Jean-Claude. Remus’s problems were Remus’s problem, not mine. I had enough problems. “You mean why am I bandaging the bite?”

  He nodded.

  “I always bandage the bites.”

  “Pourquoi?” he asked. Why?

  I opened my mouth, closed it, and thought about it. “It’s a wound. It usually pierces a vein or artery. You smear antiseptic on it, and slap a bandage on it to keep it from getting infected.”

  “Have you ever known a vampire bite to become infected?” he asked.

  I frowned, and thought about it. It took me nearly a minute to say, “No.”

  “Why is that, ma petite?”

  “Because vampires have a natural antiseptic in their saliva. Vampires actually have fewer types of bacteria in their saliva than the average human.”

  “You are quoting now,” he said.

  I nodded, and stopped because the bite was a little tight. It didn’t exactly hurt, but it let me know it was there. “Yeah, they had an article in The Animator. Some doctor actually wondered why vampire bites don’t get infected like an ordinary human bite, or an animal bite. They’ve known for a while that you guys have an anticoagulant in your saliva, but this was the first study on other properties of vampire saliva.”

  “So, I ask again, why are you hiding our mark of favor?”

  I thought about it, then shrugged. “Habit.” I took the gauze off the bite mark. It had two small round red circles on it, but it had almost stopped bleeding. They usually did unless you were cut up. A violent vamp bite was more like a dog bite; it bled. The two neat holes stopped sooner than you’d think, and rarely re-bled without the wound being reopened. I’d known vampire junkies who tried to hide their habit by having a vampire bite the same wound several times. It didn’t really work if you knew enough about vamps to know what a bite should look like, but it fooled the tourists, or the boss at work on Monday. Repeated trauma to an area is still repeated trauma, and that was one of the few times outside of violent attacks when a vamp bite started to bruise and tear.

  I handed the used gauze to Remus, who took it gingerly from me as if he didn’t want to touch my fingers. “I don’t need the bandages. Thanks anyway, Remus.”

  Jean-Claude came to me, smiling. He touched the bite delicately, coming away with minute drops of blood on his fingertips. He lifted them to his mouth, and I knew what he was going to do before he licked so delicately. I watched him lick my blood off his fingertips, and wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t not enjoy it. I felt neutral about what he’d done, but why had he done it? He usually went out of his way not to spook me, not to be too vampiric.

  He leaned over me, put his hands delicately around my face, and tried to raise me up for a kiss. Normally, I would have met him halfway, but I didn’t do it this time. I stayed sitting, forcing him to bend down for me. I kept my hand on the robe, holding it in place, and watched him bend lower. He stopped just before he would have kissed me, and drew back enough so I could see his face clearly. “You have kissed me many times with the taste of your sweet blood upon my lips, but now, I see reluctance on your face, feel it in your body. Why?” He searched my face, though I knew he could drop his shields and know exactly what I was thinking. Maybe he was afraid of what he’d find.

  Why, he’d asked? Because he’d licked my blood off his fingers? I’d kissed him when he’d come directly off my vein. I’d kissed him when one mouth or the other had gotten nicked on his fangs. I’d learned to think of a little sweet copper taste as almost an aphrodisiac, because I’d begun to associate it with him, and others. Even Richard liked a little taste of blood; he hated that he liked it, but he did.

  Jean-Claude drew back, letting my face slide between his hands as he stood. A look of such sadness came over his face. I grabbed his arm. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what, ma petite? Don’t stop hiding what I am? I cannot be human, ma petite, not even for you. I thought the worst of playing human for each other, you and I, was the crippling of our power, but that is not what hurts my heart.”

  I let go of his arm. I didn’t want to ask the next question, but I knew I had to, or be branded a coward. I swallowed hard enough that it hurt, and asked, “What hurts your heart?” It was a whisper, but I asked it. Brownie points for me.

  “That you turn away from me, for such a small thing. I licked your blood off my fingertips and now you will not kiss me.”

  “I would have kissed you.”

  He shook his head. “But you did not wish to.”

  That I couldn’t argue with. Part of me wished I could have, part of me didn’t. “What do you want me to say?” I asked.

  “I want you and Richard to embrace yourselves, and I am out of time to await this miracle.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “You promised to feed the ardeur from Requiem, if he fought free of your power. Will you go back on your word?”

  I glanced at the other vampire, lying on the mounded pillows, then back to Jean-Claude. “The ardeur hasn’t risen for either of us, yet. I think we should use the time we have before it does to plan strategy.”

  “Strategy for what, ma petite? This is not a battle of guns and knives. This is battle of a softer sort, though no less dangerous in the end.”

  I was shaking my head, and felt the first little trickle of blood down my throat. It wasn’t the shaking that was making me bleed a little more, but the fact that my pulse was speeding up. “We are not going to feed the ardeur before we have to.”

  “Your power rises, and you are more like Belle Morte,” Requiem said, and he sounded sad.

  I glanced at him. “What are you talking about?”

  Requiem answered, “Belle used to promise to feed the ardeur on us, then say she had not meant right this moment, but later, always later. Later could be very late indeed when she wished to play cruel games.”

  “I’m not playing,” I said, “I’m scared.”

  “If you feed from him, and he becomes besotted again, then you cannot feed off any of the pomme de sang candidates. We will show them Requiem’s state of mind and tell them you have grown too powerful for such games.”

  “And if he doesn’t fall under my spell again?” I asked.

  “Then you may taste some of the candidates without sex.”

  I was shaking my head.

  “The ardeur is growing, ma petite, you must accept that. What we have seen today and last night proves that pretending will no longer work.”

  “I’m not pretending,” I said.

  “You are pretending.”

  “Pretending what?” I asked.

  “I am sorry, ma petite, so sorry, but we must accept the truth.”

  I had crawled to the foot of the bed. Blood was trickling down my throat, like tickling fingers. I was so scared I could taste metal on my tongue. “I don’t know wha
t you’re talking about.”

  “You are succubus to my incubus, ma petite. You feed as a vampire feeds, but on sex instead of blood.”

  “I know that,” I said, and sounded angry, because I didn’t want to sound scared.

  “You say you know, but you know here”—and he touched his forehead—“not here”—and touched his heart. “You do not truly believe you are vampire.”

  “I’m not a vampire.”

  “Not in the traditional sense, non, but only because you have Damian and Nathaniel to draw upon. Without them to draw energy from, when you did not feed the ardeur in a timely fashion, your own body would feel the weakness.”

  “You went for years without feeding the ardeur for real. The old Master of St. Louis wouldn’t let you feed the ardeur, not completely.”

  “Oui, Nikolaos feared what I would become if she allowed my powers full rein. The Master of the City that traded me to her feared me, as well. He sent me to Nikolaos because he knew that her child’s body would not be something I would willingly seduce.”

  “She looked about twelve or thirteen; that’s legal in some places.”

  He shook his head. “Not for me,” he said, then he shivered. “You met her, ma petite; could you ever see me purposefully doing anything to draw her attention to me in that way?”

  I shook my head. “No, she was creepy as hell, and not in a fun way.”

  He nodded. “Oui, creepy will do as an appellation, though there are other words.” He shook his head, as if to clear his mind from such thoughts. “If you were a different woman, one of more casual lusts, then your being succubus to my incubus would not be a hardship. You would simply feed from whomever you wished. You are human, so your use of vampire trickery is not illegal.”

  “Not true,” I said, “it is illegal to use magic or psychic ability to induce, or bespell, into sexual acts. It’s looked on like a date-rape drug.”

  He nodded. “I had not realized the law had been broadened to include that.”

  I shrugged. “I keep track of the new laws, part of my job.”

  He nodded again. “But still, ma petite, there are many who would come eagerly to your body. You would not lack for food, if you were willing to feed on strangers.”

  I frowned at him.

  He gave a small smile. “Do not frown so, ma petite, I know you do not do casual. In fact, you are the least casual person that I have ever met. So serious, you are, so deadly serious about everything.”

  “Is that a complaint?” I asked.

  “No, but it is the truth.”

  I nodded, and put a hand to my throat to try to stop the blood from getting onto the silk robe. I looked for Remus. “Gauze, please, or this will have to be dry-cleaned.”

  Remus handed the gauze over without a word. I tried to stop the blood, but my pulse was pushing it out. I couldn’t seem to calm myself enough to slow my pulse. So much for the meditation practice I’d been working on.

  “What’s your point?” I asked.

  “That you need food that you know, and are comfortable with. A pomme de sang is never meant to be the only food for a vampire. It is more like food you always know is on hand. But it is assumed that the vampire will feed off many humans.”

  “Casually feed, you mean?”

  “Oui.”

  “I don’t do casual, sorry.”

  “True, and that is why the pomme de sang candidates are even more important for you than for a normal vampire.”

  “I’m not following you,” I said.

  “You must pick pommes de sang, and other food. You must choose enough food that you are not a danger to others.”

  “You’re babbling.”

  He came around the bed so he could touch me, but I moved out of reach. “If you bespell Requiem again, then you cannot seek a pomme de sang among our visitors. Your food will have to be chosen even more carefully, and quietly, behind the scenes, from the very few masters I trust. But it would be better to do it now, while we have so many willing princesses for our Prince Charming. Because choose you must, ma petite, choose you must.”

  “I thought the whole pomme de sang choosing was a trick to make everyone behave. Nobody wants to piss off their prospective in-laws, that sort of thing.”

  “Anita”—my name, not good—“we must know how dangerous you are, before Augustine wakes for the day. If you can feed from Requiem and not bespell him, then you can free Augustine. But if Requiem is not free, then he, and Augustine, will be like humans that we have let go, but we know that we can call them to us at any time. We take away our mind spell to please the human police, but we know which ones are so deeply ours that we can still whisper through their dreams. We can still call them.” He stood at the foot of the bed, letting me see how scared he was, but under that fear was eagerness. “If we can control this, then we are powerful beyond my wildest dreams. If we cannot control this, then we are dangerous beyond my deepest fears. If Requiem falls to the ardeur again, then we must cancel everything. I dare not even take you to the ballet among so many vampires.”

  “And if Requiem is okay?”

  “Then it is controllable, incredibly powerful, but controllable. It is something our enemies and allies will fear and lust after, but they will not fear us too much, or lust too greatly. It is the difference between having a weapon that one can use, and one that you dare never use.”

  “Like nuclear bombs,” I said.

  He nodded. “Oui.”

  I frowned at him. “Define ‘feed the ardeur’?”

  He made a sound that was half tsk and half throat sound. “Feed, feed, ma petite. He is not ugly. Feed upon him, completely, no tasting, no holding back. Feed, and if he can withstand it, then the ballet tonight goes on, the party after.”

  I looked behind me to Requiem. He was trying for a neutral look, and failing. “Let me test my understanding: you want me to make love to another man, and feed the ardeur off him?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  If Ronnie had been there, she’d have shot herself, or maybe shot me. I wasn’t planning on keeping Requiem. This was supposed to be like a one-night stand. But I didn’t believe it. I’d never had sex with anyone just once. “I can’t do another permanent man in my life, Jean-Claude. I can’t.”

  “Think of him as you think of Jason. What did he call himself, your fuck buddy?”

  I raised my eyebrows at him, then turned and looked at Requiem. “Did you hear that?”

  “I did.”

  “Do you understand what the term means?”

  “It means someone who is your friend, that you sometimes have sex with, but it is not a relationship. Though I prefer the term fib for it.”

  “Fib?” I made it a question.

  “Friends in bed, fib.”

  “Prettier,” I said. “Fine, you okay with just being my friend in bed?”

  “Your heart speaks to others, Anita, I know this. My heart speaks to no one else. But this is not a matter of hearts, but a matter of flesh and blood.” He held his hand out to me. “Come to me, Anita, please. I have thrown off your silken chains for this chance to be with you; do not deny me.”

  Maybe it was the way Requiem talked, all poetry and so emotional sounding. I was a modern girl; I wasn’t used to it. Jean-Claude could talk pretty when he wanted to, but he was my serious sweetie, and hearing it from someone who was supposed to be casual just didn’t ring right. It was as if the words didn’t match the situation. How could you talk about silken chains if you weren’t serious? Fuck buddies didn’t say things like that, did they? Of course, my experience with the whole concept of fuck buddies was pretty limited, so maybe I was just wrong. Wrong about so many things.

  I stared at Requiem, and felt nothing. He was pretty, but pretty had never been enough for me. I was almost perfectly happy in parts of my personal life, for the first time in a long time. I did not want to screw that up, and I’d learned that every new addition had a chance of blowing it all sky-high.

  Requiem let his a
rm fall. “You simply do not want me, do you?” He sounded sad, and more lost than when I’d rolled him.

  I don’t know what I would have said, because the door opening saved me. Asher glided in, as if his feet weren’t quite touching the ground under the golden satin robe. His hair spread out around the robe, putting the shiny cloth to shame by contrast. He glanced at the bed and flashed a wide smile. “Oh, good, I’m in time to watch.”

  I gave him an unfriendly look.

  He shrugged and smiled, way too pleased with himself. “Elinore has filled me in on what’s been happening in here. When I woke early, I realized that if I was awake then so was Meng Die.”

  That stopped us all, made us all turn to him. Remus actually stepped away from the wall as if he’d go running.

  Asher waved him back. “She’s still in the coffin, though she does want out. She’s agreed to behave herself.”

  “She vowed she would kill me, or scar me so badly that Anita would not want me,” Requiem said.

  Asher went to Jean-Claude where he still stood by the bed. He hugged the other man from behind, laying his head on Jean-Claude’s shoulder, so that his scarred cheek was bare to the light. “Yes, I was there when she made that particular threat. She looked at me, and said she’d forgotten that Anita liked scars.” His face tried for neutral when he said it, but failed. A flash of anger flared through the paleness of his eyes, making them flicker for a second like icy sapphires caught in light.

  Jean-Claude hugged his arm where it lay across his chest. He leaned his face against the top of Asher’s hair, and said, “How did you get Meng Die to see reason?”

  “She said, for such power as she felt when you did Augustine she would play virgin. There’s always another lover, but this kind of power is rare.”

  I looked at the two of them standing there, the light and the dark, entwined. I realized in that moment that I had never seen Asher enter a room and simply go to Jean-Claude and touch him like that. I had never seen them hug, let alone more. They touched, but it was seldom this deliberate.

  Did they touch like this when I wasn’t around? Did they do more? Did I care? Maybe. But did it bother me more that they were lovers, or that they were doing it behind my back? Doing it without me?