Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Jean-Claude pulled away from him. Asher held on for a moment, then let him go with a flash of annoyance on his face, but he didn’t fight to stay closer. He simply let Jean-Claude move a little closer to the bed, and me.

  I wanted to say, You don’t have to hide, but I wasn’t sure about it. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel watching them act all lovey-dovey around each other. But the thought that they couldn’t touch in front of me bothered me, too. I sighed and hung my head. God, I was confused even in my own head without any help from anyone.

  I felt the bed move, and looked up to find Requiem getting off the bed. He stood carefully, showing how much he hurt, but he stood straight, his pale untouched back military straight like most of the older vampires. They came from a time when good posture was beaten into you, sometimes literally.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  He turned his whole body, rather than just his head, as if he knew that it would have hurt to do it otherwise. “I see how you watch Asher and Jean-Claude. I said that you do not want me, and you do not. It is plain in your face, in your lack of reaction to me. The irony cuts deep, Anita. So many women have wanted me over the centuries, but I did not want them. Now it is my turn to burn and be unquenched.”

  “Non,” Jean-Claude said, “you are not going.”

  Requiem motioned with his good hand. “See her face, taste her lack of pulse. Her body does not respond to me. She does not even see me in that way.”

  “Anita sees you, or you’d have never gotten to feed the ardeur twice for her,” Asher said. He walked wide around Jean-Claude, to climb onto the bed with me. There was a look in his face that I hadn’t seen before. It was eager, almost angry, but not unhappy.

  He touched my face, and his hand was cool to the touch. He hadn’t fed. “I woke before noon today for the first time since I died.” He leaned in toward me, as if for a kiss. “So much power running through my veins, even without blood. I feel wonderful.” He stopped with his mouth just above mine, so close that it seemed wrong not to close the distance and kiss. So I did.

  I meant it to be a good-morning kiss. Good, but not too sexual. But it takes two people to keep a kiss chaste and Asher wasn’t feeling the least bit chaste.

  He explored my mouth with lips and tongue. I melted into that kiss. I danced my tongue over the dainty points of his fangs, slid between them, deeper into his mouth. He pressed us together, hands urgent on my body. One hand undid the sash of my robe. The nude fronts of our bodies were suddenly touching. I didn’t even know when he’d undone his own robe, only that the naked press of our bodies drove my hands under his open robe to slide along the smooth skin of his back and buttocks. When I cupped the tight smoothness of his ass, he drew back enough to see my face. Whatever he saw there painted a fierce look across his own. His voice came harsh and breathless. “Let me feed.”

  I just said, “Yes.”

  He wrapped his hand in my hair, hard enough for it to hurt, just a little. That little bit of hurting made me gasp, but it wasn’t just the pain. It was the feeling that with that one harsh grasp he could expose my neck and hold me exposed while he fed. I might never have admitted it aloud, but there was something about a little bit of force that just flat did it for me. Asher dug his hand deeper into my hair, jerked, brought a cry from me. It wasn’t exactly a cry of pain.

  His free hand found my wrists, held them behind my back, while my robe slipped down my shoulders. He stretched my head to the side so that I could no longer see his face. I saw us reflected in the full-length mirror on the other side of the room. My robe had fallen like a dark frame around the paleness of my body. The robe covered our hands, and not much more. It looked in the mirror like my hands were bound. The sight of it made me strain to be free, and Asher tightened his grip, bruising my wrists just a little, just enough to let me know I couldn’t get away. I trusted him. Trusted him enough to let him trap me.

  Movement in the mirror, and I saw Jean-Claude reflected there. His own robe was tight in place, but his eyes glowed with midnight blue fire.

  “The audience is a little large for ma petite.”

  “She’s not objecting,” Asher said.

  “And do you not find that strange?” Jean-Claude asked.

  Asher seemed to struggle to think, then finally said, “I do not know. I can’t seem to think with her here in my arms.” He looked out into the room. “Their presence seems to make it harder to think.”

  “The guards, or just certain guards?” Jean-Claude asked.

  “Remus”—and he looked to the far corner of the room—“and the new one.”

  “And what of Pepito? Do you sense him as strongly?”

  Asher’s body began to relax against me. I didn’t want that. I wanted him to feed. Needed him to feed. “Don’t stop,” I said, “please, don’t stop.”

  Asher looked down at me with those glowing eyes. He seemed to be searching my face for some sign. “You wish me to take you here with the guards watching?”

  Of course I did. “Yes,” I said, “yes, God, yes.”

  He looked at Jean-Claude. “Something is wrong.”

  “Wrong, and right,” Jean-Claude said. He came to the edge of the bed. “You have possessed her, completely. You could do what you wished with her, but when she sobered, then she would never forgive you.”

  Asher turned back to me. Whatever he saw there calmed him, tore the light from his eyes. “Anita, are you in there?”

  The question made no sense at first, then I said, “I am here, Asher, right here.” Some part of me heard me say it, and thought I’d heard that phrase before. I closed my eyes, tried to not see Asher’s face. It helped, to look away. I knew where I’d heard the words now: Requiem. I was echoing Requiem when I’d rolled his mind. Asher had rolled me before, but not like this, never like this.

  Remembering Requiem helped me think, but closing my eyes helped more. I was too big a fish for Asher’s gaze to keep, but staring into his eyes had lost me, myself. I’d stared into Augustine’s eyes and not been swept away, so how did Asher’s gaze rate higher than a couple of thousand years of Master of the City? I was supposed to be immune to vampire gaze. My necromancy and Jean-Claude’s marks should have kept me safe.

  Asher let go of my wrists. I felt him move back from me. I opened my eyes and reached for my robe, drawing it back around me. “What’s happening?” I asked.

  Jean-Claude spoke from beside the bed. “Are you yourself, ma petite?”

  “I think so.” I glanced up at Asher’s face, but he turned away, the spill of golden hair hiding his face. “Look at me, Asher.”

  “I did not mean to bespell you with my gaze. I did not even know that my gaze could capture you.”

  “It’s never been able to before,” I said. I looked at Jean-Claude. “What is happening? I was as bespelled as Requiem before I freed him.”

  “Non, you were able to fight free, once you realized what had happened.”

  “Yes, but why did it happen in the first place? What just happened, and why? And don’t avoid the question again, Jean-Claude, I mean it.”

  He made a gesture that was half bow and half shrug. Managing to make it both apology and an I-don’t-know gesture.

  “Not good enough. You do know what’s going on.”

  “I know what I believe has happened.”

  “Fine, tell us.” I slipped off the bed so I could tie the robe in place better.

  “All our people gained from what we did last night with Augustine. Asher has been a master vampire for a very long time, but he has never had many of the master-level powers that are taken for granted among many of us.”

  “His gaze has gone up a few notches, I get that,” I said.

  Jean-Claude shook his head. “Non, ma petite, it is more than that. What is Asher’s greatest vampiric ability?”

  I thought about it for a second or two, then said, “His bite is orgasmic.”

  Jean-Claude gave a small smile. “That may be his most alluring power for
you, ma petite, but it is not his most powerful.”

  I thought harder. “Fascination. He makes you fascinated with him, once he’s fed off you using full power. Once he’s made love to you, it’s like a sort of love spell, but it works the way that love spells never work.”

  “I believe his ability to fascinate has grown in power.”

  I glanced at Asher, who was still sitting on the side of the bed, but carefully not looking at me. I shook my head and walked closer to him. “Look at me, Asher, please.”

  “Why?” he asked, in a very still voice, carefully not looking at me.

  “I have to know if your gaze can just roll me, or if it happened because I don’t protect myself against you.”

  He almost glanced at me then, but gave me only the perfection of his profile and a wave of shimmering hair. “What do you mean, you do not protect yourself from me?”

  “I trust you, so I don’t shield from you. I want your power to take me. I don’t want to fight it. But before it was a choice. Now I need to see if it’s still a choice, or if you’ve just outgrown me.”

  “Give her the weight of your gaze, mon ami, let us see.”

  Asher turned, reluctance plain in the way he held his body. He gave me a face as blank and unreadable as any I’d ever seen on him. I’d perfected the art of looking at a vampire’s face without meeting their gaze years ago. I was a little out of practice, grown arrogant with power, but old skills never truly desert you.

  I studied the curve of his lips, then raised my eyes slowly to meet his. They were as beautiful as always, such a pale, pale blue. A pure, clear blue, but pale as a winter’s dawn. I stared into those eyes and felt nothing.

  “This won’t work unless you try to capture me with your gaze.”

  “I do not wish to capture you,” he said softly.

  “Liar,” I said.

  He managed to look offended then.

  “Don’t try to kid me, Asher, you like power games entirely too much. You love the effect you have on me. You love that you can do to me what Jean-Claude can’t. You love the fact that you are the only vamp who can vamp me.”

  His face went to cold neutrality. “I have never said such things to you.”

  “Your body said them for you.”

  He licked his lips then, an old gesture that he still made when he was nervous. “What do you want from me, Anita?”

  “Truth.”

  He shook his head, and looked solemn. “You ask for truth a great deal, but it is seldom what you truly want.”

  I’d have liked to argue that, but I couldn’t, not and be honest. “You’re right, probably more right than I want to know, but right now, try to capture me with your gaze. Really try, so we’ll know how careful I need to be around you.”

  “I do not want you to have to be careful around me.”

  I shook my head. “Please, Asher, we need to know.”

  “Why, so you can hide from me? So you can deny me the gaze of your own eyes?”

  “Please, Asher, just do it, just try.”

  “I will ask as a friend,” Jean-Claude said, “but the next request will be as master. Do as she asks.” His voice sounded so sad. Sad enough that it made me look at him. I felt like I was missing something.

  Once I would have just ignored the warning in my head, but I’d learned to ask questions. “Am I asking something bad here? I mean, you’re both way too bothered by this. Am I missing something that’s going to come back and bite us on the ass?”

  Jean-Claude smiled, almost laughed. “Ah, ma petite, how delicately you phrase it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, just answer the question.”

  “We fear what your reaction will be if Asher can indeed capture you with his gaze.”

  I looked from one to the other of them. Jean-Claude’s carefully pleasant face. Asher’s arrogant blankness. I caught sight of Requiem against the far wall beyond them. His face was as blank as theirs, but it wasn’t pleasant like Jean-Claude’s or arrogant like Asher’s; he simply tried to show nothing. His upper body was still decorated with the wounds Meng Die had given him. For the first time I wondered: if I fed the ardeur off him, would the wounds heal? I’d healed before with metaphysical sex. I frowned and turned back to Jean-Claude. “You had more than one reason for me to feed the ardeur from Requiem, didn’t you?”

  “You are not going to do it, so what does it matter?” There was the slightest flavor of anger to his words.

  I turned to him. The pleasant mask was gone, and in its place something close to the arrogance that Asher hid behind. “I know I’m difficult, but let’s pretend I’m not. Let’s pretend that I’m not a huge pain in the ass. Just talk to me. Tell me your reasoning.”

  “My reasoning about what, ma petite?”

  I walked toward him, talking as I moved. “All the reasons for me to feed from Requiem now. All the reasons why you’re so nervous about Asher being able to capture me with his gaze.” I was in front of him now, and realized that he must have moved back from the bed at some point, and I didn’t remember him moving away. I’d been too caught up in Asher’s eyes. “Just tell me. I promise not to panic. I promise not to run away. Just talk to me like I’m a reasonable human being.”

  He gave me a look, and it was an eloquent look. He let me watch thoughts chase over his face, but finally he said, “Asher is correct, ma petite; you ask for truth, but you often punish us for telling it.”

  I nodded. “I know, and I’m sorry about that. All I know is that I’ll try to stop being a pain in the ass. I’ll try to listen, and not overreact.”

  “Good intentions, ma petite, but you do know the old saying.”

  I nodded, again. “Yeah, the road to hell is paved with them, I know.” I touched his arm where it lay folded across his chest. Even his body language had closed down. “Please, Jean-Claude, I feel like we don’t have time to play to my insecurities. If we crash this weekend with all the other masters here, I don’t want it to be because you were afraid to be honest with me. I don’t want the disaster to be my fault. Okay?”

  He uncrossed his arms, and touched my face. “So sincere, ma petite. What has come over you?”

  I thought about that, then said it, out loud. “I’m scared.”

  “Of what?”

  I put my hand on his, pressing his touch against my face. “Of failing us all, just because I didn’t want something to be true.”

  “Ma petite, that is not it, not entirely.”

  I looked away from those suddenly knowing eyes of his. “I think it’s the baby thing.” I made myself meet his eyes. The gentleness in them was both easier to meet and harder. “If we really are going to do this, keep the baby, then we have to make this work. We have to make it all work. I don’t have the luxury of being a pain in the ass, if it’s going to get us hurt.”

  “You find out but hours ago, and you are suddenly more willing to compromise.” He looked at me, considering, serious, tender, all mixed together. “I am told that pregnancy changes a woman, but so quick as this?”

  “Maybe I just needed a wake-up call.”

  “Wake up to what, ma petite?”

  “I keep telling Richard I’ve accepted my life, but he’s right, I’m still hiding from parts of it. You”—and I looked at Asher then—“are all still tiptoeing around me afraid of what I’ll do, aren’t you?” I turned back to Jean-Claude. “Aren’t you?”

  “You have taught us caution, ma petite.” He tried to hug me, but I stepped away.

  “Don’t comfort me, Jean-Claude, talk to me.”

  He sighed. “You do realize, ma petite, that these demands for complete honesty that come over you from time to time are another way of being a pain in the ass?”

  I had to smile. “No, I hadn’t realized that. I thought this was being reasonable.”

  “Non, ma petite, this is not being reasonable. This is another way of being very demanding.”

  “Well, hell, then tell me what to do, because I don’t know how to be anything else.”
>
  “You are a high-maintenance item, as they say, ma petite. But I knew that before we became a couple.”

  “You’re saying, you knew what you were getting into.”

  He nodded. “As much as any man can when he decides to love a woman. There are always mysteries and surprises in every love affair. But, yes, I had some idea what I was getting myself into. I did it willingly, eagerly.”

  “The difficulties were outweighed by what, the power you might gain?”

  He frowned at me. “See, already you grow angry. You do not want truth, ma petite. You do not want lies either. You leave us all with no clue to what will take us safely through your rocky shoals.”

  “I’ve never heard you use a sea metaphor before.”

  “Perhaps seeing Samuel reminded me of my voyage to this fair land.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, and even to me it sounded suspicious.

  Asher made a sound low in his throat. “You seek a reason to be angry, so you can blame us, and run.”

  “Like Richard was trying to pick a fight earlier,” I said.

  Asher nodded.

  I thought about that for a second or two. “It’s not that Richard and I are too different, we’re too much alike.”

  Jean-Claude gave me a look, like I’d finally come to something he’d understood long ago. “Too much alike in many ways, but you have compromised more, and your very alikeness in character makes him keep trying to force you to make the same decisions he has made. He sees the echo of himself in you, and understands even less why you do not see his rightness in all things.”

  “And it’s maybe why he frustrates me, too. He’s enough like me, so why can’t he make the decisions I’ve made?”

  “Oui, ma petite, I believe that is part of your immense anger toward each other.”

  “He’s right, I’m trying to make him into something he’s not, and he’s trying to do the same to me. Shit.”

  “What, ma petite?”

  “I hate being this slow about something that feels so obvious.”