“It is only obvious once you have thought of it,” he said.
“I’m not sure that makes sense, but okay, fine. I’m not saying I’ll like hearing it, but tell me why you’re so worried about Asher using his gaze on me.”
“I’ll answer this one,” Asher said. He came to me, his robe still open over his body. It took more concentration than I’d have admitted out loud to give him eye contact and not look lower. “If I can capture you with my gaze, we are both afraid you will exile me from your bed. Your bed, and Jean-Claude’s.”
“I’m not in charge of Jean-Claude’s bed. You and he sleep together in your bed whenever I sleep by day in his bed.”
The two men exchanged a look I couldn’t read. I touched Asher’s arm, brought his attention back to me. “What is it?”
He looked down at me, using all that gold hair to cover the scarred side of his face. He didn’t usually hide from me anymore. “What do you think that Jean-Claude and I do in my bed when you are asleep in this one?”
I frowned, then couldn’t quite meet his entirely too-frank gaze. Vampire powers didn’t make me look away, embarrassment did. “You’re right, I don’t want honesty, I just think I do.”
“You are blushing,” Asher said, and he gave a delighted laugh. “You think we are lovers, don’t you?”
I was blushing so hard I was dizzy, and I felt like he was making fun of me. So I got angry. I crossed my arms over my stomach, and said, “Yeah.”
Asher looked at Jean-Claude. “She believes what most believe of us.”
I finally looked at Jean-Claude. His face was very empty. I had to lick my suddenly dry lips to say, “Are you saying that you’re not doing it, when I’m not around?”
“All the touch I am allowed is when you are with us,” Asher said, and it was his turn to sound angry. But his anger had warmth to it, to fill his voice.
I kept staring at Jean-Claude.
“You do not believe us?” Jean-Claude asked.
“It’s not that, it’s…” I tried to put it into words. Finally, I said, “How could you be so close to him and keep turning him down?”
“Thank you for that,” Asher said.
“And what would you have done, ma petite, if you had found us in an embrace?”
“I…I don’t know. I guess it depends on what you mean by embrace.”
“Sex, ma petite, sex.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know.”
“I do. You would have stormed away. You would have abandoned my bed, damaged our power base, the triumvirate. You might have run to our so-conservative Richard, or left us both again. So shocked you would have been, so unready to conceive of such things.”
“Maybe, but I didn’t freak about you and Augustine.”
“You were involved. We shared him. If you had come upon the two of us alone, you would have taken it differently.”
“Well, yeah, he’s a stranger for one thing.”
“Wait,” Asher said, “are you saying that you would share Jean-Claude with me?”
“We share each other now.”
He shook his head. “We share you, Anita, we barely touch each other.”
“Do not do this tonight, Asher. I ask this as your friend, and as your master. When our guests are gone, then we will continue this discussion.”
“Your word on that,” Asher said.
“My word.”
I nodded. “When we’re not ass-deep in alligators, and I’ve had a few days to digest the news.”
“Is this news to you, that I want him as my lover?” Asher asked.
I shook my head. “Truthfully, I thought you guys were doing it like bunnies behind my back. You know, the whole don’t ask, don’t tell policy. It never occurred to me that all the touching you did was with me.”
“I thought you would see it as cheating,” Jean-Claude said.
“With another woman, yeah, but I don’t have the same equipment. I mean if guys do it for you, I don’t have those parts. But it wasn’t guys I thought I was sharing you with, it was Asher. He’s not just one of the guys to us.”
“Are you saying that Asher is your exception to the rule?”
“I’m not sure I had a rule, but I won’t share you casually with anyone, any more than I’d expect you to share me. But I assumed that you and Asher were lovers, without me.” There, that was the truth.
“Why did you assume it?”
I motioned at Asher. “Look at him. Look at the way he watches you.”
Asher laughed. “Are you saying I am so adorable, how could anyone turn me down?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I am.”
His face softened, and he came to stand beside me. “Oh, Anita, you make my heart young again.”
I took his hand in mine. “And sometimes you make me feel like such a baby.”
“Pourquoi?”
“That I can take you both to bed, but I assumed you were doing each other behind my back, to save my sensibilities. It was a neat, clean solution, I thought. I didn’t have to decide how I felt about you two being a couple, but we all got what we needed. Instead, Jean-Claude has been a very, very good boy, and you’ve felt neglected.”
“Rejected,” he said, and gave Jean-Claude a dark look.
I touched his face, turned him back to face me. “That was my fault, not his. He’s right, Asher. You know me. I can ignore the elephant in the living room until I’m eyeball-deep in shit, but if you make me look at something before it’s that big, sometimes I take it badly. If I’d walked in on you guys together, I’d have used it as an excuse to run for the hills. Jean-Claude’s right about that.”
“And now?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. That’s the truth. Before I saw Jean-Claude kiss Auggie last night, before we shared him, I would have just said no. Not only no, but hell no.” I looked down, not sure if I was embarrassed, unhappy, or just out of my depth. “But I want everyone that I love to be happy. I know that. I want us all to be happy, and to stop running.” I touched my stomach, so nice and flat with all the exercise. “To stop pretending that we’re something we’re not.” I looked up at him. “No one asked you how you feel about the baby thing. I mean, you have as good a chance at it as Jean-Claude. Being the father, I mean.”
He smiled at me. “I am a selfish clod.” He dropped to his knees, gazing up at me. “I wake power drunk, and forget you have been through so very much in the last few hours. Forgive me.”
I shook my head. “No, I’ve been ignoring your problem for a lot longer.”
“I am in the bed of two people I love, there is no problem. I am luckier, and happier, than I ever dreamed to be again.”
“But…”
He put his fingertips against my mouth. “Hush. You ask how I feel about your pregnancy. How could I be anything but happy about the possibility of a little you, or Jean-Claude, coming into our lives? Julianna regretted that she never gave me a child.” He said her name without aching sadness, for the very first time.
I kissed his fingers and moved his hand so I could say, “You’re happy about the pregnancy.”
“Not happy, or unhappy, but I am very happy with you right now. I am very proud to call you my lover. You truly want us all to be happy, Anita. You have no idea how rare it is for two people in a relationship to truly want the happiness of the other, but you juggle many hearts and seek happiness for all. It is a rare gift, this desire.”
“How could you love someone and not want them to be happy?”
He smiled up at me, his hair falling back. He smiled broad enough to flash fangs, which he did rarely. A smile this broad stretched the scars, made him notice how tight the skin was, but it was the effect on others that made him not do it, or the perceived effect on others. I remembered this smile from centuries before I was born. It was a smile he had before Julianna died, before holy water was trailed over him to try to chase the devil out. I smiled back, because it eased something in my heart to see that smile
again. I was almost certain that the feeling of ease was Jean-Claude’s and not mine, but it felt real.
Asher hugged me, putting his face against my stomach. He went very still, as if he were listening. I stroked his hair, always a surprise, because it was soft and foamy, not as soft as Jean-Claude’s, but as soft as mine. Hair that looked like spun gold shouldn’t be that soft, should it?
He spoke low and soft, in French. I caught the word bebe. Baby. I waited to be irritated, but all I could think while I stared down at him whispering to my stomach was how cute it was. That didn’t sound like me. I looked across the room, and found Jean-Claude’s face gone soft with emotion. I knew who thought it was cute, and it wasn’t me. But with that much of Jean-Claude’s emotion going through me, I had to agree. I held my hand out to Jean-Claude, while the other hand stroked Asher’s hair. Jean-Claude took my hand and hugged me from behind, pressing his body to Asher’s arms around my waist. So happy, Jean-Claude was so happy. It filled us both, so warm, so good, like being wrapped in your favorite blanket cuddled against someone you love. I leaned into Jean-Claude’s arm, and he laid a kiss against my neck. Asher raised his face, and smiled up at us both. His face somehow looked younger, the way he must have looked centuries ago when he was alive.
The happiness was real, touchable; then the thinnest slice of regret crept into Jean-Claude’s mind. I caught the thought before he could hide it, that happiness like this does not last. That the last time he’d been this happy, it had all gone horribly wrong. He buried his face in the crook of my neck to hide his expression from Asher. I touched his face, gave him my eyes, and let him see that I’d “heard” his thought, and it was all right. It was all right to fear the-great-bad-thing coming to get you, because I believed in the-great-bad-thing, too.
When I was younger, I’d wanted someone to promise me that things would work out and nothing bad would ever happen again. But I understood now that that was a child’s wish. No one could promise that. No one. The grown-ups could try, but they couldn’t promise, not and mean it. I stood there between the two of them, and knew that I would do whatever it took to keep them safe, to keep them happy. I’d been willing to kill for the people I loved for a very long time; now I had to start living for them.
28
EVERYONE I CONSIDERED a boyfriend or a lover left. I wanted some alone time. But truly alone was too dangerous. Requiem and some bodyguards stayed. I dressed in the bathroom, which seemed stupid since everyone had seen me naked, but I needed some privacy.
While Jean-Claude and Asher were with me, I felt utterly calm about the baby, even happy. Once they were gone the panic set back in. One of them, I wasn’t sure which, had used vampire wiles on me. Or maybe, I was just picking up someone’s emotions. Hell, I was bound metaphysically to so many different men, it didn’t even have to be Jean-Claude’s emotions I was picking up. All I knew for certain was that they weren’t mine.
I got dressed in the emergency clothes I’d started keeping in Jean-Claude’s room. Jeans, black T-shirt, jogging shoes, good leather belt, and enough underwear to go under it all. The belt helped hold my shoulder holster. The familiar tightness of it made me feel better. More secure. The security had little to do with being able to shoot people. Most of the people making my life hard, I loved, and didn’t want to shoot. No, the gun was more psychological-better than real-life-better. Guns only work against things you’re willing to kill. If you’re not willing to kill, then a gun is, in some ways, a false sense of security. The wrist sheaths and silver-edged knives, that was extra security. Short of a heart blow, most of the people in my life would survive a knife. I didn’t expect to argue that hard with anybody, but the wrist sheaths helped me feel better. I left the bathroom dressed and armed. Much better.
I added another thing I kept at Jean-Claude’s, an extra cross. I got it out of the bedside table. It was cool against my skin, hidden under the shirt.
“I am the only monster in the room that a cross will stop, do you distrust me that much?” Requiem said from the bed.
His comment made me glance at Remus and another new werehyena sitting near the fireplace. “It’s nothing personal, Requiem, but I’ve been visited by Belle and Marmee Noir. The cross helps keep them at bay.”
“They are terrible powers.”
“Yeah.” I rummaged in the overnight bag until I came up with my cell phone, then headed for the bathroom.
“You can talk in front of me, Anita. I will not bear tales.”
“You’re blood-oathed to Jean-Claude. You’ll talk if he wants you to, but frankly, I just want some privacy. Again, nothing personal, Requiem.” I sighed, because this kind of shit was one of the reasons I’d been able to keep turning him down as pomme de sang. He was messy, or at least not neat, and I didn’t need more emotionally messy men in my life. “Look, this isn’t going to work between us if you take everything so damned personally. Fuck buddies don’t fret this much, okay.”
His face had closed down to that handsome blankness. “Okay,” he said, and that one empty word let me know his feelings were hurt. Shit, I did not need this.
I closed the bathroom door, and used my cell phone to call my gynecologist. I’d finally realized that a little piece of plastic wasn’t quite good enough. It was ninety-nine percent accurate; for this, I wanted a hundred percent. It took me nearly five minutes to convince the receptionist that I needed to talk to a nurse, or the doctor. The doctor, of course, was with a patient, but five minutes on hold snagged me a nurse.
“What seems to be the problem?” she asked in a voice that was part cheerful and part impatient.
“How accurate are those home pregnancy tests? I mean I know what the box says, but really, how good are they?”
“Very good, very accurate.” Her voice had softened a little.
I swallowed hard enough that she probably heard me. “So if one comes back positive, then…”
“Then congratulations,” she said.
“But it’s not a hundred percent, right?”
“No, but a false positive is very rare, Ms. Blake, very rare.”
“Isn’t there like a blood test that’s a hundred percent accurate?”
“There is a blood test, yes, but normally the doctors trust the home tests, too.”
“But if I wanted to schedule a blood test, to be absolutely sure, then I could?”
“Well, yes.”
“Today.”
“Ms. Blake, if you’re that worried, take a second home pregnancy test, but I doubt that the second test will give you a different answer. False negatives, those we see, but false postives are very rare.”
“How rare?” I asked.
I heard paper rustling. “When was the date of your last period?”
“First week of September.”
“Do you have the exact date?”
“No, I don’t.” I fought not to sound angry. Who the hell kept track to the day of their period?
“Ms. Blake, Anita, I think we need to schedule you a prenatal visit.”
“Prenatal, no, I mean, yes, I mean, oh, hell.”
“Anita, I talk to a lot of women. Most of them are happy about the news, but not all of them. You don’t sound like this was good news to you.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Dr. North is just coming out, I’ll let you talk to him.” Silence, then the sounds of movement, cloth rustling, and a man’s voice. “Hey, Anita, how’s my favorite vampire hunter doing?”
“Not so good today,” I said, and my voice sounded small, and hurt.
“I’m sorry about that. We need to schedule you an appointment.”
“I don’t want to be pregnant.”
He was quiet for a moment. “You’re not very far along, Anita; you still have options.”
“Abortion, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t, not unless there’s something majorly wrong. I mean, I’ll need to be tested for Vlad’s syndrome, and Mowgli syndrome.”
“I figur
ed the Vlad’s syndrome test, but you only need the Mowgli test if you’ve had sex with a shapeshifter while he’s in animal form.”
I put my forehead against the cool marble tiles of the wall, and said, “I know that.”
“Oh,” he said in that overly cheerful way, the way people say it when what they really want to say is OH MY GOD! He recovered quickly; he was, after all, a doctor. “Peggy, I’m going take this in my office, transfer it, please. Hang on a minute, Anita, let’s get some privacy.” I listened to a mercifully short amount of Muzak, then the phone picked up, and he said, “Okay, Anita, we’ll need you to come in as soon as possible.” I heard paper rippling. “We had a cancellation at two o’clock this afternoon.”
“I don’t know if I can make it.”
“If this were just a regular prenatal visit, Anita, I’d say fine, do it next week, but if we’re testing for both of the syndromes, and you’re telling me there’s a chance, especially for Mowgli syndrome, then we need to do the blood work now.”
I wanted to say I’d only had sex with one lycanthrope in animal form, just one time, but as they say, once is all it takes. “Doc, I’ve read up on Vlad’s syndrome. I don’t know as much about the other. I mean, if I really am pregnant, then it’s just this little bunch of cells, right? I mean, I’d be at best two months along, right? There’s no chance of the baby trying to eat its way out until it’s bigger, right?” Just saying that made my stomach tight. There might be no option of keeping anything.
“Humans have a pretty long gestation period for a mammal. I am assuming mammalian shapeshifter, here?”
“Yes. Does that make a difference?”
“It can. You see, the problem with Mowgli syndrome is that sometimes the fetus grows at the rate of the animal, and not the human.”
I flipped back through every biology class I’d ever had, and nowhere had I ever learned the gestation period of a leopard. It just hadn’t been covered.
“Anita, talk to me, Anita.”
“I’m here, doc, I just…I know if it’s Vlad’s syndrome that I have to abort. The baby won’t live anyway, and will try to take me with it. But like I said, I’m not as clear on the other syndrome. It’s a lot more rare.”
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