I left the skirt in a pile by itself. I wasn't even sure dry cleaning could save it.
I took off the white T-shirt and made a third pile for clothes that were actually clean. The bra went in that pile. I put the T-shirt back on and kept the thong underwear, too. I'd have slept better without the thong, but the T-shirt wasn't enough clothes. I'd never slept nude with Nathaniel, and I had with Jason only once, when I'd passed out that way. I needed jammies. What I wanted more than anything in that moment was to wrap as much of my tired body around Nathaniel's body as I could, and sleep.
I crawled under the sheets on the far side of the bed and moved until I touched Nathaniel's bare back. The moment I touched him, he stirred in his sleep. I slid my body along his, until I spooned him from behind, which was how we slept most nights at home. He wasn't wearing anything. It wasn't a comment on sexual orientation for Nathaniel and Jason. It was a comment about them both being wereanimals. Wereanimals just didn't see the point in clothes, not if they could go without them.
I settled in against Nathaniel's body, and he snuggled himself between my body and Jason. Who never so much as stirred. I put my face against Nathaniel's hair, and the vanilla scent of it was enough. I was home, and I slept.
49
Something woke me. I wasn't sure what. I was just suddenly awake in the dimness of Jason's bedroom. I was still curled against Nathaniel, and Jason was a dim blond shape on the other side of him. Nothing had changed, so what had woken me?
I lay there, straining to listen. There was nothing to hear. It was just the boys' quiet breathing, the rustle of a sheet when Jason moved in his sleep. The room was utterly quiet. Had I heard something? Then I did hear something—water. Water running in the bathroom.
I slid my hand under my pillow, and the Browning was there in its holster. If I wasn't at home with the gun in its bedframe holster, then I kept the gun holstered and snapped, just in case. It'd be a shame if someone's hand accidentally offed the safety, and another hand hit a trigger, and well, you get the idea. I unsnapped the holster, drew out the gun, and put a hand over Nathaniel's mouth.
He jerked awake, eyes wide. I motioned with the gun toward the crack of the bathroom door. He nodded and touched Jason's shoulder, as I slipped out of the bed and moved toward the bathroom.
I had the safety off, the gun held two-handed, pointed at the ceiling. It could have been one of the other shapeshifters come to borrow a shower. It would be like them, not to wake anyone and just assume it would be alright. It'd be a hell of a thing to kill someone because they used the wrong shower.
I crossed wide around the door, so my shadow wouldn't cross the light, though probably with the dark room behind me, that wouldn't happen. But better careful than not. I had to ball the black silk robe up over one arm to keep from tripping over it. I didn't remember putting on a robe.
I was at the hinge side of the door, and I went to one knee, because if someone was on the other side with a weapon, most people aimed higher than my head was when I knelt. I kept as much of myself against the doorjamb as I could and began to ease the door open with my hands, which were still cupped around the gun. I was hoping to give my eyes time to adjust to the light, before whoever it was noticed the door moving. I knew better than to simply jump into the room from almost dark to bright light. I'd be blind for a second or two. If I'd been sure it was a bad guy, I'd have fired blind, but I wasn't sure.
There was water seeping out from under the door, the robe under my knees was wet with it. What I thought had been the shower running was the bathtub. I could hear the difference now. Someone had flooded the bathtub. What the hell was going on?
I had the door flat against the wall now, and there was no one to be seen. There was just the bathtub with water spilling over its sides and the water still rushing out of the faucet at full blast. The lower part of my legs were soaked. It was cold, so cold. Like they'd turned on only the cold. Who took a bath in only cold water?
There was just the sink area, a partial wall, the stool, and the bathtub/ shower. The room was small enough that I could see it all in one glance. There was no place to hide. Was this joke? Had someone crept in while we slept, plugged the bathtub, and turned on the water? Did they think we'd notice before it flooded? Did they care? Stupid joke.
I got to my feet and started wading through the water. It was ankle deep, and that seemed wrong. I mean, it shouldn't be that deep. The hem of the robe caught in the water, pulled in the current, like I was wading through a stream. It was like ice, so cold, so very cold.
I was standing over the bathtub now, and the water was cloudy. I couldn't see to the bottom of the tub, and that was wrong. It wasn't that deep. It was a white tub, and this was clear water. Why couldn't I see through it?
I kept the gun up, but reached to turn off the water. I half-expected something to grab my hand, but it didn't. The faucet just turned off, and the silence that followed was deafening. Small noises now, water sloshing, sliding around the room. The water cleared like a glass of water from a tap when there's too many minerals in the water. That milky stuff settling to the bottom, and there was something in the water. Something swimming out of the murk, coming into focus.
A pale hand, a spill of red hair, and I was staring down into Damian's face. His eyes were wide and dead, but it was daylight. He was dead. He didn't need to breathe. He could be under water. It wouldn't hurt him. But logic didn't help. Seeing him floating there, I did what I would have done if he'd been human—I reached for him.
I dropped the gun to the floor and plunged my hands into the tub. I touched him, grabbed handfuls of his shirt, and I started to pull him up, up through the water, but it was as if the water was heavier than it should have been. So heavy and so cold. He was almost at the top, almost when I realized it wasn't water, it was ice. He was frozen in a huge block of ice, and my arms were frozen with him, trapped with him.
"Anita, Anita," Nathaniel's voice, his hand on my shoulder, and I woke to Jason's bedroom. My pulse was choking me. I sat up and stared around. The bathroom door was open a crack but there was no sound of water. Dream, just a dream.
I started to shiver. Except that I was still freezing. So cold, so very cold. "I dreamed, dreamed of Damian. He was so cold, in ice."
"Your skin is like ice," Nathaniel said.
Jason was sitting up, his short blond hair tousled and his eyes heavy with sleep. "What's wrong?"
Nathaniel wrapped his arms around me, rubbing his hands against my cold arms. "When did you eat last, Anita?"
"With you, the drive-up."
"That was over twelve hours ago." He looked at Jason. "She needs food now."
Jason didn't ask questions, just crawled over the bed and dropped to his knees beside the mini fridge that acted as one of his bedside tables. He pulled out a bowl of fruit—apples, bananas.
"I don't like cold fruit," I said.
"Anita, you dreamed about Damian because you're eating his energy. Eat a banana," Nathaniel said.
I suddenly knew he was right. The cold was making me stupid. Jason handed me the fruit. But Nathaniel helped me peel it, because the shivering had gotten worse, and I couldn't peel it. Shit.
Nathaniel fed it to me in pieces, while my teeth started to chatter. When I'd managed to get it down, the shivering was a little less, but not a lot. "Meat, protein," Nathaniel said.
Jason lifted out a carton of Chinese takeout, but shook his head without offering it. "Too old." He got out a flat foam container and handed it up. "Fajita fixings from El Maguey, from yesterday."
Nathaniel opened it, lifted out a piece of the beef with his fingers, and held it close to my mouth. "Eat."
I ate, and the meat was unbelievably good, even cold. The meat seemed to fill up more than just my stomach. I picked through the grilled onions and peppers, and ate the beef. When my skin wasn't cold to the touch, and I'd stopped shivering, I slowed down, then shook my head. "I can't eat any more."
"You've eaten most of the meat," Jason said
. He was kneeling beside the bed, his arms propped on it, his chin resting on his arms. "Did I hear Nathaniel say that you were eating Damian's energy?"
I nodded.
"Jean-Claude said that you'd formed a second triumvirate with Nathaniel and Damian."
"Apparently," I said.
"I take it there's a learning curve," he said.
"You could say that. This is the second time in less than twenty-four hours that I've almost killed Damian."
Jason's eyes went wide. "How?"
"She's trying to do what she always does," Nathaniel said, handing the now closed box to Jason. "Barely eat, barely sleep, not do anything to take care of herself except exercise."
"I can't tell the cops, oh, sorry, I need a nap," I said.
"No, but I told you that you needed to eat more. I told you that you were acting more like a lycanthrope than a vampire. All you had to do was go through another drive-up. There are all-night drive-ups."
I didn't like his tone. "I didn't think of it. I just wanted to get to sleep. I was so tired I was nauseous."
"Or maybe you were nauseous because your energy was bottoming," Nathaniel said, and he was angry, "but you didn't think of that did you?"
"No, I didn't. Happy?"
"No," he said, "because once Damian's dead, who do you think you'll start draining next?" He was so angry that his eyes had darkened, so they were almost purple.
I started to be angry back, because the nightmare had scared me, and endangering Damian again had scared me. I felt stupid that I hadn't thought to eat, when Nathaniel had explained it to me. I'd just been so tired. Come to think of it, I'd been more tired than I should have been, hadn't I? I wanted to be angry at him, because it was my fault. I hate it when it's my fault. I hate being wrong, especially this wrong.
"You're right, you're right. I'm sorry. I am."
"You're not going to argue?" Jason asked.
"Why argue when I'll lose? I was careless. It's not just the triumvirate, or the new one, it's the ardeur. I've finally got it conquered, sort of."
"What does 'sort of mean?" he asked, and came up to sit on the edge of the bed. He was nude. He'd been nude the whole time. I just really hadn't noticed. I noticed now, and gave him very good eye contact.
"It means that the ardeur doesn't rise on its own anymore."
"That's a good thing, right?" Jason said, he was studying my face like he was puzzled by my expression.
"That's the good news," I said, "the bad news is that the ardeur doesn't rise, but it still needs to be fed. It won't remind me, it's time to be fed. That's what happened with Damian earlier. I hadn't fed the ardeur in over twelve hours, a lot over, but it hadn't raised either."
"So you didn't feed it," Nathaniel said, softly.
"Exactly," I said.
"And you started sucking energy off of Damian," he said.
I nodded. "He called inside my head, sort of."
"Then you fed the ardeur ,'" Jason said.
I nodded.
"Before you got to the club," Nathaniel said, and his voice was soft.
"Yes." I turned and looked at him, and what I saw in his eyes both made me feel bad and pissed me off. He looked hurt, and it wasn't my fault. But saying it wasn't my fault that I had to have sex with other men sounded wrong somehow, so I didn't say it. He had every right to be tired of me fucking everyone but him.
"I did the minimum for a snack, just to tide me over," I said.
"With who?" he asked, and his eyes were wide and careful.
"Requiem."
"If you were already feeding off of Damian's energy, then you needed to have fed the ardeur earlier, right?" Jason said. I think he actually wanted to know, but I think he was also trying to stop a fight before it started. I wasn't sure we were going to fight, but I wasn't sure we weren't, either.
I thought about Jason's question and finally said, "Yeah, I guess so."
"You gain energy through the ardeur , right?"
"Yeah."
"And now you're the power source for a new triumvirate. Your energy powers Damian especially, and to a lesser extent, Nathaniel?"
"Why a lesser extent for me?" Nathaniel asked.
"You're alive. You make your own heart beat; Damian doesn't."
Nathaniel nodded. "Okay."
"What's your point, Jason? I know you have one."
"Would I have a point?" he said with a grin.
I shook my head. "There's a very fine mind hiding behind those baby blues. You just don't let everyone see it, so yeah, you have a point. What is it?"
"Anita is having to eat more often, right?"
We both nodded.
"What if she needs to feed other things more often?"
I think we both took breath to ask what he meant, then we both got it at the same moment. "Oh, shit," I said.
Nathaniel said, "Oh, God."
"Before tonight it was every twelve hours, fourteen if I stretched it," I said. "How much more often could I need to feed?"
Jason spread his hands wide. "How should I know? I'm just pointing it out."
"It makes sense," Nathaniel said. "You fed off of Requiem about how long before we fed?"
I thought about it, tried to do the math in my head, and it was harder than normal, because that little flutter of panic was so loud. "Two hours, maybe less." I shook my head. "No, absolutely, not. I cannot feed the ardeur every two hours."
"No, but you could keep like snacks in the Jeep and eat every two hours," Nathaniel said. "Like I said, if you meet one hunger, the other hunger lessens."
The panic pulled back a little, not much, but a little. "Are you sure that peanuts in the car are going to do it?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, but I think so." He suddenly looked young, and not sure at all.
I hugged him, and he hugged me back. "God, Nathaniel, God, we were already low on daytime feeds. What am I going to do?" I let some of that panic out in my voice.
He squeezed me tighter. "We'll work something out. I'm sorry, I got mad about Requiem. It's just..."
"That everyone gets me, and you don't," I said.
He nodded. Then drew back enough to smile at me, that wonderful smile. He took my hand and placed it on the side of his neck. I felt the marks of my teeth under my fingertips. "This was good, Anita. This was exactly what I wanted in that moment, exactly."
I had to smile back at him, but the smile didn't last. "What time is it?"
Jason answered, "Ten o'clock."
Great. Less than two hours of sleep. Out loud I said, "I fed on you at about two in the morning, which means it's only been eight hours. Eight hours is too soon, Nathaniel."
He looked at me, and there was a fierceness there, a determination. "Make love to me, Anita. Make love to me, and then you can feed on someone else. But you're right, I am tired of watching everyone get there before me." He was on his knees, and he touched my arms, not quite clutching at me, not quite holding me. "Make love to me, and I won't have a reason to be jealous."
"I'll still be having to have sex with other men," I said. "Why won't you be jealous?"
"Because I'll know that you want to make love to me, and you have to have sex with them."
My head was beginning to hurt. Nathaniel often made me feel out of my depth. I loved him, and wanted him, but, hell, I didn't know what to say to him. "If it was you in other women's beds, I'd be jealous, no matter the why."
He blushed. "Would you really be jealous of me?"
"I wasn't entirely happy watching you get pawed at the club, so yeah, I think it would bother me."
"I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"That I'm jealous of other women around you?"
He nodded.
"You've had girlfriends be jealous of you before," I said.
He shook his head. "I've never had a girlfriend."
I stared at him. I didn't know what to say. I knew he wouldn't lie about it, but I just found it hard to believe. "You've been in pornographic
movies. You've—"
"Been a prostitute," he finished for me, and his eyes never flinched.
"Yeah, I'm sorry, but..."
"Fucking isn't dating, Anita. Fucking for money really isn't dating."
"But..." I said.
He touched my lips with his fingers. "Hush," he said, "you are the first girlfriend I've ever had."
I stared at him with a sort of soft horror growing in my mind. I was his first girlfriend? I couldn't wrap my mind around it. How can you do porn and be a prostitute and not date? Some of the confusion must have shown on my face, because he smiled and touched the side of my face. The bandage had come off and he traced the healing scratches that Barbara Brown had given me.
"I told you, you're the first person who ever wanted me, for me. Not because of the way I looked and what I could do with my body. You love me without sex. You let me take care of you. You let me organize your kitchen."
"You cook in it more than I do," I said.
He smiled, and his eyes were gentle, as if I were the child and he was so much older than I was. "That's it, Anita. You let me buy the tea set, even though I know you think it's sort of silly."
"You like the tea set," I said.
He nodded. "You do things not because you want them or enjoy them, but because it makes me happy. I've had people buy me jewelry, clothes, weekends in great hotels and spas, but no one ever let me buy what I wanted with their money, only what they thought I wanted. Let me remake their schedule. Let me make a place for me in their life." He cupped my face between his hands. "Maybe girlfriend isn't the right word, but I think any other word I could think of will make you run away, and I don't want that."
My lips were suddenly dry.
"Make love to me," he whispered and started to lean in for a kiss.
I felt the bed move on the other side. I had to fight the urge not to grab Jason's arm or something, anything to keep him with us. Anything not to be alone with Nathaniel. Ronnie was right, it wasn't rational, but I felt like if I consummated our relationship, I had to keep him. She was wrong. It wasn't sex that was a commitment for me anymore. The ardeur had taken that away from me. But sex with the right person was still a commitment, and the person bending in to kiss me, oh, so gently, was the right one.
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