"Is there anything your bloodline does that doesn't involve getting naked?"
He laughed, that wonderful, touchable laugh. And I wasn't the only one who reacted to it. Auggie shivered as he gripped my hands. He was still in his expensive suit, even his tie tight in place. He'd behaved himself admirably.
I looked around the room and found it empty except for Asher on the side near the outer door and Requiem on the side near the hallway that led farther into the underground. Asher with his golden hair that hid the scars the Church had given him when they tried to burn the devil out of him with holy water. Requiem tall and pale, with hair almost as dark as mine and Jean-Claude's. His face was graced by a mustache and a small trimmed beard. Though tonight he looked like something big had hit him on the side of the face. They both held their arms up and out from their bodies. I could feel power radiating from them. I realized they'd thrown up the vampiric equivalent of a power circle to try to hold in the ardeur, and the memories. To stop it from spreading.
I relaxed in Jean-Claude's arms, squeezed Augustine's hands. There was a whisper in my mind, "Were there other times?" Was it my thought, or hers? I didn't know, and it didn't matter, because the question came, and the thought was enough.
I was thrown into the middle of a memory that had me clawing for air. Auggie on top, pressing Jean-Claude's body into a bed.
u Non, ma petite, non. " His body pressed against me, all that lovely nakedness, but it wasn't enough. This wasn't Belle's power imposed on me. She'd figured out what I'd only discovered recently myself, that I could borrow powers from vamps if they used those powers on me first. Some powers were more permanent than others, some didn't take at all, but this one was taking. This one was taking, and I couldn't stop it.
I screamed, and Auggie's arms were bare under my hands. But it didn't help. It didn't help.
"Then have all the memory, Anita," Auggie said, "see it all."
We were in a room, small but elegant. Auggie sat in a chair. Jean-Claude was down on one knee before him, hat in hand, head bowed.
This Auggie's yellow hair was down to his shoulders. He wore blue and silver gray with too much lace for my taste. "So the rumors are true—you have left her voluntarily."
Jean-Claude nodded, and looked up. "I have."
Auggie laughed. "You leave heaven voluntarily when I cry in hell for one last glimpse of it." He shook his head, sighed, the humor vanishing from his face. "But if you are strong enough to leave heaven I will get you to the coast. I know a ship and a captain that I trust."
"What is the destination of the ship?"
"The English colonies. The United States of America, they are called now. But honestly, Jean-Claude, does it matter where it goes as long as you are off the continent, and far from her?"
Jean-Claude bowed his head again as if whatever was in his eyes, he didn't wish to share. "I cannot pay you, Augustine, I have left with nothing."
"It is a gift in honor of your bravery at leaving paradise, not once, but twice. Twice, when I would give everything I have to go back."
Jean-Claude raised his face, beautiful and empty, his face when he was hiding what he was thinking. "Is it Belle you miss, or the ardeur?"
"Both."
"I cannot give you Belle, but the ardeur is mine to share."
Such eagerness on Augustine's face for an instant. A need so raw it filled his eyes with fire like lightning's glow behind gray clouds. Then his face stilled, all that hunger hiding away, but we had seen it. For in that instant, I was no longer seeing the room like some floating phantom. I was inside Jean-Claude's head as I had been inside him and Belle in the earlier memory.
Augustine's voice was as empty as his face when he said, "It is a gift, Jean-Claude. I would be your friend. Friends do not count the costs of favors."
We were surprised, and had been too long with Belle Morte to trust it. "I would have bargained my body to gain what you offer so freely, Augustine."
"And that is why I offer it freely. Yes, I long to be with her again. I will love her until the end of the world, but I did not always like her, or what she forced us to do." His face darkened with memories, but he waved them away, and smiled. "I would have stayed with her forever, doing her bidding, her willing slave, even though I knew her to be evil. I was too"—he seemed to search for a word—"immersed in her to ever wish to save myself, or save all those she wished me to enslave for her. If she had not cast me out, I would never have been strong enough to go."
"You refused direct orders from her. Some at her court still speak of it."
He nodded. "Even someone as weak as I am has things he will not do." Such sorrow on his face, such loss.
We laid our cheek against his hand where it lay on the chair arm. We rolled our eyes upward, so we could watch his face. His hand was very still under our cheek, as if he'd stopped breathing. "Let me share the one gift I have with my only friend."
He fought to keep the eagerness off his face, but only half succeeded. "You do not have to do this, Jean-Claude. I meant what I said. It is my gift to you." There was a tension in his hand where it lay, as if his body fought to be still but his hand betrayed him.
"I know your preference is for women."
"As is yours," Auggie said.
"Yes, but Belle does not share her personal men with other women."
Auggie smiled, and the smile was friendly but nothing more; it didn't
match the growing tension in the hand that lay under our cheek. His voice was mild as he said, "Unless it is a woman she wished for us to seduce."
We smiled, too. "For money, or land, or politics, oui." We shared a smile made up of centuries in her bed, pawns in her great plans. "I am the only one of her line to have inherited the full power of the ardeur, Augustine, and there are none of our blood in this new America."
"So my last opportunity to taste the ardeur and yours to be with another master of Belle Morte's line is tonight."
We nodded, our face rubbing along his hand.
He took his hand, gently, out from under us. "You are frightened," he Said, and his face was soft with wonder. "I am."
"Then why leave her?" "Because I could not stay, not and be hated by them both."
"Both?" We could not hide the tears, except by turning our faces away. Augustine came down on the floor with us. He held us while we cried. "It is not Belle that has broken your heart, it is Asher."
We wept for the first time in months. Wept into his arms, and he kissed our tears away and we sought comfort in the only arms that we trusted. Our only friend.
The earlier memory returned of them in the sheets. But it wasn't shocking this time. I was ready for it, knew what to expect. And I knew that this Jean-Claude had been the one who spent over twenty years as a happy couple with Asher and Julianna. This Jean-Claude had lost Julianna, and Asher—Julianna burned as a witch, and Asher consumed by hatred at Jean-Claude for not getting there in time to save her. This Jean-Claude still blamed himself. Jean-Claude had taken the wounded Asher back to Belle Morte's court to save his life, and the bargain for that salvation was that Jean-Claude was her whipping boy for a hundred years. The Jean-Claude in Augustine's bed had lost everything and everyone he'd ever loved. He took the only comfort he could find, and I couldn't begrudge him that.
The memory faded round the edges, because it wasn't the sex that was im portant to me, or Jean-Claude, or even Augustine. It was the emotion of it. I came back gasping, pulse in my throat. "If that's a memory, then why does it almost hurt to come out of it?"
"I do not know, ma petite, but we have not much time. I could not stop the memory, but I was able to direct it. I wanted you to understand what happened between us, because I cannot stop what is about to happen. We have fought her to give me time to soften the blow."
"We?" I looked up at Augustine, and his eyes held sorrow the way Jean-Claude's could hold lust.
"We'll hold it as long as we can, Jean-Claude, but hurry, whatever you are going to do, hurr
y." Asher's voice, but it held sorrow to match Auggie's eyes. I looked at Asher, and found his face traced with the faintly reddish lines of vampire tears. I realized then that everyone in the room had shared the memory.
"I am sorry, Anita," Auggie said, and he looked across me at Jean-Claude. "Sorry to you both."
"Sorry about what exactly?" I asked.
"This," he said, softly, and it was as if they'd both been holding their breaths, and suddenly they let go. They dropped their shields, their wills broke together, and the ardeur was suddenly there, smothering us all.
I thought I heard laughter, dim and echoing, Belle's laughter somewhere deep inside my head.
THE ARDEUR CAME and the clothes went. The custom-made leather knife sheath ripped away with all the rest. We fell to the carpet naked, all hands and mouths. The heavy metal and glass coffee table got shoved to one side as if it weighed nothing.
I pressed Auggie's muscled body onto the carpet, lay on top of him naked, feeling that he was already hard and ready, but I wanted to start at the other (Bid. We kissed, and his lips were as full and ripe as they'd looked. He kissed delicately, though I knew the ardeur rode him and what he wanted to do was anything but delicate. I licked and kissed along his neck, his upper chest. I came to his nipples, pale and hard in the muscled swell of his chest. I'd never Jieen with anyone who was such a serious weight lifter. It was as if his skin fit tighter over all those muscles, so that it was harder to get a grip with my teeth, but worth the effort.
Sucking on his nipple raised his upper body off the floor, tore a yell from jhim. His eyes were wide, surprised, his hands reaching for something to hold on to. Someone grabbed one of those reaching hands, and I knew who it was, before Auggie drew him into my line of sight. Auggie drew Jean-Claude in to him, drew him down, as he lay back against the floor, and I Worked lower on his body. I licked and bit along his stomach, as he drew Jean-Claude down for a kiss. Something I did raised Auggie up off the ground as their mouths touched, so that I had a good view of it. I had never seen two men kiss, not like that. Not with lips, and tongue. In the months that Asher had been in our bed they had moved toward each other a time or two, but stopped. I had never asked whose sensibilities they were saving, mine or theirs. Now, watching Jean-Claude cradling Auggie in his arms and kissing him so thoroughly ... it tightened my body so hard and fast that it was like a mini-orgasm. I'd been told by a very smart friend that to keep saying that I didn't like to be in bed with two men at once was a little silly. A case of the lady protesting too much. My body reacted for me; the sight of
them kissing just flat did it for me. I've been told that it's how a lot of men feel about seeing two women kiss. Why should I be any different?
I worked my way down Auggie's body, eyes rolled upward so I could watch them. I came to the long, hard, curve of Auggie's body. Not straight, but truly curved, so that the grace of that hard flesh curled in against his own body. He was hard enough that the head was naked above the silky foreskin. I rolled my mouth over that head, then shoved as much of him into my mouth as I could, as fast and hard as I could. It made me come up choking, but it also tore him away from Jean-Claude's mouth. Made Aug-gie stare down at me with wild eyes. I went down on him again, slower, lingering over the feel of him in my mouth, so ripe, so thick, and how the hard line of that curve felt going down my throat. I watched them both watch me as I did it. Auggie's eyes wild with sensation; Jean-Claude's face full of pleasure, yes, but also pride. His own vampire marks were open enough for me to know that he was thinking how long and how hard he had worked to get to this point. He started to close the marks as much as the ardeur would let him, but I rose up from Auggie's body and said, "Don't, don't close down. Let's do this. Do it all. He started this fight, not us, let's finish it."
"Do you know what you are asking, ma petite}"
I nodded, then shook my head, my hand still wrapped around the base of Auggie's body. "I don't know, but I won't blame you later."
"Please," Auggie said, his voice full of such pleading, "please, don't stop. God, don't stop."
Jean-Claude and I looked at each other. We had a moment where he weighed me with his eyes. Then he gave a small nod, and said, "As you like, ma petite. For you are correct, he overstepped the bounds of hospitality." He looked down at Auggie. "Bad Augustine, to force the ardeur on ma petite.'"
Auggie nodded, his hand gripping Jean-Claude's arm. "It's been so long, Jean-Claude, so long, and there is no going back to her."
"We must feed on you, Augustine, in such a way that no other visiting master will dare this."
He nodded, though I wasn't certain he really understood what Jean-Claude had meant. Jean-Claude was holding the ardeur back, just enough. Enough so we could think, a little. When he let it go, it would sweep us away, and there would be no second-chance decisions.
"He has to be our message to the other visitors, Jean-Claude, or we won't survive this little gathering. These are your friends, and they nearly rolled us." I looked at him, and I felt the part of me that allowed me to kill, to do what was necessary. This was, in its odd way, a business decision. A political
decision, a survival decision. I knew we could roll Auggie; he was more powerful than Jean-Claude, but I could feel it. Feel that we could feed on him in such a way that it wouldn't matter. Not kill him, but take him, make him ours in a way that I couldn't even explain in words.
Jean-Claude spoke as if he'd read my mind, which he probably had. "I feel it also, ma petite, but..."
"No buts," I said, "we can take him, I can feel it."
"Perhaps Belle Morte is too much in your mind still."
It was Asher's voice, strangled with effort. It drew our eyes to him. His hands trembled in the air as if he were holding some great weight. "Hurry, Jean-Claude, hurry. We cannot hold the circle much longer."
"He began this fight," Requiem said, "let us finish it." His hands weren't shaking, but there was a thread of strain in his voice.
Jean-Claude looked down at Auggie. "Understand this, Augustine, we have never fed like this. I do not entirely know what will happen. Are you content with such a gamble, for it is you who will suffer if it goes badly?"
I slid my mouth over him, playing my tongue along the foreskin. He shivered, and simply said, "Yes."
u Ma petite, stop that, or he will not be able to think."
I went back on my knees, and stopped touching him. I put my hands in my lap and behaved. I guess it was cheating.
"Augustine, do you agree to this?"
He nodded, hands reaching for Jean-Claude. "Yes, yes, God, yes, the two of you both, yes, yes!" His grip on Jean-Claude's arm looked almost painful.
Jean-Claude stroked his hair, soothing him. "Then we will do as you ask." He looked at me, and it was as if a door opened in my mind. Some inner guard that he must have used almost constantly to keep the marks from being in full force was gone. It staggered me for a moment, made me reach out to Auggie's thigh to steady myself. The moment I touched him, the ardeur roared back, but this time I could feel Jean-Claude at the other end of his body. I could feel the two different ardeurs like different flavors of fire, and Auggie was our only wood. We'd burn him up, and he wanted us to do it.
I heard Jean-Claude in my mind, whispering, "I am letting go of my control, ma petite, are you ready?"
I nodded. He let go, and I fell screaming into the abyss. An abyss of skin and hands and mouths, and bodies. My own body was one huge throbbing need. And I didn't particularly care how that need got met.
I ended up on the floor with Augustine on top of me. All that curved hardness going in and out of my body, so diat I screamed for him. Screamed
my need, my pleasure, and my eagerness. He began propped on his arms so I could watch his flesh slide into mine, but then Jean-Claude joined us, and the angle had to change.
We had never put anyone in the middle of us when we both fed the ardeur. All these months with Asher, Micah, Nathaniel, Richard, and Jason, and I'd always been th
e one in the middle. Jean-Claude and I had fed from each other. He had fed from me while I fed at the man, or men, touching me, but never in all those nights had Jean-Claude been touched by someone other than me when we were all naked together. With the marks roaring open between us, I knew how much that had cost Jean-Claude. How horribly careful he had had to be in the middle of the one moment when you should be able to lose all control. So careful, so afraid of scaring me, disgusting me, making me turn away. So afraid of what the other men might say with a badly placed hand, or caress. So careful, so terribly careful, and now suddenly he didn't have to be careful. I felt the horrible tension in the center of his being relax, like a long-held breath released.
He explored Auggie first with fingers, and used the wetness of my body to lubricate other places that didn't normally lubricate themselves. The marks were wide open, so I got flashes of memory, of other men, and other times. Random images as they occurred to him, but even here he chased them away, still afraid of what I'd think. But Auggie's body was already inside mine, and I felt his eagerness at every probe, every touch. Everything that Jean-Claude did urged him on to more with me, so that all I could tliink was how would it feel to have Auggie thrusting inside me while Jean-Claude rode him.
Jean-Claude entered him slowly, and Auggie's body stilled above mine, as he concentrated on the sensation of it. It had been a long time for Auggie. As he'd said before, he preferred girls, which meant diat even here, with both of us eager, Jean-Claude had to be careful, so careful. Nothing spoils great sex like unintentional pain.
But finally he had everything in he was getting in, and Auggie's body relaxed above me. Relaxed into the rhythm that Jean-Claude found on top of us both. They both found a rhythm, Auggie's body pushing in and out of mine, slowly, ramming home at die end, so that I made small sounds at the height of every stroke.
The two of them found a rhythm together so that the height of one stroke was the height of the other. So that Auggie and I cried out together, and Jean-Claude rode us both. I tried to move with them, but the combined weight pinned me to the floor, so that the best I could do was squeezing
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