Danse Macabre ab-14

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I turned back to the corpse in question. He stood there in his elegant robe. A triangle of his chest showed, so pale, surrounded by the black of die fur lapel. His hair was a foam of curls, softer than mine.

  Tiredness came over me in a wave. No, it wasn't being pregnant, it was just everything. I had had all I could handle for one night.

  Micah hugged me from behind. Nathaniel came to stare down at me. He lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. He gave me the gentlest of smiles, then said, "You're beat."

  I nodded, his fingers still under my chin.

  He kissed me on the mouth, still gentle, no demand to it. He took my hand and started leading me toward the bed. Micah let his arm fall away but kept my other hand, so that Nathaniel led us both to the bed.

  The bed was draped in red tonight. Crimson, from the curtains that graced the four posts to the mounds of pillows. The sheets underneath the bedspread either would match the rest perfecdy, or would be some high-contrast color. Once upon a time Jean-Claude's decoration had been exclu-

  sively black and white. I'd complained. I still remembered the first night I'd seen the bed draped in red. I'd stopped complaining about the monochrome color scheme after that, afraid of what he might do next.

  Nathaniel had to let go of my hand to wiggle the coverlet out from under the mound of pillows. The sheets were black, like a splash of dark­ness in all that red. Some of the smaller pillows would get piled in the room's two chairs, beside the false fireplace. Thanks to modern technol­ogy it could actually make flames, but in all the time I'd been with Jean-Claude I'd never seen anything in the fireplace but an antique fan framed behind glass.

  Nathaniel and Micah went back and forth like busy ants until the seats were piled high with pillows, and there were still plenty left on the bed.

  Jean-Claude had come to stand on the other side of the bed from me. We stood there staring across the expanse of red and black silk. When I say ex­panse, I mean it. The bed was larger than a king-size. Orgy-size is what I'd started calling it, but I hadn't actually shared that with Jean-Claude. I didn't mean to imply anything about what he was doing when I wasn't here. The bed was just the biggest one I'd ever seen. Then I realized, that wasn't en­tirely true. Belle's bed was this size. I really wished I hadn't thought of that. Suddenly I was cold.

  "What is wrong, ma petite}" he asked.

  I shook my head. I didn't want to share the observation, as if talking about it would make it more true.

  Micah and Nathaniel came back to the bed. Micah stopped and looked from one to the other of us. Nathaniel started unbuttoning his shirt.

  "I think you might want to wait on that," Micah said, still looking from one to the other of us.

  Nathaniel kept unbuttoning. "They'll work it out." He slipped the shirt off, and went for the large armoire. It was dark rich wood that matched the bed. Nathaniel opened it, and started hanging up his shirt. The armoire was empty except for our extra clothes. Nathaniel's, Micah's, mine. Jean-Claude had a room the size of a small warehouse that was full of clothes. He'd started hanging an outfit at a time in the armoire, but he still kept his room as clean and empty as he could. He'd gotten in the habit when he used to en­tertain strangers on a regular basis. You don't keep things you value in a room where you're going to have one-night stands. Jean-Claude didn't do one-night feedings and fucks now, but old habits die hard. Vampires, I'd found, once they have a habit, really don't like giving it up. Old dogs, new tricks, that sort of thing.

  Nathaniel came back to the bed wearing absolutely nothing. I had one of

  those moments of discomfort. I'd seen him nude more times than I could count. I'd seen him nude in front of Micah and Jean-Claude more times than I could count. So why was I blushing?

  Nathaniel climbed into the bed, pulling the sheet up just enough to keep me from yelling at him. Left to his own devices I think Nathaniel would have been nude all the time. He lay back against the red and black pillows. His hair was still in its braid so that his face was framed by all that black and red silk. His face had started to fill out; bone structure that had only been a promise six months ago was somehow more real, more masculine. He was moving from the pretty handsomeness that some young men get, to the more handsome handsomeness that most of them grow into. He'd also grown nearly an inch taller in the six months we'd been together. At twenty he was growing into what some people hit at seventeen, or earlier. Genetics is a wonderful and confusing thing.

  He smiled at me, and the smile was all male. That pleased smile that said he knew I was looking at him, and how much he liked the effect he had on me. He'd been in my bed for half a year, naked in it for about a month, and I was still staring at him as if it were the first time.

  It made me blush and look away.

  "Come to bed, Anita," he said, "you know you want to."

  The anger was instantaneous. I wasn't blushing when I raised my eyes back to him. "I don't like being taken for granted, Nathaniel."

  He sighed, and sat up, putting his muscular arms around his knees. "Don't let the whole baby thing push you back. You've made a lot of progress in your comfort zones, don't lose ground now."

  "And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" I asked, hands on hips, glad to be angry. Anger was so much better than sad, or scared, or embarrassed.

  His lavender eyes went all serious, not scared, or worried, but grown-up serious. "Are you really going to make us do this?"

  "Do what?" I demanded.

  He sighed, and said, "Why is my being nude bothering you?"

  I opened my mouth, closed it, and finally said, quietly, "I don't know." That was the truth; stupid, but the truth.

  Micah came to me, touched me tentatively. I went to him, wrapped my arms around him. He hugged me close, and I turned my face in against his neck, so I could smell the warmth of him. Just the smell of his skin made something hard and cold inside me loosen. I breathed in the scent of him, and underneath the smell of clean skin and aftershave, Micah had that nose-wrinkling smell, an almost sharp smell, of leopard. The smell of home.

  He spoke against my skin, "Let's go to bed, Anita."

  I nodded, still pressed against him.

  I felt his mouth move in a smile against my skin. I knew exactly the feel of it, which meant I must make him smile with his mouth pressed to me a lot. I guess I did.

  He drew away and started unfastening his collar. He had a tie bar to re­move. I stood there and watched him begin to reveal his tanned upper body, but instead of enjoying the show, I felt the anxiety creep back.

  I touched Micah's arm, stopped him in the middle of undoing one of his cufflinks. "Stop for a minute." He turned puzzled eyes to me.

  "You're nervous again," Nathaniel said. "Why?"

  I shook my head, then looked across the bed. Jean-Claude was still across the bed, but he was leaning on one of the big wooden posts. His arms en­twined around it as he watched us. His face was neutral, but I'd been further into his head tonight than ever, in one special area.

  "Shit," I said.

  "What?" Micah and Nathaniel asked together.

  "I know what's wrong."

  They both looked at me, but it was Jean-Claude that I looked at. "It's you," I said.

  "I have seen your men nude before," he said in that pleasant neutral voice.

  "We've been in bed all naked and sweaty, Anita," Nathaniel said.

  "Yes, but you've never had sex with him. I had sex with him."

  "Jean-Claude has fed off me, Anita," Micah said, "has had more of my blood than yours."

  I looked at Micah. "Are you saying having him take blood is the same thing as having sex with him?"

  He shrugged, and I watched his face shut down to the look he wore when he wasn't certain what look I wanted. "I've had sex that didn't feel as good as Jean-Claude's feedings."

  "Then you were doing the sex wrong," I said.

  He smiled. "I was young; I got better."

  "Yes, you did," I said, and smiled back.

&nbs
p; He kissed me, then moved back and gave me a searching look. He moved past me to put the first cufflink on the bedside table. He started on the other sleeve, his back to me. I glanced up and found that I wasn't the only one watching him.

  Jean-Claude's neutral, beautiful face watched us all. We had been naked and sweaty in a bed together. Hell, some nights the pile had included Asher and Jason. It just depended on who had fed whom last. So why was I sud­denly bothered by Jean-Claude watching Micah take off his shirt?

  I suddenly had a smart idea. I don't have that many of them, not about my own emotional life anyway. "I know what's wrong," I said again.

  They all looked at me. I touched Micah's naked back, but looked at Jean-Claude. "It was what we did tonight with Augustine."

  Jean-Claude sat on the corner of the bed, one arm still wrapped around the bedpost. "What exactly are you referring to, ma petite} We did many things with Augustine tonight."

  "I know that everyone thinks we're all snogging each other's brains out, but tonight was the first time I'd ever seen two men kiss. I've never even seen someone do ..." I faltered. God, was I still such a baby? No, damn it, I was a grown-up. "I've never seen anal sex before, let alone between two men. Let alone between my lover and a stranger." I took in a big breath and let it out, and went to the edge of the bed, a little closer to Jean-Claude. "Am I mak­ing any sense?"

  "You were disturbed by what you saw," he said.

  "Wait," Nathaniel said. The wait turned me to him. He was propped up on the pillows, the sheet forgotten in his lap, so that he was barely covered at all, but his face showed he wasn't even thinking about it. "How did you feel when Jean-Claude kissed Auggie?"

  I opened my mouth, then closed it, because I wasn't sure what the answer was. How had I felt? "I didn't mind it. It was... interesting." That wasn't true. I looked down at the bedspread and said, "No, I... it was interesting."

  "Interesting bad, or interesting good?" Nathaniel said.

  Without looking up, I answered, "Good."

  Someone sighed, and I wasn't sure which of them had done it. I looked up, slowly, and no one was looking at me like I'd said something awful. I don't know why I thought anyone in this room would think it was wrong that I liked seeing Jean-Claude kiss another man, but I did think it. I was waiting for someone to tell me to be ashamed of myself. I'd seen someone I loved kiss another man, and not only hadn't I been horrified, but I'd liked it. Was that wrong? I had waited for it to feel wrong, but it hadn't. It had felt strangely right, as if I'd been waiting my whole life to see it. It had felt right in that way that only the things that truly speak to your heart can feel. I hadn't felt bad when it was happening. I was feeling bad now. Why? Was it guilt? No, I felt uncomfortable, and a little squeamish, but not guilty. So what was it?

  Micah touched my arm. "So many thoughts flying over your face—what are you thinking?"

  "That I don't feel bad, and shouldn't I feel bad about it."

  He looked puzzled, frowned. "Bad about what?"

  "Shouldn't it bother me that I saw Jean-Claude kiss another man, a stranger at that?"

  "Did it bother you?"

  I shook my head. "Not at the time, no."

  He smiled, eyes still a little uncertain. "But it's bothering you now. Why?"

  "Did it bother you to watch us like that?"

  He gave me a look. "I've watched you have sex with other men before, Anita."

  I suddenly felt thirteen again, embarrassed and confused about the whole thing.

  "I believe, ma petite, he is asking how you felt about watching me with Au­ gustine."

  I looked at him, happy he'd helped me, but uncomfortable that he'd had to help me.

  "Did it bother you?" Micah asked me.

  I shook my head. "No, it was amazing. We did him. We owned him. It was ..." My breath shivered out of me. "It was a rush, power and sex all mixed up together."

  "Then it's okay," Micah said. "Don't feel bad because you don't feel bad."

  Of course, that was exactly what I was doing. "It sounds stupid when you say it out loud."

  He hugged me, and I wrapped myself around the warmth of his skin. "It's not stupid, Anita. It's how you feel. Feelings are never stupid, they just make us feel stupid sometimes."

  I drew back enough to see his face. "You're okay with everything we did tonight. You don't think we're evil or something."

  He chucked me under the chin. "That's Richard's voice in your head, not mine."

  I nodded. He was right, on part of it.

  He went to hang up his shirt in the armoire. Nathaniel reached a hand out to me. "Take off the robe and let me hold you all naked and warm."

  I wanted to, in fact I couldn't think of anything better, but still I hesitated. I took his hand, but I didn't touch my robe, and I didn't climb on the bed.

  Micah came up behind me, wrapping his body around me. His body pushed against the back of my robe. The silk was thin and parts of him were not.

  I turned with a little gasp. "You're naked."

  He frowned at me. "Yes, we always sleep naked."

  I shook my head, and said, "But...." then I realized what was wrong. I'd sort of known before today that Jean-Claude had had male lovers. I mean, I

  knew that he and Asher and Julianna had been a true menage a trois. I shared the memories to prove it. But that had been memories, and theory. It hadn't been fact, until tonight.

  I tried to put it into words. "I knew in theory you liked men as well as women," I said, and looked at Jean-Claude while I said it. His face was as empty as I'd ever seen it, as though if I blinked, he'd vanish.

  "But now you know in fact, and you think less of me," he said, in a voice as empty as his face.

  "No, not less, just... ," I tried again. "In college I had a friend, a girl­friend, a girl who was a friend. She and I went shopping together. Slept over at each other's dorm rooms. I undressed in front of her because she was a girl. Then toward the end of college she told me she was gay. We were still friends, but she went into that guy catagory for me. You don't undress in front of people who see you as a sex object. You don't sleep with them, or ... oh, hell." I looked up at Micah. "Won't it weird you out to sleep nude be-

  * side him now?"

  Micah laughed. "Are you worried about my virtue more now than before?" I frowned at him. "I don't..." I pushed him hard enough that he stum­bled. "Fuck you," I said, but I was starting to smile and that usually meant I'd lost the argument. I wasn't even sure it was an argument.

  "Not to take anything away from the attractiveness of your Nimir-Raj,

  ma petite, but I believe I can restrain myself." His face held a hint of humor now.

  I looked at Nathaniel, and he was trying not to grin at me. I was perilously close to being laughed at, and that was just not cool. "Stop it, all of you."

  "Stop what?" Nathaniel said in a strained voice, but his eyes were shiny with suppressed laughter.

  "Don't you dare laugh at me."

  "Did you think that because I had tasted my first man in years that I would suddenly be some sort of rampaging beast?" Jean-Claude's neutral face was beginning to crumble around the edges, humor was filling his eyes, tweaking at the edges of his mouth.

  "No," I said, and it sounded sullen even to me.

  "Did you expect Nathaniel and me to be more shy around Jean-Claude because we saw him with Augustine?" Micah's mouth was twitching at the edges.

  I glared at them all. "Maybe."

  "Anita—" Micah said, but he had to stop and fight the smile that kept threatening to get away from him. He started over. "Anita, remember I thought I'd have to be coming across to Jean-Claude when I joined you. The

  entire preternatural community believed that Richard and Jean-Claude and you were a true menage a trois. I considered this before I ever asked to be your Nimir-Raj."

  I frowned at him. "So it doesn't bother you?"

  "No. I'm not into men, but I don't seem to have the same hang-ups that you and Richard do."

&
nbsp; "Don't compare me with him," I said, and was all set to be angry.

  "If it was another woman sleeping naked with you, you'd have the same problems that he does," Micah said.

  "I've slept with some of the female wereleopards before."

  "But never nude, either you or them," Micah said.

  I started to deny it, then stopped. Was he right? "I don't know, I ... I might be able to sleep nude, if it's just sleep, with another woman. I don't think I'd like it, though. I'd rather sleep pressed between two men."

  "And that's fine," he said, "but if you knew for a fact tfiat a woman saw you as a potential sex partner, you'd treat her differently."

  "Yes, she'd go in the boy box."

  "According to your thinking, Nathaniel and I should put Jean-Claude into a different box now, right?"

  I thought about it, then nodded.

  He smiled. "Anita, seeing him with Auggie wasn't the first clue I had that Jean-Claude liked men."

  I looked from one to the other of them. "Have I missed something?"

  "Not what you are thinking, ma petite." Jean-Claude sat more solidly on the corner of the bed, his back against the foot of it, his knees drawn up for his arms to wrap around. "I have not seduced either of your cats behind your back."

  I hadn't really thought he had, but... "Then what is Micah talking about?"

  "Anita," Nathaniel said, "pay more attention the next time that Jean-Claude feeds off one of us, or Asher feeds off me. You won't have to ask."

  "But I've been in the bed while you guys did that. What did I miss?"

  The three of them exchanged a look. "No, no looks, just tell me."

  "You said you were tired," Micah said. "I think you don't want to know this, or you wouldn't have to ask."

  "Don't want to know what?"

  Again they exchanged that look.

  "Stop that," I said, and I had to fight the urge to stomp my foot at them.

  "Let us cuddle together, ma petite. Let us hold you, and give you the com­fort that we all need tonight. It has been a long night, a good one in many