I thought I'd choke on my own pulse as Musette raised her head and showed eyes the color of dark honey.
46
Belle-Morte looked at me, out of Musette's face, and I think I stopped breathing. All I could hear for a moment was the hammering of my own heart in my head. Sound returned with a rush, and Belle Morte's voice slid out of Musette's mouth.
"I am vexed with you, Jean-Claude."
Merle kept trying to drag her across the room. Either he didn't know the shit had hit the fan, or one vampire was all the same to him. He was about to learn otherwise.
"Release me," she said in a calm voice.
Merle dropped her arm as if she'd burned him. He backed away from her the way that Bobby Lee had backed away from Musette, with a look of pain, holding his arm as if it hurt.
"The leopard is her animal to call," Jean-Claude said, and his voice carried into yet another heavy silence. But I didn't have time to think about silence, because Belle was talking, saying awful things.
"I have been gentle up 'til now." She turned and looked back at the two dead vampires. "Do you know how long the council has been trying to wake up the Mother's first children?"
I think we all thought it was a rhetorical question, one we were afraid to answer.
She turned back to face us, and something swam underneath Musette's face, like a fish pushing against water. "But I awakened them. I, Belle Morte, awakened the Mother's children."
"Not all of them," I said, and immediately wished I'd kept my mouth shut.
She gave me a look that was so angry it burned, and so cold, it made me shiver. It was as if all that had ever been of rage and hatred were in that one look. "No, not all of them, and now you have taken two away from me. What ever shall I do to punish you?"
I tried to speak around the pulse in my throat, but Jean-Claude answered, "Musette broke the truce, and would not concede it. We have obeyed the law to the letter."
"It is true," Valentina said. The crowd of black leather-clad grown-ups moved so the child vampire could come and stand near Musette/Belle. Valentina kept out of reach, though. I noticed that.
"Speak, little one."
Valentina told the story of how Musette had withheld information about the child molestation and what had happened because of it. Musette's body turned to look at Stephen and Gregory. Gregory was holding his brother, rocking him. Stephen wasn't looking at anyone, or anything. Whatever his staring eyes saw, it was nothing in this room.
Belle turned back to us, and again there was that sense of another face swimming underneath, but this time I saw it like a ghost superimposed over Musette's face. Ghostly black hair bled over the blond, a face with more cheekbones, more strength to it, showed for a moment, before it sank back into the softer beauty of Musette.
"Musette did break truce first. I concede that."
Why was it that my heart rate didn't slow a single beat when she said that?
Her next words came out in a purring contralto, a voice like fur to caress the skin and ease across the mind. "You have acted within the law, and now so shall I. When Musette and the rest come back to me, Asher will come with them."
"Temporarily," Jean-Claude said, but his voice held doubt.
"Non, Jean-Claude, he will be mine as of old."
Jean-Claude took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "According to your own laws, you cannot take someone permanently away from those to whom he, or she, belongs."
"If he belonged to anyone, that would be true. But he is no one's pomme de sang, no one's servant, no one's lover."
"That is not true," Jean-Claude said, "he is our lover."
"Musette communicated with me, told me that she smelled your lies, your weak effort to keep Asher from her bed."
Belle was able to smell lies, too, if the lie was something she understood. No vampire could tell truth from falsehood if it was about something they didn't understand. If a vampire had no loyalty, they couldn't discern it in others-that sort of thing. I was going to try and give her something she could understand.
"I didn't think it was a weak effort," I said.
Jean-Claude gave me a look, and I shook my head at him. He stepped gracefully aside, because he knew I had a plan, but his voice whispered through my head, "Be careful, ma petite."
Yeah, I'd be careful.
Belle turned her borrowed body to look at me. "So you admit it was an attempt to lie to Musette."
"No, I said it wasn't weak. I found the whole thing embarrassing, exciting, wonderful, and terrifying. Being in bed with Asher wasn't exactly what I thought it would be."
"You haven't lied, yet," she said, and her voice was so rich, it was as if I should have been able to get down on the ground and roll myself up in it like some soft, warm, suffocating carpet. Her voice was enticing like Jean-Claude's and Asher's could be, but also frightening.
"We took Asher to our bed, and by European standards we are lovers."
"By European standards," she looked confused, and her face pushed out against Musette's. This time it was like a mask. The sense of something larger, more dangerous pushing against Musette's face. I knew through Jean-Claude's memories that Belle wasn't physically much bigger than Musette, but physical size wasn't all there was to Belle Morte. "I do not understand what that means, 'European standards'."
Jean-Claude answered, "Americans have a most peculiar idea that only intercourse between a man and a woman constitutes true sex. Anything else does not truly count."
"I taste truth, but I find it most odd."
"As do I, but it is still true." He gave that Gallic shrug.
I added, "What Musette kept smelling wasn't a lie, it was my hang-up that Asher and I hadn't had true intercourse. Trust me, we were all naked and sweaty in the bed."
She turned that strange half-face to me. It would have looked more frightening if her face hadn't been surrounded by Musette's long blond banana curls. The Shirley Temple look was not meant for Belle. "I believe you, but by your own admission you are not lovers, not truly by your own standards. Thus, Asher is mine."
"You don't care about the truth, I forgot that," I said.
She narrowed those honey-gold eyes at me. "You have forgotten nothing, little one. You do not know me."
"I have Jean-Claude's memories, here and there. That's enough. They should have taught me better than to use truth."
She walked towards me, and as she did, her body seemed to fold over Musette's, so that she wasn't just a face, but a dress of dark gold, a longer arm, a pale hand with copper-colored nails. She moved like a ghost draped over Musette, so that you got glimpses of the other woman underneath. It wasn't perfect, Belle Morte wasn't really physically there, but it was close, and it was unnerving.
Jean-Claude had moved so that he touched me from behind by the time Belle came to stand in front of me. I leaned back against him, because she had marked me once, and that was without any physical touch. I leaned against Jean-Claude and fought the urge to draw his arms around me like a shield.
Belle stood so close that the edge of Musette's full skirt brushed my feet. Belle's ghostly dress seemed to bleed over my shoes, creep up my ankles. I couldn't breathe.
Jean-Claude moved us backwards, out of reach of that creeping power. I pulled his arms around me tight. Screw it, I was scared.
"If truth will not work with me, what will, ma petite?" Belle asked.
I found my voice, it was breathy, scared, but there was nothing I could do about it. "I am Jean-Claude's 'ma petite,' no one else's."
"But whatever he has is mine, so you are my ma petite."
I decided to let that argument go, for now. There were other more important ones I needed to win. "You asked if truth doesn't work with you, then what does?"
"Oui, ma petite, I did ask."
"Sex or power," I said, "that's what works for you. You prefer both together, if you can get it."
"Are you offering me sex?" She purred at me, and the sound made me shudder and push myself harder agains
t Jean-Claude. I didn't want to play with Belle, not in any way.
"No," I said, in almost a whisper.
She reached out towards me, that slender white hand with its dark copper nails, and that afterimage of Musette's hand underneath, as if Belle's graceful hand were a strange metaphysical glove.
Jean-Claude moved us back again, a fraction of a fraction of an inch, so that those long-nailed fingers missed my cheek by a breath.
Belle looked at him, her long black hair beginning to move around her body like there was a wind blowing around her. There was no wind, only Belle's power.
"Are you afraid that one touch and I will take her from you?"
"No," Jean-Claude said, "but I know more of what your touch can do, Belle Morte, and I am not sure that Anita would care for it."
He'd used my real name, he almost never did that. Perhaps because Belle was using my nickname, he didn't want to.
Her anger burned the air in front of us, like a real fire, stealing the oxygen from the lungs, making it impossible to breathe, unless you took that heat into your lungs. Then they would sear, and you would die.
The heat filled her words, so that I half expected them to be burned into the very air. "Did I ask if she would care to be touched?"
"No," Jean-Claude said, his voice was very still, and I felt him sinking away, even with his arms wrapped around me, he was sinking away, folding into that quietness that he went to when he hid from everything. I had a glimpse of that quiet place, and it was quieter than the place I went when I killed. There wasn't even static there, only complete silence.
The emptiness filled with the smell of roses, sweet, so sweet, cloying, choking. I gasped, and all I could taste was roses. Jean-Claude caught me, or I would have fallen. The perfume of roses filled my nose, my mouth, my throat. I couldn't swallow past it, couldn't breathe anything but perfume. I would have screamed, but I had no air.
I heard Jean-Claude yelling, "Stop this!"
Belle laughed, and even choking to death, the sound rode through my body like a knowledgeable hand.
A hand grabbed mine, and a breath of air clawed its way down my throat, fighting its way through Belle's power. Again if I'd had enough air, I'd have screamed. Micah's face hovered over mine. Micah's hand in mine.
"Non, mon chat, you are mine, as is she." Belle knelt beside us, reaching out to touch Micah's face.
Jean-Claude moved us all backwards, so that we collapsed on the floor at her knees, but we were out of reach again, barely. But barely was good right then.
Belle's eyes burned with honey fire, and the nails of her hand bled copper flames on the air, as she reached for Micah. Jean-Claude tried to help us crawl away, but we'd fallen in a heap of long skirts, long coats. Death by fashion.
Belle touched Micah's face, trailed those glowing claws down his cheek. The smell of roses closed over my head like sweet poisoned water, and I was drowning again.
Another hand on me, and this touch had nothing warm in it, it didn't call the ardeur, it didn't call my beast, it called something colder and more certain of itself. My necromancy came welling up and it burst over my skin, my body, and I stared up into Belle's burning eyes, and I could breathe. My throat was sore as hell, but I could breathe.
I moved my eyes enough to see Damian holding my other hand. His eyes were wide, and I could feel his fear, but he was there, kneeling beside me, facing the power that was Belle Morte.
Belle drew Micah's face towards hers. Her skin seemed to be made up of white light, black flame hair, the glittering molten metal of fingertips and eyes. Her lips glowed like a slash of fresh blood.
Micah's hand convulsed in mine, so strong it hurt, and the pain helped, made my thoughts clearer, harder-edged. He made a small sound in his throat as Belle pressed her mouth to his. I knew he didn't want to touch her, and I also knew he couldn't refuse her.
But he was mine. Micah was mine, not hers. Mine. I sat up with Micah on one hand and Damian on the other, the warm and the cold, the live and the dead, the passion and the logic. Jean-Claude's hands were still on my nearly bare shoulders. He strengthened me, as I strengthened him, but this power was mine, not his. The leopards weren't his to call. They were mine.
I called that part of me that the leopards touched and realized for the first time that it wasn't tied to Richard, or even really Jean-Claude. The leopards were mine, and Belle's.
I sat up with my face so close to hers that the glow of her fire caressed my face, and the pleasure of that light touch sent a wave of shivers over my skin. It wasn't that I was immune to Belle's touch. It was that I had my own.
I usually fought my beast, whatever flavor it was, but not tonight. Tonight I welcomed it, embraced it, and maybe that was why it poured through me like a scalding flood of power. If I'd been a lycanthrope in truth, my beast would have burst from my skin in a flood of warm fluids, but I wasn't a lycanthrope. But the beast rode under my skin, screamed out my mouth, and hit Micah's body like a train, a huge, liquid muscled train. It tore his mouth from Belle Morte's, and brought a scream to echo mine. My beast roared through his body, and his beast answered it. His beast rushed up from the depths to meet mine, like two leviathans racing for the surface.
We hit that metaphorical surface together, and our beasts wound in and out of our bodies, rolling like huge cats, luxuriating in the feel of fur and muscle. There was nothing to see with the eyes, but there were things to feel.
Belle brushed her glowing hands just above us, caressing that energy. "Très de bon gout," She touched Micah's skin, and that energy leaped to her, bringing a gasp from her throat. Micah turned, and I think would have gone to her again, but I caught his face in my hands. We kissed.
The kiss began as a brush of lips, an exploration of tongues, a nibbling of teeth, a pressing of mouths. Then our beasts rolled through our mouths, like two souls changing places. The rush of energy slammed our bodies together, sliced my nails through Damian's hand, convulsed Jean-Claude's hands on my shoulders. I felt both his body and Damian's bow backwards, a second before the power tore through them, and ripped sounds from both their throats that had more to do with pleasure than pain.
Micah and I rode each other, mouths locked in an endless kiss, as if our beasts had merged into one. Then slowly, the entwined energies began to roll apart and slide into their separate houses of flesh.
I came completely to myself on the floor with Micah collapsed on top of me, Damian lying on the floor with only my hand holding him. Jean-Claude was still sitting upright, but he was swaying softly in place, almost like he was dancing to music I couldn't hear. I think he was simply fighting not to fall down, but even that he made seem graceful.
Belle was staring down at us with a look close to rapture on her face. "Oh, Jean-Claude, Jean-Claude, what toys you have wrought for yourself."
Jean-Claude found his voice while I was still fighting to breathe over my pulse, and Micah's heart was thudding so hard against my chest it felt like it would burst. The pulse in Damian's palm beat like a second heartbeat against my skin. None of the rest of us had found a voice that could override the pulse of our bodies.
"Not toys, Belle, never toys."
"They are all toys, Jean-Claude, some are merely harder to use than others. But they are all toys." She stroked her glowing hand down the back of Micah's carefully styled hair.
Her energy played along his body, brought a sigh from all of us, but it was faint, almost a knee-jerk reaction, that you couldn't quite prevent. We lay quiet under her touch.
Belle looked down at us, and it was hard to see through the glowing mask, but I think she frowned. She ran her fingertips down the side of Micah's face, and there was no reaction. She called to his beast, but his beast was well fed, sleepy, and content.
My voice came, hollow, as if I hadn't quite filled back up. "The leopards are mine, Belle."
"The leopard was my first animal to call Anita, and call them I shall."
I lay on the floor, feeling languorous, content. Mica
h rolled his face so his cheek rested on the soft pillow of my breasts. We watched her with lazy eyes, the way that only cats can. I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. The rush of power seemed to have taken all my fear along with it. I felt clearheaded and safe.
Belle poured that misty power on us, but though she raised gooseflesh and brought sighs to our lips, there was no more. She could not call Micah as her beast, because he was mine. She could not call my beast, because I was Micah's. We truly were Nimir-Ra and Nimir-Raj, and together we were enough to keep her out of us.
She turned those gold-flame eyes to someone behind us, and I felt her reach out to one of the leopards. I'd known somehow it would be Nathaniel. If she'd tried it before Micah and I had merged, he would have come to her, but now it was too late. We'd shut that gate and barred it. Belle Morte could not touch our leopards, not tonight.
"This is not possible," she said, and her voice had lost some of its purring caress.
Jean-Claude answered her doubt. "You can call almost all the big cats, but you cannot call the cats that answer to the Master of Beasts."
"Padma sits upon the council, you are one of my children. That I cannot take what belongs to another council member is merely truth. That any of my children could keep me from possessing what is theirs is impossible."
"Perhaps," Jean-Claude said, and he got to his feet. He offered a hand to both Micah and me. Normally, I don't let people help me up, but tonight I was wearing a long skirt, high heels, and had just had what amounted to metaphysical sex in public. We took his hands together, and he pulled us to our feet. Damian still had a death grip on my other hand, but he stayed on his knees, eyes still only half-focused, as if the power rush had thrown him more than it had the rest of us. He was the only one of us who wasn't either a master or an alpha something. I drew him in to sit against my legs, but didn't try and make him stand; it didn't look like he was ready to yet.
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