He ripped my jeans apart at the seam. My body jerked with the strength of it. The sensation of the heavy cloth tearing around my body brought a small noise from me. My panties ripped and again the feel of it made me cry out. I ground myself against the front of him, but all I could touch was cloth. That hard, eager flesh was still out of reach.
I cried my frustration and he fumbled at his belt, one-handed. He was making small, frustrated noises by the time he got the belt open, the pants unbuttoned. But I was too tight against him for him to unzip.
"Climb me," he said, in a voice choked with need.
I managed to say, "What?" before his hands showed me what he wanted. He lifted me up a little higher on his body. I used my hands and arms on his broad shoulders to help climb a little higher. I wrapped my legs higher on his body, so he was left to unzip without seeing what he was doing, his hands feeling around my naked ass as he tried to free himself of his pants. He made a sound that was half shout and half word. I think the word was Please, but I wasn't sure.
The tip of him brushed along my bare skin, and I let my body slide those few inches lower, so he could guide himself to my opening. It was not a good angle for the first time; we didn't know the exact angle to have without being able to see what we were doing. He made a small inarticulate sound, then I felt the head of him enter me. I froze with him barely breaking the surface of my body. Froze so he could push his way inside. He hesitated in the middle of that first thrust, stopped with most of him still outside me. His body shuddered, his hands balancing against the wall, and the other hand finally free to touch my body again. His eyes closed as he traced his hand up my nearly bare back. He whispered through gritted teeth, "So tight, so wet. I won't last long."
Normally, longer was better, but in that moment I knew that we needed to feed. Jean-Claude let me know that we needed this energy. We needed him to give us what he had to give.
"Fuck me," I said, and drove my body down the length of his, and found there was even more of him than I'd thought. When he was pressed as tight as I could make him, it was my turn to close my eyes and shudder. My turn to whisper, "Fuck me, Rafael, feed me, fuck me, Rafael, feed me!"
With every word I drove my body up and down on his, drove him in and out of me. The angle was not the best for me to move without his help, but with the last word, he used his hands to cup my ass and drive my body into the stone wall with one hard thrust of his body. He drove himself into me over and over, grinding me into the stones, and the roughness of the stones. It was what I wanted, too.
I wanted him to take me, to drive all that need, all that denial into my body. The ardeur tried to feed, but he was a king and it could not get past his shields. A tiny thought of panic from Jean-Claude, quickly swallowed, but he was urgent that we break Rafael. I might have protested, but the ardeur was all I could feel, and it wanted to break him.
Rafael was so hard, so very hard, the kind of hard a man only gets when he's denied himself a very long time. He drove all that hard, long length into and out of me, fast and faster, hard and harder. His breathing changed, and I said, "Yes, yes, please, Rafael, please."
Part of that please was, Please let us feed, let us in, drop all that protection, let us in, let us in. I tried to find a rhythm, but his body, his hands, pinned my lower body against the wall. He would do the work; he didn't want the help. Thrust after hard thrust and I felt my body filling up with the pleasure of his body pounding inside mine, his hands so strong, pinning me, his body as hard and eager inside me as any man I'd ever felt. And just like that, the pleasure took me, brought me, brought me screaming, clawing, biting. Brought me writhing and dancing around him. He cried out and his body gave one last deep thrust that made me scream again. He shivered against me, eyes fluttering, and his shields crashed down. The ardeur fed on his body, on the warmth of him inside me, on his need, and his release. In the midst of that pleasure that made me tear Rafael's skin and cry out as his body spasmed inside mine, I felt Jean-Claude.
He'd chosen Rafael because he was king and through their king we could feed on his people. Jean-Claude reached through Rafael's body, our bodies, to the wererats. As we'd fed once on Augustine and his people, now we fed on Rafael and his. I felt Claudia stagger, felt Lisandro fall to his knees, felt the wererats try to run, or fight, or keep us out, but they couldn't. They'd given their protection over to their king; when he fell, they were ours. Ours for the taking, ours for the raping, ours for the eating. We fed, and fed, and fed; some faces I knew, some faces I didn't. They became a blur of startled eyes and upturned faces. We fed on them all.
Rafael felt what was happening and tried to protect them, to fight us, but it was too late. His body was married to mine and all that hard-won control was gone inside my body in the feel of his hands on me.
Jean-Claude took that power and threw it into our vampires, all those in the city who owed their life spark to his power as Master of the City. He forced them all awake, some ten hours or more earlier than they'd ever woken from death. I didn't understand why he'd used the power for that, until when the last vampire had come clawing to wakefulness, he let the power go back to him, and Richard, and he let me feel how terribly hurt they were. He'd used the power to force the lesser vampires awake, because if he lost consciousness he was afraid he would drain them of power and they would all die for good. He was afraid that he would drain them dry through his ties as Master of the City, in much the same way we'd been able to feed on Rafael's rats, except the vampires would die.
I couldn't breathe, my heart was touching stone, and I couldn't breathe. Richard's body, oh, God, oh, God, he was dying. Jean-Claude tried to heal him, and that forced me to feel what Richard's claws had done to the vampire's body. His heart stuttered, hesitated. Sweet Jesus, no, Richard had stabbed him in the heart. Jean-Claude fed the power we'd taken into their injuries, and it should have been enough, but it was as if there was something in Richard's injuries that ate the power, but didn't heal him. I saw something like a shadow on Richard's back.
Jean-Claude whispered, "Harlequin."
We were dying; my chest squeezed tight and tighter. I couldn't breathe. I only half-felt when Rafael lowered me to the floor and tried to get me to say something to him. I used my last bit of air to whisper, "Help us."
Rafael said, "Anything." His shields were still down. I took their energy again, but not to feed, to strike out.
Jean-Claude cried out in my mind, "Non, ma petite" But it was too late; with my last thought, before darkness swallowed us all, I took the power of Rafael and the wererats and I struck out at that phantom on Richard's back. If I could have thought clearly, I might have thought, Die, but the darkness was eating us, and all I had time to do was strike. I saw her—no, them—two cloaked figures in a dark room, a dark hotel room. Two white masks lay beside them on the bed. One sat, the other knelt behind her. They were both petite and dark-haired. They looked up, startled, as if they could see me and what came with me. I got a good look at the pale, upturned faces, the long brown hair, one a shade darker than the other, one with brown eyes, one gray, both glowing with power. They'd combined their powers; somehow they'd combined to hit us. I don't know what they saw, but they both cried out. The kneeling one tried to shield the other with her body, and then the power hit them. It sent them crashing to the floor, and into the night-stand. The lamp fell over on top of them and shattered. It knocked over the phone and a notepad. I read the name of the hotel on the notepad. I knew where they were. They fell into a heap and didn't move again. My last waking thought was, Good.
Chapter Twenty-three
PAIN, PAIN, AND lights stabbing into my eyes. Voices: "I've got a pulse!"
"Anita, Anita, can you hear me!" I wanted to say yes but I couldn't remember where my mouth was, or how to use it. Darkness again, then pain shot through the dark again. I came to, my body convulsing on a gurney. There were people all around me. I should have known one of them, but I couldn't remember who she was, only that I should have rememb
ered who she was. My chest hurt. I smelled burning, something was burning. I saw those little flat paddles I'd had used once before on my chest. I realized I was what was burning. The thought didn't mean much to me. I wasn't afraid, or even excited. Nothing seemed real. Even the pain in my chest was fading. The world started going gray and soft around the edges.
Someone slapped me, hard, across the face. The world was real again. I blinked up into the face of the woman I should have known, and didn't. She yelled my name, "Anita, Anita, stay with us, damn it!"
Everything went soft again; the gray ate the world like mist. Someone hit me again. I blinked up into the woman's face again. "Don't you die on me, damn it!" She hit me again, and the world hadn't even gone gray.
I knew her now. Doc Lillian. I tried to say, Stop hitting me, but I couldn't seem to figure out how to say the words. I did my best to frown up at her, though.
A man's voice said, "She's stable."
Lillian smiled down at me. "You're breathing for three, Anita. If you keep breathing, they won't die."
I didn't know what she meant. I wanted to ask, Who won't die? Then something cold and liquid seemed to flow through my veins. I'd had something like it before, and my last thought before a different kind of darkness took me was, why was Lillian giving me morphine?
I dreamed, or maybe I didn't. But if it was heaven, it was too scary, and if it was hell, it wasn't quite scary enough. I was at a ball, everyone in glittering clothes, centuries before I was born. Then the first couple turned to me, and they were masked. Everyone was wearing the Harlequin's white masks. I stumbled back from the dancers and found that I was wearing a silver-and-white dress that was too wide to be graceful, and too tight through the ribs to let me breathe well. One of the couples bumped me and my heart was suddenly in my throat. My chest was tight and tighter, as if some huge fist were crushing my ribs. I fell to my knees and the dancers moved wide around me in a spill of skirts and petticoats. Their dresses brushed me as they whirled faceless around me.
A voice came to the dream, Belle Morte's purring contralto: "Ma petite, you are dying."
The hem of a crimson dress was at my hands. She knelt beside me. She was still the brunette beauty who had nearly conquered all of Europe once. All that dark hair piled atop her head, leaving her neck in that pale, white curve that we'd always loved. We … I tried to feel the rest of that we, but where Jean-Claude should have been was awful blankness.
She leaned over me as I fell to the floor. "He is almost gone, our Jean-Claude," she said. Her amber-brown eyes didn't seem worried. She was simply making an observation. "Why do you not ask for my help, ma petite?"
I wanted to say, Why would you help us? but there was no air to say anything. My spine tried to bow in the tightness of the corset, as I gasped like a fish left to die on the shore.
"Oh," she said, and with a flick of her will the dream changed. We were in her bedroom, on her huge four-poster bed. She knelt above me, with a huge knife in her hand. The world was going gray. I wasn't even afraid.
My body jerked, the corset gave, and I could suddenly breathe a little better. My chest still hurt, and I breathed too shallowly, but I could breathe. I looked down to find that she had cut the bodice of the dress all the way through the corset, so that there was a line of bare skin from my neck to my waist. She laid the knife beside her knees and spread the stays of the corset a little wider, as if she meant to skin me out of the dress, but she went back to kneeling beside me, in her red, red dress. Her skin seemed to glow against the crimson cloth.
"What happens in my dreams can be very real, ma petite. Corsets here made your breathing there harder. You don't have enough breath to spare."
"What's happening?"
She lay down beside me, her head on the pillow I was lying upon. A little too close for comfort, but I didn't have the energy to spare for moving. "I felt Jean-Claude's light snuffed out."
"He's not dead," I whispered.
"Can you sense him?"
It must have shown on my face, because she said, "Shhh, you are correct, he is not gone completely, but he is close to the edge. You are keeping him, both of them, alive. You and your second triumvirate of power. Something Jean-Claude did in this new emergency has taught you better control of the power between you and your other triumvirate; your kitty and your vampire."
I swallowed, and it hurt, though I couldn't remember why it should. "Nathaniel, Damian." I was feeling a little better, well enough to be afraid. I'd almost drained both of them to death once, or twice.
"Do not fear for them. They are well enough, but they are feeding for you, giving you their energy as they are supposed to do in emergencies," she said, and stroked my forehead, tracing down the edge of my jaw. It was an idle movement, like the way you'd stroke the curve of a couch you were sitting on. "The masks of the Harlequin were in your mind, ma petite. Have they come to your territory?"
I wanted to tell her to stop calling me ma petite, but air was precious, so I answered, "Yes."
"Show me," she said.
Not Tell me, but Show me. I said, "How?"
"You are of Belle Morte's line. How do we trade power?"
I frowned up at her.
"Kiss me, and but think of it, and I will know what you know."
I don't know if I would have kissed her voluntarily, because I didn't get a chance to decide. She pressed those ruby lips to my mouth, and I was suffocating again. I couldn't breathe. I pushed at her, and she thought inside my head, "Think of the Harlequin." It was as if it were an order, and my mind did what she asked.
I thought of the meeting with Malcolm and his fear. I went back through the date with Nathaniel and the mask in the bathroom. The second mask with the musical notes on it, and the meeting planned. The mark on me, and the scent of wolf, and Jake keeping me safe. Then the last memory, where I saw my men dying, and the ghost on Richard, and the feeding with Rafael. She slowed the memory there, lingering on the rat king's powers, then let the memories go back to speeding along, and using Rafael's power to attack the one that had attacked us. It was the last memory that she slowed down completely. She stared at the pale faces of the vampires, the long dark hair, the glowing eyes, brown and gray respectively. Belle Morte studied the faces of the other vampires. She whispered, "Mercia, and Nivia." The memory ended, and Belle Morte was simply lying beside me, propped on the pillows.
I whispered, "You know them."
"Yes, but not that they were Harlequin. It is a deep, dark secret who is, and who is not, one of them. They are spies, and secrecy is their life blood. By their hands the Harlequin have broken their most profound taboo."
"What taboo?" I asked.
"They are neutral, ma petite, utterly neutral, or how can they dispense justice? Did they give you a black mask? I did not see it in your memories."
"No, only the two white."
She laughed, and her face shone with joy. My heart hurt, but not from a physical blow. It hurt the way it sometimes does when you see someone you once adored do something to remind you why you loved them, and you know that that laugh will never again be for you.
"They have broken the law then, the law they swore to uphold. Unless they deliver the black mask, they are not allowed to bring death. For Mercia and Nivia, it means true death, but for their fellow Harlequin it means something worse."
"What?" I asked.
"Disbandment. They will be no more, and those who are not killed will be forced to go back to their bloodlines, their old masters. To be neutral the Harlequin are freed of their ties to their creators. They are a law unto themselves, but if they are breaking the law, then they will be broken."
"Why does that"—I had to draw a breath to finish—"make you so happy?"
She pouted out that full lower lip and said, "Poor thing, so hurt. I will help you."
"Appreciate the offer, but"—and I had to work for breath—"help us, why?"
"Because you alive are witness enough to destroy the power of the Harlequin."
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br /> "Why," breath, "do you care?"
"They were once the private guards of the Mistress of the Dark. She is waking, I know that now."
"But when she wakes," breath, "she won't have them."
"Precisement," Belle said.
"But you need me, us, alive."
"Yes," she said, and she looked at me the way that a hawk must look at a wounded mouse, eager, anticipatory.
"Make you mad?" I whispered, and had to cough. It wasn't my throat that was closing off. I didn't think it was Jean-Claude's. Something bad was happening to Richard.
"I don't hate you, ma petite," she said. "I don't hate anything that is useful to me, and you are about to be very useful, ma petite."
"Anita," I whispered.
"Anita, Anita," she purred as she leaned our faces closer, "if I want you to be my ma petite, you will be. Jean-Claude is near death and he protected you from me. I will save you all, but I will do it in a way that you will not like." She leaned our faces close, and the hand that had been caressing my face was suddenly firm and solid as metal against my cheek, keeping me turned toward that lovely face. She began to lean in for a kiss.
I spoke before our mouths touched. "A win-win situation, for you."
"Oh, yes." She whispered it against my lips, then kissed me. But she didn't just kiss me, she opened the ardeur between us. One moment all I could think about was breathing, Just keep breathing, and that I really didn't want her to touch me, and the next she was kissing me, and I was kissing her back.
My hands slid over that satin dress, and the body underneath, and my hands knew that body—though my hands were smaller than they should have been. Jean-Claude's memories kept getting in the way, coloring what was happening. When her mouth found my breast, and sucked, it startled me, because the body I was remembering didn't have breasts. She bit me, driving dainty fangs around my nipple. It made me cry out, brought my body writhing off the bed. She raised a bloody mouth and smiled at me, her eyes filled with amber light. She climbed my body and pressed that bloody mouth to mine. I kissed that mouth as if it were air, and food, and water, all rolled into one. I marveled at how small her mouth was, how dainty. How I'd longed to kiss this mouth again. I knew in this moment what I had never known from Jean-Claude, how much it had cost him to leave her. They say that once you love Belle Morte you never stop, and I knew in that kiss, with her body on top of mine, that it was true. He still loved her, would always love her, and nothing would change that, not even me.
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