"But all that time the Mother of All Darkness was in charge of all of you, right?"
"Oui."
"Now she's not, because we killed her."
"You are wondering what the vampiric mice are doing now that the cat is dead--is that it, ma petite?"
"Yeah, that," I said.
"They're doing what the mice always do when the cat's gone," Nathaniel said.
We looked at him.
"And that would be what, our pussycat?"
"Destroy everything they can before a new cat comes along."
"And we're the new cat," I said.
"Perhaps, ma petite, mon minet, or perhaps we need to find another cat to rule Europe."
"Who?" I asked.
"I do not know, but I know that I do not wish to rule the world. America is enough for me."
"Have we let the monsters loose in Ireland, Jean-Claude?"
"Let us ask the Harlequin that we trust most. If there is a secret to Ireland's vampire past, they will know it."
"Who do we ask first?"
"Magda," Nathaniel said.
We looked at him.
"She's one of our lovers and she's so blunt, it's painful. If there's something she knows, she'll share it. If we ask her without Giacomo at her side."
"Are you saying she would obey her vampire master before her vampire king?" Jean-Claude asked.
"Let's not make her choose," Nathaniel said. "Let's just ask her now while she's awake and her master is still dead to the world."
"You are growing craftier, mon minet."
"I had to get smarter sometime," he said.
"No, sadly, some people live for centuries and never become wiser."
I was pretty sure we were all thinking about the same person, but none of us said his name. Asher had been Jean-Claude's on-again, off-again love of his afterlife for centuries. They'd loved and lost the same woman, Asher's human servant Julianna, and neither of them had stopped mourning her. They say love heals all wounds, but if Jean-Claude and Asher were any judge, maybe not. Asher's jealousy issues had led him to make some seriously bad political choices that had almost started a war here in St. Louis between us and the local werehyenas. That final stupidity had been enough even for Jean-Claude and all of us to dump him. Asher, our golden-haired and sadistic beauty, was now trying to be monogamous with the one lover he had left, Kane. None of us liked Kane, and he returned the sentiment. We all missed parts of Asher when he was behaving himself, but none of us missed those parts enough to forgive this last near-disastrous choice. A war among the preternatural set here in St. Louis just as Jean-Claude was being the very public face for vampires as good citizens could have lost the vampires so much, like the new voting rights that grandfathered in all vampires regardless of how long they'd been dead. Less than fifteen years ago a vampire could be killed on sight just for being a vampire, no questions asked. There were still laws in some Western states that allowed lycanthropes to be killed like varmint coyotes, or rats. You could kill someone and as long as their blood tests came back positive for lycanthropy you were justified. One of the things that the Coalition was trying to get changed was laws like that. We were so not free and clear in this country, or anywhere in the world. Asher had risked so much more than just us when he'd made his last bad decisions. In the end, that level of carelessness was what we couldn't forgive.
Nathaniel sighed. "I'll admit it, if neither of you will."
"Admit what?" I asked.
"I miss Asher topping me in the dungeon. I even miss sex with him."
"If I did not miss sex with mon chardonneret, my goldfinch, I would have been done with him centuries sooner."
"Fine, fine. I miss him in the bedroom and the dungeon."
"What we miss is that we can't find anyone else who tops us like he does," Nathaniel said.
Since I was still working through my issues about the whole bondage and submission being an ongoing part of my sexuality, I wasn't sure what to say to that.
"The only one I have ever known as talented with such things as Asher is Belle Morte," Jean-Claude said.
"I know she tried to contact you and come here after the vampire council fell and she had to flee France," I said.
"She seemed most confused that I would not allow her sanctuary in my lands."
"She thought you'd take her back," Nathaniel said.
"She offered that the three of us could be together as of old."
"You, Asher, and her?" Nathaniel asked.
"Yes." He looked out into the room, but I was pretty sure he wasn't seeing anything in front of him.
I moved to make sure I blocked his line of sight. He looked up at me; his blue eyes looked as black as his hair and the robe he was wearing in the dim light, so that only the paleness of his face and that triangle of chest relieved the darkness of him.
I held my hand down and he took it lightly with just his long, slender fingers. "I never asked you at the time: were you tempted?"
His lips moved, and it wasn't quite a smile, more like he thought about smiling. "What she offered was a lie, ma petite, as it was always a lie."
"You and Asher were her main boys for centuries."
"We were her favorite pawns, or perhaps tools. Yes, we were her favorite tools, or weapons to be aimed at whoever she wished us to seduce, or embarrass, or help her manipulate for her schemes. Belle almost ruled all of Europe once, the true power behind many thrones. The two of us helped her seduce a great deal of the nobility, church officials, anyone in a position of power that she wished to control."
"I've been inside your head when you have memories of those days, Jean-Claude; you loved her. You were in love with her."
"I was, but she was never in love with me, or Asher. If she was ever able to love anyone, it was not us."
"So you weren't tempted?"
"For a moment, perhaps, but it is like being tempted by a dream. It is not real."
"But while you're dreaming it, it can feel real," I said.
"She kept us all like addicts, ma petite. We were addicted to her charms. We competed for her love, but as you have said before of others in our lives, it is a rigged game. There is only one winner in any game involving Belle Morte, and that is Belle Morte."
Nathaniel unfolded from beside the fire and walked on two legs, but there was something about the way he moved that was very catlike, as if his human body were remembering a lighter grace and it was all there as he came to take my other hand and look down at Jean-Claude.
"We are a game you can win," he said.
Jean-Claude smiled then, and offered his other hand to him. Nathaniel took it, smiling back. "Oh pussycat, pussycat, you are right, because all of us are willing to talk about what is true and what we need, or want, or cannot live without. We do not--what is the phrase?--game each other."
"You don't game the people you love," I said.
He sat up very straight in the chair, still holding our hands, while we held each other's. "You are quite right, ma petite. Now, let us follow the recommendation of our clever cat and find Magda before her master wakes for the day and she becomes more clever."
"She's not stupid," Nathaniel said.
"No, but she is not a deep thinker either."
"Her body awareness and physical intelligence are amazing," I said.
"That makes her an excellent warrior," Jean-Claude said.
"And a really physical lover," Nathaniel said.
I felt the first heat of the blush that was creeping up my face. I didn't blush as often anymore, but occasionally . . . Jean-Claude laughed and kissed my hand. "Oh, ma petite, you never grow jaded. It is one of your many charms."
"Dating women is new, okay?"
"We don't date Magda," Nathaniel said. "She's more a bodyguard with benefits."
I drew him into a hug and put my arm across Jean-Claude's shoulders, bringing us into a sort of group huddle. "I'm dating as many people as I can do justice to; 'with benefits' is okay."
We all agreed
with that; though I hated the concept of "with benefits," sometimes it was all I had to offer. If someone didn't think that was enough, they were free to stop being part of our poly group. I'd finally realized that I didn't have unlimited time and energy to date this many people. We were looking at closing our circle and making it closed poly, which meant eventually we'd start saying no. The trick was to figure out who was a yes before the door of possibilities closed, but right now, we needed to figure out what had gone wrong with the vampires in Ireland. Once I'd thought that Damian's master was so powerful and evil that she should be destroyed, and now I was worried about why she wasn't powerful enough to protect her turf. Sometimes evil was in the eye of the beholder, right along with beauty.
16
JEAN—CLAUDE HAD to take a business call, because though he was now head of all the vampires in the country, he was still running his own businesses and finances. Sometimes I forgot that part of what had led him to become king was his ability to do business, but he didn't. It was part of our power base that I was no help at all with; my idea of investments was my 401(k) plan at work. Nathaniel and I went to find Magda to ask about Ireland, because we could handle that part while Jean-Claude did things only he could do. It was delegation at its best, though usually Nathaniel didn't go with me when I was working on crime busting, but then this really wasn't about the police work; it was more about trying to figure out why a country that had worked fine for eons was suddenly going apeshit. Had Jean-Claude and I done something to fuck it all up? If we had, how did we fix it? If we hadn't, then what had changed in Ireland?
Before we could find Magda, Nicky found us. He was tall, blond, blue-eyed, and so in shape it was almost intimidating. He wasn't the tallest person in my life, but as he strode toward us down the hallway he seemed like he was; it was part attitude and part that his shoulders were almost as wide as I was tall. His biceps strained against the sleeves of his black workout shirt. He was wearing the new shorts that were split up the outer thighs to accommodate men who had awesome muscled thighs like Nicky, so they'd have full range of movement in the octagon during MMA--mixed martial arts--matches. I'd seen them first on a pay-per-view match that I'd watched with Nicky and other friends among the guards.
My happy-to-see-you smile faded when I saw the outfit. Saturday morning was an informal fight practice. Sometimes there weren't enough people showing up for it and those of us who did drag our asses out of bed for it ended up just hitting the weight room or the track. There was no reason I knew of for Nicky to be wasting some of the new fancy shorts on a Saturday workout.
Nathaniel saved me from having to ask. "Why are you dressed for a serious fight workout?"
"I'm one of the instructors today. Why are you awake this early?" Nicky said with a smile.
Nathaniel smiled back, and said, "Hey, I don't sleep all day."
"I thought you'd be tucked into bed between Jean-Claude and Damian for a few more hours at least."
"We had enough sleep," I said.
"Speak for yourself," Nathaniel said.
"You would sleep all day," Nicky said, grinning.
I led Nathaniel forward until I was close enough to touch the other man. He looked down at me with one blue eye and the other covered by a black eye patch that had a white skull embroidered in the center of it. I let go of Nathaniel's hand so I could reach up and touch the long, thin braid on the right side of his face. It was the side of his bangs that fell in a long triangle down his face so that his own hair hid the missing eye. It was how he had kept enemies from realizing he was completely blind on that side for real fighting. Werelions fought to the death more than most lycanthropes when they met other groups of their own kind. In fact, they were the animal group most likely to fight savagely within their own group. Every other kind of lycanthrope I knew had traditions that limited serious fighting among themselves. The lions had one of the most vicious cultures of any group, so being a lion who had a blind side was a serious problem.
I touched the side of his face, smiling up at him. "God, you're handsome."
He smiled but shook his head. "I'm good looking, but I have Nathaniel, Jean-Claude, Micah, and even Dev to compare to and they're all prettier than I am."
"Well," Nathaniel said, "I am prettier, but that doesn't mean you aren't handsome." He flashed that grin, the one that held so much mischief. "You know I'm sad you're not more bisexual, Nicky, and I only do gorgeous men."
Nicky smiled and shook his head. "You and I don't think of each other that way, but if I did you'd be too pretty for me. I like my men more guy-guy. You're prettier than most of the women that I've fucked."
"Oh, Nicky, you always know just what to say to flatter a girl," I said.
His eye widened, and his other eyebrow rose, too, even though there was no eye to widen behind the piratical-looking eye patch. "You know I didn't mean you, Anita."
I smiled up at him. "You're my Bride, Nicky. You're metaphysically compelled to keep me happy, so that could be a complete lie so I won't be upset."
His face started to show him trying to think his way through what I'd just said, and then he gave me a more typical cynical look. He put his arms around me and drew me into a hug. I didn't fight him, just wrapped my arms around his slender waist. "I can feel your emotions, remember?"
"I remember," I said, smiling.
"Then I know that you are happy with me and enjoying being in my arms, so you're teasing me." He'd started smiling as he said the "in my arms" part.
"Sometimes I wish I could feel your emotions like I could feel Nathaniel's if I lowered my shields and we wanted to share."
"I'm a sociopath, Anita. You wouldn't want to read my emotions, or my thoughts, most of the time."
"You told me that I was your conscience."
"You are. Your magic keeps me tame, because a Bride is designed to do anything to keep their master happy. Acting like I have a conscience pleases you."
"It does." I hugged him around the waist and he flexed his arms just a bit, letting me feel the strength in all those muscles. He could have crushed me easily. If he'd been just human and this in shape, he could have broken my spine in half with little effort, but being a lycanthrope on top of that meant he literally could have crushed me, or torn me to pieces, and that was without changing form to have claws and fangs. He tightened his arms around me so that he compromised my rib cage and it was hard to draw a full breath. Nicky liked breath play and he'd taught me to enjoy it, too, but we'd never done it this way.
"I'm in love with you, and that makes any man want to keep a woman happy," he said.
My words were careful, because I had to concentrate to breathe enough to talk normally, as I said, "And I'm in love with you, which makes me want to let you make me happy, and to return the favor."
His smile changed to that certain one that was part happiness and part evil, or maybe evilly happy. I knew what he was going to do a second before he tightened his arms and I suddenly had to struggle to breathe. I had enough breath to use my safeword and stop the whole thing, but I didn't. With most people I'd have told them to stop and been figuring out how to reach my gun, but Nicky was my bit of rough sex and bondage, and I was his, which meant that the sensation of being trapped and fighting to breathe excited me. It made me want to ask him to squeeze tighter, but if I did that I might not be able to say my safeword, and then I'd be at Nicky's mercy, but like he'd said, he could feel what I was feeling. It literally seemed to cause him pain for me to be unhappy with him, so he would feel if I wanted him to stop.
Hands touched my back underneath where Nicky's arms squeezed around my ribs, and I knew it was Nathaniel. His hands caressed their way down my body until he could trace the swell of my hips and ass. It made me have to close my eyes and shudder with that first faint preamble to the possibility of an orgasm. It was like the scent of rain on the wind, even though the sun was out. It promised you'd get wet, but the wind could change. But the one and only time I'd allowed the two of them to use a gag wh
ile they double-teamed me, Nathaniel had bitten me much harder than I'd been happy with and he'd absolutely known it when he did it. We now had a hand signal for me to use in case I had trouble talking, but still . . . Nathaniel pressed the front of his silky shorts against my ass and even through the jeans I could feel that he was happy to be there. It made me shudder again in equally happy anticipation.
"God, Anita, you have the fastest windup of any woman I've ever met and I love it, but Jake is expecting me at the practice. I'm supposed to be helping him instruct the class."
Nathaniel leaned his forehead against my hair, moving his hips back enough so he wasn't pressed against me. "Please tell me that we can do this later."
"Oh yeah," Nicky said.
"Maybe," I said, my voice raspy and almost painful to hear, though it didn't hurt me. I wanted the sex with them, but I wasn't completely sold on doing breath play with my chest being squeezed. I was harder to hurt than a normal human, but I wasn't as indestructible as a lycanthrope. I'd hate to crack a rib because we were doing rough sex and I just didn't understand what Nicky was doing well enough to understand when to call it for sure. We'd need a lot more negotiating and information sharing before we did anything like this for real.
Nicky gave me a look. He stopped squeezing me, and my voice was almost normal as I answered that look. "I want the sex with both of you, but I'm not sure about having my rib cage compressed while we do it."
"Fair enough," he said.
"Even I've never had anyone compress my chest for breath play," Nathaniel said.
"It would almost be worth it to do something as a bottom in the bedroom that you haven't done," I said, turning my head so that I could offer him a kiss, which he took.
"I've been bottoming in the dungeon and bedroom a lot longer than you have," he said, smiling.
"I didn't even know I liked bondage and submission, or rough sex, until the last few years."
"I've always known that I liked bottoming in the dungeon, but I didn't know that I enjoyed topping until you came into my life," he said, and kissed me again.
"Do you know where Magda is?" I asked.
"In the gym. I saw her go in as I went to change."
"Can you give me fifteen minutes?"
"Why?"
"I'll change and come to practice. There's a chance I may be going out of the country on a job, and I never know when I'll get to work out while I'm hunting bad guys."
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