Rafael

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Jean-Claude was lounging on the huge, custom-made bed, watching me. He was wearing one of his favorite robes, the black one with black fur edging. It was also one of my favorite robes to see him in; there was just something about the utterly white skin of his chest framed by the black fur, his long black curls mingling with the fur until it was hard to tell which darkness was which, and he’d even opened the top enough so I could see the pale brownish cross-shaped burn scar on his chest. He’d opened the robe purposefully that far because he knew how much I enjoyed the view, which pissed me off even more.

  “We have an emergency here, Jean-Claude, or didn’t you sense the vampire master that’s got its hooks in Hector?”

  “You know I did.”

  “Then why aren’t you more upset?”

  “I have sent word for everyone to gather here, so we can plan our strategy for tonight, ma petite. Rafael is off telling his people in person, and then he will join us here. Until everyone arrives there is nothing more we can do, so why do you not join us on the bed for the cuddling and comfort?”

  I stared at him, openmouthed, not sure what to say. I wasn’t sure if I was more upset that he didn’t seem to be taking the threat seriously, or that he was trying to encourage me to cuddle with him and Asher, when he knew I hadn’t forgiven the other man for his years of terrible behavior.

  “You have shocked her speechless,” Asher said from the bed where he lay beside Jean-Claude. I was working so hard at ignoring him, because he was still on my shit list from the epic string of bad choices he’d made that had led all of us to dump him. Jean-Claude had taken him back recently, but with one other exception the rest of us were still pissed at him. At first being pissed at him had made him less attractive to me, but as he kept behaving better, it got harder to stay angry at him, and even harder not to see him as beautiful.

  His hair was foamy golden waves around his face. They’d taken time to blow-dry their hair after cleaning up after sword practice; normally they would have sex in the big tub, but they’d cut it short because I was feeding on Rafael and Jean-Claude had needed his attention on that to make sure the energy went where we needed it to go, instead of like a flood that just washed over everything, which was what could happen if I didn’t have help controlling it. The first time I’d fed on Rafael had been an emergency feed to save Jean-Claude’s and Richard’s lives; that time I’d known exactly where to send all that energy, but day to day—that wasn’t my area of expertise.

  Jean-Claude stroked his hand along Asher’s hair where all that gold hair was hiding half his face like a veil. That was why they’d dried their hair instead of having sex, because if his hair had been wet, Asher couldn’t have used it to hide the scars on the right side of his face. Holy water burns vampire flesh like acid. The Church had tried to burn the devil out of Asher centuries ago. Jean-Claude had saved his life, but the holy water scars went down the left side of his body. All of that was hidden now behind a brown brocade robe with golden and brown fur trim. Since there was black-on-black brocade on Jean-Claude’s robe, they looked even more like a matched pair than normal. Belle Morte had collected beautiful men with blue eyes. Jean-Claude’s had been the darkest, and Asher’s were the palest blue I’d ever seen in a human. Jean-Claude’s eyes reminded me that the sky was always blue no matter how dark the night, and Asher’s eyes were winter skies, pale and cold, but glittering with humor right now. I didn’t want him laughing at the fact that I was speechless with provincial shock, not when the thought that only me being angry with him was preventing me from crawling onto the bed and getting cuddles from both of them. The offer for more than just cuddles had been put back on the table once Jean-Claude made up with him. Normally it wasn’t hard to keep saying no, but I hadn’t seen them cuddled on the bed together like this, just the three of us, since the big fight that had been my last straw with Asher. I was remembering why I avoided seeing them together.

  “Ma petite, are you listening to me?”

  I blushed and looked away to try to hide it. “No, I mean yes, but please repeat it all.”

  Asher laughed, not that sex-on-a-stick thing that Jean-Claude could do, but just the sound of happiness. It made me want to smile, because I loved him, or Jean-Claude did. I would never really know how much of my love for Asher was mine alone and how much was bleed-over from Jean-Claude having been in love with him for centuries. They’d been on and off over that time, but they were still each other’s love of several lifetimes.

  “I am sorry, Anita, truly sorry for laughing, but this is the first time that I’ve known for certain that you miss me as I miss you.”

  I tried to frown at him, but it’s hard to look tough when your skin hasn’t faded from blushing. “Fine, you look scrumptious and the two of you together look more, but even if I forgive and forget and we all go back to being lovers, it won’t fix the fact that I can’t make Rafael my rat to call without Narcissus and his werehyenas declaring war.”

  “He will not start a war, ma petite, Narcissus has had time to cool down over the insult of Asher leaving him for Kane. He had to fight to regain the respect of his clan after that mess, it has occupied much of his time.”

  “But just yesterday you said I couldn’t make Rafael my rat to call, because of Narcissus.”

  “Oui, but that was before we learned that a master vampire powerful enough to hide from all of us has made Rafael’s latest challenger into a conduit for his power. If this Hector wins, then his master gains the energy that feeding on the rodere gives us. We cannot allow that to happen. Narcissus will understand the danger to our power structure.”

  “He will understand the danger, but I do not know if he will see reason,” Asher said.

  “Do you truly think that Narcissus will continue his threats against Rafael and his wererats even after he learns of this new threat?” Jean-Claude asked, moving just his head against the pillows to look at the other man.

  “Narcissus will have to do something to save face, though; he could kill Kane and risk killing me and risk your wrath,” Asher answered.

  “Or he could start something unfortunate with the wererats.”

  “War, you mean?” I said.

  “Not so big a word as that, ma petite, but it is within shapeshifter culture when two different animal groups come into conflict to have a duel between chosen champions.”

  “Narcissus could challenge Rafael directly,” said Asher.

  “That is very rare,” Jean-Claude said.

  “But if Narcissus does issue a challenge to Rafael and he refuses, then it could be seen as weakness or even cowardice. My understanding of wererat culture is that it would open Rafael up to even more challenges from other ambitious wererats,” Asher said.

  “Unless Narcissus has a death wish, he should leave Rafael alone,” I said.

  Asher shook his head hard enough to have his hair shiver around his shoulders. The golden strands glinted in the lamplight, and just like that I was back to being distracted by his beauty. Damn it.

  “You see what Narcissus wills you to see—the fop, the cross-dresser that can outqueen the most flamboyant gay queen, he makes a joke of himself partly to stop others from doing it for him. He is extremely sensitive about being born intersex.”

  “I’ve seen him nude and honestly it didn’t look that much different to me.”

  “But it is not us that looks in the mirror every day.”

  I looked at the beautiful man with his hair hiding half his face, so that only the angelic beauty of the unscarred side showed, and I knew he wasn’t just talking about Narcissus.

  “I’ve felt how powerful Narcissus’s inner beast is, but in a physical fight Rafael will kill him.”

  “It is not that simple, ma petite.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Asher answered, “Female werehyenas are bigger than the males just like the real animals, but in werehyenas they
are monstrously bigger, and they usually only have one form, bipedal, because they use their hands for more than fighting.”

  “So, because Narcissus is half woman and has girl parts, he’s this really big powerful half man, woman, whichever he prefers. My money is still on Rafael.”

  “Female hyenas do magic; literally, they can do spells like out of fairy tales and legends.”

  “I’ve never heard this before.”

  “That’s because they don’t tell outsiders. I didn’t realize how unusually the St. Louis hyenas were run until I was sent away to Dulcia’s territory. She runs her hyenas in the traditional manner. The fact that their leaders can work magic is what has given the hyenas in this country an edge over other animal groups.”

  “Wait, hyena shapeshifters are rare in this country. The magic, or whatever, hasn’t helped them gain the upper hand in most of the cities I visit,” I said.

  Asher sat up in the bed, letting the robe spill forward and show the edge of the hard scars on his chest. It wasn’t comfort with me that had made him forget, but how strongly he felt about what he was telling me. That made me listen, because he hated showing his scars most of the time. “Most of the original werehyenas were slaves. Their own tribes sometimes turned against them, bound them with magic and sold them into slavery, because they feared to kill them since they believed their spirit would just take over another hyena or even another person. They gave the spells to control them to the new masters. The spells were forgotten or lost and after a few very bloody rebellions being put down, the werehyenas went underground. They hid what and who they were from everyone. It is why it is so rare for a group of hyenas to be prominent in an area. They do not want to call that much attention to themselves if they are run in a traditional manner.”

  “Narcissus runs a very public bondage club over the river in Illinois. He dresses to attract attention.”

  “Dulcia did not speak well of him.”

  “I’ll bet, but wait a minute, werehyenas are contagious just like all the shapeshifters, so how did they pass on the magic, or is it more like a natural psychic gift?”

  “It’s natural and comes with the change once the person can control the violent part of the beast. If they wanted to train the woman, they trained her; if they didn’t think she could be trusted with their secrets, they executed her before she could come into her full power. For a long time, they killed any white women who survived an attack, and all clans were led by women of color. The oldest and most successful clans still are run that way. They thought of Narcissus as a man until he changed for the first time, and he’s trained in their mystical arts. No one has challenged him and survived.”

  “I always wondered about that, I mean he’s not much taller than me, and he’s slender, delicate-looking even, and he has these big muscle guys in his clan.”

  “The men are afraid of the females in the clan and they should be.”

  “That’s why he didn’t want to let women into his clan, he was afraid that a full female would beat him?” I said, thinking about it as I said it.

  Asher nodded. “But that hasn’t happened, he’s still the biggest bitch around.”

  “Are you seriously saying that Narcissus would beat Rafael in a real fight?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen Narcissus fight two of the females that came into his clan, and I have not seen Rafael fight, but unless Rafael can do magic while he’s fighting hand to hand, then I do not see how he could win,” Asher said.

  I tried to wrap my head around the idea that fragile-looking Narcissus would win against the much tougher-looking Rafael. I mean, if they were professional fighters in boxing or mixed martial arts, Rafael would be cruiserweight or heavyweight and Narcissus would be bantamweight at best and maybe even flyweight. The only reason I even knew all the weight classes was that the new shapeshifter fight league had reached out to St. Louis to see if anyone wanted to come play. There was no way that the two men would ever be in the same match, no way.

  “Asher has always had a good eye for male flesh, ma petite. If he bet on a fight, he usually won. When we were with Julianna, Asher’s betting prowess helped us live comfortably on our own.”

  It was the first time I’d ever heard him use Julianna’s name without the usual sinking of sorrow from either of them. She’d been Asher’s human servant and the love of both their lives at the time. Twenty years of bliss before the Church burned her as a witch for consorting with vampires and poured holy water over Asher. Her death could have killed him, especially as injured as he was, but he’d survived. It made me wonder if he’d survive Kane’s death. I didn’t ask out loud, it was a little too cold-blooded even for me.

  “So, you’re saying if Asher thinks Narcissus will win, then he probably will?”

  “Oui.”

  “You know, before I realized Hector was the rat to call for another vampire, I’d have been worried about Narcissus killing Rafael and leaving a vacuum of power at the top of the wererat hierarchy,” I said.

  “Or for Narcissus to be king of both hyenas and rats,” Jean-Claude said.

  “Wait, that’s not possible. They don’t allow leadership to cross over like that.”

  “But that was before the Coalition began to draw all the many different animal groups under one leadership; our Micah has started to forge them into one voice for human politics. For many local problems they now reach out to him and the larger group, which is formed of many different wereanimals.”

  “Are you saying the Coalition may have set precedents for Narcissus to try to do a sideways coup?”

  “He’s threatened it,” Asher said.

  “Jesus, when were you going to tell me about all this?”

  “I just heard about it myself. I told Jean-Claude because I saw him first, and now I am telling you. I will leave it up to the two of you who else needs to know.”

  “Micah needs to know,” I said.

  “We will tell everyone when they arrive,” Jean-Claude said.

  “We can’t let Narcissus bully us like this, not with another vampire trying to move in on us,” I said.

  “We are all in agreement, ma petite. We will begin to discuss our options when our others arrive.”

  “I am sorry for my part in the problems with Narcissus,” Asher said.

  “Your part, your part? It’s all your fault.”

  Asher took in a breath big enough that I could watch his chest rise and fall, which since he didn’t have to breathe at all meant it was a very big sigh. “My anger wants to deny it, to find excuses to say that it was the vacuum of power after Raina and Marcus died when Richard took over the werewolves that allowed Narcissus to grow the hyenas into a force to rival both the werewolves and the wererats. That if Richard had policed them as tightly as Marcus had, Narcissus would not have the power to threaten us now.”

  Some of my own anger faded. “Fine, fine, you’re right on that one. Richard has been working on his issues, but not in time to fix it all.”

  “Richard began working on his issues before I did. I made fun of him for it and I am ashamed that I, what is the phrase, threw him under the bus, to try to save myself.”

  “You weren’t wrong,” I said.

  “No, but it doesn’t lessen my larger part in the current crisis.”

  “Come join us, ma petite.” Jean-Claude patted the bed between them.

  “Why do you keep offering when I’ve already said no?” I asked.

  “Because you are frightened and want comfort.”

  “I’m not frightened,” I said automatically as if Jean-Claude couldn’t sense my feelings.

  “Ma petite, once I would have let the lie go, but as others in our life have learned to control their issues, I have learned to reach out and ask of you what I need rather than taking crumbs from the table of your love.” He patted the bed again.

  “What does that even
mean right now?”

  “Can you not feel what I am feeling?”

  “No, you’re shielding too tight.”

  “And you are not,” he said.

  “If I shield hard enough to keep you out that far, I cut off everyone and I risk cutting Nathaniel and Damian off so much that they start to die.”

  “Then trust me, ma petite, when I say that it would make me incredibly happy if you would give this inch and join us.”

  I crossed my arms as much as the shoulder holster would let me and scowled at him.

  “I am not asking you to have sex with us here and now, ma petite, just let us hold you. Let us offer you the comfort that you crave, that we crave to give you, while we wait for the others. When they arrive, we will have our war council, but until then we may hold each other and gain comfort before the war begins.”

  “You don’t mean Narcissus starting a war, do you?”

  “Non, ma petite, a master vampire has crept into this country when I am supposed to be the king of us all. My power is supposed to be absolute; even if we weather this threat and keep the wererats, the other vampires will learn that one of them found a chink in my armor, and just as Rafael cannot appear weak without bringing more challengers to his throne, so with my own. If I do not make an example of this vampire, then others will search for weakness and they will find it, because no one is unassailable.”

  “You’re afraid, too,” I said.

  “Yes, very much.”

  “Why very much? What have I missed?”

  “I know that there is a master vampire near us. I know who his moitié bête is, and I know where that person is, and yet knowing all of this, I still cannot sense the vampire. Do you understand the implications of that, ma petite?”