"Yeah, I'm pissed."
"It makes you not trust him." Damian moved that one inch closer until his cheek rested against my upper arm.
"Yeah, it makes me not trust him. Worse yet, it makes me not trust Richard." I shook my head. "I never thought he'd keep anything from me, let alone things this important."
"It makes you doubt them," Damian said.
I stared down at the vampire. Just his cheek rested against my arm. The rest of his body stretched down the length of the bed but didn't touch me. "This doesn't seem like you, Damian."
"What doesn't seem like me?" he asked. His hand slid from where it rested on his side to the sheets. That one pale hand lay between our bodies, not touching, just ... waiting.
"This, all this, it's not you."
"You don't know anything about me, Anita. You don't know what I'm like, not really."
"What do you want from me, Damian?"
"Right now, to put this hand around your waist."
"And if I said yes?"
"Is that a yes?" he asked.
What would Richard say? What would Jean-Claude say? Fuck them. "Yes," I said.
He slid his hand over my waist until his arm rested across my stomach. It would have been natural to cuddle the body after the arm, but he didn't. He kept that artificial distance between us.
I ran my left hand up and down that pale arm, playing over the small hairs on his arm. It felt terribly right to touch him, as if I'd been wanting to do it for a very long time. I didn't want him to hold me. I wanted to hold him. It was a very different feeling than what I felt for Richard or Jean-Claude. Damian was right; it was the necromancy. It wanted to touch him, explore the edges of the power that bound us, the power that animated him.
My own personal power is closer kin to Jean-Claude's than to Richard's. It is a cool power, like an unfelt wind that plays over the mind and body. I let that cool thread spill out through my hand, down Damian's arm. I thrust it into him like an invisible hand, shoved it into that pale body and felt an answering spark deep inside him. I felt my power flare and recognize a piece of itself. Whatever had animated Damian before was gone. I animated Damian now. He was truly mine, which, of course, was not possible.
He slid his body that last inch so that the length of him lay against me from my waist to my feet. He slid one leg over my legs, pressing himself against me.
"You're trying to seduce me," I said. But my voice was too soft, too private.
He laid a soft kiss on my arm. "Am I seducing you, or have you already seduced me?"
I shook my head. "Get up and get out, Damian."
"You want me. I can feel it."
"The power wants you, not me. I don't want you the way I want Richard or Jean-Claude."
"I'm not asking for love, Anita, just to be with you."
I wanted to run my hands down his body. I knew that I could explore that body, touch every inch of it, and he wouldn't stop me. It was both inviting and frightening.
I slid off the bed, letting Damian have the whole thing to himself. I could stand, no dizziness; great. "We are not doing this Damian. We are so not doing this."
Damian propped himself up on his elbows, watching me. "If you give me a direct order, I must obey you, Anita. Even if that order contradicts one that Jean-Claude has given me."
I frowned at him. "What are you saying?"
"Don't you wonder what else he's forbidden me to tell you?" Damian asked.
"You little bastard."
He sat up, swinging his long legs off the side of the bed. "Don't you want to know?"
I stared down at him for a heartbeat. "Yes, damn you, yes, I want to know."
"You have to order me to tell you. I can't do it otherwise."
I almost didn't do it. I was afraid of what he would say. Afraid of what else Jean-Claude had been hiding from me. "I order you, Damian, to tell me all the secrets that Jean-Claude has forbidden you to tell me."
His breath came out in a long sigh. "Free at last. Jean-Claude, Asher, and even my master are all descended from the line of Belle Morte, Beautiful Death. She is our council master. Have you ever wondered why hundreds of years ago, most personal accounts of vampires said they were hideous monsters, walking corpses?"
"No, and what does that have to do with anything?"
"I've waited a long time to tell you this, Anita. Let me tell it."
I sighed. "Fine, tell me."
"No one thought of a vampire as a sexual object in the seventeen hundreds. There were a few tales of beautiful vampires, but they were all tricks, not real. But then things changed. Most personal accounts speak of beauty and great sexual allure." He slid off the bed, and I backed up. I didn't want him too close. I wasn't sure who I trusted less: him or me.
When I backed up, he stopped moving and just stood there, looking at me. "The Council decides which of them will send their vampires out to make more. For thousands of years, it was the Queen of Nightmares, our leader; or Morte d'Amour, the lover of death, and the Dragon; but they grew tired of the games and retreated inside the council chambers. You rarely see them. She-Who-Made-Me took me to court with her more than once. It's where I met Jean-Claude. Belle Morte, Beautiful Death, sent forth her people to populate the world with vampires. Jean-Claude, Asher, and I descend from her line. Even her blood cannot make the ugly beautiful, though all is improved by her touch, but it is more than that. Some in her line have the power of sex. They live on it, breathe on it. They feed on it like Colin and my old master fed on fear. They can gain power through sex and use it as a second lure for mortals." He stopped and looked at me.
"Finish it, Damian," I said.
"Jean-Claude is one of these. In another time, he would be considered an incubus. Asher and I are not like him. It is a rare power, even among those who descend more directly from Belle Morte."
"So Jean-Claude can feed off of sex like Colin can feed off fear. So what?"
Damian moved towards me, and I let him touch my shoulder. "Don't you understand? Jean-Claude gains power through sex, not just intercourse, but sexual energy, lust. It means that every time you have sex, it is power. That every intimate act between the three of you binds the marks tighter and increases your power."
I felt almost faint. "When was he going to tell me?"
"In Jean-Claude's defense, he says it didn't work this way the first time he marked you. The sex wasn't such a strong power focus. You were three marks deep before you broke away, and it didn't work like this between you. He thinks it's the addition of Richard that's pushed it over the edge."
"What do you get out of this, Damian? What do you get out of telling me all this?" I stared up at him in the dark.
"My mistress controlled me for centuries with her fear and her sex. You deserve the truth, all of it."
I pulled away from him, turned my back on him. It made perfect sense. Jean-Claude gave off sex like other people wore cologne. It explained why his first business was a stripper club -¨C lots of sexual energy to feed off. Did it change anything? I wasn't sure. I just wasn't sure.
I stared out the window, forehead pressed to the cool glass. The curtains blew gently in the night breeze. "Does Richard know that Jean-Claude is some kind of incubus?"
"I don't think so," Damian said.
Power breathed on the wind. I could almost smell it like ozone in the air. It raised the hair at the back of my neck. It wasn't vampire or shapeshifter. I recognized it for what it was: necromancy. Somewhere close by, someone was using a power very similar to mine.
I turned to Damian. "Colin's human servant, is she a necromancer?"
He shrugged. "I don't know."
"Shit." I cast outward, searching for Asher. My power touched him and was thrown backwards, out, away. I ran for the door.
Damian followed me, asking, "What is it? What's wrong?"
I had the Browning naked in my hand when I hit the yard. Damian saw them before I did, and he pointed at them. Colin's human servant stood at the edge of the trees, almost lost in shadows and darkness. Asher stood a few yards in front of her. He was on his knees.
I fired at her as I ran. The shots went wild, but it broke some of her concentration and I could feel Asher again. His life was being pulled out of him like a fish on a string. I could feel his blood thundering against his skin. His heart leaped in his chest like a caged thing struggling to get out, and it was her his heart was trying to get to, as if she could pull his heart from his chest from a distance.
I forced myself to stop running. I stood there and sighted down my arm. I felt movement from above. I looked up in time to see Barnaby's pale face coming at me like some giant bird of prey, then Damian was off the ground and the two vampires rolled into the sky, struggling.
I was close enough to see Asher's face now. He was bleeding from every opening; eyes, mouth, nose. He was a mask of blood; his clothes were soaked in it. He fell forward onto all fours.
I shot the woman. I shot her in the chest twice. She fell slowly to her knees, looking at me. She looked surprised. I heard her say, "We're not allowed to kill each other's human servants."
"If Colin hadn't known I'd kill you, he'd have come himself."
That made her smile for some reason. She said, "I hope he dies with me." Then she collapsed facedown on the ground. Even by moonlight I could see the exit holes in her back like great gaping mouths.
Asher stayed on all fours, blood dripping from his mouth. I knelt by him, touched his shoulder, and the shirt was blood-soaked. "Asher, Asher, can you hear me?"
"I thought it was you," he said, in a voice thick with things that should never be in a living throat. "I thought it was you calling me." He coughed blood onto the ground.
I looked up into the sky, and there was no sight of Damian and Barnaby. I screamed for help, and no one answered.
I put my arms around Asher, and he collapsed into my lap. I cradled as much of him into my lap as I could get. I had to lean over him to hear his voice.
"I thought you had called me out into the night for a rendezvous. Isn't that ironic?" He coughed so hard that it was hard to hold him. Thicker things than blood spilled from his mouth. I held him while he bled his life away on the ground and screamed, "Damian!"
I heard a distant scream, but that was all. "Don't die, Asher, please, don't die."
He coughed until something dark and black came out his mouth. Blood poured out of his mouth in a near steady stream. I touched his skin, and it was cool to the touch.
"If you fed off of one of the lycanthropes, would it be enough to save you?"
"If it's soon, perhaps." His voice was soft and thick.
I touched his forehead and came away with chill sweat. "How badly are you hurt?"
He ignored me, speaking very softly, "Know this, Anita, that seeing myself through your eyes has healed my heart."
My throat was tight with tears. "Please, Asher, don't."
A drop of pure blood slid out of his eye. "Be happy with your two beaus. Don't make the same mistakes that Jean-Claude and I made all those long years ago." He touched my face with a hand that was slick with blood. "Be happy in their arms, ma cherie."
His eyes fluttered. If he passed out, we might lose him. There was nothing in the night but the sounds of cicada and the wind. Where the hell was everyone?
"Asher, don't pass out."
His eyes fluttered open, but he was having trouble focusing. I felt his heart hesitate, skip a beat. He could live without his heart beating, but I knew that this time, when the heart went, it was over. He was dying. Nikki had broken him inside too badly for healing.
I put my right wrist, encased in white bandages, in front of his mouth. "Take my blood."
"To drink from you is to give you power over any of us. I do not want to be your slave any more than I already am."
I was crying, tears so hot they burned. "Don't let Colin kill you. Please, please!" I held him against me and whispered, "Don't leave us, Asher." I felt Jean-Claude all those miles away. I felt his panic at the thought of losing Asher. "Don't leave us, not now, not now that we've found you again. Tu es beau, mon amour. Tu me fais craquer."
He actually smiled. "I shatter your heart, eh?"
I kissed his cheek, kissed his face, and cried, hot tears against the harsh scars of his face. "Je t'embrasse partout. Je t'embrasse partout. I kiss you all over, mon amour."
He stared up at me. "Je te bois des yeux. "
"Don't drink me with your eyes, damn it, drink me with your mouth." I tore the bandages away from my right wrist with my teeth and put my bare, warm flesh against his cold lips.
He whispered, "Je t'adore." Fangs sank into my wrist. It was sharp and deep. His mouth locked against my skin. His throat convulsed, swallowing. I stared into his pale eyes and felt something in my head part like a curtain, some shield shattered. One moment it was one continuous ache almost nauseating, then there was nothing but the spreading warmth. I didn't even have time to panic. Asher rolled over my mind like a warm lip of ocean, pleasurable, caressing. It burst over me in a skin-tingling, breath-stealing rush that left me gasping and wet. Then Asher was kneeling above me, laying me gently on the ground.
I lay, staring at nothing, riding the sensations up and down my body. I'd never let any vampire do me like this, never let them steal my mind while they stole my blood. I hadn't even known he could do it. Not to me.
He kissed me on the forehead. "Forgive me, Anita. I did not know that I could embrace your mind. I did not know that any vampire could." He stared down at my face, searching for some reaction. I couldn't give him one yet. He drew back enough to see my face clearly. "I feared you would possess me as you possess Damian if I fed from your blood without using any of my powers. I did try to scale your shield, break your barriers, but I did it to protect myself from your power. I did not dream that I could breach such impenetrable walls." He started to touch my face, then stopped, his hand falling to his lap. "The marks that bind you to Jean-Claude protect you from him embracing your mind. But he was never as good at this as I was. I should have thought of that before."
I just lay there, half-floating. Nothing was real yet. I couldn't think, couldn't speak.
He raised my hand and pressed it against his scarred cheek. "I drew back as soon as I realized what I had done. It was just, how do you say, a quickie. It was only a small taste of what it could have been, Anita. Please, believe me." He stood, and I couldn't follow the movement. I lay on the ground and tried to think.
Jason knelt beside me. I was aware enough to wonder where the hell he'd come from. He wasn't staying at Marianne's. Or was he? "It's your first time?" he asked.
I tried to nod but couldn't.
"Now you know why I stay with them," he said.
"No," I said, but my voice was distant as if it wasn't my voice at all. "No, I don't."
"You felt it. You rode him. How can you not love it?"
I couldn't explain it. It had felt wondrous, but as the glow began to fade, the fear welled up big and black enough to swallow the world. It felt amazing, and that had been a "quickie," as he put it. I never wanted anything more from Asher. Because if it was much better than this, I might chase the rest of my days for another taste. And Jean-Claude could not give it to me. The marks prevented him from rolling my mind. It was one of the things that made the difference between servant and slave. I would never get this with Jean-Claude, never. And I wanted it. I hadn't wanted Asher to die. Now I wasn't so sure.
Asher came back to stand over me. We stared at each other. There were people in the dark now. Someone had a flashlight. They flared it over me. I was left staring in the brightness, nearly blind. The light stood harsh on Asher's face, highlighting the reddish tracks of tears. "Don't hate me, Anita. I could not bear it if you hated me."
"I don't hate you, Asher." My voice still sounded thick and heavy with that golden edge of pleasure. "I fear you."
He just stood there, tears sliding down his face. The tears slid in reddish lines down the smooth skin of his left side. The tears got lost in the scars on the other side, and were beginning to collect in a reddish stain on the stiff skin. "Worse," he whispered, "worse, I think."