Chapter 19
I WAS NAKED again. It seemed to be a theme that night. The five of us lay in a heap, breathing hard, bodies tingling, with that rush that magic will leave behind sometimes--where you feel both tired and exhilarated at the same time--sort of like sex. Asher and Nathaniel lay on the bed just out of my reach. My mouth, chin, and neck were covered in Jason's blood. He lay with his head on my chest, his head turned so I could see the neck wound. I'd marked Nathaniel and Micah, but there was a piece of meat missing from Jason's neck. It wasn't a big piece, but it was a missing piece of flesh, nonetheless.
I swallowed hard, taking deep, even breaths. I would not throw up. I would not throw up. I would not throw up. I was going to throw up. I pushed everyone off the bed and ran for the bathroom. I threw up, and the flesh--about the size of a fifty-cent piece--came up just like it had gone down--whole. There was something about seeing it, about having my worst fears confirmed that brought nausea in a burning wave. I threw up until I thought my head would explode and I was dry heaving.
There was a knock on the door. "Ma petite, may I come in?" He hadn't asked if I was alright. Smart vampire. I didn't answer him, just stayed kneeling with my head against the cool bathtub edge, wondering if I was going to throw up again or my head would fall off first. My head hurt worse than my stomach.
I heard the door open. "Ma petite?"
"I'm here," I said, my voice sounding thick, as if I'd been crying. I kept my head down. I didn't want to see him, or anyone.
I saw the edge of the black robe, then more of it as he knelt down in front of me. "Is there anything I can get you?"
A dozen answers flew through my mind, most of them sarcastic, but I settled for, "Some aspirin and a toothbrush."
"You could ask me to cut my heart out at this moment, and I might do it. Instead you ask for aspirin and a toothbrush." He leaned in and laid the gentlest of kisses on the top of my head. "I will get what you ask." He stood, and again I heard a drawer opening and closing.
I looked up and watched him move efficiently around the bathroom, setting out a bottle of aspirin and a toothbrush and a choice of toothpastes. It was absurdly domestic, and the black-furred robe didn't fit the part. Jean-Claude looked like someone who should have servants, and he did. But mostly around me he'd always done for himself, and for me. When I wasn't around he probably had fifty dancing girls waiting on him hand and foot. But with me, it was often just him.
He brought me the aspirin and a glass of water. I took them, and there was a moment when I wasn't sure my stomach would keep them down, but it passed. Jean-Claude helped me stand, and I let him. It wasn't just that my legs were shaky--though they were--it was more like all of me was shaky, uncertain.
I started to shiver and couldn't stop. Jean-Claude held me against his robe in the circle of his arms. My breast hurt where it rubbed against the cloth. I pulled back enough to look down at my body. There was a perfect imprint of Nathaniel's teeth encircling my breast around the areola. He'd only drawn blood in a few places, but the rest was a deep red-purple. It was going to be a hell of a bruise if my body didn't heal it first.
Jean-Claude traced his finger across the upper part of the bite mark, and I winced. "Why is it things like this never hurt while you're doing them?"
"The question is its own answer, ma petite."
Strangely, I understood what he meant. "It's almost a mirror of what I did to his chest."
"Nathaniel is being cautious, I think."
"What do you mean?"
"He did nothing to you that you had not done to him first."
"I thought they were both carried away with the ardeur and Belle Morte."
"The first time you feel the call of her power it is heady stuff. But the fact Jason did something that he knew you would not allow, and Nathaniel didn't, may mean that Nathaniel has more control of himself than Jason does."
"I would have thought it was the other way around."
"I know," he said, and the way he said it made me look at him.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means, ma petite, that you may know Nathaniel's heart's desire, but I do not think you truly know him."
"He doesn't know himself," I said.
"In part that is true, but I think he will surprise you."
"Are you hiding something from me?"
"About Nathaniel, no."
I sighed. "You know on another day I'd make you tell me what that cryptic remark meant, but damn it, I want a little comfort from someone right now, and I guess you're it."
His eyebrows raised. "When you ask in so flattering a manner, how can I refuse?"
"No games, please, Jean-Claude, please, just hold me."
He drew me back into the circle of his arms, and I moved so that the bite mark wasn't hurting, or rather wasn't hurting more than it already did. It had turned into a throbbing pain, sharp when touched. It did hurt, but a part of me found that satisfying. It was a confirmation of what we'd done, a painful souvenir of something that had been amazing. If my morals hadn't gotten in the way, I could have just marveled at the whole thing.
"Why am I pleased that Nathaniel marked me?" I asked it in a small voice, because I wasn't a hundred percent sure Jean-Claude shouldn't have been jealous about it.
He stroked my hair, as his other arm held me close. "I can think of many reasons." His voice vibrated through his chest against my ear, mingling with the sound of his heartbeat.
"One that makes sense to me would be enough," I said.
"Ah, one that makes sense to you, now that is a different question."
I squeezed my arms around his waist. "No games, remember, just tell me."
"It could be that you are truly becoming his Nimir-Ra." His arm tightened around me. "I do feel something different in you, ma petite, some wildness that was not there before. It does not feel like Richard's beast feels, but it is a difference. It may simply be that as Nathaniel's Nimir-Ra you want closer contact with him."
It made sense. It was hard to argue with the logic of it, but I wanted to. "What could be the other reasons?"
"Belle Morte treated you as a vampire of her line. If through the marks or your necromancy you have some of the powers of a vampire, you may have others. It could be that leopards will be your animal to call. I admit that the first is the more likely reason, but the second is also possible."
I leaned back enough to see his face. "Are you attracted to the wolves?" I asked.
"I find it pleasant to have the wolves around me. It is comforting to touch them like a ... pet, or lover."
I wasn't sure how I felt about him using pet and lover in the same sentence, but I let it go. "So you want to have sex with the werewolves?"
"Do you want to have sex with Nathaniel?"
"No ... not exactly."
"But you want to touch him and be touched?"
I had to think about that for a few seconds. "I guess so."
"In a true joining of animal and vampire, there is a desire in both to touch, for one to serve and the other to take care of them."
"Padma, the Master of Beasts, treated his animals like shit."
"One of the many reasons that Padma will always be a secondary power on the Council is his belief that all power must be taken, that all power must come through fear. True power comes when others offer it to you and you merely accept it as a gift, not as the spoils of some personal war."
"So the fact that you treat your wolves better than most is just, what, a political decision?"
He shrugged, still holding me against him. "I do not know how other vampires feel. I know only that Belle Morte felt attracted to her cats and I feel the same for my wolves. Perhaps it is only her line that turns the bond between animal and vampire into something like lovers? Much of her power fed into sex, or at least, attraction, and perhaps that is not how others feel?" He frowned. "I had not truly thought about that before. Perhaps it is another benefit of her lineage--or a shortfall of it--that most of my powers turn to something resembling sex."
"Does Asher feel the same way about his animal to call?"
"He has no animal to call."
I widened my eyes. "I thought all master vamps over a certain age had an animal to call."
"Most of the time they do, but not always. Just as his bite can give true sexual release and mine cannot. We have different powers."
"But not having an animal to call is like a major ..."
"It means he is weaker than I am."
"But he could still be Master of the City somewhere else. I mean I've met Masters of the City that had no animal to call before."
"If there was a territory vacant in this country, and he would be willing to leave us, then yes, he might rise to Master of the City."
I started to ask, Then why doesn't he go? But I was pretty sure I knew the answer, and it was a painful answer, so I left it unsaid. Maybe I was growing up at last. Not every thought that came into my head had to come out of my mouth.
"Or it could simply be that you've wanted Nathaniel for a very long time. There is satisfaction in finally giving in to the desire."