10
Less than an hour later Jean-Claude and I were in his room, alone. Damian was one of the guards outside our door. We'd split our vamps up among the wereanimals so that, hopefully, the bad vampires couldn't use mind tricks on the wereanimals without the vamps knowing it. We'd done the best we could do, which had actually been pretty damned good. The ardeurwas still in hiding. I wasn't questioning it, just grateful.
Jean-Claude's large four-poster bed was draped in blue silk, mounded with pillows in at least three vibrant shades of blue. He traded the drapes and pillows to match whatever color the sheets were, so I knew without looking that the sheets would be blue silk. Jean-Claude did not do white sheets, no matter what they were made out of.
He was sitting in the room's only chair, slumped down, hands crossed over his stomach. I was sitting on the rug that he'd put beside the bed. The rug was actually fur, thick and soft, and somehow just by touch you knew it had once been alive. We'd both been strangely reluctant to go to bed. I think we were both afraid the ardeurwould rise, and we weren't ready for it.
"Let me test my understanding," I said.
Jean-Claude looked at me, moving only his eyes.
"Tomorrow night, if Asher is still nobody's, will they be within their rights to ask for him?"
"Not as they did tonight, no, you have made that impossible now, unless they can take him by force."
I shook my head. "I've been around enough vamp politics to know that if you stop them from doing one thing, they'll do something else, not because they want to, but because it will cause you pain."
He frowned at me.
I sighed. "Let me try that again. Here's the deal, what are they within their rights to ask from us, while they're here?"
"Hunting rights, or willing donors, lovers--the basic needs to be met."
"Sex is a basic need?"
He just looked at me.
"Sorry, sorry. So I understand the willing donor part, they've got to eat. But the lovers, what does that mean, exactly?"
"It would be declasse to demand lovers for the servants, so Musette's lady's maid and butler are not to be worried over. The two children are special cases. The girl is physically too young, she does not think of such things. The boy is a problem. Bartolome was precocious, which is why Belle sent Musette to take him."
I stared at him. "Please, tell me that Musette never had sex with the kid?"
He seemed suddenly tired, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips. "Do you wish the truth, or a more pleasant lie?"
"The truth, I guess."
"Belle Morte can smell sexual appetite, it is one of her gifts. Bartolome may look like a child, but he does not think like one, nor did he when he was human and a true boy of eleven going on twelve. He was the heir to a great fortune. Belle wanted to control that fortune. He was also notorious in an age when noble sons were allowed almost any indiscretion with women who were not of noble blood."
"Explain that," I said.
"He looked like a child, Anita, and he would use that innocent face to maneuver women into compromising situations. By the time they realized that they were in danger of abuse, it was often too late. More than that, he threatened to accuse them of being the aggressor. There was no such phrase as child molestation in that century, but everyone knew it happened. Children were often married as young as ten or eleven, so the people who had such tastes could satisfy their needs within the marriage bed, until their spouses became too old for their tastes, then they would look outside their marriage, or by that time their own children might be old enough."
I stared at him. "I don't think I wanted to know that last part. That is beyond disgusting."
"Oui, ma petite,but it is still true. A fortune as large as Bartolome's would normally be Belle's task. She would never leave such monies, or lands, or titles, to anyone else. But she is not a lover of children, no matter how grown-up they may be, so she cast it to Musette. Who, as you now realize, will do anything our mistress bids her do."
"I got that impression."
"So, yes, she seduced, or allowed herself to be seduced by the boy. Belle gave her a touch of the ardeurand Bartolome was enraptured. Belle did not mean to bring him over to us as a boy. She meant to wait until he grew older, but Bartolome was thrown from his horse. He had crushed his skull, and was dying. His next brother was only five, and Belle would have no hold on him. She needed Bartolome, and so she bid Musette finish him."
"How did he feel when he woke up?"
"He was happy to be alive."
"How'd he feel when he finally realized he'd be a little boy forever, no matter how precocious?"
Jean-Claude sighed. "He was . . . unhappy. Bringing children over is forbidden for a reason. Musette did not make Valentina one of us. Belle found that one of her Master Vampires was a pedophile and had brought over children to be his permanent . . . companions." His voice went soft at the end.
I felt ill. I breathed deep and slow. "Sweet Jesus," I said.
"He had broken our prohibition against bringing over children, and when Belle Morte found out why he had done it . . . she slew him. With full permission of the council, she slew him. They destroyed most of the children he had made. They were vampires trapped in children's bodies, and they had been abused." He shook his head. "Their minds did not survive, not whole."
"So how did Valentina escape?" I asked.
"She was his newest and had yet to be touched. She was a child and a vampire but she was not mad. Belle took her in and found her people to care for her. She had human nannies for many years. She had human playmates. I must say that Belle did her best for Valentina. I think she blamed herself for not realizing what a true monster Sebastian was."
"Why do I think this ideal picture doesn't stay ideal?"
"You know us too well, ma petite.Valentina tried to turn some of her playmates into vampires, so she would not be the only one. When her nanny discovered her, Valentina slit her throat. That was the end of human nannies and human playmates."
"That's why the vampire nanny," I said.
He nodded. "She does not truly need one in the traditional sense of a child's need, but she is forever eight years old, and even today she cannot catch a taxi by herself, register in a hotel, without people wondering. Some well-meaning human will call the police to report the poor abandoned child that's staying in their hotel."
"She must hate it."
"It?"
"Her existence," I said.
He gave half a shrug. "I do not know. I do not speak to Valentina."
"You're afraid of her."
"Non, ma petite,but I am unnerved by her. The few children that survive for centuries are twisted things. It cannot be otherwise."
"How did she end up with Musette's entourage?"
"Valentina was taken before her body grew large enough for much physical pleasure. She has turned such energies into other," he licked his lips, "avenues of interest."
I sighed. "Musette is Belle's torturer, which means that Valentina is what, her little assistant in the torture?"
He nodded, head resting against the chair back, eyes closed. "Valentina has been a very apt pupil."
"She's tortured you?"
He nodded, eyes still closed. "I told you that the price for Belle saving Asher's life was my servitude for a century among them. But Belle wished to punish me for leaving her, and for a long time she gave me to pain rather than pleasure."
I went to him, crawling on the floor by his chair, smoothing my skirts down automatically, though there was no one there to see. "So Valentina won't be asking for a lover."
"Non."
"Will she try for a . . . what? Submissive?"
"Oui."
"Can we just refuse?"
"Oui."
"Can we make the 'no' stick?"
He opened his eyes and looked down at me. "I believe so, but to say absolutely would be too close to a lie."
I shook my head. "If Musette left tonight, and returned in three months, would we have less ground to stand on?"
"She will not leave, ma petite."
"No, that's not what I mean. What I mean is, if she had come in three months after good faith negotiations had gone through, would I still have been allowed to get away with what I did tonight? Or would we have faced the council's wrath?"
"We would have chosen a victim for Musette, or chosen a lover for her, or both before she arrived. It would have been settled and not a surprise."
"You know most human guests don't expect their hosts to supply them with sex partners."
"Nor do most of the bloodlines that descend from the council, but Belle's line is built upon sex, and it has become custom to offer any of Belle's line sex when they visit you. It is assumed that we all carry a touch of her succubus within us."
"That's not true," I said.
"Non, but no one of her line has ever wished to dissuade others of the lie."
I smiled, thought about laughing, and was too tired. "We can keep Willie and Hannah safe because they've got to be in charge of the two clubs. We've already negotiated that our businesses are not to be disrupted by the visit," I said.
"Belle was always one to keep her mind on where the money was coming from, so yes, Willie is my manager for The Laughing Corpse, and Hannah is temporary manager of Danse Macabre. The two weakest of my flock are safe away."
"Damian is my vampire servant, I'm your human servant, you're Master of the City, Jason is your pomme de sang,Nathaniel is my pomme de sang,Micah is my lover and my Nimir-Raj, Richard is Ulfric, and the bodyguards can't guard our bodies if they're screwing other people."
"We have made everyone as safe as we can, ma petite."
"There's one name that's conspicuously absent from that list, Jean-Claude."
"Three actually, ma petite,four if you count Gretchen."
"Gretchen is crazy, Jean-Claude. You got a special pass for her from Belle because she's still ill, right?" Gretchen had tried to kill me once, as punishment, she got locked up in a coffin for a while. The isolation had driven her even crazier.
"Oui,Gretchen will keep to her room for Musette's visit, but that does not protect Meng Die or Faust."
"Faust likes men, and to my knowledge nobody in Musette's party is gay, right?"
"Oui,but that is not always a barrier."
"We laid down the law tonight, that no one was to be hurt again. Forcing someone to have sex with a partner they find repugnant is a form of rape, and thus it's harm."
He looked at me, surprised. "Ma petite,you are becoming devious."
I shook my head. "Nope, just practical. So Faust is safe, because he only likes men and none of Musette's men likes men. Torture is out, because that's just harm."
"Meng Die will fascinate Bartolome."
"But again, Meng Die doesn't like children, so Bartolome would have to rape her to get his way with her, thus . . ."
"She is safe from his advances." He seemed to think about that for a second or two. "But what of Angelito?"
"Isn't he a couple with Musette? Aren't they doing each other?"
"When they wish to, yes."
I frowned at him. "Not a hot pair?"
"Musette's true love is not sex, which is why she and Valentina have been so close for so long."
"Not our problem. If everyone has access to someone they can fuck, or we have no suitable partners for them outside of rape, then everyone's covered. Or have I missed something?"
He thought about it quietly for a few minutes. "Non, ma petite.Your machinations are worthy of Belle herself, if her intention were to keep her people safe." Then he looked at me. "Except for one problem. Musette has had sex with Asher in the past, so you cannot make a charge of rape."
"Having sex in the past doesn't mean it can't be rape in the present," I said.
He waved that away with his hand. "I know that you believe that, ma petite,I will not even disagree, but Musette will not be dissuaded by the argument. Asher likes both men and women, he has had sex with her and enjoyed it in the past. You have made sure she cannot physically harm him, so it would be merely sex, merely fucking. He would not be harmed by that."
I raised eyebrows at him. "You believe that, that there'd be no harm to it?"
"Non, nor does Musette in truth. Musette knows, Belle knows, that to have sex with Musette again after all these years will be painful for Asher. It will harm him, but not in a way that Belle will let us negotiate around. To Belle Morte, if a man has an orgasm, then he must have enjoyed himself. It is her reasoning."
"She really doesn't understand that there's a difference between lust and love, does she?"
"Non, ma petite, tres non."
"Why is it always Asher that we can't protect? Asher that we can't save?"
He shook his head. "I have asked that for a very, very long time, ma petite.I have yet to find an answer."
I laid my cheek against his knee. "This is the longest I've ever been able to go between feedings." I glanced a my watch. "It's almost two."
"Dawn will come in three, almost four hours. I must rescind the control I have lent you for the ardeurbefore then. You must feed it."
"It's not only your control is it?"
"No, it is fear and exhaustion, and thinking too hard, and your own growing abilities. In a few more months you will be down to one feeding a day, or a night. You will be able to store up the feedings and go longer."
"My head is practically in your lap, and I don't feel the least stirrings."
He stroked my hair, and it was a comforting touch. I wanted to be held more than I wanted sex. I wanted him to hold me while I drifted off to sleep. That sounded better than anything else I could think of right now.
"Once dawn comes my tie with you will weaken, and you will not be able to keep the ardeurat bay. I am sorry, ma petite,but we must feed it."
"You're as tired as I am," I said.
"I want nothing more than to climb between the silk sheets and wrap our nude bodies around one another. I want to hold and be held. Sex is a wondrous thing, but tonight I wish to be comforted more than pleasured. I feel like a child in the dark who knows the monsters are under the bed. I want to be told it will be alright, but I am far too old to believe such comforting lies."
Maybe it was because I was tired. Maybe it was because Jean-Claude had just said out loud almost exactly how I felt. I remembered other nights when we'd all been this tired, this frightened, this unsure of what the next nightfall would bring. I remembered Asher and Julianna, and I, we, Jean-Claude holding each other. Simply holding each other, the feel of bare skin and warmth, like a grown-up version of a teddy bear. Hold me tonight,Julianna used to say, and unspoken between the two men had been how often her fears allowed them to be as close and frightened as they truly were.
Julianna had been the bridge between the two men. They would never have been able to be so close for so long without her. I had the memories, I knew how many times her needs had brought them together, her love for each of them had bound them close. Jean-Claude had been the brains, Asher the charm, though both were charming and both intelligent, but Julianna had been their heart. One living, beating heart for all three of them.
I could never be Julianna. I didn't have her kindness, her gentleness, her patience. We were so unalike, but here I was centuries later with the same two men. I let out a long breath, took in another, let it out, listened to it shake.
"Is something wrong, ma petite,I mean more wrong than I know?"
I raised my face from his knee. "If Asher was truly a menage a trois with us, then Musette would have to leave him alone, wouldn't she?"
Some expression passed over his face, quickly swallowed away, hidden behind that beautiful, polite mask he wore when he was not sure what expression would help, and what would hurt. "If we had been able to answer truthfully tonight that Asher was in our bed, then Musette could not have asked for him. This is true."
"If he joined us tonight, then tomorrow he'd be safe." My voice sounded so matter of fact, as if I were proposing we go shopping, or get dinner.
His voice was even more careful than mine. "That would be true."
"If I had just let you and Asher be a couple when I wasn't around, then he would have been safe, but I can't." I shook my head. "In theory I don't have a problem with it. I like men. I see men as attractive, so I understand everyone seeing them as attractive. That men are attracted to men makes perfect sense to me. But in practice I can't bring myself to share my man with another man. I can't do it. If I found out you and Asher had been doing it behind my back, I'd dump your ass. I know it's amazingly unfair. I'm sleeping with Micah, and damn near sleeping with Nathaniel, and was having sex with Richard until a few months ago. Yet you have to be with just me. It's monstrously unfair, I know that."
"I am not alienated from your bed when the others are with you, except for Richard, who would never share."
"I know, you get blood from the men because I still won't donate blood to you, but it's not the same."
"I want no one but you, ma petite.I have made that clear."
I looked up at him then. "You've made it clear, but I know that you do want someone else besides me. I've felt what you feel when you look at Asher. I see the way you two look at each other. It hurts sometimes just to watch you be in a room together."
"I am sorry, ma petite."
I tucked my knees to my chest and hugged them there. "Let me finish this thought, Jean-Claude, please."
He motioned for me to go ahead.
"I can't let you take Asher to your bed, and I can't take Asher to mine. But I remember what it was like for the three of you. I remember how safe it felt. There are moments when I forget that these aren't my memories and I long for what the three of you had. It seems a hell of a lot more peaceful than what we're doing."
I hugged my legs so tight, my arms trembled with the force of it. "I don't know if I can go through with it, but I'd like to try."
"Try what, ma petite?" His voice was very careful.
"I want Asher safe."
Jean-Claude had gone very still. "I do not understand, ma petite."
"Yes, you do."
He shook his head. "Non,I will have no misunderstandings here. You must be precise in your meaning."
I couldn't look at him while I said it. "Bring Asher in here for the night. I don't promise, but I want him warm and nude beside us. I want to chase that hurt from his eyes. I want to show him with my hands and my body that I find him lovely." I looked up at him, then, and found his face unreadable. "I don't know at what point I'm going to scream foul and bail on you both. I'm sure there's going to come a point, there usually is, but if we bring him into our bed tonight, in whatever way, then he's safe for tomorrow, right?"
"What will your Nimir-Raj say?"
"He assumed that you and I were intimate with Asher when he got to town. A lot of people assume it."
"You have told him the truth?"
"Yes."
"And won't he be angry about sharing you with yet another man?"
I shook my head. "Micah is more practical than I am, Jean-Claude. It's not just love, or lust, that brings me back to Asher. Tonight it's securing our power base. If Asher is safe, then we're all safer. His pain can't be used against us."
"How very practical of you, ma petite."
"I've learned from the best."
He gave me a look, one eyebrow raised. "If I were truly practical in matters of the heart, things would have gone more quickly between us."
"Maybe, or maybe not, you knew if you pushed too hard, I'd have either run, or tried to kill you."
He gave that graceful shrug. "Perhaps, but I should ask, so there are no misunderstandings, do you mean to bring Asher to our bed only for tonight?"
"Would it make a difference?" I asked.
"It may to him."
I tried to wrap my head around it all, and failed. "I don't know. I know that I don't want to give up alone time with you, just you. I know that I don't want to always have company."
"Julianna and Asher managed alone time even though we were a threesome."
"For the first time in a long time my personal life is as close as it's ever been to working. I don't want to screw that up."
"I understand."
"I guess, I want Asher safe, I want to chase that flinching out of his eyes, but in the real world we are just running this up the flagpole. If it works, great, but if it doesn't work, then what? Will Asher have to leave? Will you lose your second? Will it hurt you and Asher more? Will . . ."
He touched fingertips to my lips. "Shhh, ma petite.I have called Asher. He comes even now."
I felt my eyes go big, my breath freeze in my throat, while my pulse beat like a crazed thing. What had I done? Nothing yet. The ten thousand dollar question was, what was I about to do, and could I live with it later?