Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 21)

JEAN-CLAUDE'S CUSTOM-MADE BED was still a four-poster like his last one, but the heavy wooden posts and crossbeams were too thick for the drapes that used to hang on the bed, making it a cozy nest. The wood also had heavy attachment points scattered here and there. The frame itself was reinforced steel. When you do bondage with shapeshifters and vampires, you need something sturdy to chain them to. The bed was also bigger even than a California king; orgy-size was what we'd started calling it. I was sitting with my back against the small mountain of black and white pillows in the middle of the headboard. Jade was snuggled lower on the pillows, so that her head tucked in between my waist and hip; one arm was across my thighs, the other was curled underneath her, the hand touching my calf. I had one hand on her shoulders, touching all that almost slippery shiny hair. Jean-Claude was on the other side of me. He had his arm across my shoulders so I lay back tucked in against the side of his body. My free hand was on his thigh, petting the silk and the muscles underneath it. Asher hadn't even tried to climb on the bed with us. One, I was still mad at him, and he knew it. Two, Jade didn't like him. She didn't trust him, and she shouldn't have. There was something about her extreme victim vibe that made Asher want to do bad things to her, not really hurt her, but dominate her in that bondage-and-submission way, except that Jade wasn't healthy enough for fun and games like that. She might never be. But Jade's very fear of him made Asher want to seduce her, not necessarily tie her up and have his way with her, but make her say yes. Her issues and his: bad mix.

Asher paced at the foot of the bed like a big cat in a cage with too much energy and not enough room. I stroked the warmth of Jade's hair, and then cuddled into the solidness of Jean-Claude. I let their touching me, and my touching them, help dissipate some of the nervous energy that Asher was having to pace away.

"If I had dreamed that you would make love to Nicky more than once so close together, I would have cautioned you," Jean-Claude said.

"I know he's a Bride, but I thought I was a danger to him only if I was gravely hurt; then I might accidentally drain a Bride to death. That's what you told me."

"Yes, ma petite, but..."

"I wasn't that hurt."

"No, but the Brides have no ability to protect themselves; they are designed to give anything that their master wants from them."

"I didn't use the ardeur the first time. It didn't feel like I used it." I tried to think. "I did heal enough to go down on Nicky the second time."

"I cut you badly," Asher said, stopping by the side of the bed. "That is a lot of healing unless the sex was magical."

I frowned at him. "I know that the ardeur can drain a lover to death if I feed too often on any one person, but healing from sex has never come with that kind of price unless the ardeur is invoked."

Jean-Claude laid his cheek against my hair. "Belle Morte drained her Brides to raise her own power, just before she would take us into a nobleman's court and try to seduce them all."

"I wasn't trying to do anything but heal and feed the ardeur," I said.

Asher said, "The first time she killed a Bride and stole all his energy, it was accidental."

We looked at him.

He used his hair to hide almost all of his face, not just the scars, as if he didn't want to see us while he told us. "The first time was like this, just sex, but there was no modern medicine to restart his heart. He died and stayed dead, but she wasn't upset. She loved the power of it, and filed it away in that dark mind of hers. By the time Jean-Claude arrived in court she had made it just another piece of her power."

"You have never mentioned this," Jean-Claude said.

"I did not think that Anita would be able to do it. She is not a true vampire... She..."

"I am master here, Asher; you should have told me and let me decide what ma petite needed to know."

"I see that now," Asher said, and he looked up, letting the shine of his eyes gleam blue, made bluer by the robe he was wearing. "I'm sorry..." He reached out to us, a beseeching gesture, and something he'd done leaning against the bed had loosened the sash so that it fell open, giving a glimpse of his body, pale and perfect. The robe fell open only to show the unscarred side, the same way his hair often fell. I knew the hair was deliberate; was the robe? Could he "accidentally" make the robe fall open just so that he gave the perfect glimpse of his body to remind us, no, me, what I was about to give up? Jean-Claude had just finished having sex with him; it wasn't him that Asher needed to re-seduce.

I turned so I could see Jean-Claude's face, which made him have to lean back a little. "Tell me you didn't give in?"

"What do you mean, give in, ma petite?"

"I mean tell him he doesn't have to go. He has to go, right? No matter how good the sex is, he has to leave town for at least a month; right?"

"I have not said otherwise."

I didn't like the way he worded that. Jade rubbed her face against my waist like the big cat she was in her other form. She was trying to soothe me.

"Sin could have died tonight. His control over hyenas is better than ours, it's one animal that neither of us has any control over, and Asher used that to make Ares attack another guard. Asher meant for it to be Nicky with his broken arm, et cetera... and if Asher hadn't hurt me to begin with, I wouldn't have almost drained Nicky dry. We can't let this slide, Jean-Claude, we can't."

"It is too close to dawn for him to leave tonight, but tomorrow night he will go, as ordered."

"I deserve to be exiled for a month," Asher said, and he had moved down the edge of the bed, so that he was standing opposite us; the robe was so open it was just a beautiful embroidered frame to his body. His hand slid down the edge of the robe so that it was just natural to follow where his hand moved, and his hand moved ever so slowly so that it was like a tour of his chest, the flat plains of his stomach, the edge of his hips, and then the groin, where he lay soft, and waiting. Until he took blood again, that would be all he had to offer, but I actually liked that about vampires. Most men, I started going down on them and they got big too soon, so that I couldn't enjoy the texture and feel that they started with...

Jade uncurled herself and began to climb off the other side of the bed. "Where are you going?" I asked.

"I cannot," she said.

"Cannot what?" I asked.

"You like his cruelty. I do not. Please do not order me to stay."

"No one will force you to do anything you don't want to do. I and Jean-Claude have both promised you that."

"I believe you, but... May I go?"

I sighed. "Yes, but we're not having sex with Asher."

"You are within your rights to have sex with him if you wish." She was already backing toward the door. One hand was holding her other arm tight enough that her fingers were mottled. It meant she was afraid. She was afraid of men, of sex with men, of vampires, and most especially afraid of male vampires. I was lying in the arms of one vampire with another nearly naked by the bed, and they were both decidedly male; as far as Jade was concerned I was about to do something terrifying.

"We're not having sex," I said.

"But he will try and seduce you, and that is..." She backed into Domino, and gave a soft yelp. She startled away from him as he reached to steady her. He dropped his hand to his side. Domino knew better than to push things when she got spooked. It was one of the reasons she could be in bed with him and me when we made love. She'd also allowed Nathaniel that amount of trust. Both of them treated it with all the gentleness they had.

"Walk her back to her room," I said.

"No, he's supposed to guard you from... Asher," she said.

"It's okay," Domino said, "I'll get you back to your room, and come right back here."

Jade didn't want him to touch her either, but when she was this shaken she needed someone by her side that she trusted at least a little to keep the panic from growing. She trusted Domino more than any other man. Claudia had no patience with her, and Kelly didn't need to be around Asher tonight, and just like that we were out of female guards to watch over her.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Domino said. "Don't get hurt. I really don't want to fight Nicky for real."

"We'll be good," I said.

He grinned as he closed the door behind them, and said, just as the door closed, "I know you're good, Anita; just don't hurt each other."

"Domino," I said, but he closed the door to the sound of his soft laughter.