Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"No, if he wants you that badly, I want you in the room when he says it."

Fuck, just fuck. "You know, this is your relationship, Cardinale, not mine, so I don't really care what you want. I've got a night off, and I'm going to go enjoy it while you let your jealousy issues wreck your relationship on your own damn time." I was at the door with Ricky and Roger parting the way, so I was in the doorway with them behind me, between me and Cardinale, the possible threat, like good bodyguards.

I was really hoping that Damian would let me get out of the room before he answered her, but I knew . . . hell, I could feel that he'd reached a level of anger with the situation where he wanted it to blow up, to be done. I could feel his loneliness now; whereas before he just told me he was lonely, now I felt it. Loneliness, anger, frustration, and . . . need. A need beyond sex, or blood, or even love; there were so many reasons I shielded around Damian. Shit.

"I've already asked Anita to be my lover again, and if sleeping with her and Nathaniel will stop these nightmares, then I'll do that, too."

I hesitated between one step and another, then kept going. I wanted out of the room, out of the mess, out of their relationship, but more than that, I wanted away from Damian's emotions before he dragged me further into whatever was happening between them.

Cardinale yelled after me, and the door was open so some of the customers would likely hear it. "Are you and Nathaniel both going to fuck him now?"

Ricky and Roger had closed in behind me like a movable wall of security. I stopped walking so abruptly that Roger almost ran into me, but Ricky said, "Don't do it, boss."

"Do what?" Roger asked.

"Just walk away, boss," Ricky said.

Cardinale screamed, "Are you that much better in bed, Anita? Is that it? Is that why everyone wants you, because you just fuck so good?"

"Shit," Ricky said, softly under his breath.

Even Roger had caught up, because his eyes were wide and he asked, "Can we shoot her, or do we have to do nonlethal?"

"Nonlethal if you can," I said, and turned around to look back into the room. Cardinale's eyes were starting to gleam the way jewels do when light comes in behind them. My cross wasn't glowing yet because it might just be her anger showing. Damian stood by his desk, his pale upper body still smooth and bare with his long hair falling straight and crimson around all that white skin. Our eyes met, and the marks between us let me feel the defeat in him. He didn't know what to do with Cardinale anymore; it wasn't that he didn't love her, because he did, but he wasn't "in love" with her anymore, because she'd beaten that out of him with the constant jealousy, the recriminations, the accusations, and the lack of faith in him and their love.

Out loud I said, "What do you want me to do, Damian?" I felt so many emotions from him and knew he was deeply conflicted. Part of him would be relieved if it were over between them, but part of me--I mean, him--would miss her and what they had together. I looked at the tall woman standing there with her amazing cheekbones, knowing it wasn't from dieting but from starving most of her human life. She'd come to being a vampire partly so she'd never be hungry again and because she was beautiful enough for the Master of London to want her in his bed forever. But he'd never made her feel secure; she was just one lover among many. He'd never promised her otherwise, but she'd done the same thing to him she was doing to Damian, so that in the end, no matter how lovely she was to look at, the sex wasn't worth the emotional blowups. Damian knew all that about her, so suddenly, so did I. There was a long list of bad boyfriends in her human past who had taught her she was okay for a lark, a week, a month, months, but eventually there'd be someone else who caught their eye.

"Damian isn't like that." I said it out loud and hadn't meant to.

"He isn't like what?" Cardinale asked.

"He has been as loyal and faithful to you as any man could be to a woman."

"You would say that, since you're his mistress."

"I'm not his mistress. I'm his master, and there is a big difference between the two titles," I said.

"You don't have to fuck your master," Cardinale said.

I looked past her at Damian. "Do you want me to say it?"

"Say whatever you want, Anita."

I took in a lot of air, blew it out slow, then said, "The Master of the City of London brought you into his kiss with the understanding you'd have to fuck him to be one of his vampires, didn't he?"

She looked behind her at Damian. "How could you tell her that?"

"He didn't have to tell me anything, Cardinale. I'm his master. We have to work at not sharing thoughts and memories."

"It has never been like that with me and any master I have ever served."

"Damian is my vampire servant, as I am Jean-Claude's human servant. It's a different kind of master relationship, a deeper relationship than that between vampire and Master of the City."

She looked at me then, tears shining in her eyes. "So you have a deeper relationship with Damian than I do--is that what you're saying?"

"There's no way to win with you, is there?" I asked.

"I'm not a game to win, Anita. I'm a person with a heart and right now you're breaking it."

Shit.

"No," Damian said, "there's no way to win with Cardinale. She's a riddle with no answer."

"My answer is that I love you more than anything in the world," she said, turning toward him and starting to cry.

"You're a rigged game, Cardinale, because your rules make it impossible for Damian to convince you that he loves you enough."

"I'll love enough for both of us, then!" she said, reaching out to him. He didn't reach back; in fact, he'd done nothing to get closer to her physically since she walked into the room. It was a bad sign for any relationship.

"It doesn't work that way," Damian said. "You have to leave room for me to love you, too, and your issues don't leave any room for me. It's like you're fighting men from your past that I don't even know about, but I'm paying for their sins."

"I don't know what that means. I just know I love you more than life itself!" She moved toward him then, hands reaching for him.

His hands stayed at his sides as he said, "I can't fight ghosts from your past unless you help me, Cardinale."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Damian." She was crying now, softly.

"Would you be willing to see a couples therapist with me?"

"Why? There's nothing wrong with us except you're cheating on me."

He hung his head, and the wave of despair that washed over me was almost soul crushing, as if it would wash away all of me and leave nothing behind but a black loneliness that we'd lived with for so long before we came to St. Louis. I was choking on the utter isolation he'd endured when he was trapped in Ireland with the vampire that made him.

Again I spoke out loud without meaning to. "Why didn't you kill yourself?"

"I was too frightened to do the one thing that would kill me for certain," he said.

"What are the two of you talking about?" Cardinale asked.

"Sunlight," I said.

He nodded.

I had shared the memory of his best friend, his shield mate, brother-in-arms, his heterosexual life partner, being forced outside into the sunlight by She-Who-Made-Them, to punish them, yes, but mostly just to cause them both pain, because she could. She'd done a lot of things because she could, and there was no one to stop her; some people are only good because there are rules and punishments in place to make them be good. Take that away and it's amazing what people will do to each other if they think they can get away with it. I felt the weight of centuries of having no safety, no surety of what evil thing she'd do next, and still being forced to share her bed when she wanted it. I was impressed that Damian had been able to get it up for the evil bitch century after century.

"A man who couldn't service her was tortured to death, or mutilated and left alive. It gave us all a great incentive to rise to the occasion."

"Why are you talking abo

ut such horrible things?" Cardinale asked.