Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"No, because Dev is charming and I don't want to make this problem between Nathaniel and you worse. I don't know if I want Dev living with us constantly. He doesn't work with our entire poly group as well as some of the others do."

"Nicky works great, but neither Jean-Claude nor I will do a commitment ceremony with him. Sin works great, but neither you, I, or Jean-Claude will commit to him."

"He's a nephew to Jean-Claude and a brother-husband to the rest of you."

"I'll call Sin that, but not Nicky."

"Nicky is only a lion, so he doesn't help us over the whole tiger issue anyway," I said.

"I know that the tiger clan leaders won't rest until you're married off to one of the clan tigers."

"Legend says that if I don't marry a tiger, the Mother of All Darkness will return from the dead and destroy the world."

"Nice to know they backed off on the tiger being your legal spouse and are content with a commitment ceremony," he said.

"Yeah, it was big of them."

"You're being sarcastic, but it really was a compromise for them."

"So we need a tiger as part of the commitment ceremony that we're all willing to live with, and the group of us can't agree on one."

"Welcome to one of the serious downsides of polyamory when everyone has veto power over everyone else's lovers," Micah said.

"Lovers, schmovers, it's the living-with part that's making the choice impossible."

"Agreed. I'm being signaled that it's time to talk some more here. Have a safe flight. I wish I were able to go with you and help keep Nathaniel's and your minds off Damian."

"Me, too."

"I love you, Anita Blake."

"I love you more, Micah Callahan."

"I love you most."

"I love you mostest."

"I've got to go make sure they don't start trying to kill each other."

"And I've got to go to Ireland and stop them from killing each other."

I heard a voice on his end, someone talking low to him. He had to go, and so did I. Both of our jobs saved lives, and both of us would take a life if we thought it would save more lives down the road. Most of the time I did it with the legal blessing of my country. When Micah killed someone in a duel it was never legal, because duels were illegal no matter if you were human or more than human.

26

I FOUND NATHANIEL and Damian back in Damian's bedroom. I almost didn't recognize the room. There was a large mirror that covered the half wall that held the bathroom door. The mirror had a heavy antique-looking frame and the glass would reflect anything happening on the bed. Nathaniel was both a serious voyeur and exhibitionist; mirrors seemed to satisfy both needs for him. He'd been asking Micah and me to put one in our shared bedroom, but we'd been resisting. I didn't want to sit up in bed and see my reflection every morning, or in the middle of the night when I was half asleep. There'd been an incident on an out-of-town business trip where I'd damn near shot the full-length mirror in the hotel room, because I thought it was an intruder. That had been years ago when I was new to hunting killers and carrying a gun, but the moment had stayed with me. Micah didn't really want the mirror either, but obviously Nathaniel did, and Damian had let him do something that his two fiancees had refused him for years.

The bed was now covered in a very dark green bedspread with pillows in browns, dark purples, and a shade of orange that had brown undertones so it all matched. If you'd set me loose in a store with this as a color scheme, it would have looked like it had been put together by a partially color-blind lover of autumn, but this was magazine perfect. The brown and orange were a new addition, but they echoed the purple and green of our own room, though our shades were brighter, shinier, more vibrant, and this was muted, more autumn leaves than summer flowers. It still had Nathaniel's touch everywhere.

It had taken months of negotiations for Nathaniel to do our room; this had to have happened in less than two hours. Either Damian was more bespelled than I was, or he was always this easy a touch for a lover to control the decorating. Maybe it hadn't been all Cardinale's fault that the room had reflected mostly her, which said something important about Damian. I just didn't know exactly what.

They were sitting on the bed, their heads together over Nathaniel's iPad. He looked up, smiling. "We're looking online for new towels for the bathroom, so we can get rid of all the pink ones."

"Nothing wrong with pink if you like the color," I said.

"I don't," Damian said, looking up.

Their faces were very close together, the bright green eyes and the lavender ones, milk pale skin and the darker pale that let you know Nathaniel might tan if he ever tried. His face was wider through the cheekbones, Damian's longer and narrower. Was Nathaniel more beautiful? Yes, but it was like saying a rose is more beautiful than a lily. They were both beautiful flowers. It just depended on whether you wanted something rounder, fuller, more lush, or if you wanted something leaner, taller, more careless summer garden instead of formal rose garden. I preferred roses to lilies, but they grew well next to each other if you were willing to have your rose garden a little less formal and a little more cottage.

Nathaniel put the iPad down on the bedspread and met my eyes with his; he knew how distracted I suddenly was, because he'd watched himself affect me like that for years. It was closer to the way I got distracted with Jean-Claude and Asher, back when he was in our bed. Did Micah and Nathaniel together make me this stupid-faced? Maybe. It was like I couldn't remember, which let me know that I needed to walk out of the room and find Jean-Claude, or find a phone and talk to Micah--again. But I didn't. I stood there and drank in the beauty of them, the possibility of them.

I couldn't seem to leave the room, but I found my voice. "You couldn't have ordered the bedspread and pillows online. There hasn't been time for them to ship." My voice sounded a little hoarse, so I cleared my throat, trying to sound and feel more like myself.

"No, we ran out and picked up a few things," Nathaniel said.

"We? You and Damian went out during the day just to shop?" I asked.

"Sunlight doesn't burn me anymore," Damian said, studying me with those pure green eyes of his.

"I know, but you still don't like going out in it."

"Nathaniel was with me," he said.

"And that made you feel safer," I said.

He put an arm around the other man's shoulders. Nathaniel put his head a little to the side so his auburn hair and Damian's red intermingled like two streams of some blood-colored sea where the tides meet. It was like Damian's eyes were the color of leaves to complement Nathaniel's flower-colored ones.

I shook my head forcefully and looked at the floor. The carpet was new, too. It was dark brown with a pattern of green leaves and autumn-colored flowers on it. I wondered if Damian realized he'd just given up one color of flower for another.

I heard the bed move before Nathaniel crawled into sight, gazing up at me from the ground so I couldn't hide behind the thick fall of my hair. He gazed up at me with

those large lilac-colored eyes. He was improbable, too beautiful, but it was his eyes that tipped the scale from beautiful to something exotic and unreal, like an orchid grown in some hothouse. I could almost feel the heat and humidity of it. I closed my eyes so I couldn't see him, and it was better. The air was less close. I should have started backing out of the room and run for it, but I just closed my eyes, as if that would save me. That hadn't been a good strategy since I was five and I believed that if I couldn't see the monster under the bed he couldn't get me. If there'd really been something under my bed it wouldn't have worked then, either.

Nathaniel traced his fingers along my arm, the lightest of touches, but it was enough to make me open my eyes and drown in that violet gaze. I was better than this, damn it! I knew how to escape vampire gaze, but then he wasn't really a vampire and I'd never met a wereleopard who could capture me with his eyes.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight and shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. He caressed my arm again, but I was able to keep my eyes closed this time. I'd played this game with Jean-Claude for years. Of course, that had been back when he wasn't sure I wouldn't tell him to go to hell and mean it. It had limited what he would risk, how far he would push. Nathaniel didn't have those kinds of doubts. Nothing gives you courage like believing someone loves you absolutely.

He ran his fingers along my arm again, and another hand echoed him on the other side of me. It made me open my eyes. Nathaniel was still kneeling in front of me, but Damian was kneeling beside him now. It was his hand caressing my right arm, while Nathaniel stroked the left. I opened my mouth to protest, but I wasn't sure what I was protesting. We were all lovers already, and the pilot had informed Jean-Claude, who had informed me, that we had a couple of hours more before we could take off.

As if he'd read my thoughts, Nathaniel said, "We have at least two more hours before we need to be at the plane. We had sex, but you didn't feed the ardeur, because I didn't know how."

I had to cough to clear my voice before I could say, "Jean-Claude wishes Rafael were here so I could feed on all the rats through him before we leave."

"Rafael won't get back in time to feed you," he said, rising higher on his knees so he could bring his face closer to mine.

I straightened up so that I wasn't half-bending over toward him.

Damian leaned in to lay the brush of his lips against my arm, too delicate to even be called a kiss. It made me shiver and wrap both my arms around myself as if I were cold, but it wasn't cold that had made me shiver. I should walk out, leave . . . now.