Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"Let us be your food," Damian said, and I was suddenly staring into the green of his eyes as if I'd never seen them before, never realized how fair of face, how . . .

I shook my head a little more forcefully and took two steps back so I wasn't between the two of them. "I'm going to . . . go somewhere . . . else."

"Why?" Nathaniel asked.

"I . . . You're trying to bespell me again."

"We're engaged. We'd marry if you could legally take more than one spouse. I'm not trying to force you to do anything we haven't already done. You have to feed the ardeur before we get on the plane. You can't risk feeding hundreds of miles in the air."

"I'd be too nervous," I said.

"That means it's more likely to get out of control, not less."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I tried to call up some anger to protect me from his so-reasonable voice and the two of them kneeling so close to me.

"What if you lost control on the plane and it spread to everyone?"

"I've only lost control like that once, and that was because the old vampire council was fucking with us."

"Emergencies happen, Anita; let's not make the ardeur one of them."

"This doesn't even sound like you, Nathaniel."

"Maybe it sounds like me," Damian said. "I'm afraid to go back to Ireland, but I'll do it for you."

"You're not doing it for me. You're doing it to help the police save lives."

"You can believe what you want, but if it had just been Edward asking me, I wouldn't be going. I'm going because my master wants me to go and my leopard is going with me to hold my hand. I want to help save lives and make up for some of the things I've done in my existence, but I am going for you, Anita."

I wanted to say, Don't go for me. Go for yourself, but I was afraid he'd change his mind, and we needed him. "I don't know what to say to that, Damian."

"Say you'll make love to us. Say you'll let us be your food."

They were right about one thing--I did need to feed before I got on the plane, but I was forgetting something. It was something important. Nathaniel's fingers played with the edge of his T-shirt, and began to slowly lift the cloth to bare the flatness of his abs an inch at a time.

I backed up a step. If I was going, it was time to leave, but why did I want to go? I loved Nathaniel. We had sex on a regular basis. There was no reason to run away, so why was I wanting to run? It was like I was forgetting something that I really needed to remember. Whatever I had forgotten was the reason why this wasn't a good idea, but for the life of me I couldn't think of it, just this nagging feeling that there was something.

I closed my eyes and turned around so I couldn't watch them slowly taking their shirts off. "There's something we're forgetting," I managed to say, "something important."

"You're missing the show that we're putting on just for you," Nathaniel said, in a voice that had more honey in it than I ever remembered, as if his words could drip down my skin in thick, sweet lines.

"This is wrong. It's the power talking. It's making us forget something important. A reason that we shouldn't feed now," I said.

Nathaniel said, "Turn around, Anita, please."

I started to do it, and had to catch myself, clenching my hands into fists.

"No, Nathaniel, she's right. We're both drunk on the new power. It's like when you're first in love. It makes you forget things."

"What sort of things?" Nathaniel asked, his voice sounding more normal.

"All sorts of things," I said.

"Important things," Damian said.

I opened my eyes and turned cautiously to them. They were both shirtless, which wasn't helpful, so I closed my eyes again. All I wanted to do was go to them and start touching all that bare skin.

"Everyone take a deep breath and ground and center," I said with my eyes still closed. I tried to follow my own advice, and found it much harder than it should have been. I knew how to control my breathing, and once you controlled that your pulse and heart had to follow. Either everything sped up, or nothing did. I knew all that, but I could still feel my pulse in my throat.

"We're going with you to Ireland," Damian said.

"That's the plan," I said in a voice that was still slightly breathless.

"Then you'll need to keep us for food there. If you feed on us now, we won't be any good to you for at least twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight. Two days where you'll have to find other food."

"We're taking Nicky," Nathaniel said.

"He can't feed her for two days by himself without compromising his ability to fight."

"We're taking Domino."

"He's emergency food only. He's not one of my lovers anymore, remember?" I said.

"Fortune, Echo, and Magda are going," Nathaniel said.

"Well, that's true," Damian said, and sounded less certain.

"I'm thinking of taking Dev, too," I said.

"See? She'll have plenty of food," Nathaniel said.

"But you weren't thinking that when you started us taking off our shirts."

The energy in the room was calmer now; I could think again. Whatever Nathaniel was doing had stopped. Damian had made him think too much about other things. It was hard to keep your concentration pure enough to do magic when you were having to think about relationship issues. Maybe that's why so many major witches and wizards throughout history never married?

"I'm sorry, Anita. Damian. You're right. If we'd been the only two lovers going to Ireland, I'd have still wanted the three of us to make love and feed the ardeur together. We've never done that before, and I know it's a rush when Anita and I do it with another person."

"I look forward to it," Damian said, "but not tonight. She should feed off someone who isn't traveling with us."

I looked at them and they were still yummy to see all shirtless and well, just handsome as hell, or maybe handsome as heaven--yeah, that sounded better--but they weren't so overwhelmingly beautiful that I had to have them now, right now. The compulsion was gone, replaced by my usual desire for Nathaniel, which was a near-constant like breathing, and there was a new spark when I looked at Damian that wasn't as strong, but it was most definitely there.

"I've never gotten this much power before. If I'm not careful I'll want to use it all the time." Nathaniel was frowning.

"I told you, it's like being in love, that new-relationship energy that almost overwhelms you, but feels so good."

"So instead of NRE it's NME?" I asked.

"I know NRE is new-relationship energy, but what's NME?" Nathaniel asked.

"New metaphysical energy," I said.

He grinned. "I like it, and it's accurate, especially because my new magic seems to be based on sex and love, but I like New Magical Energy, instead of Metaphysical."

"Lust and love are what Belle Morte's bloodline does best," Damian said.

"Lust is Belle Morte's line," I said. "Love is what Jean-Claude's power added to it when he became powerful enough to be his own bloodline."

Damian nodded. "It's true. There is a softer power to this energy than anything Belle Morte ever offered."

"Is love softer energy than lust?" I asked.

He thought about it and finally smiled. "No, no, I suppose it's not."

"Love is the hardest thing of all," Nathaniel said. "Just sex is so much easier."

I gave him a look.

He smiled at me. "It's like the difference between sleeping with someone and really sleeping with them. Having sex is easy compared to trying to learn to sleep with someone."

I laughed. "God, that is the truth."

"Love is even harder than sleeping overnight in the same bed for the first few times. They're both worth the effort, but you still have to work at it."

"You have to work at sex, too," I said.

It was his turn to give me a look.

"I mean, we all get better at it with each other, because we know what everyone enjoys and who has what skill set."

"I don't think I had to

work on much," he said.

I laughed again. "I can't really argue about the actual skills. It was the emotional issues that kept stopping us."

He nodded, no longer smiling.

"I don't think I've been with either of you enough to know what you enjoy," Damian said.

Nathaniel looked at him. "We'll fix that."

Damian started to be embarrassed, and then a calmness came over him. He seemed to steady, and held out his hand to Nathaniel. "Yes, we will."

"You just helped him be calmer about it all, didn't you?"

Nathaniel nodded and took the vampire's hand in his. "Just like he helped me get over my power trip just now."

"We're supposed to help each other," Damian said.