Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

The sorrow among us all, the almost possibilities stretched among us like a light going out. Nathaniel said, "No, not this time." He kissed me, and with Jean-Claude and Richard so deep in my head and heart, it startled me, as if the bedroom in St. Louis was more real than the van and the men touching me here. It was what the three of us could have been and never were. I let myself fall into Nathaniel's kiss, fall into the total abandon of his love, his desire. He had no stop, held nothing back. It had scared the hell out of me at first, but now I realized that was why he was in my life, why he was my leopard to call, why we wore each other's rings.

The sorrow from Richard was drowning deep, like the ocean had suddenly poured over us to dampen our spirits and drown us in "what might have beens." Damian's own sorrow spilled like blood into the ocean of Richard's regrets. Nathaniel drew back from our kiss, and his eyes were solid, glowing lavender like flower petals with the summer sun behind them.

I whispered, "No."

"Yes," he said. "Say yes."

"To what?" Richard asked all the way from St. Louis.

"Happiness, just be happy," Nathaniel said, and he turned those glowing eyes to Damian.

The vampire looked at him for a long moment, and then he leaned into Nathaniel's need and they kissed. It was gentle, almost chaste, but watching them kiss from inches away thrilled through me like it always did. Two men, both my lovers, kissing right there in front of me--what was not to love?

Richard felt my body react to that kiss, and his regret swept up and over the excitement in my body and the lightness in my heart and drowned them both.

"What the hell are you doing back there?" Brennan said from the front seat beside Donnie.

Kaazim said, "We need to park and give them some privacy, or at least distance from this level of metaphysics."

"What?" Brennan asked.

"They're doing magic," Dev said.

"In the van?" Donnie asked.

"Yes," Kaazim said.

"God, Richard, just enjoy being in the moment," I said.

"You're not in the moment," he said to the air, as if I was in the room.

I would never have said so out loud, but we were too far into one another's heads, so the thought came crystal clear. "And whose fault is that?"

"Mine," he said, "yours, his." He kissed Jean-Claude on the head the way you'd kiss a child, affectionately, but it meant nothing. I didn't understand how it could mean nothing, when he was naked in bed with Jean-Claude. The possibilities for me were almost endless.

"Who's Richard?" Brennan asked.

"Park," Nicky said.

When Damian and Nathaniel pulled back from the kiss, Damian slid his sunglasses off, and the vampire's eyes were shining green fire. Green and lavender eyes turned to me aglow with power and peaceful happiness. Even here in the country where Damian had known so much pain and after the nightmare Nathaniel and I had just shared, we were still happier than Richard. We were scrambling to find someone to keep them from being victims again, and I couldn't stop the memory of Riley's scars from crossing from my mind to theirs. Once that memory crossed, everything followed in seconds; minutes later they both knew why we were searching for him, the nightmare that was half memory, just not our memory.

"Park soon," Nicky said.

Richard held Jean-Claude closer, but again it was for comfort and not for romance. "Well, that's awful," Richard said.

"Ma petite, if we interfere to save the Selkie and his people, it will be war between us and Ireland, for she is master of that country. She is the vampire queen of Ireland."

"She's lost control, Jean-Claude."

"And some new vampire has smelled the weakness," Richard said.

"Yes."

Damian leaned closer to my face, until the green of his eyes seemed to fill my vision. He thought about memories of her torturing the Selkie like the CliffsNotes version of horrors. Richard pushed us away from him, but he could only push so far, because he wasn't comfortable enough with himself to have all the power at his command.

"I don't want that in my head," he said out loud.

"I left them behind, Richard," Damian said out loud in the van. "I thought I was helpless to save anyone but myself, but now I know differently. I know I am not powerless or weak. I have returned with a queen and her princes at my side."

"You speak of war," Jean-Claude said.

"How can you show us all those terrible things and then expect us to agree to you risking Anita falling into her hands?" Richard asked.

"I'm not a victim, Richard, no matter what happens. That doesn't change," I said.

Donnie found a parking spot. She turned the engine off, and we were suddenly sitting in silence that was too thick, like the way the air gets heavy before a storm. Damian leaned in even closer so that all I could see was green, and whispered, "I haven't fed yet today."

My stomach was suddenly cramping with hunger. Nathaniel grabbed my arm and the back of a chair. We were suddenly starving. I saw Jean-Claude's eyes spring to life in the nearly dark bedroom, blue, as if the midnight sky had caught fire. Richard's hands convulsed as he hugged the vampire to him.

"Ma petite, tell me you fed the ardeur since arriving in Ireland."

"We took a nap for the jet lag," I said.

"We haven't fed the ardeur today," Nathaniel said.

"And everybody out," Domino said, opening the door. All our people got out without any other prompting; they knew the drill. If you didn't donate blood and there was a hungry vampire in a van, you got out. If you weren't into group sex in a van on the streets of a foreign city, and the ardeur might rise, you got out.

Brennan couldn't get out fast enough, but Donnie wanted to know what was happening. Kaazim got her out of the van and called to Jake. They were like most of the Harlequin; they only donated blood to their masters, but Jake turned to us. "Tell Jean-Claude that there is a reason that vampires treat their moitie betes as lesser, because in the end there can only be one."

"One what?" I asked.

"King." Jake said, and closed the door to the van behind him.

54

NICKY STAYED, BECAUSE he wouldn't leave me, even if that meant he had to open a vein for a new vampire. Dev stayed, because he didn't have a problem with donating blood to the right vampire. I hadn't known that Damian qualified as the right vamp for him, especially with the ardeur as a possibility, but strange things had already happened in the last few days, so what was one more?

"I must close the ties between us more than this, ma petite, or one hunger could feed into another."

"Understood," I said.

"Why is the hunger so much worse?" Richard asked.

"Jet lag can make such things worse," Jean-Claude said.

"Now you tell me," I said.

"I did not dream you would leave your hotel room without feeding Damian."

I couldn't argue that; it had been careless, even stupid.

"I will think upon what you have shown me, ma petite. I will talk to Pierette and Pierrot since they traveled to the Emerald Isle more than any of the other Harlequin. Perhaps they will have more insight to share."

"Have Sin help you. Pierette talked to him a lot easier than I thought she would talk to anyone."

"I will include our young prince."

Damian pulled me out of my seat and drew me back into the dimness of the rear of the van. His eyes glowed brighter without the sunlight to compete with them. Nathaniel came with us.

After pushing Richard back onto the bed, Jean-Claude stroked the thickness of his hair to one side, so he could see the strong, clean line of his neck. In the van we didn't have enough room for even two of us to kneel comfortably. Nicky helped us fold up some of the seats, as if we were making room for getting a delivery.

I, we, felt Jean-Claude's bloodlust and underneath that, or entwined with it, was another kind of lust. It was as if something about my triumvirate powering up was affecting how much feedback we got between both groups.

Ri

chard rose and glared at the other man. "No," he said, as if we couldn't all feel exactly how negative his reaction was to Jean-Claude seeing him as a lust object.

Dev touched my arm, which made me look at him. "I need to know if it's as bad as the glimpses I'm feeling," he said as if that explained anything.

"If what is that bad?" I asked.

"Richard and Jean-Claude." He held on to my arm, and I could suddenly feel his energy like warm sunlight. It seemed to chase away the anxiety that had automatically attached to Richard's attitude. I realized it was just that: automatic. He behaved a certain way, and I felt a certain way. Jean-Claude had similar problems with him. It was as if he'd conditioned all three of us, himself included, to function badly together. I'd always assumed that Dev being so easy to deal with meant he wasn't a deep thinker, or a deep feeler, or somehow by being easy and fun, he was less. In that moment of warm clarity, I realized that Dev was easier because he simply had fewer hang-ups than the rest of us.

Richard snarled, "Get out of our heads, Devereux!" The moment he used the last name, I realized that bit of knowledge had to have come from my memories in Ireland. I hadn't shared that specifically with Richard, which raised the question of how much had just quietly been transferred between us all without anyone knowing.

"No," Dev said, "don't you go all serious, too."

"The serious tones down the ardeur," I said.

"But it will need to be fed today," Nicky said, "and you need to pick the time, not get surprised by it in the middle of a police investigation."

He had a point.

"Everyone has a point, but me," Richard said, and just like that, he wasn't pretty enough to overcome his deficits. I wasn't perfect, God knew, but I tried harder than this. That thought went through everyone's head, which didn't help anything.

Dev stopped touching me, and things were a little less bright. It felt depressing, like Jean-Claude, Richard, and I were just trapped on the hamster wheel of the same damn issues we'd been working on forever. I did my best to think how much I appreciated Richard working through his issues in therapy, but underlying all of it was the pattern the three of us had set up, a pattern that didn't work.

Dev was texting someone on his phone, which made me want to grab his phone and throw it. This was not the time or place, damn it! We were having a crisis.

"Ma petite, you must find a way to be less loud in our heads."

"I'm sorry. I don't mean . . ."