The Killing Dance (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 6)

A burning wash of color crept up my face. I had no good excuse for the foreplay that got out of hand. I was weak, so sue me. "I gave you blood because you were dying. I'd have never done it otherwise. You know that."

He stared at me. It wasn't vampire tricks that made me want to look away. It was a raw honesty that I'd never seen in his face before. "I know that now, ma petite. When we returned from Branson, you threw yourself into Richard's arms as though he were a lifeline. We continued to date, but you drew away. I felt it and did not know how to stop it."

He sat up on the bed, hands clasped in his lap. A look of frustration and confusion passed over his face. "I have never had another woman deny me, ma petite."

I laughed. "Oh, your ego isn't big."

"It is not ego, ma petite, it is the truth."

I leaned against the bathroom door and thought about that one. "No one in almost three hundred years has ever said no to you?"

"You find that so hard to believe?"

"If I can do it, so can they."

He shook his head. "You do not appreciate how very harsh your strength of will is, ma petite. It is impressive. You have no idea how impressive."

"If I'd fallen into your arms the first time we met, or even the dozenth time we met, you'd have bedded me, bled me, and dumped me."

I watched the truth of my words fill his face. I hadn't realized until this moment how much control he kept over his facial expressions, how it was the lack of reaction that made him seem more otherworldly than he was.

"You are right," he said. "If you had giggled and fawned over me, I would not have given you a second glance. Your partial immunity to my powers was the first attraction. But it was your stubbornness that intrigued me. Your flat refusal of me."

"I was a challenge."

"Yes."

I stared into his suddenly open face. For the first time, I thought I might see the truth in his eyes. "Good thing I resisted. I don't like being used and tossed aside."

"Once you were only a challenge, something to be conquered. Then I became intrigued by your growing powers. I saw possibilities that I could use you to strengthen my position if only you would join with me."

Something like pain passed over his face, and I wanted to ask if it was real. If any of this was real, or if it was only another act. I trusted Jean-Claude to do whatever it took to stay alive. I didn't trust him to tell the truth sitting on a stack of Bibles.

"I saved your ass enough times. I'm your declared human servant. What more do you want?"

"You, ma petite." He stood, but didn't come closer. "It is no longer challenge or the promise of power that makes me look to you."

My pulse was suddenly thudding in my throat, and he hadn't done a damn thing.

"I love you, Anita."

I stared at him, my eyes growing wide. I opened my mouth, closed it. I didn't believe him. He lied so easily, so well. He was the master of manipulation. How could I believe him now? "What do you want me to say?"

He shook his head, and his face fell back into its normal lines. That beautiful perfection that was what passed for ordinary. But I knew now that even this was a mask, hiding his deeper emotions.

"How did you do that?"

"After several centuries of being forced to school your face into pleasant, unreadable lines, you lose the knack of anything else. My survival has depended on my expression more than once. I wish you understood the effort that little display of humanity cost me."

"What do you want me to say, Jean-Claude?"

"You love me a little, that I am sure of."

I shrugged. "Maybe, but a little isn't enough."

"You love Richard a lot, don't you?"

I met his eyes and wanted to lie, to save his feelings, but those kinds of lies hurt more than the truth. "Yeah."

"Yet, you have not made your choice. You have not told me to leave the two of you to matrimonial bliss. Why is that?"

"Last time we had this talk, you said you'd kill Richard."

"If that is all that is stopping you, ma petite, have no fear. I will not kill Richard merely because you go to his bed and not mine."

"Since when?" I asked.

"When I threw my support to Richard, Marcus became my enemy. That cannot be changed." He leaned his shoulder against the dark wooden bedpost closest to me. "I had thought to petition another pack. There is always an ambitious alpha male out there somewhere. Someone who would like his own pack but either through sentimentality or lack of strength is doomed to play second forever. I could kill Richard and bring someone else in to kill Marcus."

I listened to his plan told so matter-of-factly. "What changed your mind?"

"You."

"Come again?"

"You love him, ma petite. You truly love him. His death would destroy something inside of you. When Julianna died, I thought I would never feel for anyone again. And I didn't, until I met you."

"You won't kill Richard because it would hurt me?"

"Oui."

"So I could tell Richard when he gets here that I've chosen him, and you would let us go off, get married, whatever?"

"Isn't there one hurdle to your marriage besides myself?" he asked.

"What?"

"You must see him change into wolf form." Jean-Claude smiled and shook his head. "If Richard was human, you would meet at the door with a smile and a yes. But you fear what he is. He is not human enough for you, ma petite."

"He isn't human enough for himself," I said.

Jean-Claude raised his eyebrows. "Yes, Richard runs from his beast, as you have run from me. But Richard shares a body with his beast. He cannot outrun it."

"I know that."

"Richard is still running, ma petite. And you run with him. If you were secure that you could accept him, all of him, you would have done it by now."

"He keeps finding excuses not to change for me."

"He fears your reaction," Jean-Claude said.

"It's more than that," I said. "If I can embrace his beast, I'm not sure he'll be able to accept me."

Jean-Claude cocked his head to one side. "I do not understand."

"He hates what he is so badly. I think if I can accept his beast, he won't... he won't love me anymore."

"Being able to embrace his beast would make you what... perverse?"

I nodded. "I think so."

"You are trapped on the horns of a nasty dilemma, ma petite. He will not make love to you or marry you until you have seen and accepted his beast. Yet if you accept it, you fear he will turn from you."

"Yeah."

He shook his head. "Only you could choose two men in one human lifetime that are this confusing."

"I didn't do it on purpose."

He pushed away from the bed. He stopped two small steps from me, staring down. "I tried to play the mortal for you, ma petite. But Richard is much better at being human than I am. I have not been truly human for so very long. If I cannot be the better man, let me be the better monster."

My eyes narrowed. "What's that suppose to mean?"