The Harlequin (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 15)

Chapter Twenty

THIS TIME I chose a black shirt, because my last clean bra was hanging up to dry in the bathroom. I was never entirely comfortable without a bra. I wasn't sure whether the fact that the black baby-doll shirt was tight enough that it helped support my breasts was a good thing or not. I think I would have preferred the shirt to be looser. Tight felt better, but it looked like I'd done it on purpose, rather than just running out of clothes. Also, braless the shoulder holster fit, but if I had to draw the gun I'd brush the edge of my breast. It was a small irritation, but it could make you hesitate for a second. Sometimes a second was enough to get you killed. I stood in the bathroom, grumpy and uncomfortable. It was like my skin was too small. Itchy with embarrassment and swallowed anger. I searched myself, with the same "eyes" that let you see images in your head, for that spot where the Harlequin had marked me. It was gone, but I could still see the spot like a bruise. A metaphysical bruise, as if their touch had hurt me in a way that would last.

I dried my hair a little more with a towel and actually scrunched some hair-care product in the curls. I was half embarrassed that I used stuff on my hair, but Jean-Claude had convinced me there was no shame to a little pampering. It still felt girlie to do it. Should you be worried about your hair frizzing when you wear a gun at least twelve of any given twenty-four hours? Seemed like you shouldn't.

There was a soft knock on the door. "What?" I asked, and even to me it sounded angry. Shit.

"I'm sorry, Anita, but Jean-Claude sent me to check on you."

"Sorry, Clay, it's just been one of those days already."

"Breakfast is waiting in the living room," he said through the closed door.

"Is there coffee?" I asked.

"Fresh, from the guards' break room."

I took in a deep breath, let it out, and went for the door. Coffee. Everything would be better after coffee.

I expected Graham to be with Clay, but it was Sampson. He wasn't a guard. In fact, he was sort of a visiting prince. He was the eldest son of the Master Vampire of Cape Cod, Samuel. Their vampire group wanted a closer tie with us, and one way to do that was for Sampson to audition as my new pomme de sang - apple of blood, like a kept mistress. It had been Nathaniel's job until he moved up the power structure to my animal to call. Now I needed a new snacky bit, whether I liked it, or whether I didn't. The ardeur needed more food. So far I'd managed to avoid having sex with Sampson. Since he was almost as embarrassed about the whole situation as I was, well, it hadn't been that hard to avoid. It wasn't that he wasn't handsome. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a fall of dark curls that were identical to his father's. He even had his father's hazel eyes. In fact, he was one of those sons who looked like the father had cloned himself, except he was a few inches taller, and somehow softer. But then Samuel was over a thousand years old. You didn't survive that long in vampire society by being soft. You certainly didn't rise to be Master of the City by being soft, and you sure as hell didn't stay there by being anything but hard.

Sampson smiled at me, and it was a nice smile, boyish, a little bashful. He was wearing a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled back and the collar loose. The shirt was untucked over dress slacks. He was barefoot. His mother was a mermaid, a siren, and it made Sampson react more like a shapeshifter sometimes. He didn't like shoes, though he did like clothes better than my furry friends. Maybe water is colder?

"We're shorthanded, remember?" Clay said.

"I remember." Though I didn't sound happy about it.

"Am I that big a disappointment?" Sampson asked, but his smile widened, and his eyes twinkled with it. He never seemed to take my bad moods personally. Of course, I'd met his mother, Thea. She was like the ocean: calm one minute, rising up to kill you the next. I think she'd sort of broken him to the thought that women were moody.

"Thanks for volunteering to be food so the red shirt guards could be elsewhere," I said, and my voice sounded nicely dry and sarcastic.

"I heard you'd already fed the ardeur," he said.

I nodded.

He held his arm out to me. "Then allow me to escort you to your master, and real food."

I sighed, but I took his arm. Sampson was supposed to have been a short-term loan. To the larger vampire community he was here to try out for the position of pomme de sang. That was half the truth. The other half was that his mother was a siren, and the last of her kind. She was a genetic queen among the merfolk, magical, powerful, and most of that magic was sexual in nature. All mermaids could be alluring to mortals, but sirens could force you to wreck your ship. They could call you down to the sea and drown you and you'd enjoy it. They were sort of like master vampires, except more specialized, and more rare. Like I said, Thea was the last of her kind, unless her sons could be brought into their full power.

Problem was, the only way to bring a siren into their power was sex with another siren. Since Thea was the last of her kind and her sons were the last potential of her bloodline, well, it was all too Oedipus Rex for comfort.

She actually had no problem with doing the job herself. She'd been worshipped as a goddess once a few thousand years ago. Gods and goddesses married each other all the time, or at least fucked. But Samuel, though a thousand years old, was more conventional. He told her if she approached Sampson again for it, he'd kill her. Furthermore, if she approached their seventeen-year-old twin sons at all, he'd kill her. Again, so Greek tragedy. But if their sons could be as powerful as Thea, or even close, then suddenly Samuel's family would rule the East Coast. They just would. They were our allies and friends. Jean-Claude had called Samuel friend for a few centuries. Them powerful didn't seem like a bad idea.

The idea was that the ardeur might be similar enough to siren power that I might be able to bring Sampson into his sirenhood. If I could, great. If I couldn't, then Thea had promised to leave her sons alone and accept that she was the last of the sirens. That her sons being half human, or half vampire, depending on how you looked at it, meant they weren't mermaid enough to be what she was. See why I'd agreed to keeping Sampson around for a while? I mean, I was like their only chance to avoid a family tragedy of epic proportions. But it still made me feel squeachy.

But I slid my left arm through his arm. I let him lead me to the door, with Clay ahead of us doing the bodyguard thing. Though, frankly, since I was the only one armed, I didn't feel all that protected. The only wolf I'd seen with a gun had been Jake. Jake had a military background, so Richard had given him permission to carry weaponry. I'd asked Richard's permission to take some of the wolf guards to the shooting range and see who could handle a gun. He'd said he'd think about it. I had no idea why he had a problem with the werewolves being armed, but he was Ulfric, wolf king, and his word was law. I was lupa, but in wolf society that's more like an uber-girlfriend. It's not a queen, and it's not equal. I preferred leopard society; it was less sexist. Nimir-Ra truly was equal to Nimir-Raj.

We were still in the stone corridor, with the draped walls of the living room in sight, when I heard enough voices to know it was a lot more than Jean-Claude waiting for me. Clay lifted to one side the heavy spill of drapes that made up the living room walls so Sampson and I could enter.

Jean-Claude and Richard had to turn on the couch to look as we entered. Jean-Claude's face remained pleasant and welcoming as he stood. Richard's face clouded over, his gaze flicking to Sampson on my arm. Richard fought to control his emotions, the effort visible on his face and in the set of his shoulders, the way his hands flexed. I appreciated that he was trying.

I appreciated the effort enough that I let go of Sampson's arm and went to Richard. I leaned over the couch and kissed him on the cheek. He looked surprised, as if it had been a long time since I had kissed him first. There were, after all, so many choices. Micah stood across the room, setting his plate down on the glass coffee table with the rest of the food that someone had brought into the underground. Nathaniel was sitting on the floor by the table. He smiled at me, but he stayed where he was. He'd wait his turn for his greeting. I went to Jean-Claude next because he was closest. If we were doing formal we did the greetings more formally, but at breakfast with just us we tried not to sweat the niceties. Sampson had been raised in a kiss of vampires that did it old-school, which meant they all did the Miss Manners version, vampire style, no matter the hour or the event. By those rules I'd already made three mistakes. One, I had let go of Sampson's arm. You stayed on your escort's arm until someone more powerful got you off that arm, or until your escort introduced you to someone he was willing to give you up to. Two, I'd greeted someone in the room before I'd greeted the Master of the City. Three, I'd greeted a wereanimal ruler before greeting the highest-ranking vamp in the room. Old-school meant that no one was more important than the vampires. The exception to this rule at Sampson's home was his mother, Thea. Technically she was Samuel's animal to call, but if Sampson's father had any weakness it was Thea, so you ignored her at your peril. She was queen to Samuel's king no matter what vampire rules said.

Jean-Claude was in one of his very formal white shirts, with a real cravat held in place with a silver and sapphire stickpin on his chest. He'd even put on a black velvet jacket with matching silver buttons. It was very militaristic. The shirt I'd seen before, or one like it; the jacket was new - to me, at least. I hadn't seen it yet, but I was pretty sure somewhere in the underground there was a huge room full of nothing but Jean-Claude's clothes. The pants were actually cloth but fit tighter than any dress slacks I'd ever seen. The tight pants smoothed into thigh-high boots that were black and leather and had silver buckles up the side of them from ankle to midthigh. He was way too dressed up for just a family breakfast. When he drew me into his arms, the curls that brushed my face were still damp from the shower. If he took the time to bathe, he'd take the time to dry his hair.

"You seem tense, ma petite" he whispered into my own damp hair.

"You're way too well dressed for breakfast, and your hair is still damp, which means you dressed in a hurry. Why the rush?"

He kissed me gently, but I didn't close my eyes or relax into the kiss. He sighed. "You are too observant for comfort at times, ma petite. We were going to allow you to finish your breakfast before we discussed business."

"What business?" I asked.

Micah came up beside us. I went from Jean-Claude's arms to his, and found that Micah, too, was too dressed up. He was in charcoal-gray dress pants and a pale green silk shirt, tucked into the pants. He was even wearing shiny dress shoes that were a few shades darker than the pants. Someone had French-braided his still-damp hair, which gave the illusion that his hair was very short and close to his head. It left his face bare so that all I could see was how very pretty he was. The bones of his face were damn near feminine. Somehow with some of his curls to distract the eye you didn't notice it as much. The green shirt made his chartreuse eyes green, green like seawater with sunlight through it, swimmingly green with gold light caught in it.

I had to close my eyes to say, "What business?"

"Rafael has requested a breakfast meeting," Micah said.

That made me open my eyes. "Clay told me Rafael was wanting something other than money for the extra guards."

Micah nodded.

"Rafael is our ally and our friend, right? Why are you guys dressed up and all serious?" I looked around the room. When I caught sight of Claudia, she looked away. She looked uncomfortable, as if whatever Rafael wanted embarrassed her. What the hell could it be?

Nathaniel came to us, his ankle-length hair unbound and still heavy with water. He'd dried it, but it just took a while for that much hair to dry completely. This wet, the hair looked closer to a simple deep brown than the nearly copper auburn that it was. He was still carrying the couch cushion he'd been balancing his plate on, though the plate was on the table. He carried the cushion in front of his waist and groin. All I could see below the cushion was a pair of cream-colored leather boots that hit him midthigh.