For reasons I didn't exactly understand, Richard and Jean Claude viewed my house as neutral territory. I would have thought that the part where it's my house, and two of my boyfriends live here, plus my vampire servant, who is also, sort of, my boyfriend, would make it completely unneutral, but I've never understood male pissing contests. It's not that I don't care about who's the most powerful player in our trio, but they calculate standing in funny ways. In any case, the three of us were sitting in my kitchen. Richard and I were eating, but it wasn't a date and it wasn't a feeding. It was a council of war.
"The logistics are not complicated. We can accommodate the Council's representatives with thirty shifters. Ten of the leopards have already agreed. Of your wolves, seventy-five are regularly feeding my vampires. I simply wish to ask them to switch their attentions for one week."
Richard shook his head. "I'm sorry; I'm not following." He really did look sorry, as well as very tired. Last week had been the full moon, and fifteen of his people had been wolves for less than four months. Riding herd on them had exhausted the whole pack, and that, combined with the fact that last week and this one were finals for Richard's junior high school, meant the poor guy was not handling our midnight meeting as well as might be hoped. Nothing to be done about it though, as business was booming at Animators, Inc., and I'd gotten here as soon as I could after work. "Why are we having to feed these guys at all? Everyone's going to be of Belle's line, right? Shouldn't they be able to convince people to feed them without breaking human law?"
Jean Claude nodded. "Yes, that is true. In fact, I would not be surprised if many of her entourage choose to hunt in the nightclubs of St. Louis. However, some of them will not—Belle, at least, and quite possibly her current lieutenant, Julian. Others will not be permitted, because they are either too old or too young to stay on the right side of the law."
"It's also possible Belle will instruct all of her entourage to take advantage of our hospitality, to test our ties with the shifters. It's unheard of for a Master of the City to have strong ties with three different wereanimal groups. So, can we ask for volunteers to feed?" I asked.
Richard nodded. "Just make it clear to your guys that anyone who is feeding Belle's vamps isn't supposed to feed the home team this week. I don't want my people overextending themselves. Your vamps can go to Danse Macabre or something, if their regular feed is unavailable."
"Done," said Jean Claude.
"Is that it? Is there anything else to discuss?" I was feeling testy. The fried chicken and biscuits Richard and I were eating was helping, but I hadn't fed the ardeur in twelve hours, and Asher was waiting for Jean Claude and me at the Circus of the Damned.
Jean Claude sat back in his chair and flashed a smile with no sex in it. I tensed, because that was the face he made at Richard when he was trying to convince Richard to do something Richard wouldn't like. "It would impress Belle if we appeared a triumvirate in all ways."
I could feel Richard get angry, and I didn't understand why. "We've discussed taking the fourth mark and decided against it. We don't have the hang of everything we gained when we started really using the third—."
Jean Claude shook his head. "No, ma petite, I understand perfectly well that Richard is not ready to give up his mortality and I agree. I speak of other things."
I looked from him to Richard and back again. "What are you talking about? What other things?"
"Sex, Anita, he means sex." Richard didn't quite growl, but his anger rose with each word he spoke. "He wants a piece of my ass, and he wants to use Belle's threat to get it."
"Oh," I sighed, and as soon as I did, I regretted it.
"And you want to watch!" Richard leapt from the table, walked to the patio doors and put his head against the glass.
I hesitated. I had recently figured out that having two men at once just flat did it for me, and most of the male pairs in my life had more than accidental contact with each other. Men with each other wasn't a specific turn on, but it didn't hurt. I couldn't figure out how to tell Richard such a nuanced truth without pissing him off more. Jean Claude was much better at using words that way.
"I do not want to use Belle to bring you to my bed, though I would welcome you if you came to me of your own accord. You are a beautiful man, Richard, and these marks between us create emotional bonds along with the metaphysical." He paused, looked at me, then to Richard's back. "You do not desire me in that way, and I do not want those who are truly uninterested. However, if we shared sex before Belle Morte's arrival and while she is here, it would solidify our position. It would make Belle believe in the strength of our tie, and it would protect you against advances from those in her court, both male and female. None in Belle Morte's line is monogamous, but the concept of—there was a word Jason used—polifidelity is not unknown."
Jean Claude sighed and pushed his hair back from his face. It was Richard's gesture more than his own, and any other time, it would have made me smile. "I am not asking, I am merely saying that it is a simple and painless way to strengthen our position in a dangerous situation."
Richard, head still pressed to the glass, shook his head. "No."
Jean Claude sighed, but I could tell he hadn't expected anything else. "Fine. If we all understand the roles we are to play—."
My doorbell rang.
"I'm not expecting anyone," I said.
Richard shook his head and Jean Claude shrugged. "I know of no particular reason for alarm, ma petite, but caution seems best."
I nodded. I couldn't think of anyone trying to kill me right now, but I'm far enough off the beaten path that I don't get casual visitors. Anyway, no one gets casual visitors at 1:30 in the morning.
The three of us went in the living room very quietly and got right by the door, careful not to block the peephole. We all reached for the other side of it with our powers. All I got back was negative information: not dead, not a shapeshifter, not magical in any way I could sense. But we were open enough to each other that I knew what the other two had picked up. Jean Claude felt the man's emotions and they were disturbingly neutral, the unruffled calmness of the hired killer at work or the psychopath. It was not absolute: concern and obligation were hinted at, and there was no sense of urgency or intention to harm, but that wasn't terribly comforting. Richard could smell the man's guns through the door. That's not as remarkable as it sounds, because the guy was loaded for bear.
I motioned the other two back a little, so they wouldn't be visible when I opened the door. When I did, I saw Edward.
He was smiling.
"I don't have time to kill things right now," I said. I like Edward, I do. He's one of my few friends who is entirely human these days. But our friendship is based on the fact that I often run across interesting monsters to kill and Edward likes to help me do it. Just now, with Bell Morte arriving tomorrow night, I wanted to avoid as many deaths as I could. And truthfully, I wasn't killing monsters out of hand like I did in the old days. Now, I want to know someone's really done something bad before I get rid of them. I think it's my version of maturity.
I smiled at Edward anyway.
"Oh, Anita, can't you please come out and play? I have a present for you."
I was tempted. Edward is ex-CIA or NSA or something like that. He gets hold of some absolutely amazing weapons, and he can be generous when he's in the mood. "I really can't, unless there's something very bad happening here now. I've got things to do in St. Louis for the next week, and I can't get out of them." I stepped back, out of the doorway. "But come in. Jean Claude and Richard are here, I'm sure you remember them." I gestured to each man in turn. "Guys, this is Edward. He's my friend." I led everyone to the living room and used up the last of my hostess skills offering Edward something to drink. I wished Nathaniel were here, but both he and Damian were working until later, and Micah was out babysitting the first new wereleopard in St. Louis since he and I combined pards.
"You won't believe this, Anita, but I'm not here to kill things."
I blinked, once and then twice. "You're not?"
"Anita, can I talk to you alone?"
I frowned. Edward was being very strange. I don't like it when people I think I know start acting in strange ways. "Not tonight, Edward. If it's that important, spit it out in front of these guys. And, if it's not, come back in a week. I wasn't kidding about being busy."
Edward smiled, but he didn't bother to put good humor in his eyes. They were dead. "Last time I saw you, you were worried about how close you were getting to the monsters, how far you had let them in. And now, I hear you've picked up a leopard pack and another vampire, in addition to getting back together with the Master of the City and the Wolf King."
"Two vampires," was all I could think to say.
"What?" said Edward. He looked annoyed, like I'd thrown off his rhythm.
"I picked up two vampires to go with these two, his old boyfriend," I pointed behind my back at Jean Claude, "and my vampire servant."
"Your vampire servant? What the hell is that?"
"Like if I had a human servant, only I'm more or less human and he's a vampire. First time I ever heard of it, either."
Edward shook his head. "Anita, I wanted," he frowned, "I wanted to come and help pull you back before you got in too deep with the monsters, but it sounds like—."
He stopped talking, probably because of the expression on my face. There are lots of girls who would have been touched when a friend tried to pull them out of a relationship with a vampire and a werewolf. I was sitting there wondering if I'd have to kill Edward to stop him from killing someone I loved or if my threat was enough.
Edward stood up, but he put up his hands with the fingers spread wide at the same time, so I didn't go for my gun. I did move my hand to draw a little easier. "I owe you. Peter and Becca." He took a step toward me, stopped when I put my hand on my gun. "I owe you, and I can't pay you back with a gun or a corpse this time. I talked to Donna about what to do—didn't describe your particulars, I just said you were involved with a vampire and I was worried—and she said to come out here and talk to you. But that's not what I do and it's probably not what you need. I mean, you're making a mistake, sleeping with monsters, but if I say it one more time you're going to kill me before I kill them." I nodded, because it was close enough to true. "So what do I do, Anita? How do I make us even?"
Jean Claude cleared his throat. "We are not as badly off as we once were, but we are still low on warriors. As a Renfield, he could go armed. Death is not a bad man to have on our side, should it come to a fight."
I said, "Edward, sit down, you're making me nervous." He did, and I moved my hand back away from my gun. "The business I have to take care of this week is another envoy from the Vampire Council. Belle Morte is, well, she thinks she's my sourdre de sang, and she's been detailed to come take a look see. The Council's business is actually with Malcolm and the Church of Eternal Life, but she wants to come look at us because—." I stopped for a second. Was there a way to summarize? "There's a lot of freaky metaphysical noise in St. Louis centered on me, and she wants to see what she can do with me and it. If you take the next week to be our Renfield, and you don't get anyone killed, we'll be even. If one of my people dies and it's your fault, I'll probably kill you."
Edward smiled. "Fair enough."
Looking around the Circus of the Damned, I thought it was a shame that it was closed for business this week. The people who pay money for the normal circus/horror show that Jean Claude puts on would pay even more to see two vampire entourages meet and mingle like this.
Because so many of Jean Claude's people were recent arrivals or shapeshifters and might not recognize each other as being on the same side, we'd insisted that all of Belle's people wear one color. She'd picked red, and there were twenty bright red spots in the white and black everyone on my side was wearing, if they were dressed. Many of the shifters were naked or had little scraps of black or white leather over the arteries they didn't want anyone to feed from. They were there mostly as hors d'oeuvres. This was a cocktail party. We'd invited Malcolm to send up to three vampire representatives from the Church, and three grandmotherly women in powder blue evening gowns were huddled in one corner. Anytime I let my shields drop a little, I could feel the lust rolling off of that corner of the room. It was disconcerting, and I was just glad that none of them looked like my own grandmother while I was getting that kind of emotional overload from them.
I was hanging on Jean Claude's arm, because I hate small talk of all kinds and he is very good at it. Unfortunately for me, he was talking in Italian with a short, dark vampire he'd been close to one hundred fifty years before I was born. The man bore an uncanny resemblance to Ricky Ricardo, which he was doing his best to hide with dramatic makeup and very long hair. I wanted to ask where Lucy was, but I knew better.
I would have gone to hang out with Asher, but he was avoiding any social event he could. Too many of these people knew him before the Catholic Church scarred his face and killed his human servant. Time with Jean Claude and with me was healing the emotional scars, but he wanted this week to be over more than almost anyone.
Richard was across the room, talking to a werecheetah who had come with Belle Morte. He was wearing a tuxedo Jean Claude had bought him. Richard has his own, but there was a high possibility that some sort of bodily fluid would wind up on this one, and he can't really afford more than one. He certainly could not have afforded the one Jean Claude had bought, an Armani out of some material that clung much tighter than a tuxedo usually does, without either looking cheap or restricting his range of motion. I was taking in the view, but not imagining anything in particular.
Jean Claude and Asher had suggested that I try broadcasting my lust, creating a selective permeation of my shields to let it, but not the ardeur, affect those near me. They told me that control over my lust, the ability to use it on other people, would impress Belle Morte. I told them no. For one thing, permeable shield walls made my head hurt, and for another, I don't have sex in public. But I didn't feel bad about looking at Richard, now that I was allowed to touch him later.
Someone walked too close for me to keep drooling, and I turned to face Edward. "Enjoying yourself so far?"
"I don't know if enjoy is the right word, Anita. Believe it or not, I go to lots of dinner parties, but nine times out of ten, it's somewhere I talk about hunting things with a gun or knife, not with teeth and claws. Just had a very interesting discussion with a werelion and a vampire who looks like she got turned when she was about thirteen. We debated fox hunting naked on foot versus on a horse with bows and arrows."
"Well, if you don't want to talk about hunting, you could try, um, art? Do you have any interests besides making other people dead?" I looked at Edward, and realized I knew almost nothing about him. Even when I visited him on his home turf, I mostly found out how he looked to other people. I didn't know if he had hobbies or favorite television shows or a preference for Chinese food.
"Nineteenth century serial novels. Like Dickens. I collect first editions."
I frowned. "I'm not sure I believe you. I didn't see any in Arizona."
"'Ted' doesn't read anything but the NRA newsletter; of course you didn't see them. When I say collect, I mean I acquire them and donate them to my alma mater."
I frowned more. "You donate books to your—." The air changed. The level of lust in the room, which had run a little higher than is usual for a cocktail party, but hadn't begun to touch the crowd's at Guilty Pleasures, was suddenly as intense as an orgy's.
Belle Morte walked in the door.
The temptation is to say that she slinked or slithered or glided through the door, but she didn't. She walked. She took one step after another, and I could see how every limb was exquisitely put together, how the skin was soft and the hair was shiny, and the hands would touch me the right way and her mouth would swallow me down. I wanted her, and I just don't think of women that way.
I was so mad. I wasn't being rolled. Belle Morte was doing what Jean Claude and Asher had advised me to do, she was projecting her lust, making the whole room feel just how much she wanted to be having sex, and just how good we would find doing it with her. It didn't even seem as if she was doing this especially for her grand entrance, more as if she walked around wanting sex all of the time. But it was enough to erect every man in the room, and I could see the wetness sliding down my leopard Cherry's legs. I wanted to shoot someone, and I wasn't particularly choosy about who. I didn't, but I knew that killing something would have made me feel better.
Edward put his hand on my shoulder, and I jumped back. I was not willing to touch anyone this evening I had not already gotten to know in the biblical sense, and Edward was not on that list.
"That's Belle Morte, right?" he asked. "I thought she was supposed to be real hot stuff."
I blinked at him. Between the want and the rage, I couldn't concentrate on his words. I was looking at his thin, pale lips, and wanting to push him down to suckle my breasts, or to gut him.
"She's supposed to be this goddess among women, a Venus or a succubus, right? I'm not really seeing it."
I blinked at him some more. Belle was short and she was bigger around than I was at the waist, but she fit beautifully in her own skin. The honeyed whiteness of it, the golden brown eyes, and silky brown hair were all the genuine article. She wasn't using her power to enhance her beauty in any way. "Edward, what are you talking about?"
He gestured toward his crotch. He was as hard as any other man in the room. "That's not me. I'm not psychic, but I can tell that she's not what I want. She's doing something, and it's making me think things I'd pretty much stopped thinking." He moved his hand the wrong way and I went for my gun. Then he pulled his hand away and nodded. "Yeah. I'd miss you and your monsterhunting if you were gone, and I can't die right now, not with the kids. So, this is the first time in a long time I've thought about Our Last Time." And he smiled at me, and I could feel his lust, even when everything was washed over with Belle's, and it was vicious, but not bloody, weirdly inverted from the way shapeshifters and the vampires were. "But she," and he pointed with his chin in Belle's direction, "isn't doing much for me."
Jean Claude turned around. "Never say that. Don't think it. There will be trouble."
And then I felt her approach, and I knew there was trouble already.
I grabbed Jean Claude's hand, because it made speaking in his thoughts that much easier. "Why do I want her?"
He answered me the same way. "She is your sourdre de sang and she is Belle Morte."
Richard came up on my other side and grabbed my hand. "But Anita's not a vampire!" He was screaming in my head and he'd grabbed my gun hand. I pulled back, away from both of them.
"Anita," Belle said. I swallowed. Being this close to her was almost like being in the grip of the ardeur. Her voice was beautiful, high, pure, sweet, a little breathless. "Anita, your slave has said an unkind thing. Very unkind."
Fear and lust and rage mixed together in my stomach. Fear and rage I dealt with all the time, and rage and lust were increasingly common, but all three together were nauseating. "No offense was meant, Belle Morte." I made a sketchy curtsy, without taking my eyes from her.
"What happened?" Richard asked, out loud this time.
Edward shrugged. "I said she doesn't do it for me."
I thought about hurting Edward, but I didn't want to give Belle the satisfaction. Also, no one was dead yet, so he hadn't earned it.
"What happened?" Richard asked again. It wasn't that late, about nine o'clock, but even though I'd pointed out that a substitute teacher would make a perfectly adequate proctor for finals week, he'd insisted on trying to work while Belle was here.
Edward sighed. "I said I didn't find Belle Morte sexually attractive."
Richard, apparently having taken stupid pills as well as not getting enough sleep, snorted and nodded.
Just for a moment, I felt rage outside of my own. It wasn't Richard's and it wasn't Jean Claude. Then the rage disappeared and I felt Belle raising her power.
I moved to step between Richard and Edward. "You can't hurt them."
"Oh, can I not?" she hissed. She raised one hand, fingers curved like claws.
"Not if you want to follow the rules which we have set ourselves tonight. If you touch them, you and your people will have to leave St. Louis without finishing your business with Malcolm." Jean Claude and Asher had negotiated with the goal of preventing a war in St. Louis, by whatever means necessary. The first time one of their party spilled unwilling blood, all of them were to leave.
She put her hand down. "I have been insulted. Twice."
"They will make amends," Jean Claude said. "What can we do?"
"Sex." Her smile was eager, just a bit cruel, like a little girl dangling chocolates in front of a starving dog. The dog wants to eat, but if she gives them to him, she might kill him. There aren't any good choices, looking into a smile like that.
"No. That breaks the agreement too," I said. Richard, Jean Claude and I and our pommes de sang could not be required or seduced to have sex with anyone in Belle's camp.
She smiled again. "They are young, American, and—comment dit-on?—straight. If I cannot enjoy them, let them have each other. The light and the dark together, it is very pretty. And if they will not do that, then I will have blood, however gently." She flashed fang, and I remembered that Belle Morte was a vampire as well as a succubus.
Jean Claude, with social finesse I didn't understand even though I watched it work, had moved Richard, Edward, Belle, me, and himself to his bedroom, so the deed wouldn't happen publicly. There was something said about needing lubricant, and an argument about condoms, but it had given Richard and Edward more privacy, and that was the important part.
I pulled Richard a little away from the rest of the group. I was pretty sure everyone but Edward could still hear what I was going to say, but it had to be done anyway. I was going to do my best to stay out of Richard's head while he did this. His homophobia felt nasty, and the lust, anger, and fear I was generating on my own were enough to deal with. "You know you're going to have to bottom, right?"
"What? No way in hell. I didn't even get us into this—."
"You'll kill him. Richard, you're really big, you like rough sex, and he's one hundred percent human. You are a bodybuilding werewolf. Have you ever topped a human guy? Have you ever had anal sex with a human woman, even?"
Richard hung his head and muttered, "No."
I put one hand on his shoulder. I wanted to look him in the eye, but he had them closed. "Then Edward is going to top you. Nobody's gotten hurt so far, and I intend to keep it that way."
He shook his head. "I can't, Anita. I can't. I don't…." He moved fast, not faster than I could see but too fast for me to avoid, and pulled me against his body when I wasn't expecting it. I could feel what he was feeling and it was ugly. The hatred of himself, for being a monster, for being a sadist, black and thick covering everything, was familiar. The red rage from being put in a vulnerable position, being manipulated for someone else's ends, that bloody mess felt a lot like being inside my own head. But there was fear here too, a sickly green thread within everything else. He was afraid of being unmanned, being pretty, being turned into a girl and liking it. I didn't understand, except in a negative way, the way where I wouldn't turn male for any amount of money, because I wouldn't know how to be me if I did. But his fear was more than that, the fear that bad things would happen to him, that the monsters would get him if he were female.
I pulled back, shaking my head. "I can't help you with that, Richard." I turned away from him.
Edward walked over to the two of us. "You think we need a plan for this, or should we wing it?"
I couldn't tell if he was asking me or Richard. I didn't care which. I tripped Edward to the ground, with a move that wouldn't have worked at human speed. I sat on his chest. I wasn't that big, but even a small adult is enough weight on your lungs to make a body pay attention. He might have also found the knife I put to his throat and the one angled to slide under his ribs compelling. "You screwed up, Edward. Belle Morte wasn't in the room five minutes and you started a crisis. You nearly got blood spilt; you are going to destroy my—mess up Richard's head. Now, you will be on top, because Richard might kill you the other way around. But you are going to be very, very nice about it. Because otherwise I'm going to kill you. And even if you kill me instead, I'm going to leave a message for the pack about the man who killed their lupa. You will die, and if the wolves do it, you will hurt first."
"Ma petite, please, get up. It's time." Jean Claude placed a hand on my shoulder.
I shrugged it off, but I got up. Jean Claude led me to a couple of folding chairs by the head of the bed. Someone had brought them in the room while I wasn't paying enough attention, but that someone was gone now. Belle Morte was in a chair at the foot of the bed. She was naked, and I couldn't look away from her.
She looked soft and rounded, voluptuous without tipping the scale all the way up to Rubenesque. Her skin glowed, like honey with a light shining through it.
She smiled when she saw me looking at her, smiled like she knew what I was thinking and she thought it was funny. Hell, she probably did. I closed my eyes and turned my head to face Jean Claude. When I opened them, he was looking at her. "Stop that."
He spoke without turning his head. "Elle me manque, ma petite. Please, let me look."
He missed her? That didn't just piss me off, it worried me, which pissed me off more. I grabbed his arm and squeezed. I couldn't make him hurt, but I could make him pay attention. "What's she doing to you? Close your eyes and look away."
Jean Claude turned to me and blinked very, very slowly, then bent down and buried his face in my hair. He hugged me, tighter than was really comfortable, then let me go. He sat up and looked to where Richard and Edward were standing, now naked, in the corner of the room. "It's time."
Richard lay face down on the bed, spread eagled. He was beautiful, and I would normally have been eager to look, but there was something too broken, too soft about how he lay. I didn't want to pet him, I wanted to hug him, and shoot the bad thing that was hurting him.
Edward stood at the side of the bed, taking deep breaths. He wasn't very hard. He was putting lube on himself, slowly, one handed, but it didn't look like it was helping. He glanced my way a few times, but that didn't help either.
He stopped playing with himself and drizzled what looked like half the contents of the lube package over Richard's butt. He stared for a long moment, then reached out. He smeared the lube around, but it didn't look like it was going anywhere useful.
It was painful to watch the awkwardness, and I finally blinked. I looked up at Belle Morte, and she was frowning. That scared me. I grabbed Jean Claude's hand and thought, "Do something."
Very subtly, Jean Claude shook his head.
I let go of his hand, and thought, "Go to hell, Jean Claude." Then I did something I had never done before. I raised the ardeur, just a little hum so I could tell it was there, and I pushed it at Edward. It was awkward and hard, because he was alive. The dead are empty, and there are places where I can fill them up with me, make them dance and sing because I will it so. The living are filled with themselves, they make their own hearts beat, and there's nothing for me to crawl into. But the ardeur is something else again; it turns on something that is already in people. And I turned Edward on.
He crawled up Richard's body and pressed his chest to Richard's back. He whispered something I couldn't hear, and pulled back, straddled Richard's thighs. He brushed his hands, the wet and the dry, down Richard's back, left a glistening, shiny streak on him. The wet hand he brought to Richard's butt again, and this time he touched the rim, rubbed and stroked it, then slipped his fingers in, one, two, three, four, to the first knuckle.
Jean Claude didn't move, but in my mind he said, "What have you done, ma petite?"
"She was getting bored. Richard would dump me again if I did this to him, but Edward is in my doghouse. I've accidentally caught people up in the ardeur before; this time was deliberate."
Edward was twisting his fingers inside Richard and stroking Richard's flanks. He whispered, "Come on, now, you've got to relax. Otherwise, one of us'll get hurt, and it's probably me." He put a hand on the small of Richard's back and said, "I can make this feel good for you, if you're ready to feel good." I saw him twist his hand around and do something with his thumb that made Richard whimper. "I've done this before, and nobody's complained." He leaned forward and put his mouth to Richard's skin. I could see flashes of teeth and tongue, but I couldn't tell what was going on.
And then I could tell, I could feel everything that was happening to Richard as a ghost on my skin, but it all felt wrong. I wasn't sure if Richard had pulled me in or if Jean Claude had put a bridge between us. "Richard?"
He turned his head in my direction. His eyes were closed and the look on his face was just hurt. "Help me, Anita. Make it better."
I shook my head although he couldn't see it.
Belle stood up. "It is not payment if you are with them, Anita. Those two, alone, that is the forfeit."
"Anita," Richard said again. "Do it."
I couldn't. I couldn't do something that would make Richard hate me again, because I was sure that's what raising the ardeur in him would do. He was asking for it, but all of his self-hatred for who he was and what he should be would come rebounding on my door tomorrow or the next day. I wouldn't look away from what has happening with him and Edward, but I couldn't make him enjoy it. I couldn't take that, couldn't throw Richard away when I'd just gotten him back, newly been allowed to touch him and hold him.
Jean Claude could and did. He laughed, and I felt the warm velvet ruffle of it, the intimate places it reached on my body. I felt the warmth traveling from Jean Claude to Richard, a dark tug on that part of Richard that wanted.
Richard's expression eased, and Edward worked his hand in further. "This'll be just fine now. I'm going to make you feel just fine." He pulled his hand out and worked his way further down the bed. "Get up on your knees, the angle will be better."
Richard got up, and Edward pushed his way inside. I could still feel the sensations from Richard's body on my own skin, and this was good. It stretched, it was too full, but it rubbed something the right way. My breathing picked up, to match Richard's, and I could feel the blood pool in my loins, so I knew Richard must be stone hard.
Then Edward pulled out, and that was better, because it was still rubbing all of those places that wanted friction, but it eased the pressure at the same time.
I closed my eyes. I didn't need them, to feel Edward's mouth on Richard's back, warm and wet and sucking. I felt his teeth, too, fast and hard, and Richard and I moaned in unison. My eyes rolled up in my head and I grabbed at the first thing in reach. It was Jean Claude, and I could suddenly feel him, too.
He was aroused, but worried that he'd done too much, that the price in the morning from me or from Richard would be too high. His anxiety cooled my jets enough that I could open my eyes and look at Belle Morte.
She wasn't bored anymore. She smiled at me, mouth slightly open and her tongue soft and pink between her fangs. She drew one hand up her thigh, spread her legs in unsubtle invitation.
I bit my lip, hard enough to draw blood; the pain let me look back to Richard and Edward. They were pushing and straining now, fucking hard and raw. I wanted to get on the bed with them, or Jean Claude, or Belle. I reached for the place where my gun usually was. Our treaty forbid me projectile weapons at social functions, and all I touched was the silk of my dress and my thigh.
The touch was so much more than usual; my skin was hungry for touch, and the sensation of fingers touching thigh, and thigh touching fingers made me whimper, made me clench, hard and sharp.
"Give me your hand, ma petite," said Jean Claude, holding his out. "You need an anchor." He was right. I needed to grab something while the sensations flooded through my body. His hand was not the best choice. He had fed, so he was warm, and his skin was soft, always. I wanted to lick his hands and suck his fingers and then blow on the wet, white skin.
Instead, Jean Claude laced our fingers and held them down, just above my lap, only a little too high for me to touch myself. "Look at them," he said. "Look at Richard and Edward. Watch them push together, reaching for pleasure. A werewolf king and a bounty hunter, rutting, strong and alive." His voice spoke of woods and air, fire and rocks, energy and exertion. I half-remembered a time Richard had taken me spelunking, and I'd tried to surround a stalagmite twice as tall as I with my hands. I thought of Edward and the desert, of the barren earth that captivates and kills with the same tricks.
But Belle interrupted. "Yes, Anita, yes. Look at them. See how their bodies stretch and strain, seem them slick and sliding. They touch and they spark, and they want and they fuck. Feel them, feel the heat they generate, take it in yourself, let it fill you up. Let their fucking feed you."
I did it. I fed off the lust they generated, off the lust from Belle too. It was a tiny banquet, because the lust was so pure, unclouded by like and love. All they wanted was to come, each of them struggling for their own little death, grabbing at it, grabbing at each other's bodies to make the motions harder, stronger, faster.
Edward reached around and stripped Richard's cock and I felt it, felt nerves light up that I didn't have, had never had. I pushed at Jean Claude, pushed him to let go and take me. He didn't; he sat rock solid and shook his head so I pulled away. The sensation of his fingers sliding through mine threw me, sent my eyes rolling upward.
I opened my mouth, to beg, I think, or scream maybe. But that was when Richard came, and I blacked out.
I woke up in Jean Claude's lap. I could tell without looking that Richard was sitting on the bed, and Belle was gone. "Where's Edward?" I whispered.
"Nathan and Damian came looking for you when you blacked out. I asked them to take him back to your house for the night. Nathan did, but Damian—."
"Is right outside. I can feel him." I tried to reach out, to feel for Belle Morte, but there was nothing. "Where is she?"
"They are following their schedule: an evening service with Malcolm. It is the first time in nearly a century that I feel sorry for her." Jean Claude was not quite smiling. I think he was more pleased than sympathetic at Belle's situation.
"And how is he?"
Jean Claude pressed a kiss to my forehead. "Ma petite, it is not so bad as you think. Are you afraid to talk to Richard?"
One of the disadvantages of dating someone who proclaims himself an incubus is that he is a master button pusher. My self-image doesn't allow for acts of cowardice, no matter how small. I stood up, took a deep breath, and walked to the bed. It wasn't cowardly to stand there silently if I didn't know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut and waited.
Richard let his shields down, opened to me.
I felt around inside his head, slowly, cautiously. His anger, that had been mine, was as usual; his beast rested uneasily at the base of his spine the way it did when Richard and I were unsure of each other. His self-hatred was a familiar sickly haze over everything. His humor and his kindness and his caring, for his pack and his family and his students and for me, and even Jean Claude a little, that was all as it had been before. "Nothing's changed," I said. I whirled towards Jean Claude. "Nothing's changed?" Back to Richard. "You're you. Like…." I shrugged helplessly. "Really?"
"Not exactly," said Jean Claude. "Look closer. Here." He did the mental equivalent of taking my hand and pointing. I can't explain it better than that, but my attention was drawn to another part of Richard's emotional landscape. The fear was less frantic, more nuanced. He didn't fear becoming a girl, or he didn't fear he would become a girl. I couldn't articulate the change more clearly, but it was not the panic I'd had from him before.
I blinked at Richard consideringly. Then I reached out one hand, and did something I had wanted to do occasionally, but was usually in the wrong position for. I stroked the nape of his neck, where the hair was softest. He leaned into my touch. "Richard?"
"It didn't change. It didn't change me. I thought it would change everything, and it didn't."
Richard left pretty soon after that. He was still planning to go into school the next day. Since Belle's show was over, he needed to get what sleep he could.
Jean Claude looked at me after Richard left. He didn't ask, but he didn't have to.
I shook my head. "I've got to go take care of Edward."
Jean Claude raised both eyebrows. "Ma petite, I vibrate from your energy tonight. I thought you and Edward were not that sort of friends."
"We're not." I stood up and crossed my arms. "I think the ardeur has been fed well enough to last the time to get me home and Edward straightened out. And if I'm wrong, Damian, Nathaniel, and Micah will be in shouting distance." I turned away from him, took a deep breath. I reached out to Nathaniel and to Damian, to let them know I was on my way.
Damian was glad to hear it, and Nathaniel, too, but Nathaniel was too eager, too anxious. Something was off. "I have to go home now," I said to Jean Claude.
"Yes, but, ma petite." Jean Claude took one large step toward me, took my hand. "This thing I did tonight to Richard, I—."
I squeezed his hand, to stop whatever he was going to say next. "If I…. He would have—," flipped out? hit me? run screaming? "There are things you can do, that I can't. It's not always a matter of skill."
He nodded, and let my hand go, and I went to get Damian.
We pulled into my driveway about a half hour before dawn. That's cutting it too close, and on an ordinary day, I would have made Damian stay at the Circus. But when I said something about Nathaniel, Damian had said, "He needs us," and headed for the car.
When I got into the living room, I saw Micah and Edward sitting across from each other. The mood was very careful.
I walked in and kissed Micah hello, then asked, "Where's Nathan?"
"He's making sandwiches; he said you'd be home soon and you'd need to eat, or…."
I nodded and turned to Edward. I didn't say anything, there wasn't anything to say.
"Your life is really fucked up, Anita." Edward leaned forward and put his chin on his hands. "You're living with two shapeshifters, dating another, there's three vampires playing beach blanket bingo with you, and—"
"Cut the shit, Edward," I said.
Edward blinked and sat up straight.
The neat thing about rarely using swear words is that they make an actual impact when you do use them. "This isn't about me and sex."
"You're right. You're absolutely right. I've killed lots of people and lots of monsters. I've fucked for information and for distraction, and I've fucked people I wouldn't have wanted to pass on the street, let alone get naked and sweaty with. But I never fucked a monster before tonight." He stood up abruptly. Without thinking, I moved in front of Micah. "The kind of woman who makes it in my world is stone cold deadly and, shit, Anita, you know. You've been that woman. But they don't eat people, they don't look at human beings and think, 'food.'" He bent and slowly picked up a bag that was sitting at his feet. He moved it on his shoulder, then spread his hands to show they were still empty. "You win, Anita. You can follow my lead, but I can't follow yours. I just kill monsters. You've become one."
He walked past me and out the front door. I watched it for several moments, waiting for him to come back, waiting to find out this was a joke.
I actually jumped when Micah said, "I'll lock that. Go see Nathaniel and get something to eat. I'll bring you Sigmund."
Belle Morte didn't stay long. Malcolm didn't seem to have put up much of a fight, and I didn't prove interesting in quite the way she had hoped. For Jean Claude and I, the upshot of it was that their courts are going to have permanent diplomatic ties, and she probably won't come visit my head again any time soon. She said it was too messy to be really interesting for a hundred years or so. I suggested to Jean Claude that we send Wille McCoy and his girlfriend Hannah as our envoys. I was joking, but I think Jean Claude is considering it.
Malcolm, on the other hand, has gotten his hands spanked by the council. He'd been ordered to bind every unbound vampire in St. Louis to himself or Jean Claude before Belle Morte's arrival, and about 20 Church members asked for Jean Claude. But now, the Church of Eternal Life is forbidden to turn anyone else until they get a program in place to train fledglings. It's dangerous having vampires on the street who don't know how to avoid killing people they don't want dead, and that's just what the Church was turning out.
On a more personal front, Richard and I are in a strange place. I think he both trusts me more and less than he did before. He trusts that I love him more than sense, but he's not quite so confident I'll do anything for him anymore. He says, and it's hard to disagree, that when I refused to use the ardeur on him because I was afraid he would blame me, that I chose myself over him. He and Jean Claude, on the other hand, have reached some new plateau of male bonding. They're not having sex, but I'm pretty sure I caught them making out the other day. I've decided that the best approach is see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. If I'm ever too weirded out by their closeness, I go find Asher and Jason and we play card games.
Edward hasn't called, he hasn't written. But he didn't before this happened, and if everything had gone well, I wouldn't have expected him to. I may have lost a friend by being myself. I'm starting to wonder if it's really possible for a human and a monster to be friends. I have Ronnie, Mannie, and Larry. Dolph and Zerbrowski. These are the only human credentials I have left, and with the exception of Ronnie, they're all professional monster hunters. I have to wonder when they'll set their sights on me.