Crimson Death (35 page)

“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.

“We're supposed to be stronger together,” Nathaniel said.

I looked at them, holding hands, and waited for Damian to protest, but he looked . . . content.

“Stronger together is the ideal,” I said.

“We are that now,” Nathaniel said.

“We are,” Damian said, smiling at him.

“I guess we are,” I said.

Nathaniel looked at me and his face had a new resolve that I'd never seen before. It reminded me of one of my expressions. One thing you did with a triumvirate was share bits of each other's talents, memories, and personality. It had never worked quite that way between the three of us before, but it had always worked that way with Jean-Claude, Richard, and me. Richard had inherited my temper, Jean-Claude my ruthlessness; I'd gotten Jean-Claude's blood hunger and Richard's craving for flesh. I really didn't want to go through all that again, but I wasn't sure that what I wanted was really going to matter.

“Go find someone to feed the
ardeur
, Anita. We'll keep shopping for towels. If we put an order in they should be here by the time we get back from Ireland,” Nathaniel said.

I left them shopping for linens on the Internet, and I went to find someone to have sex with and feed the metaphysical hunger that could only be satisfied by some very up-close-and-personal interactions. The
ardeur
was the other thing I'd inherited from Jean-Claude. He was an incubus, not demonic, just a vampire who could feed off lust as well as blood. I was a succubus to his incubus now. No, I really didn't want to inherit any more metaphysical surprises from anyone again.

N
OW THAT
I
wasn't drunk on metaphysics I went to find Jean-Claude. I wanted to tell him what had happened, and if I was having a last hurrah with anyone I was leaving at home, I wanted it to be him. He was in his bedroom talking to a man I didn't know. The man was in a regular brown business suit with a clipboard and a pen in his hands. At first glance Jean-Claude seemed to be in a white button-up business shirt and black slacks, except that the slacks fit well enough and tight enough to his body to fit seamlessly into knee-high black boots. He held his hand out to me with a smile. “
Ma petite
, I have organized a temporary bed until the custom mattress can be remade and shipped to us.”

I took his hand in mine and let him draw me in against his body so that we could kiss. I went up on tiptoe, my free hand steadying me against his stomach, which gave me an excuse to pet down the line of buttons on his shirt. The buttons were covered in platinum and sapphires almost as dark as his eyes, so that the jewels looked bright blue one moment and black the next. The first time I'd seen the shirt I'd thought they were the buttons, but they were button covers, so he could change them out with ones he'd had made in ruby and gold. The button covers weren't the only change to the business suit look. The shirt's French cuffs were very wide and turned back thick and crisp, far more cuff than any fashion I was aware of, but they had to be wide enough to accommodate the cuff links with sapphires as big as his thumb set in glittering platinum and diamonds. Yes, he had a set of ruby-and-gold cuff links to match the other button covers.

He introduced me briefly to the man with the clipboard, who promised to bring in two king-size beds ASAP. They shook hands; he never offered me a hand to shake, but the days when that would bug me were
past. Besides, my hands were busy around Jean-Claude's waist; my hands had to go somewhere during all the business hand shaking.

A guard at the door saw the man out, then closed the door behind them without being asked. The new guys were training up better and better. We had some who were great at the fighting-and-protecting part, but had been lost about the niceties of how to escort someone in and out of the house who was just there to fix the plumbing, or whatever. Being a good bodyguard for us was closer to being a bouncer in some ways; you had to know how to work the door, too.

I wrapped my arms around him a little tighter, smiled up into those deep blue eyes, and said, “I'd like ‘Good-bye, I'm going to another country' sex, please.”

He laughed, that surprised bleat of sound that I so rarely got from him, which was why I made the effort for it. He hugged me close, petting my hair as he held my cheek in against his chest.

“
Ma petite
, how could I turn down such a charming proposal?”

I moved my head enough so I could see his face again. His face was still alight with the edge of laughter, which made me smile even more. “I'm going to miss you.”

His face sobered almost as slowly as a human's would have, but honestly, the older vampires have trouble holding on to surprised expressions. They tend to go back to whatever they've trained themselves is their neutral expression. I'd been puzzled by that until I met enough of the vampires who used to be in power over them all. Any emotion could be used against them, and likely would be. Cops had a neutral face that they hid behind. No one did that kind of hiding as well as older vampires, but then they'd had more practice than most human cops.

“I will miss you, too,
ma petite
.” He bent down and had to loosen his arms so that I could rise up enough to meet the kiss. I tried to put more body language into the kiss, but he drew back before I could get us too distracted. “I have not fed yet today,
ma petite
.”

“Me either,” I said, and tried to go back to kissing him.

He raised his head out of reach and said, “I must take blood before I can make love to you.”

“You taking blood can be part of the foreplay. We enjoy that.”

He smiled, then shook his head. “Alas,
ma petite
, I believe you should conserve your precious blood for the three vampires who will be traveling with you. They cannot afford to feed on the Irish during such a case.”

“That's almost exactly what Damian said.”

“He has grown wise.”

I sighed and suddenly wasn't feeling half as sexy. “Actually, yes and no.”

He gave a small frown. “What does that mean in this instance, yes and no?”

I started to tell him what had happened, then realized I was wasting time. I opened the link between us a little wider; if I thought of the memories he could just remember with me. When we'd first started doing this kind of thing, I hadn't been good enough to give selected memories, but practice makes better. What would have taken minutes took only seconds.

“It seems our kitten has become a cat,” he said.

“You mean Nathaniel?”

“Oui.”

I nodded. “You could say that.”

“Damian will help you control the new powers.”

“Yeah, and Nathaniel will be more cautious with them from this point on, I think.”

“I believe you are correct.”

I studied his face. “You're not entirely sure, or you wouldn't have shut the marks down tight again. You don't want me to know what you're thinking.”

“If you are asking if I am concerned that Nathaniel will let the new magic go to his head, of course I am, but we must trust each other, for we are built link by link into a chain that is stronger together than as a pile of individual links.”

“You know what they say: The chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

“Do you believe that Nathaniel is our weak link?”

I thought about it for a second, then shook my head. “No. No, I don't.”

He smiled. “Good. Do not doubt our cat now that he has grown claws, but rejoice in the extra power it will bring to us all.”

“Just because something brings us more power, does that make it all right?”

“Not always, but power is often a balance between benefits gained and danger risked.”

“I get that.”

“Good, but you do need to feed the
ardeur
before you board the plane,
ma petite
.”

“If I can't donate blood, can you catch some fast food?”

His smile brightened. “I have not had to catch my food for a very long time,
ma petite
.”

I frowned, couldn't hold it, and smiled again. “You know what I mean.”

“I do, but anyone who offers their life's blood to me deserves to be treated as far more than fast food.”

“Agreed, but I don't want to lose the chance of making love with you before I leave.”

“Nor do I, but the answer is simple: We include a blood donor who can be part of our foreplay, so that the feeding is still part of the sex.”

“So someone to donate blood to you and feed the
ardeur
for me?”

“Oui.”

“Who'd you have in mind?”

H
E HAD
N
ICKY
in mind; that worked for me, so we sent one of the guards off to find him. I then realized that we had cell phones. He asked, “What are you doing,
ma petite
?”

“Texting Nicky.”

“
Non, ma petite
, for something as delicate as this it should be in person.”

“Nicky isn't that formal a guy,” I said.

“He is in love with you,
ma petite
, but he is not with me. He is also a very recent volunteer for donating blood to me. I would rather be overly solicitous than give offense.”

I frowned at him. “Either that all means you like Nicky more than I think you do, so you don't want to blow it, or you're afraid of offending him for a different reason.”

He smiled. “You are in love with him,
ma petite
, and yet he has not demanded to be included in the larger commitment ceremony with all of us. I value very much that Nicky is not being difficult about that.”

“You mean like most of the weretigers?” I asked.

“I do.”

I sighed twice like I was trying to get enough air to swim a sprint. “The problem is that we can't all agree on a weretiger to include.”

“Mephistopheles is proving most amiable.”

“Yeah, Dev gets along with everyone better than anybody else.”

“You do not sound convinced,
ma petite
.”

I broke from the hug, because it was hard to think sometimes when I was too close to him. I started pacing the room a little as I tried to explain. “Mephistopheles—Dev—is great in a lot of ways. I know you value that he actually is bisexual, so he's your lover and mine.”

“He is also in Nathaniel's bed.”

“Yeah, and he does everything with him, including things that Micah still can't quite wrap his head around.”

“Micah has never had a male lover before,
ma petite
. It can take some adjustment.”

“I know it does for me with the women.” Then I realized that he might have said more than I'd understood, so I asked him, “You weren't always bisexual, were you?”

“There had been drunken explorations, but I believe that I would now call that heteroflexible.”

“Did you cross the line with another man before you were taken to Belle Morte's court?”

“No, I did not.”

I blinked at him. “Fuck, Asher was your first man, male lover, wasn't he?”

Jean-Claude nodded, then looked away so I couldn't see his face, which meant he didn't trust himself to be able to control his expression. It was incredibly rare for him to be unable to control himself like that.

“God, Jean-Claude, I'm sorry. I didn't know.”

He spoke with his face still turned away. “Why should you be sorry,
ma petite
?”

“It explains a lot about why you were willing to put up with Asher's jealousy and temper tantrums over the centuries. It also explains . . . Your first lover gets a piece of your heart until you have enough therapy to take it back.”

He laughed then. “Ah,
ma petite
, such a mix of romance and practicality—I value it a great deal that you do both equally well.”

“I share enough of your memories to know that Belle was very good at both, too.”

“But she was never in love with me, as you are. To find a second woman who could be everything I wished in the bedroom and in the boardroom was more than I thought I would ever find.”

“I'm also better in an actual physical fight than Belle.”

He turned and smiled at me; whatever emotion he'd been trying to hide, he'd managed. “Belle was powerful enough that she did not resort to fisticuffs.”

“I'm a double threat. I'll kick your ass with metaphysics and then I'll just plain kick your ass.”

He laughed, but it was his controlled laugh, the one that I'd thought was his real laugh for a long time. Now I knew that it was a sort of practiced laughter, one that showed joy, or humor, but he could trot it out at will, even if he didn't get the joke. To be part of Belle Morte's court he'd had to laugh at the jokes and not show disgust at other things.

“It is true: you are the first warrior I have ever fallen in love with,
ma petite
.”

“I've seen you and Asher do sword practice. Doesn't that count?”

“He is good at the sort of practice one does to impress a lady, or a lad, but in a real fight he tends to let his emotions overwhelm his knowledge, and blade work is about precision and control.”

“All fighting is about precision and control,” I said.

He nodded. “I concede that is true of most fighting, but not all. I have seen battles won through sheer uncontrollable rage. At the right moment it can turn the tide of battle and renew the bravery of those around the warrior who can show strength when all around him have given up.”

“Agreed, though actual battle, I don't think what I've done qualifies as actual battle yet.”

“That is for you to define,
ma petite
, but Asher's temper always unmanned him in a fight. He was much better at being a lover than a fighter.”

“He's great in bed, but he sucks at the relationship part.”

“He does not suck, as you say, at all the relationship part, but I understand you have not seen the parts he is good at as much as I have.”

“I've never been on a single date with him.”

“You have been on dates with us both.”

“Please, never take me to the opera again.”

He laughed, but again it was that careful laugh, delightful to hear, but it was still camouflage.

“Asher does like what is now called highbrow culture more than you do.”

“The complete Tchaikovsky
Sleeping Beauty
made me want to hurt myself, and I thought I liked ballet.”

“Most people like selections of the well-known ballets but have no idea how much has been cut for time.”

I might have had to admit I was totally uncultured, but a knock at the door saved me. I started to ask who it was, but just thinking about asking, I could feel Nicky on the other side of the door, and . . . Cynric.

“Why is Sin with him?” I asked out loud.

“I do not know,” Jean-Claude said, and called, “Come in, Nicholas.”

The door opened and Nicky's broad shoulders filled it as he walked through, but there were a few inches of dark hair over his head, because Sin was the taller of the two.

“I've told you before, Jean-Claude, it's just Nicky. It's not short for anything.”

“I am sorry, Nicky, but it seems too little a name for the man you have become.”

He shrugged as much as his shoulder muscles would allow. “My maternal grandfather's name was Nicholas, the bitch who called herself my mother was named Nicole after him, and I was named Nicky after both of them. Let me just say while we're on the topic that I know that Nathaniel wants to name a boy Nicholas, after his dead brother, but I'd rather not.”

“What boy are we naming?” I asked.

“Now you've done it,” Cynric said.

“Sin, it is always lovely to see you, but we have personal matters to discuss with Nicky,” Jean-Claude said.

“Are you saying that Nathaniel is picking out baby names?” I asked.

“You know he has baby fever,” Nicky said.

“Picking out names is a little more than baby fever,” I said.

“Nathaniel wants a family, Anita—you know that,” Sin said.

“Yeah, and if he could get pregnant we could talk about it, but since I'm the only womb in the relationship it's not happening.”

“You aren't the only girl anymore,” Sin said.

I looked at him, ready to be mad at Nathaniel for picking out names for a baby I hadn't agreed to have, but any target would do. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means that when Nathaniel talked about wanting a baby, Fortune was there last time and said she might be willing.”

“To have Nathaniel's baby?” I asked.

“It didn't get that far, but she's never had a baby, and if she and Echo feel safe enough she might consider it, that's all.” Sin held his hands out in a little push-away gesture.

“I guess I'll talk to her on the plane about babies,” I said, and I was really angry and some other emotion was in there. I realized that the thought of Nathaniel having a baby with another woman bothered me, a lot. Damn it, I was not breeding!

“I didn't mean to start a fight, Anita. You made it sound like your objection to babies is getting pregnant. I thought knowing that one of the other women in our poly group was willing to get pregnant would solve things, not make you mad,” Sin said.

“Well, it didn't solve things,” I said, and I sounded pissed. Damn it.

“
Ma petite
, we do not have time for an argument if you are to feed before you get on the plane.”

“Besides, the kid is right,” Nicky said. “If your only objection was needing someone else to get pregnant, it would solve the problem.” He was watching me, and something about the way he was doing it let me know that he was feeling exactly what I was feeling. I couldn't feel his emotions the way I could if I dropped my psychic shielding with Jean-Claude, or even Cynric, but I also couldn't keep Nicky from sensing my emotions the way I could the others. As my Bride, Nicky was compelled to keep me happy. It literally seemed to cause him discomfort if not pain to feel me unhappy. He never seemed to share what he sensed from me with any of the other people in our lives, but the look in his eyes said that he, of all of them, knew exactly why I was upset.

“It's really hard to get in the mood sometimes when this kind of topic comes up,” I said, and my voice still held an edge of anger, but mostly I sounded peevish and whiny, and I hated hearing that in my own voice. I could do better than this. I had told Nathaniel that if he could get pregnant we could talk about babies more seriously. It had been my way of dropping the topic, but one thing I hadn't considered when we added other women to our poly group was that I wasn't the only one who could get pregnant now. I also hadn't expected how bad it made me feel to think of someone else carrying Nathaniel's child. I still didn't want to be pregnant, but I didn't want him to do it with anyone else, which made no sense at all. But one thing I'd learned in therapy was that just because a feeling made no sense didn't make you stop feeling it.

“I didn't mean to make things harder, or weirder,” Cynric said.

Nicky gave him a look that said he doubted that last part. He didn't give Cynric looks like that much, so something was up. “Go ahead, kid. Tell them what you want that doesn't make things harder, or weirder.”

“You make it sound like I'm wrong.”

“I didn't say you were wrong. I just didn't say you were right.”

“I have to be one or the other,” Cynric said.

“No, you can be wrong and right at the same time.”

“No, you can't,” Cynric said.

“As much as I'd prefer the world to be black and white, yes or no, right or wrong, Nicky's right: Sometimes you can be both,” I said.

“Ah,
ma petite
, you have grown in wisdom since first we met, for then you believed the world was black and white without gray in between.”

“What's that mean?” Cynric asked.

“It means that once upon a time I would have agreed with you, that there was no way to be right and wrong at the same time.”

“I still don't understand,” he said.

“Tell them your plan and then they'll explain it to you,” Nicky said.

Cynric got a stubborn look on his face. “It's logical,” he said.

“I didn't argue logic with you, kid.”

“Please, stop calling me
kid
. It doesn't really help me make my point.”

“Not my job to help you make your point,” Nicky said.

I frowned at both of them. “Why are you guys almost fighting?”

“The kid—oh, sorry, Sin—is trying to cockblock me.”

Cynric rolled his eyes. “Thanks for that elegant introduction to the conversation, Nicky.”

“You're welcome,” he said with a smile that looked real, as if he didn't get the joke. I knew he got it, but I also knew he was a wonderful actor when he wanted or needed to be. A lot of sociopaths are.

“Enough conversation, Cynric,” I said. “Just tell us what's going on.”

“Anita, please use my name.”

“That is your name.”

“Then use the nickname I prefer.”

I sighed and made it a big one, but finally said, “Fine, Sin. I wish you at least spelled it
C-Y-N
.”

“You know that everyone mispronounced it that way.”

“I know, I know. They kept calling you Cindy, Sidney, or Sid.”

“Or Carol, Karen, Carl, or Candy—that was my favorite when I was spelling it
C-Y-N
.”

“Fine. Sin, spelled just like it sounds. What's up?” I said, but didn't try to keep the crankiness out of my voice.

His expression went from stubborn to his own version of cranky. He was a very handsome guy, but not in this mood. A lot of men in my
life, and women, would have given it up by now, but Cynric—sorry, Sin—had a streak of stubbornness and determination that gave mine a run for its money, which was saying something.

“Nicky is going with Anita to Ireland along with three vampires. If he donates blood to Jean-Claude now, he won't be able to donate again for a couple of days. The same for Anita and the
ardeur
, but I can feed her and donate blood to Jean-Claude now and leave Nicky fresh for later.”

“You make Nicky sound like a tomato that'll spoil if we squeeze it too much,” I said.

Sin shrugged. “Isn't that pretty accurate?”

Nicky chuckled low and deep in his chest.