Crimson Death (61 page)

W
E COULDN'T FIND
Riley. We couldn't find his girlfriend. It was like the harder we tried to locate them, the more lost they became. Our last hope was that Flannery's aunt would come through, but the last info from him was that Auntie Nim didn't have much to do with the Roanes, because they weren't her creatures. It was as if people refused to do business with the werewolves in St. Louis because wolf was Jean-Claude's animal to call, and their Ulfric was his
moitié bête
. I still thought it was interesting that Flannery's Fey relatives had known about the vampires in Ireland all this time, but they hadn't shared the news with him, not even after vampires had started showing up in Dublin. I actually asked him why they didn't tell him sooner. His answer: “I asked them if they knew anything about the new vampires in Dublin. I didn't ask them if there were other vampires in Ireland outside the city.” Apparently the Irish Fey answered direct questions, but what you didn't ask, they didn't answer, even if logically it was connected. An important safety tip to remember if I had to question any of them on this trip.

I'd set my phone alarm to the time when Jean-Claude typically woke for the night in St. Louis, but I didn't need an alarm. I felt him wake for the night, thousands of miles away. I knew when his eyes opened for the first time to stare at the ceiling, felt the warmth of the body curled beside him, one arm flung across his stomach. I knew by the size and weight of the arm that it was Richard, because I had the only other men in his life who had that kind of size and muscle. He knew I was sitting in the back of the van with Nathaniel beside me. I saw, felt, smelled the warm darkness of his bed and Richard's body fever warm beside him. His shoulder-length hair in a wild tangle hiding the handsome face. I couldn't remember the last time Richard had
slept over with any of us. Jean-Claude's voice whispered through my head, “
Ma petite
, what have you been doing while I slept?”

Just hearing him, feeling him inside me like that, felt as if I could finally take a deep breath and let go of some tension that I hadn't known I was holding. Nathaniel gripped my hand tighter. I knew he felt it, too, because we were touching when it happened. Damian reached from the seat behind me, where he'd been out of direct sunlight in the more enclosed depths of the van, but now he reached into the sunlight from the windows so he could touch my shoulder, and there was that jump of connection from him to me, to Nathaniel, and to Jean-Claude, and then Richard stirred in the bed. I knew he was awake, had a moment of seeing the darkened room through his eyes and Jean-Claude's so that it was almost dizzying. I was glad I wasn't driving when it happened. Damian squeezed my shoulder as his other hand found Nathaniel's arm, and the world steadied again. I could still see the ceiling above the temporary bed and missed the old canopy, could feel my head resting on Jean-Claude's shoulder and arm while my other arm was across his body and my only view was silk sheets and the white gleam of the vampire's body. I knew they were both nude, and the moment I thought it, I realized that I had thought it too loudly and that they'd both heard me, and suddenly there was awkwardness in the nudity that hadn't been there before. Why? Because I hadn't just thought nude; I'd thought about the possibilities of them in the bed, wrapped in silk, naked. That was all me, and I tried to make that thought loud, too.

Richard started to get up, spilling the sheets down his chest, baring his upper body, opening up the cocoon of warmth his body had made beside Jean-Claude. Then a sense of calm washed over all of us, as in all five of us. The beginnings of unease in Richard quieted. He lay back down in the sheets, finding the warmth his body had made for him overnight. It put him back beside Jean-Claude, who lay very still, waiting for the other man to decide what he was doing. I could feel everyone more clearly in my head in that moment than Jean-Claude. He was very carefully neutral, though I could feel the tension in his body through the connection to Richard.

Nathaniel leaned back toward Damian, who leaned forward, his long hair sliding forward like a veil to cover the sides of his face from the
sunlight. His hair wasn't much of a barrier, but it was better than bare skin in bare light. He'd kept the sunglasses on; they wouldn't come off until we were in a dark room or night fell. Nathaniel stroked that red hair and then rubbed his cheek along Damian's face like a cat scent-marking. Damian laughed and leaned his face against the other man's so that Nathaniel could hold him as much as the seat belts would allow.

I felt Richard's surprise at the interaction. It was a big change in Damian's comfort level about touching other men. Richard moved up higher on the pillows so that he was taller than Jean-Claude, but he didn't move away from him, just moved his arm so that it lay across his chest and not his stomach. It left Jean-Claude's arm around Richard so that they held each other, though I knew that if Jean-Claude were more certain of his welcome, he'd have held him differently.

Richard said out loud, “Relax, Jean-Claude. Just relax. Cuddle if you want to cuddle, but don't lie here feeling this tense. It's not a trap, I promise,” because we'd all heard Jean-Claude's thought, because it was too loud to hide. “It's a trap, a girl trap.” Girl traps aren't about genitalia; they're about that more feminine habit of saying,
Do this
or
Don't do that
, and punishing the masculine half of the couple for doing what the feminine half asked/told him to do in the first place. There are girl traps and boy stupid, but it's not always women who set the traps, and it's not always men who are stupid. We all take turns.

Jean-Claude relaxed slowly, inch by cautious inch. The way that Richard was lying across his arm, it was more comfortable and natural for him to curl his arm around the other man's back and turn a little into Richard. They were only an inch apart in height, but the way Richard had fixed himself on the bed made him seem much taller, except that I could feel where everyone's legs were, and it was an illusion. An illusion of dominance, and I had a moment to hear, feel, realize that part of the two men's problem with each other was that they were both dominant. I don't mean in a bondage-and-submission way, but just big, athletic, dominant men who were both used to winning. Jean-Claude had spent too many centuries at the mercy of other masters to be as obvious about it as Richard could be, but it was there as they lay as entwined as I'd seen them in a very long time. Who would submit? Who would bend first? Without me there to help them bridge that
decision, they were stalemated. Asher helped them, too, sometimes, but if he hadn't been in the doghouse, Richard wouldn't have been there at all.

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
moitié bêtes
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.

N
ICKY 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.

Richard 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 . . .”

“It's the truth, Jean-Claude. It's just the truth. No amount of therapy is going to fix the three of us,” Richard said. He was sitting up in bed now, with the sheet tucked around his waist, and all that muscled beauty as useless to Jean-Claude as it was to me even though one of us was sitting right next to him and the other was half a world away.

Tired of waiting for our impromptu therapy moment, Damian had pulled Nathaniel to him. They kissed, but Nathaniel turned his face to the side and offered his neck. The fang marks on it from yesterday showed against his skin.

“Nathaniel can't donate blood today after all you took yesterday,” I said.

Nathaniel's eyes sprang back to life like a lilac spark. I felt a spurt of anger from him. It reminded me of the anger he'd shown to Bobby Lee back in St. Louis. I did not want a repeat of that. Damian kissed the side of his neck just over the unhealed bite mark, and then raised his head to say, “She's right, Nathaniel. I took blood from you four times yesterday. You must rest.”

“Four times?” Nicky said. “He needs red meat and lots of it.”

“They both do,” Damian said.

Nicky looked at him and quirked an eyebrow. “How many times?”

“Anita has two bites.”

“Six times, impressive.”

“It's all about blood pressure,” I said, “more blood, more pressure.”

“No,” Nicky said, “six times is impressive for any man, dead or alive, Anita.”

Dev joined in with “You get rubby spots after a while, if nothing else.”

“If Anita and I can't donate, then who can?” Nathaniel asked.

Jean-Claude in my, our, head said, “Damian and I need to feed, whomever that may be with.”

Richard turned and glared at him. “I am going to donate blood to you this morning.”

Jean-Claude was finally angry. “I do not go where I am not wanted, and I do not beg for blood or sex.”

Richard's anger flared to answer, but there was a knock on their door. “Who is it?” Jean-Claude snapped, his voice hot with anger.

“It's Angel, Jean-Claude. I was told you might need me.”

The two men on the bed exchanged a look, and then Jean-Claude said, “Who told you that?”

“My brother.”

“Mephistopheles?” Jean-Claude made a question of the name.

“He's the only brother I have,” she said through the door.

All of us in the van were looking at Dev. “They need someone to help them bridge their issues, and everyone else who could help is here in Ireland.” He said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world to have texted his twin sister to get out of bed and show up at the door of two men she'd never slept with for morning sex and blood donation.

Jean-Claude said, “Mephistopheles, what have you done?”

“I told Anita that all the gold tigers were raised to meet the needs of the new Father of Tigers, whatever those needs might be.”

From the door, Angel said, “May I come in?”

“She's your sister,” Richard said, and since he had one of his own, the comment held the confusion and creep factor of it.

“Enter,” Jean-Claude said.

The door to the room opened, and Angel walked in barefoot, a short black robe showing off miles of long, bare legs. She was only four inches shorter than her brother, and five-eleven was plenty tall enough to give you legs. I'd forgotten that she cut her hair so short. It was almost shaved on the sides, where it still showed the black dye, but the roots growing in at the top of her hair were yellow blond. It would take months for her natural color to grow back out. The shorter hair made her face look more square, more like Dev's face. Until she'd cut her hair, I hadn't thought they looked that much alike, but nothing made her any less feminine. She'd been the Goth girl for years, thus the hair, but the mix of hair color seemed to play to the fact that her eyes were a mix of blue and brown just like Dev's, except his was a pale blue with a line of pale tan/gold and Angel's eyes were a brighter blue with a brown that looked black from where the men watched her from the bed. The black hair helped the illusion of the eyes, which was probably one of the reasons she'd done it. The robe was open just enough to show a glimpse of breasts that moved under the silk of her robe as she strode toward the bed.

I felt Richard's reaction to her, so tight and hard that it made me gasp. It fed into Damian's blood hunger and hit the
ardeur
like an appetizer before the meal. “Shit,” I said out loud.

“Lovely as always, Angel, but why are you here?” Jean-Claude asked.

“I heard that you were one girl short this morning.”

“If Devereux can't hear me, Anita, tell him that brothers don't send their sisters to other men for fucking,” Richard said, and he meant it, even with his body telling all of us just how much he enjoyed seeing her. Richard would stand on his principles over his desires almost every time, which was admirable but not helpful.

Angel and Dev started talking at the same time, and they were almost word for word, one in the bedroom in St. Louis and the other in the van in Dublin. “We used to go out clubbing together in our teens. We're both tall, and that makes people think you're older. We would pick out couples to see if we could seduce both of them or take turns picking out a woman or a man to take home or at least to a motel. We
got so many people to do their first girl on girl, or boy on boy, or threesome.”

“He's your brother,” Richard said. “How could you have sex in the same room with him?”

“We were the only two bisexual people we knew,” Angel said. “It was just sort of part of who we were as twins.”

Richard was shaking his head.

“Until Angel decided she didn't want to be part of the grand plan to be the perfect golden tiger for the next Father of Tigers she was my best friend. We did almost everything together. I went shopping with her so much that some of her friends thought I was gay, until they found out I wasn't.” Dev grinned as he said the last. Words like
incorrigible
came to mind.

Angel went to Jean-Claude, untying her robe so that it hung open as she came to the edge of the bed. “When they first demanded I give up my life and come serve you, I was so angry, and I still resent that, but I've watched you, both of you, and I'm intrigued. I'd like a chance to find out if you're as good as you look.”

Jean-Claude smiled. “A charming offer.” He held his reaction in utter control, as if afraid to react even in the depths of his head, because I was there listening. I decided to help, by letting him know that I wasn't bothered by it.

“Let her be the bridge you and Richard need.”

“How can you be okay with this, Anita?” Richard asked.

“I'm out of country with half a dozen lovers of my own. It would be ridiculous of me to get pissed because you have a chance to sleep with Angel.” I couldn't quite hide the next thought, or maybe reaction, of my own. I was intrigued by her, too. There was that little spark of interest in her that still surprised me when it was about another woman.

Richard said, “I'm still not used to you liking women.”

“Me, either,” I said.

Angel smiled, and said, “Let's see how this goes. Maybe we can all play together when Anita gets home?” And that was enough to tip the balance for Richard. I think Jean-Claude was just trying to stay out of the pitfalls of the situation until Richard and I decided it for us all.

Angel then said, “Dev asked if it would be possible for you to feed some of Anita's
ardeur
needs because they're trying to find a missing person before he gets hurt.”

“Are you offering to feed the
ardeur
for me?” Jean-Claude asked.

“I'd like to know for myself if it's as amazing a fuck as the stories claim,” she said.

He laughed, an abrupt, pleased sound. She'd do fine.

She looked past Jean-Claude to Richard and said, “You are both very different people. If we were one-on-one, I'd approach you both very differently, so I will want a little guidance as to how to be with you both.”

He looked at her for a long, serious moment and then said, “We can do that.”

“
Ma petite
, I will close the links down low between us, if you will do the same on your end?” Jean-Claude asked.

“We will.” And we did. I left them to their blood and sex, and they left us to ours.