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When more wolves arrived from Richard's pack, and the screams started, I left. He had a half dozen baby-sitters. He did not need me. Hell, he didn't even want me.
I didn't know what to do for Richard anymore. I could help the pack as a whole, but helping Richard seemed beyond me. He needed healing, and I didn't know how to do that. If you needed someone killed, or threatened, or even hurt, I was your girl. I did self-defense, murder wasn't beyond me in a good cause, but suicide, I did not do that. Richard had let himself grow cold, his energy sucked away, and he hadn't called for help. That was suicide, passive suicide maybe, but the intent was the same.
Jason drove. He pointed out that I'd had weird physical reactions all day, and it would be bad to have one of the fainting spells behind the wheel of the car. I replied that I'd fixed the reason for the fainting spells by putting crosses at the Circus. He'd countered with the fact that we weren't one hundred percent sure that was the only reason I'd been fainting. Wouldn't caution be better? With that, I couldn't argue. My pride was not worth crashing the Jeep with three other people in it. If it had only been my skin at stake I'd have probably taken my chances. I was usually more cautious of other people's safety than my own.
The fact that all three were lycanthropes and would probably survive a wreck better than I would had nothing to do with it. If you throw the furry through a windshield, do they not still bleed?
We were on Highway 21 turning onto 270, when I smelled roses. "Do you smell that?" I asked.
Jason glanced at me, his hair still damp from the shower, his white T-shirt dark in spots from water as if he'd dried in a hurry and missed places. "What did you say?"
"Roses, I smell roses."
He glanced behind us at Nathaniel and Caleb. Nathaniel I'd invited. Caleb had nearly cried when I didn't want to bring him. Whatever Merle had said to him had well and truly scared him.
I could taste the sweet, cloying perfume on the back of my tongue. And no one could smell it but me. Shit.
Belle Morte's voice whispered through my head, "Did you truly believe you could escape me?"
"I did escape you."
"What?" Jason asked.
I shook my head, concentrating on the voice in my head, and the thickening scent of roses.
"You did not escape, you fed me, and you will feed me again, and again, until I am sated."
"Jean-Claude says you're never sated."
She laughed in my head, and it was like having the inside of my skull rubbed with fur, as if she could touch things with her voice that no one should have touched with their hands. That purring, contralto laugh rolled through my body, raising goosebumps along my skin.
I had an image, a memory in my head. There was a huge bed, and a mass of bodies on it. It was a jumble of arms, legs, chests, groins, all male. Then one man raised up, only his upper body, and I glimpsed Belle underneath him. He lowered his body and she vanished from view. It was like watching a nest of snakes, so much movement, disconnected in the candlelit dark, as if each limb were something separate and alive without the body. Belle's arm rose above the mass of bodies, then she swam her way to the top, peeled the men from her naked body, until she stood in the midst of them, their hands reaching up to her, pleading with her. She had released the ardeurupon them, and fed, and fed, and fed, until she rose from the mass of flesh glowing with power, her eyes so bright with dark flames that they cast shadows as she half stepped, half floated from the bed. One man's body had fallen to the floor, forgotten. He lay very still as she stalked nude and ripe with curves, glowing with power. She walked over the body of the man who had given everything to satisfy her needs, while the other men reached for her, begged for her not to stop. The men began to rise to their knees, or fall off the bed in an effort to follow. At least two other bodies lay on the bed forever still, forever gone. Three of them dead, loved to death, and still the others begged her for more, still they tried to stand and follow her.
I knew it was Jean-Claude that she had tied to a chair and made watch. I knew it was him, and not me, that watched her with fearful, hungry eyes. But when she walked past him, without so much as a caress, I choked on his despair. Part of his punishment for daring to leave her.
"Anita, Anita," the voice seemed distant. Someone touched my shoulder, I gasped, and was brought back blinking, breath harsh in my throat. I was still seat-belted into the Jeep. We were still on 270, about to turn onto 44. I wasn't tied to a chair, I wasn't in Belle's lair, I was safe. But the sweet scent of roses clung to me like some kind of evil perfume.
Jason had been calling my name, but it was Nathaniel's hand on my shoulder. "Are you alright?" Jason asked.
I nodded, then shook my head. "Belle's messing with me."
Nathaniel squeezed my shoulder. I had opened my mouth to say, maybe you shouldn't be touching me right now,when the ardeurroared through me. The heat rushed over my skin in beads of sweat, brought my pulse pounding, rising like some ripe fruit to fill my throat, stop my breath, so for a moment I was drowning in the beat and pulse of my own body. I could hear my blood like a roaring flood. I could feel every pulse, every drop to the tingling tips of my fingers and toes. I had never been so aware of how very much blood was coursing through my veins as in that one heart-stopping moment.
I put my hand over Nathaniel's where it still gripped my shoulder. His skin was so warm, almost hot. I turned towards him. I looked into those lavender eyes, and just the intensity of my gaze, drew him closer, close enough to rest his cheek against my seat. I had enough left of me inside my head to think, dimly, he must have undone his seat belt, but there wasn't enough left of me to care for his safety. All I could think was that it brought him closer to me, and I wanted him closer.
"Anita," Jason's voice, "Anita, what the hell is happening? My skin is crawling with whatever it is, it feels like the ardeur.But it's not."
I never took my gaze from Nathaniel's face. Jason's voice was like a buzzing insect, noise, something I heard, but didn't really listen to.
I lifted Nathaniel's hand from my shoulder and pulled it gently against my lips. His hand cupped the lower part of my face, my breath was warm against him, and the heat of it brought the scent of him to me. His hands smelled not only of warmth, and blood, but of everything he'd touched that day. Faint traces that soap could not erase completely. His hands smelled of life, and I wanted it.
"Anita, talk to me," Jason said.
"What's happening?" Caleb asked, "why is it hard to breathe in the car?"
"Power," Jason said, "I don't know what kind yet."
I pulled Nathaniel's hand past my face, until my lips glided over his wrist, and there, there, just under the skin was a new warmth.
I flicked my tongue across the skin of his wrist, and he shuddered.
"Anita!" Jason said.
I could hear him, but it was utterly unimportant. The only thing that was important was the warmth of skin, and that faint pulse just below. I opened my mouth wide, lips pulled back to taste that pulse.
The Jeep swerved violently, throwing Nathaniel backwards and to one side, tearing his hand from me. He landed in Caleb's lap.
I looked at Jason then, really looked at him. In the back of my mind I knew it was Jason, but in the front of my mind, all I could really see was the pulse in the side of his neck. It beat against his skin like a trapped thing. I knew I could free it, make it rush red and hot into my mouth.
I unbuckled my seat belt. That froze me for a second, because I was fanatic about seat belt safety. My mother would be alive today if she'd used hers. I never rode in a moving car without one. Never. So deep rooted was that fear, it pushed Belle back, pushed back the blood lust she'd raised in me.
I found my voice, hoarse and strange, but mine, "I thought it was the ardeurshe raised, but it's not."
"Blood lust," Jason said.
I nodded, my hands still frozen on the unbuckled seat belt.
"Blood lust feels like the ardeur,but not. Sometimes you don't know which lust it is until you find out if he's going for your neck, or your groin."
I blinked at Jason. "What did you just say?" I never heard the answer, if there was one, Belle roared back through me, and I was suddenly more concerned with the beating of his pulse in his neck, than the fact that his mouth was moving. I heard no sound except that overwhelming thunder of my own blood, my own heart, my own throbbing, pulsing body.
I was sliding over the front seat towards him, and hadn't remembered moving, or wanting to. He hit the wheel again, sending me back across the car against the far door. The moment my back hit the door I could hear the angry honking of horns, as the Jeep slid through traffic, sideways. Then it evened out, going straight again. Jason was giving me wide eyes.
"I can't drive with you feeding on me."
My voice was thick, "I don't think I care." I sat up, my hands on the seat to keep him from throwing me against the door again.
"Nathaniel, Caleb, keep her away from me until I can find a safe place to pull over."
I was awkwardly straddling the gearshift when Nathaniel put his arm in front of my face. He didn't try and touch me, but held his wrist close enough for me to smell the warmth of his skin, then he slowly drew his arm back into the backseat, and I followed, sliding between the seats, following the pull of his flesh, like there was a line tied from him to me.
I spilled into the backseat. Nathaniel was sitting on his side of the seat now. I knelt over his body, straddling him. I could feel him stretched tight inside his shorts even through my jeans, but today that wasn't nearly as important as the smooth line of his throat. He'd braided his hair before we left, so that his neck was bare.
The Jeep swerved again, and I fell onto the floorboard, at Caleb's feet. We'd been lucky so far to avoid an accident or the concrete median on the road. Our luck would run out, and I wasn't sure I cared.
"If you can't take sex from Nathaniel yet, I don't think you should take blood. He's still weak." I heard Jason's voice, as though it were coming from far away.
I stared up at what sat above me, his jean-clad legs brushing my body. For sex, Caleb wasn't desirable, but for blood . . . I came to my knees between his legs, and began to pull myself up Caleb's body, fingers digging into the jeans, feeling the flesh underneath.
My hands slid under his untucked, button-up shirt with its loud comic book pictures. His skin was so warm. My fingers slid upward, touching the ring in his belly button. I hesitated there, tracing the edge of the metal ring, pulling on it gently, feeling the skin stretch, until he made a small sound of protest. I stared up into his face, and whatever he saw there widened his eyes, made his lips part in a small ooh of surprise.
I traced my fingers up his stomach, his chest, my arms lost under the oversized shirt, until when my hands slid over his shoulders, the shirt began to raise exposing his stomach. The sight of that bare skin began to raise other hungers, for flesh instead of merely blood. But Belle roared down that metaphysical leash she'd attached to me, and the beast receded before it had truly risen. She wanted me to want what she wanted, and in that moment I knew that though she had animals to call, she did not share their beast, their craving of flesh. The thought was too rational, and the leash loosened and I could think for myself.
"Why do you care if I take blood or flesh, you can feed off both energies? You've been feeding on Richard all day." I asked.
"Perhaps I am tired of flesh."
I had a flash, as if I read her thought. "You couldn't make Richard feed. He fought you all day, let you suck him dry, but you couldn't make him attack anyone else."
Her anger was like hot metal shoved against my skin. It bowed my back, brought a gasp from my throat. Caleb grabbed my arms, or I would have collapsed.
Belle's voice purred through my head, "The loup was surprisingly strong, but he is not my animal to call, nor is he attracted to the dead, but you are, ma petite,oh, yes, you are." Her power poured over me, but it wasn't the heat of blood lust, it was cold, the coldness of the grave. The moment the energy touched me, my own power flared to life, that part of me that raised the dead. It flared inside me as if Belle's cold energy was some sort of fuel for my own cool fire. "You are mine, ma petite,mine in ways that the loup cannot imagine. His connection to the dead is accidental, yours was fated from the moment you were born."
Her power was the power of the grave, of death itself, but so was mine. She meant to prove a point, but she'd wakened my necromancy, and she was just another kind of dead. I knew how to handle the dead.
I drew a breath, drawing in my own magic, getting ready to cast her out. I'd done it before. But her chill changed to heat before I could finish that breath. The blood lust washed my magic away, drowned it in a flood of need.
Her voice dripped across my skin like warm honey, as if the dark-power of her eyes had melted across my skin. "The power of the grave is yours to control, but not the power of desire. Desire, in all its forms, is mine to control."
If I'd had air to breathe, I would have screamed; but there was no air, and no sight for a swimming, dizzying moment. But I was drowning in sounds, blood rushing through my body, my heart wet and thudding, my pulse like a second heartbeat in a thousand places under my skin. I could hear, and I could feel.
I could feel Caleb's chest under my hands, feel the roughness of the hair that traced the edge of his nipples, and finally the nipples themselves, growing hard and firm under my fingers. The tiny metal barbells that pierced them were a distraction. I wanted to roll his nipples between my fingertips, and the metal interfered. Like a toothpick in your sandwich, they got in the way. I had a moment where Belle thought about ripping them out, and that was so not my thought that it helped me crawl back into my own head, at least a little.
When my vision cleared, Caleb's eyes were unfocused, his lips half-parted. Through me, it was almost as if Belle herself touched him, and her touch spread lust, lust of every kind.
I was in my own head, my own skin, but Belle's hunger was inside me, too, and I couldn't push it out. She was right; the blood hunger was not death.
I tore my arms through Caleb's shirt, popping the buttons loose, baring his upper body. When I channeled Jean-Claude's blood lust, I was always attracted to neck, wrist, bend of the arm, sometimes the inside of the groin, all nice major arteries or veins, but Belle didn't look high, or low. She gazed at Caleb's chest like it was a prime piece of steak, cooked just right.
My own logic tried to argue. There were other places where there was more blood, much closer to the surface. The sheer surprise of not going for someplace more usual helped me push her back.
Caleb's voice came heavy, "Why did you stop?"
"I don't think it's sex she's wanting," Nathaniel said, voice quiet.
His voice turned my gaze to him. If what was driving me had been the ardeur,it might have been enough to have me crawl to him. But Nathaniel was right, this wasn't about sex, this was about food, and Nathaniel wasn't food. Did that mean that Caleb was food? Not a pretty thought.
"What do you mean?" Caleb asked.
I gazed up at Caleb's bare chest, that young, half-finished face. He looked so puzzled. I said it out loud, though I wasn't talking to anyone in the car. "He doesn't understand."
Belle's whisper, "He will soon enough."
"It looks like it's your turn to take one for the team," Jason's voice from the front.
"What?"
"You're going to get munched on," Jason said.
The combination of my own moral dilemma with the fact that Belle had picked an odd spot for taking blood, one that just didn't make sense to me, was helping me swim to the surface. I knelt back in the floorboard, pulling a little free of Caleb's body.
"No," I said out loud, and none of the men answered me, as if they'd all caught up to the fact that I wasn't really talking to any of them.
Belle's voice in my head. "I have been gentle until now, ma petite."
"I am not your ma petite,so stop fucking calling me that."
"If you will not take kindness from me, then I will cease to offer it."
"If this is your idea of kindness, then I'd hate to see . . ." I never finished the thought, because Belle showed me that indeed she had been kind.
She didn't roll over me, she crashed into me, in a mind-numbing, breath-stealing, heart-stopping, swat of power. For an instant, or for an eternity, I hung suspended. The Jeep was gone, Caleb was gone, I couldn't see, or feel, or be. It was neither light, nor dark, nor up, nor down. I'd had near-death experiences, I'd fainted before, passed out, but that moment when Belle's power fell through me, that was the closest to true nothingness that I'd ever experienced.
Into that nothingness, that void, Belle's voice fell, "Jean-Claude has begun the dance, but he has left it unfinished between you, the wolf, and himself. He has allowed sentiment to cloud his judgment. It makes me question how well I taught him."
I tried to speak but couldn't remember where my mouth was, or how to draw a breath. I couldn't remember how to answer her.
"I discovered this with the wolf, but could not mend it, for he is not my animal to call. I do not understand dogs, and a wolf is very much a dog." Her voice whispered through me, low and lower, trembling through my body, but for her voice to dance through my body, I had to have a body for her to use. I fell back into my body as if falling from a great height. I was left gasping on the floorboards, eyes staring up at Caleb's startled face and Nathaniel's worried one.
Belle's voice glided through my body like a knowledgeable hand. I suddenly knew who had trained Jean-Claude to use his voice as a tool of seduction. "But you, ma petite,I understand you."
I drew a deep, quaking breath and it hurt all the way to my chest, as if I'd gone a long time without breathing. My voice came hoarse, "What are you talking about?"
"The fourth mark, ma petite,without the fourth mark, you are not truly Jean-Claude's. It is like the difference between engagement and marriage; one is permanent, the other not necessarily so."
I understood what she meant a second before I saw two dancing honey-colored flames appear in the air over me. I knew it was the second mark because I'd had the second mark three times before; twice from Jean-Claude, and once from a vampire I'd killed. I'd never been able to protect myself from it before. I knew from experience that nothing physical would save me. It wasn't something you could hit, or shoot. I hated things you couldn't hit or shoot. But I had other skills now that weren't exactly physical.
I reached down that long metaphysical cord to Jean-Claude. Belle's voice floated over me, she was delaying her moment, drawing out her pleasure and my fear. "Jean-Claude is hours dead, he cannot help you."
The dark flames of her eyes began to descend, like some evil angel coming to eat my soul. I did the only thing I could think to do. I reached down the other half of our metaphysical cord. I reached out to a place that hadn't helped me for months. I reached out to Richard.
I had an image of Richard in the hot bath water, cradled in Jamil's arms. Richard looked up as if he could see me. He whispered my name, but either he was too weak to push me away, or he didn't try. For a moment, it was as if it was meant to be, then I was yanked back, shoved into my own head, my own body again. Richard hadn't cast me out this time. Dark honey flames hovered over my face, and there was a vague outline, a ghost of long dark hair, the mist of a face.
Caleb was yelling, "What's in the car with us? I can't see anything, but I can feel it. What the fuck is it?"
Nathaniel's voice came hushed, and strangely loud, "Belle Morte."
I had no time to look up, to see the others, because those phantom lips were speaking. "I will not allow you to gain strength from your wolf. I have given you the first mark and you did not even know it. I will give you the second mark here and now, and tonight with Musette as my proxy I will give you the third. When Jean-Claude and I are equal within you, three for three, then you will come to me, ma petite.You will travel the world if I ask it, do anything, simply to taste my sweet blood."
That phantom mouth lowered towards mine. I knew somehow that if she laid a ghostly kiss on me that I would be hers. I did what I always did, I tried to hit at that face, and there was nothing to touch. I screamed wordlessly, and sent out a metaphysical cry, "Help me!"
Suddenly, I could smell forest, trees, fresh-turned earth, wet leaves underfoot, and the sweet musk of wolf.
Belle could stop me from reaching out to Richard, but she couldn't keep him from reaching out to me.
Richard's power rose like a sweet-scented cloud above me, pushing back those glowing eyes, that phantom mouth.
She laughed, and it slid over my body, made me shudder, my breath catch in my throat. It felt so good, so good, even while my head screamed that it was bad.
"Did you hear someone laugh?" Caleb asked it.
Jason said no. Nathaniel said yes.
Belle whispered along my skin, and even Richard's power breathing against my body couldn't keep her voice out. "With the touch of your wolf's flesh, you might keep me at bay, but not from a distance. The closer the flesh, the closer the ties, and the more powerful. You are already mine, ma petite,you cannot win free of me." Those eyes began to float lower again. Richard's power rose above me like a soft shield. Belle's power floated on the surface of that energy like a leaf on a pond, then she began to push into it, through it.
"Help me!" I screamed it out loud to everyone, anyone, and no one. I felt Nathaniel's hand on mine, and that phantom kiss did hesitate, did turn and look at Nathaniel. I felt her call him, like a deep thrumming down my bones. Leopard had been her first animal to call. If she owned me, she'd own my pard.
Nathaniel reached out his free hand as if he could see her.
"No!" I jerked free of him and the moment I broke physical contact it was as if Nathaniel was less real to her. She turned those dark-honey eyes back to me.
"I will have them all, ma petite,eventually."
"No," I said it, but my voice was soft, because I believed she was right.
"You will give them to me, all of them."
Fear poured through me as if I'd been plunged into ice water. The thought of what Belle would do to my pard, my friends. No, I could not let this happen.
"Fuck you, fuck you, Belle, and the horse you rode in on." My anger, my fear, seemed to feed Richard's power. The sweet, nose-wrinkling musk of wolf was so thick it was like being wrapped in invisible fur.
The Jeep slewed to one side. The angry honking of horns and squealing brakes followed it. Jason had given up on finding a safe place and just stopped against the concrete median. Nathaniel and Caleb were thrown across the seat and into the passenger side doors. I didn't have time to worry about the fact that no one seemed to be wearing their damn seat belts.
Belle's eyes pushed through Richard's power. It wasn't effortless. He made her work for every inch, but those burning eyes, that ghostly outline got closer, closer . . . until I held my breath as if afraid, if I breathed in too hard it would bring her against my mouth.
I caught movement from the corner of my eye. Jason was between the seats. He'd stopped the Jeep, thrown off his seat belt. He shoved his hand through the ghost thing above me, as if he couldn't see it. He grabbed my shoulder and the moment he touched me, Richard's beast welled up inside me. I'd always thought it was my beast that moved through me, but this, whatever this was, was Richard, not me.
His wolf poured into me like scalding water rushing into a cup, filling me to the brim, emptying my skin of leopard or death, until my spine bowed, my hands flailed, my mouth opened in a soundless scream. I could feel fur rubbing inside my body, strong nails, digging. The wolf was struggling to find some way out of my body.
Belle hissed at me like some great ghostly cat. The eyes retreated, hovering in the air near the Jeep roof, as Jason pulled me into the front seat and cradled me against his body. His closeness seemed to quiet the wolf, so that I felt it sit, panting, eager-eyed, staring up at the shape by the ceiling with hungry, arrogant eyes. Jason's eyes were his wolf's eyes, and today they seemed perfect for his face. But it was Richard's power, the power of the Thronnos Rokke clan that wrapped around both of us. I had never felt Richard's beast so thick inside me. It was as if I was a purse, a bag, holding his beast, feeling it pace inside me as if my flesh were a cage it could not escape from.
Belle's voice floated down upon us, and this time it stung, hot with her anger. "You can ride all day in the arms of your wolf, but there is still the banquet tonight. Musette will be there, and through her, ma petite,I will be there."
My voice came out with a low edge of growl, "I am not your ma petite."
"You will be," she said, and the eyes slowly faded, until only the lingering scent of roses remained to remind me that we'd won this round, but there would be others. Jean-Claude's memories knew Belle too well to think otherwise. She would never give up, not once she decided to own something, or someone. Belle Morte had decided that I would be hers. Jean-Claude had never known her to change her mind about something like that. That was so unfair, wasn't it a lady's prerogative to change her mind? Of course, Belle wasn't exactly a lady.
She was a two-thousand-year-old vampire, and they weren't known for changing their minds, their habits, or their goals. The last time a Master Vamp had come to town and tried to steal me from Jean-Claude, I'd ended up in a coma for a week. Richard had gotten his throat torn out, and Jean-Claude had nearly died for real. Vampires were always either trying to kill me, or own me. God I hated being popular.
