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I had, of course, complained about my clothes. The black velvet and blue silk seemed to be offering my breasts up like pale ripe fruits. The colors emphasized the near translucence of my skin with the undertone of blue highlights. But I knew what the blue highlights really were--blood. Blue blood inside my veins that would burst red when oxygen hit it.
Stephen had done my hair and makeup. He'd done them before, for these little get-togethers. He regularly did it for the other strippers at Guilty Pleasures. I had let him put my hair in a pile of loose curls on top of my head, so that my neck looked white and bare. Asher's bite marks stood out starkly against all that flesh.
"My neck and breasts look like they should be on a plate with a sign saying 'come and get it.'"
Stephen stepped back from applying the last bit of eyeliner. "You look lovely, Anita." He probably meant it, but his blue eyes were all for the makeup, for his work. He saw me as a canvas. He frowned slightly, did some minute adjustment near my eyes that left me blinking. He dabbed with a Kleenex then stepped back again.
He looked me over from the top of my head to the end of my chin, then nodded. "It's good."
"It's positively appetizing," Micah's voice came from the doorway. He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. The moment I saw him, I knew I'd lost all rights to bitch about what I was wearing.
The color was turquoise blue, with enough green to make his eyes blaze green. The shirt had holes at the top of his shoulder, in the middle of his upper arm, and two in the middle of his forearm. Black cord was threaded through the cloth and tied around his elbow, above and below the holes to keep the cloth from sliding around. The cuffs were wide and stiff, with shiny black buttons, with cutouts on the underside so the skin of his wrists was bare, just as the holes at his elbows left those spots bare. His skin looked very tanned, very smooth, very warm against the turquoise.
The pants matched the shirt--and not just in color. There were holes on the sides that flashed the perfect smoothness of his hip, down to glimpses of thigh. The holes probably went farther down, but black boots cut off the view just above his knee.
The pants were so tight that he really didn't need a belt, but there was a black cord threaded through the unnecessary belt loops that swung as Micah walked. He was actually almost to me when I realized there were holes on the inside of the pants legs, too.
I shook my head. "There's more holes than cloth."
He smiled at me. "I'm food, so you've got to be able to reach the blood. Jean-Claude didn't want anyone to have an excuse to undress anyone."
I glanced at Jean-Claude. "He's not feeding any of these people."
"Non, ma petite,he is ours, and ours alone, but we do not want to have to undress him either. If all of us keep our clothes firmly in place, then so will they. It would be a faux pax of gigantic proportions if they undress their food and we do not. It is our house, and our rules."
Put that way it was hard to argue, but I still wanted to. Then I looked at Micah's face more closely. "He's wearing eye makeup." I got off the chair that I'd sat in while Stephen fixed me and walked closer to Micah. He was wearing more than just eye makeup, but it was all so artfully done that you didn't see it at first.
"I could not resist those eyes," Jean-Claude said, "they deserved to be decorated."
Micah's hair was tied completely back from his face in a bun that was a graceful mix of French braid and sheer art. "Where did all the curl go?" I asked.
"It has been blow dried straight," Jean-Claude said. He came and almost touched Micah's hair, to show how lovely it was. "He did not protest anything that we did to make him so pretty." Jean-Claude gave me a look, out of his own black-lined eyes. "It was a refreshing change."
Micah blinked those amazing eyes that someone's art had made even more amazing. "You don't like it?"
I shook my head. "No, I like it. I mean, you're beautiful." I shrugged. "I don't know, it's just a very different look for you." I turned to Jean-Claude. "I've never seen you in this much makeup."
"Belle Morte broke me of wishing to see myself this way." He was shielding as he said it, as if whatever memory went with those words was nothing he wanted to share.
"So why pretty Micah up like this?"
"You don't like it," Micah repeated.
I frowned. "That's not it. Why do it now? What do we gain by having you look like this, because don't try and tell me there's no purpose to it." I turned to include Asher in his chair across the room in the look I gave Jean-Claude. "Neither of you would go to this much trouble tonight without a reason. I've heard nothing but both of you complaining that we don't have enough time to get everyone presentable for the banquet." I gestured at Micah. "This took a lot of time that could have been used elsewhere. So I'm asking, both of you, what gives?"
They exchanged a look, then Asher looked studiously at the floor. He pretended to be studying his perfectly manicured fingernails, but I wasn't fooled.
I turned back to Jean-Claude. "Out with it," I said.
He shrugged. It wasn't so much graceful as almost embarrassed. "Musette was finally forced to give us the complete guest list. She has withheld only three names, because they are part of the gift from Belle."
"So three mystery guests, what does that have to do with why you dolled Micah up?"
"One of the vampires coming tonight has an eye for a beautiful man. Both Asher and I fell afoul of him, more than once."
"And," I said.
"To flaunt such delectable meat in front of his table, yet not allow him a taste or a touch, pleases us."
"So you're being petty," I said.
Jean-Claude was suddenly angry, it showed in his face, filled his eyes with blue fire. "You do not understand, ma petite.Belle has sent Paolo to torment us. He is to remind us what we were, and how helpless we were. We went to anyone that Belle gave us to, anyone. She did not do it casually, but if our bodies in another's bed would gain her something she wished, then she used us, and let others do the same."
He stalked in a tight circle, the black coat floating out around him like dark wings. "The thought of sitting at the same table with Paolo again sickens me, and Belle knew that it would. I loathe him in a way that I do not wish to describe. But we cannot harm him, ma petite.Belle has sent him to torment both of us by his mere presence. He will smirk and leer and remind us with every look, every touch of his hands on someone else, what he once was allowed to do to us."
Jean-Claude came to stand in front of me, his anger beating in the air like invisible flames. "But this we can do, ma petite,we can flaunt the bounty at hand. We can show Paolo what I am able to touch, and Asher is able to touch, but Paolo cannot have. Paolo is one of those men who always wants what others have. It eats at his soul if he cannot have, in every way, whomever he desires." He touched fingertips down my neck and left a trail of heat on my skin that made me gasp, almost pain, almost pleasure. "I want Paolo to suffer, if only a little, because I do not have it within my power to make him suffer a great deal."
I looked up into Jean-Claude's angry, angry face, and sighed. "It's going to be like this all night, isn't it? Belle's only sent people that make you uncomfortable, or that you hate, or hate you."
"Now, ma petite.We fear Musette, and Valentina. I believe Bartolome came because he is bored. Paolo is the first name that truly incenses me."
I touched Jean-Claude's face, holding that anger against the palm of my hand. His eyes bled back to normal, or as normal as they ever get. I looked past him to Micah. "You okay with fang-teasing some male vampire?"
"As long as I don't have to come across, I'll play."
That made me smile. "If Micah's okay with it, so am I." I cradled Jean-Claude's face between my hands, but was trying for eye contact not a kiss. "But let's keep our eye on the ball, revenge is not why we're here tonight."
He put his hands over mine and held them both against his face. "We are here tonight because Belle Morte is le sourdre de sangof our line, and we cannot refuse her right to send visitors our way. But make no mistake, ma petite,Musette and her company are here to have revenge upon us."
"Revenge for what?" I asked.
Asher answered from across the room, "Revenge for us leaving her, of course."
I looked at him. "Why of course?"
They exchanged another look, one that I couldn't read. It was Jean-Claude who said, "Because Belle Morte believes herself to be the most desirable woman in the world."
I gave him raised eyebrows. "She's beautiful, I'll grant you. But the most beautiful woman in the world, come on! I mean it depends on what you consider beautiful. Some people like brunettes, some people like blonds."
"I said the most desirable, ma petite,not beautiful."
"I don't get the difference."
He frowned at me. "Men have killed themselves when she exiled them from her bed. Wars have been fought between rulers who were driven mad at the thought of any other man sharing Belle Morte's favors."
It was my turn to frown. "Are you saying that once you've had Belle Morte that no one else will do?"
"That is her belief."
I looked at him. "You and Asher left, twice apiece."
"Exactement ma petite,do you not see?"
"Not really."
"If we left her bed, if there is any touch that we prefer to hers, then perhaps she is not the most desirable woman in the world."
I thought about that for a second. "So, this entire expedition is to punish you two?"
"Not entirely. I believe Belle does want to test the ground, as it were, before she visits herself."
"Why does she want to visit at all?"
"It will be something political, of that you can be sure," Jean-Claude said.
"So punishing the two of you this time is what, an extra treat?"
They started to do another of those looks, but I touched Jean-Claude's face, forced him to look at me. "No, no more mysterious looks, just say it."
"Belle is the most desirable woman in the world, her entire power base, her entire self-image is built on that. She must find a way to understand why we left, and why we prefer to stay away, even now."
"So," I said.
"You are being too subtle," Asher said, pushing himself to his feet and striding over to us.
"Fine, you tell me," I said.
"Just as Belle saw Julianna as a threat, so she will see you. But we hope to convince her that it is not another woman alone that keeps us entertained, but a man. Belle never did see men as competition, not as she did a woman."
"So that's why you've prettied Micah up."
"And others," Asher said.
I looked at Jean-Claude. "Others?"
He had the grace to look embarrassed, but it didn't work completely, his eyes looked pleased. "If Musette can report to Belle that I have a harem of men, then Belle will cease to be worried about you."
I shook my head. "I don't think so, Jean-Claude. I think she's got a taste of me now. She's either going to be afraid of me, or attracted to the power."
"I believe she marked you once to torment me, ma petite.She does not truly want you as her human servant, but she is angry with me, angry with you for having me." He shook his head. "She thinks like a woman, ma petite,and not a modern one. You think more like a man, so it is hard to explain to you."
"No, I think I've got an inkling. You're going to try and convince Belle's people that you didn't dump her for any woman, but for a lot of men."
"Oui."
"And if the sight of a lot of gorgeous men torments Paolo, too, so much the better."
He smiled, but it left his eyes hard and unpleasant. "Oui, ma petite."
I didn't say it out loud, but Belle Morte wasn't the only one who rarely did anything without having more than one motive.
