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He bit me, fangs sinking in, pain sharp enough to make me push at his shoulders, as I tried to get away. I just couldn't take that much pain out of the box without pushing against it. I felt him begin to drink me down, his throat convulsing, swallowing. Something that could be so erotic, and it just fucking hurt like this.
But it was just like beheading a chicken to raise a zombie, or spreading blood on a vampire's lips to heal him. It was blood with a purpose, and I sent my magic down with that blood. I used it, to call Requiem. Used it to find him in the dark, and set him free.
He drew back from my throat, gasping, as if he'd been running. There was blood on his lower lip as he stared up at me. One moment he still looked dazed, the next he spilled into his eyes. They flared with blue fire, with that hint of turquoise in the center. His power danced over my skin like a cold, prickling breeze.
"I am here, Anita. You have cleared my mind. What would you have of me?"
I moved back from his arms, touching my neck, and came away with blood. Remus was already sending the young guard Cisco to the bathroom for gauze and tape.
"I wanted you free, and yourself. We've got that."
He shook his head, and winced, as if only now did the bruises hurt. He leaned back against the mounded pillows, favoring his stomach and chest, holding his injured arm carefully. "It was like being on drugs; nothing hurt that badly, when you touched me. I am free, but everything hurts."
"Isn't that always the way," I said, but I smiled. He was himself again.
I looked around at the other vampires. I looked at Elinore still gripping the back of her chair. I felt her. Felt her as if she were a flavor of ice cream that I could have put in a cone and licked. Mostly vanilla, but with chocolate chips. I looked at London. Not vanilla, definitely something darker, chunkier, full of hard crunchy bits. Wicked filled my mind like icing, chocolate icing to spread on skin and lick clean. I shook my head at the imagery, and looked for Truth, still huddling by the fireplace. Something fresh and clean, strawberries, maybe, strawberry ice cream to melt down the skin, and be licked away, so you could suck the cold around the nipples...
"Anita"--and it was Jean-Claude's voice--"Anita, you must stop this."
He never called me Anita. It made me look at him. "Why can't I taste you?" I asked.
"Because I am your master, and not a toy for your power."
The look on his face frightened me, because he was frightened. I licked dry lips, and said, "I guess this answers the question. I don't touch anyone else's vampires."
"No," he said, "no." He was at the edge of the bed. "Now shut it down."
It took me a second to realize what he meant. My necromancy, I needed to turn it off again. I closed my eyes, and drew it back in. I drew in tight and tighter, closed and squeezed that metaphysical fist tight and hard. But it was like the hand wasn't big enough to hold it all now. I could squeeze it down, but it leaked through as if the fingers were trying to hold sand. No, not true. I didn't want to stop. It felt so good to wander through the vampires, better than playing with zombies. The moment I realized I was the one letting the fist leak, I was able to shut it down. It almost hurt, but I did it. I could do it. But I wondered if there would come a day when there was so much power that I wouldn't be able to shut it down completely? I needed to talk to my magical mentor, Marianne, about that, sooner rather than later.
I opened my eyes and said, "How's that?"
"Good," he said, but his voice was not happy.
"That was frightening," Elinore said. "I felt your power, as if you were licking along my skin, my..." She shivered, not in a happy way.
"Sorry," I said.
"You could roll me," London said, "roll me the way I can roll a human. You could, I felt it."
"You must undo to my brother what you have done to him," Wicked said, "or bind me as you bind him."
I nodded. "We'll discuss it later, okay? I've got a full plate today."
"You promised me," Wicked said.
I sighed. "Look, I didn't know that taking blood from me instead of Jean-Claude would be that big a deal, okay? I'm doing the best I can here, Wicked. Truth was dying when I offered him blood. I saved his life, if I remember correctly, so stop being so pissy about it." I was getting angry, because I felt guilty, and that almost always led to anger for me.
"Anita can work on your problem another day," Requiem said. "Today is mine."
Something in the way he said it made me look at him. He lay like he hurt, but the look on his face wasn't about pain. It was almost anticipatory.
"What are you thinking, Requiem?" I asked.
"That you still need to feed the ardeur in front of all these good people."
I shook my head. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"The test is to see what will happen if you feed the ardeur in front of our visitors. You know not to use your necromancy in front of them now, but this question has not been decided."
I nodded. "Yeah, I think it has."
"I'm with Anita on this one," London said, "no ardeur in front of the guests. No anything much in front of the other masters."
"That is not your call to make," Elinore said.
"Do you think I'm wrong?" he asked.
No one answered. So I did. "No, you're not wrong. My powers are too unpredictable to use in public right now. I just have to shield like a son of a bitch."
"Perhaps you can control the necromancy to that degree, but the ardeur is not broken to bit and bridle, yet," Requiem said.
"She just freed you," Wicked said. "How can you want her to enslave you again?"
"I don't want to be enslaved, but I do want her to feed. I want it more than I've wanted anything in a very long time."
I looked at Jean-Claude. "Is he free, or not?"
"You called me back so I could choose, Anita."
I looked at Requiem. "I don't understand."
"You said you would never feed the ardeur on me again, unless I broke free and could choose. You said it would be like rape, unless I could choose."
"I wasn't sure you'd remember everything I said."
"I remember," he said.
"I think it's too dangerous to feed the ardeur on you."
"You swore that you would feed from me, if I broke free. I have broken free."
"I broke you free."
"Are you certain of that? Are you certain that my will did not help you some little bit?"
I started to say no, then hesitated. "I don't... know."
"Then I choose for you to feed."
I was shaking my head.
"Feed, Anita, feed upon my flesh, drink deep of my will until it doth spill upon your body like blood."
"You're not thinking clearly." I started to get off the bed.
He grabbed my arm, in one of those too-quick-to-see movements. He winced, showed that it had cost him. "I have not made the choice you would make, if our places were reversed. I have not said what you wished me to say, but I have chosen."
"Let go of me, Requiem."
He looked at me, and smiled. "I do not wish to, and I am free not to obey. I fought to come back because you said only if I did, only then would you feed from me. Would you deny me now that I have fought the battle and won?"
"What if one feeding undoes it? What if the ardeur consumes you again?"
"If I am never again to be consumed by love, then what better than to be consumed by the ardeur?"
"You sound like a junkie who's had another taste after a long dry spell."
"My heart has died twice. Once when my mortal life ceased and the second when Ligeia was taken from me. I have felt nothing for so very long, Anita. You make me feel again." He sat up, drew me in toward him.
I put a hand on his chest, missing the knife wound by fractions. "The ardeur makes you feel again."
He touched my face with his wounded hand. "No, there is something about you that has awakened my heart."
