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"Then it is controllable, incredibly powerful, but controllable. It is something our enemies and allies will fear and lust after, but they will not fear us too much, or lust too greatly. It is the difference between having a weapon that one can use, and one that you dare never use."
"Like nuclear bombs," I said.
He nodded. "Oui."
I frowned at him. "Define 'feed the ardeur'?"
He made a sound that was half tsk and half throat sound. "Feed, feed, ma petite. He is not ugly. Feed upon him, completely, no tasting, no holding back. Feed, and if he can withstand it, then the ballet tonight goes on, the party after."
I looked behind me to Requiem. He was trying for a neutral look, and failing. "Let me test my understanding: you want me to make love to another man, and feed the ardeur off him?"
"Yes," he said.
If Ronnie had been there, she'd have shot herself, or maybe shot me. I wasn't planning on keeping Requiem. This was supposed to be like a one-night stand. But I didn't believe it. I'd never had sex with anyone just once. "I can't do another permanent man in my life, Jean-Claude. I can't."
"Think of him as you think of Jason. What did he call himself, your fuck buddy?"
I raised my eyebrows at him, then turned and looked at Requiem. "Did you hear that?"
"I did."
"Do you understand what the term means?"
"It means someone who is your friend, that you sometimes have sex with, but it is not a relationship. Though I prefer the term fib for it."
"Fib?" I made it a question.
"Friends in bed, fib."
"Prettier," I said. "Fine, you okay with just being my friend in bed?"
"Your heart speaks to others, Anita, I know this. My heart speaks to no one else. But this is not a matter of hearts, but a matter of flesh and blood." He held his hand out to me. "Come to me, Anita, please. I have thrown off your silken chains for this chance to be with you; do not deny me."
Maybe it was the way Requiem talked, all poetry and so emotional sounding. I was a modern girl; I wasn't used to it. Jean-Claude could talk pretty when he wanted to, but he was my serious sweetie, and hearing it from someone who was supposed to be casual just didn't ring right. It was as if the words didn't match the situation. How could you talk about silken chains if you weren't serious? Fuck buddies didn't say things like that, did they? Of course, my experience with the whole concept of fuck buddies was pretty limited, so maybe I was just wrong. Wrong about so many things.
I stared at Requiem, and felt nothing. He was pretty, but pretty had never been enough for me. I was almost perfectly happy in parts of my personal life, for the first time in a long time. I did not want to screw that up, and I'd learned that every new addition had a chance of blowing it all sky-high.
Requiem let his arm fall. "You simply do not want me, do you?" He sounded sad, and more lost than when I'd rolled him.
I don't know what I would have said, because the door opening saved me. Asher glided in, as if his feet weren't quite touching the ground under the golden satin robe. His hair spread out around the robe, putting the shiny cloth to shame by contrast. He glanced at the bed and flashed a wide smile. "Oh, good, I'm in time to watch."
I gave him an unfriendly look.
He shrugged and smiled, way too pleased with himself. "Elinore has filled me in on what's been happening in here. When I woke early, I realized that if I was awake then so was Meng Die."
That stopped us all, made us all turn to him. Remus actually stepped away from the wall as if he'd go running.
Asher waved him back. "She's still in the coffin, though she does want out. She's agreed to behave herself."
"She vowed she would kill me, or scar me so badly that Anita would not want me," Requiem said.
Asher went to Jean-Claude where he still stood by the bed. He hugged the other man from behind, laying his head on Jean-Claude's shoulder, so that his scarred cheek was bare to the light. "Yes, I was there when she made that particular threat. She looked at me, and said she'd forgotten that Anita liked scars." His face tried for neutral when he said it, but failed. A flash of anger flared through the paleness of his eyes, making them flicker for a second like icy sapphires caught in light.
Jean-Claude hugged his arm where it lay across his chest. He leaned his face against the top of Asher's hair, and said, "How did you get Meng Die to see reason?"
"She said, for such power as she felt when you did Augustine she would play virgin. There's always another lover, but this kind of power is rare."
I looked at the two of them standing there, the light and the dark, entwined. I realized in that moment that I had never seen Asher enter a room and simply go to Jean-Claude and touch him like that. I had never seen them hug, let alone more. They touched, but it was seldom this deliberate.
Did they touch like this when I wasn't around? Did they do more? Did I care? Maybe. But did it bother me more that they were lovers, or that they were doing it behind my back? Doing it without me?
Jean-Claude pulled away from him. Asher held on for a moment, then let him go with a flash of annoyance on his face, but he didn't fight to stay closer. He simply let Jean-Claude move a little closer to the bed, and me.
I wanted to say, You don't have to hide, but I wasn't sure about it. I wasn't sure how I'd feel watching them act all lovey-dovey around each other. But the thought that they couldn't touch in front of me bothered me, too. I sighed and hung my head. God, I was confused even in my own head without any help from anyone.
I felt the bed move, and looked up to find Requiem getting off the bed. He stood carefully, showing how much he hurt, but he stood straight, his pale untouched back military straight like most of the older vampires. They came from a time when good posture was beaten into you, sometimes literally.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
He turned his whole body, rather than just his head, as if he knew that it would have hurt to do it otherwise. "I see how you watch Asher and Jean-Claude. I said that you do not want me, and you do not. It is plain in your face, in your lack of reaction to me. The irony cuts deep, Anita. So many women have wanted me over the centuries, but I did not want them. Now it is my turn to burn and be unquenched."
"Non," Jean-Claude said, "you are not going."
Requiem motioned with his good hand. "See her face, taste her lack of pulse. Her body does not respond to me. She does not even see me in that way."
"Anita sees you, or you'd have never gotten to feed the ardeur twice for her," Asher said. He walked wide around Jean-Claude, to climb onto the bed with me. There was a look in his face that I hadn't seen before. It was eager, almost angry, but not unhappy.
He touched my face, and his hand was cool to the touch. He hadn't fed. "I woke before noon today for the first time since I died." He leaned in toward me, as if for a kiss. "So much power running through my veins, even without blood. I feel wonderful." He stopped with his mouth just above mine, so close that it seemed wrong not to close the distance and kiss. So I did.
I meant it to be a good-morning kiss. Good, but not too sexual. But it takes two people to keep a kiss chaste and Asher wasn't feeling the least bit chaste.
He explored my mouth with lips and tongue. I melted into that kiss. I danced my tongue over the dainty points of his fangs, slid between them, deeper into his mouth. He pressed us together, hands urgent on my body. One hand undid the sash of my robe. The nude fronts of our bodies were suddenly touching. I didn't even know when he'd undone his own robe, only that the naked press of our bodies drove my hands under his open robe to slide along the smooth skin of his back and buttocks. When I cupped the tight smoothness of his ass, he drew back enough to see my face. Whatever he saw there painted a fierce look across his own. His voice came harsh and breathless. "Let me feed."
I just said, "Yes."
He wrapped his hand in my hair, hard enough for it to hurt, just a little. That little bit of hurting made me gasp, but it wasn't just the pain. It was the feeling that with that one harsh grasp he could expose my neck and hold me exposed while he fed. I might never have admitted it aloud, but there was something about a little bit of force that just flat did it for me. Asher dug his hand deeper into my hair, jerked, brought a cry from me. It wasn't exactly a cry of pain.
His free hand found my wrists, held them behind my back, while my robe slipped down my shoulders. He stretched my head to the side so that I could no longer see his face. I saw us reflected in the full-length mirror on the other side of the room. My robe had fallen like a dark frame around the paleness of my body. The robe covered our hands, and not much more. It looked in the mirror like my hands were bound. The sight of it made me strain to be free, and Asher tightened his grip, bruising my wrists just a little, just enough to let me know I couldn't get away. I trusted him. Trusted him enough to let him trap me.
Movement in the mirror, and I saw Jean-Claude reflected there. His own robe was tight in place, but his eyes glowed with midnight blue fire.
"The audience is a little large for ma petite."
"She's not objecting," Asher said.
"And do you not find that strange?" Jean-Claude asked.
Asher seemed to struggle to think, then finally said, "I do not know. I can't seem to think with her here in my arms." He looked out into the room. "Their presence seems to make it harder to think."
"The guards, or just certain guards?" Jean-Claude asked.
"Remus"--and he looked to the far corner of the room--"and the new one."
"And what of Pepito? Do you sense him as strongly?"
Asher's body began to relax against me. I didn't want that. I wanted him to feed. Needed him to feed. "Don't stop," I said, "please, don't stop."
Asher looked down at me with those glowing eyes. He seemed to be searching my face for some sign. "You wish me to take you here with the guards watching?"
Of course I did. "Yes," I said, "yes, God, yes."
He looked at Jean-Claude. "Something is wrong."
"Wrong, and right," Jean-Claude said. He came to the edge of the bed. "You have possessed her, completely. You could do what you wished with her, but when she sobered, then she would never forgive you."
Asher turned back to me. Whatever he saw there calmed him, tore the light from his eyes. "Anita, are you in there?"
The question made no sense at first, then I said, "I am here, Asher, right here." Some part of me heard me say it, and thought I'd heard that phrase before. I closed my eyes, tried to not see Asher's face. It helped, to look away. I knew where I'd heard the words now: Requiem. I was echoing Requiem when I'd rolled his mind. Asher had rolled me before, but not like this, never like this.
Remembering Requiem helped me think, but closing my eyes helped more. I was too big a fish for Asher's gaze to keep, but staring into his eyes had lost me, myself. I'd stared into Augustine's eyes and not been swept away, so how did Asher's gaze rate higher than a couple of thousand years of Master of the City? I was supposed to be immune to vampire gaze. My necromancy and Jean-Claude's marks should have kept me safe.
Asher let go of my wrists. I felt him move back from me. I opened my eyes and reached for my robe, drawing it back around me. "What's happening?" I asked.
