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Jean-Claude spoke from beside the bed. "Are you yourself, ma petite?"
"I think so." I glanced up at Asher's face, but he turned away, the spill of golden hair hiding his face. "Look at me, Asher."
"I did not mean to bespell you with my gaze. I did not even know that my gaze could capture you."
"It's never been able to before," I said. I looked at Jean-Claude. "What is happening? I was as bespelled as Requiem before I freed him."
"Non, you were able to fight free, once you realized what had happened."
"Yes, but why did it happen in the first place? What just happened, and why? And don't avoid the question again, Jean-Claude, I mean it."
He made a gesture that was half bow and half shrug. Managing to make it both apology and an I-don't-know gesture.
"Not good enough. You do know what's going on."
"I know what I believe has happened."
"Fine, tell us." I slipped off the bed so I could tie the robe in place better.
"All our people gained from what we did last night with Augustine. Asher has been a master vampire for a very long time, but he has never had many of the master-level powers that are taken for granted among many of us."
"His gaze has gone up a few notches, I get that," I said.
Jean-Claude shook his head. "Now, ma petite, it is more than that. What is Asher's greatest vampiric ability?"
I thought about it for a second or two, then said, "His bite is orgasmic."
Jean-Claude gave a small smile. "That may be his most alluring power for you, ma petite, but it is not his most powerful."
I thought harder. "Fascination. He makes you fascinated with him, once he's fed off you using full power. Once he's made love to you, it's like a sort of love spell, but it works the way that love spells never work."
"I believe his ability to fascinate has grown in power."
I glanced at Asher, who was still sitting on the side of the bed, but carefully not looking at me. I shook my head and walked closer to him. "Look at me, Asher, please."
"Why?" he asked, in a very still voice, carefully not looking at me.
"I have to know if your gaze can just roll me, or if it happened because I don't protect myself against you."
He almost glanced at me then, but gave me only the perfection of his profile and a wave of shimmering hair. "What do you mean, you do not protect yourself from me?"
"I trust you, so I don't shield from you. I want your power to take me. I don't want to fight it. But before it was a choice. Now I need to see if it's still a choice, or if you've just outgrown me."
"Give her the weight of your gaze, mon ami, let us see."
Asher turned, reluctance plain in the way he held his body. He gave me a face as blank and unreadable as any I'd ever seen on him. I'd perfected the art of looking at a vampire's face without meeting their gaze years ago. I was a little out of practice, grown arrogant with power, but old skills never truly desert you.
I studied the curve of his lips, then raised my eyes slowly to meet his. They were as beautiful as always, such a pale, pale blue. A pure, clear blue, but pale as a winter's dawn. I stared into those eyes and felt nothing.
"This won't work unless you try to capture me with your gaze."
"I do not wish to capture you," he said softly.
"Liar," I said.
He managed to look offended then.
"Don't try to kid me, Asher, you like power games entirely too much. You love the effect you have on me. You love that you can do to me what Jean-Claude can't. You love the fact that you are the only vamp who can vamp me."
His face went to cold neutrality. "I have never said such things to you."
"Your body said them for you."
He licked his lips then, an old gesture that he still made when he was nervous. "What do you want from me, Anita?"
"Truth."
He shook his head, and looked solemn. "You ask for truth a great deal, but it is seldom what you truly want."
I'd have liked to argue that, but I couldn't, not and be honest. "You're right, probably more right than I want to know, but right now, try to capture me with your gaze. Really try, so we'll know how careful I need to be around you."
"I do not want you to have to be careful around me."
I shook my head. "Please, Asher, we need to know."
"Why, so you can hide from me? So you can deny me the gaze of your own eyes?"
"Please, Asher, just do it, just try."
"I will ask as a friend," Jean-Claude said, "but the next request will be as master. Do as she asks." His voice sounded so sad. Sad enough that it made me look at him. I felt like I was missing something.
Once I would have just ignored the warning in my head, but I'd learned to ask questions. "Am I asking something bad here? I mean, you're both way too bothered by this. Am I missing something that's going to come back and bite us on the ass?"
Jean-Claude smiled, almost laughed. "Ah, ma petite, how delicately you phrase it."
"Yeah, yeah, just answer the question."
"We fear what your reaction will be if Asher can indeed capture you with his gaze."
I looked from one to the other of them. Jean-Claude's carefully pleasant face. Asher's arrogant blankness. I caught sight of Requiem against the far wall beyond them. His face was as blank as theirs, but it wasn't pleasant like Jean-Claude's or arrogant like Asher's; he simply tried to show nothing. His upper body was still decorated with the wounds Meng Die had given him. For the first time I wondered: if I fed the ardeur off him, would the wounds heal? I'd healed before with metaphysical sex. I frowned and turned back to Jean-Claude. "You had more than one reason for me to feed the ardeur from Requiem, didn't you?"
"You are not going to do it, so what does it matter?" There was the slightest flavor of anger to his words.
I turned to him. The pleasant mask was gone, and in its place something close to the arrogance that Asher hid behind. "I know I'm difficult, but let's pretend I'm not. Let's pretend that I'm not a huge pain in the ass. Just talk to me. Tell me your reasoning."
"My reasoning about what, ma petite?"
I walked toward him, talking as I moved. "All the reasons for me to feed from Requiem now. All the reasons why you're so nervous about Asher being able to capture me with his gaze." I was in front of him now, and realized that he must have moved back from the bed at some point, and I didn't remember him moving away. I'd been too caught up in Asher's eyes. "Just tell me. I promise not to panic. I promise not to run away. Just talk to me like I'm a reasonable human being."
He gave me a look, and it was an eloquent look. He let me watch thoughts chase over his face, but finally he said, "Asher is correct, ma petite; you ask for truth, but you often punish us for telling it."
I nodded. "I know, and I'm sorry about that. All I know is that I'll try to stop being a pain in the ass. I'll try to listen, and not overreact."
"Good intentions, ma petite, but you do know the old saying."
I nodded, again. "Yeah, the road to hell is paved with them, I know." I touched his arm where it lay folded across his chest. Even his body language had closed down. "Please, Jean-Claude, I feel like we don't have time to play to my insecurities. If we crash this weekend with all the other masters here, I don't want it to be because you were afraid to be honest with me. I don't want the disaster to be my fault. Okay?"
He uncrossed his arms, and touched my face. "So sincere, ma petite. What has come over you?"
I thought about that, then said it, out loud. "I'm scared."
"Of what?"
I put my hand on his, pressing his touch against my face. "Of failing us all, just because I didn't want something to be true."
"Ma petite, that is not it, not entirely."
I looked away from those suddenly knowing eyes of his. "I think it's the baby thing." I made myself meet his eyes. The gentleness in them was both easier to meet and harder. "If we really are going to do this, keep the baby, then we have to make this work. We have to make it all work. I don't have the luxury of being a pain in the ass, if it's going to get us hurt."
"You find out but hours ago, and you are suddenly more willing to compromise." He looked at me, considering, serious, tender, all mixed together. "I am told that pregnancy changes a woman, but so quick as this?"
"Maybe I just needed a wake-up call."
"Wake up to what, ma petite?"
"I keep telling Richard I've accepted my life, but he's right, I'm still hiding from parts of it. You"--and I looked at Asher then--"are all still tiptoeing around me afraid of what I'll do, aren't you?" I turned back to Jean-Claude. "Aren't you?"
"You have taught us caution, ma petite." He tried to hug me, but I stepped away.
"Don't comfort me, Jean-Claude, talk to me."
He sighed. "You do realize, ma petite, that these demands for complete honesty that come over you from time to time are another way of being a pain in the ass?"
I had to smile. "No, I hadn't realized that. I thought this was being reasonable."
"Non, ma petite, this is not being reasonable. This is another way of being very demanding."
"Well, hell, then tell me what to do, because I don't know how to be anything else."
"You are a high-maintenance item, as they say, ma petite. But I knew that before we became a couple."
"You're saying, you knew what you were getting into."
He nodded. "As much as any man can when he decides to love a woman. There are always mysteries and surprises in every love affair. But, yes, I had some idea what I was getting myself into. I did it willingly, eagerly."
"The difficulties were outweighed by what, the power you might gain?"
He frowned at me. "See, already you grow angry. You do not want truth, ma petite. You do not want lies either. You leave us all with no clue to what will take us safely through your rocky shoals."
"I've never heard you use a sea metaphor before."
"Perhaps seeing Samuel reminded me of my voyage to this fair land."
"Perhaps," I said, and even to me it sounded suspicious.
Asher made a sound low in his throat. "You seek a reason to be angry, so you can blame us, and run."
"Like Richard was trying to pick a fight earlier," I said.
Asher nodded.
I thought about that for a second or two. "It's not that Richard and I are too different, we're too much alike."
Jean-Claude gave me a look, like I'd finally come to something he'd understood long ago. "Too much alike in many ways, but you have compromised more, and your very alikeness in character makes him keep trying to force you to make the same decisions he has made. He sees the echo of himself in you, and understands even less why you do not see his rightness in all things."
"And it's maybe why he frustrates me, too. He's enough like me, so why can't he make the decisions I've made?"
"Oui, ma petite, I believe that is part of your immense anger toward each other."
"He's right, I'm trying to make him into something he's not, and he's trying to do the same to me. Shit."
"What, ma petite?"
"I hate being this slow about something that feels so obvious."
"It is only obvious once you have thought of it," he said.
"I'm not sure that makes sense, but okay, fine. I'm not saying I'll like hearing it, but tell me why you're so worried about Asher using his gaze on me."
"I'll answer this one," Asher said. He came to me, his robe still open over his body. It took more concentration than I'd have admitted out loud to give him eye contact and not look lower. "If I can capture you with my gaze, we are both afraid you will exile me from your bed. Your bed, and Jean-Claude's."
"I'm not in charge of Jean-Claude's bed. You and he sleep together in your bed whenever I sleep by day in his bed."
The two men exchanged a look I couldn't read. I touched Asher's arm, brought his attention back to me. "What is it?"
He looked down at me, using all that gold hair to cover the scarred side of his face. He didn't usually hide from me anymore. "What do you think that Jean-Claude and I do in my bed when you are asleep in this one?"
I frowned, then couldn't quite meet his entirely too-frank gaze. Vampire powers didn't make me look away, embarrassment did. "You're right, I don't want honesty, I just think I do."
"You are blushing," Asher said, and he gave a delighted laugh. "You think we are lovers, don't you?"
I was blushing so hard I was dizzy, and I felt like he was making fun of me. So I got angry. I crossed my arms over my stomach, and said, "Yeah."
Asher looked at Jean-Claude. "She believes what most believe of us."
I finally looked at Jean-Claude. His face was very empty. I had to lick my suddenly dry lips to say, "Are you saying that you're not doing it, when I'm not around?"
"All the touch I am allowed is when you are with us," Asher said, and it was his turn to sound angry. But his anger had warmth to it, to fill his voice.
I kept staring at Jean-Claude.
"You do not believe us?" Jean-Claude asked.
"It's not that, it's..."I tried to put it into words. Finally, I said, "How could you be so close to him and keep turning him down?"
"Thank you for that," Asher said.
"And what would you have done, ma petite, if you had found us in an embrace?"
"I... I don't know. I guess it depends on what you mean by embrace."
"Sex, ma petite, sex."
I opened my mouth, closed it, and didn't know what to say. "I don't know."
"I do. You would have stormed away. You would have abandoned my bed, damaged our power base, the triumvirate. You might have run to our so-conservative Richard, or left us both again. So shocked you would have been, so unready to conceive of such things."
"Maybe, but I didn't freak about you and Augustine."
"You were involved. We shared him. If you had come upon the two of us alone, you would have taken it differently."
"Well, yeah, he's a stranger for one thing."
"Wait," Asher said, "are you saying that you would share Jean-Claude with me?"
"We share each other now."
He shook his head. "We share you, Anita, we barely touch each other."
"Do not do this tonight, Asher. I ask this as your friend, and as your master. When our guests are gone, then we will continue this discussion."
"Your word on that," Asher said.
"My word."
I nodded. "When we're not ass-deep in alligators, and I've had a few days to digest the news."
"Is this news to you, that I want him as my lover?" Asher asked.
I shook my head. "Truthfully, I thought you guys were doing it like bunnies behind my back. You know, the whole don't ask, don't tell policy. It never occurred to me that all the touching you did was with me."
"I thought you would see it as cheating," Jean-Claude said.
"With another woman, yeah, but I don't have the same equipment. I mean if guys do it for you, I don't have those parts. But it wasn't guys I thought I was sharing you with, it was Asher. He's not just one of the guys to us."
"Are you saying that Asher is your exception to the rule?"
"I'm not sure I had a rule, but I won't share you casually with anyone, any more than I'd expect you to share me. But I assumed that you and Asher were lovers, without me." There, that was the truth.
"Why did you assume it?"
I motioned at Asher. "Look at him. Look at the way he watches you."
Asher laughed. "Are you saying I am so adorable, how could anyone turn me down?"
I nodded. "Yeah, I am."
His face softened, and he came to stand beside me. "Oh, Anita, you make my heart young again."
I took his hand in mine. "And sometimes you make me feel like such a baby."
"Pourquoi?"
"That I can take you both to bed, but I assumed you were doing each other behind my back, to save my sensibilities. It was a neat, clean solution, I thought. I didn't have to decide how I felt about you two being a couple, but we all got what we needed. Instead, Jean-Claude has been a very, very good boy, and you've felt neglected."
"Rejected," he said, and gave Jean-Claude a dark look.
I touched his face, turned him back to face me. "That was my fault, not his. He's right, Asher. You know me. I can ignore the elephant in the living room until I'm eyeball-deep in shit, but if you make me look at something before it's that big, sometimes I take it badly. If I'd walked in on you guys together, I'd have used it as an excuse to run for the hills. Jean-Claude's right about that."
"And now?" he asked.
"I'm not sure. That's the truth. Before I saw Jean-Claude kiss Auggie last night, before we shared him, I would have just said no. Not only no, but hell no." I looked down, not sure if I was embarrassed, unhappy, or just out of my depth. "But I want everyone that I love to be happy. I know that. I want us all to be happy, and to stop running." I touched my stomach, so nice and flat with all the exercise. "To stop pretending that we're something we're not." I looked up at him. "No one asked you how you feel about the baby thing. I mean, you have as good a chance at it as Jean-Claude. Being the father, I mean."
He smiled at me. "I am a selfish clod." He dropped to his knees, gazing up at me. "I wake power drunk, and forget you have been through so very much in the last few hours. Forgive me."
I shook my head. "No, I've been ignoring your problem for a lot longer."
"I am in the bed of two people I love, there is no problem. I am luckier, and happier, than I ever dreamed to be again."
"But..."
He put his fingertips against my mouth. "Hush. You ask how I feel about your pregnancy. How could I be anything but happy about the possibility of a little you, or Jean-Claude, coming into our lives? Julianna regretted that she never gave me a child." He said her name without aching sadness, for the very first time.
I kissed his fingers and moved his hand so I could say, "You're happy about the pregnancy."
"Not happy, or unhappy, but I am very happy with you right now. I am very proud to call you my lover. You truly want us all to be happy, Anita. You have no idea how rare it is for two people in a relationship to truly want the happiness of the other, but you juggle many hearts and seek happiness for all. It is a rare gift, this desire."
"How could you love someone and not want them to be happy?"
He smiled up at me, his hair falling back. He smiled broad enough to flash fangs, which he did rarely. A smile this broad stretched the scars, made him notice how tight the skin was, but it was the effect on others that made him not do it, or the perceived effect on others. I remembered this smile from centuries before I was born. It was a smile he had before Julianna died, before holy water was trailed over him to try to chase the devil out. I smiled back, because it eased something in my heart to see that smile again. I was almost certain that the feeling of ease was Jean-Claude's and not mine, but it felt real.
Asher hugged me, putting his face against my stomach. He went very still, as if he were listening. I stroked his hair, always a surprise, because it was soft and foamy, not as soft as Jean-Claude's, but as soft as mine. Hair that looked like spun gold shouldn't be that soft, should it?
He spoke low and soft, in French. I caught the word bebe. Baby. I waited to be irritated, but all I could think while I stared down at him whispering to my stomach was how cute it was. That didn't sound like me. I looked across the room, and found Jean-Claude's face gone soft with emotion. I knew who thought it was cute, and it wasn't me. But with that much of Jean-Claude's emotion going through me, I had to agree. I held my hand out to Jean-Claude, while the other hand stroked Asher's hair. Jean-Claude took my hand and hugged me from behind, pressing his body to Asher's arms around my waist. So happy, Jean-Claude was so happy. It filled us both, so warm, so good, like being wrapped in your favorite blanket cuddled against someone you love. I leaned into Jean-Claude's arm, and he laid a kiss against my neck. Asher raised his face, and smiled up at us both. His face somehow looked younger, the way he must have looked centuries ago when he was alive.
The happiness was real, touchable; then the thinnest slice of regret crept into Jean-Claude's mind. I caught the thought before he could hide it, that happiness like this does not last. That the last time he'd been this happy, it had all gone horribly wrong. He buried his face in the crook of my neck to hide his expression from Asher. I touched his face, gave him my eyes, and let him see that I'd "heard" his thought, and it was all right. It was all right to fear the-great-bad-thing coming to get you, because I believed in the-great-bad-thing, too.
When I was younger, I'd wanted someone to promise me that things would work out and nothing bad would ever happen again. But I understood now that that was a child's wish. No one could promise that. No one. The grown-ups could try, but they couldn't promise, not and mean it. I stood there between the two of them, and knew that I would do whatever it took to keep them safe, to keep them happy. I'd been willing to kill for the people I loved for a very long time; now I had to start living for them.
