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36
THAT MICROSCOPIC BIT of regret gave way to a planet-sized wave of relief. By the time we all left the hospital, I wanted to skip and shout to strangers that I wasn't pregnant. I didn't do it, but I was as close to giddy as I get; giddy with relief. It was like being on a happy drunk. It was so bad that Micah suggested he drive us back to the Circus. Two miracles occurred; I let him do it, and Richard didn't argue that he should drive. In fact, Richard was positively quiet. He slid into the backseat without a word, a look on his face like he was thinking very serious thoughts. I left him to it, because I wasn't thinking anything sad.
Claudia and Lisandro shoved themselves into the seat beside him. The three of them had such wide shoulders that I always wondered if they'd all fit, but they did. Noel got in the very back. Travis rode with Graham and Ixion in the second car.
I started to use the cell phone to tell Jean-Claude, then realized I didn't need the phone, not for this. I opened the marks, just a little, until I could feel him down the cool line of power.
"What are you doing, Anita?" Richard asked.
"Telling Jean-Claude the good news."
"Use a phone, please, with me this close in the car."
I looked back at him. His skin was running with goosebumps from what little I'd just done. I thought about ignoring him, but that seemed cruel, and I didn't want to be cruel. But I didn't have a chance to decide; Jean-Claude whispered through my head, "Ma petite ..."
Richard closed his eyes, as if it hurt him, but I knew that look. It wasn't that it hurt. It was the opposite, it felt good. He didn't like that it felt good.
I said out loud, "I'm here."
He whispered through my head, "You do not need to say it. I can read it off the tip of your mind, so loudly do you think it. You are not pregnant."
I fought the urge to bounce in my seat, but managed to say, "Yes, yes."
I felt him smile. "I am very happy that you are so happy about it. You feel light, as if you could fly."
It was how I felt, so I just agreed with him.
Richard's thread of warmth trailed through my mind. But he spoke out loud, to both me and Jean-Claude, "Will you please stop this while I'm trapped in the car with it?"
Jean-Claude's voice seemed to grow, so that it filled both of us. "We will talk later about these glad tidings." Then he was gone.
I turned in the seat so I could see Richard's face. "Why did that bother you?"
"I don't want him crawling in my head right now."
Noel's voice came from the back. "I can't study if power is crawling all over my skin, sorry."
I looked at Claudia. "Did you feel it, too?"
She fought it, then finally shivered. "I can usually tell when you are using the triumvirate, but it does seem more powerful today." She tried to rub her hands on her arms, but with the three of them squished in the seat there really wasn't room to finish the movement. But she made her point.
"Okay," I said, and turned to face front.
Micah offered his hand over the middle of the seat, and I took it. His hand was warm, but not too warm, in mine. He was trying not to up the power level in the car. I'd had small versions of the ardeur rise while I was driving?not good, not good at all.
I held his hand, and tried not to have my delirious relief bring my power up, and cause his beast to rise for me. Our beasts could flow in and out of each other, but that would be bad right now, so I tried to hold on to my shields, and not let happiness break them down. I knew that sorrow, and anger, could cause my concentration to break, but I'd never realized that happiness could do it, too.
I controlled my happiness all the way to the Circus. The long, stone stairs flew by under my feet. Jean-Claude met me in the living room, and I bounced into his arms, wrapping my arms and legs around him. I kissed him long and deep, and only when we came up for air did I realize that we had company.
Augustine sat on the love seat draped in a black silk shawl that left the tops of his bare shoulders like pale islands peeking out. His yellow curls were in disarray, as if all he'd done was run his fingers through them. He was wearing the bottoms of black silk pajamas that were too long for him. It seemed wrong to call such a muscular man winsome, but that was the word that came to mind. I looked at him, and I felt something similar to what I'd felt when I looked at Jean-Claude. It didn't have the depth and richness that my feelings for Jean-Claude, or Micah, or even Richard had, but it was that first burst of love when lust has worn away a little, and you realize that you still like someone. That it wasn't just lust, but something deeper. I stood there, staring at Auggie, and thought that it sounded like a good idea to wake up some morning beside him when he looked all sleep tousled and winsome. I was in love with him. I should have been terrified, or angry, but I wasn't. It wasn't vampire powers that made me stay calm about it. Maybe we could fix this, the way we'd fixed Requiem's attraction to me. There were options. We could work around it. I wasn't pregnant; we could work around anything else.
"Ma petite."
I turned back to look at Jean-Claude. I hadn't even noticed the brush of the black satin shirt underneath my hands. The shirt was untucked over black jeans. He had very few jeans. He usually only wore them if he suspected he'd be ruining the clothes, or he was trying to portray himself as accessible in some media event. His feet were bare, the flesh only a little less white than the carpet.
"Ma petite," he said again, and this time the nickname made me look back to his face. His hair was a careful fall of curls--his version of casual. "How do you feel when you look upon Augustine?"
I started to look back at the other vampire, but Jean-Claude caught my arm, turned me to look at him. "Answer before you look back, ma petite."
"I think it sounds like a really good idea to have him wake up beside me all tousled and half naked."
"Is it merely lust?"
I shook my head. "No, no, it's the beginning of the real deal. It's love, not just lust."
"You do not sound upset."
I smiled at him. "I'm not pregnant, we can work around everything else. I mean, isn't this similar to what I did to Requiem with the ardeur? If I can free him, then shouldn't a Master of the City be able to free me?"
"Jean-Claude, how do you feel about Augustine?" This from Richard, who had come to stand just behind us.
"I see him as lovely, but strangely, I am not in love with him. He is not in love with me. I had hoped that meant the worst, or best, had not happened, but..." He looked beyond us to Augustine.
I looked with him. I noticed that from this distance Auggie's charcoal-gray eyes looked almost black.
"Do you need to ask how do I feel about your human servant?" he asked.
Jean-Claude nodded.
"It is all I can do to stay here on this seat. I want to touch her, to hold her. If my heart could beat, it would break."
"Why should your heart break?" I asked, and was surprised at how ordinary I sounded, even felt.
"Because you belong to another, and I love you."
I took a step forward, and Jean-Claude's fingers began to let me go. Richard grabbed my other arm. "No, Anita, don't go to him."
"Why not?" I asked, looking up into those brown eyes.
He started to say several things, but finally said the only thing that was really true. "Because I don't want you to."
That stopped me more surely than any anger could have. I was left staring up at him, watching the pain on his face, and not knowing what to do about it. "Why is sharing me with Auggie different than sharing me with all the rest."
"You don't love the rest."
I started to smile, stopped, then said, "Who don't I love?"
He let me go then, as if my skin had suddenly gotten hot. "I'll go get changed for the ballet." He actually started for the far hallway.
"It is a little early to change, mon ami."
Richard shook his head. "I can't watch this, I just can't."
"What do you think is going to happen, Richard?" I asked.
He answered without turning around. "You're going to have sex with him again. Maybe you and Jean-Claude." He shook his head again. "It was bad enough to feel some of it, I don't want to watch."
"I'm in love with him, Richard, that doesn't mean we're going to fuck. You, of all people, should know that just because someone has my heart doesn't mean they have my body."
That stopped him, just at the far doorway. He turned around, looked at me. "You don't feel compelled to fuck him?"
I shook my head.
"I am losing my touch," Auggie said.
It made me turn and waste a smile on him. My smile made him smile, that goofy smile that you only do when you're truly gone on someone. "You haven't lost anything, and you know it."
He made a gesture that was half bow, and half shrug. He managed to look modest, but not like he really meant it. "If I have lost nothing, and you do not fear what we feel for each other, then come to me, Anita."
"You come to me," I said.
He grinned at me, wide enough to flash fangs, which was rare for a vampire his age. He stood up, the shawl still covering most of him.
"Master, do not go to her." Octavius, his human servant, came around the side of the love seat. The werelion Pierce came with him. I think they meant to outflank him and keep him from touching me. He stood in front of Auggie, blocking our view of each other. "You are the Master of the City of Chicago, you go to no woman. They come to you."
Auggie moved Octavius to one side, gently but firmly. "I don't think this one will." He looked at me, half-smiling. "Will you come to me?"
"Why should I?"
He grinned again. "I don't know if it's my own power backfiring, but I see what you saw in her, Jean-Claude. An ambitious target for love, and I would think harmful to the ego, but worth the effort, oh, yes, worth the effort." He pushed past his men, flinging the shawl into the air, so that he was suddenly nude from the waist up. The sight of him like that pushed my pulse up into my throat. I remembered what it was like to be held down by that body, what it was like to hold all that muscled strength in my arms. I took a step forward, and I think we would have met in the middle of the room, but I suddenly smelled sun-warmed grass, felt heat, lion. I smelled lion.
I turned around to look for Noel and Travis. They were standing near the far door, as if they weren't sure what to do. I couldn't blame them for that, but it wasn't them I was sensing.
I turned the other way, toward the far hallway, where Richard was still standing. But it wasn't Richard who was making my skin creep with power. Haven stalked down the hallway, human again, nude, and beautiful. In truth he was a little thin for my tastes, but it wasn't truly the washboard abs, or the slender hips, the long graceful legs, or even the swelling of promise between those legs, but his beauty as a whole that drew me. If he'd been unattractive, would I have felt the same about him walking toward me? Would I have been able to resist walking toward him, if he hadn't looked so damn cute?
My view was suddenly blocked by Travis and Noel. Of all the men in the room that might interfere, they hadn't been on my list. Travis's soft face was utterly serious as he said, "Our Rex said that you weren't supposed to touch him again before you'd fed on one of us."
I could feel Haven behind them, moving closer. "Move, Travis," I said.
He shook his head. Noel's eyes were wide behind his glasses, but he added, "Joseph wants you to feed the ardeur, or give us your lion, before you touch him again."
I knew he was close before Haven loomed over the two shorter men. I guess he loomed over me, too, but he wasn't going to move me out of his way.
His blue eyes stared down at me with a look that was almost frantic. I felt it too, an almost overwhelming need to touch him. What was wrong with me? My hand started to lift up, to try to move between Noel and Travis, so I could touch Haven's bare chest. I wanted, needed, to touch his skin. The look on his face said he felt the same. What the hell was happening now?
Noel and Travis moved closer together and stepped forward at the same time, bumping me, forcing me back a few inches. Farther away from the man at their backs.
I didn't want to be farther away, and neither did Haven. He tried to grab them by the collars, but they must have felt it coming, because they threw themselves forward, on top of me, bringing us all to the ground.
"Get off me," I said.
But I didn't have to worry; Haven reached down and grabbed Travis. Suddenly, Travis wasn't on top of me anymore. He was airborne, and hit the wall with a sharp, brittle sound, and I knew a bone had broken somewhere in his body. That fixed it, whatever the hell was wrong; I could think again.
Haven reached down for Noel, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him, tight, so if the big werelion threw him, he'd have to throw us both. It was the only thing I could think of in a split second.
He grabbed a handful of Noel's curls, jerked his neck back at a horrible angle.
I yelled, "Let him go!"
Haven snarled at me, and came to one knee beside us. "I am your lion, can't you feel it?"
I could, but that didn't give him the right to break Noel's neck, which was what was going to happen if he didn't stop pulling his head back. I couldn't draw my gun; it was trapped under Noel's body. If I let go of him, I was afraid of what Haven would do to him.
I slid one hand through Noel's hair, until I touched Haven's hand. The moment we touched, energy shot through my body as if I'd touched a live wire. So much energy that I cried out in pain. Noel echoed me, getting the backlash of it. Haven threw his head back and roared, a coughing, harsh sound out of his human throat.
He looked down at me with eyes that had gone lion gold. "Oh, God, yes, yes!"
I was shaking my head. I whispered, "No, no."
Auggie tried ordering Haven away from us, but it didn't do a damn thing. Octavius was a pain in the ass, but he'd been right about one thing: Haven didn't belong to Auggie anymore. He might not be mine completely, but he was no longer Auggie's.
Richard loomed up over us. "You want him moved?" His voice was low and careful, his face full of a dark eagerness. I knew that look; it was my look, the look when you want a fight. Want to hurt something, because it's simple, and you can stop thinking.
I said, "Yes." I said yes, with Haven's energy running through my body like a warm, hurtful blanket.
Richard said, "Thank you." I wasn't sure what he was thanking me for, but he knelt down beside us. He was on one knee, facing Haven. He wrapped his hand around the other man's wrist, where it was trying to pull Noel's head backward. The pressure eased on Noel's hair, and his head began to lower. Haven's hand shook with the effort to pull Noel's head backward, but Richard pushed his hand down. It was a struggle, and slow, but it was like an arm-wrestling match when one person is simply the stronger of the two. The match wasn't over, but one arm against one arm, Richard was the stronger man. He just was.
But Haven was one thing that Richard was not, a professional thug. He did two things simultaneously. He released Noel's hair, and he tried to hit Richard with his other hand. That fist going over us was a blink of the eye, too fast to see, more just an awareness of air moving, and the afterimage. Richard saw it, because when the fist tried to land on his face, he wasn't there to take the blow. He rolled backward, and pulled Haven with him, with one hand on the other man's wrist. Haven's own momentum made him fall forward, and Richard did a move that I'd showed him ages ago. His sport was karate, mine was judo. But if it had been me trying for the tomenage throw, I'd have failed. Because Haven was half-collapsed on Richard's legs, not high enough above the ground, unless you had the strength to plant your feet in the man's stomach and lift with your legs. I would have just ended with Haven on top of me, not an improvement in a fight, but Richard pushed him skyward and was strong enough to keep the momentum going.
Haven flew across the room and hit the fireplace. Richard had time to stand before the other man got to his knees, then charged him. The fight was on.
