30

Caleb had climbed into the back of the Jeep to get the plastic I'd started carrying, for when I transported something messier than chickens, and spread it on the seat so Nathaniel could drive. I'd tried to insist on driving but Jason had growled at me. He had a point, I wasn't feeling my steadiest. Nathaniel, his eyes bled back to their normal lilac, had told me, "You passed out. You stopped breathing. Jason shook you, and you did this sort of gasp." Nathaniel shook his head, face very serious. "We had to keep shaking you, Anita. You kept not breathing."

If they'd been human I might have argued with them, that they only thought I'd stopped breathing, but they weren't human. If a bunch of shape-shifters were unable to hear or see me breathe, I had to believe them.

Had Mommy Dearest tried to kill me? Or had it been accidental--or incidental? She wouldn't have meant to kill me, but she might have done it by accident. And I'd touched enough of her thinking to know it wouldn't bother her. She wouldn't be sorry, she would feel no guilt. She didn't think like a person, or rather she didn't think like a nice, normal, civilized human. She thought like a sociopath--no empathy, no sympathy, no guilt, no compassion. In a strange way, that must be a very peaceful existence. Did you need more emotions than she possessed to be lonely? I'd think so, but I really didn't know. Lonelywas not a word I would have applied to her. If you didn't understand the need for friendship or love, could you be lonely? I shrugged and shook my head.

"What is it?" Nathaniel asked.

"If you don't feel love or friendship, can you be lonely?"

He raised eyebrows at me. "I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"We've all just brushed up against the Mother of all Vampires, and she's more like the Mother of All Sociopaths. Human beings are rarely pure sociopaths. It's more like they're missing a piece here and there. True, pure sociopathy is really pretty rare, but Mommy Dearest qualifies, I think."

"It doesn't matter if she's lonely," Caleb said.

I glanced back at him. His brown eyes were very large, and underneath his fading tan he was pale. I sniffed the air before I could think, and the car was a playground of scents; the sweet musk of wolf, the clean vanilla of Nathaniel, and Caleb. Caleb smelled . . . young. I wasn't sure how to explain it but it was as if I could smell how tender his meat would be, how fresh his blood. He smelled clean, the scent of some lightly perfumed soap coated his skin, but underneath was another scent. Bitter and sweet all at the same time, the way blood is salty and sweet at the same time.

I turned as far as the seat belt would allow and said, "You smell good, Caleb, all tender and scared."

He was the true predator, not me, but the look he flashed me was all prey--huge eyes, face soft, lips opened just a breath. I watched his pulse beat against the skin of his neck.

I had an urge to crawl into the backseat and run my tongue over that frantic pulse, set teeth into that tender flesh, and set that pulse point free.

I had this image of Caleb's pulse like a piece of hard candy that would come free all in one piece and be sucked and rolled around in my mouth. I knew it wasn't like that. I knew that if I bit down the pulse would be destroyed, that it would die in a spill of red blood, but the candy imagery stayed with me, and even the thought of blood spraying in my mouth didn't seem terrible.

I closed my eyes so I couldn't see Caleb's neck beating and concentrated on my own breathing. But with every breath I drew in more of that bitter sweetness, the taste of fear. I could almost taste his flesh in my mouth.

"What's wrong with me?" I asked that out loud. "I want to tear Caleb's pulse out of his throat. It's too early for Jean-Claude to be awake. Besides I don't usually want blood. Or not only blood."

"It's close to full moon," Nathaniel said. "It's one of the reasons Jason lost enough control to change all over your seats."

I opened my eyes, turned my face to look at him, and away from Caleb's fear. "Belle tried to get me to feed off Caleb, but she couldn't. So why suddenly does he smell tasty?"

Nathaniel had finally found another exit back onto 44. He eased in behind a large yellow car that needed a major paint job, or maybe was in the middle of getting one, because half of it was covered in gray primer. I caught movement in the rearview mirror. It was the blue Jeep. It was at the end of the narrow street with cars on either side. It had.just cleared the corner, and seen us, and now it was hanging back, hoping, I think, that we hadn't seen it.

"Shit," I said.

"What?" Nathaniel asked.

"That damned Jeep is at the end of the street. Nobody look back." Everyone stopped themselves in mid-motion except for Jason. He hadn't even tried to look back, maybe wolf necks didn't work that way, or maybe he was staring at other things. I realized that he was looking at Caleb.

I looked at that huge shaggy head. "Are you thinking about eating Caleb?"

He turned and gave me the full force of that pale green gaze. People say that dogs are descended from wolves, but there are moments when I doubt that. There was nothing friendly, or sympathetic, or even remotely tame in those eyes. He was thinking about food. He met my gaze because he knew I'd caught him thinking about eating someone that was under my protection, then he turned back to gaze at Caleb, and think of meat. Dogs never look at people and think food;hell, they don't even look at other dogs and think that. Wolves do. The fact that there is no recorded account of a North American wolf attacking a human being for food has always amazed me. You look into their eyes, and you know that there is no one home that you can talk to.

I knew that lycanthropes want fresh meat when they first change shape. New lycanthropes are deadly, but Jason wasn't new anymore, and he could control himself. I knew that, but I still didn't like the way he was looking at Caleb, and I liked even less that he was projecting his need onto me.

"What do you want me to do about the Jeep?" Nathaniel asked.

I jerked my attention back to Nathaniel and away from the hunger. It was an effort to think past it, but if the Jeep was full of bad guys, then I needed to be concentrating on them, not some metaphysical craving.

"Hell, I don't know. I don't get followed that much. Usually people just try and kill me."

"I have to either pull out onto the highway, or turn the other way. Just sitting here, they're going to know we saw them."

He had a point, a good one. "Highway."

He moved us forward, angling for the ramp. "Once we're on it, where are we going?"

"The Circus, I think."

"Do we want to lead the bad guys there?" Nathaniel asked.

"Jason said it earlier, most people know where the Master of the City bunks during the day. Besides, the wererats are still there, and most of them are ex-mercenaries, or something in that ballpark. I think I'm going to call ahead and ask Bobby Lee's opinion."

"Opinion about what?" Caleb asked, from the backseat. His eyes were still too wide, and he still smelled of fear, but he wasn't looking at the wolf on the seat beside him. Whatever he was afraid of wasn't something that close.

"About whether we catch them, or turn around and try to follow them."

"Catch them?" Caleb said, "Catch them how?"

"Not sure, but I know that I know a lot more about catching bad guys than about following people to see where they lead me. I'm not a detective, Caleb, not really. I can spot a clue if it bites me on the ass, and give an opinion about monster-related crime, but at heart I'm in a more direct line of work than detective."

He looked puzzled.

"I'm an executioner, Caleb, I kill things."

"Sometimes you have to track things in order to kill them," Nathaniel said.

I looked at him, that serious profile, his eyes searching the traffic, his hands on the wheel at exactly two and ten. He hadn't had his license a year, yet. If I hadn't insisted, I'm not sure he'd have ever had one.

"True, but I don't want to kill them, I want to question them. I want to know why they're following us."

"I don't think they are," Nathaniel said.

"What?" I asked.

"The blue Jeep didn't follow us onto the highway."

"Knew we spotted them, maybe."

"Or like everyone else knows where the Master sleeps. So it's not hard to find his girlfriend," Nathaniel said, voice quiet, eyes on the road. But he knew I hated being the Master's girlfriend, or at least being called that. Truthfully, he had a point. If you knew who someone was dating and where they lived, eventually, you could locate them again. I hated being predictable.

Jason's great shaggy head came around my seat and rubbed against my shoulder, the ruff of his face tickling along my cheek. I reached up and petted that great head without thinking, the way I would have done if he'd been a dog. The moment I touched him, the hunger thrilled through me from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. The hair on my body stood to attention, and it felt like something was trying to crawl up the back of my skull, because the nape of my neck was prickling so badly.

The wolf and I turned as one to stare at Caleb. If my eyes could have bled to wolf, they'd have done it then.

Caleb looked terrified. I think if he'd just stayed still we'd have been okay, but he didn't. He unfolded his arms from his nearly bare chest and eased across the seat.

Jason growled, and I was out of my seat, on the floorboards in the back, before I had a chance to think, unseatbelted in a speeding car, bad idea. I think that would have put me back in my own head space, but Caleb ran. He spilled over the backseat, and Jason and I spilled after him. It was like being water, following the natural course.

We didn't pin Caleb, so much as kneel and sit around him. Caleb was pressed tight in the corner of the cargo area, his hands tight against his chest. He tried to take up as little space as possible. I think Caleb knew that touching either of us would be bad. Jason sat on his haunches, flashing fangs and letting the trickle of growl slide out. You didn't need words to know what it meant, don't move, don't fucking move.Caleb didn't move.

I was on my knees in front of Caleb, and all I could see was the pulse in his neck, thudding, thudding, against the skin, trying to break free. I wanted to help it.

I could suddenly smell forest, trees, and the scent of wolf fur that wasn't Jason. Richard breathed through my mind like a sweet-scented cloud. I saw him in my bathtub all those miles away. An arm darker than the tan Richard carried most of the year was across his chest, propping him up in the water, holding him. Jamil being a good Hati, making sure his Ulfric didn't drown. It was what Jason had done for me earlier, minus the sex. Richard was a little homophobic. He didn't like men who reminded him they liked men, especially if that man was himself. I couldn't throw stones on that one; I was pretty much the same way around women. No matter how sophisticated I was supposed to be, I kept forgetting that another woman could find me attractive. Always caught me by surprise.

Jamil's face hovered on the edge of Richard's, but it was as if in this dream vision all that was truly clear was Richard. I caught glimpses of his body through the water and the faint candlelight. Lycanthropes sometimes had light sensitivity problems, so there were no bright overheads, but the candles made the water dark, and hid more of Richard from view than I wanted. I felt like a metaphysical Peeping Tom. But the hunger was so easily turned to a different kind of hunger, it always had been.

Richard looked up at me, and the sight of his face, shorn of hair, caught at my throat. I wanted to ask, why?but he spoke first. It was the first time we'd spoken mind-to-mind like this, and it startled me. I'd known Jean-Claude and I could do it, but not Richard and me.

"The hunger's mine, Anita, I'm sorry. Something that creature did to me stripped most of my control." For a second I thought he meant the Mother of All Darkness, then realized he meant Belle.

I gazed down at Caleb's frightened eyes, and my eyes were drawn again to his neck, then down the line of his chest to his stomach. He was breathing hard enough, scared enough that there was a pulse low in his belly, vibrating through that line of hair that led down into his pants. The stomach was soft and tender, lots of flesh there.

"Anita," Richard said, "Anita, hear me."

I had to blink the image of Caleb's quivering flesh away, and I was suddenly seeing Richard's image more clearly than what actually lay in front of me. "What?" I knew that one word wasn't said out loud, only in my head.

"You can turn the hunger to sex, Anita."

I shook my head. "I think I'd rather eat Caleb than fuck him."

"You've never eaten anyone, or you wouldn't say that," Richard said.

I couldn't really argue with that. "Are you seriously saying you'd be okay with me fucking Caleb?"

He hesitated, the water flickering in the flame light, as his body moved restlessly. I caught a glimpse of knee, and thigh. "If it's a choice between eating him, or screwing him, yes."

"You didn't even like sharing me with Jean-Claude."

"We're not dating, Anita."

Ouch. "Sorry, forgot that for a moment," I said. The momentary flare of pain like a half-healed wound helped me think a little more clearly. "Jason is in wolf form Richard. I don't do furry."

"That I can do something about." I saw his beast like some golden shadow leap out of him and into me. It was like being on the receiving end of a metaphysical knife, until that power stabbed through me and into Jason, and I was suddenly in the middle of all that power, all that pain, all that rage. The beast feeds on pain and rage, sort of the ultimate id. I was left kneeling, gasping, too breathless to scream.

Jason screamed for me, and I felt his beast slide away from him, no, into him, like stuffing something impossibly huge into a suitcase that was already full. But this suitcase was Jason's body, and it hurt. I felt the bones twist, the muscles pop and reattach. Fuck, it hurt. I caught a distant thought from Richard that it was hurting so much because it was forced. When you fight the change it hurts more.

It was as if the fur was absorbed back into the pale flesh that rose through it, like something caught in ice, melting back to the surface. Jason's body melted back, and the fur sank into him, the longer bones, the muscles. It just all sank into him until he lay pale and shivering on a bed of clear liquid. The fluid had soaked my jeans from the knees down. Jason had changed, but not fed, now he'd been forced to change again less than a half-hour later. Maybe if he'd been allowed to feed he'd have been alright, but now, he lay, shivering, curling into a ball to hold himself and to keep in what warmth he had left and to take up as little space as possible. I think Jason, like Caleb, knew touching me would be bad.

Jason wasn't a danger to Caleb anymore. Until he rested, he wasn't a danger to anyone. In fact . . . I stared down at the curve of his butt, so smooth, so firm, so tender. I gazed on him nude, and didn't think about sex at all. All Richard had done was give me a choice of meals.

I looked at Richard down that vision that held him crystalline, and everything else hazy. "All I can think about is sinking teeth into his flesh. You've made him helpless, and I still need to feed, because you still need to feed."

"I'll find something here to eat. I will feed, but you don't have anything safe to hunt, Anita. You don't want to hurt either of them."

I screamed, loud and long, letting the frustration fill the Jeep, pour out of my mouth, scald up my throat, ball my hands into fists, and lash out, smashing the side of the Jeep. I heard the metal groan, and that made me blink, look at what I'd done. I'd dented the metal. A rounded dimple the size of my fist. Fuck.

Caleb made a small sound, and I looked down at him, and all I could see was the soft flesh of his stomach, I could almost feel it under my teeth. I was crouched over Caleb, my face sniffing along his stomach. I didn't remember getting this close.

Richard called to me, "Anita!"

I looked up, as if he were really in front of me. He pushed Jamil's arm away and leaned back against the side of the tub. He ran his hands over his chest, fingers tracing his nipples, one hand trailing lower, as he pushed himself out of the water. It cascaded down his body in silver flame shot lines, and that hand traced lower, lower. Over his stomach, down the line of hair, and finally to cup himself, play with himself. I watched him grow larger, and the hunger changed like turning a switch. But the moment the hunger became sex, the ardeurflared to life. It came from the center of my being like a flame, spreading, spreading, and Richard's hand, Richard's body fanned the heat, brought it in a roaring sheet over my skin.

But Jean-Claude wasn't here to help us, this time, and Richard couldn't shield today. The ardeurran down that metaphysical cord and hit Richard like a truck at full speed. It bowed his back, convulsed his hand where it gripped his body, made him fall back on the edge of the tub, his legs trailing into the water.

I looked into those big brown eyes, that face so empty without its mane of hair, and watched terror fight with desire. I don't think he'd ever felt the full force of the ardeurbefore. It overwhelmed him, left him breathless, immobile, but that wouldn't last. I knew it wouldn't last.

I told him what he'd told me, "You can turn the ardeurto hunger, but we're going to have to feed on something, or someone, Richard. It's too late for anything else."

Even his voice in my head seemed strangled, "I feel better and worse. I think I can hunt now. I couldn't have moved that much before."

"Everything has its upside, Richard, and it's down." I was angry with Richard, a fine hot rage that helped keep me treading the water of the ardeurthat was trying so hard to engulf me, drown me in desire. But I held my anger to my chest and treaded water for all I was worth.

I felt his hunger change, felt his belly tighten with need for flesh and blood and tearing, and only distant, very distant was the thrill of sex. "I'll hunt an animal, and I'll be fine, I think."

"That won't help me much, Richard," and I let the anger trail down the binding between us.

"I am sorry, Anita, I didn't understand."

I knew in that moment that I could force his hunger back into the ardeur.That just as he forced Jason to change form, I could force Richard's hunger to be the form of my choosing. I knew I could run magic down his skin and force him to feed the way I was going to have to feed. But I didn't. He'd done what he'd done in innocence; I couldn't return the favor, not deliberately.

"Go hunt your animal, Richard."

"Anita . . . I am sorry."

"You're always sorry, Richard. Now get out of my head before I do something we'll both regret."

He pulled away, but it wasn't a clean break. Normally, his shields were solid like metal doors clanging down. Today, it was like taffy pulling apart, clinging to each other, huge tendrils of sticky, melting candy that even when pulled apart was still two halves of a whole. I wanted to pull us together, to melt into the heat until we were one big hot sticky mess, and today Richard couldn't stop me. He didn't have the control to keep me out of him.

Jean-Claude woke. I felt his eyes flash wide, felt him take that first gasping breath, felt life fill him. He was awake.

Jason was gazing at me with his sky blue eyes. "He's awake."

I nodded. "I know."

Nathaniel spoke as if he'd understood way more of the unheard conversation than he should have, "We're almost to the Circus, Anita."

"How long?"

"Five minutes, less."

"Make it less," I said.

The Jeep leapt forward, accelerating. I crawled into the backseat and fastened the seat belt tight across me. It wasn't to keep me safe in case we had an accident. It was to remind me not to let myself loose until we got to the Circus, and Jean-Claude.

31

I fought the ardeuron the drive to the Circus. I fought the ardeurwhen I ran through the parking lot and banged on the door. I ran past Bobby Lee's surprised face and managed to say, "Ask Nathaniel about the Jeep." Then I was past him and running for the stairs that led down, down to the underground.

Richard was running, too. He was running through the trees, limbs and leaves slashing at him, but he was never quite there, dodging, moving, like water made flesh, flesh made speed. He ran through the trees, and I heard something large crashing ahead of him. His head came up, and the chase was on.

I hit Jean-Claude's bedroom door, as Richard was catching glimpses of the deer that darted just ahead of him, sprinting for its life. There were other wolves in the forest, most of them in true wolf form, but not all.

I flung the door open and the guards on the door closed it firmly behind me. I don't know what they sensed, or what they saw, and that was probably just as well.

There were still blue silk sheets on the bed, and Asher was still framed in them, motionless, dead. Only the Master of the City was awake, only he moved. I sent a questioning thought and felt all the vampires asnooze in their coffins, tucked in their beds. I touched Angelito for a moment, and found him restless and pacing, confused, wondering why his mistress hadn't succeeded in her diabolical plan.

He looked up as if he saw me, or felt something, then I was back at the bathroom door. Richard had his deer down and struggling. A hoof caught him across the stomach, tore the skin, but there were other wolves there now, and the doe had no chance. A black furred wolf tore into her throat, and I felt Richard riding the deer in human form, holding her as the struggles grew slower, spasmodic, involuntary. The deer's fear faded, like champagne opened and left to go flat.

The bathroom door flung open, hitting the wall, and I didn't remember touching it. I was through the door before it slammed shut behind me, and again, I didn't remember touching it.

Jean-Claude was in the black marble tub. He was kneeling, his long black hair clinging to his shoulders. He'd cleaned up. Feeling me coming towards him like a storm of need, he'd run a bath. Of course, he'd felt me like a storm of desire before, it didn't always mean the storm would fall on him.

I could smell the fresh, hot blood, as Richard leaned down towards the deer's throat. The wolf that had actually made the kill had backed off, so the Ulfric could feed. The deer's skin smelled acrid, almost bitter, as if the fear had bled out of the skin. I did not want to be in Richard's head when he put his mouth to that flesh.

I climbed into the bathtub in my clothes, the hot water soaking my jeans almost to the tops of my thighs. "Help me," it came out in a whisper that I'd meant to be a scream.

Jean-Claude stood up, water streaming down the perfect whiteness of his skin, drawing my eyes down the length of his body, finding him soft and not ready for me. I screamed, and Richard sank teeth into skin that was covered in hair.

Jean-Claude caught me, or I would have fallen into the water. I suddenly couldn't feel Richard anymore. It was as if a door had slammed in my face and there was a second of blessed silence, a quietness that went all the way to my soul.

Jean-Claude spoke into that silence. "I can shield you from our Richard, ma petite,and he from you, but I cannot shield us both from the ardeur."

I stared up at him, where I'd half-swooned in his arms, his hands at my back, my body bowed down towards the water, my legs soaked with the hot liquid.

I opened my mouth to say something, then he was as good as his word, and the ardeurcame roaring back. I convulsed in his arms, and he nearly dropped me, trailing my hair in the water, pulling me upwards, pressing our bodies against one another. My hands, my mouth, my body swarmed over him, traced that slick, perfect skin, caressed the faint tracery of whip scars on his back, which were just another part of his perfection.

He drew back from my mouth enough to gasp, "Ma petite,I have not fed, there is no blood to fill my body."

I gazed up at him and found his eyes as normal as they ever got, midnight blue, lashed with black lace. But there was no power in them. Usually, by the time we've gotten this much foreplay in, his eyes had bled to pure pupilless blue.

I had to swim up through the ardeur,through the need to finally understand what he meant. I pushed my hair to one side, and said, "Feed, feed, then fuck me."

"I cannot roll your mind, ma petite,it will only be pain."

I shook my head, eyes closed, my hands tracing over the skin of his shoulders and arms. "Please, Jean-Claude, please, feed, feed on me."

"If you were in your right mind, you would not offer this."

I pulled the red T-shirt out of my pants, but had trouble pushing the straps of my shoulder holster down, as if I couldn't remember how. I screamed my frustration, wordless. Maybe because of that, or because Jean-Claude was trying to fight off too many things at once, I suddenly felt Richard feeding, hot flesh going in great gulps down his throat.

I choked, stumbled, collapsed against the edge of the tub, letting the hot water come up to my waist. I was going to be sick.

Jean-Claude touched my back, and I couldn't sense Richard anymore. "I cannot shield us from our wolf, fight both your ardeurand mine, and fight my own bloodlust. It is too much."

I sat on the edge of the tub, hands flat, trying to keep myself steady on the marble. "Then don't fight it all. Pick your battles."

"What battle should I choose?" he asked, voice soft.

The ardeurrose like a gentle wave, chasing back the nausea, cleansing me of the sensation of meat and flesh going down my throat. I hadn't realized the ardeurhad any gentleness to it.

As if he'd read my thoughts, Jean-Claude said, "If you do not struggle against the ardeur,it is not so terrible."

"Like the beast, if you accept it, it doesn't beat the hell out of you."

He gave a small smile. "Oui, ma petite."

The ardeurdrew me to my feet, and I wasn't shaky anymore. I was steady in my desire. I moved through the hot, thigh-deep water, my jeans clinging to me like a second skin, my jogging shoes sliding through the thickness of the water. I stood touching him only with my gaze. The strength of his thighs, the loose swelling of his groin, skin there slightly darker in color than the rest of him, the line of black hair that traced upward, around his belly button, to the smooth lines of his chest with the pale circles of his nipples, and the flat whiteness of the cross-shaped burn scar. I came to the grace of his shoulders, the line of his neck, and finally the face. I was never sure how to look upon his face and not be overwhelmed. If it had just been the dark glory of his hair, I could have borne it, but his eyes, his eyes, the darkest blue they could be and not be black. They were the richest blue I'd ever seen. His eyelashes were so thick they were like black lace. The bones in his face were delicate, small and finely chiseled, as if whoever had made him had paid attention to every curve of his cheek, every turn of his chin, every sweep of brow, and finally the mouth. His mouth was simply beautiful. So red against the whiteness of his skin.

I touched his face, traced the edge of it from temple to chin, and my fingers clung to the beads of water on his skin, sticking, so that touching him wasn't smooth, or easy. The ardeurwas still inside me like a great warm weight, but I'd welcomed it this time, welcomed it chasing back Richard's beast, and I could think, though only about the man in front of me.

I stared up into that face and said what I was thinking, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" I slipped my hand behind his neck and began gently to bring him closer as if for a kiss, "And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" I turned my face and swept my hair aside, exposing my neck, "Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!"

He spoke, "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it: Thinkest thou that I who saw the face of God, and tasted the eternal joys of heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells in being deprived of everlasting bliss!"

The quote made me turn and look at him. "That's from Dr. Faustus,too, isn't it?"

"Oui."

"I only know the one quote," I said.

"Let me give you another. 'I kissed thee ere I killed thee, no way but this, killing myself to die upon a kiss.'"

"That's not Marlowe," I said.

"One of his contemporaries," Jean-Claude said.

"Shakespeare," I said.

"You surprise me, ma petite."

"You gave me too big a clue," I said, "Marlowe and Shakespeare are about the only contemporaries that people still quote." I frowned up at him. "Why are you fighting me on this?"

"Today with the ardeurriding you, you say feed.When your mind has cleared, you will call foul, and I will be punished by your regret." A look of such longing and frustration crossed his face. "I want more than almost anything to share blood with you, ma petite,but if I take it now when you are intoxicated, you will refuse me later more adamantly than ever."

I would have liked to argue with him. I would have liked to find another quote from someone to help persuade him, but my control over the ardeurwasn't as good as his, yet. Just staring up at all that beauty was making me forget. Forget what little poetry I knew. Forget logic, reason, restraint. Forget everything but his beauty, forget everything but my own need.

I didn't so much kneel as fall down his body. The hot water soaked through my shirt, my bra, my body, holding me in the heat of it, as I gazed up the length of Jean-Claude. He looked down at me, and still his eyes were human, normal, lovely to look at, but I wanted more.

I leaned my face in towards him, slowly, for a kiss on the mouth.

"Ma petite,there is nothing you can do until I have fed."

I laid a gentle kiss on his groin.

He closed his eyes, and his breath came out in a careful sigh. "I am not saying it is not pleasurable, but I will be of no use to you."

I took him in my mouth, and he was small and soft, so I didn't have to fight to get all of him inside. I loved the sensation of him when he was small, not just because I wasn't fighting the erection to breath and swallow, but the difference in texture. There was nothing on a woman's body that had this feel to it. I rolled him gently around in my mouth, and he shuddered. I sucked gently, pulling with my lips, rolling my eyes upward to watch him throw back his head, his hands convulse, grabbing at empty air.

I pulled back enough to whisper so that my breath caressed the wet skin of his groin, "Feed, so we can both feed."

He shook his head and looked down at me, and there was a look I hadn't seen much on his face. Stubbornness. "Pleasure I will take from you, ma petite,but not blood, not while the ardeurrides you. If you still wish to be embraced after the ardeuris fed, then I will gladly, joyfully, comply, but not like this."

I slid my hands up the smooth wetness of his hips. "I need to feed now, Jean-Claude, please, please."

"Non," and he shook his head at me, again.

The ardeurhad been ready to be gentle, as gentle as I'd ever felt it, but being denied didn't make it, or me feel gentle. Angry, stubborn, cheated. I tried to think past it, and couldn't. I'd been good, so good for so long. I hadn't fed on Caleb, and no one would have screamed at me for it. I hadn't fed on Nathaniel, and he was my pomme de sang.I wanted him to go another day before he got munched on. I didn't like that he'd passed out at the club.

I hadn't bothered Jason, who had been too weak to argue. Once I felt Jean-Claude wake, I knew what I wanted. I hadn't even seen the other men I passed to get to this room. They hadn't existed for me. Now he was denying me, refusing me, rejecting me. Some small distant part of me knew that wasn't true, it wasn't even fair, but that was a distant voice. The voices in the front of my head were screaming, fuck him, feed on him, take him.

I'd fought until there wasn't enough of me left to fight. There was nothing but the need, and the need had no mercy.

I covered him with my mouth again, and I did something that I could only do when he was at his smallest. I drew his balls, gently, into my mouth, so that I held all of him inside my mouth. It was the most amazing sensation to be able to hold him, to flick my tongue on the loose skin between his testes, to roll the delicate eggs of his body against my teeth and cheeks. He filled my mouth this way, so wide, impossibly wide, but because there was no length to match it, I wasn't choking or fighting to breathe. It was as if I could have held him inside me like this for days. I sucked on him, the shaft, the balls, all at once, fitting my mouth around the base of him, so that my lips formed a seal against his body, and I sucked him, licked him, rolled him, explored him. I looked up and found his eyes had bled to blue at last, but I didn't care anymore. I closed my eyes, wrapped my hands around the smooth tightness of his buttocks, and gave myself over to the joy of it.

I heard his cries, felt his body shudder and quiver under my touch, but it was distant. His flesh filled my mouth, rolled so easily under my tongue. I'd always enjoyed the sensation of him when he was loose, but I'd never been able to indulge myself, because after a few touches, like all men, he didn't stay small.

I wrapped my mouth close and closer to the base of him and grazed my teeth ever so lightly there. There, the base of all of him, so that to bite too hard would take it all. I knew what an act of trust this was for him. I bit just hard enough to make him cry out, then pulled gently against his body, using mostly lips for pressure.

I let his balls slip out and sucked the rest of him back in my mouth hard and fast, pulling harder than I should have, sucking him as hard and fast as I wanted, no control now, no waiting, just the feel of him rolling in and out of my mouth, as I pulled on him.

He screamed my name, half pleasure, half pain, and the ardeurburst over both of us. The heat spread upward through me, and I felt it spread, thrust itself into Jean-Claude. So hot, so hot, so very hot, as if the water around us should boil. I had enough left of me somewhere in all that to let go of him with my mouth, so I didn't get too carried away. I convulsed against his legs, my nails digging into his butt, hips, thighs, as he rocked above me, and fought to keep his feet.

He finally half-sat, half-collapsed to the edge of the tub and sat there, propped on his arms, breathing too hard, and that he was breathing at all meant he'd fed his ardeur,as I'd fed off of him. Sometimes it was just an exchange of energy, sometimes it was a true feeding.

I climbed out of the tub enough to sit beside him, but didn't touch him. Sometimes right after the ardeurhad been fed, touching of any kind could reignite it, especially between people who bothheld the ardeur.So it had been between Jean-Claude and Belle, so it was sometimes between us.

His eyes were still solid blue, like midnight skies when the stars have drowned. His voice was breathy, when he said, "You are getting better at feeding the ardeurwithout true orgasm, ma petite.'"

"I have a good teacher."

He smiled the smile a man gives a woman when they've just finished such things, and it isn't the first time they've done them, and it won't be the last. "An apt pupil, as they say."

I looked at him, and he was pale alabaster with that black, black hair, those blue eyes. The folds and hollows of his body exposed to the overhead lights were as beautiful and familiar to me as a favorite path that I could walk forever and never tire of.

I stared at Jean-Claude, and it wasn't the beauty of him that made me love him, it was just--him. It was a love made up of a thousand touches, a million conversations, a trillion shared looks. A love made up of danger shared, enemies conquered, a determination to keep the people that depended on us safe at almost any cost, and a certain knowledge that neither of us would change the other, even if we could. I loved Jean-Claude, all of him, because if I took away the Machiavellian plottings, the labyrinth of his mind, it would lessen him, make him someone else.

I sat on the edge of the tub with my jeans and jogging shoes soaking in the water, looking at him laugh, watching his eyes bleed back to human, and I wanted him, not for sex, though that was in there, but for everything.

"You look serious, ma petite,what are you thinking about so solemn-faced?"

"You," I said, voice soft.

"Why should that make you look so solemn?" The humor began to leak away from his face, and I knew without being a hundred percent sure that he was thinking I was about to run away again. He'd probably been worried about that from the moment I shared a bed with him and Asher. I usually ran after I'd made some big breakthrough. Or would that be breakdown?

"A surprisingly wise friend told me that I hold back some part of myself from all the men in my life. He said that I do it to keep myself safe, to keep myself from being consumed by love."

Jean-Claude's face had gone very careful, as if he were afraid for me to read his expression.

"I wanted to argue, but I couldn't. He was right."

Jean-Claude looked at me, face still empty, but there was a tightness around his eyes, a wariness that he couldn't quite hide. He was waiting for the blow to fall, I'd taught him to expect it.

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and finished, "What I hold back from you is sharing blood. We fed the ardeuroff each other now, but I still won't let you take blood."

Jean-Claude opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. He'd sat up straighter, hands clasped in his lap. It wasn't just his face he was fighting to keep neutral, even his body language was so very careful.

"I asked you to feed off me a few minutes ago, and you said not while the ardeurwas riding me. Not while I was intoxicated." I had to smile at the choice of words, because intoxicatedwas a good description of the ardeur.Metaphysical liquor.

"I've fed the ardeur,we both have. I'm not intoxicated any more."

He'd gone very still, that utter stillness that the old vampires could do. It was like if I looked away, he wouldn't be there when I looked back. "We have both fed the ardeur,that much is true."

"Then I'm still offering blood."

He took a deep breath. "I want this, ma petite,you know that."

"I know."

"But why now?"

"I told you, I had a talk with a friend."

"I cannot give you what Asher gave you, gave us, yesterday. With my marks upon you, I may not be able to roll your mind at all. It will be only pain."

"Then do it in the middle of pleasure. We've proven more than once that my pain/pleasure sensors get a little confused when I'm excited enough."

That made him smile. "As do mine."

That made mesmile. "Let's fool around."

"And then?" he asked, voice low.

"When it's time, take blood, and then let's fuck."

He gave a surprised burst of laughter. "Ma petite,you are such a sweet-talker, how can I refuse?"

I leaned into him, pressed a gentle kiss upon his lips, and said, "Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies! Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, and all is dross that is not Helena."

He gazed into my face with such longing. "I thought you said you could not remember more of the play."

"I remembered more," I whispered, "do you?"

He shook his head, and we were so close that his hair brushed against mine so that you couldn't tell where one blackness left and the other began. "Not with you this close to me, no."

"Good," I smiled, "but promise some night we'll get the whole play and take turns reading it to each other."

He smiled, and it was the smile I'd come to value more than any other, it was real and vulnerable, and I think one of the few things left of the man he might have been if Belle Morte had not found him. "I swear it, and gladly."

"Then help me peel off these wet jeans and leave the poetry for another night."

He cupped my face in his hands. "It is always poetry between us, ma petite."

My mouth was suddenly dry, and it was hard to swallow past my pulse. My voice came breathy, "Yeah, but sometimes it's dirty limericks."

He laughed as he kissed me, then he helped me out of the wet jeans, and the wet socks, and the wet shoes, and the wet everything. When my cross spilled out of my shirt, it didn't glow. It just lay there glinting in the overhead lights. Jean-Claude averted his eyes, as he always did when he saw a holy object, but that was the only hint I had that the cross bothered him. I realized with a start that I'd never worn a cross around Jean-Claude and had it glow at him. What did that mean?

I'm usually pretty straightforward except in emotional areas, but I was trying to be different, change that, so I asked. "Does it really hurt you to look at my cross?"

He looked determinedly at the edge of the bathtub. "No."

"Then why look away?"

"Because it will start to glow, and I do not want that."

"How do you know that it'll start to glow?"

"Because I am a vampire, and you are a true believer." He was still staring at the water, the marble of the tub, anywhere, and everywhere except at my chest with the cross still hanging around it.

"I've never had a cross glow when you were the only vampire around."

He glanced up at that, then quickly down. "That cannot be true."

I thought about it some more. "I can't ever remember it happening. You look away, then I take the cross off, and we go on about our business, but it doesn't glow."

He shifted in the water enough to send little splashes against my legs. "Does it matter?" His voice held just how unhappy he was with the line of conversation.

"I don't know," I said.

"If you do not wish me to feed, then I will go."

"It's not that, Jean-Claude, honest."

He put a hand on the edge of the tub and stepped out.

"Jean-Claude," I said.

"Non, ma petite,you do not want this, or you would not cling to your holy object." He took a vibrant blue towel that matched the sheets on the bed and began to dry off.

"My point is . . . oh, hell, I don't know what my point is, just don't go." I put my hands back to unfasten the clasp of the chain, and the door opened. Asher stepped inside, coated in dried blood, all of it mine. That should have bothered me, but it didn't. His hair still fell around his shoulders like spun gold, and with Asher, it wasn't a euphemism for blond. His hair was like gold spun to thick, soft waves. His eyes a blue so pale it was like winter skies, but warmer, more . . . alive. He walked towards us, his long body nude and perfect. The scars didn't make him less perfect, they were simply a part of Asher, and nothing marred the godlike grace as he moved into the room. He was so beautiful it stopped my breath in my throat, made my chest ache to see him. I wanted to say, come to us,but my voice was gone in the sheer wonder as he glided towards us on narrow bare feet.

The cross flared to life, not the white-hot glow it had had in the Jeep, but bright enough. Bright enough to leave me blinking. Bright enough to help me think. Asher was still beautiful, nothing could change that, but now I could breathe, move, talk. Though I had no idea what to say. I'd never had a cross glow around him either, until now.

It was Jean-Claude who said it, "What have you done, mon ami,what have you done?" He had his back to the glow of the cross and was using the towel to help shield his eyes.

Asher had thrown up an arm to protect his own pale blue gaze. "I tried to roll her mind just enough for pleasure, but the ardeurwas too much."

"What have you done?" Jean-Claude asked again.

I watched them both in the light of the cross, one hiding behind the blue towel, the other his own arm, and I answered for him, "He rolled me. He rolled my mind, completely and utterly." Even as I said it, I knew he'd done more than that. I'd been rolled before. I'd even been rolled once upon a time by Jean-Claude when first we met. But vampire powers to cloud the mind are a dime a dozen, most of them can do it. Most of the young ones have to capture you with their gaze, but the old ones can simply think at you. I was immune to most of it, partly natural ability as a necromancer, and part Jean-Claude's marks. But I wasn't immune to Asher. The cross kept glowing, the vampires kept shielding their eyes, and even with them hiding away from the white light, I still wanted them, both of them, but now I had to wonder how much of it was me, and how much of it was Asher's mind tricks. Damn it.