"You will not look at me now, ma petite.Why, is it that you fear what I will say?"
"I know that if you gave me the fourth mark that she couldn't mark me again. I'd be safe from her."
"Non, ma petite,no lies between us. She could not mark you as hers, but you would not be safe. I could use this as an excuse to claim that last bit of you, but I will not, because I fear what Belle would do."
I looked up at him, one shoe in my hand. "What do you mean?"
"For now, she thinks she may be able to claim you as her human servant. She may be able to use you to increase her own power. If she finds you are beyond her reach in that way, she may decide that you are better off dead."
"If she can't have me, then nobody else gets me either, is that it?"
He gave a small nod, and an almost apologetic shrug. "She is a very practical woman."
"No, she's a very practical vampire. Trust me, Jean-Claude that is a whole new level of practicality."
He nodded. "Oui, oui,I would argue if I could, but it would be lies."
Asher was walking towards us now. His eyes were still glowing that drowning blue as if a winter's sky had filled his skull, but for the rest, he looked as ordinary as he ever did. Which was extraordinary. But at least he wasn't raising a small wind of his own otherworldly power or levitating a few inches off the floor.
"You are both weakened by not sharing the fourth mark. Neither of you is as powerful without it. You know that, Jean-Claude."
"I do, but I also know Belle. She destroys that which she cannot use."
"Or casts it aside," Asher said, voice soft, holding sorrow enough to make my throat tight.
I had my shoes off, my jogging socks tucked into them on the floor. "Casting you aside did destroy you," I said. I meant it to be soft, but it came out pretty much like I usually sound.
He glared at me, his pupils swimming up through the blue fire like an island reborn from the sea.
"What I mean, Asher, is that she chose what would hurt you worse than death. To be cast out from her affections, from Jean-Claude's bed, since his bed was hers."
"She would not kill me because she promised Jean-Claude she would not."
I glanced at Jean-Claude.
"I came back to her for a hundred years, if she could save Asher's life. If he died, I was free of her."
"So she worked to keep me alive," Asher said, and his voice was bitter enough to choke on. "There were nights when I cursed you for my life, Jean-Claude."
"I know, mon ami.Belle Morte often pointed out that if only I would allow you to die, you could be spared such humiliation."
"I did not know that she gave you that choice."
Jean-Claude looked away, not meeting the other man's eyes. "It was selfish on my part. I would rather you alive and hating me, than dead and past all hope." He looked up then, and his face was raw with emotion, so unlike his usual polite blankness. "Was I wrong, Asher? Would you rather have died all those years ago?"
I sat on the bed, watching them, waiting for the answer. In a way I was an audience, in a way I wasn't there at all.
"There were moments when I longed for death."
Jean-Claude turned away. Asher touched his arm, fingertips on the velvet. That small touch seemed to freeze Jean-Claude. If he was breathing, I couldn't see it. "Last night was not one of those moments."
They stared at each other. Asher's fingertips barely touching Jean-Claude's arm. There was so much between them, centuries of pain and love and hate. It was as if all of it boiled in the air, almost visible in the flickering light. I wanted to say kiss and make up, but I knew they wouldn't. I don't know what issues they had about each other, but they seemed unable to do things like that without their Julianna. She'd been the bridge between them. The thing that allowed them to love each other. Without her, they stood on the brink of the abyss and gazed at each other, separated by a chasm that neither knew how to cross.
I could never be Julianna. I had too many memories of her. For God's sake she'd done embroidery. She'd been gentle and kind and everything I didn't think I was. But there was one thing I might be able to do.
I slid off the bed, and went first to Asher, because I didn't want to set him off again. I went on tiptoe, and he had to bend down a little for me to kiss him, but he didn't fight me. I held his face in my hands like it was a cup carved of some delicate stone, something that would shatter if you abused it. I kissed him softly, drinking from that cup as the sacred gift it was. I went to Jean-Claude with the taste of Asher still on my lips. I cupped his face as I had held Asher's, and I kissed him. He barely moved under my mouth.
I stood back from the two of them. "Now, we've kissed and made up. We need to get me dressed, and we need to talk before the banquet."
Jean-Claude's voice came out low and hoarse, as if he wasn't breathing well. "Talk of what, ma petite?"
"The Mother of All Darkness."
"Jason spoke of her, too, but I hoped he was misunderstanding."
"It cannot be the Sweet Mother," Asher said, "she has not woken in a millennium."
"She's not awake, Asher, but she's moving around like a restless sleeper."
The two men looked at each other. It was Asher who said, "I would put aside petty differences until we are at the bottom of this most grave mystery."
"What petty differences?" I asked.
"Whether we are to be a menage a trois, or no."
I shook my head. "I adore you, Asher, but I don't have enough energy left to shovel this much emotional shit. Do you realize that you have more hang-ups about personal intimacy than I do?"
He opened his mouth, closed it, then gave that Gallic shrug.
"We're actually well-matched in a I-haven't-beaten-you-to-death-yet, sort of way. But for now, let's both try to put our personal mess aside. Okay, please."
He gave a graceful bow. "As my lady commands, so shall I obey."
"For as long as it suits you," I said.
He laughed then, and it was a good laugh, a sound that glided down my skin and jerked at things low in my body. It brought a sigh from my lips. "Now, where are my clothes for this little disaster tonight?"
43
I had, of course, complained about my clothes. The black velvet and blue silk seemed to be offering my br**sts up like pale ripe fruits. The colors emphasized the near translucence of my skin with the undertone of blue highlights. But I knew what the blue highlights really were--blood. Blue blood inside my veins that would burst red when oxygen hit it.
Stephen had done my hair and makeup. He'd done them before, for these little get-togethers. He regularly did it for the other strippers at Guilty Pleasures. I had let him put my hair in a pile of loose curls on top of my head, so that my neck looked white and bare. Asher's bite marks stood out starkly against all that flesh.
"My neck and br**sts look like they should be on a plate with a sign saying 'come and get it.'"
Stephen stepped back from applying the last bit of eyeliner. "You look lovely, Anita." He probably meant it, but his blue eyes were all for the makeup, for his work. He saw me as a canvas. He frowned slightly, did some minute adjustment near my eyes that left me blinking. He dabbed with a Kleenex then stepped back again.
He looked me over from the top of my head to the end of my chin, then nodded. "It's good."
"It's positively appetizing," Micah's voice came from the doorway. He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. The moment I saw him, I knew I'd lost all rights to bitch about what I was wearing.
The color was turquoise blue, with enough green to make his eyes blaze green. The shirt had holes at the top of his shoulder, in the middle of his upper arm, and two in the middle of his forearm. Black cord was threaded through the cloth and tied around his elbow, above and below the holes to keep the cloth from sliding around. The cuffs were wide and stiff, with shiny black buttons, with cutouts on the underside so the skin of his wrists was bare, just as the holes at his elbows left those spots bare. His skin looked very tanned, very smooth, very warm against the turquoise.
The pants matched the shirt--and not just in color. There were holes on the sides that flashed the perfect smoothness of his hip, down to glimpses of thigh. The holes probably went farther down, but black boots cut off the view just above his knee.
The pants were so tight that he really didn't need a belt, but there was a black cord threaded through the unnecessary belt loops that swung as Micah walked. He was actually almost to me when I realized there were holes on the inside of the pants legs, too.