Лорел Гамильтон - The Harlequin

«Better than the lions,» I said.

«It's not their Rex in the next room, it's our Ulfric,» she said, and there was a flare of her beast, like the hot breath of the monster in the dark. I shivered, and she shut the power down. «Sorry, I'm going.» With that she went for the door. As she went out, someone else came in, and I cried out, «Micah!»

He didn't exactly run to me, but it was close. He was still wearing the dress shirt and slacks I'd last seen him in, but they were covered in dried stains. Blood dried to black and brick red. Maybe I stared at the bloodstains, because he unbuttoned it as he came and threw it on the floor. For once, seeing his chest and shoulders bare didn't make me think of sex. All I could think of was whose blood it was, Richard's or Jean-Claude's. Micah said, «Don't reach out to them with power, Anita.»

«How did you know that's what I was thinking?» I asked.

He smiled, but his eyes were tired, relieved to see me up and around, but tired. «I'm your Nimir-Raj.» That was often his answer to things when I asked how he read me so well. He was Nimir-Raj to my Nimir-Ra, and that seemed answer enough for him. He kissed me, and I expected Jason to let go of my hand so I could hug Micah, but he didn't. Micah and I glanced at him, and I saw the fear naked in Jason's eyes for a moment. I'd never seen his eyes like that. That one look let me know how terribly close we'd come to dying, and how close we still were. One look, and I knew that we weren't out of the woods yet.

I looked up into Micah's chartreuse eyes. «It's not just the little vampires that the energy is supposed to save, is it?»

Jason's hand tightened on mine. Micah hugged me, and I put my free hand over that smooth, warm, permanently tanned skin. I breathed in the scent of his neck, so precious to me. «Tell me,» I whispered.

He drew back enough to see my face. «When Jean-Claude dies at dawn he could take you and Richard with him.» I searched his solemn face and found only truth there. Truth, and fear, behind his eyes, hiding better, but it was there.

I called out, «Lillian!»

She was there. «Yes, Anita.»

«How likely is it that Jean-Claude will drag us with him?»

«Truthfully, we don't know, but it's a possibility, and we'd rather not find out.» She touched my forehead the way a mother takes a temperature. «Feed on Donovan, Anita. Take the energy he offers so we don't have to worry about it.»

«You're not sure this will work, are you?»

«Of course we are.»

«I don't need to be a vamp or a shapeshifter to know that was a lie,» I said.

She stepped back, suddenly brisk and all professional. «Fine, we aren't certain, but it will be enough energy to save some of you. Whether all of you will be saved, we just don't know. This is new science here, Anita. New metaphysical science, which is always an uncertain thing.»

I nodded. «Thanks for telling me the truth.»

«You asked,» she said.

Edward came up through the crowd. «They told me it would work.»

«We said it was the best idea we had,» Lillian said. «That is not the same thing.»

Edward nodded. «All right, I heard what I wanted to hear.» He gave me a very serious look. «Don't die on me. The other bodyguards would never let me live it down.»

I smiled. «I'll do my best to protect your reputation.» I had a thought. «Now you get to wait outside.»

«What?» he said.

«I don't think I can have sex in the room while you watch. Sorry.»

He grinned at me. «I guess I'd have trouble in front of you, too.» Then he did something that surprised me. He moved Jason away from my hand and took it, firm and certain, in his. He held my hand, and we looked at each other for a long moment. He opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head. «If you die, I promise the Harlequin will pay for it.»

Apparently, the secret was out, and we were just calling a spade a scary shovel. I nodded. «You didn't have to say it, I knew you would.»

He smiled, squeezed my hand, and left. I almost called him back. Surrounded by men I loved, and had sex with, but strangely I felt safer with Edward in the room. But the danger I was about to face wasn't his kind of danger. In the room or out of it, Edward couldn't help me now.

I DIDN'T SO much raise the ardeur , as simply stop fighting it. My control of it had grown to the point where I had to give it permission to feed. I had to unleash it. Maybe if the beasts inside me hadn't risen at nearly the same time, I wouldn't have thought of the ardeur as something on a leash. Something on a chain, yeah, a chain with a leather collar at the end of it. Yeah, something leather and metal studded, and tight.

I'd thought they had too many guards in the room, until I got close to Donovan Reece. Then part of me thought sex, and three or four other parts of me wondered what the flesh under all that skin would feel like between my teeth. Donovan had requested that the other men turn their backs and give us what privacy they could. They'd done it. Some had done it with a look that said it was silly, but they'd done it. Then Donovan took his clothes off. He stripped like a pale, white dream. The ardeur had made certain that his body was ready for me. He lay against the front of his body like something carved of ivory and blushed with the first pink of sunrise. He was as pale as a vampire, but he was dawn, he was sunlight on water, he was moonlight on wings. I heard the sound of birds calling in the night. I'd never known swans had a voice, almost like geese, but… no. No, not geese, swans.

Donovan's voice came strained. «You've undone my control of my power. Something about the ardeur has stripped me bare of more than my clothes.»

I found I could still talk, above the feel of a night's sky and moonlight, though it was like seeing double, as if the vision in my head threatened to be more real than the man beside me. «My version of the ardeur gives you what you want most, sometimes.» I leaned in beside his cheek and whispered into that perfect curve of ear. «What do you want most, Donovan Reece?»

He turned to me, and his eyes were a dull gray. «Not to be king.» He rolled us over so that he was suddenly looking down at me. His body was still pressed to the front of mine, not inside, but the sensation of him hard and firm trapped between our bodies made me cry out. He leaned over me, pressing that weight against me. He wrapped his arms around me, which put my face into his chest. I'd have trouble breathing with him on top. But he seemed to realize it and raised his upper body enough to curl around me, until his face was next to mine. «Can you give me what I most want, Anita?»

«I don't know,» I whispered.

«Try.»

«It may not work the way you think it will.» I tried to think past the ardeur , past the feel of his body against mine, tried to think past the warm scent of his skin. The ardeur had a mind of its own, and a funny way of granting desires. I didn't trust what would happen if that was what he truly wanted.

«Give me what I want, Anita.» He raised his upper body above me.

«I can't control the ardeur that well, Donovan.»

He raised himself so that his upper body was in a half push-up, which pushed his lower body harder against mine. I whimpered for him.

«Did I hurt you?» he asked.

I had to open my eyes to answer him. «Not hurt, no.»

Something in my voice, in my unfocused gaze, made him smile. «No, not hurt,» he said, smiling down at me. His eyes were bluer than I'd ever seen them, as if something about this moment had chased the gray from his eyes.

I realized that his request to not be king had made me tone back the ardeur . It scared me, because the ardeur was a power unto itself. It did things, decided things, that I didn't understand. If Jean-Claude had been able, I would have asked him. Of course, I had people I could ask.