Лорел Гамильтон - Danse Macabre

We drank them down, all of them; we fed, and fed, and fed, and while we fed Augustine's body kept spasming, and every thrust of pleasure brought me again, which brought Jean-Claude. We fed and orgasmed until Augustine went still between us, collapsed, body twitching. Jean-Claude looked down at me over Auggie's sweating body, a fierce smile on his face. He stared down at me with his eyes gone to blue fire so bright that the skin of his face glowed with it. He glowed with the power we had drunk. So much power, so very much power. I felt like a distant echo that Richard was leaning against a wall somewhere, staggered by the power we'd taken, and shared.

A thought was enough. Micah and Nathaniel were sitting just outside, one against the wall, the other sitting on the floor. Nathaniel laughed with the power rush of it all. We'd shared the power with all our people, all of them. Good, bad, indifferent, everyone with a connection to us was power drunk and glowing tonight. If there had been a metaphysical satellite up there in the sky, our territory would have glowed from orbit.

IT TOOK ABOUT an hour to get everyone separated to places where they could clean up. Claudia had sent for reinforcements, so that the wrecked living room was nearly a solid wall of black-shirted guards. Werewolves, wererats, and werehyenas, the people we had treaties with for guard work, all Stood around while Octavius had hysterics. If he'd had more guards with him, and we'd had less, it could have gotten violent, but when you're outnumbered, outmuscled, and your master is saying, Let it go , well, Octavius had to eat it. He didn't like it, neither did Pierce, but Haven, of the Cookie-Monster-blue hair, was voting with Auggie. They both liked us just fine. Jean-Claude and I lay back in his huge bathtub. My clothes were ruined but I had my knife and gun on the edge of the tub. Nothing else had been salvageable. We'd scrubbed and cleaned, and now were just soaking in the hot water. Auggie had probably already finished in the showers down the hall, but Requiem and Asher were in charge of seeing that our guests didn't do anything unfortunate. They were both master vampires over four hundred years old, they could handle it. We'd handled everything I wanted to handle for one night.

Jean-Claude lay back against the edge of the tub, and I lay in his arms, the back of my body cradled against the front of his. He trailed his hand down my arm, and hugged me tighter against him. His body was quiet, pressed against my body. I think we'd both had all we could handle for one night.

His voice came lazy, with that edge that sleep can give it. «What are you thinking about, ma petite ?»

«If you hadn't shut the marks down so tight, you might not have to ask.» I snuggled my head into the hollow of his shoulder and chest. «You shut them down as soon as we were finished with Auggie. Why?»

His body tensed against me, even his arms where they were wrapped around me, not so comforting anymore. «Perhaps I was afraid of what you would find in my thoughts.» His voice wasn't sleepy now, but had that bland emptiness that he used to hide behind.

«What would I have found?» I asked, but I wasn't cuddling now. Tension is contagious.

«If I had wanted you to know the answer to that question, I would not have shut the marks down.»

I started to protest, but another thought stopped me. With the marks that wide open, it had only been chance that I hadn't thought of the baby question. Chance and the fact that the ardeur tended to wipe out anything that wasn't pertinent to the moment. Now the fear came crawling back, tightening my stomach, tensing my muscles. Please, God, don't let me be pregnant .

«What is wrong, ma petite ?» he asked.

I let out a breath that shook around the edges and said, «You know, Jean-Claude, normally I'd push for honesty, but I think I've had all the revelations I can handle for one night. It's okay, whatever you thought, it's okay.»

«It is okay without your ever knowing what the thought was?» he asked.

I settled back into his arms, willing the hot water and the touch of his body to take away that awful tension. «Yes,» I said, «yes.»

He moved me to the side, holding me in the water, so he could see my face. «Yes, just like that?» His face showed his skepticism.

I stared up into him; his hair was wet and slicked back from his face, so that nothing took away from it. Those eyes a blue as dark as blue could be and hold no touch of black. His lashes thick and black — it had taken me months in his bed to see his upper lashes by candlelight and realize that he had a double row of upper lashes. Him and Elizabeth Taylor. You only saw it if the light was just right, and his head turned just right. Until then, they were just this unbelievable lace around his eyes. I traced the lines and curves of his face, down to the grace of his lips. I let him see in my eyes what I saw, what I felt, gazing at him.

He leaned in, and laid a kiss upon my lips. Then he cuddled me back against him, as we'd been before the questions started. No more personal questions tonight, but there were other questions I wanted answered. «Why did Requiem look like someone had pounded his face into a wall?»

«Because someone had.»

That made me turn enough to look at him. «Who?»

«Meng Die,» he said, voice soft, face solemn.

«Was that the emergency?»

« Oui . Thank you for sending the extra guards, ma petite , it was wise of you.»

I shrugged, and turned so that I was sitting across his legs, my hands against his chest, his arms around me still, but I could see his face now. «How did it get so out of hand?»

«I was called in rather late, ma petite . In truth, I do not know exactly how Requiem and Meng Die allowed their spat to get so terribly out of hand, and so terribly public. Asher, as manager of the Circus, came down to stop it, or take it to a backstage area. That should have been the end of it.» His face was closing down, hiding what he thought of the fight, and the aftermath.

«Why wasn't that the end of it?»

«Because Meng Die decided to fight them both.»

I sat up in his lap. «Why fight Asher? She's never been his lover.»

«But he is your lover.»

I frowned at him. «So what?»

«I believe that if a master vampire had appeared who wasn't in your bed, had never been in your bed, the fight might have calmed instead of escalating.»

«I'm totally lost here, Jean-Claude.»

He looked directly at me, but his face was empty enough that it gave me nothing. «You have not asked the right question yet, ma petite .»

«What is the right question?»

«What the fight was about.» I frowned harder, and said, «Okay, I give, what was the fight about?»

«You.»

Now I was really lost. «What?»

«They were arguing about you.»

«What about me?»

«Meng Die thinks you have stolen Requiem from her.»

I pushed back enough in the water so I was kneeling, and not cuddled. The water was deep enough that it came to my shoulders. «Requiem isn't my lover. I've worked really hard to make sure he isn't my lover.»

«But you have fed the ardeur from him.»

«In an emergency, yes. It was to feed, or I was about to suck Damian's life away. I had to feed, but we didn't have intercourse, we didn't even take our clothes off.» I thought about it, and added, «Not all of our clothes. I mean, Requiem was fully clothed.» I started blushing and couldn't prevent it. I had to stop explaining before it sounded worse and worse. «He has offered to feed you more completely.»

«I know.»

«Why have you refused him?»

I looked at Jean-Claude, trying to see behind that perfect mask of a face. «I think I was under the impression that I'm having sex with enough men.»