Лорел Гамильтон - Cerulean Sins

Caleb was yelling, "What's in the car with us? I can't see anything, but I can feel it. What the fuck is it?"

Nathaniel's voice came hushed, and strangely loud, "Belle Morte."

I had no time to look up, to see the others, because those phantom lips were speaking. "I will not allow you to gain strength from your wolf. I have given you the first mark and you did not even know it. I will give you the second mark here and now, and tonight with Musette as my proxy I will give you the third. When Jean-Claude and I are equal within you, three for three, then you will come to me, ma petite. You will travel the world if I ask it, do anything, simply to taste my sweet blood."

That phantom mouth lowered towards mine. I knew somehow that if she laid a ghostly kiss on me that I would be hers. I did what I always did, I tried to hit at that face, and there was nothing to touch. I screamed wordlessly, and sent out a metaphysical cry, "Help me!"

Suddenly, I could smell forest, trees, fresh-turned earth, wet leaves underfoot, and the sweet musk of wolf.

Belle could stop me from reaching out to Richard, but she couldn't keep him from reaching out to me.

Richard's power rose like a sweet-scented cloud above me, pushing back those glowing eyes, that phantom mouth.

She laughed, and it slid over my body, made me shudder, my breath catch in my throat. It felt so good, so good, even while my head screamed that it was bad.

"Did you hear someone laugh?" Caleb asked it.

Jason said no. Nathaniel said yes.

Belle whispered along my skin, and even Richard's power breathing against my body couldn't keep her voice out. "With the touch of your wolf's flesh, you might keep me at bay, but not from a distance. The closer the flesh, the closer the ties, and the more powerful. You are already mine, ma petite, you cannot win free of me." Those eyes began to float lower again. Richard's power rose above me like a soft shield. Belle's power floated on the surface of that energy like a leaf on a pond, then she began to push into it, through it.

"Help me!" I screamed it out loud to everyone, anyone, and no one. I felt Nathaniel's hand on mine, and that phantom kiss did hesitate, did turn and look at Nathaniel. I felt her call him, like a deep thrumming down my bones. Leopard had been her first animal to call. If she owned me, she'd own my pard.

Nathaniel reached out his free hand as if he could see her.

"No!" I jerked free of him and the moment I broke physical contact it was as if Nathaniel was less real to her. She turned those dark-honey eyes back to me.

"I will have them all, ma petite, eventually."

"No," I said it, but my voice was soft, because I believed she was right.

"You will give them to me, all of them."

Fear poured through me as if I'd been plunged into ice water. The thought of what Belle would do to my pard, my friends. No, I could not let this happen.

"Fuck you, fuck you, Belle, and the horse you rode in on." My anger, my fear, seemed to feed Richard's power. The sweet, nose-wrinkling musk of wolf was so thick it was like being wrapped in invisible fur.

The Jeep slewed to one side. The angry honking of horns and squealing brakes followed it. Jason had given up on finding a safe place and just stopped against the concrete median. Nathaniel and Caleb were thrown across the seat and into the passenger side doors. I didn't have time to worry about the fact that no one seemed to be wearing their damn seat belts.

Belle's eyes pushed through Richard's power. It wasn't effortless. He made her work for every inch, but those burning eyes, that ghostly outline got closer, closer… until I held my breath as if afraid, if I breathed in too hard it would bring her against my mouth.

I caught movement from the corner of my eye. Jason was between the seats. He'd stopped the Jeep, thrown off his seat belt. He shoved his hand through the ghost thing above me, as if he couldn't see it. He grabbed my shoulder and the moment he touched me, Richard's beast welled up inside me. I'd always thought it was my beast that moved through me, but this, whatever this was, was Richard, not me.

His wolf poured into me like scalding water rushing into a cup, filling me to the brim, emptying my skin of leopard or death, until my spine bowed, my hands flailed, my mouth opened in a soundless scream. I could feel fur rubbing inside my body, strong nails, digging. The wolf was struggling to find some way out of my body.

Belle hissed at me like some great ghostly cat. The eyes retreated, hovering in the air near the Jeep roof, as Jason pulled me into the front seat and cradled me against his body. His closeness seemed to quiet the wolf, so that I felt it sit, panting, eager-eyed, staring up at the shape by the ceiling with hungry, arrogant eyes. Jason's eyes were his wolf's eyes, and today they seemed perfect for his face. But it was Richard's power, the power of the Thronnos Rokke clan that wrapped around both of us. I had never felt Richard's beast so thick inside me. It was as if I was a purse, a bag, holding his beast, feeling it pace inside me as if my flesh were a cage it could not escape from.

Belle's voice floated down upon us, and this time it stung, hot with her anger. "You can ride all day in the arms of your wolf, but there is still the banquet tonight. Musette will be there, and through her, ma petite, I will be there."

My voice came out with a low edge of growl, "I am not your ma petite. »

"You will be," she said, and the eyes slowly faded, until only the lingering scent of roses remained to remind me that we'd won this round, but there would be others. Jean-Claude's memories knew Belle too well to think otherwise. She would never give up, not once she decided to own something, or someone. Belle Morte had decided that I would be hers. Jean-Claude had never known her to change her mind about something like that. That was so unfair, wasn't it a lady's prerogative to change her mind? Of course, Belle wasn't exactly a lady.

She was a two-thousand-year-old vampire, and they weren't known for changing their minds, their habits, or their goals. The last time a Master Vamp had come to town and tried to steal me from Jean-Claude, I'd ended up in a coma for a week. Richard had gotten his throat torn out, and Jean-Claude had nearly died for real. Vampires were always either trying to kill me, or own me. God I hated being popular.

Nathaniel had gotten one of the extra crosses out of the glove compartment. I always carried spare crosses, just like spare ammo; when you hunt vampires, running out of either one is really bad. It was sheer stupidity on my part to have put crosses around the Circus of the Damned, but not on me. Some days I'm just slow.

I was back in the front seat, but I was shaking. No, that didn't quite cover it. There was a fine tremble in my hands; small muscles in my body kept twitching at odd moments. I was cold, and it was one of those glorious end of summer days, sun-warmed, sparkling, bright, and soft at the same time. We drove through a wash of blue sky, and sunshine, and I was cold—a cold that no amount of blankets was really going to help.

Nathaniel was curled over my lower body like a living blanket, wedged between my legs and the floorboard. I'd bitched about how dangerous it was, but I hadn't complained too much. I didn't have any real blankets in the car. I was spending so much time in shock lately, I'd have to remedy that. The trees along 44 had given way to houses and an occasional old school being rehabbed into apartments, churches, buildings of no discernible use, but old, tired. OK, maybe that last was just me.

I stroked my hand over Nathaniel's head, over and over, on the warm silk of his hair. His head in my lap, his arms wrapped around my waist, his body wedged between my legs. Sometimes Nathaniel made me think about sex, but sometimes, like now it was just comfort. Just closeness. You can't have that with most people, because they're busy thinking about sex. I think that's why dogs are so damn popular. You can cuddle a dog as much as you like and the dog never thinks about sex, or pushing your social boundaries in any way, unless you happen to be eating. Dogs will invade your social boundaries for table scraps, unless trained to do otherwise. But hey, it's a dog, not a person in a fur suit. Right now, what I needed was a pet, not a person. Nathaniel could be both. An uncomfortable, but truthful fact.