Лорел Гамильтон - Narcissus in Chains

Normally, I go to great lengths not to be unclothed in front of all the boys, but tonight I was willing to strip down a little. "How do I undress and still hold him?"

"I believe that one of us could hold him against you while you disrobed."

"You really think that he'll go into convulsions again?"

"You could release him, and we could find out," Asher said, voice soft.

I shook my head. "I'm tired of cleaning up blood. Just help me hold him."

Asher's eyes went a little wide. "I will call Nathaniel."

The heat had gone to my head in a pounding headache. "Just jump in, Asher, I promise not to peek."

He curled beside the tub, tucking every piece of him he could underneath the towel. "If I dropped this towel to the floor, would you really not look?"

His question stopped me. I opened my mouth, closed it, and tried to think through the heat, the headache, the growing nausea, and finally just said the truth. "I wouldn't mean to look, but no, you're right. If you're naked I'm going to look. I don't think I could stop myself."

"Like a car accident, you cannot turn away," he said.

I looked up then and found he'd turned away, hiding his face with that fall of golden hair. Damn it, I didn't have time to hold everybody's hand. "Asher, please, I didn't mean that."

He wouldn't look at me. I extracted one arm from Damian, who moved around the remaining arm like a child settling in his sleep around his favorite Teddy bear. I grabbed Asher's arm through the towel. "Yes, I'd look just for sheer curiosity's sake, how could I help it? You've teased and taunted about how bad your injuries are. You've set it up so that I'll have to look, have to see."

He was looking at me now, those pale eyes, empty, hidden from me.

I dug my fingers into his arm, trying to grip him through the towel, and finding mostly cloth. "But if you don't know by now that I just want to see you nude, then you haven't been paying attention."

His face told me nothing, that blank politeness that both he and Jean-Claude could pull off when they wanted to. "Now help me get some of these clothes off before I melt."

He gave a low chuckling laugh that danced over my skin and brought my pulse to my throat. I was too hot to have goosebumps. "You offering to disrobe without any magic to push you, I believe that is a first."

I had to laugh, because he was right. But the laugh forced me to close my eyes, because it felt like the pulsing of the headache was going to shove my eyeballs out of their sockets. I let go of his arm and pressed my hand to my forehead to try and keep my head from falling into pieces. "Please, Asher, I am going to be sick."

I heard the water splashing, felt it push against me as someone climbed into the tub. I opened my eyes slowly, trying to hold the headache inside and found Nathaniel kneeling in the water. His hair was still bound in a loose braid that trailed behind him, curling through the water like something separate and alive. The swirling braid brought my gaze low on his body, and I had a peripheral sense that Nathaniel wasn't getting any clothes wet whatsoever, but I didn't care. The headache had reached a point where I was afraid I was going to start throwing up if I didn't get cooler.

He answered my question without me asking it. "Asher wants Damian to try to take blood again, see if it will stay down."

Asher was still perched on the edge of the tub wrapped in the towel. "Damian must be able to keep down blood, or he will perish. I believe that if you stay in constant contact with him that he will be able to keep a feeding down."

"If I have to stay in constant contact then I have to get cooler first."

"Nathaniel will help you," he said.

I glanced up at Asher, and even in the dim glow of a night light, it hurt my head. "Fine."

Damian made small protesting movements as Nathaniel tried to take some of his weight off of me. We finally leaned him up against the edge of the tub with Asher supporting some of his weight, but letting him keep my arm pressed to his chest. Nathaniel undid my belt and helped me slip the shoulder holster off one arm, but I needed the other arm free to slip it out of the other strap. Damian fought us, slowly, stubbornly, as if he were sleepwalking. But he was a vampire; he could have torn his way through the wall of my bathroom with his bare hands. If he didn't want to let go of my arm, we couldn't make him, not unless we were willing to break his fingers one at a time, and we weren't willing to do that.

"What do we do?" Nathaniel asked.

"I have to get out of this heat," I said. "Can we like run cold water in the tub, or something?"

"No," Asher said, "we must keep him as warm as possible, until after he has retained some of the blood. We don't dare allow him to be chilled."

"Then get these clothes off me."

I felt rather than saw the two of them exchange glances. "How do you want me to do it?" Nathaniel asked.

I leaned my head forward, resting against the top of Damian's wet hair. His skin was the coldest thing in the tub. I was so hot I was about to be sick, yet Damian's skin was still cool to the touch. The headache overwhelmed me and spilled out my mouth. I did my best to crawl out on the edge of the tub before I vomited. Damian had managed to miss the water every time he threw up; at least I could do the same. But he clung to me, and only Asher's hand on my arm kept me high enough from the water to keep it clean.

My head was screaming, the pain so strong that it impacted my vision in explosions of color. Asher got me a cool cloth and wiped my mouth. He laid another cool cloth across my forehead. Then Nathaniel gripped the back of my shirt and ripped. He tore it off of me in pieces. Asher draped a wet towel over my shoulders that was so cold it made me whisper, "Shit."

Asher and Nathaniel took my weight and Damian's and moved us back to the far edge of the tub, as Gil came in and started cleaning up the mess. Gil had cleaned up a lot of messes tonight, and he'd never bitched, not once. He did a double take at the pieces of my shirt floating in the water, but never commented aloud. He made a good flunkie. Did what he was told and didn't ask questions.

Nathaniel tried to tear my jeans off the way he'd done the shirt. He managed to rip the top, but Damian's weight kept pushing me under the water, and he couldn't get the leverage he needed. Asher fastened the towel as securely as he could and climbed gingerly into the water. He knelt and slid his arms around Damian and me and lifted, standing, holding us both upright. I was still touching bottom, but he was still holding both our weights, because my legs still weren't working quite right. He held us both effortlessly.

Nathaniel put a hand on either side of the rip he'd made in my jeans and pulled. The heavy wet cloth came apart under his hands with a sound like tearing flesh, but heavier — a wet, harsh sound. The force of it jerked my body, and only Asher's strength kept me standing.

I felt the air on my bare skin and realized that in ripping away the jeans he'd taken my undies with them, but I didn't care. The air on my skin was still suffocatingly hot. I couldn't breathe. The last thing I remember thinking was, I'm going to pass out, then nothing.

I WOKE LYING on the edge of the tub with only one arm in the water with Damian. Cold towels covered me from head to foot. The one on my face lifted, and I saw that Nathaniel was in the water, holding Damian upright. I blinked up through a strand of wet hair and found Asher spreading a fresh cold towel against my face. He left enough of my face uncovered so I could look at him, sideways.

"How are you feeling?"

I had to think about that. "Better." He replaced the towels down the length of my body, and I realized I was completely nude. I shivered with the cold cloth and didn't care about anything except that I was finally cool. "How long was I out?"