Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

Somewhere in all the crying and touching, the kissing grew from gentle to something with force and need. We celebrated my yes on the floor of the shower. We started with him on top so I could see all that amazing beauty above me, his body thrusting in and out of mine, but the shower kept spraying around his body and it was a race to see if I’d feed the ardeur or drown first. We moved me to my knees, laughing, until he entered me from behind and stole the laughter and the breath from my throat for a moment, with the sheer pleasure of him inside me.

He spread my legs farther apart, his hands controlling my body, keeping me still so he could glide over that spot inside my body over and over again in long, slow, full strokes. The sensation of it was extraordinary.

‘Jean-Claude, Jean-Claude, Jean-Claude.’ I said his name in time to his body, so that it became part of the rhythm.

My breathing sped, and I could feel the building pleasure, so close. ‘Oh, my God, close, so close.’

His rhythm hesitated for just a moment, and then he went back to that long, sinuous stroke of his body inside mine. I could hear him breathe now, and that he was fighting to keep it even, steady, as the rest of his body. Control your breath and you control so much.

Between one stroke and the next, the pleasure spilled over me, through me, so that my body pulsed and beat with it. I screamed my pleasure into the floor, and it echoed back at me, deafening. He held his rhythm, though I could feel his fingers tight against my ass, as he fought to keep me as still as he could, and with every stroke he brought me again, so that it was orgasm after orgasm, or maybe just one long, rolling line of pleasure.

His voice came strained, ‘ Ma petite , feed, feed for I will not last, loose the ardeur and feed.’

It was there, just below everything, waiting. With less than a thought it was roaring to life, spilling up through me like another pleasure to ride on the orgasm and thrust itself into the man inside me, so that he cried out. I felt his body spasm one more time, and the next thrust was deep and solid, and it brought me again, screaming, my nails scrambling at the wet tile trying to find something to hold on to, to sink into, to anchor myself in the midst of all that pleasure.

I fed on the joy of him inside me, the foolishness of our love, on the memory of his face as he looked up at me, and even the tears I’d shed. It was a good, thorough feeding, because I didn’t feed just on our lust, but on our love.

I collapsed onto the tile with him still inside me. I fought to keep my face above the tile, and he fought to keep his upper body from pinning me to the floor and the water underneath us. Our arms trembled in an echo of exertion and pleasure.

‘I love you, ma petite ,’ he said, in a shaky voice.

‘ Je t’aime , Jean-Claude,’ I said, and my voice trembled as I said it, but that was just great sex, and I was as certain of what I’d just said as anything I’d ever said in my life.

Once we cleaned up, I told Jean-Claude about the rotting vampires, the flesh-eating zombies, and the mystery master vampire that was making and possessing the vampires. Somewhere in the telling of it, I realized something.

‘The only reason we didn’t try to cure Ares the way that Asher and Damian cured Nathaniel in Tennessee was that we didn’t have a vampire with us, but you’re here now. You could heal Micah’s dad!’

We were dressed and Jean-Claude was fussing with my hair, using those long, graceful fingers of his to get the curls to lie just right. I stepped away from him enough to see his face. His expression was not comforting.

‘Why can’t you?’ I asked.

‘If it were fresh, I could have tried, but it is days old, ma petite . The doctors have cut away the initial wound and the corruption has spread to other places that have no wound to show.’

‘How do you know all that?’

‘Nicky reported to me on the plane as I traveled to your side. He is a very thorough and dispassionate observer without you awake and aware to feed him your emotions.’

‘So you knew everything I just told you about the vampires,’ I said.

He moved close enough to pick up another of my curls and begin to wind it around his finger. ‘I did, but you gave details that Nicky could not. He has no real psychic ability, or magic, except for being a werelion. It makes his reporting very physical. You add the metaphysical and I need to know that as well. I can ask you questions that he could not answer.’

‘Such as?’ I asked.

‘The Lover of Death is supposed to be dead, killed by other hands, but the Mother of All Darkness was supposed to be dead once before, and she was not. Was this he? Is this the Lover of Death come back from the dead, so to speak?’

I started to just say no, but then I stopped and made myself really think about the question.

Jean-Claude focused on entwining my hair around his fingers, serious as a small child. I let him do it, because my hair would look great, but it was also something that relaxed him. He usually only fussed with my hair as much as he fussed with his own when he was nervous or we were going to be out at some public event.

‘I’ve felt the Lover of Death’s energy when he was combined with Mommie Darkest. This didn’t feel the same. The vampire didn’t do that nifty trick that the council did, kind of appearing in vision above our heads, or in our heads. This one had to use the vampire he’d made as his puppet to talk to us.’

‘But you felt his energy, ma petite ; was it the same?’

‘I didn’t feel the presence of this one and think, Oh, it’s the Lover of Death , if that’s what you mean.’

‘Yes, that is what I mean. So it is not him.’

‘No.’ I thought about it as I said it. Something was nagging at me, as if I’d forgotten something important.

‘What is it, ma petite ? You look troubled.’

‘Was the Lover of Death able to take over the vampires he made like this?’

‘No, never.’

‘Could he control zombies?’

‘No.’

‘So how the hell did we end up with a master vampire that can jump bodies like the Traveller, make rotting vamps like the Lover of Death, control zombies like a necromancer, and control shapeshifters through a bite from his puppet vampires?’

‘The Traveller can move to almost any body that is his animal to call or a vampire; this master can use only his own creations, which was a gift that the Dark Mother possessed, and when she was in her prime I am told she could control all types of undead, not just vampires.’

‘How about the rotting bite and controlling shapeshifters through it?’

‘She made the Lover of Death, but like Belle Morte’s ability with sex it was something that sprang to life in the Lover of Death’s line of vampires. Most powerful master vampires can control their animal to call through a bite.’

‘Not a bite through another vampire they’ve created and possessed, though,’ I said.

‘I am not sure. I will ask the Traveller if he has that ability.’

‘But either way, Jean-Claude, where the hell did this vampire come from? We don’t have that many rotting vamps in America.’

‘That is true, and one this powerful I should be able to sense, but I cannot.’

I turned and made him stop fussing with my hair. ‘Jesus, that’s right, you’re the king. You can sense vampires that have blood-oathed to you, at least a little.’

‘You sense vampires, too, ma petite .’

‘I can if they’re not master level and not trying to hide.’

‘I believe that even some master vampires could not hide from your necromancy now. We have all gained power from my rising to the head of this country’s vampires.’