Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

“Teach me how to stop loving him.”

“He’s teaching you, just like he taught me, and Nathaniel. We love how he tops us in the bedroom and dungeon, but . . .”

Narcissus shivered happily. “He does have a talent for sex and pain.” His eyes were a little unfocused when he said it, and that reaction was one of the reasons he put up with Asher.

“But,” I said, “he’s also teaching all of us that he values other people more than us, and after a while if you have any self-respect you finally get tired of the shit and start to move on.”

“You have more people to move on with,” he said.

“You slept with, or topped, almost all your werehyenas—once. You had built yourself a harem of hundreds.”

“That was before Chimera took us over and I learned the difference between muscle men and real fighters. I fixed it by finding other men who were the real deal so that no one could ever hurt us like that again.” His eyes looked haunted, and angry, and things I couldn’t understand. He’d been captured and used as a hostage to get the rest of the werehyenas to do what Chimera wanted. I still remembered the torture room where he’d hung some of the werehyenas after he cut limbs off them, because they’d grow a new one eventually, so he’d made a forest of them to hang from the ceiling of the room. I’d hidden in the dark among the bleeding and the few that hadn’t survived the torture.

Narcissus touched my face, brought me out of my memories and looking at him again. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for killing him and saving my hyenas from that evil piece of shit.”

I smiled, but I knew my eyes were still as haunted as his. I took his hand from my face and held it over the covers like we were five and one of us had had a bad dream. “It was my pleasure to put him out of his misery.”

“You know that I enjoyed what he did to me at first.”

“I know you are a serious pain slut.”

He grinned. “Yes, yes I am.” His eyes went bleak again. “He didn’t like how much pain I could enjoy, because that meant he wasn’t really hurting me. He wanted to hurt me, wanted to find things that even I didn’t enjoy. He was an almost pure sadist; causing pain was his aphrodisiac. Until Chimera I thought I enjoyed causing pain, but I have limits that I don’t want to cross outside of fantasy. I don’t want to destroy my lovers until they are useless and broken, but that was exactly what Chimera wanted.”

I squeezed his hand. “But he didn’t break you; you’re still here, still Oba of the clan, and he’s dead.”

He smiled, but his eyes stayed sad. “He didn’t break me, but he put a few new cracks in where I thought I was safe.”

“I’m sorry, Narcissus.”

“What are you sorry about?”

“That I didn’t kill him sooner.”

He smiled. “I am grateful, but not grateful enough to let this insult go.”

“You can’t let it go; it makes you look weak in front of your hyenas.”

“You understand,” he said, studying my face.

“Hyenas and lions are both very much about the strongest, most powerful wins, more even than most wereanimal groups.”

“Yes,” he said, softly, but not like it made him happy.

I looked at this delicate-seeming man and knew there was more to him physically than I had ever seen, because he had fought his way to the top of one of the most violent animal groups. Hyena society wasn’t for sissies, but that was exactly what Narcissus was; he was as likely to wear a nice evening dress to his club as a well-tailored suit. He usually wore more eye makeup than I did, and he was cheerfully gay, but he was still Oba, still king. It had hurt my head a little the first time I’d met him.

“I demanded Asher’s head, and when Jean-Claude said no, I said I’d kill Kane and if the death of Asher’s animal to call killed him, too, so be it.”

“Jean-Claude talked you out of it.”

“He did, now ask me how, or rather what he said to me that made me willing to spare the two idiots.”

“I think I can ballpark it. He offered you a closer connection to the throne.”

“Yes.” He looked surprised. “I didn’t expect you to be this calm about it.”

I frowned a little. “Okay, I thought you sleeping in here was part of it, I mean literally closer to me, to him, but now I think you should just tell me. I feel like I’m missing something.”

“You have no hyena to call, yet. There is no more fitting match for a queen than a king.”

I frowned harder. “Last I talked to you, you told me to stay away from your hyenas because I’m a girl and hyenas are instinctively matriarchal. You were worried I’d take over your clan.”

“I’ve had to let women in just to keep all the new straights happy.” He rolled his eyes.

“So you’ve got women in the clan now, but you’re still king.”

“I’m not just king, I’m truly queen, and apparently I’m girl enough for everyone’s inner beast.”

Narcissus looked like a man, but apparently he had girl parts, too. In fact, both functioned well enough that he’d gotten pregnant from Chimera raping him. He’d lost the baby and I couldn’t say I was sorry for that; Chimera did not need to breed more monsters like him, and Narcissus hadn’t seemed the most stable cookie in the box, but I knew that Narcissus had wanted the baby.

“So, since you’re woman enough, you’ve decided I’m not such a threat?”

“That, and Seamus’s mistress Jane.”

“You described her as a siren to Seamus just now.”

“She seeks to possess my clan and add to her power base, Anita. She claims that she wishes to give Jean-Claude a hyena vampire that is truly loyal to him and the power structure, unlike Asher, who uses us like a threat. Do what I want, or I’ll take the werehyenas to another territory and leave you with too few guards to protect your territory.”

I watched his face as I asked the next thing. “I heard you were encouraging Asher to use your clan to overthrow Jean-Claude and take over.”

He gave a little shrug. “I thought about it, but Asher is too weak to take Jean-Claude’s place, even with me at his side.”

“You can’t fix stupid,” I said.

He looked startled, like he didn’t understand what I meant.

“I mean Asher. You can’t fix how stupid he is about politics and power. He lets his heart overrule everything else, like this bonehead move with Kane.”

“It’s not his heart that overrules his head, Anita, it’s his dick.”

“You don’t think he loves Kane?”

“I don’t know if he truly loves anyone, except Jean-Claude, and since he can’t have him he tries to find other people to fill that hole in his heart.”

“He and Jean-Claude are lovers,” I said.

“But Jean-Claude still loves you more than he loves Asher, and that’s one thing our golden-haired vampire can’t abide, to be second.”

“He’s not that ambitious,” I said.

“Oh, he doesn’t have to be first place in anything that matters, but he’s like some women I’ve known who had to be the prettiest girl in any room, or men who have to be the best man at any party, or meeting. It’s the same deal, except Asher wants to be first in everyone’s libido and heart, but his heart belongs to only one man.”

I squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry he’s such a turkey.”

“But such a beautiful turkey,” Narcissus said.

I sighed. “He is, unfortunately. We wouldn’t put up with half this shit if he wasn’t so pretty.”

“And so good in bed,” he said.

“And in the dungeon,” I said.

We sighed together.

“Can’t live with him, can’t live without him,” I said.

“And can’t kill him,” Narcissus said.

We sighed again.