Cerulean Sins (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #11)

5

I had a hard time believing we were very little fish indeed. Maybe not big fish, but that wasn't the same thing as being very little. But Asher was so obviously convinced of it that I didn't argue.

I did call on my cell phone and leave messages around town about Musette's early arrival. Richard may have been pissed at me, but he was still the other third of our triumvirate of power; Ulfric to Jean-Claude's Master of the City, and my necromancer. Richard was Jean-Claude's animal to call, and I was his human servant, whether we liked it, or whether we didn't. I also called Micah Callahan who was my Nimir-Raj and took care of all the shape-shifters when I was off doing other things. I was so often embroiled in other things, I needed the help. Micah was also my boyfriend, along with Jean-Claude. Neither of them seemed to mind, though it still made me uncomfortable. I was raised to believe that a girl didn't date two people at once, at least not seriously.

I got only machines, and left messages that were as succinct and calm as I could make them. How do you leave phone messages like this? "Hi, Micah, this is Anita, Musette has come to town early, invading Jean-Claude's territory. Asher and I are driving to the Circus now, if you don't hear from me by dawn, send help. But don't come down to the Circus before that unless I call personally. The fewer people in the line of fire, the better." I let Asher leave the message on Richard's machine, sometimes he erased messages from me without listening to them. It depended on how bad a mood he was in that day. Though he'd dumped me, not the other way around, he acted like the wounded party and blamed me for everything. I gave him as wide a berth as I could, but there were times, like now, when we were probably going to have to work together to keep all our people alive and healthy. Survival took precedence over emotional pain. It had to. I hoped Richard remembered that.

The Circus of the Damned was a combination of a live action drama with frightening themes; traditional, if macabre, circus performances; a carnival complete with rides, games, corn dogs, funnel cakes; and a side show that would give even me nightmares.

Behind the Circus was dark and quiet. The calliope music that blared out front was a distant dream back here. Once upon a time I'd only come to the Circus to kill vampires. Now I used the employee parking lot. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I was actually a few steps from the Jeep, when I realized that Asher was still sitting in the car, immobile. I sighed and went back to the car. I had to tap on his window to get him to look at me. I half expected him to jump, but he didn't. He just turned his face slowly towards me like someone in a nightmare who knows if they move too fast the monster will get them.

I expected him to open the door, but he just stared at me. I took a deep breath and counted slowly. I did not have time to hold his emotional wounds closed. Jean-Claude, my sweetie, was down under the Circus, entertaining the bogeyman of vampire-kind. Asher had told me no harm had come to anyone, yet. But I wouldn't actually believe it until I saw Jean-Claude, touched his hand. As much as I cared for Asher, I did not have time for this. None of us did.

I opened the door for him. Still, he did not move. "Asher, don't fall apart on me here. We need you tonight."

He shook his head. "You must know. Anita, Jean-Claude didn't send me to you because I travel faster than anyone else. He sent me to get me away from her."

"Are you not supposed to go back in?" I asked.

He shook his head again, all those golden waves swimming around his face. His eyes were their normal ice-blue in the dome light. "I am his temoin,his second, I must go back inside."

"Then you're going to have to get out of the Jeep," I said.

He looked down at his hands, limp in his lap. "I know." But he still didn't move.

I put one hand on the door and the other on the roof, leaning in towards him. "Asher . . . if you can't do this, then fly to my house, hide in the basement, we've got an extra coffin."

He did look up then. There was anger in his face. "Let you go in there alone? No, never. If something happened to you . . ." He looked down again, his hair hiding his face like the curtain he'd made of it. "I could not live with the knowledge that I had failed you."

I sighed again. "Great, thanks for the sentiment. I know you mean it, but that means you have to get out of the car now."

A gust of wind slapped against my back, too much wind, like the wind Asher had raised in the cemetery. I went for my gun as I dropped to one knee.

Damian landed in front of me. The barrel of the gun was aimed low at his body. If he'd been a little shorter than six feet, it would have been chest high.

I let out a breath slowly and eased my finger off the trigger. "Damn, Damian, you startled me, and that can be real unhealthy." I got to my feet.

"Sorry," he said, "but Micah wanted you to have someone else with you." He spread his hands wide, showing himself both unarmed and harmless. He might have been unarmed, but harmless, never that. It wasn't just that Damian was handsome--a lot of men, dead and alive, are handsome. His hair fell in a straight, silken curtain, scarlet, like a spill of blood. It was what red hair looked like after more than six hundred years of no sun. He blinked green eyes into the lights of the streetlamps overhead. A green that any cat would envy. The eyes were three shades brighter than the T-shirt that clung to his upper body. Black slacks fell over black dress shoes. A black belt with a silver buckle completed the outfit. Damian hadn't dressed up, he'd just been wearing slacks and dress shoes. Most of the vamps that had recently come from Europe didn't feel comfortable in jeans and jogging shoes.

Yeah, he was a treat for the eyes, but that wasn't the danger. The fact that I wanted to touch him, to run my hands up the white, white skin of his arms. That was the danger. It wasn't love, or even lust. Through a series of accidents and emergencies, I'd bound Damian to me as my vampire servant. Which was impossible, I mean vamps have human servants, but humans don't have vampire servants. I was beginning to understand why the Council used to kill all necromancers on sight. Damian was glowing with good health, which meant he'd recently fed on someone, but I knew it had been a willing victim, because I'd forbidden him to hunt. He would do exactly what I said, no more, no less. He obeyed me in all things, because he had no choice.

"I knew I could get here before you went inside," he said.

"Yeah, flying does have its benefits." I shook my head and put up my gun. I had to rub my hand on my skirt to keep from touching him. The palm of my hand ached to caress his skin. He wasn't my lover, or boyfriend, yet I craved his touch when he was near me, in a way that felt disturbingly familiar.

I took a deep breath that seemed to shake just a little. "I told Micah not to send anyone until I'd found out what was up."

Damian shrugged, hands up. "Micah said, go,so here I am." He kept his face carefully blank. There was a tension to him that said he was waiting for me to hurt the messenger.

"Touch him," Asher said.

His quiet voice from right behind me made me jump, but at least he'd gotten out of the Jeep.

"What?"

"Touch him, ma cherie,touch your servant."

I felt heat climb up my face. "Is it that obvious?"

He smiled at me, but not like he was happy. "I remember what it was like with . . . Julianna." He said her name in a whisper that still carried on the cool autumn air. It startled me a little to hear him say her name, he avoided her name if he could; saying it, or hearing it.

"I'm Jean-Claude's human servant, but I don't feel an overwhelming need to touch him every time I see him."

He looked up at me. "You don't."

I started to say, no,then had to think about it. I did want to touch Jean-Claude when I saw him, but that was the sex, the rush of being a relatively new couple, wasn't it?

I frowned and concentrated on something else. "Does Jean-Claude feel the same need to touch me?" Like I feel for Damianwent unsaid.

"Almost certainly," Asher said.

I frowned harder. "He hides it well."

"Because to expose such raw need to you would have made you run away." He touched my elbow, a light touch. "I did not mean to give away uncomfortable secrets, but we must show a united front for . . . her, this night. When you touch Damian you gain power, just as when Jean-Claude touches you and Richard, he gains power."

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. One thing I was almost certain of was that Richard wouldn't be here tonight. He hadn't come near the Circus of the Damned since we broke up. It weakened us that one-third of our triumvirate was missing. He'd promised to come to the Circus in three months' time to greet Musette, but he wouldn't come early. I would bet my life on that, and maybe I was. Who the hell knew what was inside the Circus waiting for us?

I glanced from one vampire to the other, then shook my head. We needed to get inside, and I needed to stop being squeamish. Asher needed it, too, but I couldn't control what he did, only what I did.

I touched Damian's arm, and power flared between us like a breath of wind. I slid my hand down the smoothness of his arm, using everything but the tips of my fingers. The tips of my fingers hurt when they brushed things too solidly. His breath came out in a shudder, as I slid my left hand into his right, squeezing my fingers 'round his. As long as I didn't squeeze too hard, my bandaged fingers were fine. It felt so right to touch him. It was hard to explain, because touching him didn't make me think of sex. It wasn't like touching Jean-Claude, or Micah, or even Richard. Richard and I were feuding, but he could still affect me just by being present. When I could be in the same room with Richard and not feel my body tighten, then I'd know that I was truly out of love with him.

"I don't mind that Micah sent backup."

I felt his hand, his arm, his body give up the tension I hadn't even realized he was holding. He smiled and squeezed my hand back. "Good."

"You've mellowed," a voice behind us called. We all whirled, to find Jason walking towards us over the pavement. He was grinning, proud he'd startled us, I think.

"Damn quiet for a werewolf," I said.

He was wearing jeans, jogging shoes, and a short leather jacket. Jason was as American as I was, we liked the casual look. His blond hair was still cut short like a young executive. It made him look older, more grown-up. Somehow without the hair to trail around his face, you noticed his eyes more, blue, the color of an innocent spring sky. The color never matched the twinkle in his eye.

"A little warm for a leather jacket," I said.

He unzipped the jacket in one smooth motion, and flashed his bare chest and stomach, still walking towards us, never missing a beat. Sometimes I forgot that Jason's day job was as a stripper at Guilty Pleasures, one of Jean-Claude's other clubs. Then there were moments like this when he managed to remind me.

"I didn't have time to dress when Jean-Claude sent me out to wait for you."

"Why the hurry?" I asked.

"Musette has offered to share her pomme de sangwith Jean-Claude, if he'll share me with her."

Pomme de sangmeant literally, apple of blood, it was slang with the vamps for someone that was much more than simply a blood donor. Jean-Claude had once described it as a beloved mistress, except instead of sex you got blood. A kept woman, or in Jason's case, a kept man.

"I thought it was a faux pas to ask to feed on someone else's pomme de sang," I said.

"It can also be a great courtesy and honor," Asher said. "You may trust Musette to turn custom into torment if she is able."

"So she's not offering up her pomme de sangto honor Jean-Claude, she's doing it because she knows he won't want to share Jason?"

"Oui," Asher said.

"Great, just great. What other little vampire customs are going to come up and bite us on the butt tonight?"

He smiled and raised my hand to his lips for a quick, chaste kiss. "Many, I would think, ma cherie,very many." He looked at Jason. "In truth, I am amazed that Musette allowed you to leave her presence without sharing blood."

Jason's grin faded. "Her pomme de sangis illegal in this country, so Jean-Claude had to decline."

"Illegal," I said, "in what way?"

He sighed, looking decidedly unhappy. "The girl can't be more than fifteen."

"And it's against the law to take blood from a minor," I said.

"Jean-Claude informed her of this, which is how I come to be standing out here in the cold."

"It's not cold," Damian said.

Jason shivered. "That is a matter of opinion." He huddled the still unzipped jacket around his bare body. "Jean-Claude doesn't want you to be surprised, Anita, but two of the vamps with her are children."

I could feel my face tightening with anger.

"It's not that bad, they aren't new. At a guess I'd say several hundred years old, minimum. Even in the United States they'd be grandfathered in under the current law."

I tried to ease some of the tension I was holding. I'd let go of everyone's hand, because I had this urge to have my hands free for weapons. There was nothing to fight, not yet, but the urge was still there.

Damian touched my arm, tentative, afraid the anger would spill over onto him, I think. My usual theory was anybody to be angry at was better than nobody to be angry at. I was trying to be better than that, more fair, but damn, it was hard.

When I didn't jerk away, or yell at him, Damian touched my hand, and his fingers light across my skin made me feel calmer. "Do you think Musette brought an underage pommejust to see what we'd do?"

"Musette likes the young," Asher said, voice still very quiet, not a whisper but close, as if he were afraid of being overheard. And maybe he was.

I looked up at Asher. Damian's fingers were still moving, lightly, over the back of my hand. "She's not a pedophile, please tell me she's not."

He shook his head. "No, not for sex, Anita, but blood, yes, she likes them young."

Yuck. "She cannot take blood from anyone under eighteen while she's in this country. Doing that can get you an order of execution with your name on it, and I'm the Executioner."

"I believe that Musette was carefully chosen by Belle Morte. Belle has other lieutenants that have less objectionable habits. I believe that Musette is an ordeal in the traditional sense of the word. She has been sent by Belle to test us, especially you, I think, you and perhaps Richard."

"Why do we get special treatment?" I asked.

"Because Belle does not know either of you of old. She likes to test her blades before blooding them, Anita."

"I am not her blade, I'm not her anything."

Asher had a patient look on his face. "She is le sourdre de sang,the fountainhead of our bloodline. Belle is like an empress, and all the master vampires that descend from her line are kings that owe her fealty. To owe fealty means to owe so many troops to the cause."

"What cause?"

He let out an exasperated breath. "Whatever cause the empress wishes."

I shook my head. "You're not really making sense to me here." Damian's hand was still playing lightly over mine. I think if he hadn't been touching me, I'd have been more upset.

"Belle considers all who descend from her line, hers, thus through Jean-Claude you and Richard belong to her."

I shook my head and started to speak. Asher held up his hand. "Please, let me finish. It does not matter, Anita, whether you agree that you and Richard belong to Belle. It matters only that she believes you belong to her. She sees you as more weapons in her arsenal. Can you understand that?"

"I understand what you're saying, I don't agree that I belong to anyone, but I can see where Belle Morte might think so."

He nodded, looked a little relieved, as if he hadn't been sure what he'd do if I'd continued to argue. "Bon, bon,then you must agree that Belle will want to test the metal of her two newest weapons."

"Test how?" I asked.

"For one thing, by bringing an underage pomme de sangto America and flaunting it in front of the Executioner herself. If Musette has offered to share pomme de sangs,then she may also offer to share human servants. It is considered a great honor to do so."

"Share?" I asked, instantly suspicious. Damian's fingers had sped up, but I didn't tell him to stop, because anger was tightening my shoulders, my arms.

"Share blood, probably, because most vampires take blood from their human servants. Do not worry about sex, ma cherie,Musette is not a lover of women."

I half shrugged. "I guess that's a relief." I frowned. "If she considers me and Richard part of her . . . whatever, then what about his pack and my pard? Does Belle consider our people her people?"

Asher licked his lips, and I knew the answer before he said it. "It would be like her to assume that."

"So Musette and company will be testing not just me, or Richard, but the rest of our people." I made it a statement.

"It is logical to assume so," he said.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "I hate vampire politics."

"She's not yelling yet," Jason said, "I've never seen her this calm after this much bad news."

I opened my eyes and frowned at him.

"I believe it is Damian's influence," Asher said.

Jason's eyes flicked down to where Damian was playing gently with my hand. "You mean just touching her like that is helping her hold her temper?"

Asher nodded.

I had an urge to make Damian stop touching me, but I didn't, because I was furious. How dare anyone come into our territory and test us? How arrogant! How typically vampire. And I was tired already, tired of the games to come. If Jean-Claude would just let me shoot everyone in Musette's party tonight, it would save a lot of trouble. I just knew it would.

I did make Damian stop playing with my hand by taking his hand in mine and holding it firmly. The edge of my anger softened. I was still angry, but it was distant, manageable. Damn, Asher was right. I hated that. Hated that some new metaphysical bullshit had reached up to force me into closer personal contact with yet another vampire. Why couldn't metaphysics work just once without all the touchie-feelie crap?

Jason was looking at us, an odd expression on his face. "I think we should attach Damian to Anita for the night."

"You think Musette is going to piss me off that badly?" I asked.

"She's not hurt anyone, yet, Anita, not raised a finger to anyone, yet everyone's terrified. I'm fucking terrified, and I can't figure out why. She's this cute little blond thing, and she's gorgeous like a life size Barbie doll, with smaller breasts, but hey a man doesn't need more than a mouthful, right?"

"You're over-sharing," I said.

He didn't smile at me. His face was way too serious. "Normally, I wouldn't mind a gorgeous vampire sinking fang into me, but Anita, I do not want this chick to touch me." He looked scared all of a sudden, scared and younger even than his twenty-two years. "I do not want her touching me." He stared up at me with haunted eyes. "Jean-Claude's promised me that Musette isn't one of those vampires who rots all over you. But it doesn't matter, I'm still so scared of her that it makes my stomach hurt."

I reached out my free hand, and Jason came to me. I hugged him and could feel a fine tremble running through him. He was cold, but not the kind of cold that extra clothes would fix. "We'll keep her off of you, Jason."

He hugged me so tight it was hard to breath, and he spoke with his face against my neck. "Don't promise things you can't deliver, Anita."

I opened my mouth to promise just that, when Asher interrupted. "No, Anita, do not promise safe passage to any of us, not yet, not until you have met Musette."

I drew back from Jason and looked up at Asher. "If I just shoot her dead when I walk in the room what would Belle do?"

He paled, and that's a neat trick for a vampire, even one that's fed. "You cannot, you must not, Anita . . . I beg of you."

"You know that if I killed her tonight we'd all be safer."

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it. "Anita, ma cherie,please . . ."

Jason stepped back from me and made a motion with his hands. Damian was at my back, hands on my shoulders. The moment he touched me, I felt better, not exactly calmer, not even clearer-headed. Because I was right, we should kill Musette tonight. In the short run it would save so much trouble. But in the long run Belle Morte, maybe even the whole council, would come in force and kill us. I knew that. With Damian's hands kneading gently on the tight muscles of my shoulders I could even agree with it.

"Why does Damian's touch make me feel less like killing things?" I asked.

"I have noticed that you seem to gain a measure of calm, an extra layer of thoughtfulness before you pull the trigger when he is touching you."

"Jean-Claude isn't one bit less ruthless when I'm around him."

"You can only gain from your servant what your servant has to offer," Asher said. "I would say that you have helped make Jean-Claude more ruthless, not less, because that is your nature." He looked at the vampire standing behind me. "Damian survived for centuries with a mistress that tolerated no anger, no pride. Her will and her will alone was allowed. Damian learned to be less angry, less ruthless, or she-who-made-him would have destroyed him long ago."

Damian's hands had gone very still against my shoulders. I patted one of his hands the way you'd pat a friend that was hearing bad news. "It's alright, Damian, she can't touch you now."

"No, Jean-Claude bargained for my freedom from her, and I will always owe him a great debt for that. But that has nothing to do with blood oaths or vampiric bonds. I owe him for bringing me out of a terrible bondage."

"If you can keep Anita from doing anything unfortunate tonight, then you will have paid part of that debt," Asher said.

I felt Damian nod. "Then let us go down to the underground, for I know Musette of old and I do not fear her, as much as I fear she-who-made-me."

I turned so I could see Damian's face. "Are you implying that you fear Musette only a little less than she-who-made-you?"

He seemed to think about that for a second, or two, then slowly nodded. "I fear my old master more, but yes, I fear Musette."

"All fear her," Asher said.

Damian nodded. "All fear her."

I laid the top of my head against Damian's chest, shaking my head back and forth, messing up my hair, but I didn't care. "Damn it, if you'd just let me kill her tonight, now, it would save so much trouble. I'm right, you know I'm right."

Damian raised my face so I had to meet his eyes. "If you slay Musette, then Belle Morte will destroy Jean-Claude."

"What if Musette does something really terrible?"

Damian looked behind me at Asher. I turned so I could watch the vampires exchanging glances. Asher finally spoke, "I would never want to tell you that under no circumstances are we to slay Musette, because there may come a time when she gives you no choice. I would not have you endanger yourself by hesitating, if that time comes. But I think that Musette will play the political game very well and will give you no excuse so awful as that."

I sighed.

"If you don't handcuff Damian to Anita tonight, she's never going to make it through Musette's little show," Jason said.

"I do not believe that will be necessary," Asher said, "will it, Anita?"

I frowned. "How the hell should I know? Besides, I'm fresh out of handcuffs."

Jason drew a pair out of his jacket pocket. "You can borrow mine."

I frowned harder. "What are you doing carrying around a pair of handcuffs?" I held up my hand. "Wait, I don't want to know."

He grinned at me. "I'm a stripper, Anita, I use all sorts of props."

On one hand it was good to know that Jason didn't carry the handcuffs around for his own love life. On the other hand, I wasn't sure I wanted to know that handcuffs were part of his props as a stripper. What kind of shows were they doing down at Guilty Pleasures these days? Wait, I didn't really want an answer to that question either.

We all trooped to the back door of Circus of the Damned. We didn't use Jason's handcuffs, but I did end up walking down all those stairs holding Damian's hand. There was a growing list of people that walking hand in hand with I would have found romantic or titillating. Damian wasn't on the list, more's the pity.

6

Deep under the Circus of the Damned were what seemed like miles of underground rooms. They had been the home of St. Louis's Master of the City, whoever that happened to be, for as long as anyone could remember. Only the huge warehouse above ground had changed. Jean-Claude had modernized the underground, redecorated some of it, but that was all. It was still room after room of stone and torches.

To soften the stone look, Jean-Claude had used huge gauzy drapes to make a sort of tent for his living room walls. The outside was white, but once you parted the first set of hangings the "walls" were silver, gold, and white. Jason had reached out to part the drapes, when Jean-Claude pushed through. He motioned us all back, a finger to his lips.

I swallowed my greeting. He was wearing skin-tight leather pants tucked into thigh-high boots, so it was hard to tell where the pants left off and the boots began. The shirt was one of his typical shirts, something sort of 1700s, with mounds of ruffles at sleeves, and neck. But the color of all that silk was something I'd never seen him in. A vibrant blue somewhere between royal and navy. The color made his midnight eyes bluer than ever. His face was as always flawless, breathtaking. It was, as always, like some wet dream come to life, too beautiful to be real, too sensuous to be safe.

My heart was hammering in my throat. I wanted to fling myself on him, to wrap myself around him like a blanket. I wanted all those black curls to sweep along my body like I was being caressed by living silk. I wanted him. I almost always wanted him, but tonight, I WANTED him. With everything that was happening and about to happen, all I could think of was sex, sex with Jean-Claude.

He glided towards me, and I held out a hand so he wouldn't touch me. If he laid so much as a finger on me, I wasn't sure what I'd do.

He looked puzzled, and I heard his voice in my head, "What is wrong, ma petite?"

I still didn't have the trick of talking mind-to-mind down pat, so I didn't try. I just held up my left hand and pointed at my watch. It was ten to midnight.

Like Cinderella, I needed to be home by midnight every night. I'd told my coworkers that it was a lunch break, and it was, sometimes I even got food. But what I had to feed every twelve hours didn't have much to do with my stomach. No, lower places, definitely lower places.

Jean-Claude's eyes went wide. In my head, he said, "Ma petite,please tell me you have fed the ardeuralready."

I shrugged. "Twelve hours ago." I didn't bother to whisper; the vampires behind the curtains would hear it, so I used a normal tone of voice. It wasn't like I was going to be able to hide the ardeurfrom them anyway. The ardeurwas one of the side effects of being Jean-Claude's human servant. In another age, Jean-Claude would have been considered an incubus, because he could feed on lust. Not just feed upon it, but cause others to lust after him. It was a way of making more of what you needed. In an emergency, he could feed off of lust and forgo blood for a few days. It was very rare for a vampire to have a secondary power like this. Damian's master had been able to feed off of fear. She'd been what they call a night hag, or mora.

Belle Morte, of course, held the ardeur.She had used it for centuries to manipulate kings and emperors. Jean-Claude was one of the few of her bloodline to inherit this particular power. And I was, to my knowledge, the only human servant to ever inherit it from anyone.

When the ardeurfirst awoke in a vamp, it controlled them just like the blood lust, then gradually they learned to control it. Or that was the plan. Since I'd had it, I'd fought like hell so that I only had to feed every twelve hours or so. The feeling didn't have to involve intercourse, but there did have to be sexual contact. All those old stories about succubi and incubi killing people by loving them to death were true. I could not feed off the same person every time. Micah let me feed off him. Jean-Claude had been waiting to share the ardeurwith me for years, though he'd thought it would be him doing the feeding, not me. I'd been forced to make Nathaniel, one of my wereleopards, into my own version of a pomme de sang.Embarrassing as hell, but it beat the heck out of molesting strangers, which was entirely possible if you fought the ardeur.It was a hard taskmistress just like Belle Morte.

The plan for tonight had been to go to my house and meet with Micah, but instead I was here at the Circus. That wasn't bad in itself, because Jean-Claude was always willing. Unfortunately, we had big bad vampires in the next room, and I didn't think they'd wait while we had hot monkey sex. Call it a hunch, but I suspected Musette would be sympathetic.

The trouble was, the ardeurwasn't sympathetic either.

The men were all standing around with that oh, my godsilence thick on the ground. We were all looking at Jean-Claude to solve this. "What do we do?" I asked.

He looked lost for a moment, then he laughed, that touchable, caressable laugh. It made me shudder, and only Damian grabbing me kept me from falling. I waited for the ardeurto spread to him like the contagious disease it could be, but it didn't. The moment he touched me, the ardeurreceded like the ocean pulling back from the shore. I felt light and clean, clearheaded. I could think again. I clutched Damian's arm like it was the last piece of wood in the ocean.

I turned wide eyes to Jean-Claude. He was looking very serious. "I feel it too, ma petite."

We knew through practice that if Jean-Claude concentrated on controlling the ardeur,he could help me control it as well. But when he wasn't concentrating, the fire burned through us both like some overwhelming force of nature.

I felt Damian's sorrow at my cool touch, felt it like a taste across my tongue, as if rain could have a flavor.

I knew that Damian wanted me, in that good ol'-fashioned way that had very little to do with hearts and flowers, and everything to do with lust. He craved me the way he did blood, because to be without me was to die. Damian was over six hundred years old, but he'd never be a master vampire. Which meant that literally his original mistress had made his heart beat, his body walk. Then Jean-Claude had been his animating force, and then, accidentally, I'd stolen him from Jean-Claude, and now it was my necromancy that made his blood flow, his heart beat.

I'd been horrified to find that I had, in effect, a pet vampire. I'd tried to ignore what I'd done, run from it. I'd been running from so many things. But I knew that Damian wasn't one of those things that I could ignore.

If I cut myself off from Damian, he would first go mad, then he would die in truth. Of course, long before he faded away, the other vampires would have had to execute him. You couldn't have a six-hundred-year-old vampire gone stark raving mad running around the city slaughtering people. It was bad for business. How did I know what would happen if I denied Damian? Because I hadn't known he was my vampire servant for the first six months after it had happened. He had gone mad, and he had slaughtered innocents. Jean-Claude had imprisoned him, waiting for me to come home, waiting for me to live up to my responsibilities instead of running from them. Damian had been one of my object lessons that you either embraced your power, or others paid the price.

I looked at Jean-Claude. He was still beautiful, but I could look at him without wanting to swarm all over him. "This is amazing," I said.

"If you would have let Damian touch you like this months ago, we would have discovered it sooner," Jean-Claude said.

There was a time, not that long ago, that I would have resented being reminded of my own shortcomings, but one of my new resolutions was not to argue about everything. Picking my battles, that was the goal.

Jean-Claude nodded, walked over to me, and held out his hand. "My apologies for the earlier indiscretion, ma petite,but I am master now, no longer pawn of the fire that burns us both."

I stared at the hand, so pale, long-fingered, graceful. Even without the ardeur'sinterference, he was always fascinating in ways that I had no words for. I took his hand, while still clutching Damian's arm. Jean-Claude's fingers closed around mine, and my heart stayed calm. The ardeurdid not raise its lascivious head.

He raised my hand to his mouth, slowly, touched his lips to my knuckles. Nothing happened. He risked a caress of his lips, sliding along my skin. It did make me catch my breath, but the ardeurdid not rise.

He stood upright, my hand still in his. He smiled, that brilliant smile that I valued, because it was real, or as close to real as he could come. He'd spent centuries schooling his face, his every motion to be courtly, graceful, and give nothing away. He found it hard to simply react. "Come, ma petite,come let us meet our guests."

I nodded. "Sure."

He wrapped my arm through his and looked at Damian. "Take her other arm, mon ami,let us escort her inside."

Damian settled my hand on the smooth, muscled skin of his forearm. "With pleasure, master."

Normally, Jean-Claude didn't like his vamps calling him master, but tonight we'd be formal. We were trying to impress people who hadn't been impressed by anything in centuries.

Asher stepped forward to get the drapes, Jason went to the other side, and they held the drapes aside for us so we could enter without having to bat at the drapes. There are reasons that wall-hangings over doorways fell out of favor.

The only downside to having an attractive vampire on each arm was that I couldn't go for my gun quickly. Of course, if I had to draw a gun as soon as we went through the door, then the night was going to be a bad one. Bad enough that we might survive this night, but not the next.