Crimson Death (29 page)

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Some of us think you spend too much time with the emotions of
your lovers, when all you need is the sex, but we did not understand that you feed on love and not just lust. Love strengthens you, literally.”

“I think love strengthens everyone, literally,” I said.

“Oh no, my queen, love can be a terrible weakness.”

“Or a great strength,” I said.

Pierette did her floor-gazing routine again as she thought. “Perhaps it is both.”

Sin leaned over closer to me. “There is nothing stronger than love.” He whispered it as he leaned further, and I came up on tiptoe to meet his lips with mine. Nathaniel closed the small space that my going up on tiptoe had made in our hug so that he was holding us even tighter while we kissed. He kissed my shoulder while Sin kissed my lips. It reminded me of all the times they'd shared me between them, and the memory was enough to make me shiver between them.

Sin drew back from the kiss enough to say, “Keep doing that and I'll forget everything but you.”

Nathaniel bit gently on my shoulder, which made me not just shiver but writhe a little bit.

“No fair,” I said.

“Very fair,” Nathaniel said.

“Unless we can actually have sex, no fair,” Sin said.

I don't know what we would have said next, because energy rolled off Pierette like the first rush of cold air in front of a rainstorm. We all turned and looked at her. Her eyes weren't brown anymore; they were a rich gray like rain clouds just before the sky opens up and tries to drown the world.

Nathaniel tensed beside me, and I felt Damian wake on the bed in our room. His moment of disoriented panic was enough to let me know that he didn't remember last night either. I shut down the link between us enough not to get distracted by his emotions, because we had other problems right in front of us.

“Well, what a pretty sight to wake up to.” Pierette's mouth said the words, but the intonation and pitch were not hers. All the rest of the vampires were awake for the night.

“Pierrot,” I said.

The gray eyes fluttered almost like Pierette would faint, though her body stayed rock steady. “My queen, I see that much has happened while I slept.”

“It's been a busy day,” I said.

“So Pierette has told me.” It wasn't just the voice; even her facial expressions were no longer hers. It was like she'd become some living ventriloquist's dummy. I'd seen vampires do similar things before, but it never ceased to creep me out.

The men had opened up our hug enough so we could move if we had to, which meant they saw this new mix of personalities as more of a threat than Pierette on her own. Good that we all agreed.

“Jean-Claude has treated us as if we were like you, some sort of metaphysical policemen. He has chosen to isolate and worry only for his adopted country and allow the rest of the world to go to hell.”

“The European vampires said they'd go to war against us if we tried to rule all the vampires as the old vampire council had done, but you know that. You and Pierette helped bring their messages to us.”

“We did, my queen, but I never dreamed Jean-Claude would agree to their blackmail. He had us, the Harlequin, at his beck and call. At his command, we would have chosen targets and rid him of his enemies. He could have ruled the world as king of all vampires. It is what we had done for the old council for centuries.”

“Jean-Claude didn't want his reign to begin with more bloodshed,” I said.

“But there has been bloodshed, Anita, so many vampires killed across the world in a fight to rule their small piece of it. We would have killed with precision like a surgeon cuts away diseased flesh to make the body whole again. Instead he has let the disease spread across the world.”

“What disease?” Sin asked.

“Freedom, my prince. Vampires cannot be allowed this much freedom unless he wishes anarchy to rule the rest of the world while he sits comfortably in America.”

“If you had foreseen what is happening in Ireland, you'd have used that as a bargaining point when we were discussing how to handle the new council setup,” I said.

“I did not see this particular problem, because I thought if anyone could keep her kingdom safe it would have been M'Lady. That she has lost control and power is most worrisome.”

“Because she was a fountain of blood, her own bloodline,” I said.

“Exactement, Ma Reine.”
He pronounced the last word like the bird,
wren
, though I knew it didn't sound exactly—oh I mean
exactement
—the same. I didn't even have to borrow Jean-Claude's memories to know that Pierrot had said,
Exactly, my queen
.

“Do you really think the Wicked Bitch of Ireland has been weakened by Marmee Noir's death?”

“I can think of no other explanation,” he said, though it was still Pierette's body doing the talking.

“There are always other explanations,” I said.

“But this is the most likely.”

“Pierette thought that Fey magic finally fading in Ireland might do it.”

He shook her head. “
Non
, my queen. It is the death of our creator that has spread chaos over Ireland.”

“You don't know that for certain.”

“If you are going to Ireland, you will need us.”

“We'll see.”

“No one knows the country and the vampires in it better than we do.”

“I can think of someone who knows the vampires better than either of you.”

Pierette's delicate face made an expression I'd only seen on Pierrot's face before; he was disgusted at the thought. “You cannot compare the aid you would gain from Damian to what we could do for you.”

“He is my vampire servant and the third of my triumvirate of power; that makes him pretty helpful.”

“Pierette has already made our views clear on the uselessness of your triumvirate. Our weapons skills alone would be of more help than either Damian or Nathaniel.”

“I don't know about that,” Nathaniel said, but his voice didn't sound right, and when I turned to look at him his eyes weren't lavender anymore. They were green.

N
ATHANIEL'S EYES HAD
changed back to lavender by the time we got to our bedroom and the freshly showered, though very pissed-off vampire. He was pacing the room, but it was a little hard for Nathaniel and me to take the anger seriously since he was wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He'd forget and try to gesture angrily with both hands, the towel would start to slip and he'd have to grab it to save his modesty, and whatever outrage he'd managed to work up was lost on both of us.

I finally said out loud, “If you really want to make your point, you need more clothes.”

He stopped pacing and turned to face us, one hand clutching the side of the towel. “Are you saying you haven't been paying attention to anything I said, because I'm wearing a towel?”

“No, I'm saying I can't concentrate on what you're saying, because you're mostly naked and wearing a towel that keeps slipping every few sentences.”

“That's great, just great. I finally speak up for myself and you ignore me.” He was almost yelling.

“We're not ignoring you, Damian. If anything, we're paying too much attention to you.”

“To my body, but not what I'm saying!”

“Isn't that what you wanted?” Nathaniel asked.

“What, to have two more people ignore what I want and what I need so they can get what they need instead?” He stalked to the foot of the bed, where Nathaniel was sitting and I was standing.

“You said that what you wanted was to be desired, wanted, the way that Anita and I desire each other and Micah.”

Damian frowned as if he were trying to think and couldn't. “I don't
remember that. I don't remember much.” He pointed at me, very dramatically. “You rolled me! You mind-fucked me!”

“Uh-uh, this isn't my doing. When I first woke up and couldn't remember anything I thought you'd rolled me.”

That stopped him. He looked at me, frowning, trying to remember through the haze of his damaged memory. I hadn't tried yet, because I'd been mind-fucked before. I knew that if the memories came back they'd come back slowly on their own, or not at all. Usually something would remind you of what had happened and you'd get a brief glimpse of what had happened, but it would come in its own time. You could do things to force it, but they all came with a price.

“I thought Jean-Claude couldn't mind-roll you, because you were his human servant and a necromancer.”

“I didn't say it was Jean-Claude. I said, I thought it was you when I first woke up and couldn't remember anything.”

“But I can't remember anything either, so it wasn't me.”

“No, it wasn't you.”

“And it wasn't you,” he said.

“Nope.”

“And it wasn't Jean-Claude,” he said.

“Nope.”

He frowned harder, rubbing one hand against his temple while the other kept clutching at his misbehaving towel. “Then what happened to us?”

“I'm sitting right here and you've totally ignored me,” Nathaniel said.

Damian shook his head. “I'm not ignoring you.”

“You haven't even asked me if I remember anything.”

“If Anita and I don't remember anything, then you won't remember either.”

“Really?” Nathaniel was finally getting angry, and I guess I couldn't blame him. In a way I'd done the same thing, assumed that it couldn't be him. That he couldn't have taken control of the power we raised and used it against us. I realized, watching Damian make the same mistake, that we both discounted Nathaniel. I was in love with him,
but I didn't see him as a threat. He was five-nine, a man, in really good shape, and a wereleopard. He could have been a physical threat if he'd wanted to be, but none of us saw him that way. He was the only man in my life who had picked up a dropped gun and used it to kill someone to save me. Until Nicky had started going monster hunting with me, Nathaniel had been the only man in my life who had killed to save me. Yet I still hadn't thought he'd been the one who took charge between the three of us. Shame on me.

“What if I told you I do remember?” Nathaniel asked, and his voice held a hint of warmth to it that prickled along my skin and not in a good, foreplay kind of way. It was more like a mix of standing too close to an open oven and a dance of electricity down the side of my body nearest him. His beast was beginning to answer to his anger.

I took a small step away from him so my beasts didn't start rising to his.

“What do you remember?” Damian asked.

“All of it.”

Damian shook his head. “I don't believe that.”

“Why not?” Nathaniel stood up then, and I was suddenly very aware that he was only three inches shorter than the vampire. It didn't seem like nearly the size difference it usually did.

“What's wrong with you?” Damian asked.

“Maybe I'm tired of being discounted in this relationship.”

“What relationship? I don't even have a relationship with Anita.”

“And if you don't have a relationship with the girl, then you can't have a relationship with the guy—is that it?” He had moved forward so that he was invading Damian's personal space.

Damian backed up from him; I wasn't even sure he realized he'd done it. “What are you talking about, Nathaniel?”

“This. I'm talking about this.” And he took his shirt off in one smooth motion, baring all that muscular and well-toned chest. It made Damian take another step back. He looked startled this time and knew he'd given ground, but he didn't care and gave more as Nathaniel turned his back on him and swept his braid to one side.

Damian didn't seem to understand at first and neither did I, but
then I saw the vampire's face grow pale, which was a trick since his skin was paper white, pale even for a vampire. “What . . . what is that?”

“You know what it is,” Nathaniel said, and his voice still held anger. He was glaring at me as if I were included in his anger with Damian.

Damian stopped backing up and took a step toward the other man. He took another step forward and put his hand out toward Nathaniel's bare back. His hand was shaking as he reached out, but didn't quite touch, as if he couldn't make himself close those last three inches.

It was too much; I had to know what was spooking him so badly. I started walking to them with Nathaniel glaring at me; his eyes had gone from their usual lavender past lilac to almost a grape purple. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen his eyes that dark with anger.

He bent forward so I could see better, rolling his right shoulder down and a little more out of reach of Damian's hand, but the vampire wasn't trying to finish the gesture. He seemed frozen in midmotion. What the hell was it?

I put a hand on Nathaniel's arm to steady myself as I went up on tiptoe to look at his back, and there it was, a neat vampire bite, not on his neck, but on his back. One higher up near the shoulder and the other lower down nearer the shoulder blade. There was no reason to bite there for blood; it wasn't a good place to feed. There were only two reasons to bite there: for torture or for pleasure. I was pretty sure which Nathaniel had thought it was at the time. He was a happy little pain slut when sex was involved.

“Are you saying I did that?” Damian asked.

“And this.” Nathaniel showed the bite on the other side of his neck.

“I've got one of those, too,” I said.

Damian looked from one to the other of us. “I asked for more blood, so we could keep having sex. Didn't I? Didn't I?”

“Yes,” Nathaniel said, standing upright. His anger was beginning to fade. He always had a hard time holding on to a fight. I guess that helped balance out my own temper.

“But the bites on your back—that wasn't so I could feed.”

“I asked you to bite me,” Nathaniel said, turning around so he could see the other man's face.

Damian was frowning hard. He was lucky he was eternally youthful or he'd have ended up with permanent creases between his eyes if he kept doing that often. “When? I mean, what were we doing that I'd bite you there?”

“Do you remember biting me here?” Nathaniel turned his leg to one side to expose the inside of his thigh. He moved the leg of his workout shorts to show the bite on his thigh.

“I've got one of those, too,” I said, and this time I moved the legs of my shorts until I found the bite very high up on my thigh. If we'd worked out for real today I'd have felt that.

“How many times did we . . . do it?” Damian asked.

I answered, “Four.”

“One per bite,” he said, “except not the back.”

“You still don't remember, do you?” Nathaniel asked, and he looked sad.

“I remember you kissing me.” I could see Damian struggling to remember, chasing the memory, but sometimes the harder you chase, the faster it runs away.

“That's right. We kissed.”

Damian looked at me. “Do you remember everything?”

I shook my head.

He frowned and looked at Nathaniel. “Do you remember?”

“More than Anita remembers.”

Damian rubbed his forehead. “Why can't I remember?”

Nathaniel sighed, and started to say something, but I interrupted. “We raised more power between the three of us than we ever had before.”

“So why don't I remember? Why don't you? Why does Nathaniel remember more?”

“Jean-Claude thinks it's because you and I are conflicted about the three of us and Nathaniel isn't conflicted.”

“So because Nathaniel is all right with anything the three of us do, he remembers what we've done?”

“Something like that,” I said.

Nathaniel looked at me, his face soft. He held his hand out to me and I took it. We'd raised the most power ever between us, and were
closer to being a real triumvirate of power than ever before, and it wasn't my doing, or Damian's; it was Nathaniel's. Maybe every triad needed someone who wasn't afraid to grab the power and run the metaphysical bus. Jean-Claude drove the bus for his own triumvirate with Richard Zeeman and me, because Jean-Claude was the only one of us who wasn't conflicted six ways to Sunday.

“What do you think would have happened to Jean-Claude's triumvirate with Richard and me if it had been up to the Ulfric and me to control things?”

Damian frowned, but said, “It wouldn't have worked, not even as well as it works now.”

“Why, or why not?”

“Richard hates being a werewolf, hates being attracted to Jean-Claude, hates that he loves rough sex and bondage.”

“And I used to be as conflicted as Richard about most of the same things,” I said.

Damian nodded. “If you had been less conflicted about you and me . . .” He shook his head and ended with, “That's not fair, or maybe it's just useless. You didn't want me enough and you did want Nathaniel enough.”

“I found a way to fit into Anita's life, and Micah was willing to open his life up enough to love us as a threesome.”

Damian blinked those big green eyes of his and said, “Threesome, we were a threesome. We didn't just take turns having sex with Anita, did we?”

Damian stared at us, a look of soft horror on his face. “You rolled us. You said,
I want this
, and your eyes glowed.”

“You said the same thing, Damian. I remember hearing you say it, which is almost the last clear memory I have,” I said.

“I asked both of you every step of the way, and you said yes. I didn't know that I could roll both your minds. I didn't know I could roll anyone's mind. I'm not supposed to have those kinds of powers as a wereleopard.”

Damian put his hands over his face and mumbled something.

“What?” I asked.

He spoke up but kept his eyes covered as if he couldn't bear to look
at us. “I asked you to go down on me, because Cardinale couldn't because of the fangs. I don't like pain and the fangs make it hard to do without it hurting.”

“Yes,” Nathaniel said.

“I asked for it, but I didn't ask Anita to do it. I just said, go down on me. I remember both of you . . . taking turns.” He lowered his hands, and he still looked horrified, but he said, “It had been so long for me and it felt so good.”

“I swear to you, Damian, that if you had told me to stop, I would have,” Nathaniel said.

“I didn't tell you no. I remember that now. I remember the first time I rolled someone's mind that completely. I didn't know exactly what I had done. I thought the woman wanted me. I didn't understand until the second night, when I tried to see her again and she didn't remember me at all.”

“You're not mad?” Nathaniel asked.

“No, I remember what it's like when the mind powers first happen. It's heady stuff. I'm the vampire. I should have been the one helping you learn, but I was too worried about you being a man and . . . Oh gods, I remember when I bit your back.” He put his hand over his mouth. I couldn't read the look in his eyes, but it wasn't anything good. We could have all dropped our shielding and felt everything between the three of us emotionally, but we were all too afraid to do it. No, we were all fairly sure that we wouldn't like what the other ones were feeling.

I got a glimpse, a memory of Nathaniel on top of me, inside me, and then Damian's face over his shoulder. The vampire's eyes had been full of green fire, his own power, not Nathaniel's.

“I thought you were enjoying yourself,” Nathaniel said, at last. The anger was gone and now so was the contented happiness he'd woken up with. Fuck.

Damian took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. “I like giving . . . anal, and I haven't been with many women who enjoy it.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“If you were both women I'd have had a very good time. My only objection is that Nathaniel is male and I don't like men, but I like
someone going down on me, and I enjoy doing anal to someone else. We didn't do anything that I couldn't have done with two women, so why should I be freaking out about it?”