Perilous Partnership (32 page)

“Did the personal side of the relationships come up at all?” Raymond asked.

“Not in any great detail,” Alain replied, “other than the observation that it was easy to tell who was paired with whom. Tomorrow is soon enough to deal

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with the rest. Now, if you‟ll excuse us, Orlando and I have the first panel tomorrow, so we should get some rest.”

Raymond thanked them and said good night. He turned back, intending to help with the cleanup, but Jean grabbed his arm. “You have a promise to keep, and I‟ve had hours to plan. It‟s time for us to retire as well.”

“But—”

“No buts. Julien has plenty of help in the kitchen, and you‟ve already thanked him profusely. Everything else can wait until tomorrow. Except me.”

The promise in those words did unspeakable things to Raymond‟s insides.

“Let‟s go.”

174

Ariel Tachna

RAYMOND was glad he was the first one in the réfectoire the next morning. He had no desire to endure the amused glances of the paired wizards or the confusion of the unpaired ones as he lowered himself gingerly into a chair. Jean had finally given in to his repeated requests and bitten Raymond‟s arse last night. Repeatedly.

He knew Jean had an oral fixation—he
was
a vampire, after all—but Jean had never been as single-minded in his focus as he was last night. Every inch of Raymond‟s body had been licked and nibbled on. Raymond sported an impressive collection of bruises from Jean‟s teeth as the vampire took a complete inventory of his body, looking for sensitive spots he had not yet discovered. Anywhere that got the slightest reaction from Raymond ended up with a bruise. The ones that got the most reaction later felt Jean‟s fangs.

The evening had ended with Raymond on his hands and knees, arse in the air as Jean licked and nibbled on his backside until he was begging. He had lost count, but Raymond was sure he had at least six or eight fang marks on his arse, culminating in Jean rimming him until he was begging for release.

Jean had finally made him come with his fingers and tongue before pushing inside Raymond and rocking slowly to his own climax. Raymond had fallen asleep with Jean still buried inside him, his lover‟s weight a reassuring pressure through the night.

In the morning light, Raymond wondered how a promise he had made when Jean complained about Raymond not having made love to him had turned into a night where Jean made all of Raymond‟s fantasies come true. Not that he minded. It just made him feel incredibly selfish. He did not expect to have much time today or even tonight, with the panels and discussion sessions scheduled to begin after breakfast for the wizards and to go through the evening and into the night for the vampires. He would have to find a way to make it up to Jean the next time they had a few private moments.

The arrival of Georges and Élodie, the two wizards from Lyon, forestalled his musings. He pointed out the coffee pot and hot water for tea along with the croissants and baguettes that were on offer for breakfast. They both thanked him somewhat sleepily, making Raymond smile in sympathy.

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Armed with breakfast, they approached the table. “Do you mind if we join you?” Élodie asked.

“Please do,” Raymond said, pushing out one of the chairs. “Were your rooms comfortable?”

“Very,” Georges said. “I‟ve stayed in hotels that aren‟t this nice.”

“We‟ve worked hard to make this a welcoming place for wizards and vampires alike,” Raymond said, “so I‟m glad you were comfortable. If you need anything, don‟t hesitate to ask.”

“I‟m embarrassed to say I forgot to bring a pen,” Élodie said.

“Don‟t be embarrassed,” Raymond said with a smile. “When you get your seminar packet, it will have pens and paper as well as Post-It notes and highlighters if you need those as well.”

“Are the partnerships really that complicated?” Georges asked.

Raymond laughed. “No. And yes. On the one hand, it‟s as simple as casting a spell and seeing if there‟s a vampire it doesn‟t work on. That vampire is your partner. The mechanics are equally simple. The vampire feeds from the wizard.

It‟s the implications that are complicated, because the more the vampire feeds, the more tightly bound the two become. That‟s what both sides need to consider before agreeing to enter a partnership.”

“I noticed one of the wizards—I can‟t remember his name—had a scar of some sort on his neck,” Élodie said.

“Alain Magnier,” Raymond said. “You‟ll meet him again this morning, along with his partner Orlando St. Clair, but don‟t judge all partnerships on theirs. They chose to add a layer to their partnership that no one else has done.

They‟re going to talk about the history of the alliance and the partnerships, since they were the first to form a partnership and to discover the protection a wizard‟s blood offers his or her partner. I‟m sure they wouldn‟t mind if you asked about the Aveu de Sang. As you saw, the mark on Alain‟s neck announces their relationship to any vampire who looks, even if the rest of the world just sees a scar.”

The other wizards came in as they were talking, getting coffee or tea and breakfast and joining Raymond and the other two at the table.

When they had finished eating, Raymond showed everyone to the scriptorium, where the chairs and tables had been spread back out for the seminars. Alain and Orlando were already there, setting out packets. “Do you need anything?” Raymond asked them.

“We‟re fine,” Orlando said, “and if we think of anything, one of us will come find you.”

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“I‟ll be in the office getting ready for my session this afternoon,” Raymond told them. “I‟ll see you all at lunch.”

The seven wizards found seats. When they were all settled, Alain cleared his throat. “If we can get started, I want to make sure there‟s plenty of time for questions and discussion at the end of the session before you go to lunch. My name is Alain Magnier, for those of you I haven‟t already met. I work for l‟ANS in Paris and have for twelve years. My partner is Orlando St. Clair, a vampire originally from London.”

“I moved to Paris a little over a hundred years ago,” Orlando added, “so I‟m as much French as I am English at this point. I know some of you are from Paris, but I don‟t recognize any of you from the Milice. How familiar are you with l‟émeutte des Sorciers?”

The answers varied but averaged out to “not very.”

“I won‟t give you a full history lesson, because the reasons behind the start of the war and even the unfolding of the war aren‟t really germane,” Alain said.

“It‟s enough for our purposes to know that in October a little over a year ago, the war was at a stalemate, and the time and energy we were expending trying to keep it that way had taken the wizards normally tasked with maintaining the magical equilibrium away from their duties dangerously often. I‟m sure you all remember the typhoon in La Réunion about that same time, just one manifestation of the problems that would have grown more and more serious over time.”

“I went to La Réunion after that happened to help with the relief efforts,”

Olivier said. “It was pretty catastrophic.”

“So you understand why Marcel was desperate for a solution to preferably end the war, but to at least give us enough additional bodies in the field that he could spare a few wizards to attend to the magical equilibrium,” Alain explained. “His idea was to approach the vampires, because while they were limited in their movements to nighttime, they were not prone to the erratic behavior of shapeshifters or some of the other magical races.”

“Jean Bellaiche, chef de la Cour of Paris, was intrigued enough by the initial invitation to agree to a meeting,” Orlando said, taking up the tale.

“Wait, chef de la Cour?” Patrice asked.

“It‟s the term given to the leader of the vampires in any given city or area,”

Orlando explained. “The Cour is the term we use to refer to any group of vampires in the same geographic area. So, as I was saying, Jean was willing to listen to Marcel‟s proposition. The two sides agreed on a meeting time and place, and Jean sent me as his representative. Alain was the Milice representative. The immediate result was an agreement that the vampires would help in the war effort in return for the introduction of equal rights legislation in

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Parlement. The less tangible result was that I tasted a wizard‟s blood for the first time. I know you‟re all sitting there wondering what that has to do with anything. The simple answer is that a sip of Alain‟s blood strengthened me more than what I would normally take as a whole meal.”

“The rest of the answer is the reason we‟re here,” Alain continued with a grin. “With some trial and error, we discovered that the effect is limited to the right combination of vampire and wizard. My blood would have no more effect on any other vampire than a random non-wizard‟s blood would. Any other wizard‟s blood would have no special effect on Orlando.”

He left out the detail of the effect of other people‟s blood on Orlando for the moment because that was part of the Aveu de Sang, not something this group of wizards needed to focus on at the moment. His stomach clenched, though, at the memory of Serrier forcing someone else‟s blood down Orlando‟s throat and the terrible pain and nausea that had ensued. He might not have witnessed it himself, but the bond that let them sense each other‟s feelings had telegraphed the sensations with horrible vividness.

“So your partnership was the first?” Laure, another of the wizards from Paris, verified.

“It was,” Alain agreed, “followed quickly by Raymond and Jean. Once we realized that the partnerships could protect the vampires from sunlight, it seemed imperative to form as many as possible as quickly as possible, so we gathered as many wizards and vampires as we could and let them loose in a room to try to find their partners. Out of a group of approximately four hundred people—about one hundred fifty vampires and two hundred fifty wizards— nearly thirty partnerships formed that night.”

“How many more have formed since then?” Patrice asked.

Alain shook his head. “We don‟t keep that kind of data. I know of another dozen or so that formed later, but that number may or may not be representative. We had just begun to actively match vampires and wizards as new vampires joined the alliance, but about the same time we got that in place, the war ended. It seemed to take forever at the time because everything was happening at once, both with the partnerships and with the war, but it only took a little more than a month for the vampires‟ involvement to tip the scales in our favor and bring about Serrier‟s defeat. And if that isn‟t a testament to the incredible benefits of the partnerships, I don‟t know what is.”

“Except that the war is over,” Marguerite reminded him. “I‟m not challenging your assertions that it made a difference in the war effort. I lived through the war in Paris even though my job with the gendarmerie kept me from participating with the Milice. What kind of benefits are we looking at now?”

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“Every time a vampire feeds from his partner, it contributes to maintaining the magical equilibrium, for one thing,” Alain said. “It also can boost a wizard‟s power astronomically at the moment when the vampire feeds. We also have some initial evidence that it increases the wizard‟s overall strength over time. Everyone will do a dépistage-pouvoir this afternoon so we can track any increases over time more deliberately if any of you decide to form partnerships.

It was not an effect we predicted, and so it isn‟t one we set out to study a year ago. That said, though, we haven‟t found anything else that accounts for the experiences of a number of paired wizards.”

“What does it feel like when a vampire feeds from you?” Constance asked.

“And what about issues of safety?”

“To answer your second question first, vampires don‟t have any diseases you can catch, so as long as you keep the bite marks clean, you shouldn‟t have a problem with that. Their saliva is particularly good for speeding healing as well,” Alain said. “As for what it feels like, it‟s a little pinprick at first, like giving blood, and then you can feel the vampire‟s mouth pulling on your skin as he sucks. It‟s very… intimate.” He could not completely stop the flush of color that rose to his cheeks at the memory of Orlando‟s fangs in his neck last night or of the lovemaking that accompanied it. A quick glance in his lover‟s direction revealed a smug smile.

“How often would a vampire need to feed from his partner?” Marguerite asked.

“That depends on the vampire,” Orlando answered, drawing attention away from Alain and giving him a moment to recover his composure. “The age of the vampire is one issue. Then there‟s the issue of whether the vampire feeds exclusively from his partner or whether he goes elsewhere. Finally, there‟s the issue of how much the vampire takes at any given time. Just like mortals, we can overeat and make ourselves sick. The average, though, would be every two to three days.”

“Can the human body really support that?” Patrice asked. “We‟d never let someone give blood that often!”

“I‟m not the one to ask that question,” Alain said with a shake of his head.