Anita Blake 14 - Danse macabre (50 page)

He made a gesture that was half bow and half shrug. Managing to make it both apology and an I-don't-know gesture.

"Not good enough. You do know what's going on."

"I know what I believe has happened."

"Fine, tell us." I slipped off the bed so I could tie the robe in place better.

"All our people gained from what we did last night with Augustine. Asher has been a master vampire for a very long time, but he has never had many of the master-level powers that are taken for granted among many of us."

"His gaze has gone up a few notches, I get that," I said.

Jean-Claude shook his head. "Now,
ma petite
, it is more than that. What is Asher's greatest vampiric ability?"

I thought about it for a second or two, then said, "His bite is orgasmic."

Jean-Claude gave a small smile. "That may be his most alluring power for you,
ma petite
, but it is not his most powerful."

I thought harder. "Fascination. He makes you fascinated with him, once he's fed off you using full power. Once he's made love to you, it's like a sort of love spell, but it works the way that love spells never work."

"I believe his ability to fascinate has grown in power."

I glanced at Asher, who was still sitting on the side of the bed, but carefully not looking at me. I shook my head and walked closer to him. "Look at me, Asher, please."

"Why?" he asked, in a very still voice, carefully not looking at me.

"I have to know if your gaze can just roll me, or if it happened because I don't protect myself against you."

He almost glanced at me then, but gave me only the perfection of his profile and a wave of shimmering hair. "What do you mean, you do not protect yourself from me?"

"I trust you, so I don't shield from you. I want your power to take me. I don't want to fight it. But before it was a choice. Now I need to see if it's still a choice, or if you've just outgrown me."

"Give her the weight of your gaze,
mon ami
, let us see."

Asher turned, reluctance plain in the way he held his body. He gave me a face as blank and unreadable as any I'd ever seen on him. I'd perfected the art of looking at a vampire's face without meeting their gaze years ago. I was a little out of practice, grown arrogant with power, but old skills never truly desert you.

I studied the curve of his lips, then raised my eyes slowly to meet his. They were as beautiful as always, such a pale, pale blue. A pure, clear blue, but pale as a winter's dawn. I stared into those eyes and felt nothing.

"This won't work unless you try to capture me with your gaze."

"I do not wish to capture you," he said softly.

"Liar," I said.

He managed to look offended then.

"Don't try to kid me, Asher, you like power games entirely too much. You love the effect you have on me. You love that you can do to me what Jean-Claude can't. You love the fact that you are the only vamp who can vamp me."

His face went to cold neutrality. "I have never said such things to you."

"Your body said them for you."

He licked his lips then, an old gesture that he still made when he was nervous. "What do you want from me, Anita?"

"Truth."

He shook his head, and looked solemn. "You ask for truth a great deal, but it is seldom what you truly want."

I'd have liked to argue that, but I couldn't, not and be honest. "You're right, probably more right than I want to know, but right now, try to capture me with your gaze. Really try, so we'll know how careful I need to be around you."

"I do not want you to have to be careful around me."

I shook my head. "Please, Asher, we need to know."

"Why, so you can hide from me? So you can deny me the gaze of your own eyes?"

"Please, Asher, just do it, just try."

"I will ask as a friend," Jean-Claude said, "but the next request will be as master. Do as she asks." His voice sounded so sad. Sad enough that it made me look at him. I felt like I was missing something.

Once I would have just ignored the warning in my head, but I'd learned to ask questions. "Am I asking something bad here? I mean, you're both way too bothered by this. Am I missing something that's going to come back and bite us on the ass?"

Jean-Claude smiled, almost laughed. "Ah,
ma petite
, how delicately you phrase it."

"Yeah, yeah, just answer the question."

"We fear what your reaction will be if Asher can indeed capture you with his gaze."

I looked from one to the other of them. Jean-Claude's carefully pleasant face. Asher's arrogant blankness. I caught sight of Requiem against the far wall beyond them. His face was as blank as theirs, but it wasn't pleasant like Jean-Claude's or arrogant like Asher's; he simply tried to show nothing. His upper body was still decorated with the wounds Meng Die had given him. For the first time I wondered: if I fed the
ardeur
off him, would the wounds heal? I'd healed before with metaphysical sex. I frowned and turned back to Jean-Claude. "You had more than one reason for me to feed the
ardeur
from Requiem, didn't you?"

"You are not going to do it, so what does it matter?" There was the slightest flavor of anger to his words.

I turned to him. The pleasant mask was gone, and in its place something close to the arrogance that Asher hid behind. "I know I'm difficult, but let's pretend I'm not. Let's pretend that I'm not a huge pain in the ass. Just talk to me. Tell me your reasoning."

"My reasoning about what,
ma petite
?"

I walked toward him, talking as I moved. "All the reasons for me to feed from Requiem now. All the reasons why you're so nervous about Asher being able to capture me with his gaze." I was in front of him now, and realized that he must have moved back from the bed at some point, and I didn't remember him moving away. I'd been too caught up in Asher's eyes. "Just tell me. I promise not to panic. I promise not to run away. Just talk to me like I'm a reasonable human being."

He gave me a look, and it was an eloquent look. He let me watch thoughts chase over his face, but finally he said, "Asher is correct,
ma petite;
you ask for truth, but you often punish us for telling it."

I nodded. "I know, and I'm sorry about that. All I know is that I'll try to stop being a pain in the ass. I'll try to listen, and not overreact."

"Good intentions,
ma petite
, but you do know the old saying."

I nodded, again. "Yeah, the road to hell is paved with them, I know." I touched his arm where it lay folded across his chest. Even his body language had closed down. "Please, Jean-Claude, I feel like we don't have time to play to my insecurities. If we crash this weekend with all the other masters here, I don't want it to be because you were afraid to be honest with me. I don't want the disaster to be my fault. Okay?"

He uncrossed his arms, and touched my face. "So sincere,
ma petite
. What has come over you?"

I thought about that, then said it, out loud. "I'm scared."

"Of what?"

I put my hand on his, pressing his touch against my face. "Of failing us all, just because I didn't want something to be true."

"
Ma petite
, that is not it, not entirely."

I looked away from those suddenly knowing eyes of his. "I think it's the baby thing." I made myself meet his eyes. The gentleness in them was both easier to meet and harder. "If we really are going to do this, keep the baby, then we have to make this work. We have to make it all work. I don't have the luxury of being a pain in the ass, if it's going to get us hurt."

"You find out but hours ago, and you are suddenly more willing to compromise." He looked at me, considering, serious, tender, all mixed together. "I am told that pregnancy changes a woman, but so quick as this?"

"Maybe I just needed a wake-up call."

"Wake up to what,
ma petite
?"

"I keep telling Richard I've accepted my life, but he's right, I'm still hiding from parts of it. You"—and I looked at Asher then—"are all still tiptoeing around me afraid of what I'll do, aren't you?" I turned back to Jean-Claude. "Aren't you?"

"You have taught us caution,
ma petite
." He tried to hug me, but I stepped away.

"Don't comfort me, Jean-Claude, talk to me."

He sighed. "You do realize,
ma petite
, that these demands for complete honesty that come over you from time to time are another way of being a pain in the ass?"

I had to smile. "No, I hadn't realized that. I thought this was being reasonable."

"
Non, ma petite
, this is not being reasonable. This is another way of being very demanding."

"Well, hell, then tell me what to do, because I don't know how to be anything else."

"You are a high-maintenance item, as they say,
ma petite
. But I knew that before we became a couple."

"You're saying, you knew what you were getting into."

He nodded. "As much as any man can when he decides to love a woman. There are always mysteries and surprises in every love affair. But, yes, I had some idea what I was getting myself into. I did it willingly, eagerly."

"The difficulties were outweighed by what, the power you might gain?"

He frowned at me. "See, already you grow angry. You do not want truth,
ma petite
. You do not want lies either. You leave us all with no clue to what will take us safely through your rocky shoals."

"I've never heard you use a sea metaphor before."

"Perhaps seeing Samuel reminded me of my voyage to this fair land."

"Perhaps," I said, and even to me it sounded suspicious.

Asher made a sound low in his throat. "You seek a reason to be angry, so you can blame us, and run."

"Like Richard was trying to pick a fight earlier," I said.

Asher nodded.

I thought about that for a second or two. "It's not that Richard and I are too different, we're too much alike."

Jean-Claude gave me a look, like I'd finally come to something he'd understood long ago. "Too much alike in many ways, but you have compromised more, and your very alikeness in character makes him keep trying to force you to make the same decisions he has made. He sees the echo of himself in you, and understands even less why you do not see his
rightness in all things."

"And it's maybe why he frustrates me, too. He's enough like me, so why can't he make the decisions I've made?"

"
Oui, ma petite
, I believe that is part of your immense anger toward each other."

"He's right, I'm trying to make him into something he's not, and he's trying to do the same to me. Shit."

"What,
ma petite
?"

"I hate being this slow about something that feels so obvious."

"It is only obvious once you have thought of it," he said.

"I'm not sure that makes sense, but okay, fine. I'm not saying I'll like hearing it, but tell me why you're so worried about Asher using his gaze on me."

"I'll answer this one," Asher said. He came to me, his robe still open over his body. It took more concentration than I'd have admitted out loud to give him eye contact and not look lower. "If I can capture you with my gaze, we are both afraid you will exile me from your bed. Your bed, and Jean-Claude's."

"I'm not in charge of Jean-Claude's bed. You and he sleep together in your bed whenever I sleep by day in his bed."

The two men exchanged a look I couldn't read. I touched Asher's arm, brought his attention back to me. "What is it?"

He looked down at me, using all that gold hair to cover the scarred side of his face. He didn't usually hide from me anymore. "What do you think that Jean-Claude and I do in my bed when you are asleep in this one?"

I frowned, then couldn't quite meet his entirely too-frank gaze. Vampire powers didn't make me look away, embarrassment did. "You're right, I don't want honesty, I just think I do."

"You are blushing," Asher said, and he gave a delighted laugh. "You think we are lovers, don't you?"

I was blushing so hard I was dizzy, and I felt like he was making fun of me. So I got angry. I crossed my arms over my stomach, and said, "Yeah."

Asher looked at Jean-Claude. "She believes what most believe of us."

I finally looked at Jean-Claude. His face was very empty. I had to lick my suddenly dry lips to say, "Are you saying that you're not doing it, when I'm not around?"

"All the touch I am allowed is when you are with us," Asher said, and it was his turn to sound angry. But his anger had warmth to it, to fill his voice.

I kept staring at Jean-Claude.

"You do not believe us?" Jean-Claude asked.

"It's not that, it's…"I tried to put it into words. Finally, I said, "How could you be so close to him and keep turning him down?"

"Thank you for that," Asher said.

"And what would you have done,
ma petite
, if you had found us in an embrace?"

"I… I don't know. I guess it depends on what you mean by
embrace
."

"Sex,
ma petite
, sex."

I opened my mouth, closed it, and didn't know what to say. "I don't know."

"I do. You would have stormed away. You would have abandoned my bed, damaged our power base, the triumvirate. You might have run to our so-conservative Richard, or left us both again. So shocked you would have been, so unready to conceive of such things."

"Maybe, but I didn't freak about you and Augustine."

"You were involved. We shared him. If you had come upon the two of us alone, you would have taken it differently."

"Well, yeah, he's a stranger for one thing."

"Wait," Asher said, "are you saying that you would share Jean-Claude with me?"

"We share each other now."

He shook his head. "We share you, Anita, we barely touch each other."

"Do not do this tonight, Asher. I ask this as your friend, and as your master. When our guests are gone, then we will continue this discussion."

"Your word on that," Asher said.

"My word."

I nodded. "When we're not ass-deep in alligators, and I've had a few days to digest the news."