Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #16 - Blood Noir (6 page)

“What are you thinking about,
ma petite
?”

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 39 of 287

“You, and trying not to. Where is Asher?”

“He is running late, but he will be here.”

“Jason wants to leave in the morning. Who will you feed on while we’re both gone?”

“There are always willing blood donors,
ma petite
.”

I didn’t like the way he said that. A small spurt of jealousy came and I clubbed it to death before it could sound in my voice. “Don’t eat anything that disagrees with you.”

“Are you jealous,
ma petite
?”

“Maybe.”

“I, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“You will be going home to meet Jason’s family. You will be doing something very ordinary, very human, that will forever be denied me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My family died long before you were born,
ma petite
. I cannot introduce my mother to you, or my sister. I cannot give you the very normal experience of seeing where I came from, and who my people are.”

“I’ve met the head of your bloodline, Jean-Claude. I figure that Belle Morte is your people.”

“
Non, ma petite,
she is my master, or was, but she was never family. She was lover and goddess, if you will, but that is not the same.”

“You’re jealous that Jason has living family to take me home to.”

“Oui.”

I lay there with the phone to my ear, and just thought about that. “I never thought that would be important to you.”

“I do not regret what I am,
ma petite
, but I do regret some of what I do not have. I would give a great deal to have you meet my mother, and my sister.”

“No father,” I said.

“He died when I was very young. I don’t have many memories of him.”

Again, something I hadn’t known. Tonight was just chock-full of new discoveries about people I thought I knew intimately.

“Are you upset that I haven’t taken you home to meet my family?”

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 40 of 287

He made a small sound. “No, I…” He laughed, but it wasn’t sexy, more laughing at himself. “I think I may be. Maybe I feel you do not think me good enough.”

“I think my Grandmother Blake would chase you out of the house with a crucifix and holy water, is what I think.”

“She is a devout woman?”

“Fanatical. I’ve been informed she’s praying for my soul because of you.”

“Have I estranged you from your family,
ma petite
?”

“No, I was already estranged, if that’s how you want to put it. Let’s say Grandma Blake was praying for me about the whole raising-zombies-from-the-grave thing. My sleeping with the undead is just another symptom of my damnation.”

“I am sorry,
ma petite
, I did not know.”

I shrugged, knew he couldn’t see it, and said, “It’s okay.”

“So you will go with our Jason and meet his family, be his girlfriend.”

“You are jealous.”

“My voice was empty of emotion,” he said.

“Yeah, and when your voice is at its most empty, you’re hiding something. You know you don’t have to be jealous of Jason.”

“I am not jealous in the way you mean.”

“Then explain.”

Nathaniel had gone very still beside me, listening.

“You are not yet thirty and he is twenty-three. You are both so very young,
ma petite
. You will go away to his hometown and be very young together. It is something I cannot be with you. I cannot be young and naïve and uncertain.”

“You wouldn’t be you if you were any of those things. I love you the way you are, Jean-Claude.”

“Did I sound like I needed to hear that,
ma petite
?”

“Yes,” I said.

He laughed again, and made me shiver down closer to Nathaniel. “I find myself strangely conflicted. Jason is my
pomme de sang
, and is precious to me. That my human servant is taking care of him in such a caring way is a lovely thing. It will make other vampires think me a very kind master, but I know that you do it because you care for him. He is young and handsome and charming.”

“You cannot be insecure.”

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 41 of 287

“Why can I not be?”

“Because you are beautiful and amazing in bed, and I love you.”

“But Jason can be one thing for you that I cannot,
ma petite
.”

“What’s that?”

“Mortal. He can involve you in the youth of his life. He can offer you the mess of his family. He can show you where he grew up, introduce you to people who knew him as a child. All those to whom I can introduce you knew me as a vampire, never as a mortal.”

“I think this is your issue, Jean-Claude, not mine. I’m not actually looking forward to traveling down memory lane with Jason and his abusive dad.”

“I feel that you mean that, but I find myself strangely envious. I had not missed my family in a very long time.”

“You sound homesick.”

“I suppose that is as good a word as any.” He sounded sad.

“Do you need us to come there tonight?”

“To what purpose? You would arrive not long before dawn, and you would leave before I awoke for the day.”

“I feel like you need a good-bye kiss, I guess.”

“Thank you for the sentiment,
ma petite
, but I will work on, how do you say, my issues. You, I think, will have your hands full working on Jason’s.”

What could I say to that? “Yeah,” I said.

“Je t’aime, ma petite.”

“I love you, too,” I said.

I guess in the end, what else is there to say?

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 42 of 287

7

I HAD ONE
other phone call to make before I flew off into the sunset with Jason. I dialed Micah’s cell phone, because when he did the out-of-town trips it was the best way to get him.

“Hey,” he said, and that one word was full of affection, happiness, contentment.

“Hey, yourself,” I said, and my voice had the same tone. I’d felt that way about Micah almost from the moment I met him. Weird, especially for me, the poster child for panic when I was attracted to a man. We’d learned only in the last few months that it had been the
ardeur
, my very own version of vampire powers, that had taken away my reluctance. In a way, I’d rolled Micah and myself. But neither of us regretted it; maybe that was vampire powers, too. I asked him how the trip was going. He told me he liked the new leopard, and so did his bodyguards, Mel and Noah. Good to know.

“But you didn’t call to ask about the new wereleopard,” he said.

“Couldn’t I call just to chat?”

He laughed, and I could picture his face. He was back to having his summer tan, which made him dark enough to pass for something other than Caucasian. But his features were entirely too Northern European, to really pass for anything else. His face was delicate, and so was he, at my height exactly. His eyes were chartreuse leopard eyes, from where a truly evil man had forced him into animal form long enough so his eyes never changed back. I’d killed the evil man, and Micah had moved in. We’d been a couple ever since.

I told him the
Reader’s Digest
version of what was happening with Jason. “I’m sorry to hear about his father.”

“Me, too.”

“How did you get volunteered for this trip?”

“You don’t think I’d come up with it myself?”

“No,” he said, and there was no doubt in his voice.

“Nathaniel.”

“Hmm,” he said.

“You sound upset.”

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 43 of 287

“That you’re going off with another man to meet his family? Hmm, let me think, why would that upset me?”

“Are you telling me not to go?”

“I would never do that.”

“But…,” I said.

“But nothing, telling you what to do isn’t the kind of relationship we have. But I’m allowed to be a little jealous that you’re getting to go home with Jason.”

“Jean-Claude said the same thing, sort of, but his family is centuries dead. It’s not possible for him. You never talk about your family.”

“When Chimera was alive, he used people’s families against them. He tortured them, or made them into wereanimals so he could control them. To keep my family safe, I had to pretend I hated them. I did a good job of it, Anita. I doubt they’d want to see me again.”

I heard such regret in his voice. “You never know until you try, Micah.”

“We’ll see.”

“If it works out, I’d love to meet your family.”

“Really, you don’t seem much interested in your own.”

“I’m allowed issues with my own family; that doesn’t make me hate everyone’s family.”

“Okay,” but he sounded cautious.

“Really, Micah, Chimera’s dead, he can’t hurt you or your family anymore.”

“I know that, you killed him for me.”

“You wanted me to kill him.”

“Yes, I did.” And there was that note in his voice, that tone, that said he was all right with the violence that I did. He’d watched me kill Chimera, and he’d been just peachy with it. There were so many reasons that Micah and I worked as a couple. One of those reasons was a certain ruthless practicality in both of us.

“I would go home to see your folks, Micah.”

“Would we bring Nathaniel, too?”

That stopped me. We all three lived together, but…“I don’t know. I guess that would be your call.”

“I’ll think about it, all of it, the family, and whether I have the guts to show up after all these years with you and Nathaniel.” Put that way, I could sort of see his problem. It was sort of similar to Jason’s problem, actually. Perception is all.

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 44 of 287

“I’m sorry if my going off with Jason bothers you.”

“I’m sorry it bothers me, too. I need to work on that.”

“Micah, I love you.”

“I know, and I love you, too. Give my love to Nathaniel. You better start packing.”

“Micah, I…”

“No, it’s all right, Anita, really. Do what you need to do for Jason. But I guess I really would like to introduce you to my mom and dad, my brother and sister. I just never thought it was possible.”

“A lot of things are possible, Micah.”

“I guess. I’ve got to go. I love you, Anita.”

“I love you, too.”

“Give my love to Nathaniel.”

“I will.”

He hung up, and left me not sure how to feel. Guilty that it bothered him, yes, but more puzzled. He’d almost never mentioned his family. How was I supposed to know that he even wanted to see them? Sometimes the hardest part of dating this many men was juggling everyone’s emotions. People talked about the sex, because sex was easy; hearts were hard.

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 45 of 287

8

JASON HAD SAID
he lived in a small city. I hadn’t understood what that might mean for the flight. What it meant was that we would have been on a freaking prop plane. The only thing that will get me on shit like that is life or death, as in a police investigation, where if I don’t go more people will die.

Maybe the panic showed on my face, because Jason made a second call to Jean-Claude. I keep forgetting that he owns a private jet. I don’t know why I keep forgetting, but I do. I think I’m just a little uncomfortable that I’m dating someone who owns one. It just seems a little too idle rich for me. Of course, Jean-Claude is about as idle as I am, which means he’s always working. He manages his little growing empire of preternatural businesses, and is good at it. I raise the dead and slay bad vampires. Busy, busy, busy.

But it meant that I didn’t have to brave a puddle jumper to do the favor for Jason. If I’d had to get on a tiny prop plane, well, I couldn’t think of a sexual act deviant enough to make up for the phobia abuse. Luckily for both of us, the private jet, though small by commercial standards, wasn’t horrible. If I hadn’t been both claustrophobic and afraid to fly, it might even have been comfortable. The last time we’d been on the plane Jason had been jumping all over the place, teasing me about my phobia. This time he stayed in the swivel seat beside me, staring out the window. Of course, last time he’d been wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Now he was wearing one of the Italian-cut designer suits that Jean-Claude had had made for him. The suit showed the broadness of his shoulders, the narrowness of waist, the sheer athleticism of him.

He was wearing the navy blue pinstripe. Other than the cut it was a conservative suit. A blue shirt made his eyes even bluer than they actually were, with a darker blue tie, complete with gold tie bar. I knew the tie was silk. I knew that the shoes that gleamed on his feet cost a hell of a lot more than my high heels. I refused to pay hundreds of dollars for yet another pair of uncomfortable high heels. They were good shoes, but not as good as what Jason was wearing. He’d dressed carefully. He might hate coming home, but he wanted to impress them. He and Nathaniel had chosen my clothes, too. I didn’t care. If it was in my closet I was usually okay with it, or it wouldn’t be there. There was a section of stuff that Jean-Claude had bought me that was more club or fetish wear, but other than that my closet was fine.

I was wearing a royal blue skirt suit, with a silk shell that actually matched. The only thing I’d added to the skirt to sort of ruin the feminine look was a wide black belt. It matched my shoes. The belt also held a Browning BDM at the small of my back at an angle, not up and down. I didn’t often carry guns at the small of my back. I usually favored a shoulder holster, but I didn’t go anywhere unarmed, and I’d worn the gun this way before when my boss thought being armed was a little too scary for clients. If they had a metal detector at the hospital I’d flash my federal marshal badge. file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009