Burnt Offerings (ab-7) (37 page)

"But no dresses," Yvette said. "For a formal occasion you must have dresses for the women." She smiled sweetly.

It made me regret wearing a dress. "I know what you did to Sylvie, Liv. I was regretting not blowing your head off when I did your knees. But you know what, Liv, a few years with the council and you may be regretting it too."

"I regret nothing," she said. But there was a tightness around the eyes, a flicker through those lovely eyes. Something had spooked her good and solid. Part of me wanted to know what had been done to her, but it was enough just to see how scared she was.

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, Liv," I said.

Asher walked out in the middle of the scene. His hair had been pulled back in a tight braid. His hair was still nearly the color of the metallic thread in the tablecloth, an unearthly color even if he'd been human. The hair pulled back left the scars on his face naked. It was hard not to look at them, hard not to stare. The rest of the outfit didn't make it any easier.

His naked upper body was a wonderment of contrasts. It was like his face, half angelic beauty, half melted nightmare. His pants were black leather with a line of bare flesh showing from hip to mid-calf, where boots covered the rest. The flesh glimpsed on the right side of his thigh was scarred. The scars seemed to stop about mid-thigh. It left the big question. Had his torturers made him a eunuch or left him whole? It was like a car crash. You wanted to know, and you didn't.

"Jean-Claude, Anita, so good of you to join us." He made the polite words a mockery, filling them with a hissing warmth of threat.

"Your presence is the same pleasure it has always been," Jean-Claude said. Those words were blank, utterly neutral, compliment or snide putdown. It was the listener's choice.

Asher glided towards us, a smile curling his perfect lips. Again both sides of his mouth worked. The muscles were still whole underneath all the scars. He came to stand directly in front of me. He was about two steps closer than was comfortable, but I didn't back up or complain. I just met his smile with one of my own. Neither smile touched our eyes.

"Do you like my outfit, Anita?"

"A little aggressive, don't you think?"

He traced a fingertip down the lace at my waist. The fingertip slid inside the open lace, touching my bare skin. It brought a small gasp from my throat.

"You can touch me, anywhere you like," he said.

I moved his hand. "I can't return the offer, sorry."

"I think you can," the Traveler said.

I looked at him. "No," I said. "I can't."

"Jean-Claude was very clear on your rules," the Traveler said. "Asher needs to feed. It is within the rules for him to feed off of you, Anita. He would prefer to sink something else into you, but he will have to be content with fangs."

I shook my head. "I don't think so."

"
Ma petite
," Jean-Claude said softly.

I didn't like the way he said my name. I turned, and one look was enough. "You have got to be kidding me."

He stepped close, taking me to one side. "The guidelines you gave me said nothing against sharing blood."

I stared up at him. "Do you really want him to feed off of me?"

He shook his head. "It is not a matter of want,
ma petite
. But if they cannot torture us or rape us, we leave them little else."

"If you wish to trade back one of my wereleopards," Padma said, "Vivian, perhaps, I would grant you safe passage for the return of my so sweet Vivian."

Fernando entered the room as if on cue. He was bruised but walking. More's the pity. He was wearing a jeweled vest and something like harem pants. The Arabian Nights maybe, instead of a maharaja.

"Did Fernando tell you he raped her?"

"I know what my son has done."

"That doesn't spoil her for you?" I asked.

Padma looked at me. "What I do with her once she is mine again is no concern of yours, human."

"No way," I said.

"Then you have no choice. You must feed one of us. If there is one among us who would please you more, someone ... less hideous, we could arrange something. Perhaps I could take you myself. Among our own people only Yvette finds Asher attractive, but then her tastes have always run to the strange and grotesque."

Asher's face betrayed nothing, but I knew he'd heard. He was meant to hear. He'd spent the last two centuries being treated like a circus freak. No wonder he was cranky.

"I'd let Asher sink the whole thing into me before I'd let you touch me."

Surprise showed for a heartbeat on Padma's face, then arrogance. But he hadn't liked the insult. Goody. "Perhaps before the night is over, Anita, you will get your wish."

Not comforting, but Asher was having trouble looking at me, as if he were afraid. Not of me, exactly, but that this was some elaborate game to hurt him. He had that casual tension that victims get when they are slapped too often for too many different things.

Jean-Claude whispered, "Thank you,
ma petite
." I think he was relieved. I think he'd thought I might go down in flames rather than submit. Before Padma had made his little joke, I would have put up more of a fight. I was going to do this. If I drew the line here and refused, that meant we fought them. We would lose. If donating a little blood would keep us all alive come morning, I could spare it.

A leopard screamed. It raised the hairs on my arms. Two leopards padded into the room, jeweled collars sparkling around their necks. The black one, Elizabeth I assumed, snarled at me as they went past. The leopards were just leopard-size, not as tall as a Great Dane but longer. They paced like velvet over muscle, their energy and anger filling the room, prickling along the other shapeshifters like a drug. The leopards sprawled at Padma's feet.

I felt Richard's power swell. It flowed out of him in a soothing wash, willing the leopards quiet, calling them back to human form.

Padma said, "No, no, they are mine. I will keep them in whatever form I choose, however long I choose."

"They will begin to lose human characteristics," Richard said. "Elizabeth is a nurse. She cannot do her job if she has fangs or eyes that do not change back."

"She has no other job than to serve me," Padma said.

Richard took a step forward. Jean-Claude touched his shoulder. "He is baiting us,
mon ami
."

Richard shook his hand off, but nodded. "I don't think the Master of Beasts could stop me if I forced them back to human form."

"Is that a challenge?" Padma asked.

"The wereleopards don't belong to you, Richard," I said.

"These two don't belong to anybody," he said.

"They can be mine if they want to be," I said.

"No," Padma said. "No, I will give up nothing else. No one else to you." He stepped back against the wall, dragging Gideon with him by the jeweled collar. Thomas followed almost as closely. "Asher take her."

Asher tried to grab my arm, but I backed up. "Hold your horses. Hasn't anyone told you anticipation adds to the experience?"

"I have been anticipating this for over two hundred years,
ma cherie
. If anticipation adds, then it will be wondrous indeed."

I stepped away from his eager eyes and went to Jean-Claude. "Any advice?"

"He will try to make it rape,
ma petite
." He stopped me before I could say anything. "Not actual rape, but the effect is surprisingly similar. Make it a seduction, if you can. Turn necessity into a pleasure. It will be the last thing he expects, and it will unnerve him."

"How unnerved?" I asked.

"That will depend, I think, upon how strong your nerve is."

I glanced back at Asher. The eagerness on his face was frightening. I was sorry he'd been picked on for centuries, but it wasn't my fault. "I don't think it's that good."

Richard had been listening. He came close enough to whisper, "You're donating blood to one vampire, what's one more?"

"
Ma petite
and I do not have to share blood to share power," Jean-Claude said.

Richard frowned at him, then at me. "Still holding back? Don't you know how to give yourself completely to anyone?"

Jean-Claude's face was very neutral, blank and beautiful. I looked from his impassive face to Richard's angry one, and shook my head. "If I could find someone else to fill our third spot, I would, Richard. But we're stuck with each other, so stop being such an ass." I pushed past him hard enough for him to stumble, and it was all I could do not to slap him as I went by. Being nasty in private was one thing. Doing it in front of the bad guys was against the rules.

Asher dragged me to a corner, and the others gathered around on the floor like story time in elementary school. Or maybe show-and-tell was a better analogy. He jerked me roughly against him, one hand in my hair controlling my head. He kissed me roughly enough to bruise unless I opened my mouth. I did better than that. I closed my eyes and French kissed him, running my tongue between his fangs. I'd perfected the art of French kissing a vampire without bleeding, and apparently I was good at it because Asher drew back first. There was a look of astonishment, total and complete. He couldn't have looked more surprised if I'd slapped him. No, less surprised. He expected the slap.

Jean-Claude was right. If I could just outmaneuver Asher, be bolder than he was, he might never sink fang into me. It was worth a try. I didn't even let Jean-Claude feed off of me. I wasn't sure it was the lesser evil, but a girl's got to draw the line somewhere.

Asher put his face so near mine, our noses almost touched. "Look at me, girl, look at me. You don't want to touch this."

The startling pale blue of his eyes, almost a white-blue, framed by golden eyelashes, was lovely. I concentrated on the eyes. "Undo your hair," I said.

He pushed me away from him, hard enough that I stumbled. I was pissing him off, stealing his revenge. Can't rape the willing.

I went to him, stalking around him, half wishing for the heels Jean-Claude had wanted me to wear. Asher's back was pure and untouched. Only a few dribbling scars where the holy water had trailed down his side. I ran my hands up that smooth skin, and he jumped as if I'd bit him.

He whirled, grabbing my arms, holding me away from him. He searched my face almost frantically. Whatever he saw, it didn't please him. He moved his hands upward until he held my wrists, then placed one of my hands on the scarred side of his chest. "It's easy to close your eyes and pretend. Easy to touch that which is not spoiled." He pressed my hand against the rough ridges that had been his chest. "This is the reality. This is what I live with every night, what I will live with for all eternity, what he did to me."

I stepped in close, pressing my upper arm against the scars, as well as my hands. The skin was rough, ridged, like frozen, fleshy water. I looked up into his face from inches away, and said, "Jean-Claude did not do this to you. Men who are long dead did this to you." I rose up on tiptoe and kissed his scarred cheek.

He closed his eyes, and a single tear slid from his eye to trail down that rough cheek. I kissed the tear away, and when he opened his eyes, they were suddenly startlingly close. In his eyes I saw a fear, loneliness, a need so overwhelming that it had eaten his heart as surely as the holy water had eaten his skin.

I wanted to take away the hurt I saw in his eyes. I wanted to hold him in my arms until the pain eased. I realized in that moment that it wasn't me. It was Jean-Claude. He wanted to heal Asher's pain. He wanted to take away that awful emptiness . I looked at Asher through a film of emotions that I'd never had for him, a patina of nostalgia for better nights, of love and joy and warm bodies in the cold darkness.

I kissed my way down his chin, careful to touch only the scars, ignoring the perfect skin as I'd ignored the wounded skin earlier. Strangely, his neck was whole, untouched. I kissed his collar bone and its white ridge of scars. His hands eased but didn't release me. I pulled out of his grip as I moved down his body, one soft kiss at a time.

I ran my tongue across his belly where it vanished into his pants. He shuddered. I moved to the open skin on his hip and worked down. When the scars ended at mid-thigh, so did I. I stood, and he watched me, watched me almost afraid of what I would do next.

I had to stand on tiptoe to reach behind him to the braid of his hair. It would have been easier from behind, but he'd have taken it as a rejection. I couldn't turn away from the scars, not even if that wasn't what I was doing at all. I loosened the braid. I separated the strands of hair, then had to lean my body against his just to steady myself while I combed my fingers through the golden strands. There is something very personal to touching a person's hair in the right situation. I took my time, enjoying the feel of it, the extraordinary color, the thick richness of it between my fingers. When his hair fell in waves around his shoulders, I lowered myself flat-footed. My calves were cramped, too long on point.

I put into my eyes what I saw, that he was beautiful.

Asher kissed me on the forehead, a light touch. He held me against him for a moment, then stepped back. "I cannot capture you with my eyes. Without that or the throes of passion, it would only cause you pain. I can feed on anyone. What I saw in your face, no one else could give me." He looked out at Jean-Claude. They stared at each other for a long moment, then Asher stepped out of the circle, and I made my way back to Jean-Claude.

I sat down beside him, knees tucked under, skirt smoothed back. He hugged me and kissed me on the forehead as Asher had done. I wondered if he was trying to taste Asher's mouth on my skin. The thought didn't bother me. Maybe it should have, but I didn't ask him. I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

The Traveler came to his feet as if by magic, just suddenly standing. "I don't think we could be more astonished if Anita had conjured a dragon from thin air. She has tamed our Asher and paid no blood for it." He glided to the open floor space. "Yvette is not so easily sated." He smiled at her as she rose to her feet. "Are you, my dear?"

She ran her hands through Jason's hair as she glided past. He jumped as if she'd stung him, which amused the hell out of her. She was still laughing when she turned with a swoosh of white skirts and held her arms out to him. "Come to me, Jason."

He huddled in on himself, curling into a little ball of arms and elbows and knees. He just shook his head.

"You are my choice, my special one," Yvette said. "You are not strong enough to refuse me."

An awful thought occurred to me. I was willing to bet that Jean-Claude hadn't covered rotting on people as a no-no. Jason might not recover from another embrace from the messily dead. I leaned into Jean-Claude and asked, "You did cover torture, no outright torture, right?"

"Of course," he said.

I stood. "You can feed on him, but you can't rot on him."

She turned cool eyes to me. "You have no say in this."

"Jean-Claude negotiated for no torture. Rotting on Jason while you feed is torture to him. You know that. It's why you want him."

"I want my bit of werewolf blood, and I want it exactly the way I like it best," she said.

Richard said, "You can feed off of me."

"You don't know what you're offering, Richard," I said.

"I know that Jason is mine to protect, and he can't endure this." He got to his feet, splendid in his new tux.

"Has Jason told you what happened to him in Branson?" I asked. Jason had been having a forced tryst with two female vamps when they began to rot. They turned into long-dead corpses while he was still lying naked with them. It was his worse nightmare, almost a phobia now. I'd witnessed the event, even had those dead hands on my body when I waded in to to rescue him. I couldn't blame him for being terrified.

"Jason told me," Richard said.

"Hearing about it isn't the same thing as being there, Richard."

Jason had hidden his face against his knees. He was saying something low. I had to kneel to hear it. He was saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over and over. I touched his arm, and he screamed, eyes wide, mouth open in astonishment.

"It's okay, Jason. It's okay." Richard was right. Jason couldn't do this.

I nodded. "You're right, Richard."

"No," Padma said. "No, the Wolf King is mine. I will not share him."

"I will take nothing less than a shapeshifter," Yvette said.

Jamil stood.

Richard said, "No, it's my job to protect Jason, not yours, Jamil."

"It's my job to protect you, Ulfric."

Richard shook his head and started undoing the black bow tie. He undid the top few buttons on the pleated shirt, baring the strong, perfect line of his neck.

"No," Yvette said. She stamped her foot, hands on hips. "He is not afraid. I want someone who's afraid."

In my head I thought, he will be afraid. He'll be very afraid. Notice I wasn't jumping up and offering myself in Jason's place. I'd seen this particular show. I had no desire to star in it.

"And I have my own plans for the Ulfric," Padma said.

The Traveler tsked at them like naughty children. "It is a fair offer, Yvette. The Ulfric himself for one of his lesser wolves."

"It is not the potency of the blood I want. It is the terror."

"It is too generous an offer for someone who is not council," Padma said.

"Do they always squabble like this?" I asked.

"
Oui
," Jean-Claude said.

Near-eternal life, frightening power, and they were petty. How disappointing. How typical. I touched Jason's face, made him look at me. His breath was coming in short gasps. I touched his hands; his skin was cold.

"Jason, if she didn't rot on you, could you let her feed?"

He swallowed twice before he could talk. "I don't know."

A truthful answer. He was terrified. "I'll go with you."

He looked at me then, looked at me and not at the screaming in his head. "She won't like that."

"Fuck her. She can take it or leave it."

That got me the ghost of a smile. He gripped my hands where they lay on top of his. He nodded.

I looked at Jean-Claude still sitting by us. "You're not being much help."

"I too have seen the show,
ma petite
." He was echoing my thoughts so closely, I wondered whose thoughts were which. But what he was saying was frightening. He wouldn't offer himself to Yvette, not just to save Jason.

I stood up, drawing Jason to his feet. He clung to my hand like a kid on the first day of kindergarten afraid Mommy would leave him alone with the bullies.

"If you give your word of honor that you won't rot on him, you can feed off of him."

"No," Yvette said. "No, that spoils it all."

"It's your choice," I said. "You can have Richard, if Padma will let you, but he won't be afraid. You can rot on him though, but you won't get Jason's horror of you." I moved so she could see him clearly.

Jason flinched but stayed standing, but he wouldn't or couldn't meet her eyes. He stared at me. I think he was actually looking down my dress. But for once I didn't make him stop. Distraction was just what he needed. Knowing Jason, I wasn't surprised that a peek-a-boo show was what he chose.

Yvette licked her lips. Finally, she nodded.

I led Jason towards her. He was dressed for his own peek-a-boo show. He was wearing a pair of leather pants dyed a blue two shades darker than his eyes. The pants looked painted on, sliding seamlessly into boots dyed to match. He wore no shirt, only a vest that matched the pants, fastened with three leather thongs.

He stumbled as we entered the cleared space. Yvette glided towards him, and he hung back. Only my hand kept him from bolting. "Easy, Jason, easy."

He just kept shaking his head, straining against my hold on his wrist. He wasn't exactly struggling, but he wasn't cooperating either.

"It's too much to ask," Richard said. "He is my wolf, and I will not see him tormented."

I looked at Richard, proud, arrogant. "He's my wolf, too." I released Jason's wrist slowly and put a hand on either side of his face. "If this is too much to ask, say so, and we'll do something else."

He gripped my wrists, and I watched him collect himself. I watched his hard-won control fill his eyes, his face. "Don't leave me."

"I'm right here."

"No," Yvette said, "you cannot hold his hand while I feed."

I turned to her, Jason so close our bodies touched without hands. "Then it's over. You don't touch him."

"First you tame Asher. Now you seek to tame me. You have nothing I want, Anita."

"I have Jason."

She hissed at me, all that careful beauty breaking down and showing the beast inside. She snatched at him around me, and he jerked back. She pawed at him like a cat, and I kept my body between them, moving us into the center of the circle. I felt Jason's back hit the wall, and I grabbed Yvette's arm.

"Feel his terror, Yvette. I can feel his heart pounding against my back. My holding his hand won't make him unafraid. Nothing I could do would make him not fear your touch."

Jason hid his face against my back, hands sliding around my waist. I patted his arm. His body was one throbbing beat as his heart, his blood, pumped through his body so hard I could feel it. His terror rode the air like a hot, invisible mist.

"Agreed," she said. She backed away to the center of the cleared floor. She held one pale hand out to us. "Come, Anita, bring our prize."

I slid in his arms until I was leading him by the hand again. His palms were sweating. I led him to stand with his back to her. He gripped my hands in both of his. His hands trembled. He stared at my face as if it were the only thing left in the world.

Yvette touched his back.

He whimpered. I drew him into me until our arms were touching, our faces only inches apart. I had no words of comfort. I could offer nothing but a hand to hold and something else to think about.

Yvette trailed her fingers around his shoulders until she came to the thongs that tied the vest. Her hands brushed the front of my body as she fumbled with the ties. I started to step back, and Jason's hands sang with tension. I stayed where I was, but my own pulse was beating in my throat. I was afraid of her, too, afraid of what she was.

She had to slide her hand around his waist to get the last tie, molding her body against his back. She licked his ear, a quick flick of her pale pink tongue.

He closed his eyes, bowing his head until our foreheads touched.

"You can do this," I said.

He nodded his head, eyes still closed, forehead still touching mine.

Yvette ran her hands up his back under the vest, then curved them around to his naked chest, running her nails down his flesh in a quick rush.