“We’ll see, won’t we?”
“Do you really think your nerves can take being in bed with all four of us? You usually protect your virtue from me as if you were an untouched maiden and I the lecherous villain.”
“By your standards that’s exactly what I am. Remember that I share some of Jean-Claude’s memories. You love being the first man to seduce a straight man. The more macho and homophobic the better, because every time you won the game you knew it was because no one was as beautiful as you.”
“That was long ago, Ulfric; I am no longer the perfect beauty I was then.”
“Beautiful enough to make Jean-Claude and Anita afraid of being alone with you individually, because they love you. That gives a vampire with your abilities a big edge in who’s going to be dominant in bed.”
“You’ll truly let me take blood from you tonight?” Asher asked.
“Do you understand what he’ll do to you, Richard?” Jason asked. “His bite is amazing, more orgasmic than Jean-Claude’s.”
Richard’s pulse got away from him then and pushed at the side of his throat. “So I’ve heard.”
“I can taste your pulse, Ulfric; I frighten you.”
“A little.”
“So arrogant, Ulfric; you think you are proof against me? I would enjoy proving you wrong.”
“You can try,” he said.
Asher rubbed his thumbs along the knuckles of the two guards. It seemed to help him focus. “But you’re not certain you will win this battle of wills. I can feel your doubt. So why would you risk your handsome flesh with me?”
“Anita and Jean-Claude love you; that gives you an edge. But you love them, too, so that balances out. I don’t even like you, and you don’t like me.”
“So it is a stalemate,” Asher said.
“No, because we have one thing you don’t.”
“And that would be what?”
“You want me.”
“Oh, that is arrogant,” Asher said.
“You don’t want me because you like me. You want me because I belong to Jean-Claude and because part of you believes that I’m a greater threat to his affections for you than Anita is. She’s just a girl, and what really scares you is that he’ll find another man to love. You worried about Micah and Nathaniel, but you’ve been in the bed with them and him and Anita. I’m the only one you haven’t seen with him. Until you see us together you’ll never be sure.”
“I have never said that.”
“Not in words, but you’re more jealous of me, because I won’t share him with you the way Micah, Nathaniel, and Jason do. Tonight I’m offering to share, and you want that.”
It was a challenge, and Richard knew his audience. Asher did want what was on the table, and he wouldn’t want to back down from the challenge, especially since it was Richard throwing the gauntlet down. It was a trap, not one we’d spring on purpose, but could Asher really sink fang into Richard for the first time and resist trying his vampire wiles on him? It would almost be too tempting to resist.
“Come home with us, Asher. Let us go back to Narcissus,” Perses said.
“This is a one-night-only offer, Asher,” Richard said.
Asher licked his lips and said, “This could wait until after the weretigers arrive and go again to Las Vegas.”
“No,” Richard said, “tonight, now, or never.” Richard met Asher’s gaze full on; with me and Jean-Claude touching him he was proof against the master vampire’s gaze.
“Don’t do it,” the other hyena said.
“Let go of everyone but the three of you,” Asher said.
Jean-Claude thought at us. Micah squeezed my hand tight, and then he let me pull away. Jason let his hands fall and he stepped back. It was just Richard and us now, but the power was still amazing, a warm rush of magic just waiting for us to decide what to do with it.
“Don’t,” the werehyena said.
“I am master, not you,” Asher said, and he pulled away from them. He stood there, alone, and again I knew why he was not master of his own city. Not because he wouldn’t be powerful enough, but because he let his heart, or his desire, overrule his common sense. You can look out of control and even be crazy as hell—I’d met a few Masters of the City that were—but in the end they were all about survival. But Asher came to us. He stopped a few feet away as if he’d gotten to the edge of something. I think it was the edge of our power.
“I want this,” he said, and his voice was already hoarse with the beginnings of need.
“If we are with you tonight, you must give your word that you will not take the werehyenas to another city until we have enough other guards to replace them,” Jean-Claude said.
“And if I refuse?”
“Then you can go to Narcissus for tonight and the three of us will go to my bedroom without you.” He drew me in against his body and ran a hand through the waves of Richard’s hair, but it was Asher he looked at; we were just props for the game.
Asher’s breath went out in a long shudder, and then he simply walked past us toward the far curtains. He parted them, then hesitated in the opening with the stone hallway framed behind him.
“Are you coming, or has your nerve broken already, Ulfric?”
Richard squeezed my hand, then let go of it, and of Jean-Claude’s. The link was immediately not as great. It was like being suddenly less warm, as if a cloud had crossed the sun. Richard went to Micah and Nathaniel, leaned close, and whispered something to them. Micah nodded, and then Richard offered first Micah and then Nathaniel his hand. They shook hands, and Richard came back to us. His face was strangely peaceful, but his pulse couldn’t lie. It was jumping in the side of his neck. For all his brave talk, he was afraid of Asher.
Jean-Claude offered his hand to him, and Richard took it. He started to reach out to me, then hesitated and looked back at the other man. It made Jean-Claude smile and then reach his hand out to me. I went to him, and he led us by the hands to Asher at the curtains.
Jamil said, “What do you want us to do, Ulfric?”
“Have guards outside the door, and if we call for help, do your jobs.”
Wicked said, “Anita, Jean-Claude, this is a bad idea.”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Why do it then?” Truth asked.
I couldn’t explain and I couldn’t share the mind-to-mind with them, so all I could say was, “It’ll be all right.”
“Don’t lie to a liar, Anita,” Wicked said.
Jean-Claude said, “Enough. If we’re doing this, I want enough hours between now and dawn to enjoy it.”
It was Claudia who said, “We have to tell Rafael.”
“Do that,” Jean-Claude said.
“He knows I’m here,” Richard said. “I went to your king for advice.”
“Rafael did not tell you to come here and bugger him,” Fredo said, pointing a thumb at Asher.
Richard smiled and said, “He knows why I’m here and what I’m planning to do, I promise you.”
The wererats exchanged looks, but the promise got them. “Mysterious shit bugs me,” Fredo said.
Jason gave a small salute as we moved through the drapes and followed Asher down the hallway. Was it wrong to think that Asher’s ass looked really good in his leather pants as he walked ahead of us up the hallway, or was it just true?
THE BED WAS done in red and black tonight. Jean-Claude changed all the bedding including the bed curtains between different color combinations. I’d never seen it being changed. I’d just come into the room and it would be blue, or red, or black, or even gold and silver, and various combinations of all the above. It was like magic: always fresh, clean sheets, always impeccably made.
Asher had stopped halfway between the door and the bed. He turned back, staring at us, his ice-blue eyes framed by all that golden hair. The look on his face was eager, but there was that edge of cruelty that I hated in him. I knew that whatever he was about to say, or do, would be unpleasant. He’d said he wanted this, but he was about to do something to wreck it.
“I want to see you nude,” he said, and his voice held an echo of what Jean-Claude’s could, as if the last word caressed down the body in a shivering line.
I waited for Jean-Claude to say something, do something, help. But it was Richard who said, “You’re angry, Asher. You say you want me, all of us, but now you’re angry and you’re going to sabotage it.”
I could feel a sort of sadness from Richard, not upset, just a deep, almost calm sadness.
I felt Jean-Claude’s hand in mine, but he started to shield, to cut down the connection between us. I think he was afraid of what was going to happen. We were standing in the bedroom with the two men in our lives most likely to fuck up a good thing.
“What do you know about what I will do, Ulfric?” Asher asked, and his voice already held that edge of derision that he could do so well.
“It’s what I would have done a few months ago.”
“I am not you, wolf.”
“I came here to make things better, not worse, Asher. So I’ll tell you all a story.”
“Is it a long story?” Asher said, voice thick with scorn.
“A little,” Richard said.
“Then we should all sit down.” Asher went to the bed and laid himself down in the middle of all the black and red pillows. His hair spilled out like a gilt-edged frame of foaming gold. His scarred cheek was pressed against the pillows so that he was once again that perfect face that had helped Belle Morte nearly rule Europe centuries ago. The blue of his shirt gleamed, the sapphire-and-diamond pin at his throat catching the light as he patted the bed beside him and said, “Come, Ulfric, sit beside me. I won’t bite . . . yet.” He smiled at Richard and made it everything a heterosexual man never wants to see on another man’s face.
Richard laughed. I jumped and Jean-Claude went even more still beside me, as if should I let go of his hand he would simply vanish in plain sight. Most vampires couldn’t really do that, but the old ones could be so still that you were forced to remember this was not a truly living being, but something else. Live human beings didn’t ever feel like this with their hands in mine. Moments like this were one of the reasons I’d been able to resist his charms for so long. His hand was still wrapped around mine, but it was like holding a “living” mannequin.
I pulled at my hand, and he let me go. He knew how I felt about moments like this, and I also knew that it was his way of protecting himself from what was about to happen. The two men he was probably more attracted to than any others were about to tear us all apart again. Fuck.
“And what have I done to amuse you, Ulfric?” There was no teasing now, but the beginnings of anger made Asher’s eyes gleam.
Richard started for the bed, taking his jean jacket off as he moved, so that by the time he got to the bed his upper body was painted against the red of his shirt. He’d been keeping up with his gym time. I knew that because it was one of the few places I’d seen him since summer. When you can bench-press a small car, as he could, you couldn’t really get a challenging workout at a normal gym. Thanks to Jean-Claude’s vampire marks I was stronger than I should have been, too. Micah, Jason, and Nathaniel had been taking me to the gym that was designed for that.
Richard threw his jacket on the foot of the bed and stood there looking down at Asher. He looked back, his face locked in an arrogant mask that meant whatever he was thinking was something he didn’t want to share. I knew part of it; no one who was moved by a handsome man could gaze up at Richard and not want him.
I looked at Jean-Claude. He was more unreadable than Asher. There would be no help from him, and I had no clue what to do.
Richard turned back and held his hand out to us. “Are you joining us?” He was smiling and he didn’t look angry.
I shrugged and walked toward the bed. I knew I wasn’t going to stay frozen by the door like a scared rabbit. If it was all going to go down in flames, the least I could do was run into the smoking building and try to salvage something. I let Richard take my hand and help me onto the bed. It was tall enough that in hose I tended to slide off the black satin coverlet.
We crawled onto the bed, and Richard used his hand in mine to direct me onto the side of Asher closest to the door, while he crawled around Asher’s legs so he could lean into the pillows on the other side. I sat there, a little stiffly, and had a moment to share a look with Asher. He let me see that he was wondering what the hell was going on, too. Glad it wasn’t just me.
I took a deep breath, let it out slow, and lay back on the pillows still fully clothed including heels and my weapons, so not exactly comfortable, but so far we weren’t completely fucked. It was a record for the four of us alone in a room.
Jean-Claude looked at us. For a moment he was that almost two-dimensional stillness, and then he took a step and from one moment to the other it was as if he came to life. It was like the difference between a photograph and film. He had that easy smile on his face, and was all ease and grace. He walked toward us as he’d probably walked into a thousand rooms over the years, smiling, pleasant, beautiful, and still hiding what he was feeling just as surely.
He stopped by the bedpost, his hands stroking the black and red curtains. He looked at us all and shook his head. “Too good to be true,” he said.
Richard nodded. “I’ve been a bastard and I’m sorry.”
We all looked at him, including Asher. It startled him enough that he didn’t even worry about how his hair fell so that his scars were bare to the soft glow of the bedside lamps.
“The apology is a wondrous thing,
mon ami
, but forgive this old vampire if he asks, what exactly are you sorry for?”
“What he said,” I said.
“When you and I first met, Anita, I’d just gotten away from Raina and Gabriel.”
“The vampires still speak of Raina, the old Lupa of your pack, and Gabriel, the ex-leader of the wereleopards. They make some of Belle Morte’s court sound kind, and they are not kind,” Asher said.
Richard nodded. “They were both true sexual sadists.”
“In that real serial-killer sort of way,” I added.
Asher turned his head to look at me. “I heard you killed them both while they were trying to make a rape-and-snuff film starring you and Gabriel. I thought the story had grown in the telling.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if the details have grown, but the basics are true.” I shivered. Gabriel and Raina had been the couple from hell, and it had been part luck that helped me kill them and save the others. I had some scars from Gabriel that I’d have for the rest of my life.
Asher reached out and took my hand in his. “I am glad you killed them.”
“We all are,” Richard said.
“They are not a loss,” Jean-Claude said.
“Like I said, when I met Anita I’d just gotten away from them. They’d tried to make me into a more dominant version of Nathaniel, just another pet.”
“They never understood that you would never be that,” Jean-Claude said.
Richard nodded and said, “I fought high enough in the pack structure to have more choices, and I beat the shit out of Gabriel one night. But that didn’t stop Raina from trying to hurt me in other ways. She made our Ulfric, Marcus, give me to Jean-Claude. I had fought my way into dominance enough to stay out of the beds of people I didn’t want to sleep with, and then they give me to a vampire whose power is all about sex. Raina told me that you’d seduce me eventually and she’d get to watch us together.”
“I was Master of the City by then, Richard; I would not have let her do that to me, or to you.”
Richard sat up, drawing his knees in, his strong, summer-tanned arms hugging them to his chest, making the muscles in his arms work. “I know that now, but she’d been my Lupa for six years. I believed her. So I looked at Jean-Claude as just one more person who was trying to corrupt me. I realize that he was just as trapped as I was, but I couldn’t see that then.” His eyes looked haunted.
I sat up, still holding Asher’s hand, and reached across him to touch Richard’s arm. That made him smile, but he turned those serious, haunted eyes to Jean-Claude. “You were the only one left of the three of them. Almost every time I looked at you I thought of them. Then I blamed you for stealing Anita away from me. I know now that I drove her to you. I made her watch me eat Marcus.” He sat up a little straighter as if he’d realized he was hunching. He held my hand against his arm and looked at me. “I did everything I could to make sure the first time you saw me shift to animal form that it was frightening and terrible. I am sorry about that.”
“You hate being a werewolf. You wanted me to hate it, too.”
He nodded. “I did, I just didn’t realize that’s what I was doing at the time.”
“Your doctor must be very open-minded,” Jean-Claude said.
Richard looked at him. “My therapist, yes, she is open-minded. We didn’t really make a lot of progress until Anita was able to take back her anger this past summer.”
One of the things about being a triumvirate of power is that you share parts of yourself and not just power. I’d gotten the
ardeur
and a craving for blood from Jean-Claude. From Richard I’d gotten his beast and a taste for flesh. Jean-Claude had gotten a certain ruthlessness from me; I wasn’t sure what he’d gotten from Richard, or what Richard had gotten from him, but what Richard got from me was my rage.
I’d gained the ability to feed on anger, the way Jean-Claude could feed on lust. I could feed on sex, but found it harder to feed on the “emotion” of lust. Anger, though, I understood that. That had been my emotion of choice for years. Last summer I figured out how to call my rage back home from Richard. It was the one thing we’d shared with each other that one of us knew how to feed on. The other hungers were literally hungers for flesh, blood, and sex. You can feed a hunger, but you can’t feed
on
a hunger.
I took my hand back and Richard let me. I settled back on my side of Asher. The vampire continued to hold my hand while we watched Richard.
“I hadn’t understood how much the rage kept me from forgiving anyone, or working my issues, until Anita fed off it and took it back. The anger was almost like another beast inside me, but full moon didn’t bring any relief. It’s a horrible way to live, Anita.”
I shrugged. “You get used to it.”
He shook his head, sending his hair sliding across his shoulders. “I didn’t. It was killing me. I had my own problems with self-loathing, but the anger made it all worse.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I said. I almost didn’t want to say anything else, but I knew now that every time we left things unsaid between us, it came back and bit us down the road. “The anger is gone, Richard, I get that,” I said, “but the self-loathing was all you. You hated being a werewolf. You broke up with me because I was more at home with the monsters than you were.”
“My turn to apologize again,” Richard said. His arms loosened and he sat back against the pillows. “I can’t stop being a werewolf. It’s like trying to stop being human. It is what I am. I could give up being Ulfric, but I’d still have to belong to the pack, and being king is better than being a follower. I learned that the hard way. I am Jean-Claude’s animal to call, and the third leg of the triumvirate of power that allows him to run the city and have enough power to keep everyone safe.” He looked at Jean-Claude now. “You are a good Master of the City, Jean-Claude. I didn’t realize that the Master of the City is like the boss of a business. If the boss is a crazy bitch, then she hires more crazy people, and she keeps everybody else crazy. Nikolaos was that kind of Master of the City. Anita killed her to save all of us, but it was you that took control of the city and made everything work better than it had ever worked. You had managed all the vampire businesses in town for years. You’d been the financial leader all along.”
“Thank you,
mon ami
.”
“No, all of the wereanimal leaders think things are a thousand times better with you in charge.”
Jean-Claude bowed just from the neck. “I have done my best.”
“You have, you really have, and so has Anita. The only one that hasn’t helped secure our base of power is me. I’ve spent the last few years alternating tightening my grip on the wolves like a tyrant, and letting go of so much control I was practically forcing some of my dominant wolves to challenge me for leadership. I’ve apologized to Sylvie for that. She’s my second-in-command, and she’s earned it putting up with me.”
I hadn’t seen him in nearly four months, and now he was sitting there saying things I’d given up on hearing. It was all too good to be true. I must have tensed, because Asher began to stroke the back of my hand with his other hand as he held me.
“I have longed for you to understand some of this, Richard,” Jean-Claude said, “but I admit I had given up.”
“Some of the other wereanimal leaders had an intervention, I guess you could call it. They told me that I was endangering them all. That by crippling the best Master of the City they’d ever had, I was hurting everyone. I reminded Rafael that his biggest taboo for all his wererats had been that they didn’t feed Nikolaos, so how could he let his rats be food for you.”
Richard looked down, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Rafael said, ‘Nikolaos demanded I give her my people. Jean-Claude never asked, I offered, because every animal group that gets close to Jean-Claude and Anita gains in power. They do not steal power away; they help everyone grow more powerful.’ I thought about what he said, and it was true. You both help everyone around you be better. I tried to think if I’d helped anyone be better, or stronger, in the last few years, and you know what?”