ETHAN WAS DRIVING so he didn’t get to play the game of musical chairs, but the rest of us did. If the bodyguards hadn’t insisted on one of them sitting on each row of seats we could have shoved Jean-Claude, Richard, and me into the center seats, or even the back row. Nathaniel would have been willing, but Jake and the Wicked Truth were adamant that we needed a guard per row.
Jake leaned in to me and said, “This is an excellent spot for an ambush, please just get in the back seat with the Ulfric.”
That was enough to get me in the back seat of the SUV between Wicked and Richard. Their shoulders were so wide that they had to put their arms across the back of the seats so they didn’t squish me, and that was when an unexpected argument broke out.
“Can you please move your arm,” Richard said.
“My arm is fine where it is,” Wicked said.
“You’re Anita’s bodyguard, not her boyfriend.”
“You’re not her boyfriend either.” If you didn’t know Wicked, you might think he was jealous of me with other people, but I knew that wasn’t it, because that wasn’t our relationship, so what was going on?
“But I am her lover,” Richard said.
“So am I.”
“Wicked,” I said, and I sounded a little surprised, because I had fed the ardeur on him before, so technically he was my lover, but . . .
“Is he your lover?” Richard asked.
I looked from Richard to Wicked, who looked down at me with such arrogance. He was gorgeous, but he wasn’t vain like this, the arrogance was protective. In a way that I didn’t understand, Wicked’s ego was on the line here, or something else was.
“Yes, he is,” I said, looking at Wicked as I gave the answer. He smiled, and I was glad he was happy with me, but when I turned to Richard he was scowling. I did not need this tonight.
“Is he part of your poly group now?” Richard asked.
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you have not been her boyfriend in all the years I’ve worked for her, has that changed?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but Richard said, “You’re right, I haven’t been around much, and when I was around I behaved badly most of the time. I’m hoping to do better from this point on.”
“Hope is cheap, Ulfric, just do better.”
Anger flared through Richard like heat against my skin where we were forced to touch. “Stop it, both of you. This space is too small and you’re both too powerful metaphysically to start a pissing contest with me squished between you.”
Richard had to do some deep breathing to quiet his anger and his beast. While he did that, Wicked said, “I’m sorry, but as your bodyguard I’ve watched him hurt you and Jean-Claude over and over. I want him to know that Truth and I will do our best to protect you physically and emotionally from him.”
“Wow, I mean, thanks, but this is going to be awkward enough without . . .”
“No, Anita, that’s fair,” Nathaniel said.
I looked up at him where he was turned around in the seat to look back at me. Jean-Claude sat beside him with Jake against the door mirroring Wicked’s position on our seat. Jean-Claude wasn’t turning around to join in the conversation yet.
“I thought we were getting along,” Richard said.
“We are,” Nathaniel said, “but it’s not just me that you need to make amends to.”
“I don’t owe Wicked an apology.”
“No, you don’t,” Wicked said, “but we need to get the ground rules set from the beginning so there are no misunderstandings between us.”
“He is Ulfric,” Jake said.
“I am not a werewolf, the only king I have is Jean-Claude.”
“I didn’t play the king-of-wolves card on you, that was Jake. I would never demand loyalty from any vampire based on me being Ulfric, or any other supernatural that wasn’t a werewolf.”
“Thank you for that,” Wicked said.
“Please move your arm so that I can be the one touching Anita?”
“You are not my king, or her boyfriend, why should I move my arm out of your way?”
“Wicked,” Jean-Claude said.
“Jean-Claude,” Truth said from the front seat, “this isn’t just Wicked and me. All the security discussed what we would do if we felt that your emotional attachments were putting you at risk.”
“Richard helped me save us all tonight, he did no harm,” Jean-Claude said.
“He, Asher, and Kane are the most unstable of all the people who are alone with you when you kick the security out of the room, and they’ve all hurt you physically and emotionally,” Truth said.
“We are never alone with Kane,” I said, “he’s bug nuts.”
“Jean-Claude will still be alone with Kane and Asher when you’re traveling on business,” Wicked said.
I stared at my soonish-to-be husband. “Jesus, Jean-Claude, are they . . . seriously, recently?”
He looked down, blinking those thick black lashes coyly, which meant Yes, and recently. “Kane is dangerous, Jean-Claude; you cannot be alone with him.”
“I have no interest in being alone with Kane; Asher is always there.”
“You know that Asher can’t control him.”
“Do you think I could not protect myself from Kane?”
“You could, but you’re terrified of accidentally killing Asher by hurting Kane, just like I am.”
Nathaniel gripped his shoulder. “Please, promise us that you won’t be alone with just the two of them again.”
Jean-Claude wouldn’t look at either of us.
“Damn it, Jean-Claude,” I said.
“And that is why we had a meeting about such things,” Wicked said.
“That was about Kane and Asher; I did not agree with such treatment for the Ulfric,” Jake said.
“You were outvoted,” Wicked said.
“Putting me on the list with Asher for emotional damage is absolutely fair, but not Kane. He is unstable and dangerous.”
“You have your moments, Ulfric,” Wicked said.
“I don’t think I deserve to be put in the same category as Kane, but I guess I have to prove that to everyone.”
“We need to be able to trust you, Ulfric,” Truth said.
“But until we can, all of the security will intrude more,” Wicked finished.
“Fine, but what does that have to do with you refusing to move your arm so that I can put my arm around Anita’s shoulders?”
“It means you have to prove yourself to get access to her.”
“You didn’t stop him from having sex with us tonight,” I said.
“There were no other options, now there are,” Wicked said.
“Are you volunteering?” Richard asked, and there was a tone in his voice that was almost threatening. He’d never seen Wicked practice with the other guards; I had. I did not want our recently returned Ulfric to get his ass kicked this soon.
“Stop it, both of you. I get to say who I sleep with, or feed on, and arguing about it like I’m a prize that goes to the victor is not winning points with me.”
“That’s not how I meant it,” Richard said.
“It is not me winning you, Anita, it is making it clear that the Ulfric does not have a clear path to you or Jean-Claude without a trusted bodyguard in the room, until he proves he is trustworthy.”
“I did not agree to this,” Jean-Claude said.
“It is my duty to protect you, my king.”
“Our duty,” Truth said from the front.
“Yes, our duty,” Wicked added, “and if that means protecting you from yourself then so be it.”
The tiredness washed over me so that all I wanted to do was sleep. I was usually pretty good at going without rest, so it had to be the amount of energy I’d fed Jean-Claude tonight.
“Enough. I need food. Like just regular food until I can feed the ardeur again.”
“Did you guys put the snacks into all the security vehicles like I suggested?” Nathaniel asked.
Truth just handed something back to Jake, who handed it to me. It was a protein bar. “There’s a cooler in the back, Richard should be able to reach it.”
He could and did, getting a Powerade for both of us, then asking if anyone else wanted one. Nathaniel took one. Richard also took a protein bar. “I’m not as drained as you are, but I still should probably shift to wolf tonight and eat more protein than just the bar.”
I fought to keep my face and body neutral, because the last time I’d been around Richard he had hated changing into his wolf. I’d seen him refuse to shift when he was so injured that it was life threatening. To mention it so casually was shocking, a huge step forward, but still such a big change . . . I wasn’t sure how to react, so I stared at the seat back in front of me and concentrated on the protein bar.
“I’m sorry that just me talking about changing form to help regain energy is such a shock to you.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“Your pulse rate did.”
“I’m glad you’re making peace with your wolf, Richard, truly, but let’s hear what Jake has to say about the vampire that attacked us tonight.”
“If he had not chosen to name himself after one of the followers of Ares I might not have guessed, but his arrogance in his heritage made him choose something familiar,” Jake said.
“Deimos, the dread before battle, was a clue?” I asked.
“Yes, for he was the son of Ares, not merely part of his followers.”
“Ares, as in the Greek god of war?” I asked.
“The very same,” Jake said.
“The Greek gods are just myths, they aren’t real,” Richard said.
“They were very real once, Ulfric.”
“Why once?” I asked.
“Why did the Christian God stop making bushes burn and sending angels down in all their terror to destroy entire cities?”
“That was Old Testament,” Richard said.
“Then think something like that for the Greek and Roman gods,” Jake said.
“Are you saying you met Ares?” Nathaniel asked.
“No, but I met his son, Drakon, twin of the Ismenian dragon slain by Cadmus.”
“Dragons can’t be the twin of a human child, I don’t care how many ancient gods are involved,” I said.
“Humans and dragons are totally different species,” Richard said.
“The things that you call dragons now are animals, and could not produce offspring with humans, but once dragons were not just preternatural species to be studied, or cryptids to be found.”
“What were they, then?” Richard asked.
“They were a different race of beings just like the djinn, or the fairy folk, or so many people who have been lost over the eons, leaving not even their myths or folklore behind.”
“The fey are just another type of hominid, Homo arcanus to Homo sapiens.”
“We met them in Ireland,” Nathaniel said. “Most of them looked like us, but their energy was . . . different.” His face lit up with remembering, like it was a good memory. I could never smile like that about Ireland, because of what happened at the end with Domino and Ru and Rodina’s brother Rodrigo. Meeting the fairy folk, real live full-blooded fairies, had been just part of searching for clues to stop a gang of rogue vampires. They’d kidnapped us, chained us up, and cut Nathaniel’s nearly ankle-length hair, promising to come back and cut off things that wouldn’t grow back. When I thought of Ireland what I remembered first was death, and the terror of what had almost happened.
The conversation had been going on without me: Richard thinking that meeting real, old-world fey was fascinating, Nathaniel full of the delight of it, while I was stuck in the loop of Domino’s death, and then almost losing Nathaniel. Rodrigo had taken a shotgun blast to the chest to save him, to save Nathaniel and Damian, and me. Rodrigo had killed Domino in front of me, and then he’d been the one to make the big sacrifice to save us later. I’d magically rolled him, so he had to be on our side, but he’d done both—killed one lover, and then saved two more, one of them being Nathaniel.
“Anita,” Nathaniel said.
I blinked and looked at him. “Sorry, I was thinking too hard.”
He gave me that sad smile that he did a lot about Ireland. “I know what you were thinking, and I wish you could remember more of the happy parts of Ireland instead of just the terrible ones.”
I wanted to touch his face but couldn’t really reach with the seat belt on, and since I wouldn’t take it off in a moving car, I settled for his hand where he offered it.
“I feel like I’m missing something here,” Richard said.
“The trip to Ireland did not go as planned,” Jake said.
I looked at him. His face was sorrowful and compassionate. I had to look away from it to say, “That’s one way of putting it.”
Richard touched my hand, meaning to comfort me, but I jerked away from him. “You weren’t there. I’m sorry, you’ve been therapy-great tonight, but you weren’t in Ireland with us when it went to hell. Domino died; Nathaniel almost died.”
“They cut my hair, Anita, that’s it. They didn’t hurt me.”
I stared at him, squeezing his hand in mine. “If my metaphysical Hail Mary hadn’t worked, they would have cut you to pieces in front of me.”
“But it did work, we got away. We lived, they died. We won, Anita, why can’t you take the win?”
“And I want to know how you can feel like it was a win? Domino died in front of me. Rodrigo killed him in front of me, and Rodrigo’s master would have done the same to you while they forced me to watch.”
He shook my hand, staring into my eyes like he was trying to will me to see things differently. “Losing Domino, especially the way we did, is awful. I know what it’s like to watch someone you love die in front of you. I felt guilty for years about my brother’s death, but I was a little boy. There was nothing I could do to save him, and there was nothing you could do to save Domino.”
“But you were a little boy and I’m a U.S. Marshal. It’s my job to save people.”
“Domino was there as your bodyguard. It was his job to save you.”
“I put him in harm’s way. I took him to Ireland, and he died there protecting me, because I couldn’t protect him or myself.”
“Helplessness in the face of tragedy is hard for people like us,” Jake said.
I looked at him. “People like us?”
“People of action, warriors. Our weapons protect us and those we care for; when our skills fail us and we lose lives, it is hard. It erodes some of our sense of self.”
I looked into his world-weary brown eyes. He’d never age like normal thanks to his own ties to his vampire master, but suddenly I could glimpse the centuries of loss in his face, especially the eyes. He let me see what the nearly immortal usually managed to hide, that even if the body endures, the spirit takes its damage.
“Yes,” I said at last, “that’s it, it erodes your sense of self, all the losses over the years.”
“We must do our best to make sure there are no more losses,” he said.
“We must,” Jean-Claude said.
It made me look at him and realize that he’d slipped away again into that profound silence that the old vamps had. His face was empty, showing nothing. Like a beautiful statue, too perfect to be real. He was shielding so tight from me that I had no idea what he was thinking or feeling.
“You’re shielding so tight it’s like you’re almost not there. What am I missing that’s got you this spooked? I mean, I’m having my own PTSD mind-fuck, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in yours.”
That earned me a small smile. “I was not in Ireland either and there is guilt to that since it is such a wound to you, ma petite, but there is a vampiric dragon in my territory that wants to take all that I have built for his own. That would be a loss that you cannot imagine, not just of power but of lives. I have seen what the Dragon of the old vampire council could do in battle. I thought she was the last of her kind, so I did not prepare to fight a dragon to maintain my kingdom.”
“Wait, the Dragon is a real dragon? I thought it was just a fearsome name to scare would-be challengers?”
“All the names of the council members are descriptive of their powers, ma petite, and none of the names are subtle. The Master of Beasts was the first vampire to have more than one animal to call. Amoureux de la Mort was the creator of all rotting vampires in the world. Belle Morte is beautiful death, a bloodline of seduction and lust. The Earthmover could cause literal earthquakes.”
“The Mother of All Darkness was supposed to be the first vampire, and she was a scary motherfucker like the name implies,” I said.
“Oui, ma petite,” he said, smiling, “your descriptive use of language is, as always, music to my ears.”
I smiled back, because I knew he meant it; he’d confessed to me years back that he fell in love with me not on sight, but the first time he heard me talking tough and realized I was armed and dangerous. When he realized the petite woman in front of him was the same person the other vampires nicknamed the Executioner. The last woman who had been the love of his life had died with his name on her lips asking him to save her. He knew I’d save myself and that meant more to him than any poetry I could have uttered.
“I love you, too,” I said.
He smiled wider. “The Dragon is literally that in the shape of a woman. She led us all to believe she was the last of her kind.”
“She is the last of the great dragons from ancient China,” Jake said, “and they are their own people. To say ‘dragon’ is like saying ‘human being,’ they are not all the same.”
“How did a dragon become a vampire in the first place?” Richard asked.
“The original strain of vampirism is contagious to everyone and everything as far as I can tell, though I guess Jake can answer the question for sure,” I said.
“The Mother of All Darkness and the Father of the Day, as well as the Earthmover, could bring shapeshifters over as vampires, and any other humanoid. Modern vampirism needs three bites over a space of time and to drain the most blood on the last bite, but in the olden days one bite was enough either to contaminate you so that when you finally died you would rise as a vampire, or if enough blood was lost the first feeding for them to die, they would rise immediately.”
“That’s why the oldest stories have people so evil the grave couldn’t hold them, and werewolves being accused of being vampires,” I said.
“The dragon tonight looked like a giant serpent,” Richard said.
“He had a more human form. He is called a dragon, and his name is Drakon, but he is not a true dragon like the council member. He is a dragon because that was the word the Greek and Romans used for anything snake- or lizardlike that was of unusually large size or had killed enough people. They would call your modern snakes a dragon if they were large enough.”
“So, he is not a dragon, as the Dragon?” Jean-Claude said.
“No, nor is he like the old dragons of the Norse, or the more fantastic tales from other parts of what is now Europe. In serpent form he is venomous, and there will be no modern medicine that can counteract it.”
“There can’t be any antivenom to a venom that medicine doesn’t know exists,” I said.
“Precisely,” Jake said.
“In human form is he just a vampire, or does he have other powers?” I asked.
“You saw some of his other powers tonight.”
“When the Dragon went to battle she could cause rage in her warriors and make them stronger, faster, impervious to pain. A wise man from her old country said she was a fallen dragon because she turned her gifts to destruction. He spoke about it as if in ancient China dragons could fall like angels in Christian theology,” Jean-Claude said.
“It wasn’t as simple as good and evil, but the analogy is close enough,” Jake said.
“So, if he can look human could he have been there tonight in the crowd?” I asked.
“No, I would have smelled him. He can look human, but he never smells human.”
“The shadow serpent tonight didn’t smell real,” Richard said.
“It was a sending, a form of attack, but his physical form was never at risk.”
“I’ve chased power back to its source before and been able to do harm to it,” I said.
“Was he real enough to chase back to his body tonight?”
I thought about it. “I don’t know, but I think it was all smoke and mirrors. That’s what I thought at one point, that he was a trick, or like Richard said, he wasn’t real. You mentioned djinn along with the fey earlier. The fey are real like us, solid, but the djinn are not. They’re made of wind and magic, there’s no way to physically hurt them.”
“When did you see djinn?” Richard asked.
“Las Vegas,” Wicked and Truth said together.
“I’d love to hear about it,” Richard said.
I fought not to frown at him, because people had died because they couldn’t physically hurt the djinn, and like Ireland I couldn’t remember Vegas without starting with the losses. I could never seem to take the win. I took a deep breath and let it out slow. “They were just whirlwinds, or like heat waves in the summer, but they could wield blades and you couldn’t touch them except with one spell that could disperse them. It was kind of awful.”
“Awful in every way?”
“I was chasing down a serial killer that mailed me another policeman’s head in a box; the killer used the djinn to decapitate him, so yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Anita.”
I took another deep breath, counting as I breathed out. I didn’t want to be pressed against him in the seat. Richard had never understood my work, or what it cost me. He’d always been trying to force me to give up having a badge. It was hard to make the transition to this new, less cranky Richard. It was like I wasn’t ready to give up being cranky at the person he’d been for so long. It made me move the minute inch I could toward Wicked, who took that as his cue to curve his hand around my shoulders.
Richard’s skin ran with heat again, his anger and his beast starting to rise. I did not need his wolf to call to mine, so I said, “Wicked and Truth were in Vegas with me on that trip.”
“Thank you for keeping her safe,” Richard said.
And that was it. “They didn’t keep me safe; I mean they did, but . . . Richard, I was there as a U.S. Marshal with an active warrant to hunt down the vampire that was behind the murders. He could control the djinn as his animal to call. Yes, Wicked and Truth were there, and they helped me, but they didn’t keep me safe. I wasn’t in Vegas to stay safe, or to play the victim. I was there to hunt down an ancient vampire before he killed again.”
“I don’t know what I said wrong, but I’m sorry it was wrong,” Richard said.
Wicked said, “May I try to translate?”
“If you can, be my guest.”
“You thanked us for keeping Anita safe, as if she were the maiden in distress. She is never that. Even if she gets hurt, or kidnapped as she did in Ireland, she is still never the victim to be rescued. We may someday rescue her but she will still never be the maiden in distress.”
Richard looked from him to me, then to Jean-Claude. “I don’t understand, aren’t we all saying the same thing?”
“Non, mon lupe, you thanked the Wicked Truth for taking care of Anita, and that is not how it works.”
“Then explain it to me.”
Truth said from the front, “Anita is a fellow warrior, always.”
“I know Anita can take care of herself,” he said.
“Would you say it that way if she were a man?” Nathaniel asked.
“What do you mean?”
“If Anita were a male cop, a male U.S. Marshal, would you say he could take care of himself?”
Richard thought about it before answering. “Yes, I don’t know, I think so.”
“Anita doesn’t just take care of herself, Richard, she takes care of me, of us,” Nathaniel said.
“I know that.”
“Then don’t thank a man for taking care of me like I’m some helpless damsel in distress.”
“I wasn’t in Vegas, or Ireland, and you seem angry at me for not being there and helping you through it all. Wicked was there in Vegas and helped you when I couldn’t; why is it wrong to thank him?”
“We weren’t there to help her,” Wicked said, “we were there to be her backup.”
“Isn’t being backup helping?”
“Yes, but not the way you made it sound.”
“I don’t know what I did wrong,” Richard said.
“When you talk to the bodyguards or any of us about Anita, you need to remember that she is never the princess in the story waiting to be rescued.”
“She’s a self-rescuing princess, I know that.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “No, Richard, that’s not it. Anita is never the princess at all, she’s the prince in shining armor who rides in with sword and shield and saves the day and the princess.”
Richard frowned, trying to wrap his head around the difference. It helped me not be angry with him, because he was trying. “I know that you’re comfortable being the princess to her prince.” He looked at Jean-Claude. “Is that how you see yourself, too, as her princess to save?”
“Non, mon lupe, she is queen to my king, we are equals and take turns saving each other.”
Richard nodded. “Okay, how about you, Wicked? Are you Anita’s princess?”
“I see her as queen when I am her bodyguard, but in a fight she is a fellow knight who will fight beside us.”
Truth added from the front, “She is our general who leads from the front lines of the battle.”
“And you, Jake?” Richard asked.
“She is my queen as Jean-Claude is my king; through their power and leadership they have made a kingdom that I thought was secure.”
“I get that,” he said, “but I look at you, Anita, and I see . . .”
“Just say it, I promise not to get pissed.”
“I see the princess that I want to hold and love and keep safe. I know you can take care of yourself, but . . .”
“Mon lupe, how do you see me?”
“Well, not as the princess, but a fellow prince to stand beside and fight and build a kingdom with, to keep with the metaphor.”
“That is how you need to see ma petite, as a fellow prince to fight side by side with and save the kingdom.”
“How can you say that when even your nickname for her means ‘my little one’?”
“Physically, she is petite, but I do not see her as small. She is and always has been larger than life to me.”
Richard frowned so hard it looked painful. “She’s accomplished great things, amazing things, she’s incredible at everything she does.”
“But you still see me as the pretty, pretty princess to be protected and taken care of?”
“I was raised to protect the woman I loved.”
“I’ve met your mother, she’s got a temper almost as hot as mine, and she takes no prisoners when she’s defending her family. Your dad, on the other hand, is this laid-back, easygoing guy.”
“They balance each other,” he said.
“With a mother like that, how can you still want to put me in the princess box?”
“What’s wrong with the princess box?”
“You climb into it for a while and see how it feels, then get back to me.”
He got that guy look, that I’m-the-big-strong-man-and-you’re-being-silly look. The fact that Richard had that look in him anywhere was an issue for me, but that he directed it at me ever was the real problem.
“I don’t fit into the princess box,” he said, all smug at being over six feet tall and big and athletic and male.
“Neither do I,” I said, “and never aim that look at me again.”
“What look?”
“The guy look, the smug, big, dominant, athletic, guy look, that says with a glance that I’m just a little girl and I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“I never think that about you, Anita, ever. I may not get the dynamics the way I need to between us, but I never treat you as less just because you’re a woman. My mother and sister would both kick my ass if they caught me doing that.”
“Shit, maybe I’m projecting, I don’t know anymore.”
“You’re not projecting,” Nathaniel said.
“But Richard is correct as well,” Jean-Claude said. “He did not think as badly of her as she projected, but his attitude toward her is not what she wishes it to be.”
“You could hear us both thinking,” I said.
“Oui.”
“So, we’re both right and both wrong?” Richard asked.
“Oui.”
And that about summed up Richard and me when we tried to date. I was just suddenly exhausted, as everything caught up with me all at once.
Wicked leaned in and said, “If you want to lean against me I would be honored to guard your rest.”
“I won’t sleep, I never sleep in cars.”
“I’m just offering a place to rest.”
“You could lean against me if you’re tired,” Richard said.
“No,” I said, “I can’t, because you see it as weakness, and I can’t be weak right now. We have a dragon, a real dragon to fight. A dragon vampire, which is a new category for me. How do we fight him?”
“You defeated him tonight with the ardeur,” Jake said.
“We chased him away with that most tender of magics,” Jean-Claude said, “but we cannot slay him with it.”
“His brother was killed by a large stone smashing his head.”
“Like a beheading with blunt-force trauma,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Who was his mother?” I asked.
“What?”
“If Ares is his father, and I’ll just accept that is possible and keep moving, then who was his mom?”
“Some say it was Telphusia, a lesser-known goddess, or some say a nereid, but I believe his mother was Tisiphone, one of the Erinyes.”
“The Greek Furies,” I said.
“Yes, attendants of Nemesis, goddess of righteous anger.”
“The Furies hunted people down for punishment, didn’t they?” Richard asked.
“Yes, but it was more than that. They could cause terror in any who saw them; they were nightmares given form. Tisiphone was the avenger of murder. You had to do something evil or outside the law to attract the Furies, but once that happened you were doomed, or so they say. I knew people who did terrible things but the Furies never came.”
“Drakon caused fear like a night hag, so he could feed on it; maybe he gets that from his mom,” I said.
“He is not the only vampire we have met that shares that power, ma petite.”
“Yeah, but just saying, it could come from more than one source.”
“I did not know he could feed upon terror. Calling himself Deimos was not an idle choice, then,” Jake said.
“The dread before battle that can take a man’s heart and courage,” I said.
“Yes, perhaps after centuries he doesn’t wish to be called simply Dragon, for that is what Drakon means in Greek.”
“Vampires are allowed to name themselves,” Jean-Claude said.
“Or maybe since the Dragon is still alive, he doesn’t want to offend her by naming himself something so similar,” Jake said.
“No one would want to challenge her by accident or on purpose,” Jean-Claude said.
“Okay, then we’ll call him Deimos for now,” I said. “How do we kill him?”
“We find his physical body and behead it,” Jake said.
“When you say ‘body,’ do you mean him in human form, or the original snaky dragon form?” I asked.
“His twin brother was slain in his dragon form, but he had no other form, so it may be that we would need Deimos to be in that form to slay him, but in truth I do not know. He was never heard from again so I thought him long dead along with anyone or anything that could be called dragon save for the council members and the beasts that modern science classes as dragons.”
“Is there anyone else who might know more about this dragon vamp?” I asked.
“I will see if anyone else among us knows more,” he said, and I knew he meant among the Harlequin.
I started to lean in against Wicked. I looked at Richard, who was fighting not to frown at us. “Why aren’t you exhausted?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ma petite, may I ask the favor that you lean against Richard and see if more of your energy returns since he is more closely linked to you through me?”
I frowned at him, but I sat up and started to move away from Wicked. He didn’t try and hold me in place, just moved so Richard could put his arm on the back of the seat. I gave Wicked a soft kiss before I moved away. It earned me a smile and that made it worth it. Then I moved to the other side of the seat to lean into Richard. I stayed stiff and couldn’t relax, because he didn’t understand me, and . . . But the minute I had enough of him touching me it was like his body was a warm blanket and a cup of hot coffee, and just what I needed. Damn it.
“May I hold you?” Richard asked.
“You are holding me.” And even to me it sounded grumpy.
“May I wrap my arm around you?”
I took in a deep breath and let it out slow. “Yes.”
His arm curved over my shoulders, and I fit under his arm better. It felt good, but I was still fighting to relax when Nathaniel said, “It’s okay to touch him back, Anita; he’s cute, not my cup of tea, but let yourself touch him back. Bare skin contact helps renew us.”
“Thank you, Nathaniel,” Richard said.
“You’re welcome.”
They were playing nice, so I let myself slide my hand underneath the dress shirt to touch his stomach. His skin was so warm and smooth, and . . . it felt good. I pressed my bare leg against his and that was even better. “I feel like I’m injured almost, like if I could sleep between two of the wereanimals that I carry inside me I’d heal.”
“We could have one of the mystic Harlequin search you both for magical bindings,” Jake said. The Harlequin had finally felt safe enough to bring the few human servants left to them. The Mother of All Darkness had killed most of them as a test to prove they were powerful enough to be one of her chosen warriors, but some had been magically gifted enough that they’d been spared as too valuable to waste. There weren’t many of them, but the few left were magic with a capital M. They could work energy and clear a chakra so fast they’d have been the envy of any modern Reiki master or light worker.
“I do not think that is what is wrong, but it is good to have people skilled enough to look for such things,” Jean-Claude said.
“What do you think is wrong?” I asked as I snuggled up against as much of Richard’s bare skin as I could find and hated that it felt so good.
“All the energy we raised tonight went to me to defeat Deimos; you did not keep any for yourself.”
“It’s my job to be your battery.”
“It is, ma petite, but your ardeur is like blood for me, without it you are empty.”
Richard hugged me a little closer and said, “Will you get mad if I say I volunteer?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I would feel better if Anita fed on someone not tied so closely to her and Jean-Claude metaphysically,” Jake said.
“You said that before, something about us saving our energy for the next fight,” I said, but my voice had that edge of almost sleep. Richard was so warm, and the hum of his energy felt like home to my wolf and me. I hated that he still felt that good in my arms; even his skin smelled good, which was usually my cue that I was still in love with someone. When I’d fallen out of love their skin smelled bitter. I’d never noticed it until I had beasts inside me, so maybe it was a shapeshifter thing.
“Rest, ma petite, there will be no feeding of the ardeur until we are safe within the walls of the Circus. There will be time enough later to decide on partners to donate to our cause.” His voice was so soothing. It made me struggle to open my eyes.
“Are you making me sleep?”
“Non, I wished you to be able to rest and recoup your energy, for we may need it sooner than the ardeur can be fed.”
That made sense, but somehow I felt traitorous cuddling with Richard when Nathaniel was so close. He read my mind, or guessed, because he said, “It’s all right that it feels good to rest in Richard’s arura. You all used a lot of wolf energy tonight.”
Richard hugged me closer and said, “May I kiss the top of your head, please?”
I slid my arm tighter around the warm naked skin of his stomach and said, “Yes.”
He kissed my hair and then rested his cheek against the top of my head. I settled my head against his chest, and it was suddenly the best pillow. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept with my head against his body like this, and then I realized I really couldn’t. In all the years of on-again, off-again dating we’d never cuddled like this and it seemed sad that we’d missed so much when we’d been in each other’s lives for so long.
I felt his body relax around me even as he held me close, and realized we were both so tired, as if Jean-Claude had drained more energy from both of us than we’d realized. I struggled to wake enough to blink, a spurt of panic at sleeping in a moving car ever since my mother died in one when I was eight.
Nathaniel said, “You’re safe, Anita, sleep.”
Wicked leaned over so I could see his face. “We will keep watch, Anita; rest, Jean-Claude will need you both at full strength later.”
Richard kissed my hair again, and then my forehead. “Sleep with me, Anita, please, just sleep.”
Sleep with me, not fuck me, not go down on me, just sleep. It was both an innocent request and more intimate than people realized who hadn’t tried polyamory. There were lovers in our group that I still hadn’t figured out how to sleep with after the sex was over. It was a sweet request, romantic even, so Richard when he wasn’t being a dick. That was my last thought before I drifted off to sleep in his arms with his chest as my pillow.