RODINA WENT DOWN on her knees in front of me. “My weakness stripped you of our strength when you needed us most. I have failed my duty.” It would have been more warrior-falling-on-their-sword if she hadn’t been dressed in the button-up top of a pair of silky pajamas. Ru dropped on his knees beside her wearing the long bottoms of the pajamas. It would never have occurred to me that siblings could split pajamas the same way a couple could. It made perfect sense, it just threw me for a second, like a lot of things about them. Of course, maybe me thinking about romantic couples had something to do with how nice Ru looked out of his shirt. I stopped the thought train right there, dead in its tracks, done, because they could hear me.
“It’s okay, Rodina, you’re allowed to grieve for your brother.”
“Grief is for the weak. We are Harlequin, nothing should distract us from serving our dark queen.” She seemed so earnest that I didn’t have the heart to correct her about calling me their dark queen.
“It was wolves I needed tonight, mes petits chatons,” Jean-Claude said, coming to stand beside me. He seemed utterly calm now. I wasn’t sure if talking about a real plan to kill Deimos had helped him feel better, or if he’d just regained control of himself. I’d ask later.
Rodina looked up at him; her face looked as open and vulnerable as I’d ever seen it. Grief and her supposed failure tonight had left her emotionally raw. I liked her better for the glimpse behind the curtain of her usual grumpy exterior. “We are better than any wolves.”
“Of course, you are,” he said, but not like he believed it or expected anyone else to either.
She didn’t take offense, just seemed more earnest as she looked at me. “We are better than wolves, because we have seen the enemy in person more than once.”
“We will tell you what we can of him,” Ru said. He didn’t look open and vulnerable, he looked worried. He glanced at his sister, and I agreed, she still wasn’t okay. Hell, neither of them was okay. They were grieving the loss of their brother, a triplet brother, and I had been so tied up in my own issues with Ireland that I hadn’t been able to allow them to grieve. I realized suddenly that I didn’t know if that was literally true. As their master, how much did my emotions and issues impact them?
“Stand up and tell us how he shapeshifted,” I said.
They stood in unison like it was part of a practiced dance. I’d seen them do it before, but it sort of creeped me out, so they tried not to do it often. “One moment he was a dragon, the next a man,” Ru said.
“A human would say a moment and mean that they’d watched one of us split open and change, which is never as quick as they think,” Jake said.
“We are not human,” Rodina said, and she gave him a look that said how much she hated him. Since he’d been one of the major people behind the plot that had ended with me killing her dark queen, she had reason.
“It is faster than any shapeshifter I have ever seen,” Ru said.
“So, no time to kill him as he changes shape?” I asked.
“You seek to use the moment in between when we are trapped by the shifting of our bodies, helpless for just those few minutes,” Rodina said.
“That was the idea, I mean it’s got to take longer to go from man to dragon size than even a regular shapeshifter.”
“One moment he is a dragon, then a man walks out from where the dragon stood,” Ru said.
“There’s got to be a transition between the two shapes,” I said.
“There was none,” he said.
“I had hoped since he was only a demigod that he had not inherited the Greek pantheon’s ease of shape-changing,” Jake said.
“Did you see one of the Greek gods change form?” I asked.
“I did, and if Deimos changes as his father could, then there will be no weakness to exploit there.” I felt Richard want to ask details about the Greek gods and what Jake had witnessed, but he resisted. Brownie points to him because I wanted to ask, too.
“His scent is always dragon, even in human form,” Ru said.
“It is a unique scent, and I did not smell it in the club tonight,” Jake said.
“I thought we’d already decided Deimos wasn’t physically in the club,” I said.
“We did, but since the three of us may be the only ones who know his scent, I thought I would share that with Ru and Rodina.”
“Our dark queen wanted only her most trusted Harlequin to deal with him,” Rodina said, and she looked at Jake. “How did you hide your treachery from her, from us?”
“I helped teach you how to spot a lie, what scent to search for, and like all who train warriors that may one day be sent against them, I did not teach you everything I knew, Rodina.”
“But she made your master, who made you, how did you hide from her?”
“It makes Anita uncomfortable when we confront the traitors,” Ru said.
“She says she wants us happy; well, I want to know how they deceived our dark queen, perhaps that would bring me some peace that they destroyed our entire way of existence.” She sounded almost enraged, each word thick with it.
“We do not have time for such games tonight, Rodina,” Jean-Claude said. “I am sorry for your grief, though I do not share it, but we have an enemy here and now, that must come first.”
She frowned, rubbed her forehead. “I do not feel myself tonight. I am sorry that I keep failing in my duty.”
“Neither of us is ourself tonight,” Ru said, putting his arms around her shoulders to hug her from the side.
“Next year you get your birthday off,” I said.
“Thank you,” Ru said.
Rodina said nothing, just clung to her brother’s arm where it crossed the front of her body. Her eyes were closed, and I was betting she was hiding tears. Enough, I thought. “Is there anything else the two of you can tell us that will help us defeat Deimos?” I asked.
She clung tighter to her brother, eyes clenched so tight that her forehead wrinkled, like she thought if she could just keep her eyes closed the bad thing wouldn’t get her. I’d always pictured Rodina more like me, look the monster in the eye and if all else failed, spit in it. She buried her face in Ru’s arm like she was breathing in his scent. I wouldn’t have done it with my own brother, but then he wasn’t a wereanimal and wouldn’t understand how scent and touch were just for comfort, not for sex. I was a little fuzzy on that myself, but I understood that was my human hang-up.
Nicky came up to me and leaned in against my hair to whisper, “She can hear everything you’re thinking.”
“I’m sorry, Rodina, I don’t mean to make you feel worse by what I’m thinking, you know I’m not great at controlling my thoughts sometimes.”
“You should be disappointed in me,” she said, “I am not serving you as I should.” She opened her eyes and let me see a slit of leopard yellow before I felt the warmth of her beast like a faint breeze. If I hadn’t been standing this close to her I either wouldn’t have felt it or I wouldn’t have known who it was in the room. Ru’s eyes were leopard yellow, too. God, they had so much control.
“We are Harlequin,” she said in a low voice.
“I know you are,” I said.
“She did not answer your question, ma petite.”
“Neither of them did,” Nicky said. He moved up beside us.
“They’re my Brides, it’s impossible for them to hurt me,” I said, but I admit that it was hard not to have the teeniest, tiniest bit of doubt when I said it.
Nicky moved me back from them. The Wicked Truth were doing the same for Jean-Claude. Richard moved with him, so it was a twofer. Jake stayed close to the twins.
“We are not twins,” Rodina yelled through clenched teeth, “we are triplets! Rodrigo’s death does not change that.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right, but I just thought it, I wouldn’t have said it out loud.”
“First you destroyed our evil queen, then you took our brother from us. I hate you, Anita Blake,” she said.
“We can’t hate Anita, we’re her Brides,” Ru said.
She glared at her brother, and suddenly his arms around her didn’t seem just for comfort. He was only a few moves away from a choke hold. I saw the tension as she realized it, and the peace in Ru. It wasn’t accidental. This wasn’t just their birthday and grieving their lost brother, so what the hell was it?
“Anita didn’t screw you like she screwed me,” Nicky said.
“Belle Morte and Jean-Claude are the only bloodlines that use sex to create Brides, and yet all the other bloodlines have them,” Jake said.
“But Anita is not a vampire, not a real one,” Jake said. “We know that fact has changed things in how she uses power and how Jean-Claude’s power works. Perhaps Brides are different, as well.”
“Wait a minute, how does my being human change Jean-Claude’s power? I’m his human servant so I make him more powerful, period.”
“You have stolen his power as you stole our queen’s,” Rodina said. She hadn’t tried to get free of Ru. They were still standing somewhere between comfort and danger. I tried very hard not to think beyond that, because I couldn’t seem to shield my thoughts from them.
“We’re your Brides, we’re supposed to know what you’re thinking and feeling so we can serve you better,” Ru said.
“I don’t think Rodina sees it that way right now,” I said.
“If you had been the evil queen we sought I would have served you forever,” she said, and then she moved her head just enough to look at Jean-Claude. “You are supposed to be king above us all, but you are so afraid that you will become what you fear most that you let her, your human servant, take the burden and the prize that should be yours.”
“I have claimed the prize, I am king.”
“I do not agree with everything that Rodina said, but the spirit of it, I fear, is true,” Jake said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Yes, Jake, enlighten us,” Jean-Claude said. The Wicked Truth had moved him back so that they were between him and everyone.
“You should have more power by now. The blood oaths from the other masters alone should have made you godlike, but though your abilities with seduction and sex have grown exponentially, the other powers that we all expected to come to you have not.”
“Did I not just tell you that all I have to offer is sex magic, and that it is useless for defeating Deimos, or any other challenger?”
“You did, and then Anita and her friend began to plan how to kill Deimos in a way that did not require your powers.”
“You were one of the loudest voices convincing me to take their oaths, to accumulate the power of all the master vampires in America inside me.” Jean-Claude slapped his chest hard enough that it sounded like someone had hit him.
“It never occurred to me that you would not become as the old council members, a god among vampires. Had it ever crossed my mind that you would accumulate so much power and control over the supernatural in this country without the ability to protect yourself and them from any would-be challenger, I would have urged something else.”
Jean-Claude said, “If it is not too late we will build an American council and I will share the power among them all; that way if they kill one of us, the others may band together and protect our country from the truly ancient ones who would not be able to cope with modern rule.”
There were cries of protest and I joined in with, “When did you decide all this?”
“Tonight, when I realized that perhaps the vampire council existed exactly to keep this from happening. That the death of one vampire is the ruin of all.”
“That is not why we had a council,” Jake said. “The Mother of All Darkness could never envision herself losing to any challenger. The council was created for love. She would not let the Father of the Day be equal ruler with her, but she cared for him, so she conceded that he would be part of the ruling council. He would be equal among them, or higher, but only she would be highest.”
“I knew that the Day Father was once a council member, but I did not know the rest,” Jean-Claude said.
“You lie, wolf; our dark queen never cared for the Day Father like that,” Rodina said.
“Do not take my word for it, ask the other Harlequin, some of them are far older than me. I only heard about the start of the council from my master, I was not there for it,” Jake said.
“Our dark mother and shining father were almost gods themselves before they tore themselves apart fighting each other, but I am no god,” Jean-Claude said. “I am not even a demigod like Deimos. Whatever power the Mother of us all had did not pass to me.”
“It was supposed to pass to her,” Rodina said, pointing at me.
“It was,” Jake said.
“I’m good, but godlike I’m not,” I said.
“It is not a god we need, but powerful rulership, but you are both deeply conflicted about power. Having it, using it, all of it.”
“They fear it will turn them evil,” Rodina said, like it was a huge character fault.
“And if they were conflicted, then I was worse,” Richard said.
“Yes, Ulfric, you were the most conflicted of all. We did not realize how much your inner conflicts crippled all of you until Nathaniel became the master of Anita’s triumvirate with Damian.”
“I didn’t even know I could be in charge of it. I’m just her leopard to call. I wasn’t even psychic when I was human. I still don’t understand how I ended up being able to control the power of it,” Nathaniel said.
“You weren’t conflicted. You didn’t crave power, but you wanted the triumvirate between the three of you to work. You had expressed to several people, including Anita, that you missed Damian, felt the pull of him.”
“Yes, but I thought Anita had to fix it, she was our master.”
“But Anita hates taking freedom of choice away from anyone. She and Nicky are in love with each other, but she still feels guilty for mind-rolling him even to save you all; that is why she didn’t roll Rodina and Ru as completely as she did Nicky.”
“It creeps her out that I can’t say no to her,” Nicky said.
“I can say no now,” Damian said.
“You can say no to Anita, but can you say no to Nathaniel?” Jake asked.
Damian started to say of course he could, but then he thought about it. “I don’t want to say no.”
“I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late, because I’m not supposed to be able to do the vampire and magic stuff,” Nathaniel said.
“If you had not taken control of Anita’s triumvirate with Damian you would have all died in Ireland. It was only your combined strength that allowed Anita to turn Rodrigo and both his siblings into her Brides with her gaze and allowed Anita to raise an army of ghosts to defeat your enemies.”
“Are you saying if I’d still been stumbling around afraid to take over my triumvirate and Nathaniel hadn’t accidentally stepped up before that . . .” I just stopped, not wanting to say it.
“That is exactly what I am saying, and that is why I fear that even with the fourth mark, Jean-Claude’s triumvirate will not be all it could be.”
“Because all three of us are conflicted about power and turning into the monster for real,” Richard said.
“I fear so.”
“Anita has stepped up and accepted more of the power than either of you two, but she’s still too afraid of it,” Rodina said, pushing at her brother. “Either choke me into submission, kill me, or let me go.”
He looked at Jake, and when the werewolf nodded, Ru let his sister go. She pushed him away. “I cannot believe that you want to stay here with their fears and limitations.”
“I like having a master who cares what I think and feel. I like that Anita wants us to be happy.”
“I was happy! I was happy as instruments of her vengeance and judgment. I want to be able to hurt people again, and neither Jean-Claude, nor Anita, or even our Nimir-Raj will allow it. I had the world to travel and now I am trapped in the middle of America in a city that isn’t even half as old as I am. How can you possibly be happy here?”
“I am learning what makes me happy for the very first time, Dina; before this you and Roddy took up all the space and left none for me. I love you, and I loved him, but there was no space for me between you. You were both so strong, it was like I was erased.”
“It’s your fears in our dreams of Rodrigo,” she said. The anger seemed to leave her for a moment.
“Perhaps it is, I hadn’t thought of it being me, because I am not important enough to fill our sleep with nightmares.”
“You are important to me, brother.”
“Brother can be either of us. Tell me that I am important to you, Rodina, just me.”
“Of course you are important to me, Ru. We only have each other now.”
I tried not to think what I wanted to think, but it was like being told not to think of an elephant, all you can think of is elephants. Big ones, small ones, elephants wearing ballerina tutus, roller skating, until trying not to think it made the thought so loud that I knew everyone connected to me heard it like I was yelling in their heads. Maybe Ru and Rodina should have taken us up on that offer of therapy.
Rodina turned and looked at me. “If Ru is turning himself into Rodrigo every night in our dreams, saying over and over that he is being . . . erased, consumed, then yes, I am willing to see your therapist. If Ru is willing to come with me?” She held her hand out to her brother.
He stared at her hand but made no move to take it. He looked up so he could meet her eyes. “You will go to the therapist and talk about all of it? You said you didn’t need therapy, that there was nothing wrong with you.”
“If it will help you, Ru, then yes, I will go.” She started to lower her hand, looking down at the floor and away from him. He grabbed her hand and she looked up at him with a smile that made me happy to see it. The smile faded a little as she looked at me. “I do not understand why you are happy for us, but I can feel that you are. Perhaps I will ask the therapist to explain it to me.”
“They’re good about explaining emotional stuff that you don’t understand,” I said.
Ru came to stand closer to her, their hands still clasped. They were all grown-up, and achingly old, but there was still an echo of two lost children holding hands in the woods when they’d lost their trail of bread crumbs.
“Then help me find my way out, Anita,” Ru said.
I frowned and said, “I can shower you with bread crumbs if you give me a minute.”
He smiled, then turned to his sister. He kissed her on the cheek, ever so gently. “You know what I want.”
“I do,” she said.
“But it will impact you as Rodrigo being enchanted in Ireland.”
“More.” And she frowned as she said it. She started swinging their hands a little between them like an old habit from real childhood come back to haunt or remind.
“You forbade me to ask her for it.”
“I did”—she looked at the ground again, swinging their hands idly between them—“but if you are in our dreams as Rodrigo, then you must believe that I would rather have him here than you, or that he is you, or some complicated emotional . . . confusion.” She looked up at him suddenly, her face very serious. “I did not mean to make you feel like that. Rodrigo did not mean to make you feel less than we are.”
“He thought I was weak and told me often.”
She shook his hand in hers harder. “Rodrigo said what he believed, but he loved you, Ru. He loved you dearly, as I do.”
He smiled, and I was beginning feel like we were voyeurs at their first therapy session. Like we should all just quietly go take showers and leave them to it.
“Please don’t go without me,” Ru said.
“Go where without you?” I asked.
“The shower, or the bedroom, I feel how hungry you are for the ardeur and I would ask to be your food tonight.”
“Um . . . since you can’t tell me no, that’s a little too close to nonconsensual sex, so no. It’s a lovely offer, but I will not take advantage of someone who cannot tell me no.”
“Gods and goddesses of the ages, you are so sincere, so earnest, like some holy knight of old who actually meant his vows. You aren’t approaching him for sex, Anita, he’s approaching you. He wants to have sex with you, he’s wanted to since the trip to Florida,” Rodina said, rolling her eyes and sounding like every disgusted mean girl you’d ever heard.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I can feel your confusion. Somehow you feel responsible for me—sorry, for us—even though our brother did so many terrible things to you and yours.”
“I don’t blame you for your brother,” I said.
“Thank you, but I want a home, Anita. I want to truly belong someplace that is for me, not because Dina or Roddy chose it, but because I want it.”
“Sex doesn’t make you belong, not on its own,” I said.
“Not having sex doesn’t make you belong either,” he said.
I couldn’t argue with his logic, but I really wanted to. Since they could read my thoughts I said it out loud. “I don’t know what to say right now, so hold that thought.” I turned to the rest of the group and caught Edward at the edge of the crowd. I realized that he hadn’t moved in to protect us when all the supernatural bodyguards had been nervous. He’d known somehow that it wouldn’t come to that. How was it that one of the few people in the room with no ability to hear anyone’s thoughts, or feel anyone else’s feelings, was the one person who had read the situation right? He gave me a little smile and then raised his eyebrows at me and just like that he brought me back to myself, to the now. Everything else could wait.
“We need a plan for Deimos before we do anything else,” I said.
“He will want to sleep in dragon form,” Ru said.
Rodina nodded. “Ru is right, he changes shape, and each shape is real, but he is not as comfortable in human form.”
“So, he’ll need someplace big enough for him to sleep comfortably in,” I said.
“Warehouses,” Nicky suggested.
Jean-Claude said, “Does he prefer creature comforts, or will sleeping rough on a warehouse floor be enough for him?”
“Why does that matter?” I asked.
“If he is staying in a warehouse, but cushions and bedding are being delivered to it, that would raise a flag, would it not?”
“Some warehouses sell bedding, or at least store it and ship it out to stores,” Nicky said.
“But I am not saying we look for mass purchases of bedding, Nicky. I mean soft pillows, velvet cushions, expensive coverlets in small, personal purchases delivered to warehouses or semiabandoned buildings.”
“If you do not want to be found, then you live without luxuries until your mission is over,” Rodina said.
“I have known more than one master vampire who was found because they could not live without their comforts,” Jean-Claude said.
“He slept on bare floor in a cave back in ancient Greece,” Ru said.
“If he has been active in the modern world he will be accustomed to softer care than that,” Jean-Claude said.
“If he hasn’t changed, then his needs will be minimal,” Jake said.
“So, luxuries will not be the way to find him,” Jean-Claude said.
“Where has he been for the last few thousand years?” I asked.
“I would like to know that, as well, ma petite.”
“What difference would that make?” Ru asked.
“Has he learned to read modern Greek, or any other language? Can he read at all?” Jean-Claude asked.
“You want to know if he would have books or other reading material delivered to where he’s staying,” Edward said.
“Oui.”
“Can he see in the dark?” Peter asked. We all looked at him, and suddenly the fourteen-year-old him peeked out from the six-foot-plus twenty-year-old as he fought not to look embarrassed. He ended up glaring at everyone; at fourteen he had looked sullen when he did, at twenty he looked a little menacing. I was strangely proud.
“You’re wondering if he would need light to read by,” Richard said.
We looked at him, but he kept his attention on Peter, and Richard didn’t give a damn if anyone stared at him. “I know he’s supposed to be a different sort of dragon, but some of the dragons we have today can see in the dark and they only hunt at night.”
“Yes,” Richard said, “the prevailing theory is that all the big dragons that were day hunters got killed off by humans.”
“And the night hunters spread into that ecological niche, which is why the fossil record has the ones we know today as smaller,” Peter said.
Richard nodded. “But seeing in the dark to hunt is different than seeing in the dark to read.” He looked around the room. “Leopards see in the dark better than wolves; can you read a book in the dark?”
All the wereleopards in the room looked at each other, and then Rodina said, “We don’t read books to each other in leopard form, Ulfric.”
“But if you tried to, would you be able to see the print at full dark?”
There was another round of looks, and then Ru said, “I’ve read a printed book by near full moon, but it was before electricity spoiled the night so it’s never truly dark.”
“So that’s a yes,” Peter said.
“Good point, Peter, just because we’d need a lamp to read by doesn’t mean that Deimos will.”
“He never came out at night much,” Ru said.
“He didn’t have good night vision,” Rodina said.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“We attacked him at night as leopards, because we do have excellent night vision,” she said.
“You weren’t the Harlequin sent to kill Deimos,” Jake said.
“Officially, no.”
“Then why would you attack him?”
That look passed over their faces that I’d come to realize was their version of exchanging a look without having to actually do it. It was part of their physical shorthand that they used when they didn’t want me to figure something out. It was one of their few tells.
“Tell me why you attacked Deimos at night in wereleopard form?” I asked.
“We were ordered to do it,” Rodina said.
“By whom?” I asked.
“We only ever had one master before you,” she said.
“Why would the Mother of All Darkness want you to attack Deimos at night in wereleopard form?”
“She wanted to know if he was more vulnerable at night,” Rodina said.
“So, you’re letting us brainstorm and plan and you know what will work and won’t work, already,” Richard said.
Ru just shook his head.
“Answer him,” I said.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Ru said.
Nicky said, “Repeat what Richard said, but make it a question.”
I did. “We don’t know what you’re planning so we have no idea if it will work,” Rodina said.
“I order you to tell me if you won the fight that night against Deimos.”
Rodina said, “No,” as Ru said, “Almost.”
“You are Anita’s Brides; you have to tell her the truth if she asks it. We can’t lie to her,” Nicky said.
“You are her Bride completely, but she never finished the ritual with us,” Ru said, “It’s why Rodina can do so many things that make Anita unhappy.”
Jake said, “Ask them if they know how to kill Deimos?”
I did, and they both said no.
“Ask them if they know how to defeat him?” Edward suggested.
“Define ‘defeat,’ ” Rodina said. Ru just said maybe.
I was catching on to the game. “Do you know how to defeat Deimos in such a way that he can no longer harm us or challenge us for rule of the vampires in America?”
“Yes,” Ru said, and Rodina nodded.
“Why didn’t you just lead with that?”
“Because the last time we tried to kill him was when Greece was the leading world power in what is now Europe. We didn’t have the technology you do now; if we have to go up against him I’d rather do it from a distance with your LAW or some other device,” Rodina said.
“Okay, that makes sense, but tell us how you did it back in the day, and we’ll combine that with modern tech and see what we come up with,” I said.
“Also, Brides are traditionally sacrificed in battle to save their master, and I’m afraid once you hear what we did you’ll do exactly that with Ru and me.”
“I’m proof that Anita doesn’t do that kind of shit,” Nicky said.
“She’s in love with you, and we’re a source of guilt and remembered trauma for her.”
“I won’t sacrifice anyone on purpose to take Deimos down,” I said.
“She means it, sister.”
“I can feel her sincerity vibrating like some kind of devoted puppy.” Rodina sounded disgusted.
“If you want Anita to value you more, comments like that aren’t the way to go,” Nathaniel said.
“And what happened to you down on your knees contrite that you left me when I needed you most?” I asked.
Rodina made a harsh sound deep in her throat like she couldn’t decide if she was going to spit on me or scream. “I feel the pull to be your Bride, but you have left us half done like you and Jean-Claude have left everything else.”
“Ma petite, the sun will rise, and I would like to have a plan before that happens.”
“Okay, do we have to worry about Deimos once the sun comes up, or does he die at dawn like most vampires?” I asked.
“He did.”
“It was one reason that he would not serve our dark queen,” Jake said. “He hadn’t expected to lose the ability to move around during daylight.”
“Does he burn in sunlight?” I asked.
“We never saw him in burn in sunlight, because he would go to the back of his cave when he felt dawn coming,” Ru said.
“Sunlight doesn’t help us if he explodes into Greek fire,” Edward said.
“Good point,” I said. I looked at Rodina and Ru. “Okay, you’re up. Tell us how you attacked him back in ye olden days.”
“It’s not pronounced ‘yee,’ the y sounds like a th, like in the,” Rodina said.
“I was making a joke, but okay, thanks for clearing that up. Now tell us about you going up against Deimos.”
“Our dark queen put pieces of herself inside the three of us,” Ru said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
He looked at his sister, and she said, “How do we explain her to you as she was then?”
“She was at the height of her powers then,” Jake said. “As frightening as you found her, Anita, it was nothing to what she was then.”
I tried to process that; my stomach went tight at the thought of facing her when she’d been even more terrifying. “Well, that’s fucking scary.”
“You would not have prevailed against her if she had not been diminished by the traitors among us.” She glared at Jake.
“Yes, I betrayed her, and I would do it again.”
“If I was not bound by Anita’s emotions I would kill you where you stand.”
“You would try; remember I helped train you.”
“I hate you for what you did.”
“I understand.”
“Enough,” Jean-Claude said. “We do not need to understand how the Mother of All Darkness put a piece of herself inside the three of you since no vampire alive today can duplicate it. Just tell us what happened.”
“Seven of us were sent to kill him,” Ru said.
“I knew of only four, why were three not listed with them?” Jake asked.
“We did many things off the books, as they say,” Rodina said.
Jean-Claude said, “No more interruptions, please, Jake; I want at least the beginnings of a plan before dawn.”
Jake just nodded, not bothering with any reply. Smart, I’d at least have apologized.
“The four were sent to approach him from the front of his cave, but we came over the hill at his back,” Rodina said.
“We were in half-human form,” Ru added.
“We could not see the battle, but we heard him make the noise that was always a precursor to him spewing his deadly fire. The four in front were outfitted with hardened leather to drape over them. We know that they hid under them, because Drakon spit fire, then bragged that their puny shelters would not save them from his wrath. We leapt on him while he watched them burn, I to the right, Rodrigo to the left, and Ru at the monster’s back.”
“Forgive me, but I must ask if the placement was important to the spell?” Jake said.
“It was,” Ru said.
Rodina continued, “We needed to surround him as much as safely possible so that his larger form was enveloped in the magic. The four in front threw off the burning leather sheets and scattered, because he thought they had used up their shield against his greatest weapon and that his next spout would destroy them, but our claws scored his flesh from three sides simultaneously and for that night they were her claws, filled with her power and magic. He screamed and whirled toward me as I landed on the ground at his feet. I heard the rumble as his body formed the Greek fire, but I was not there when we heard the click and he spewed the fire. It burned and melted the small trees on that side of the cave mouth, but I was safely behind him with Ru.”
“He turned around toward us,” Ru said. “If he’d looked to the other side first he might have caught a glimpse of us running into the forest on the other side.”
“If he didn’t have his fire we could have had him chasing his tail,” Rodina said, “but he was too dangerous to play such games with.”
“The others were shooting arrows into him, to cover our escape,” Ru said.
Rodina added, “If it were possible to fill him full of enough arrows all at once it might kill him, but the number of archers needed to do that when they had to shoot one arrow at a time . . .” She shook her head. “The first archers would hit their mark, but he would use his fire on the rest, those not horribly injured or dead would run, and no one would blame them.”
“I can still hear the sound he made just before he breathed fire as we ran through the trees. I thought he would burn us before we could race clear of him,” Ru said.
“We would have lost one, or all of us, but one of the other Harlequin must have moved and drawn his attention. If it was done to save us, I wish I knew whose name to praise, but I think it was carelessness, or simple bad luck that turned his attention to them and away from us. It gave us enough time to be out of the range for his fire,” Rodina said.
Edward said, “So you could tell us how far away we need to be for safety?”
“Not down to the inch, but yes,” she said.
“Sorry, Jean-Claude, but that was important to ask,” Edward.
“Questions that help us plan are fine,” Jean-Claude said, with no nicknames, no French, just a bare sentence. It almost didn’t sound like him, but Edward was my friend, not his, I guess.
“Before we circled around to the planned vantage point we heard the screaming,” Ru said.
“When we turned, there was a burning figure on the ground at Drakon’s haunches,” Rodina said.
“We saw no other movement even with leopard eyes, so we assumed the others were in hiding, or had run, like we had, far enough to be out of range,” Ru said.
“He bellowed for us to come out and face him, called us cowards and worse,” Rodina said. “I admit to a moment of doubt, and then we saw him shudder from the top of his head, down that snakelike neck, to the heaviness of his body. It made his tail shake among the leaves and small trees with a great, dry sound like some enormous rattlesnake.”
I wanted to ask when she’d seen rattlesnakes since they were a New World snake, but I let it go. It was an idle question and wouldn’t help us defeat Deimos.
“Then he began to fall,” Rodina said, “to shrink until he was human-sized. The magic that our evil queen had put inside us had worked. We started to run toward him, because as long as it lasted he would be unable to become his dragon. We could kill him.”
“But you didn’t kill him,” I said.
“We never got the chance. The three Harlequin who had survived his fire appeared out of the darkness and attacked him. We raced toward them, afraid they would finish him before we could arrive, but we never got close enough to join them. There was a sound like a modern gun, though then we had no idea what it could be. We could not have guessed that it was the shell of the earth itself breaking open.”
“An earthquake, are you saying an earthquake saved Deimos?”
“It didn’t save him, the earth split open underneath him and the three Harlequin.” She shook her head, as if the memory were weighing on her.
Ru said, “We watched our fellow Harlequin try to run to safety, but when the very ground underneath your feet is not to be trusted there is no safety. We watched the first one fall into a great tear in the earth. Deimos didn’t run, he reached his arms toward the heavens and was calling out. We could not hear his words. Then the ground collapsed underneath his feet and he fell into darkness.”
“We think he was calling for Ares to save him,” Rodina said, “but we thought we would never know for certain. I will ask him when we find him.”
“How about we just kill him,” Edward said.
She gave him one of the most disdainful looks I’d ever seen aimed at him. “If that is all we can do, of course, but if we have the opportunity to question him I want to know where he has been all these long years. How he escaped. How he put together the plan to come here to challenge Jean-Claude. He was not a deep thinker, and no amount of time will change that.”
“You think he has an accomplice?” I asked.
“At least one, maybe more.”
“You think he’s found a human servant?” Jake asked.
“I do not know, but if he is here completely on his own, I would be much surprised.”
“Can we ask questions now?” Peter asked.
“If they help us find and destroy our enemy,” Jean-Claude said.
“You talked about a noise that Deimos made before he breathed fire, did he make it every time?”
“Yes,” she said.
Richard said, “You mentioned a rumble in the body when you were right beside him, that was his body getting ready to breathe fire.”
“We did,” she said.
“Did you see anything in his mouth that coincided with the clicking noise?”
“It has been thousands of years since that night, Ulfric.”
“I know it’s asking a lot for you to remember such small details, but I wouldn’t ask you to try if it wasn’t important, Rodina.”
“What are you hoping we will remember?” Ru asked.
I answered, “We’re trying to figure out if we can hit Deimos with modern weapons if the Greek fire will blow all over us and maybe innocent bystanders.”
“How does the clicking noise help you decide that?” Ru asked.
“You also mentioned the body rumbling before he breathed fire,” Richard said.
“I still don’t understand how that will help us decide if modern weapons will be safe against Deimos,” Ru said.
“Antitank weapons especially,” I said.
“If arrows hurt him but didn’t make him leak fire, then how about just modern bullets?” Edward asked.
“Could a sniper take him out from a nice, safe distance?” I asked.
“As long as the head exploding didn’t spew Greek fire all over everything near him,” Edward said.
I looked at Richard. “What do you think?”
“If Deimos’s brother was killed by a boulder smashing his head, then it should work for a sibling who is the same species.”
“His brother was not a fire breather,” Jake said.
We looked at him. “It would have been good to know that up front,” I said.
“That may change his biology so completely that information from the first death doesn’t help us,” Richard said.
“You are right,” he said, “I did not realize how practical your approach would be to the problem of Deimos.”
I frowned at him. “You’ve known me for a few years now, when have I ever not been practical about hunting down and killing monsters? It is one of my jobs.”
“Forgive me for not understanding that we would be using science and modern weapons to solve this problem. When dealing with kings and queens among vampires, it usually devolves to vampiric magic.”
I shook my head. “No reason to use magic if bullets will work.”
“But if we had more information about how he forms the Greek fire internally so that his own body doesn’t get damaged by it, then we might know when best to use the guns, or whatever weapon,” Richard said.
“Deimos breathes fire, it does not harm him,” Rodina said.
“But Greek fire isn’t exactly fire, is it?” Peter asked.
“It burns whatever it touches,” Rodina said, “that is the definition of fire.”
“But it covers things like a thick liquid, right?”
“He’s right,” Ru said.
“It is still fire,” she said.
“What are you trying to get at, Peter?” I asked.
“Does it look like a movie dragon where fire comes out of the mouth like turning on a sink and instead of water it’s fire that pours out?”
“I’m not sure,” Ru said; he looked at Rodina. “Sister?”
“It doesn’t look like a child’s fantasy-story dragon if that’s what you mean,” she said.
I nodded. “I see what you’re getting at, Deimos either has to spit the different components of the Greek fire away from his body so it mixes after it leaves his body, or . . .”
“It’s more spitting, than breathing out,” Ru said.
“Does the fire ever touch him when he’s spitting, or breathing out the fire?” I asked.
“It has to touch him,” Rodina said.
“What does it matter if it touches as he spews it?” Jake asked.
“If the components of Greek fire are inert inside Deimos’s body and only dangerous when they come together just before he spits it out, then I think we can blow him up without triggering the Greek fire,” Richard said.
“How about shooting him?” Edward asked.
“We’d have to shoot him fast and a lot to make sure he dies before he can spit out the Greek fire,” Peter said.
“He’s right,” I said.
“What about a head shot?”
“If you can guarantee that it’s enough damage to qualify as a beheading, it should do it,” I said.
“If he is in human form, then there are those among the Harlequin or among the wererats who could make such a shot, but if he is in dragon form the head is . . .” She seemed to be doing a size comparison in her own head, then spread her hands in front of her like she was measuring a fish she’d caught.
“That’s three or four times longer than a human head,” Jake said.
“The head size doesn’t matter,” Edward said, “the brain size does. Most living animals have a smaller brain per body size than humans do, so the target is either the same or slightly smaller. I don’t have to take the whole head out, just the brain.”
“I’m not as proficient with a long gun as you are, so would you have enough time for a second shot to the base of the skull, or the upper spine, because beheading means the job is done. Shooting the brain is trickier because we won’t know exactly where the brain is sitting in the skull,” I said.
Edward looked at me, Richard, and then Peter. “If you biologists can help me make an educated guess, then we should be able to take him out from a nice, safe distance.”
“I’d rather take his heart, too,” I said.
“We’ll need the best protective suits we can find if we try carving him up like that,” Richard said. He didn’t even call me bloodthirsty or a lover of violence or whatever he used to call me, he was just helping me think it through, that was nice.
“In case we hit pockets of toxic or caustic substances when we’re trying for his heart,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Good thinking.”
“And if you’re wrong and hitting him with a sniper bullet causes him to explode or just spew out Greek fire?” Rodina asked.
“Then we’ll be glad we’re all far enough away that it doesn’t matter,” I said.
“So have we abandoned the LAW for sure?” Edward asked.
“I think so, I just don’t think we can guarantee that it won’t set off some bigger explosion and we’re just not sure what real, original Greek fire does,” I said.
“Good,” he said.
“Because you don’t have any with you,” I said.
He smiled. “Even a federal marshal can’t bring an antitank rocket on board a commercial aircraft.”
“Well, if anyone could figure out how to do it, I was betting on you,” I said.
He gave a nod like a bow of acknowledgment.
“So now we just have to find him, right?” Peter asked.
I nodded, and everyone else agreed.
“We can begin with searching for warehouses that have been rented recently,” Jake said.
“We have no way of knowing how long he’s been in town,” Rodina said. “He could have been scouting for weeks, or months.”
“He had to be here long enough to know that Jean-Claude was at his most vulnerable at Guilty Pleasures tonight,” Wicked said.
“I opened my power up to capture the audience, I did not think that it opened me up to being magically challenged,” Jean-Claude said. I felt the sorrow in his voice; the loss of performing would cost him, because he loved it so much.
“We will find a way that you can perform onstage again,” I said.
“Perhaps the other master vampires are correct, and it is beneath my dignity, and our safety.”
I put my hand on his thigh, feeling the solidness of it underneath the silky robe. I felt his anxiety ease a little just from that. “They’re old fuddy-duddies who wouldn’t know a modern idea if it bit them on the ass.”
He smiled. “Fuddy-duddies?”
“Yes, damn it,” I said, and laughed. “They’ve lived so long apart from the rest of the world that they don’t know what’s possible.”
Richard wrapped his arm more tightly across Jean-Claude’s shoulders. “You love being onstage, you shouldn’t have to give that up.”
“Until Deimos is found and dealt with, perhaps leave the stage to others,” Jake said.
“Of course,” Jean-Claude said.
“That goes without saying,” I said, “we can’t give him any more openings into Jean-Claude’s power like that.”
“And that brings us to you giving your human servant and your moitié bête the fourth mark before dawn,” Jake said.
“You’re pushy, you know that?” I said.
“Only when everything I have worked toward for thousands of years is at stake.”
“Touché, Jake, a fine hit that,” Jean-Claude said. He got to his feet in one of those smooth movements that was all grace and centuries of practice. He turned and held his hands out to Richard and me. “Come, ma petite, mon lupe, we cannot leave it undone, for our enemy will use it as a breach in our castle walls.”
Richard took the offered hand and let the vampire help him to his feet. I stared at the offered hand, then raised my gaze up to the two men. It was still Jean-Claude, but Richard was smiling beside him, smiling like he knew I’d take the hand, like . . . like we were all starting over, and . . . panic, I started to panic. I didn’t try and shield it. Richard’s smile slipped. He said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what else I can say.”
“Ma petite, we are shoring up our defenses tonight, and I would like Richard to sleep on the other side of me in the bed tonight, but that is all until we have time to adjust to the changes.”
I turned to Nathaniel beside me on the couch and stared into his amazing lavender eyes. I felt calmer. Damian leaned over him to take my hand, and I felt icy calm like the world was solid and always would be.
“Wow,” I said, “you’re good.” I stared into his green eyes and felt that pull that vampires have like I could fall forward and be safe and steady forever. It was so tempting in that moment.
“Ma petite.”
I leaned toward Damian, but then Nathaniel was in the way. Once I couldn’t see Damian’s eyes, his hand in mine wasn’t enough to make me lean into it. Damian said, “I’m sorry, that was wrong.”
Nathaniel put his arm around me and put his hand over our clasped hands. “Nothing is going to change except that we add another person to our poly group.”
“How can you say that?” Damian asked. “Jean-Claude and Anita both loved him once. He is the missing piece to their triumvirate. I know how much our triumvirate has meant to me, how much I love you both, and that is all from the vampire marks that bind us together. I am still not attracted to any man but you, and all other women seem frivolous and too soft compared to Anita. I am never happier than when the three of us are together. My favorite nights at work are those when Anita comes to partner me for the dances, or you come to teach modern dances to me and the customers.”
“You are so good at learning the dances, so sexy,” Nathaniel said, smiling and leaning toward the green-eyed vampire. Damian leaned in toward him and their lips met, soft and tender. It filled me up with that happy warmth of knowing they were mine and I was theirs. Nathaniel pulled back from the kiss, and I moved in to take his place, so that Damian startled, eyes flickering open, and then he leaned into the kiss and so did I.
I kissed him long and deep, sliding my tongue between the hard tips of his fangs as he opened his mouth wider for me. Our free arms wrapped around each other, and Nathaniel’s arms held us tighter, so we drew back from the kiss to turn to him. I found his mouth, and Damian found his neck.
Jean-Claude yelled, “Enough!” and thrust his power at us. There was a moment of confusion as I wasn’t sure where I was, or who, or even when Nathaniel whispered through us, Enough. I wrapped myself around Nathaniel, a leg over his thigh; part of me knew I might be flashing the room, but it didn’t bother me enough to shift position. Damian was wrapped on his other side, though he was too tall to have his head on Nathaniel’s shoulder like I did. I looked up at Jean-Claude standing over us and could feel how upset he was, but it slipped away on Nathaniel’s pleasure and Damian’s centuries-old control, though he’d given that up to Nathaniel in that moment. I realized that part of Nathaniel’s strength was that he used the icy control that Damian had built for centuries but was afraid to use now. Nathaniel wasn’t afraid of using anything in that moment.
“Are you challenging me?” Jean-Claude asked, and his voice was more astonished than angry. Richard was at his side, but his face said clearly that he didn’t know what to do in this moment; he was out of his depth already.
“No,” Nathaniel said, and his voice was so certain, there were none of the near-overwhelming sensations that Damian and I were experiencing.
“Then what is this?”
“This is the fourth mark when one of the people isn’t afraid of the power. If I weren’t already engaged to marry Micah, if the three of us weren’t already a happy threesome, this could be it. If I were less moral, I could overwhelm them both.”
“It looks like you already have,” Richard said.
“I let it get out of control to show the two of you what it’s like. I didn’t understand what had happened when I first got control of Anita’s triumvirate. The animal to call isn’t supposed to be able to do this shit. Once I realized what I’d done, I did my best to learn control and not take over Damian especially.” The vampire kissed his cheek, but Nathaniel ignored it and kept talking as if it hadn’t happened. “Anita has you, and her own power as my master, so I probably couldn’t overwhelm her completely, and even now I’m not sure what I did to Damian before I realized that it was me doing it.”
“Richard has come back to me as a lover on his own,” Jean-Claude said.
“That’s good, because if he hadn’t and you were in control of the three of you, he would have given it up to you. By the time I realized that Damian’s consent for a lot of things wasn’t voluntary, it was too late.”
“But it feels so good,” Damian murmured against his face. I was beginning to come out of it, and had moved my one leg off his thigh, but I still wanted to be wrapped to his side with Damian on the other.
“It feels good not to fight or worry or push at it, but just to let go,” I said.
Nathaniel kissed the top of my head, then turned to rub his face against Damian’s cheek. The vampire turned it into a kiss and Nathaniel had to flex power like the sharp tug on a leash. “Not yet, handsome,” he said, and the vampire moved back so that he could talk to them again. I was sitting up a little straighter because I hadn’t liked that tug-on-the-leash feeling.
“Who is going to be in charge of your triumvirate, Jean-Claude?” Nathaniel asked.
“Jean-Claude will be in charge of it,” Jake said.
“Will he? Will you?” Nathaniel asked, looking from him and back to the raven-haired vampire standing over us.
“They don’t want to be evil, and they all see controlling the others as evil,” Rodina said.
Nathaniel glanced at her and nodded.
I sat up a little straighter, pushing so that I wasn’t glued to his side. “If I can’t be in charge of the three of us, I’m not going to work with Jean-Claude any better. I’m so conflicted about Richard showing up like this after so long.”
“But don’t you remember that Richard had his own version of the ardeur briefly in the hotel room in Asheville?” Nathaniel asked.
I nodded. “He wanted me to be in love with just him, monogamous with just him, and if I hadn’t had Jason to do an emergency metaphysical shout-out, Richard might have succeeded.”
“I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, Anita.”
“Just like I didn’t know,” Nathaniel said.
“It’s never happened again, not with anyone,” Richard said.
“But if Jean-Claude gives you both the fourth mark and he’s too conflicted to take charge and so is Anita, wouldn’t it be tempting to roll them both? I think it would have to be both, I don’t think you could do just one, but you might be able to roll them so that it was just the three of you again. You might be able to erase everyone else they love but the three of you.”
“I am more powerful than Damian, by far,” I said.
“You are, but you also have a near phobia of forcing yourself on anyone unless safety and lives are at stake.”
“And might I be tempted to roll over both Richard and Anita and make them mine in a way that ma petite is never quite mine.” Jean-Claude nodded, thinking it over, as I fought to escape whatever Nathaniel had done to me.
“I can tell you it’s fucking tempting to make yourself the adored one,” Nathaniel said.
“I already adored you,” I said as I moved a little away from him on the couch, hoping that would help me clear my head.
“Lucky for me, because if I’d made you love me when you didn’t, you’d have probably killed me to be free of it.”
I wanted to argue, because I loved Nathaniel and had for years, but I thought of all the vampires that had tried to control me over the years, and . . . “If you’d been just someone I knew and had no place in my life, yeah, I would have risked death for all of us rather than stay enslaved.”
“And if I wasn’t a nicer person, a better person, it could be enslavement,” Nathaniel said, and he looked up at them.
“Master vampires are not nice, or the better person,” Rodina said.
“We try to be,” Jean-Claude said.
“Anita is still too conflicted to be in charge; that leaves you or Richard, and you don’t want it to be the Ulfric.”
“You don’t trust me to do what’s best for everyone?” Richard asked.
“I’m happy for your personal growth, and embracing that you’re bisexual for Jean-Claude is a big deal. Congratulations, but breakthroughs aren’t permanent unless you keep doing the work. The fourth mark could give you so much of what you’ve wanted for so long, it’s going to be tempting, like apple-in-the-Garden-of-Eden-level temptation,” Nathaniel said.
“I don’t want to take people over, and especially not Anita when I can feel that she’s not in love with me anymore, in fact she’s pissed at me. If she wakes up tomorrow thinking I’m great, then I’ll know I’m to blame.”
“Maybe not, Jean-Claude’s life would be a lot easier if you and she were in love again.”
“I would never betray us all, and it would be a betrayal,” Jean-Claude said.
I scooted farther toward the end of the couch away from all of them, but mainly Nathaniel. “Don’t ever roll me like that again.”
“I shouldn’t be able to roll you at all,” he said.
“I don’t care, just don’t.”
“Even when we have date night with Damian?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and let it out while I counted slowly, but I had to breathe again, before I counted enough to not be pissed. “Damn it, Nathaniel, I love you, but this is pushing it.”
“Our triumvirate works because I’m in charge of it; I’m careful, but I make it work so that all three of us are happy with it.”
“Nathaniel embracing the power saved your lives in Ireland,” Jake said.
“But it was my necromancy that let us raise an army of ghosts,” I said.
“But it was Nathaniel who bridged the gap between your power and the battery of energy that he and Damian offered you.”
I sat there for a few seconds, sighed, then said, “No, I don’t want you to stop making the triumvirate work with Damian. Part of me hates saying that, but I may never be ready to take charge of it, and I know Damian won’t be.”
“Good, and thank you. I’m sorry this scared you, but I had to make sure Jean-Claude and Richard understood what could go wrong with the fourth mark.”
“Thank you, mon minet, though perhaps I should stop calling you my kitten, for it seems you have become a very grown-up cat.”
“I love it when you call me your kitten, you know that. I don’t want to be one of the big cats, I’m happy being a little one.”
“With the power you have over Anita and Damian, you could be a major player,” Nicky said.
“I don’t want to be a major player; I just want the people I love to be happy and safe.”
“If you wanted to make me refuse to do the fourth mark tonight with them, then you succeeded,” I said.
“No, Anita, the point is you have to do it.” He turned toward me with Damian draping his arms across his shoulders, still drunk on power. “And you have to do it now, before sunrise, because you cannot leave Jean-Claude that vulnerable.”
I shook my head.
“I love you, so much, but if you don’t do the fourth mark then it’s like having a house with an alarm system but you leave the door wide open. All the metaphysical power in the world won’t save us if Deimos or some other vampire gets in through that open door.”
“We would have gone happy to do the fourth mark if you hadn’t done this,” Richard said.
“Anita wouldn’t have.”
I looked down, not wanting to meet anyone’s gaze, but my emotions were so raw it didn’t really matter. I looked up into Richard’s handsome face, but I was strangely alone in my head, and I did not want him. Pretty was as pretty does, and we’d hurt each other too much, too often. I was happy now; my life worked, damn it, and it had never really worked with Richard.
“The fourth mark won’t work if she’s still fighting it,” Nathaniel said.
I looked at him. “You think I’d have said no at the last minute.”
“I’m sorry, but yes.”
I rolled that around in my head, and couldn’t argue with it. “Damn it.”
“Dawn is coming, ma petite, what would you have of me, of us?”
I looked up at one of the loves of my life, my fiancé, and didn’t have a good answer. I looked at Richard standing solemnly at his side, because he didn’t know what to do anymore either. Jesus, Nathaniel, did you have to do it this way?
“If I could have done it differently in time for you to still do the fourth mark tonight before dawn I would have, but you’re a rip-the-bandage-off type of person, you always have been, nothing else works with you.”
I nodded because he was absolutely right on that. I took another deep breath, stood up, and reached my hand out to Jean-Claude, and the other a little slower to Richard. Jean-Claude took my hand immediately with a relieved smile; Richard hesitated, then took the other one. That rush of power as we all touched each other felt like it should blow my hair back from my face.
“Let’s do this.”
“Are you sure, ma petite?”
“That it’s a good idea, no; that we can’t leave the door open for Deimos to walk through tomorrow night, absolutely fucking yes.” I led them toward the far curtains. Ethan and Nicky got ahead to open them for the three of us to go through. Truth, Wicked, Rodina, Ru, and Jake fell into step behind us. They came to protect us in case there were more enemies hidden somewhere, but there was no one in the underground of the Circus for them to fight. There was just the three of us, the two men that I’d loved first, longest, hated, feared, too many emotions to list. Jean-Claude’s hand was cool in mine, as if even the blood he’d taken from Richard earlier had gone to defend us. The fourth mark required him to take blood, so that was fine. Richard’s hand was warm in mine, and he was still gorgeous, and he’d really tried tonight in that beyond-perfect-apology sort of way, but it still felt wrong to be about to get in the shower and bind ourselves even deeper to him. One night of good behavior didn’t fix years of bad. I believed he had changed, but such drastic changes weren’t usually sustainable over time. People gradually reverted back to their “normal.” I had to fight against myself not to revert back to the patterns that left me isolated and miserable. I understood how hard it was to fight the good fight, when old habits, comfortable habits, whispered sweet nothings and tried to destroy your happiness all over again. Could Richard sustain it? Was he strong enough to live his truth outside the Circus, or had he come back only partway? Would he stay closeted both as human and as straight, and would that be enough for Jean-Claude?
“Ma petite, we can hear you.”
“Shit,” I said.
“I understand your doubts, Anita,” Richard said. “You’ve earned them, or I’ve given them to you. I’ve already informed the head of my department that I’m a werewolf.”
I stumbled, because I tried to stop but Jean-Claude kept leading us onward. “Ma petite, questions can be answered as we move toward the showers.”
I kept walking while I said, “What did the head of your department say?”
“He was surprised, but so far I’ve still got a job. I have my doctorate now, so if I get fired I’m more employable somewhere else. I told him how American citizens are signing themselves into government safe houses with promises of being let out once they have control of their Therianthropy, but because they’re never taught any control they never get out, and people have signed their children in without realizing they’d never see them again.”
“If he’s head of your department I’m assuming he’s a biologist and a teacher; how could he not know all this?”
“He believed the government lies that they let out shapeshifters once they can control their beasts. He did know about the children signed in by parents and then they disappear. That’s been all over the news since the school here has been so successful. I told him I wanted to help more with kids in other states both as a teacher and to show them that they can have a good life, that testing hot for Therianthropy wasn’t the end for them. He understood that, even agreed with it.”
“You helped us come up with some of the plans for the school here in Missouri,” a woman’s voice said from farther down the hallway. I turned to find Angel stalking down the hallway dressed in a red nightie that just emphasized all her luscious curves. She was one of the few shapeshifters I knew who preferred to sleep in nightclothes—the fact that her choices ran very high to lingerie was just a bonus. With her hair finally gone back to its natural pale blond she looked more like a 1950s sex symbol than the next victim in a 1970s vampire movie.
“You look good enough to eat,” I said.
“Delectable,” Jean-Claude said.
“I was going to say something polite and businessy, but I can’t remember what it was now,” Richard said.
Angel gave us the smile that went with the outfit. She liked attention paid to her when she was dressed in her daytime rockabilly Goth, or lingerie like now. If she was wearing business attire as a social worker she dressed so conservatively that it was like she was in hiding. “Congratulations on your doctorate, Richard.”
He looked startled, as if he hadn’t expected her to talk to him first. “Um, thank you.”
“You hadn’t gotten it the last time we spoke,” she added, and though her smile and body language said sexy as hell, her voice could have been in a business meeting. She did that at will, and seemingly without effort, so she could be doing God knew what on the other end of the phone, but you’d never know it by her voice.
“No, I hadn’t.”
“I don’t blame you for waiting to come out until you got it,” she said, one hand on her hip. “It was hard enough to get my master’s in social work. I wouldn’t have wanted to get kicked out of the program just before I finally got a doctorate.”
“That’s one reason I waited,” he said, “but ‘Doctor’ in front of your name impresses people, even if it’s not medical. I think if more of us who are professional come out as shapeshifters it will help people realize that we can live normal lives, good lives.”
We’d stopped moving as we got closer to her, and Jean-Claude said, “Let us greet our delectable Angel and then we must move with purpose to shower and finish the fourth mark before I am lost for the day.”
I let go of their hands to move toward her, but the moment I let go it was like all the stress and strain of the night caught up with me and all I wanted to do was sleep. I reached back for them, and they were already reaching for me. “What was that?” I asked.
“It is as if our enemy knows that we are about to close the door he used to enter us,” Jean-Claude said.
“You mean he’s trying to drain us now? How is he getting through to here?” I asked.
“I do not know, ma petite.”
“Then kiss us quick and do the fourth mark,” Angel said.
It took me a second to parse the us and then I felt Mephistopheles, my Devil, Dev, before I heard his voice say, “I was going to be sexy or pouty about you bringing another man into our bed without talking to me first, but I felt that drain on your power.” Then I saw all blond, golden-tanned, six-foot-three of him coming down the hallway toward us. The only thing that marred the usual view was a pair of silky brown jammie shorts that clung to his groin so that I wasn’t sure it actually hid anything, so much as emphasized it like good lingerie is supposed to. It made me wonder if he’d had a date with Asher interrupted, since the vampire had a thing for brown silks and satins. His thought in my head was no, they were just the only pajamas he owned. He said out loud, “You must finish the marks tonight, as much as I hate it.” That model-perfect face was as serious and unhappy as I’d seen it in a while. It almost didn’t sound like him.
I looked at Angel for an explanation, because she wasn’t just another gold tiger, she was his sister. She gave me a look like I should have known exactly what was wrong; since we’d started dating I had had that look aimed at me more than once, but like all people who date beautiful women I had no clue what it meant most of the time.
I tried to read his thoughts again, but he thought loudly and clearly, “Please don’t push, I’m shielding for a reason.” I backed off, because that was our agreement with anyone we were psychically tied to; reading minds, like touching bodies, was by consent only. Sometimes strong emotions or thoughts would leak by accident like hearing a fight in another room, but short of that, consent was everything.
Angel rolled her eyes at me but came closer for a kiss. “Keep touching the men, I’ll do all the work,” she said with a smile that was flirtatious, with that touch of evil in the corner of her lips where she could quirk the smile up and show a small dimple like a period at the end of some sexy comment, except this comment curved with her full lower lip. Without the lipstick she normally wore her upper lip looked thinner, but her bottom lip was lush with or without lipstick.
I tightened my handholds on Jean-Claude and Richard as I moved toward Angel. She leaned down to meet me; her hands caressed my cheeks until she cupped my face between her hands. She kissed me softly but thoroughly, until my eyes closed, and I leaned into her. She wrapped herself around me and I tried to free my arms to hold her, but Jean-Claude and Richard held my hands tighter, which was just enough bondage to make me kiss her harder with tongue and teeth, pressing my body against hers. She returned the favor, and we must have gotten a little vigorous, because the men’s hands tightened around mine, so that I pulled against them not because I wanted them to let go, but because I couldn’t not struggle at least a little. It fed into the kiss, until when Angel pulled away she was breathless and so was I.
She was half laughing as she said, “If we had time I’d make you suck my breasts.”
I laughed back, still pulling at the men’s arms, but in that moment my attention was all for the woman in front of me. “You don’t have to make me do it.”
“I want to be the wicked lesbian forcing the straight girl to experiment while the men hold you down so they can watch.”
“No, our tigress, you know that watching alone does not please me,” Jean-Claude said.
She grinned at him, mouth wide enough to show teeth, her eyes sparkling and eager. “Watch until it’s time for you to join us, maybe.”
“Much better, my tigress.”
“Wouldn’t that make you the wicked bisexual?” I asked.
“True, but in porn the fantasy is always the lesbian gets carried away and one good fuck makes her at least bi. It’s not true, but for building fantasies it works,” she said.
“You do enjoy role-play,” I said.
“I do,” she said, looking very pleased with herself.
I felt Richard’s thoughts scramble as he tried to decide what to ask, or if he should say anything. Was he allowed, was he invited, was he just supposed to shut up and let it play out? How did he get consent without seeming pushy? How would I feel about it? How would Jean-Claude? He’d been so controlled, but now his emotions opened him up. I didn’t blame him on this one.
I looked back over my shoulder and found that his face showed almost nothing of his confusion; good for him, it would have shown on my face. “It’s okay, Richard,” I said, then looked back to Angel. “Richard doesn’t want to take anything for granted, but he’s wondering if he’s included in this scenario?”
She looked at him, up and down like she was considering every inch that she could see, and some she couldn’t. She met my eyes with a very serious face. “You know my taste in men, what do you think?”
“I think you’ll like each other, and this scenario will work for all of us.”
She smiled and it filled her eyes with that joyous mischief that she had so often when she wasn’t working. “Then yes, he’s invited.”
I heard Richard swallow behind me, either clearing his throat or just figuring out what to say. He settled for “Thank you, I look forward to accepting the invitation another night.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, and winked at me before she sashayed to Jean-Claude. “Your turn.”
“Let me officially introduce you to our third,” he said, and I would have watched Angel and Richard meet, but Dev was in front of me, handsome face so serious.
“Is it my turn?” he asked. The need in his eyes was raw, but it wasn’t lust, it was something more complicated than that. “Don’t try and read me right now, Anita, please.”
“Okay, then kiss me, you handsome devil.”
He smiled and leaned down to put his lips against mine.