"Well," he said, "you don't watch me like that."
"I don't watch anybody like that," Cherry said.
Zane grinned at her. "I know."
They had one of those laughs that is a couple laugh, and you know that you are on the outside of an inside joke. Zane was right about one thing, I was delaying. It wasn't until I tried getting out of bed that I realized I was still naked. I'd sort of known that, but in a distant, floaty kind of way.
"I need clothes," I said.
Micah had pulled a polo shirt out of the communal drawer. It was one I'd bought with him in mind, a deep rich forest green. It brought out the green in his eyes. But the shirt fit both of us, as most of our shirts did. Our casual clothes had become common property-only the dress-up clothes were strictly his and hers.
Micah didn't so much make me lie back down, as touch my shoulder so I'd stop trying to sit up. I didn't seem to be coordinated enough to sit up in bed, keep the sheet over my breasts, and chew gum at the same time. It was as if my body just wasn't listening to me yet.
"Anita, if you don't rest you're not going to be any good to anyone."
"Gregory's my leopard, I'm his Nimir-Ra."
Micah smoothed his hand down the side of my face. "And I'm his Nimir-Raj. Go back to sleep. I'll take care of it, that's what you hired me for, right?"
I had to smile at him, but I didn't like not going to Gregory's rescue. It must have shown on my face, because he knelt beside the bed, taking my hand in his. "Gregory is having hysterics because his father's in town. I'm going to go and see how he's doing, maybe bring him back here so his father can't find him through the phone book."
I was having trouble focusing on Micah's face. I'd crawled out of sleep, but it was sucking at me again. "Yes," I said, voice starting to sound distant, even to me, "bring him back here."
He kissed me gently on the forehead, my hand still in his. "I will. Now sleep, or you're going to make yourself sick. A sick Nimir-Ra can't protect anybody."
Since I couldn't keep my eyes from giving long blinks, it was hard to argue. Him kissing my hand was the first hint I had that he'd stood up. That had been a long blink.
The bed moved, and Nathaniel cuddled up against me. His arm across my stomach, one leg across my thigh. It was one of his favorite sleeping positions, but something wasn't right with it. "Clothes," I said, and I frowned harder, "Can't feed off Nathaniel again."
Micah reappeared in my line of sight. "You've only been asleep about two hours, that's why you're so tired. If you fed the ardeur at dawn, you've got at least six hours before you need to feed again. We're just putting him in here so he won't be alone."
The last few words floated out of the dark, and it wasn't until he'd been quiet for a long time that I opened my eyes to an empty room. Nathaniel was tucked in against me, his face hidden against my shoulder. He snuggled in tighter, leaving me with about an inch of bed to spare. I started to move him over and get out of bed to find the pajamas no one had given me, but I fell back to sleep. The wereleopards were having a bad influence on how comfortable I was being nude.
24
I dreamed. Belle Morte sat at her dressing table, her long black hair fell in waves, freshly brushed, gleaming in the candlelight. She wore a gown of deep yellow gold, and I knew before she turned those honey brown eyes to me that the color of the robe brought out the gold in them.
Her lips were red and moist, as if she'd just licked them. She held out her white hand towards me. "Come, ma petite, come, sit with me." She smiled with that red, red mouth, and I wanted nothing more than to go to her, to take that outstretched hand, and be held.
I actually started forward a step and found I was wearing a gown similar to hers. I could feel the layers of petticoats, the metal of the stays digging in, forcing my posture absolutely straight. The gown was a rich crimson, a color that made my own skin gleam white, my hair blacker for the contrast, my own lips redder than they truly were, my dark eyes nearly black.
I touched the unfamiliar clothes, and it helped me to think, helped me to hesitate. I shook my head. "No," and my whisper echoed oddly through the room.
She waved that pale hand at me. "As you like, ma petite, but come closer, so I may know you better."
I shook my head again, forcing my fingers to touch the heavy, unfamiliar fabric of the gown. "I am not your ma petite."
"Of course you are, for everything that belongs to Jean-Claude is mine."
"No," I said. It seemed like I should have been saying more, but I couldn't think with her sitting there wrapped in candlelight, a bowl of old-fashioned roses on the table by her elbow. The roses were her rose, created and named for her centuries ago.
She stood in a swish of skirts, that rustling sound that made my pulse beat faster, and my body tighten. Run, run, I screamed it in my head, but my body wasn't moving.
She walked slowly towards me, her breasts mounded by the tight clothing. I had a sudden flash of memory of what it was like to kiss along that gleaming skin.
I took two handfuls of the long skirt, turned on my high-heeled shoes, and ran. The room vanished as I ran, and it was a long, endlessly long corridor that I ran down. It was dark, but it was the dark of dreams where even without light you could always see the monsters. Though what lurked in the alcoves along the hallway weren't exactly monsters.
Couples entwined on either side of me. Glimpses of flesh, pale and dark, images of carnal delights. I didn't see anything clearly, I didn't want to. I ran, and tried not to see, but of course, I couldn't not see everything. Breasts like ripe fruit spilling out of old-fashioned dresses. Full skirts lifted to prove that there was nothing underneath but flesh. A man with his pants around his thighs, and a woman bending over him. Blood gleamed down the pale flesh, vampires raised fangs to the light, and humans clung to them, begging for more.
I ran faster, and faster, struggling against the heavy skirts and the tight upright corset. It was hard to breathe, hard to move, and no matter how fast I ran, the door that I could see at the end of all these carnal nightmares never seemed to get closer.
There was nothing too terribly frightening happening in the alcoves. Nothing I hadn't either seen or participated in, in one form or another, but somehow I knew that if I stopped running they'd get me. And, more than anything else, I didn't want them to touch me.
The door was suddenly in front of me. I grabbed the handle, tugged on it, and it was locked. Of course it was locked. I screamed, and knew before I turned around that the things in the corridor weren't in the alcoves anymore.
Belle's voice, "Come to me willingly, ma petite."
I put my forehead against the door, eyes closed, as if, if I didn't turn around, didn't see them, they couldn't get me. "Stop calling me that."
She laughed, and it felt like sex sliding along my skin. Jean-Claude's laugh was amazing, but this, this... the sound made me spasm against the hard wood and metal of the door.
"You will feed us, ma petite. It will happen, your choice is only in how."
I turned slowly, the way you do in nightmares. You turn, knowing that the hot breath on your skin really is the monster.
Belle Morte stood in the center of the vast echoing space of the corridor, and through Jean-Claude's memories I knew it was a real place, this corridor. The people from the alcoves crowded to either side of her and behind her, a huge, hungry-eyed, half-naked mob.
"I offer you my hand, come, take it, and it will be pleasure beyond your dreams. Refuse me..." she motioned, and that one small movement seemed to take in all the eager, leering faces. "It can be a dream, or a nightmare. The choice is yours."
I shook my head. "You don't give choices, Belle, you never did."