"Why Asher left her side, of course."
Asher moved up closer, though still keeping a much greater distance between himself and Musette than the rest of us. "I did not leave her side," he said, "Belle Morte had not touched me in centuries. She would not even watch entertainments where I was… featured. She said I offended her eye."
"It is her prerogative to do with her people as she sees fit," Musette said.
"True," Asher said, "but she bid me come to America with Yvette as my overseer. Yvette died, and I had no more orders."
"And if our mistress ordered you home?"
Silence, ours this time.
Asher's face was as empty of emotion as Jean-Claude's. Whatever he felt was hidden, but the very blankness of both their faces said that it did matter, and it was important.
"Belle Morte encourages her people to strike out on their own," Jean-Claude said. "It is one of the reasons her bloodline rules more territories than any other, especially here in the United States."
Musette turned those beautiful pitiless eyes on him. "But Asher did not leave to become a Master of the City, he left to have revenge on you and your human servant. He wanted to extract payment for his beloved Julianna's death."
See, she had known the name all along.
"Yet, here your servant stands, strong, well, and unharmed. Where is your vengeance, Asher? Where is the price Jean-Claude was to pay for his murder of your servant?"
Asher seemed to close in upon himself, so very, very still. I thought if I blinked, he'd have vanished altogether. His voice came distant, empty. "I found that, perhaps, I had blamed Jean-Claude in error. That, perhaps, he too mourned her loss."
"So," she snapped her fingers, "like that, all your pain, your hatred is forgotten."
"Not just like that, non, but I have learned many things that I had forgotten."
"Such as the sweet touch of Jean-Claude's body?" she asked.
The silence this time was so thick I could hear my blood roaring in my ears. Damian felt like a ghost against my body. All the vampires, I was sure, were wishing themselves away.
Either Jean-Claude and Asher had been doing it behind my back. Which was not impossible. But if not, to answer the question truthfully would be bad.
Jason caught my eye, but neither of us dared even shrug. I don't think we were sure what was going on, but that it would end some place painful was almost certain.
Musette swayed around Jean-Claude, to stand closer to Asher. "Are you and Jean-Claude a happy couple, once more, or," here she looked at me, "is it a happy ménage а trois? Is that why you did not come home?" She pushed past Asher and Jean-Claude, making them move back, so she could stand in front of me. "How can the touch of such as this compare to the magnificence of our mistress?"
I think she'd just implied that I wasn't as good in bed as Belle Morte, but I wasn't entirely sure that's what she meant, and I didn't care. She could insult me all she wanted. Insulting me was less painful than so many other things she could be doing.
"Belle Morte is sickened at the sight of me," Asher said, finally, "she avoids me in all things." He motioned at the painting that Angelito was still holding up. "This is how she sees me. How she will always see me."
Musette swayed her way back to stand in front of Asher. "To be least among her court is better than ruling anywhere else."
I couldn't help myself. "Are you saying it's better to serve in Heaven than rule in Hell?"
She nodded, smiling, seemingly oblivious to the literary allusion. "Oui, precisement. Our mistress is the sun, the moon, the all. To be parted from her, only that is true death."
Musette's face was rapturous, glowing with that inner certainty usually reserved for Holy Rollers and television evangelists. She was, indeed, a true believer.
I couldn't see Damian's face, but I was betting it was as carefully blank as the rest. Jason was staring at Musette as if she had sprouted a second head, an ugly, spiky second head. She was a zealot, and zealots are never quite sane.
She turned to Asher with that radiance still suffusing her face. "Our mistress does not understand why you left her, Asher."
I did. I think everyone in the room did, except maybe for Angelito and the girl who was still standing on the other side of the couch where Musette had put her.
"Look at the painting of me as Vulcan, Musette, see what our mistress thinks of me."
Musette didn't bother to look behind her. She gave that Gallic shrug that meant everything and nothing.
"Anita does not see me that way," he said.
"Jean-Claude cannot look at you without seeing what was lost," she said.
"The time when you could speak for me, Musette, is long past. You do not know my heart, or my mind, you never truly did," Jean-Claude said.
She turned to him. "Are you truly telling me that you would touch him, as he is now? Be careful how you answer, Jean-Claude, know that our mistress has seen deep into your heart and mind. You may lie to me, but never to her."
Jean-Claude was quiet for a time, but finally he told the truth. "We are not currently together in that way."
"See, you refuse to touch him, as she refuses to touch him."
I loosened Damian's arms enough so I could move more easily. "Not exactly," I said, "sorry, but it's my fault that they aren't a couple."
She turned to me. "What do you mean, servant?"
"You know, even if I was, like a maid, I know enough about polite society to know that you don't call a maid, simply, maid. You don't call a servant, servant, not unless you truly have never interacted with servants." I folded my arms across my stomach, looking puzzled on purpose. Damian's hands stayed lightly on my shoulders. "Is that it, Musette? Are you not an aristocrat, after all? Is it all pretend, and you simply don't know any better?"
Jean-Claude gave me a look that she couldn't see.
"How dare you!" Musette said.
"Then prove you are noble, address me at least like someone who has truly had servants."
She opened her mouth to argue, then she seemed to hear something that I couldn't hear. She let out a long breath. "As you like, Blake, then."
"Blake is fine," I said, "and what I mean is that I'm not entirely comfortable with this bisexual thing. I won't share Jean-Claude with another woman, and definitely not with a man."
Musette did that head to the side movement again, as if she'd spied the worm she intended to eat. "Very good, then Asher has no tie to any of you. He is merely your second."
I looked from one vampire to another, only Jason looked as confused as I felt. The vamps were acting like a trap had been sprung, and I didn't see it yet. "What's going on?" I asked.
Musette laughed, and it wasn't anywhere near as good a laugh as Jean-Claude or Asher were capable of. It was just a laugh, a vaguely unpleasant one, at that. "I am within my rights to ask for him as my gift for tonight," she said.
"Wait," I said, and Damian's hands tried to pull me back in against him, but I wasn't moving this time. "I thought you agreed with Belle that Asher isn't pretty enough to have sex with anymore."
"Whoever said anything about sex?" Musette asked.
Now I really was puzzled. "Why else would you want him for the night?"
She laughed then, head back, very unladylike, a bray of sound like a hound baying. I hadn't said anything that funny, had I?
Jean-Claude's quiet voice came into the silence that followed that laugh. "Musette's interests run to pain more than sex, ma petite.»
I looked at him. "You don't mean dominance and submission where you have safe words, do you?"
"There is no word in any language that I have ever heard screamed that would dissuade Musette from her pleasures."