“Feed,” I said, and it was Jean-Claude’s words. But it was my hand that swept my hair to the side and bared my neck to him.
He grabbed me, his hands digging into my shoulders. I saw his head coming forward, but the rest was lost to my sight. He bit me. Sudden, hard, fangs tearing my flesh. I yelled, because it hurt. There was no mind trick or sex to soften it. It just hurt.
I heard a startled male voice in the direction of the closest door. “Shit, another one!”
“She volunteered,” Smith said, “to save his life.”
“He’s a fucking corpse, you can’t save his life.”
“Marshal Blake made the decision, Roarke, go back to the others.”
“Shit,” he said again.
I couldn’t say anything, couldn’t help explain. My hands were on Truth’s arms. I think I was going to start struggling. It just fucking hurt.
Jean-Claude was there, harder in my head. “Relax, ma petite, do not fight him.”
“I’m not fighting,” I thought.
“Yes, you are. You are fighting his powers, you must lower your shields not just between yourself and me, but between him and yourself. Quickly, ma petite, quickly, or we will lose him.”
I dropped my shields, the ones that kept out all the other vamps.
The ones that were so automatic that I didn’t usually notice them. The shields that I had naturally as a necromancer. They fell down, and suddenly… it didn’t hurt anymore.
It was like suddenly being thrown into that part of sex where pain is pleasure, where the bite that you’d have slugged someone for is just the best thing you’ve ever felt.
I’d let him feed on my neck, but I’d been straining away from him, now I relaxed into him. It was like melting into a kiss that caught you off-guard, and suddenly you give in to it. You stop thinking it to death, and just let it be.
I gave myself to the feel of his mouth on my neck, the strength of his hands on my back, the press of his body against mine. His hand slid lower, down to my lower back, and farther, so that he cupped my ass. He pressed us together, bowing his neck and shoulders to keep his mouth sealed to my neck, and pressed our lower bodies tight against one another. Tight enough that I could feel him hard and thick against the front of his body.
I’d lowered my shields, all my shields. The only miracle had been that theardeur hadn’t tried to rise sooner. But it rose now, rose with the press of his body, the sucking of his mouth. Rose through my body, across my skin and into him.
He drew back from my neck with an exclamation, “Mother of Darkness save us, it’s Belle Morte!”
I met that wide-eyed gaze. His eyes were bluer now than they had been, or seemed so. “Not Belle, Truth, just me, just Jean-Claude, just us.” I whispered the last against his lips. Theardeur wanted me to kiss him, to press our mouths together and feed, energy for energy. I spoke with my mouth almost touching his, “Jean-Claude, help me, help me put the genie back in the bottle. Help me stop this.”
“If I help you shield, theardeur may spread here in the club, where I am.”
“Then feed like you did last night. Feed on the willing, but let this cup pass me by tonight. I need to catch a murderer, not fuck everyone we bring over.”
“Help us,” Truth said, “help us, master.”
I felt Jean-Claude’s surprise thrill along my skin, as if curiosity was a touch. “Does he want to stop?” His question came out of my mouth, in my voice.
“Yes,” Truth breathed it against my lips, so that I could smell my blood on his breath, “yes, help us stop this.”
“Why?” Jean-Claude asked.
This question I stopped, because I’d had enough. “Satisfy your curiosity about him later, Jean-Claude. I’ve got police waiting in the other room. I need this over with.”
“Very well, ma petite. ” It wasn’t like he reached out to me, he was already in me almost as deep as he could go. Butreaching was the only word I had for it. He didn’t shield me or Truth. He didn’t shield anything or anyone. He took theardeur that was rising in us, and did two things at once. He swallowed theardeur, and he shut down the link between him and me, tight and final, like slamming a door between us.
I was left alone pressed against Truth’s body, our faces still inches apart, but suddenly it was just us. We both let out a breath in shaking unison, as if we’d both been holding our breath.
He moved his arms away, so I could get out of his lap. There was no teasing, no sense of loss from him at the touch of theardeur and its going away. He seemed as relieved as I did. If I’d had time and could have figured out a way to ask why he was relieved, without sounding like my pride was hurt, I would have. But I had work to do, so I stood up and swayed, and only Truth’s hand on my arm kept me from bumping a wall.
“Are you alright?” Smith and Wicked asked at the same time. Smith glared at the vampire, but Wicked’s face was neutrally handsome.
“Just been donating a little too much blood lately. I’m fine.” To prove it, I stepped back from Truth’s hand. I took a few deep breaths, and I was steady. But I was really going to have to see if I could go at least a night without opening a vein.
“I felt your master’s power,” Wicked said. “My brother is bound to him, but I am not. You promised you would take us both.”
“I will, Jean-Claude will, but not tonight. This blood bank is closed for the night.”
Wicked gave me a look that said he neither believed nor trusted me. His brother was simply standing beside him, as if he’d levitated to his feet. Maybe he had. He hugged Wicked one-armed across the shoulders. “She’ll do what she promised.” Truth was smiling.
“Why, because she helped you fight off theardeur?”
“Partly.”
Wicked shook his head. “You must be even better than that felt, for Truth to trust you this much.”
“I saved his life, that tends to impress people.”
“Not him, not Truth.”
“Fine, but I’ve got to go question a murder suspect, right now.”
“We’ll go with you,” Truth said.
“Sorry, police business. Thanks for trying to catch the bad guy.”
“Your power called to us when you touched Avery,” Truth said.
“So when I said, catch him, you had to do it?”
They both nodded.
“Sorry about that.”
“I’m not,” Truth said.
Wicked gave me another cynical look. “I’ll let you know. I’m not sorry, yet.”
“Look, I give you my word that as soon as humanly possible I will give you to Jean-Claude.”
“Give me?”
I frowned. “I give my word that as soon as humanly possible I will see that you will be bound to our Master of the City, good enough?”
“Promise me that you will bind me as you bound my brother.”
“I just did.”
“No, you didn’t. For all I know you could pass me off to someone else in your master’s household. My brother and I go together. To go together, we must go in the same way.”
I wished I’d had Jean-Claude to ask, was there a problem with this promise, but he was busy making all the customers at Guilty Pleasures happy. I thought about what he’d asked, and I couldn’t see the problem with it, so, I said, “Okay, I promise that I’ll bind you like I did your brother. Happy now?”
He gave a small nod, with an even smaller smile.
“Then leave a card or number at one of Jean-Claude’s clubs, and we’ll arrange another meeting.”
“We’ll be there,” Wicked said.
“Yes,” Truth said, “yes, we will be there.”
I turned toward the door and the other room. Smith came at my back. I reached my hand out to him. “Gun,” I said.
He handed me my gun. I holstered it and kept walking toward the other room and the waiting bad guy and police. I had a vague feeling that I’d missed something just now with Wicked and Truth. “The Wicked Truth” Jean-Claude had called them, why? Just because they killed their bloodline? Or had I missed something. Something I’d regret missing later. I ran it over in my head, and all I had promised was to let Wicked take my blood and bind himself to Jean-Claude and me.