Anita Blake 24 - Dead Ice (62 page)

“Maybe, or maybe we could both learn a few new tricks, cupcake.” He sounded tired as he said it, so the teasing was softened.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. “Okay, angel, show me a new trick.”

“Am I your angel?”

“A fallen one, maybe,” I said.

He smiled, sudden and happy. “Say it.”

“Say what?” I asked.

“Your nickname for me.”

“Angel?” I made it a question.

“Not quite,” he said, moving around in the covers so that they started sliding below his waist.

“
Ma petite
, think upon the last few minutes and you will know what he wants you to call him.”

I thought, and was about to ask for more of a clue, when I got it, or thought I got it. “Fallen angel, you’re my fallen angel.”

“I like it,” he said, and used one hand to jerk the covers off him and out of my hands, so that both of us were suddenly exposed. Narcissus lay back smirking, revealed in all his glory, fallen or otherwise.

J
UST LYING THERE
on the bed, legs together, he didn’t look that different from most men. If I’d seen him nude in the locker room, I’d have just kept walking past him, but I wasn’t supposed to keep moving past; I was supposed to do a hell of a lot more than just look at him. It was a little like going into the produce section and fondling the fruit and veggies; was it ripe, would it be sweet, was it too soft, too ripe, firm enough, but not too firm? Except this veg was looking back at me with serious attitude.

“Well?” he said, and that one word was so defiant that it instantly made me want to snap back.

Jean-Claude touched my shoulder. “Do not let his defiance bring your own,
ma petite
.”

I looked at him, sighed, and turned back to Narcissus. He was almost glaring at me now. I wasn’t sure if it was Jean-Claude’s thought or mine, but I realized that the other man was so sure I’d reject him that he was trying to give me a reason to do it that wouldn’t be about his physicality. It was like someone who is so used to being made fun of that they say the mean things first, try to make it their joke, so the bullies don’t get a chance to cut them up. It works, in a way, but it means the person saying the words internalizes the message more, because they’re the ones saying
stupid, clumsy, fat, ugly
—whatever the bullies might say.

I counted to ten and spoke, looking into those angry eyes. “You don’t look that different from most guys.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Lying bitch, you’re staring at my face so hard, just so you don’t have to see it!”

“Look, angel cakes,” I said, almost snarling back at him, “I’m giving you eye contact, because when I’m naked in a bed for the first time with someone I like them to talk to my face, not my body parts. I get sort of pissy at anyone who talks to my breasts. I’d probably hit them in the face if they talked to my groin instead of my face.”

He watched my face, eyes glitteringly angry, but his face relaxed a little.

“Now, if you want me to just talk into your penis like a fucking microphone, ya gotta tell a girl, because that’s a request I haven’t had before.”

He smiled as if I’d surprised him, and he hadn’t expected to be amused. “Not one of my kinks, cupcake, but if you like eye contact when we talk, that’s cool.”

“Good, because I do.”

“
Ma petite
is almost aggressive in her eye contact.”

Narcissus looked up at Jean-Claude. “It’s a dominance thing, I get that. If I look away then she wins, like a blinking contest.”

“I was raised that you look someone in the face when you talk to them. It’s just polite,” I said. I crossed my arms under my breasts, because without something to hold them out of the way, crossing my arms over them was too awkward.

He smiled again. “I’ll bet whoever taught you that is aggressive.”

I tried to think if Grandmother Blake was aggressive, and finally said, “Unpleasant, but I’d have to think on aggressive.”

He smiled more, and turned to Jean-Claude. “Does she always do that?”

“Do what?” I asked.

“You listened to me, thought about what I’d said, and actually answered the question.”

I frowned. “Wasn’t I supposed to?”

He looked at Jean-Claude. “Is she always so . . . earnest?” he asked.

“I am not earnest.”

“Actually,
ma petite
, I think it is a very good word for you, but you will have to leave soon for your work, and earnestness takes time.”

Narcissus said, “I will respect that we sprang this on you today, Anita, but never tell me again that I look like all other men. A lie that big . . . just don’t, okay, just don’t.”

I nodded. “I honestly was expecting more visual difference, so I didn’t lie.”

“I have only one ball, and it’s more to the side than below, and my penis is lower on the body than any man you’ve ever been with, and between my legs is an opening like yours.”

“Well, that is different.”

“Different, she says. The only reason I still have a dick and an opening is that my penis was large enough that the doctors and my father didn’t want to cut it off at birth and make me a girl, and my mom got pissed that they were going to sew up my vagina, so they waited to decide what to do. They were stubborn enough to get an intersexed baby out of the hospital with no surgeries thirty years ago, unheard of. They listed me as a boy, raised me as a boy.”

“Was that what you wanted to be raised as?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes, I was a boy, a gay boy, and I grew into being a gay man, who occasionally cross-dresses, and I like lovers who pay attention to all my parts, but yes, I feel and think male. I’m just gay and male, but I think I’d have been that no matter what my junk looked like.”

“We’re talking this to death instead of getting up close and personal, because you don’t want me, because I’m a woman, and you don’t do women. You and I were getting along better before Jean-Claude came into the room, because once you saw him you knew what you wanted and it’s not me.”

“But he can’t make me his hyena to call, and you can.”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason to tie ourselves together for all eternity, when we don’t really like each other. I’ve done the whole hate-you-love-you-lust-you with Richard, and you and I wouldn’t even have the lust going for us.”

“The
ardeur
would force it upon you both,
ma petite
.”

I looked at Jean-Claude. “I don’t want it forced anymore. I don’t want to tie myself to someone else that I know isn’t a good match for me, and watch the
ardeur
change them into something that fits, or make me fit them more.”

“Do you believe that is what is happening?” he asked.

“Maybe. I know that Micah and I become more perfectly matched; Nathaniel, too. I think the magic is changing all of us.”

“Couples do that on their own, Anita,” Narcissus said.

“I’ve never had a long-term relationship, outside of Jean-Claude and everyone in my life now.”

Narcissus propped himself up on his elbow and looked at me. “Really, Jean-Claude is your first serious guy?”

“Him and Richard, yeah. Before them it was like six months and then broken up.”

He looked at me, face serious, showing me the mind that had built his group into one to be reckoned with; he was a lot smarter and wiser than he let on most of the time. “You did jump into the deep end of the dating pool, cupcake.”

“Whatever, we’re here now, and you and I don’t like each other that much. We might be work friends, and that would be it.”

“Yes, but I’m willing to let the
ardeur
take away all my doubts for a chance to be tied to the throne, because that’s what Jean-Claude offered if I spared Kane’s life and didn’t risk killing Asher when his hyena to call died.”

I shook my head. “You aren’t going to kill Kane,” I said.

“Why not?” He lay back on the bed, smiling like a cat who’d gotten into the cream.

“If Jean-Claude were just the local Master of the City, and I were just his human servant, then yeah, we’d have to do something to placate you, but Jean-Claude is king of all the vampires in this country. He’s the first king of America, and I’m not just his human servant, I’m a necromancer and I’m the Executioner. That nickname was earned from the vampires long before I got a badge and became a marshal.”

“What has any of that to do with me and my small army of hyenas?”

“You don’t get to come in here and blackmail our asses into an alliance that gains you a hell of a lot more than it gains us. If we put the word out that I’m looking to tie us to a really powerful hyena, there are cities in this country where the hyenas are the major animal power. They’re bigger and have a hell of a lot more foot soldiers than you do.”

“But they’re not here, I am.”

“Jean-Claude is king of all of it, from sea to shining sea, which means he could just negotiate them coming here and slaughtering you all, or we could just give you the choice of getting the fuck out of our immediate area, because you are a disruptive influence on the peace and power base we have built.”

“And what of your precious Asher?” he asked, and there was no teasing now.

“His death won’t hurt our power base; in fact, he’s a deficit, not an asset, politically.”

“So I can kill him, just like that.”

“No,” Jean-Claude said finally, “no, you cannot.”

I looked at him. “Jean-Claude, we are not going to tie ourselves to Narcissus just because Asher is being a shit again.”

“We will not watch him be killed.”

“No, but we don’t have to bargain like we are still just squabbling over the local territory. Narcissus is powerful here, but outside of here he’s nothing. Rafael, even the swan king, they have ties across the country, people across the country to feed on—they are truly fellow kings. Narcissus is not.”

“I will kill Kane,” he said, still lying there, but now it wasn’t sexy, or flirty. He was very serious, eyes watching me carefully.

“And that may kill Asher,” I said.

“I will not . . .” Jean-Claude started to say.

I touched his lips with my fingers. “You cannot sell us down the river for Asher’s mistake. I love the little shit, too, but that he made Kane his hyena to call without consulting you first says that he has no respect for you as his ruler. He counted on your love and mine, and even Narcissus’s love, to keep him and Kane safe.”

He took my hand in his, and let me see the pain in his eyes. “I know you are right,
ma petite
, but I cannot stand by and watch him die, not if I can save him.”

I took his hand in both of mine. “Jean-Claude, you did your best for him when the Church took him.”

“Not enough, my best was not enough.” His eyes held the loss of Julianna, their shared love, who had been burned at the stake as a witch, while the Church fathers tried to burn the devil out of Asher with holy water and had scarred one of the most beautiful men that may have ever lived. He was still beautiful, but sometimes he couldn’t see that.

“You bargained your freedom to Belle Morte for a hundred years so she would save Asher’s life. A hundred years of pain and torment, and being her bitch, it’s enough.”

“She tormented Asher, as well.”

“Yes, because she tortures everyone around her in one way or another, it’s one of her things, but you cannot let the guilt of something that happened hundreds of years ago ruin the empire you are building now.”

“Are you telling me to choose power over love? Power and politics over Asher?”

“No, not if it was that clear-cut, but Asher counted on you doing exactly that. He counted on us all valuing him above anything else, and that’s not cool.”

“There is a reason that master vampires are either killed or forced to leave and find another territory by most Masters of the City,” Jean-Claude said.

“Yeah, because they’re an arrogant pain in the ass if you don’t.”

He almost smiled. “Asher has been that for a very long time.”

I looked down at Narcissus, still holding Jean-Claude’s hands. “You’re angry, you’re hurt, and you have every right to be, but you also saw this in all its political ramifications as a way to solidify your place as top animal group here in St. Louis.”

He gave a little shrug. “If we can get a little revenge and solidify my power base, why not?”

I turned back to Jean-Claude. “Even brokenhearted he’s thinking better politically than you are.”

“I know about your little plan to get enough soldiers in the other animal groups so that I won’t be a power here anymore.”

Jean-Claude looked at me.

“He stated it up front before you came into the room.”

“I’m a king, did you not think I’d know?”

“You’re Oba, not king; there is no king as a title among the hyenas, because they prefer queens.”

He growled at me.

“You can be a power here, Narcissus,” Jean-Claude said, “but you cannot keep using your greater numbers to threaten us. Anita is right, I was thinking like a Master of the City, and I am more than that now.”

I said, “Threatening to take all your hyenas and go to another city would have gutted our guards once, but I think you’ve waited too long, Narcissus. I think we have the numbers to be just fine without your hyenas.”

“I’d noticed how few of my men were on your guard duty lately, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t enough of us to start a war here with all of you. That wouldn’t play well in the news, would it? The vampire king of America losing control of his city would undermine a lot of things.”

“No, Narcissus,” Jean-Claude said, “for if you declare war on the rest of the city I will simply turn you in to the human authorities. I will make it clear that you are the rogue, and that most of your people are innocent. The human authorities will kill you before they allow you to engulf our city in a shapeshifter war.”

“You have no proof that I’ve said any such thing.”

“Have you forgotten what my day job is?” I asked.

I watched his face, and he had.

“Don’t let the fact that you woke up naked in a bed with me make you forget what I am, Narcissus.”

“You’re Jean-Claude’s human servant, his pet necromancer.” But I watched his eyes as he said it, and he had remembered.