Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #16 - Blood Noir (16 page)

“But it’s not true, Jason. We haven’t run off together. We aren’t getting married.”

“But it’s a really good rumor, Anita. Everyone loves a good rumor, even master vampires.”

“Has Jean-Claude been having trouble with rumors like this before?” I asked. I got up and moved to the middle of the room toward the door. I was pretty sure Jason wasn’t done with his revelations, and being closer to the door made me feel better. I always feel better when I know where the exit is.

“Anita, some of it isn’t rumors, it’s fact.”

“What do you mean?”

“He does let you sleep with men other than him, while he isn’t allowed the same privilege with other women.”

I stared at him. “So if I let Jean-Claude sleep around, his reputation would be better among the other masters?”

“Maybe.”

I shook my head. “If you have a point, you’d best be getting to it.”

“If you and Jean-Claude were simply not monogamous, then the other vampires could understand it. You have no idea the world-class talent Jean-Claude has turned down lately.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

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“The other masters keep trying to send him gifts.”

“What kind of gifts?”

“You know what kind.”

“I haven’t noticed a bevy of strange women at the Circus lately.”

“They start with pictures on the computer or home movies. They’ve decided that if he could see them in action and pick the ones he likes best, he might take some of them into his group.”

“He never mentioned any of this to me.”

“Why should he? He knows you would never share him with another woman. He waits a polite amount of time, then turns them down.”

“Does he watch the…stuff?”

“Sometimes, enough so he can answer questions when they call and ask him how he liked what she did in this or that scene.”

“Scene?”

“Vampire porn is a growing business, Anita.”

I shivered. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“Auggie’s been branching out into it, as a legitimate business.”

“Legitimate.” I made it sound like I felt.

“Legal, then.” Jason seemed tired.

I had a thought, and I let it go all the way through. “Does Jean-Claude
want
to sleep with other women?”

“He’s never mentioned it to me,” Jason said.

“Then why are
you
mentioning it to me?”

“Because this story is going to need some punishment.”

“What, the lies about us?”

Jason nodded.

“What do you mean, punishment?”

“Jean-Claude is going to have to be seen as regaining control of you and me, Anita.”

“That’s insane. We aren’t out of control.”

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“Aren’t we? You’re here alone with me. We are lovers. You’re meeting my family. Most people will consider all that pretty serious.”

“Are you saying that Jean-Claude will have to appear to punish us for something we haven’t done?”

Jason nodded, and he was way too serious about it.

“That’s crazy. Jean-Claude won’t punish us for something we haven’t done.”

“No, he won’t,” Jason said, voice soft.

I came to stand in front of him, arms crossed over my chest, then had to shift my arms. Standing like that works so much better without breasts. “Then what the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m saying that we need to come up with punishments for him to use on us.”

I shook my head. “You are making no sense at all.”

“I’m making a lot of sense. You have no idea how badly your behavior at the party affected your master’s standing among the rest of the vampires.”

“I didn’t mean for—”

“You didn’t mean to have sex with Asher?”

“No, I mean, yes.” I sat down on the bed beside him. “I don’t know what I mean. Neither Asher nor I meant for things to go so wrong. It got out of hand.”

“Which is why you and he aren’t allowed to be alone together anymore. The other masters saw that as fitting punishment, but expected more severe punishment for Asher. That made Jean-Claude look weak, too.”

“How serious is this, Jason?”

“Jean-Claude has to be seen as bringing his house back to order. He must do things that make him look strong to the others.”

“Are you seriously saying that some other master might challenge Jean-Claude for his territory, just because of this rumor?”

“Remember, Anita, most of these guys come from a time when if a man couldn’t control his wife, he was seen as less than a man. There are vampires out there who are beginning to think that it’s not his power, but yours that makes him strong.”

“I’m his human servant, Jason.”

“Yes, a human servant with her own vampire servant, and her own animal to call. An animal to call that is a different animal from her master’s.”

“It gives Jean-Claude a hold on the leopards, too.”

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“No, it doesn’t. Micah and his leopards answer to Jean-Claude out of courtesy and Micah knowing a good thing when he sees it, but he is not drawn to Jean-Claude. He’s drawn to you, just like all the other big cats. That’s your energy, not Jean-Claude’s.”

“But I’m drawn to the wolves.”

“You’re metaphysically tied to Richard, our Ulfric, our wolf king, too. So who’s to say that it’s your tie to Jean-Claude that gives you wolf or your tie to Richard?”

“I’m still missing something, aren’t I?”

“Jean-Claude heard a whisper, not even a rumor yet, that some of the masters are speculating that if you were their human servant they could be as powerful as Jean-Claude, but they would be strong enough to keep you in line.”

“They would, would they?” I said.

“This isn’t funny, Anita.”

It wasn’t like Jason to discourage any attempt at humor on my part. Things were bad, maybe much worse than I knew. “I’m sorry, Jason.”

He smiled at me. “It’s okay, you can’t know what you aren’t told.”

“Why would Jean-Claude not tell me?”

“Because you aren’t going to change. He doesn’t even want you to change, really, but we have to find a way to change the perceptions of what is happening in St. Louis.”

“How?”

“Stop discouraging the rumors that have Jean-Claude making love to all your men. If you shared them with him, then it would explain his patience.”

“But it’s not true.”

He gave me a look.

“A master vamp can smell a lie on me, if they’re powerful enough. I can control my face, my eyes, my body, my voice, but Jason, I don’t know how to control the scent of my skin, or the speed of my pulse. I’m not that good at lying.”

“Almost no one is,” he said.

“Then how do we lie to a bunch of Masters of the City?”

“Don’t lie,” Jason said.

“What does that mean?”

“Let Jean-Claude share the men, or let him sleep with others.”

I stared at him, openmouthed, and finally recovered enough to say, “You volunteering?”

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He laughed then, and let himself fall back on the bed with his legs dangling off it. “I’ve told you before, Anita, I asked and he turned me down. He turned me down because he thought you wouldn’t approve.”

“But you don’t like men,” I said.

“Not generally, but Jean-Claude just gets past all the exceptions for me. Maybe it’s being his
pomme de sang
, but you’d have to be a lot more purely heterosexual than I am not to think about it.”

I remembered Jason telling me this, but I had put it in that box with all the other thoughts I didn’t want to think.

“I thought you told me you experimented with some other guy, and it wasn’t your cup of tea.”

“Let’s just say I like giving more than receiving.”

I must have looked puzzled, because he sat up and kissed me on the forehead. “You are terribly cute for someone who is the first living succubus in recorded history.”

“I am not cute.”

“You are, you just don’t like that you are.”

I don’t know what I would have said to that, because there was another knock on the door. This time it was food. I wasn’t sure I was really hungry anymore, but I was grateful for anything that stopped this conversation. I’d had about as much honesty for one day as I could handle. I hoped Jason felt the same, but doubted it. When Jason got an idea into his head, he saw it through. Even if you didn’t want to hear it.

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21

WE LET THE
waiter, if that’s the term for room service, put the food on the dining table. I’d never been in a hotel room that had a full-size table for eating before. Since the room was in his name, Jason signed the check and figured out the tip. I just sat there and let them do it. I was thinking, or trying not to think.

The chicken sandwich wasn’t bad. The French fries that came with it were excellent. Jason seemed to be enjoying his Caesar and chicken. Once I would have let the conversation stay dead, but I’d grown up a little since then. Though I couldn’t help thinking that the last time I’d gone out of town with one of my guys it had been Micah, and we had had an uncomfortable and revealing conversation, too. What was it about being alone in hotel rooms with them? Maybe it was that whole alone thing. Maybe.

“Some of the other guys in St. Louis have suggested that everyone who is a regular in my bed grows in power.”

Jason looked at me, a bite halfway to his mouth. He put the fork down and looked surprised. “I was going to drop the conversation, and let you think about what I’d said.”

I shook my head. “If there is even a whisper that some of the other masters are thinking if they took me over, they’d be more powerful than Jean-Claude, we need to nip that idea in the bud. I’ve had vampire marks forced on me before and I didn’t like it. I’ve had a Master of the City do it, a couple of times. It’s pretty horrible. I
so
do not want to go through that, ever again.”

He took a bite of his chicken and looked at me. Those spring-sky eyes showed every bit of shrewd intelligence, all the deep thinking that he normally hid behind the flirting and the smiles.

“You’re right, but I thought it would take you a few days of thinking it through before you realized how bad it could get.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I’m growing up, finally.”

He grinned at me. “You are one of the most grown-up people I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You have a lot of trouble letting yourself enjoy yourself. You don’t play well.”

“I think a lot of the guys in St. Louis would say I play very well.”

He actually almost looked embarrassed, but fought it off. “You are an amazing bed partner, Anita, but you don’t have any hobbies. You don’t do anything to relax except sex.”

“I like going to the firing range.”

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He
tsk
ed and wagged his fork at me. “That’s work, and you know it. You’re not a gun nut like Edward and his friend Otto, or Olaf, or whatever secret identity he’s using.”

I couldn’t argue that, so I didn’t try. I went back to concentrating on my food.

“So that’s it, you make one comment and it’s no more talk,” he said.

“Hey, I put the ball in play, you can pick it up, or you can let it sit there. I’ve been brave, I restarted a conversation that I don’t want to have; now it’s your turn.”

He smiled, and put his silverware beside his plate. His salad was mostly gone. He, like most men in his age group and younger, could eat damn fast when they wanted to, or weren’t forcing themselves to slow down.

I still had most of my sandwich left. Of course, the French fries were crisp and yummy, which was also distracting me from the chicken. Was I concentrating on the food so I wouldn’t concentrate on the conversation? Maybe, but not on purpose.

“Okay,” Jason said, “we have to help Jean-Claude appear as powerful as he is, or more so.”

“How do we do that?” I asked. I ate French fries while we talked. Jason had left some of his chicken and a lot of his grilled veggies.

“I’m not sure, but first we have to put a stop to this new rumor about us.”

“How do we do that?”

“I think we need a reporter who gets an exclusive that we can trust.”

“No one I saw here today is trustworthy.”

“I was thinking of a fellow werewolf and St. Louisian.”

I stopped eating and blinked at him. “Irving had to back off on all the exclusives I was giving him, because people started asking questions.”

Jason nodded. “I know you almost outed Irving as a werewolf by accident.”

“Yeah, the idea is that I wouldn’t be sharing secrets with a human being.” Did that last sound bitter?

Jason reached across the table and patted my hand. Apparently, it had sounded bitter. “It’s hard to be painted as a monster when you’re still human.”

I shook my head, and moved my hand away from his. “I haven’t been straight human since I was a child, Jason. Remember, I saw my first ghost in elementary school, and called my first zombie by accident in junior high. That isn’t human by most people’s standards.”

“People can be pretty cruel,” he said. His face had gone all serious. Somehow I didn’t think he was thinking about my childhood. Shit.

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“What was that for?” he asked, but he smiled when he did it.