Anita Blake 12 - Incubus Dreams Page 10

  He laid his cheek against mine, but it meant he had to bend over more, which moved his body farther from mine. Compromise. “And could I trust that their windows were proof against sunlight?” He stood up and put a hand on either side of the cabinet behind me, so that I was trapped between his arms. “Could I trust that they would not harm me, once the sun rose and I lay helpless?”

  I tried to think of something to say, something helpful, something that would help me to think about something other than how much I wanted to touch him. When in doubt be bitchy. “I’m getting a crick in my neck with you standing this close.” My voice was only a little breathy when I said it. Good.

  Damian put his hands around my waist, and just the solid feel of his hands around me stopped whatever else I meant to say. It stopped him for a moment, too. Made him bend his head down, eyes closed, as if he were trying to concentrate, or clear his mind. Then he lifted me, suddenly, and sat me on the edge of the counter. It caught me off guard, and he had put his hips between my knees before I could react. We weren’t pressed together, except for his hands on my waist, but we were one step away from it.

  “There,” he said, voice hoarse, “now you can see me better.”

  He was right, but it hadn’t been what I meant him to do. I wanted breathing space, and instead my hands were free, and he was a hard thought away. My hands came to rest on his arms, and even through the heavy material of his coat I could feel the solidness of him. It was as if my hands had a mind of their own. I traced up the line of his arms, found his shoulders, and ended with my hands on the broadness of those shoulders, with his hair tickling along the back of my hands. There was something about my hands on his shoulders, or the silk of his hair on my skin that made me bend toward him. I wanted a kiss. Simple as that. It seemed wrong to be this near and not touch him.

  He bowed his head toward mine. His eyes were like deep green pools, deep enough to drown in. He whispered, “You have but to tell me stop, and I will stop.”

  I didn’t say stop. I slid my hands to the smooth pale line of his neck, and the moment I touched his bare skin with mine, I was calmer. I could think again. That was his gift to me, as my servant. He helped me be calmer, more in control. When I was touching him, it was almost impossible for me to lose my temper. He lowered my blood pressure, helped me think.

  I cupped his face between my hands, because I wanted to touch him, but what I gained from his centuries of controlling his own emotions, was that when he put his lips against mine, I was not lost. Not overwhelmed unless I wanted to be overwhelmed. It wasn’t that I felt nothing, because it wasn’t possible to be enfolded in Damian’s arms, pressed against his chest, have his lips caressing mine, and be unmoved. You’d have had to be made of stone not to melt into that embrace, just a little. But, as I’d gained calmness from him, he had begun to gain back the passion that he’d lost over the centuries. A passion not just for sex, but any strong emotion, because the master that made him tolerated no strong emotion, save fear. She’d beat everything else out of him over more centuries than most vampires ever survived.

  He drew back enough to see my face. “You’re calm. Why are you calm? I feel crazed, and you give me peaceful eyes!” He grabbed my upper arms, and dug his fingers in until it hurt, and I still felt calm. “It is cruel fate that makes you calmer and calmer the more we touch, and drives me more and more wild.” He gave me a small shake, his face raw with emotion. “I am being punished, and I have done nothing wrong.”

  “It’s not punishment, Damian,” and even my voice was low and calm.

  “Jean-Claude says that if you wished, you could gain calm only when you needed it. That you could touch me and enjoy touching me, but not be trapped behind this mask.” His fingers were digging in so hard, I was bruising.

  “You’re hurting me, Damian.” My voice was still calm, but there was an edge of heat to it, an edge of anger.

  “At least you feel something when I touch you.”

  “Let go of my arms, Damian.” And just like that, he released me, let me go as if my arms had grown hot to the touch, because he could not disobey a direct order from me. Whatever that order might be.

  “Take a step back, Damian, give me some room.” I was angry now, even with the rest of his body touching me. When he did what I told him and was no longer touching me at all, the anger filled me up and spilled over my skin like heat. God, it felt good. I was used to being angry. I liked it. Not the most positive thing to say, but still true.

  I started to rub my arms where he’d squeezed, then stopped. I didn’t like letting anyone know how much they’d hurt me.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said, and he was holding his own arms. I thought for a moment he was feeling my pain, then realized he was hugging himself to keep from touching me.

  “No, you just want to fuck me.”

  “That’s not fair,” he said.

  He was right, it wasn’t fair, but I didn’t care. Without him touching me, I could be as unfair as I wanted to be. I wrapped my anger around myself. I fed it with every petty impulse I’d fought for days. I should have remembered that one control is much like another. That if you throw away one kind of control, it makes other kinds harder to hold on to.

  I unleashed my anger like you’d unleash a rabid dog. It roared through me, and I remembered a time when my rage had been the only warmth I allowed in my life. When my anger had been my solace and my shield. “Get out, Damian, just go to bed.”

  “Don’t do this, Anita, please.” He held his hand out to me, would have touched me, but I moved back, just out of reach.

  “Go, now.”

  And with that he couldn’t help himself. I’d given him a direct order. He had to obey.

  He walked out, tears glittering in his green eyes. He passed Nathaniel in the doorway. Nathaniel gave me neutral eyes, a careful face. “Micah had to go.”

  I nodded, because I didn’t trust my voice. I hadn’t let myself get this angry in so long. It had felt good for a few moments, but I was already beginning to regret how I’d treated Damian. He hadn’t asked to be my servant. The fact that I’d done it accidentally didn’t make it any more right. He was an adult person, and I’d just ordered him to bed like he was a naughty child. He deserved better than that. Anyone did.

  The anger pulled back, and even my skin felt cooler. The term hot with anger was very real. I was ashamed of what I’d just done. I understood why, in part. I so did not need another man tied to me by metaphysics that demanded a piece of my bed, or at least my body. I didn’t need that. I especially didn’t need a man who might not even be capable of feeding the ardeur. Because even in the middle of the worst of the ardeur, Damian’s touch could cool that fire. With him holding my hand, the ardeur could not rise, or at least it could be put away for hours. So why didn’t I paste Damian to my body? Because of how much more he wanted from me than I was comfortable with giving. I could not use him to help me fight the ardeur if I wasn’t willing to give in to that skin hunger we both felt for each other.

  Nathaniel padded into the room, wearing nothing but a pair of silky jogging shorts. They were his version of jammies. He’d taken his braid out, so that his thick hair spilled around him like some kind of cape. “Are you alright?”

  I started to say, I owe Damian an apology, but I didn’t say it, because in that one breath, the ardeur rose. No, not rose, engulfed, drowned, suffocated. I suddenly couldn’t breathe past the pulse in my throat. My skin felt thick and heavy with it. I don’t know what showed in my eyes, but whatever it was, it stopped Nathaniel where he stood, froze him like a rabbit in the grass that knows the fox is near.

  The ardeur spilled outward, like invisible water, hot, wet, and suffocating. I knew when the power hit Nathaniel, because he shivered. Goose bumps broke on his body, as his very skin reacted to the power.

  I’d shoved the ardeur down once tonight, and that had a price. I’d refused the touch of my servant, and that had a price. I’d embraced my anger, and let it spi
ll out onto someone I cared about. That had a price, too. I didn’t want Nathaniel to be the one who paid that price.

  12

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  I didn’t remember crossing the room, but I must have, because I was standing in front of him. His eyes were wide, so wide, his lips half-parted. I was close enough to see the pulse in his throat beating against the skin of his neck like a trapped thing. I leaned in toward him, leaned just my face until I could smell the warm vanilla scent of his neck. Close enough to taste his pulse on my tongue like candy. And I knew this candy would be red and soft and hot. I had to close my eyes so that I didn’t lean my mouth down to that point, didn’t lick over his skin, didn’t bite down and free that quivering piece of him. I had to close my eyes so I wouldn’t keep staring at that pulsing, jumping… My own pulse was too fast, as if I would choke on it. I’d thought that feeding the ardeur on Nathaniel was the worst I could do, but the thoughts in my head weren’t about sex. They were about food. Thanks to my ties with Jean-Claude and Richard, I had darker things inside me than the ardeur. Dangerous things. Deadly things.

  I stayed perfectly still, trying to master my own pulse, my own heartbeat. But even with my eyes closed, I could still smell Nathaniel’s skin. Sweet and warm and… close.

  I felt his breath on my face, before I opened my eyes.

  He had moved in so close that his face filled my vision. My voice came soft, half-strangled with the needs I was fighting. “Nathaniel…”

  “Please.” He whispered it as he leaned in, whispered it again as his mouth hovered above mine, he sighed. “Please,” against my lips. His breath felt hot against my mouth, as if it would burn when we kissed.

  His lips this close to mine had done one thing. I wasn’t thinking about ripping his throat out anymore. I understood then that we could feed on sex, or we could feed on meat and blood. I knew that one hunger could be turned into another, but until that moment, where I could almost taste his lips on mine, I hadn’t realized that there would come a point where something must be fed. I did not feed Jean-Claude’s blood lust, though there was a shadow of it in me. I did not feed Richard’s beast, with its hunger for meat, but that lived in me, too. I held so many hungers in me, and fed none of them, except the ardeur. That I could feed. That I did feed. But it was in that heartbeat, as Nathaniel kissed me, that I understood why I hadn’t been able to control the ardeur better. All the hungers channeled into that one hunger. Jean-Claude’s fascination with the blood that ran just under the skin. Richard’s desire for fresh, bloody meat. I had pretended I didn’t carry their hungers inside me, not really. But I did. The ardeur had risen to give me a way to feed, a way that didn’t tear people’s throats out, a way that didn’t fill my mouth with fresh blood.

  Nathaniel kissed me. He kissed me, and I let him, because if I drew back from it, fought it, there were other ways to feed, other ways that would leave him bleeding and dying on the floor. His lips were like heat against my skin, but part of me wanted something hotter. Part of me knew that blood would be like a scalding wave in my mouth.

  I had a sudden image so strong that it made me stumble back from him. Made me push away from that warm, firm flesh.

  I felt my teeth sinking into flesh, through hair that was rough and choking on my tongue. But I could feel the pulse underneath that skin, feel it like a frantic thing, the pulse running from me, like the deer had run through the forest. The deer was caught, but that sweet, beating thing lay just out of reach. I bit harder, shearing through the skin with teeth that were made for tearing. Blood gushed into my mouth, hot, scalding, because the deer’s blood ran hotter than mine. Their warmth helped lead me to them. Helped me hunt them. The heat of their blood called me to them, made their scent run rich on every leaf they passed, every blade of grass that brushed them, carried that warmth away, betrayed them to me. My teeth closed around the throat, tore the front of it free. Blood sprayed out, over me and the leaves, a sound like rain. I swallowed the blood first, scalding from the chase, and then the meat that still held the last flickering of pulse, a last beat of life. The meat moved in my mouth as it went down, as if it were struggling, even now, to live.

  I came back to the kitchen, on my knees, screaming.

  Nathaniel reached out toward me, and I slapped at his hands, because I didn’t trust myself to touch him. I could still taste the meat, the blood, feel it going down Richard’s throat. It wasn’t horror that made me slap at Nathaniel. It was that I had liked it. Gloried in the feel of blood raining down on me. The struggles of the animal had excited me, made the kill all the sweeter. Always when I touched Richard, there had been hesitation, regret, revulsion about what he was, but there had been no hesitation in that shared vision. He had been the wolf, and he had brought the deer down, taken its life, and there had been no regret. His beast had fed, and for this one moment, the man in him had not cared.

  I shut down every shield I had between him and me, and it was only then that I felt him look up, felt him raise his bloody muzzle, and look as if he could see me watching him. He licked his bloody lips, and the only thought I had from him was good. It was good, and there was more, and he would feed.

  I couldn’t seem to cut myself off from him. Couldn’t shut it down. I did not want to feel him sink teeth into the deer again. I did not want to be in his head for the next bite. I reached out to Jean-Claude. Reached out for help, and found… blood.

  His mouth was locked on a throat, fangs buried into that flesh. I smelled that flesh, knew that scent, knew it was Jason, his pomme de sang, that he held clasped in his arms, clasped tighter than you hold a lover, because a lover does not struggle, a lover does not feel their death in your kiss.

  The blood was so sweet, sweeter than the deer’s had been. Sweeter, cleaner, better. And part of that better was the feel of his arms locked around us, holding us as tight as we held him. Part of what made this more was the embrace. The feel of Jason’s heart beating inside his chest, beating against the front of our bodies, so that we could feel the franticness of it, as the heart began to realize something was wrong, and the more frightened it got, the more blood it pumped, the more of that sweet warmth poured down our throats.

  All I could taste was blood. All I could smell was blood. It spilled down my throat, and I couldn’t breathe. I was drowning. Drowning in Jason’s blood. The world had run red, and I was lost. A pulse, a pulse in that red darkness. A pulse, a heartbeat, that found me, that brought me out.

  Two things came to me at once. I was lying on cool tile, and that someone had me by the wrist. Their hand on my wrist. I opened my eyes, and found Nathaniel kneeling beside me. His hand on my wrist. The pulse in the palm of his hand beat against the pulse in my wrist. It was as if I could feel the blood running up his arm, smell it, almost taste it.

  I rolled closer to him, curled my body around his legs, laid my head upon his thigh. He smelled so warm. I kissed the edge of his thigh, and he opened his legs for me, let my face slip between them, so that the next kiss was against the smooth warmth of his inner thigh. I licked along that warm, warm skin. He shuddered, and his pulse sped against mine. The pulse in the palm of his hand pushing against the pulse in my wrist, as if his heartbeat wanted inside me. But it wasn’t his heartbeat that he wanted inside me.

  A roll of my eyes, and I could see him swollen and tight against the front of his shorts. I licked up the line of his thigh, licked closer and closer to that thin line of satin that stretched over the front of his body.

  I tasted his pulse against my lips, but it wasn’t an echo from his hand. My mouth was over the pulse in his inner thigh. He let go of my wrist, as if now we didn’t need it, we had another pulse, another, sweeter place to explore. I could smell the blood just under his skin, like some exotic perfume. I pressed my mouth over that quivering heat, kissed the blood just under his skin. Licked the jumping thud of his pulse, just a quick flick of my tongue. It tasted like his skin, sweet and clean, but it also tasted of blood, sweet copper pennies on my tongue.
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  I bit him, lightly, and he cried out above me. I slid hands over his thigh, held it tight, so that the next bite was harder, deeper. His meat filled my mouth for a second, and I could taste the pulse under his skin. Knew that if I bit down, that blood would pour into my mouth, that his heart would spill itself down my throat as if it wanted to die.

  I stayed with my teeth around his pulse, fought with myself not to bite down, not to bring that hot, red, rush. I could not let go, and it was taking everything I had not to finish it. I reached down those metaphysical cords that bound me to Jean-Claude and Richard. I had a confusing image of meat and viscera, and other bodies crowding close. The pack was feeding. I shoved that image away, because it wanted me to bite down. Richard’s muzzle was buried deep into the warmth of the body, buried in the sweet things inside. I had to run from those feelings, before I fed on Nathaniel the way they were feeding on the deer.

  I found Jason lying pale on Jean-Claude’s bed, bleeding on the sheets. Jean-Claude’s blood thirst was quenched but there were other hungers. He looked up at me, as if he could see me. His eyes were drowning blue, and I felt it, the ardeur had risen in him. Risen in a wave of heat that left him staring down at Jason’s still form with thoughts that had nothing to do with blood.

  He spoke, his voice echoing through me, “I must shut you out, ma petite, something is wrong tonight. You will force me to do things I do not wish to do. Feed the ardeur, ma petite, choose its flame, before another hunger comes and carries you away.” With that, he was gone. Gone as if a door had slammed shut between us. I had a moment to realize that he’d slammed a door between not just himself and me, but between Richard and me, as well. So that I was suddenly cut adrift.