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  "But you're tied to them until death do you part, too, trapped with a whole bunch of people you don't love. I'm not even sure you like all of them."

  "I don't dislike any of them," I said.

  She smiled and patted my arm. "It's okay, Anita, it's okay that you don't like everyone the ardeur has found for you."

  "Before I had so much control of the ardeur it could make the men, lovers, that it found for me perfect matches with me in so many ways; we think that's what happened with Micah and Nathaniel."

  "Or maybe you would have loved them anyway, Anita," she said.

  I shrugged. "We'll never know now, will we?"

  "So you feel guilty because you had enough control to not fall in love with all of them?" she asked.

  "Wait," Jason said. "Damian and Nathaniel got tied to you at the same time and you didn't fall head over heels with Damian, so just saying it's all about control level on the ardeur isn't true."

  I stared up at him; he was right. "Why didn't I love Damian as much as Nathaniel then?"

  "You were attracted to Nathaniel for a while, before the ardeur made him your leopard to call. You were never that drawn to Damian," Jason said.

  "Damian is beautiful and great, and . . ."

  "You don't have to defend him to us," Jason said.

  "You don't like to reject anyone, do you?" J.J. said.

  "It's not that exactly, it's more I like to include people, not exclude them, sort of; I don't like the idea that anyone is lonely, or sad, that I'm responsible for."

  "You're not responsible for all these people, Anita," J.J. said.

  "Yeah, actually, I am."

  Jason reached across me to rub his hand down her arm. "Actually, she sort of is."

  "Explain that to me again."

  I looked at Jason; he looked at me. He shook his head. "No, there is too much, I will sum up."

  She laughed. "All right, give me the short version."

  "Once vampires get organized, or powerful enough in any given area, they are at the top of the food chain. They see lycanthropes as less powerful, and a master vampire's metaphysical abilities usually make that true. Jean-Claude is the first-ever vampire king of America, and that makes him the leader of all the metaphysical Americans, and Anita is his queen, so in effect she is part of the leadership of all of us, and that means she is responsible for us, all of us, in a way."

  "What he said."

  "So, you're the queen to Jean-Claude's king, I get that, but he doesn't feel as responsible for everyone's happiness as you do. He just makes sure they have a roof over their head, food, the basics; no leader is responsible for the emotional well-being of all the people that work for him. You can't be, it's not your job."

  "I've tied them to me, they can't get away, and then I reject them? It's just . . . mean."

  "But you're just as trapped, Anita, and if you don't work this issue, whatever it is, that makes you feel guilty and overly responsible to them all, you're going to end up truly trapped, like forever."

  J.J.'s eyes were a little too direct. I looked down and found my naked body, still sticky from Jason, with him cuddled naked beside me. He and J.J. were holding hands across my bare stomach. I looked at it all, and didn't want to have this conversation, and the moment I realized I was afraid of the conversation, was being chickenshit, I had to make myself meet that clear, blue gaze.

  "There, why did you look back? You aren't happy with me, you're uncomfortable, but you're going to tough it out, right?"

  "No cowardice allowed," I said.

  "It's not do or die, Anita, you're just over your comfort level. It's okay not to want to look at me right now."

  "Not for Anita," Jason said, drawing her over me so he could kiss her, softly.

  She drew back and looked at him. "What do you mean?"

  Jason looked at me. "She is one of the bravest people I know, because when she's scared, or nervous, or so uncomfortable that she wants to do anything but what she has to do, she does it anyway. She taught me that you can only truly be brave if you're afraid, that without fear there is no bravery."

  "That's . . . admirable," J.J. said.

  "You're going to embarrass me talking like that, Jason," I said.

  "Well, you can return the favor by bragging on how amazing I am in bed."

  I smiled, then laughed. "Well, you are fabulous, but I think your ego is pretty secure in this area."

  "You guys are just going to change the subject, aren't you?"

  I shrugged.

  Jason shrugged.

  "Boys," she said, and rolled her eyes.

  "Hey, last I checked I'm a girl."

  She grinned, eyes shining with that mischievous light that made me think so much of Jason. "Well, I have checked and yes, yes, you are a girl, most delightfully so."

  I blushed again, and raised my hands as if that would hide it.

  "Oh, yay, I made you blush twice!"

  I glared at her, but couldn't keep the hard look going as she grinned at me, then Jason joined her, and the two of them undid me. I had to smile back.

  "Damn it, you can both do that."

  "Do what?" she asked.

  "Make her smile when she doesn't want to," Jason said.

  "We must use this power only for good, or when it's fun," she said.

  I grinned and rolled my eyes at both of them.

  "I hate to bring up something that won't make you smile, but I leave tomorrow and you need to settle this."

  "Settle what?"

  "Jade. You have the right to say no to her, Anita. If you've said no to men who are tied to you metaphysically, then why are you having so much trouble saying no to her?"

  "I don't know."

  "Is it because she's a girl?"

  "I don't know is the only answer I have, J.J."

  "Okay, let me ask you this: How do you feel about having to date Jade for the rest of your life?"

  "Not great," I said.

  "She's pushing you to actually date her, take her out, and make her more of your life. How do you feel about that?"

  "I don't want to do it."

  "Then don't," J.J. said.

  I looked at her, opened my mouth, closed it, and then just lay there. I didn't know what to think, let alone feel.

  Jason kissed my forehead, then rose up so he could study my face as he said, "Anita, it's okay, you don't have to date people you don't want to date."

  "Easy for you to say, you're not the one they're always pushing at, demanding more from. You don't see how they look at me, the accusations, and the recriminations when I do pull away. They all want a piece of me, and there isn't enough of me for all of them."

  "You said that a few weeks ago when I first asked you to help me explain things to J.J."

  "It's still true," I said.

  "Everyone has ex-lovers, Anita," J.J. said.

  "You don't understand, J.J.; you can send your ex-lovers away. You move out, or they do, and you don't see them again. You get some distance and maybe you can be friends on down the road, but you need a little distance to get there. Every time I reject a lover they're still here. Not just in town but living in the Circus of the Damned; hell, Damian has an apartment over my garage at my house."

  "Why in the world did you let him move in like that?" she asked.

  "Because he's my vampire to call, and keeping your servants near you helps increase your power base."

  "And you felt guilty about not loving him more," Jason said.

  I gave him a dirty look. "Don't help me."

  "Hey, it's the truth, and you know it."

  "If you broke Jade free of her bonds to her old master, and freed others from theirs, could you break Damian free?"

  "Every time I try to cut my ties with him and Nathaniel they start to die; Damian went crazy and attacked people. Jean-Claude almost had to put him down like a dangerous animal."

  "Okay, then that would be a no," J.J. said, with wide eyes; she pulled the sheet more up over her, as if suddenly cold.


  I grabbed a piece of sheet from her and pulled it over me, too, because it was cold, or maybe the conversation was making me feel cold, who could tell.

  "But what worked with everyone else was that you broke the bonds with their old master and replaced that master with you. What if you broke Damian's bonds with you and replaced yourself with another vampire?"

  "He's tied to Nathaniel, too, remember? We'd have to cut Nathaniel free, too. I've never heard of anyone doing anything that metaphysically complex with these kinds of vampire marks."

  "Has anyone ever tried?" J.J. asked.

  "No, because if it goes wrong, you can break the sanity of your people, or kill them outright, which is a pretty damn big incentive to not mess with shit."

  "Okay, okay, it was just a thought," J.J. said.

  "I'm sorry, I'm not mad at you, just the situation, I think."

  "But Damian has Cardinale, and they seem pretty happy together," Jason said.

  "She's asked for Damian to not be on my feeding list for the ardeur, and I've respected that."

  "But would he have found Cardinale if you had been having sex with him as often as you did with Nathaniel?" Jason asked.

  "If I'd been sleeping with him and Nathaniel like that, there wouldn't have been room for Micah."

  "You mean in the bed?" J.J. asked.

  "Or in your life?" Jason asked.

  I frowned at both of them. "You know, the two of you are enough alike that's it's a little unnerving."

  "You feel double-teamed?" he asked.

  "Didn't we already do that?" J.J. asked, face and voice mild.

  I rolled eyes at them again. I got the idea that being around them would entail a lot of that for me. I didn't really mind.

  "Now why didn't that get another blush?" she asked.

  "No idea, my blushing is sort of unpredictable."

  She fake-pouted at me.

  Nathaniel came back into the room, his wet hair in a tight braid. He slipped under the sheets. "What did I miss?"

  Jason and J.J. looked at each other. I said, "We don't have to tell him, I can just drop shields and he'll know what I know."

  J.J. looked at me. "Really?"

  "Really," I said.

  Nathaniel said, "Can I cuddle in behind J.J., or do we need to switch things around?"

  J.J. got an odd look on her face, and laughed. "I know we just had amazing sex, but I'd really rather cuddle with Jason."

  "That's why I asked; sometimes sex is less intimate than holding afterward."

  I wiggled over and J.J. got on the other side of me, so that she and Jason could spoon, and Nathaniel and I did the same about three feet away. Nathaniel wrapped his arm around me and pressed our bodies close. It had felt good for Jason to hold me, but this felt better; it was the difference between friends and more. "So, what did I miss?" he asked.

  I shivered for him, just a little bit, and then let down my shields just enough and thought about the last few minutes. He didn't get the actual words, but he knew what I'd learned in the last few minutes, as if he'd been there the whole time. We'd all been getting better at sharing without overwhelming each other. Once I couldn't have done this without blasting him with emotions, memories, all of it, but now I could just share knowledge, and let him, or Micah, or Jean-Claude, put their own emotions and thoughts on it without me coloring it much.

  Nathaniel snuggled in closer against me. "I'm so glad you were willing to be closer to me than you were to Damian." He kissed the side of my face, and then lower at the curve of my jaw, working down to my neck in soft, warm kisses.

  "I saw Anita close her eyes, almost fluttery like during sex, and now you just know, that quickly?" J.J. asked.

  "Yes," Nathaniel said, and made another kiss lower on my neck.

  "What did I tell her about Jade?"

  He rose up from kissing me to say, "That Jade isn't the girl for her, and she should dump her."

  "I never said it like that."

  "But that's how Anita interpreted it, and I got her version of the last few minutes."

  "Wow, that's just . . . eerie, useful, but a little . . . I don't know, not creepy, but disturbing."

  "Sweetums," Jason said, kissing her cheek, "that wasn't even on the scale of our version of creepy."

  She turned enough in his arms to see his face. "Really?"

  We all said "Really" in unison.

  She looked around at all of us, and then smiled. "If I were the jealous type, it wouldn't just be Anita I was jealous of, it would be the way the three of you interact."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "You guys are so tight as friends. I don't know if it's because you also have sex as a threesome, or more-some, but you are all just close."

  "Why would you be jealous of friendships, or is it the sex?" I asked.

  "Both, but Freda is jealous of my friends, and has pretty much cut me off from them. I understood the ex-lovers that I was friends with, but then she kept pushing until I really have only her in New York."

  "You have friends in the dance company," Jason said.

  "I did, before I spent two years with Freda; now they're just work friends, and I'm isolated from them." She looked so unhappy that I reached out and touched her arm.

  She smiled at me.

  "You know, it's not just me who's dating a woman that doesn't make me happy," I said.

  She nodded. "We give the advice we need to hear sometimes; I heard it."

  I turned enough to see Nathaniel's face. "Do you agree with J.J. about Jade?"

  "I have some of the same issues you have with personal boundaries, so I'd say let's see if we can incorporate her into our sex life more as a group, and if that will satisfy her need for a relationship with you, then great, but if she keeps pushing you to go out to movies and plays with just her, then say no. You barely have time to actually date Micah, me, and Jean-Claude."

  "You're usually the more the merrier," I said.

  "Only with people who work their issues. It would be great to find a woman to add to us. It would make most of the other men incredibly happy, but Jade isn't the woman to help make us all happier."

  "So even if she went to therapy and really worked hard at it, you veto her for more," I said, turning so I could watch his face.

  He looked very serious, and a little sad, but underneath that his eyes held almost anger. I wasn't sure if he was angry at Jade, angry at the lost chance of another woman, or if he had to get angry to vote against her.

  "She wants too much of you, Anita. You're already committed to too many people you love, and who fit into our lives better, and who make things better. We don't need someone who drags us down and just sucks energy. We need people who help lift everyone up and raise the energy level. Jade doesn't help enough, and she needs too much emotional hand holding without giving enough in return."

  I cuddled Nathaniel's arms around me tighter. "So I get to stop dating Jade, or having sex with her?"

  "Did you hear what you said, just now?" J.J. asked.

  I looked at her. "I said I was breaking up with Jade."

  "No, you said you 'get to' break up with her. That implies you don't really want to have sex with her, let alone date her."

  "I guess I don't."

  "Guess?" Jason said.

  "I don't want to have sex with Jade anymore, and I sure as hell don't want to date just her, just the two of us, she's too hard emotionally."

  "I hate to say it, but doesn't dumping her after tonight seem like punishing good behavior? She did let more men interact with her than ever before."

  I didn't know whether to scream or cry, because it was a good point.

  "Why should that change anything?" J.J. asked.

  "It just does," I said, and sighed.

  "It doesn't have to change everything you just decided," Nathaniel said.

  I turned in his arms enough to see his face. "I'm listening."

  "What parts of being with Jade do you enjoy?"

  I thoug
ht about it, really thought about it. "I like taking care of her, watching her get braver and more certain of herself. I'm okay with sleeping with her beside me, lost in our puppy pile, as long as she doesn't get all freaky about the other people in the bed."

  "Anything else?"

  "Before this weekend I would have said I don't like having sex with other women, but it's not the girl parts, it's the personality conflicts." I looked down so I wasn't meeting anyone's eyes, and then said, "And I'm actually a little disappointed that I didn't get to watch Nathaniel have sex with J.J. I've never watched any of my guys with another woman before." I forced myself to look up then, so I had to see their faces.

  Jason and J.J. were grinning at me, like his-and-her mirror images. Nathaniel laughed behind me, that deep, happy guy laugh, and hugged me tighter.

  "We'll make a voyeur out of you yet," J.J. said.

  "Well, I wouldn't just want to watch," I said.

  She gave me a look out of those innocent blue eyes that wasn't innocent at all. "Even better."

  We talked it out a little bit more, deciding that I wouldn't cut Jade off from sex completely, but I wouldn't date her, or work to make the relationship more, because I didn't want more. I most definitely wanted less. She would have to deal. We also talked about possible sex for tomorrow that would make J.J. comfortable enough to have intercourse with Nathaniel so I could watch, with participation from Jason and me, too. It was nice to make a plan with another woman involved that didn't have to include a plan for what we'd do if the other woman freaked out about the sex. Once we'd talked it out, we took turns in the bathroom cleaning up, and then lay down to sleep with Jason and me in the middle and Nathaniel at my back, and J.J. at Jason's. She fit into the puppy pile just fine.

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt

  from the next Anita Blake novel

  by Laurell K. Hamilton

  DEAD ICE

  Coming soon from Headline!

  * * *

  1

  "SO, YOU'RE ENGAGED," Special Agent Brenda Manning said. She wore a black pants suit with a heavy belt that wrapped around her waist and held the gun at her side. She was FBI and didn't have to worry about concealed carry, so the fact that her gun flashed every time her suit jacket flared out wasn't an issue. The gun looked very stark as it reared up above her belt against the white button-up shirt.