Burnt Offerings Page 8

Chapter 16~17

  16

  A cool touch slid over the heat. A wind, cool and easeful as death, swept over my body. The wind blew my hair back from my face. Blessed coolness filled me. Jean-Claude's hands caressed my shoulders. He was kneeling on the floor, cradling me in his arms. I didn't remember falling. His skin was cool to the touch. I knew that somehow he was throwing his hard-won warmth away. His warmth to cool the fire.

  That awful pressure inside of me eased, then shrank. It was like Jean-Claude was a wind blowing out Padma's fire. But it cost him. I felt his heart slow. The blood in his veins flowed slow and slower. The warmth that mimicked life was leaving him, and death seeped inside to fill its place.

  I turned in his arms so I could see his face. The face was pale and perfect, and you'd never have known, just by watching, what it had cost him to save me.

  Hannah turned to us, her battered face set in calm lines. "My apologies, Jean-Claude. My compatriot has let your servant's defiance best his judgment. "

  Willie stepped away from Hannah, shaking his head. "Damn you, damn you. "

  Hannah's grey eyes turned to him, angry. "Do not tempt me, little one. You cannot trade insults with me and survive. "

  "Willie," Jean-Claude said. There was no power to the word, just a warning. It was enough. Willie stepped back.

  Jean-Claude looked at the Traveler in his new body. "If he had killed Anita, I might have died with her. Is that why you have truly come? To kill us?"

  "I swear it is not. " Where he'd made Willie glide, Hannah was awkward on her stiletto heels. He didn't fall, but he didn't glide either. It was almost heartening. He wasn't perfect.

  "To prove my sincerity," he said, "take your warmth back from your servant. We will not stop you. "

  "He thrust me out," Padma said. "How can you allow him to grow strong again?"

  "You sound afraid," the Traveler said.

  "I do not fear him," Padma said.

  "Then let him feed. "

  I leaned into Jean-Claude's chest, resting my cheek against the mound of silken ruffles on the front of his shirt. His heart had stopped beating. He wasn't even breathing. He'd used too much of himself up.

  I watched Padma from the safety of Jean-Claude's arms and knew I would kill him. I knew that Padma wanted us dead. I'd felt it. No one as powerful as he lost control that badly. He'd nearly killed me, us, and it would all have been a tragic accident. Bullshit.

  The Browning lay where I'd dropped it, but I'd tasted Padma's power now. Silver might not be enough to kill him. Wounding him seemed like a really bad idea. Kill or leave him the hell alone, like any big predator. Don't fuck with it unless you can finish the job.

  "Feed from your servant," Padma said. "I will not stop you. The Traveler has spoken. " That last held a touch of bitterness. Council member or not, Padma feared the Traveler, or he'd have fought him more. Compatriots but not equals.

  I knelt, gripping Jean-Claude's arms through the rough lace and the glittering material of his jacket. His arms felt reassuringly solid, real. "What . . . "

  He stopped me with fingers on my lips, a delicate touch. "It is not blood that I need, Padma. It is her warmth. It is only a lesser master that must take blood from his servants. "

  Padma's face had gone empty, blank. "You have not lost your knack of insulting without being insulting, Jean-Claude. "

  I stared up at Jean-Claude, even kneeling he was taller. His voice eased through my mind. "No questions, ma petite, or they will know you are not wholly mine. "

  Since I had a lot of questions, that pretty much sucked. But if I couldn't ask direct questions, there were other ways. "Does the Beast Master have to sink fang to jump-start his heart?"

  "Oui, ma petite. "

  "How . . . vulgar," I said. It was one of the most civilized insults I'd ever come up with. It worked, too.

  Padma hissed at us. "Do not test my patience too far, Jean-Claude. The Traveler is not the head of the council. You have enough enemies here now that a vote might not go your way. Press me too hard and I will force a vote. "

  "Force a vote to what end?" Jean-Claude asked. "The Traveler has promised that you are not here to kill me. What else would you vote upon, Master of Beasts. "

  "Get on with it, Jean-Claude. " Padma's voice was low with a sound that was almost a growl. It sounded more animal than vampire.

  Jean-Claude touched my face gently, turning me to look at him. "Let us show the Master of Beasts how it is done, ma petite. "

  I didn't really like the sound of that. But I knew one thing for certain, Jean-Claude needed his strength back. He'd never be able to repeat the trick of thrusting out a council member when he was so cold, so drained.

  "Do it," I said. I had to trust him. Trust him not to hurt me. Trust him not to do something awful or embarrassing. I realized that I didn't trust him. That no matter how much I loved his body, I knew he was other. I knew that what he thought of as okay was not necessarily okay at all.

  He smiled. "I will bathe in your warmth, ma petite. Roll you around me until my heart beats only for you. My breath will grow warm from your kiss. " He cupped my face between the chilled skin of his hands and kissed me.

  His lips were velvet, his touch light, caressing. His hands slid up the sides of my face, fingers gliding through my hair next to the scalp, kneading, massaging. He kissed my forehead and shuddered.

  I tried to kiss him again, and he drew back. "Remember, ma petite, if any of your fair body touches mine too much, it will deaden. Do not be so eager to lose the sweet sensation of your lips for the night. "

  I went very still in his arms, thinking about what he'd just said. Bodies touching, bare skin needed, maybe? But if any part touched too long or too forcefully, my skin would deaden, but only for the night. Jean-Claude was really very good at giving information without seeming to. Made me wonder how often he'd had to do it in the past.

  He slipped the coat off my shoulders until it hung nearly to my waist. He ran his hands over my skin, kneading his fingers into me. His hands were warm. He slid his hands over the coat, gripping my arms through it, but no bare skin. He kissed my throat butterfly light, his face rubbing up my neck, my cheek.

  He drew back from me with a quick rush of breath. I put my hand over his heart, and there was nothing. I caressed his face, touching the big pulse in his throat. Nothing. I wanted to ask what we were doing wrong, but didn't dare. Didn't want the bad guys to know we didn't do things like this much. Sex we did, the otherworldly vampire shit we skipped if I could manage it.

  He started unbuttoning his shirt.

  I looked at him, eyes a little wide.

  He bared a circle of his stomach.

  I just looked at that glimpse of pale skin. "What?" I asked.

  "Touch me, ma petite. "

  I glanced at the watching vampires. I shook my head. "No foreplay in front of the bad guys. "

  "I could simply take blood, if you would prefer," he said softly. He said it as if we did it every night. We'd done it twice voluntarily on my part. Once had been to save his life. The second time had been to save him and Richard. I did not want to donate blood. Sometimes I thought bloodletting was more intimate than sex to a vampire. I didn't want to do that in front of company either.

  I stared up at him, getting angry. He was asking me to do very intimate things in front of strangers. I didn't like it, and he knew I wouldn't like it. So why hadn't he warned me? Had he really not thought we'd have to do this tonight?

  "She is angry with you," Padma said. "Is she truly that modest?" He sounded doubtful. "Could it be that you cannot truly do what you say you can do?"

  Hannah's body stood legs apart balancing on the unfamiliar high heels. "Are you as weak as Padma? Just another bloodsucker?" The Traveler shook his head, Hannah's hair sliding across the shoulders of her ruined dress. "What else have you been bluffing about, Jean-Claude?"

  "Damn you all to hell," I said. I slid m
y hands inside Jean-Claude's shirt, fingers sliding over his stomach. He was cold to the touch. Dammit. I pulled his shirt out of his pants, none too gently, and ran my hands over his skin. I kneaded my fingers along the muscles of his back, and could feel heat rise up my throat into my face. Under other circumstances, in the privacy of a bedroom, it had possibilities. Now, it was just embarrassing.

  He drew my arms out. "Careful, ma petite,or your hands will grow cold. "

  My fingertips were cold as if I'd been outside without gloves. I stared up at him for a second or two. "If I can't touch you with my hands, what do you suggest I use?"

  Padma suggested something explicit enough to make me point a finger at him. "You stay out of this. "

  He laughed at me. "She is truly embarrassed. How terribly precious. Asher said she was a virgin before you. I did not believe him, until now. "

  I let my head drop to my chest. I was not going to say it. I did not owe the vampire council a rundown on my love life.

  Jean-Claude's hand moved into view. He never touched me, but just the movement of his hand brought my face up to meet his gaze. "I would not ask this of you here and now, if it were not necessary. You must believe that. "

  Looking into his blue, blue eyes, I did believe him. Stupid, but true. "What do you want me to do?"

  He raised his fingers and put them just above my lips, so close that if I breathed in, he'd have had to touch me. "Use your lovely mouth over my heart. If our bond is as strong as I believe it to be, there are shortcuts, ma petite. "

  I sighed and pulled his shirt up, baring his chest. In private I loved running my tongue over the cross-shaped burn scar on his chest. But this wasn't private. Hell with it.

  I laid my lips against the cool skin of his stomach, and licked a quick, wet line up his chest.

  He drew in a sharp hiss of breath. How could he be breathing and not have a heartbeat? No answer to that, but I'd seen it before. Vampires that breathed but did not have a pulse.

  I ran my tongue over the smoothness of the cross-shaped burn scar, ending with a kiss over his heart. I felt my lips grow cold. It wasn't the tingling cold of winter, though. It was just as he'd said. His body stealing my warmth. My life seeping away into him.

  I knelt back away from him, licking my lips, trying to feel them. "How's that?"

  He laughed, and the sound slid down my back like an ice cube, rubbed purposefully and long to the base of my spine.

  I shuddered. "You're feeling better. "

  He lifted me suddenly, hands on my thighs. I let out a surprised yip, putting my hands on his shoulders for balance. He wrapped his arms around my legs and stared up at me. The pupil in his eyes had bled away to a shining blue fire.

  I felt his heartbeat in my throat. His pulse raced through my body. He let me slide slowly through his arms. "Kiss me, ma petite, as we are meant to kiss. I am warm and safe to touch. "

  "Warm but never safe," I said. I started to kiss him when I was inches above his forehead and continued the kiss as I slid down his body. He kissed me like he would eat me from the mouth down. Fangs pressed hard and sharp, and he had to draw away or draw blood. The kiss left me breathless, tingling, but not with cold.

  I realized that he'd gotten a buzz from drinking in my warmth. That it had felt good in a more than practical way. Trust him to make a virtue out of necessity.

  "Now that you have your full powers once again," the Traveler said, "I will be leaving you. You drove Padma out without my aid. Surely you can defend yourself again. "

  "He bested you, as well," Padma said.

  Hannah's face looked at us. "Yes, he did. I would expect nothing less from the master that slew the Earthmover. " Hannah turned back to Padma. "And he did what you cannot. He regained his warmth with his human servant without drawing her blood. A trick that any true master can accomplish. "

  "Enough of this," Padma said. He sounded angry. Having to share blood with your human servant seemed to be a real faux pas. "The night wanes. Now that you are at full strength, Jean-Claude, search for your people. See who does not answer your call. "

  "I will leave you now, Jean-Claude. I will await you beyond. " Hannah suddenly sagged. Willie caught her and lowered her gently to the floor.

  "Search, Jean-Claude, search for your people," Padma said. Jean-Claude stood, drawing me with him. His pupils swam through the shining blue of his eyes. His eyes settled into their normal color. He stared past me, past Padma. I didn't think he was seeing anything in the room. His power crept from his hands across my skin. I think if I hadn't been touching him, I wouldn't have felt a thing. The faintest shimmer of energy, as if this was a small thing to do.

  He blinked and looked at Padma. "Damian. "

  Damian was one of Jean-Claude's lieutenants. Like Liv, he was over five hundred, but would never be a master.

  In Damian's case it was over a thousand years, but would never be a master. It was a frightening amount of time to have acquired so little power. Don't get me wrong, Damian was powerful. For a five-hundred-year-old he was scary. For a thousand years he was a baby. A dangerous, carnivorous baby, but still Damian had acquired all the power he might ever have. He could live until the sun expanded and swallowed the earth, and he'd be no more powerful than he had been at dusk today.

  He was one of the few vamps to ever fool me completely about his age. I'd underestimated his age by over half. I'd judged by power and was just beginning to learn that power was not the only thing to judge by.

  Jean-Claude had bargained with Damian's old master for his freedom to come here and play second banana.

  "What have you done to Damian?" Jean-Claude asked.

  "I, nothing, but is he dead?" Padma smiled and took Vivian's hand. "That is a question only his master may answer. " He walked down the hallway, leading the wereleopard by the hand. Vivian looked back at me, watching me with wide, frightened eyes until they were lost to sight. The black leopard lingered, watching me.

  I spoke before I thought, instinct almost. "How could you have given them over to that thing?"

  She snarled at me, tail twitching.

  "You are weak, Elizabeth. Gabriel knew that and despised you for it. "

  She let out a coughing roar. Padma's voice cut across the sound like a knife blade. "Elizabeth, come to me now or I shall be very angry. "

  The leopard gave me a last snarl and padded out of sight.

  "Did Gabriel tell you she was weak, ma petite?"

  I shook my head. "She wouldn't have brought them here if she were stronger. He called and she came, but she should have come alone. "

  "Perhaps she did her best, ma petite. "

  "Then her best isn't good enough. " I looked at Jean-Claude's careful, unreadable face. His body was still, calm. I laid my hand above his heart underneath his shirt. His heart was pounding.

  "You think Damian's dead," I said.

  "I know he is dead. " He stared down at me. "Whether it is permanent, that is the question. "

  "Dead is dead," I said.

  He laughed then and hugged me to him. "Oh, ma petite, you above all should know that is not true. "

  "I thought you said they couldn't kill us tonight," I said.

  "So I thought," he said.

  Great. Every time I thought I understood the rules, they changed. Why was it that the damn rules always seemed to change for the worse?

  17

  Willie came over to us, leading Hannah by the hand. "Thank you, master, Anita. "

  There were gashes in his thin face, part of the initial fight for the Circus, I guess. They were already healing. He looked awful, even more like the walking dead than usual. "You look like hell," I said.

  He grinned at me, flashing fang. He hadn't been dead three years yet. It takes a little practice to smile without flashing fang. "I'm okay. " He looked at Jean-Claude. "I tried to stop them. We all did. "

  Jean-Claude had tucked his shirt back in his pants. H
e smoothed his hands down the front of the shirt and touched Willie's shoulder. "You fought the council, Willie. Win or lose, you did well. "

  "Thanks, master. "

  Jean-Claude usually corrected anyone when they called him master, but tonight, I guess we were going formal.

  "Come, we must attend Damian. " He offered me his wrist, and when I didn't know quite what he wanted, he laid my fingertips over the pulse. "You touch me as if you were taking my pulse. "

  "Is there some significance to this?"

  "It shows that you are more than my servant or my bed partner. It shows I consider you an equal. "

  "What will the council think about that?" I asked.

  "It will force them to negotiate not only with me, but with you. It will complicate things for them and give us more options. "

  I rested my hand on his wrist. His pulse was steady under my fingers. "Confusion to our enemies, eh?"

  He nodded, making it almost a bow. "Indeed, ma petite, indeed. "

  I walked beside him towards the hallway, my right hand in my pocket on the Browning, which I'd rescued from the floor. When we got a clear view of the hallway, Jean-Claude's pulse sped under my fingers.

  Damian lay on his side curled around a sword. Blood had soaked around the blade into the dark material of the vest he wore as a shirt. The point came out his back. He'd been spitted. Hard to be a hundred percent sure, but it looked like a heart blow.

  There was a new vampire standing beside him. He held a two-handed sword in his hands, point down, like a cane. I recognized the sword. It was the one Damian slept with in his coffin.

  The new vamp was tall, six foot six or more, broad-shouldered. His hair was cut like a bowl of yellow ringlets around his face, leaving his ears bare. He wore a white tunic, white trousers, white on white in layers. He stood rigid, at attention, like a soldier.

  "Warrick," Jean-Claude said. "I had hoped you escaped Yvette's tender mercies. "

  The tall vampire looked at us. His eyes flicked to my hand on Jean-Claude's wrist. He dropped to one knee and held Damian's sword across his hands. He bowed his head and offered the sword to us. "He fought well. It had been too long since I had such an opponent. I forgot myself and slew him. I would not have wished death on such a warrior. His final death is a great loss. "

  Jean-Claude took the sword from the vampire's hands. "Save your apologies, Warrick. I come to save Damian, not to bury him. "

  Warrick raised pale blue eyes to us. "But I have pierced his heart. If you were the master that had made him, then there would be a chance, but you did not call him from his grave to his second life. "

  "But I am Master of the City, and Damian took a blood oath. "

  Warrick laid the sword on the ground near Damian's still form. "Your blood may call to him. I pray that it will be enough. "

  I stared at him. I'd never heard a vampire say "I pray. " Vampires, for obvious reasons, didn't pray a lot. I mean, who was going to answer? Oh, yeah, there was the Church of Eternal Life, but they were more a humanist religion, sort of New Wavey. I'm not sure they talked much about God.

  Damian's hair was nearly blood-red, a startling color against the alabaster whiteness of his skin. I knew his eyes were a green that any cat would envy, but tonight his eyes were closed, and if things went badly, they'd never open again.

  Jean-Claude knelt beside Damian. He laid his hand on Damian's chest, near the sword. "If I pull out the sword and his heart does not beat, his eyes do not open, then he is gone. One chance, and one chance only. We could put him in a hole somewhere for a hundred years and until the sword was pulled out of his heart, there would still be a chance. If we do it here and now, we risk losing him forever. "

  That last bit of lore is why you never ever remove a stake from a corpse's heart no matter how dead it appears to be.

  I knelt beside them. "Is there a ritual for it?"

  He shook his head. "I will invoke the blood oath he took. That will help call him back, but Warrick is correct. I did not make Damian. I am not his true master. "

  "No, he's older than you are by about six hundred years. " I looked down at the vampire, spitted on the sword, lying in a pool of his own dark blood. He was wearing a pair of dress pants that matched the vest. Without a conservative shirt under the vest it looked strangely erotic. I could still feel Damian in my head. His power, the beat and the pulse of centuries flowed through him. He wasn't dead, or at least not completely dead. I could still feel his aura, something.

  "I can still feel Damian," I said.

  "What do you mean, ma petite?"

  I had a horrible compulsion to touch Damian. To run my hands over his bare arms. I wasn't into necrophilia, no matter how close I walked the edge. What was going on?

  "I can feel him. His energy in my head. It's like coming on a fresh corpse before the soul has left the body. He's still intact, I think. "

  Warrick was looking at me. "How can you know that?"

  I reached out towards Damian and stopped myself, hands curling into fists. My hands ached to touch him, not sexual exactly but like seeing a really fine sculpture. I wanted to trace the lines of his body, to feel the flow and ebb of him. To . . .

  "What is wrong, ma petite?"

  I touched my fingertips to Damian's arm, as if afraid he would burn. My hand slid over his cool flesh, almost without me wanting it to. The force that animated Damian's body flowed through his cooling skin, flowed over my hand, down my arm, marched in goose bumps across my body.

  I gasped.

  "What are you doing, ma petite?" Jean-Claude was rubbing his arms as if he, too, felt it.

  Warrick put out a hand towards me like he was holding his hand in front of fire, not sure if he could or should touch. He pulled back, rubbing his hand on his pants. "It is true. You are a necromancer. "

  "You ain't seen nothing yet," I whispered. I turned to Jean-Claude. "When you pull out the sword, the trick is going to be to keep the power from leaving with the opening of the wound. To keep, for lack of a better word, his soul from fleeing, right?"

  Jean-Claude was watching me, as if he'd never really seen me before. Nice to know I could still surprise him. "I do not know, ma petite. I am not a witch or a student of magical metaphysics. I will invoke the oath, speak the ritual, and hope he survives. "

  "Sometimes when I call a zombie from the grave, it's easier to call them a second time. " I slid my hands down to hold Damian's limp hand, but it wasn't enough. My power and the power inside the vampire needed a more immediate touch than mere hands.

  "He is not a zombie, ma petite. "

  "Warrick said you hadn't called Damian from the grave, but I have. " Once upon a time, nearly by accident I had raised three of Jean-Claude's vampires. It was when he, Richard, and I first invoked the triumvirate. The power had been so overwhelming that I'd raised every true corpse near us as a zombie, but there had been too much power. I'd fed it to the vampires and they'd risen for me. Necromancers were rumored to be able to call all manner of dead to do their bidding. But that was legend. As far as I knew, I was the only living necromancer to pull off this particular trick.

  "What are you asking, ma petite?"

  I crawled around Damian's body. The blood was cool through my hose. My hand trailed up his arm, never losing contact with his body, with that power curled inside of him. The power that animated him had thrust me out once, cast me out, hurt me. But it was like once having brushed each other, we were linked.

  "You're linked to Damian, but you're also linked to me. I can feel Damian in my head. I don't know if it's a link, but it's something. Use it," I said.

  "You mean draw on your power to help strengthen my hold on him?" Jean-Claude said.

  "Yeah. " I dragged Damian into my lap, on his side, the sword still spitting him. When Jean-Claude saw what I was doing, he helped me. I cradled Damian on his side, shoulders in my lap, his head resting on my arm. I slid my hand down his chest, searchin
g for his heart, and found the blade instead. It had pierced his heart. Even with my help, even with Jean-Claude's help, if he hadn't been over five hundred, he'd be dead. Five hundred seemed to be an age where vamps gained a great deal of power. Being over a thousand could only help him. I could feel him, through my body, my head. Through the growing power, I realized I'd turned my back to the hallway. It was hard to think, but I said, "Do we have a truce until we raise him?"

  "You mean will they attack us while we save him?"

  "Yes. "

  "I will guard you," Warrick said. He stood and took Damian's sword.

  "Isn't that a conflict of interest?" I asked.

  "If he does not rise, I will be punished for killing him. It is not just sorrow at my own carelessness that prompts me to help you. I fear what my mistress will do. "

  Jean-Claude stared down at Damian. "Padma wishes to kill us for the power the triumvirate has given us, ma petite. Now that he knows you have called Damian from his coffin like a zombie, he will fear you even more. "

  "Is Warrick going to tell him?"

  Jean-Claude gave a gentle smile. "There is no need for Warrick to tell, is there, Traveler?"

  A voice sighed around us. "I am here. "

  I stared up at the air, at nothing. "You little son of bitch, you're an eavesdropper. "

  Willie stumbled. Hannah jerked back from him. "I am many things, Anita. " Willie turned to us with that ancient intelligence burning in his eyes. "Why have you withheld this information from us, Jean-Claude?"

  "You see us as a threat without this bit of information, Traveler. Do you blame me for hiding it from you?"

  He gave a small smile that was both gentle and condescending. "No, I suppose I don't. "

  Jean-Claude gripped the hilt of the sword. He put his hand on Damian's chest to brace himself. His fingers brushed my hand. "You might wish to move your hand, ma petite. The sword is sharp. "

  I shook my head. "I'm going to make his heart beat. I can't do that if I'm not touching it. "

  Jean-Claude turned his head to one side, looking at me. "The magic grips you, ma petite, and you forget yourself. At least use your left hand. "

  He was right. The magic, for lack of a better word, was building. I'd never felt my own power so strongly outside of a blood sacrifice. Of course, there was plenty of blood, just none that I'd spilt myself. But I could sense Damian's heart inside his chest. It was almost as if I could have reached inside and caressed the muscle. Like I was not seeing it, but feeling it, and that wasn't it either. I had no word for it. It wasn't touch or sight, but I could feel it just the same. I pulled my right hand away and slipped my left over Damian's still heart.

  "Are you ready, ma petite?"

  I nodded.

  Jean-Claude rose on his knees. "I am the Master of the City. My blood you have drunk. My flesh you have touched. You are mine, Damian. You gave yourself willing to me. Come to me now, Damian. Rise to me now. Come to my hand. " He tightened his grip on the blade. I felt Damian's body shift boneless as the dead.

  I felt his heart, caressed it and it was cold, dead. "I am master of your heart, Damian," Jean-Claude said. "I will it to beat. "

  "We will make it beat," I said. My voice sounded distant, strange, not like my voice at all. Power breathed through me, through Damian, into Jean-Claude. I felt it spreading outward and knew that every corpse in the place would feel the rush.

  "Now," I whispered.

  Jean-Claude looked at me one last time, then turned all his attention to Damian. He yanked the blade out in one harsh motion.

  Damian's essence tried to follow the blade out, tried to slip away through the wound. I felt it sliding away. I called to it, pressed it into the dead flesh, and it wasn't enough. I moved my hand over his heart. The sliding blade sliced my hand. Blood, fresh and warm and human, flowed over the wound. The thing inside Damian hesitated. It stayed to taste my blood. It was enough. I didn't caress his heart. I smashed it, filled it with the power that crawled over us.

  The heart thudded against his chest so that I felt it in my bones. His spine bowed, raising him out of my lap, throwing his head. His mouth opened in a silent scream. His eyes flew open wide. He slumped back into my lap.

  He stared up at me, wide-eyed, frightened. He grabbed my arm. He tried to talk and couldn't speak past the thundering of the pulse in his throat. I could feel the blood in his body, the beat of his heart, the rush of him.

  He reached out to Jean-Claude, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket. He finally whispered, "What have you done to me?"

  "Saved you, mon ami, saved you. "

  Damian slumped suddenly. His body began to quiet. I began to lose the sense of his pulse, the taste of his heart. It slid slowly away and I let it go. But I was almost sure I could have held it. I could have kept the feel and rush of his body. I could have made it rise and fall to my touch. I was almost sure.

  I ran my hand through his thick red hair and knew temptation, and it was only slightly tinged with sex. I raised my still bleeding hand where I could see it. It wasn't much of a cut; two, three stitches and I'd be fine. It hurt, but not enough.

  I ran the still bleeding hand through his hair. The thickness of his hair slid across the open wound, abrading it. The pain was suddenly sharper, aching and nauseating. Enough pain to bring me back to myself.

  Damian stared up at me, afraid. Afraid of me.