20

I DID WHAT he wanted, and a lot more. I used hand and mouth to get both Micah and Nathaniel back to the smooth hardness that they had been before all the soul searching. I didn't want any more soul searching tonight. I wanted to touch and be touched. Sex was the only time I let myself go. Let all the worries, the issues, everything wash away. When I had sex I just concentrated on the sex. It was the only time I was truly in the moment with no hesitation and no other thought.

I held them both in my hands. When I'd first tried to play with them both at the same time, I'd found that I couldn't do it. I couldn't concentrate on both hands equally, and when you've got a handful of the most delicate bits on a man's body, you want to be able to concentrate. But practice makes perfect, and I could do it now. I could hold each of them in my hand and stroke and play with them. I'd finally found something I was ambidextrous at.

Jean-Claude stayed sitting at the foot of the bed. He made no move to join us. I looked at him, that careful face. He'd made his position clear. He didn't just want to watch. I'd never tried to entertain three of the men at once. Cuddling, blood sharing, but not for sex.

I went to him where he sat so still, his back touching the foot of the bed. He'd gone as far away as he could without leaving the bed. Had he thought I would make him watch and not touch him? The very blankness of his face said yes, he had. I had a memory, not a vision, just a memory. It just didn't happen to be my memory, not originally. I saw Belle in her big bed, so similar to this one. She had two other vampires with her. I was watching her from the foot of the bed where she had tied me to the posts. I could feel the pull in my shoulders where the ropes were a little too high for comfort. But she didn't want me comfortable. She wanted me punished. Tied to her bed where she had taught me, us, what true desire could be. Bound, helpless, knowing that I could not touch her, and that no one would touch me. When we'd been far away from her, we could resist wanting her, but standing there, smelling her skin and sweat, we couldn't help but want her. She was an addiction, and the only way to save yourself was to never take another drink, another hit, another taste of her. I fought free of the memory enough to think, Jean-Claude had been tied to that bed, not me. Too tall to be my body. Too male. Not me, but the memory still burned, still had the power to make his face close down to that carefulness.

I touched his face, and I let my face show how sorry I was that all those awful things had happened to him. So sorry that I hadn't been there to save him. We were shut down too tight behind our shields for him to read my mind, probably just as well, but he saw what I meant him to see. He came to me with a sigh that was almost a sob. He kissed me as if he would breathe me in through his lips, and I kissed him as if he were the last drop of water in the world and I were dying of thirst.

I tasted the sweet metal of blood in my mouth. It made him draw back from the kiss. "I am sorry, ma petite . . ."

I stopped his apology with a kiss, feeding at his mouth, and he fell into that kiss with his hands on my body, his nakedness pressed as tight to mine as it could be. The only reason his body did not respond was that it couldn't until he fed.

I drew back from the kiss, my breathing ragged, the taste of my own blood in my mouth. A drop of blood grew and trembled on my lower lip.

He kissed that drop away, and stared down at me, as he knelt in front of me. His face was fierce and full of some wonder, as if I'd done something amazing. I hadn't. I'd just finally decided to get out of my own way; out of everyone's way.

I moved back along the bed, with his hand in mine. I pulled him along with me, on our knees, until we reached Micah and Nathaniel's feet. One of the things I'd noticed in dealing with more than one man in bed at a time was there were only two ways to go about it. Choice one: the men took turns, completely separate lovemaking, except that they both got to watch each other have sex with me. Choice two: they both touched me at the same time, and they did foreplay, or more, with me at the same time. Choice two was harder to choreograph. Harder on the egos involved. It took more concentration on my part. It was just a higher level of skills needed all around, and a larger dose of secure masculinity, too. I realized now, after Auggie, that there was a choice three, but I didn't think any of us was up to it tonight. I knew I wasn't. I had no idea how to even raise the question to Micah and Nathaniel: would they kiss another man? I mean, when did this sound like a good conversation to have? Never, I think.

I let go of Jean-Claude's hand, leaving him kneeling, while I lay down between the other two men. I traced a hand down their bodies until I touched the smooth heads, the skin so soft but the flesh underneath so hard, so firm.

Micah made a soft sound as my hand smoothed over the top of him. I looked up at Nathaniel and found his face intent on me. His eyes bright and eager, alit with anticipation. A gentle caress wouldn't do it for him. I had to still my hand on Micah, to wrap my hand around Nathaniel, and squeeze hard. It fluttered his eyes shut and forced small noises from his mouth. I'd found that I could play with two at once if the pressure was the same for both hands, but if one man needed something different, I had to concentrate separately. Micah could rev up to a level that was close to Nathaniel's preference, but it took time to get Micah in that headspace. Nathaniel came out of the box wanting rougher handling than most men ever liked.

I went back to playing with both of them at the same time, running my hand up and down the shaft of them, sliding over the head, firm, but gentle. Too hard, and most men experienced the pressure as discomfort; too gentle and it wasn't enough stimulation. It had taken me a while to find a happy medium.

I loved the sensation of my hand running up and down and around all that velvet muscle. It made me close my eyes, arch my back with the anticipation of it. When I could focus again, I gazed up at Jean-Claude. He knelt where I'd left him, close enough to touch us, but not touching anyone.

"I want you in my mouth while I play with them."

He looked at Micah and Nathaniel. "Does everyone agree to this, for I will have to be very close to both of you, to be in the position that she requests?"

I tightened my grip on both the men, just enough to make their eyes flutter shut.

"Non, ma petite, that is cheating. Let them go long enough for them to answer without your so-persuasive touch."

I mumbled, "Sorry." I put my hands on my stomach, and behaved.

Micah swallowed hard enough for me to hear it, then nodded. "I'm fine with it."

Nathaniel smiled that lazy cat-with-cream smile that he got sometimes during sex. It usually meant he was going to suggest something that I'd never done, or that we'd never done together, or he was going to make some observation. "I just want to see if she can concentrate on all of us at once. I give it a difficulty rating of eight."

I frowned at him. "Are you saying I've never attempted anything that took more skill than an eight before?"

He shrugged. "Remember I did this professionally for a while. My ten on this scale is probably stuff that you don't even want to know is physically possible."

I opened my mouth to ask him, Like what? but decided that he was right. I probably didn't want to know.

"Let's try," I said.

Jean-Claude didn't ask again. He simply crawled over my body. He ended with his legs over my shoulders, so that he was sitting in front of my face, which put him exactly where I wanted him. I traced my hands across the other two bodies. Nathaniel turned on his side first, and Micah followed him. That gave me a better angle, since my movement was about to become limited.

I wrapped my hands around them, and raised my mouth up to slide over Jean-Claude's body. He was as small as he got, loose and delicate. It always amazed me how something so small could become so large. Nothing on my body could change so much--maybe that's why it fascinated me. I loved the texture when a man was totally soft. Until we shared blood, I could roll that soft, soft flesh around my mouth, suck on it all. Normally I would have tried to draw his testicles into my mouth, too, but with both my hands busy, I didn't dare. Too delicate a work to risk, when I wasn't sure I could concentrate on it all. I rolled my hands up and down Micah and Nathaniel's bodies while I sucked on Jean-Claude, drawing him harder and faster, over and over, glorying in the fact that I could take all of him in without a struggle. Like this, it was all about sensation. I could roll and flick and suck with my mouth and tongue, able to do things with his body that I could never have done with him erect.

Jean-Claude cried out, his hands clutching at the dark wood of the head-board. He looked down at me, and I rolled my eyes upward to catch that frantic look. That look that said the sensations were almost too much.

I found a rhythm for all of them, but it was the rhythm of the sucking: quick, fast, as fast as I could do it, over and over and over. I ran my hands over Nathaniel and Micah in that same frantic rhythm, pulling, firm, and quick, over and over and over.

Micah's hand grabbed mine. "Stop, or I'm going to go." He squeezed my hand, as if I'd made some move to keep going. "Please, Anita, please."

I looked up at Jean-Claude. His eyes were closed, his shoulders hunched, his body shuddering above me. I realized that though he was enjoying it, it was treading that line between feels better than anything else and too much. He probably wouldn't have said anything. He'd have let me do it as long as I wanted, but then he'd been trained by someone who was a much harsher mistress than I would ever be. I drew back from his body. He half collapsed above me, his body spasming. He rolled to the side, and Micah gave him room. Jean-Claude lay on his back, spine bowing, hands clutching at the black sheets.

I was left with only Nathaniel in my hand. I looked at his face. Eager, happy. He leaned in toward me. "You win." He moved in for a kiss, but I squeezed him hard and tight. It threw his head back, closed his eyes, spasmed his body. No one else in the bed would have wanted me to squeeze that tight, but he loved it.

"What do I win?" I asked. I let him go.

He gazed down at me with eyes that didn't quite focus. "Everything." He kissed me. It started as a slow kiss, but then he was just suddenly kissing me as deep and hard as he could. I'd forgotten that Jean-Claude had bled me earlier. I knew that part of what made him so eager at my mouth was the taste of my blood. He kissed me as if he would crawl into my mouth, his tongue searching for every last drop of that precious fluid.

His body pressed on top of mine. He was so hard, so firm, the feel of him trapped between our bodies made me make small sounds into his mouth, as he kissed me.

He drew back from the kiss. "What do you want?" he asked.

"You, inside me," I said.

He gave me a fierce smile, and raised himself up off my body.

I grabbed at his waist and shoulders. "What are you doing?"

"You said inside, you didn't say where inside." He crawled over me, his body not touching me, and I knew where he was going.

"Is this more foreplay or do you want to finish here?"

"Finish," he said.

"Without the ardeur, I don't like to swallow."

"I know," he said, and straddled my chest, leaning forward using the headboard much as Jean-Claude had.

I stared up the line of his body, his face so eager, so sure of itself. I'd worked a long time to have him look like that during sex. He knew with me he could ask for what he wanted, that his pleasure was as important to me as my own. I cupped my hand under his balls. They were already tight and close to his body. The caress brought his breath in a long sigh.

I kept one hand on his balls, and spilled the other hand up and over the length of him. He smiled down at me. "What do you want Micah to do while I'm busy here?"

We'd only very recently begun having sex at the exact same time, Nathaniel, Micah, and me. I'd thought it had been my idea initially, but now, it seemed like Nathaniel initiated it more. I knew what he wanted me to say, and truthfully, dawn was going to come, and I had one other man in the bed. Whatever we were going to do, we needed to be doing it.

I kept playing lightly with Nathaniel, and called, "Micah."

He crawled until I could see him. He just looked at me with those chartreuse eyes. His face made no demands, but his body spoke for him, so hard, so eager. "You, inside me."

"We've never done this without the ardeur," he said.

"I know," I said.

He gave me a look, then he smiled, and crawled back down along the bed.

"Suck me while he does it." It was more a command than a request, but I'd worked long and hard to have Nathaniel that commanding anywhere in his life. Hard to bitch about it now. Besides, he was so temptingly close, so hard, so ready. I had to mound the pillows up, a little higher, to get the angle we needed.

Micah's hands slid over my hips.

I licked the tip of Nathaniel, slid my mouth over him, took him inch by inch into my mouth, slow, so slow, so we could both enjoy the sensation of it.

I went down about halfway, then back up. We needed him wetter, so he'd slide better. But there's something about putting that much of a man that far inside your mouth that makes you wet, both above and below.

Micah's hands spread my legs, his finger plunged inside me. It made me cry out, and shove all of Nathaniel inside my mouth at once.

He put his hand on the back of my head, held me against him, so that I was trapped, and had a moment of choking around him. It wasn't a gag reflex; it was a suffocation reflex.

He let me go, and I fell back from his body gasping for breath, choking. When I could talk, I said, "Don't do that again."

Micah said, "Are you okay?"

I nodded, wasn't sure he could see it, and said, "Yeah."

"You do it with the ardeur," Nathaniel said.

"We're doing it without tonight." I think the look I gave him was not entirely friendly.

"I'm sorry, but I'm used to being able to do that."

"Twice, we've done that twice. Twice is not a pattern."

"I'm sorry," he said, and that look came back to his face, that uncertain, lost look. He started to move, and I grabbed his hips to keep him from moving. He looked down at me, his face so fragile, so hurt, as if all the new bravado were only skin deep: scratch it, and it goes away. I did the only thing I could think of to chase that look from his face. I drew him back into my mouth, sucked him fast and hard, until his head went back and his eyes closed. When he looked at me again, he was smiling, but there was still a flinching around his eyes; a shadow of that hurt. There was only one thing that would take that hurt from his eyes, I had to prove I trusted him. I slipped my mouth over him again, and gave myself over to the pleasure of him filling my mouth. I let my face show just how much I enjoyed the sensation of all that velvet muscle inside my mouth. The sensation of it wet and slick from my own saliva. But I didn't stop at the comfort point, that point where it just feels good and full. I sucked past that point where my body told me too much. I sucked until my mouth met his body, and there was no inch to spare. I sucked until he was shoved as hard and deep inside my throat as I could manage. I sucked until my body stopped complaining about needing to gag and started to complain about needing to breathe. But I'd learned to be able to fight past that, too. I stayed there, pressed tight and solid against his body, until he looked down at me, stayed until my throat convulsed, spasming around the length of him. He stared down at me, his eyes wild, eager, and something more. His hands stayed in a death grip on the headboard, as if he didn't quite trust himself. I drew back from him, coughing, before I could get a good breath. I finally let myself swallow all that extra saliva and lay back, panting as if I were behind on my breaths and had to catch up.

His body shivered above me, a shiver of pleasure that went all the way up his body, to throw his head back, close his eyes, bow his spine, as if the memory alone were that intense, and for Nathaniel it might have been. He finally looked down at me, eyes slightly unfocused. He smiled, and said, "Thank you." And the look on his face held something much more precious to me than passion; it held soft gratitude, wonder, love, for lack of a better word. There were men who loved me who never wore a look like that. Maybe it was his youth, or his years of therapy, or his lack of hang-ups. What Nathaniel felt he felt down to his toes, no hiding, no holding back, not once he gave himself to someone. It had been one of the things that made him such a danger to himself with the wrong person. With the right person he was magnificent in his abandon. He put the rest of us to shame with our wariness, our unease, our holding back. He was the only one of us who simply gave.

I gazed up into that face and was happier than I knew how to say that he was in my life.

I felt the bed adjust, a moment before fingers slipped inside me. Two searching, slender fingers. Those fingers found that certain spot, and began to flick back and forth, back and forth, fast and faster, until the feeling threw my head back, and tore a scream from me. There were other men who could do that to me, but no one else was that quick at it. I knew who it was, before I looked past Nathaniel's body to see Jean-Claude kneeling between my thighs. His eyes had bled to solid blue light.

Nathaniel moved off me, and I had a moment to try to focus and find Micah, before Jean-Claude slipped his fingers back inside me and brought me again, screaming, tearing at the sheets, grabbing for the headboard, grabbing for anything to hold on to.

I found a hand, and grabbed it, nails digging into the wrist as I writhed. When I could see again, I found it was Micah. He stared down at me with such a look on his face. He spoke, staring down at me. "Wait, Jean-Claude, wait until I'm in place."

I blinked up at him. "In place where?" My voice sounded as thick and unfocused as I felt.

He squeezed my hand tight, and said, "I want you to scream your orgasm with me in your mouth."

I said, "Okay," then thought enough to say, "Can't deep-throat you from this angle."

He put his other hand against my cheek, and turned my face to the side, toward his body. "How about now?"

The way he asked made me smile, and staring at the front of his body so thick, so ready, stole the smile and made me whisper, "Let's try."

"That's our girl," he said. He put my hand on the headboard, wrapping my fingers around it. He did that when the body part closest to me wasn't somewhere he wanted nail marks.

Nathaniel came in from the other side; he took my free hand and put it against his hip. One telling me clearly, Don't mark me there; the other one saying, Please, do it.

Micah turned my face back to him. Nathaniel put my hand higher up his chest, so I could get a running start on his skin. He wouldn't be working at Guilty Pleasures this weekend, so I didn't have to worry about marking him.

Micah slipped inside my mouth; he pushed slowly, easing his way in, but he already tasted salty, bitter, and sweet all at once. He'd been enjoying the show. That taste meant he wouldn't last as long as he might have, not a bad thing in oral sex with someone his size. Intercourse you want to last as long as possible; orally, duration is not always an asset. Two very different skill sets.

I moved forward to meet his careful thrust, and it was as if I'd given him permission. He began to thrust into my mouth, hitting the back of my throat with every thrust, pulling out just before I would have to call uncle. I had a death grip on the headboard, and my hand was mostly just steadying myself against Nathaniel's side, not digging in. I was concentrating too hard on doing Micah to think about doing myself.

"Now," Micah said, and it took me a second to understand who he was talking to. Jean-Claude's fingers slid inside me, and he found that sweet spot, found it like he knew exactly where it was. He brought me with quick, sure flexing of his fingers, quick, quicker, quickest. I screamed around Micah's body, screamed and thrust my mouth harder and deeper onto him. I rode his body as I rode the orgasm, so that he suddenly didn't seem too big, too wide, but just right. I screamed and thrashed, and drove my nails into Nathaniel's hip, as if I were trying to dig my way through him.

I screamed, screamed, and screamed, screamed my pleasure, but it was a sound that would have been pain for most people. It wasn't pain; it was release. I gave myself over to that moment, completely and utterly. Jean-Claude's hand inside me, Micah's body in my mouth, Nathaniel's flesh under my nails. I let go of the headboard, and had just enough of me left to mark higher up on Micah's back, while my other hand just kept digging at Nathaniel's hip and ass.

I heard voices, and knew vaguely that they weren't us. I heard Jean-Claude say, "Get out," but I was too far gone to look, or care.

He shoved more of his hand inside me in one quick motion, and that brought me, too. He'd worked me until my body would give orgasms like a gift, so wet, so excited, so thick, so tight, swollen with pleasure.

Micah's body was beginning to lose its rhythm, he tasted close. The apex of his thrust climbed down my throat, and back out; my own saliva poured down my mouth, because there was no time to swallow.

Jean-Claude leaned over me, with his fingers still inside, but his mouth licked between my legs, while his fingers kept going in and out of me. He couldn't do the deep sucking that the others could--fangs got in the way—but I didn't need deep. He'd worked me to the point where quick flicks of his tongue, back and forth, back and forth, started to bring me. That warmth building up, up inside me, as if the center of my body were a cup, filling up drop by drop with pleasure, until with one last lick, the cup spilled, and I screamed around Micah's body. He thrust one last time, so deep that I choked, and I knew in that moment that he'd been careful, and now he wasn't, now he finally did make me take those last two inches. I finally touched his body for longer than a second. I started to pull away. His hand went to the back of my head, as if he'd hold me in place, but he moved, and let me draw back, and drew himself out.

I watched Micah fight for control. Jean-Claude moved inches to the side, so his mouth nestled in the very upper, very inside of my thigh. Jean-Claude's fangs plunged into me, and I was to that point where pain was pleasure, and the feel of him piercing my skin, his mouth sucking on me, brought me up off the bed, throwing my upper body upward, screaming. My body brushed against the front of Micah's body, and it was that little bit too much. My body came back to rest on the bed, and Micah spilled himself across my breasts, hot, so hot, the liquid thick and heavy, running between my breasts, down the side of my body, pooling trickling down my stomach. The sensation of it made me cry out.

Jean-Claude raised his mouth off me. His mouth was smeared with my blood, and his body was hard and ready, full of my blood, so he could pleasure my body, and his. He usually started out slow for intercourse, but tonight he, like Micah, had done his slow. He was suddenly above me, held up on his arms like a push-up, but his lower body didn't stay up. He thrust into me as hard and fast as I'd ever felt him, and I could watch every thrust as he moved in and out of me. Three strokes, five, and he brought me. I thrust my hips up to meet his, writhing under him. He brought me twice more, before I felt him begin to lose the rhythm of it, and with one last thrust he spilled himself inside me. He stayed above me, holding himself on shaking arms, while he gazed down at me, lips open, fighting for breath. He normally collapsed on top of me afterward, but my chest was covered in Micah's juice. It was already growing thinner, beginning to trickle down my sides like icing melting in the heat.

He stayed above me, panting, and smiling, his mouth still smeared with my blood. He bent down, carefully, keeping his upper body and hair out of everything, but he kissed me. Kissed me with my blood like sweet copper in his mouth.

He pulled out, and left me blinking, dazed with it all. He had barely moved out of the way, and Nathaniel was there, above me. I couldn't remember when he'd moved from the head of the bed. I'd lost track.

I stared down the line of his body, poised above me, and I thought, Didn't I promise to start using condoms? But the worst had happened, I was already pregnant, it didn't matter anymore. Jean-Claude had caught me by surprise, but I let Nathaniel plunge himself inside me, naked, his flesh inside mine with nothing between us.

He found that rhythm that he did sometimes, like a shuddering wave down his body, like he was dancing inside me. And with each shuddering wave, he thrust into me, thrust into me, right over that spot. Jean-Claude had given himself over to the sex, but Nathaniel was doing his usual careful job of it, as if even after all the foreplay he was going to give me my money's worth. His emotions were raw, but his intercourse was controlled. He wouldn't come until I did, he just wouldn't. He'd made a game of making me come over and over, until I begged him to. It wasn't going to take long tonight.

It didn't. I felt that weight begin to build between my legs, slow and steady, but faster than normal because of all that had gone before. "Close," I whispered, "close." My hips began to rise up and down with his movements, so we danced for each other, my hips thrusting upward as his thrust down, so that we met again and again. The orgasm caught me, and there was no more dancing for me. There was just screaming, and nails along his sides, me writhing, but no rhythm, no control.

I came to myself panting, double-visioned, and found his body back in the same rhythm. He kept going in and out of me, as if he could do it all night. He damn near could. He brought me again, and this time I wound my upper body around him, pressed our chests together, dug claws into his back. He pressed his upper body against me, putting his upper chest against my mouth, while his body kept pumping away. I knew what he wanted, and I gave it to him. I bit him, bit him until I tasted blood. I held his upper body against mine, so that he wouldn't jerk away and cause me to hurt him more than I planned. My mouth filled with blood, and his rhythm faltered. Pleasure he could fight off all night, but pain, pain would bring him faster.

But he brought me again first, and I tore my mouth away from his body, so I didn't bite him too much. I turned my face to the side, and screamed. I wrapped my legs around his body, locked my heels at the top of his ass, and pinned him to me, so he couldn't get the rhythm he wanted.

He raised himself up on hands and knees, with me clinging to the front of his body. He crawled us both to the head of the bed, and used one hand on my ass, and the other on the headboard, to lift me up, and put my back against the headboard. His voice came in a strangled whisper. "I want to move more." And he did, he moved in and out of me, over and over and over, while I clung to him with my arms and legs. He brought me again, and again, and finally one more time, and then he asked, "Please, please."

Some nights he liked to beg before I said yes, but tonight I didn't think either of us could stand much more. I whispered it against the sweet smell of his neck, "Yes, go, go, go inside me. God, go, please!"

He stopped trying for rhythm and thrust inside me as hard and fast as he could. He brought me again; I dug my nails into his shoulders and back, and he finally thrust up inside me. Thrust as far and hard as he could. He stayed there like that for a heartbeat, forever, then he slumped lower on his knees, while I still clung to him.

Our bodies were slick with sweat, and blood, and other things. He clung with his hands to the headboard, his heart beating so fast I could see it. "God, that was good," he said, voice breathless, and not quite like his voice at all, yet.

I tried to say yes, and couldn't do it. It was as if I couldn't figure out how to form words, and I still couldn't make my eyes work. The world was still a white-edged blur, like something wrapped in cotton.

"Anita," Micah said, "are you all right?"

I managed to give him a thumbs-up, because it was the best I could do. It wasn't the first time that Micah and Nathaniel had fucked me wordless.

"Damn," Micah said, "I thought with three of us we might finally fuck you unconscious." His voice was teasing.

It took me three tries to say, in a very hoarse voice, "You need more men."

Micah leaned in close, kissed my cheek. "I think we can arrange that."

I managed to whisper, "Not tonight."

He kissed my cheek again. "Not tonight." He turned to Nathaniel. "You need help?"

Nathaniel nodded, wordlessly.

Micah and Jean-Claude helped peel us apart, then they went into the bathroom to clean up. Nathaniel and I still couldn't move enough to leave the bed. We lay side by side, touching, but not in each other's arms. Our bodies weren't working well enough for that, yet.

"God, Anita, I love you," he said, voice still breathy.

"I love you, too, Nathaniel," I said. And I did.

21

I THOUGHT THAT Micah might protest when Jean-Claude got into bed as naked as everyone else, but he didn't. If it had been another girl cuddling up against my naked behind I might have protested, but Micah was a lot less trouble than I was to deal with. I guess someone had to be less trouble.

I fell asleep like I did most nights with my stomach cuddled against the back of Nathaniel's nude body, the warm curve of his ass tucked up tight against my stomach, one arm up so I could touch his hair, the other around his waist, or maybe a little lower. Micah cuddled in behind me, mirroring me almost exactly, except that his arm didn't curve in around my body but stretched across so that he was touching a little of Nathaniel. Jean-Claude cuddled in against Micah as if he'd done it before, putting his arm across Micah so that he could touch me. His hand curved around me, and I raised the arm around Nathaniel's waist, so I could touch Jean-Claude's arm. Dawn was close, and that warm, living arm wouldn't be warm or living for long. Vampires lost heat faster than a dead human. I wasn't sure why, but they did.

I enjoyed the warm curve of him while I could. Nathaniel snuggled closer to me, as if he'd pressed his ass through me into Micah, but I didn't mind. I liked it close. Besides, I knew he was missing me holding him tight. My fingers played on the small hairs on Jean-Claude's arm, back and forth, tracing his skin. The feel of him like that made me regret for an instant that it wasn't my body he was pressed up against.

I fell asleep in a nest of warm bodies and silk sheets. I'd had worse nights.

I came instantly awake in the pitch black, my heart in my throat. I didn't know what had woken me, but it was something bad. I lay there pressed between Micah and Nathaniel, looking around the room in the dim light from the half-open bathroom door. It was the light Jean-Claude left on for us when we slept over. The room looked empty, so why was my pulse in my mouth? Bad dream, maybe.

I lay there pressed between the men, straining to hear something, but there was nothing but their quiet breathing. Jean-Claude's arm was across Micah's body, but it was no longer warm. Dawn had come and gone, and taken him from me again.

Then I saw a shadow. A shadow sitting on the foot of the bed. When I looked directly at it, it wasn't there, but out of the corner of my eye I could see it: a blackness that began to take on a shape, until there was a dark outline of a woman sitting at the foot of the bed. What the hell?

I shook Micah's arm, trying to wake him, but it didn't work. I tried Nathaniel, and the same thing happened, nothing. Their breathing never changed. What was happening?

I couldn't wake them. Was I dreaming and didn't know it? I drew breath to scream. If it was a dream, it wouldn't matter; if it wasn't a dream then Claudia and the guards would come. But the moment I drew a sharp breath, the voice floated through my mind. "Do not scream, necromancer."

The breath left me, as if someone had pushed on my stomach. I finally managed a whisper: "Who are you?"

"Good, this guise does not frighten you. I was hoping it would not."

"Who..." Then I smelled it: night. Night out of doors, night some place warm and soft with the scent of jasmine on the air. I knew who it was. "Marmee Noir" was the least rude of the nicknames the vampires called her. She was the Mother of All Darkness; she was the first vampire, and the ruler of their council, though she'd been in hibernation, or a coma, for more than a thousand years. The last time I'd seen her in a dream she'd been as big as the ocean, as black as the space between the stars. She'd scared the shit out of me.

The shadow smiled, or at least that's what it felt like. "Good."

I struggled to sit up, and the men slept on, not even moving in their sleep. Was this a dream, or was it real? If it was real we were in deep, deep shit. If it was a dream, then I'd had powerful vamps invade my dreams before.

I put my back against the wood of the headboard. It felt real and solid. But I didn't like sitting there naked in front of her. I wished I had a gown, and the thought was enough. I was suddenly wearing a white silk gown. Dream, because I'd been able to change it. Dream, it would be okay. It was just a dream. The knot in my gut didn't believe me, but the rest of me tried to believe.

I thought of several questions to ask that shadow, and finally settled for, "Why are you here?"

"You interest me."

It was like having the devil suddenly take a personal notice of you; not good. "I'll try to be less interesting."

"I am almost awake."

I was suddenly cold down to my toes.

"I can taste your fear, necromancer."

I swallowed hard, and couldn't keep my voice from being breathy. "Why are you here, Marmee Noir?"

"I need something to wake me after such a long sleep."

"What?"

"You, perhaps."

I frowned at her. "I don't understand."

The shadow began to grow more solid, until she was a small female figure in a black cloak. I could almost see her face, almost, and I knew I did not want to. To see the face of darkness was to die.

"Jean-Claude has still not made you his, still not crossed that last line with you. Until he does, another more powerful than he can take what is his, and finish it."

"I am bound to a vampire," I said.

"Yes, you have a vampire servant, but that does not close the other door." She was suddenly sitting at my feet. I tucked my feet up, and pushed myself against the headboard. It was a dream, just a dream, she couldn't really hurt me, but I didn't believe it.

She spread a hand wide, and the hand was carved of darkness. "I thought this guise would make me less frightening, but you cringe from me. I am wasting a great deal of energy to speak to you in dream, rather than invade your mind further, yet still you fear me." She sighed, and the sound of it flittered through the room. "Perhaps I have lost the knack of being human, even to pretend. Perhaps if I have lost the knack, I should stop trying--what do you think, necromancer? Should I show you my true form?"

"Is this a trick question?" I asked.

I felt her frown, rather than saw it, because I couldn't see her face yet.

"I mean, is there a good answer here? I don't think seeing your true form would be a good thing, but I don't really want you to keep playing humanish for me, either."

"Then what do you want?"

I wanted Jean-Claude awake to help me answer this question. Out loud I said, "I don't know how to answer that question."

"Of course you do; humans always want something."

"You to go away."

I felt her smile. "This is not working, is it?"

"I don't know what was supposed to work," I said. I was hugging my knees now, because I did not want her touching me, not even in dream.

She stood, in the middle of the bed, then I realized that wasn't exactly it.

She stood, but then she kept growing, stretching up and up, like some black flame. The light reflected off whatever she was becoming, as off water, or sparkling rock. How could something gleam and give no light? How could something both reflect light and absorb it?

"If you are afraid of me anyway, then why pretend?" Her voice echoed through the room like a rush of wind. I could smell rain on the edge of that wind. "Let there be truth between us, necromancer."

She vanished; no, she became the dark. She became the darkness in the room. One minute she was a central point, almost a body, the next she was the darkness. She hung in the dark of the room, and that darkness had weight and knowledge. I was like every other human who had ever huddled around the fire because they could feel the darkness pressing around them. Feel the darkness waiting for them. She didn't try to talk to me now, she simply was, not words, not even images, but something I had no words for. She simply was. A summer night does not talk to you, but it exists. The dark of a moonless night does not think, but it is still alive with a thousand eyes, a thousand sounds. She was that night, with one addition: she could think. You don't want the dark to be able to think, because it won't think anything you want to know.

I screamed, but the darkness filled my throat, cut off my air. I was choking on the scent of night, drowning in jasmine and rain. I tried to call my necromancy, but it wouldn't come. The darkness in my throat laughed at me like the cold twinkling of stars, beautiful and deadly. I tried for my link to Jean-Claude, but she had severed it. I tried for my link to Nathaniel and Micah, but her animal to call was all cats, both great and small. My leopards could not help me now. The darkness whispered them to sleep.

I remembered the last time she'd been this close to me metaphysically, and thought of the only thing she hadn't been able to control. I thought of wolf. It had taken Richard's tie to me, and Jason's closeness, to waken my wolf in me and chase the darkness back, but we'd grown closer now, my wolf and I, and it came. A huge pale wolf with markings of darkness leapt out of the darkness, its eyes filled with brown fire. It put itself between me and the dark. It let me wrap my fingers in its fur, and the moment I touched it, I could breathe again. The scent of night was there, but it wasn't in me.

The darkness swelled around me like some great dark ocean, building up, up, to crash upon the shore. The wolf tensed against me, so real against my body. I could feel its bones, its muscle, under the fur, pressed tight against me. I could smell its fear, but knew it would not leave me alone. It would stay, and defend me, because if I died, so did it. It wasn't Richard's wolf, it was mine. Not his beast, but mine.

That black ocean reared above us, so that the bed was like some tiny raft. Then it fell toward us with a sound like a thousand screams. I knew those screams--victims, eons of victims.

The wolf sprang to meet that blackness, and I felt teeth sink into flesh. I felt us bite her. I had an instant to see the room where her real body lay, all those thousands of miles away. I saw her body jerk, saw her chest rise in a sharp breath. Her breath sighed through the room. "Necromancer."

The dream shattered, and I woke screaming.