Page 16 of Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 28)

He nodded. “Oh, yes. I learned not to marry in haste after that one.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be, I’ve learned my lesson. I simply don’t date unless someone else chooses the woman for me.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Very serious.”

“Your taste in women is that bad?”

He nodded.

“That is a terrible burden,” Pierette said.

He looked at her. “Thank you for understanding that it is exactly that.”

“So, with me you get sex, but don’t have to worry about the relationship part.”

“You do sex like you’re the crazy girlfriend, but you do relationships as logically and as pragmatically as any woman I’ve ever met.”

“Thank you, I think, but I’m not sure about the last part. I don’t feel very logically when I’m in love.”

“No one does,” Pierette said.

He turned to her with a smile. “Thank you so much for being willing to try this with us, Pierette. It is a lovelyoffer and you are a lovely woman, but for tonight Anita and I need to talk about what it might mean for our arrangement, and she has to convince me that it won’t blow up in my face.” He took her hand in his and laid his lips across her knuckles as it was meant to be, not an actual kiss. Jean-Claude had taught me the difference, just as he’d taught me to let him raise my hand to his lips and not to try to raise my hand to him and smack him in the mouth.

Pierette got her clothes and her weapons out of the little locker, and then she left the way some of the other guards had, with her belongings in her arms, as if we wouldn’t have waited for her to dress. It was awkward, but not as awkward as the conversation had been.

When we were alone, I said, “Sorry that she sprang that on you.”

“It was a lovely thought, Anita, but thank you for understanding that I am gun-shy about it.”

“It’s not just the one who stabbed you that offered a threesome, is it?”

He smiled, shrugged, and finally said, “I am attracted to women who are willing to try anything once, or who are already doing nonstandard sex, but also I am king of the rodere. Our women used to fight over who would be in my bed.”

“Do you mean really fight for the privilege?” I asked.

He smiled, looked embarrassed, and then nodded. “If the king has a clear choice, then there is no need, but once I stopped trying to date seriously within the rodere, the fights began. It is part of our culture that a great many things are settled with fights. Except for the battle for king, it does not have to be to the death, it can be to just first blood, but it is a way our people settle many things.”

“I’ve never heard of any of the women in your clan fighting over you,” I said.

“It was hurting us as a clan, so I ruled that if theyfought for me, neither would win a place in my bed. I finally had to simply not date anyone within our clan, and then as I became king of more rat clans, I just ran out of dating possibilities. The power and stability were more important to me, and as I ruled over more people and land, I found that I didn’t have time to pursue a relationship, and here we are.”

“Wow, now I’m sort of embarrassed that I brought the topic up with our poly group, because it’s going to hit all sorts of issue buttons for you.”

“Who else besides Pierette agreed to it?” he asked, and the fact that he asked it at all meant that he was still intrigued by the idea.

“Angel’s arm went up so fast I thought she’d pop a ligament.”

He laughed.

“Fortune was interested, but I think Echo is feeling that they’re spreading themselves too thin now.”

“They have been a couple for hundreds of years, that must take precedence,” he said.

I nodded. “Yeah, till death do you part can last a hell of a long time when one of you is a vampire.”

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