Page 33 of Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 28)

“You know I did.”

“Then why aren’t you more upset?”

“I have sent word for everyone to gather here, so we can plan our strategy for tonight,ma petite. Rafael is off telling his people in person, and then he will join us here. Until everyone arrives there is nothing more we can do, so why do you not join us on the bed for the cuddling and comfort?”

I stared at him, openmouthed, not sure what to say. I wasn’t sure if I was more upset that he didn’t seem to be taking the threat seriously, or that he was trying to encourage me to cuddle with him and Asher, when he knew I hadn’t forgiven the other man for his years of terrible behavior.

“You have shocked her speechless,” Asher said from the bed where he lay beside Jean-Claude. I was working so hard at ignoring him, because he was still on my shit list from the epic string of bad choices he’d made that had led all of us to dump him. Jean-Claude had taken him back recently, but with one other exception the rest of us were still pissed at him. At first being pissed at him had made him less attractive to me, but as he kept behaving better, it got harder to stay angry at him, and even harder not to see him as beautiful.

His hair was foamy golden waves around his face. They’d taken time to blow-dry their hair after cleaning up after sword practice; normally they would have sex in the big tub, but they’d cut it short because I was feeding on Rafael and Jean-Claude had needed his attention on that to make sure the energy went where we needed it togo, instead of like a flood that just washed over everything, which was what could happen if I didn’t have help controlling it. The first time I’d fed on Rafael had been an emergency feed to save Jean-Claude’s and Richard’s lives; that time I’d known exactly where to send all that energy, but day to day—that wasn’t my area of expertise.

Jean-Claude stroked his hand along Asher’s hair where all that gold hair was hiding half his face like a veil. That was why they’d dried their hair instead of having sex, because if his hair had been wet, Asher couldn’t have used it to hide the scars on the right side of his face. Holy water burns vampire flesh like acid. The Church had tried to burn the devil out of Asher centuries ago. Jean-Claude had saved his life, but the holy water scars went down the left side of his body. All of that was hidden now behind a brown brocade robe with golden and brown fur trim. Since there was black-on-black brocade on Jean-Claude’s robe, they looked even more like a matched pair than normal. Belle Morte had collected beautiful men with blue eyes. Jean-Claude’s had been the darkest, and Asher’s were the palest blue I’d ever seen in a human. Jean-Claude’s eyes reminded me that the sky was always blue no matter how dark the night, and Asher’s eyes were winter skies, pale and cold, but glittering with humor right now. I didn’t want him laughing at the fact that I was speechless with provincial shock, not when the thought that only me being angry with him was preventing me from crawling onto the bed and getting cuddles from both of them. The offer for more than just cuddles had been put back on the table once Jean-Claude made up with him. Normally it wasn’t hard to keep saying no, but I hadn’t seen them cuddled on the bed together like this, just the three of us, since the big fight that had been my last straw with Asher. I was remembering why I avoided seeing them together.

“Ma petite, are you listening to me?”

I blushed and looked away to try to hide it. “No, I mean yes, but please repeat it all.”

Asher laughed, not that sex-on-a-stick thing that Jean-Claude could do, but just the sound of happiness. It made me want to smile, because I loved him, or Jean-Claude did. I would never really know how much of my love for Asher was mine alone and how much was bleed-over from Jean-Claude having been in love with him for centuries. They’d been on and off over that time, but they were still each other’s love of several lifetimes.

“I am sorry, Anita, truly sorry for laughing, but this is the first time that I’ve known for certain that you miss me as I miss you.”

I tried to frown at him, but it’s hard to look tough when your skin hasn’t faded from blushing. “Fine, you look scrumptious and the two of you together look more, but even if I forgive and forget and we all go back to being lovers, it won’t fix the fact that I can’t make Rafael my rat to call without Narcissus and his werehyenas declaring war.”

“He will not start a war,ma petite, Narcissus has had time to cool down over the insult of Asher leaving him for Kane. He had to fight to regain the respect of his clan after that mess, it has occupied much of his time.”

“But just yesterday you said I couldn’t make Rafael my rat to call, because of Narcissus.”

“Oui, but that was before we learned that a master vampire powerful enough to hide from all of us has made Rafael’s latest challenger into a conduit for his power. If this Hector wins, then his master gains the energy that feeding on the rodere gives us. We cannot allow that to happen. Narcissus will understand the danger to our power structure.”

“He will understand the danger, but I do not know if he will see reason,” Asher said.

“Do you truly think that Narcissus will continue histhreats against Rafael and his wererats even after he learns of this new threat?” Jean-Claude asked, moving just his head against the pillows to look at the other man.

“Narcissus will have to do something to save face, though; he could kill Kane and risk killing me and risk your wrath,” Asher answered.

“Or he could start something unfortunate with the wererats.”

“War, you mean?” I said.

“Not so big a word as that,ma petite, but it is within shapeshifter culture when two different animal groups come into conflict to have a duel between chosen champions.”

“Narcissus could challenge Rafael directly,” said Asher.

“That is very rare,” Jean-Claude said.

“But if Narcissus does issue a challenge to Rafael and he refuses, then it could be seen as weakness or even cowardice. My understanding of wererat culture is that it would open Rafael up to even more challenges from other ambitious wererats,” Asher said.

“Unless Narcissus has a death wish, he should leave Rafael alone,” I said.

Asher shook his head hard enough to have his hair shiver around his shoulders. The golden strands glinted in the lamplight, and just like that I was back to being distracted by his beauty. Damn it.

“You see what Narcissus wills you to see—the fop, the cross-dresser that can outqueen the most flamboyant gay queen, he makes a joke of himself partly to stop others from doing it for him. He is extremely sensitive about being born intersex.”

“I’ve seen him nude and honestly it didn’t look that much different to me.”

“But it is not us that looks in the mirror every day.”

I looked at the beautiful man with his hair hiding half his face, so that only the angelic beauty of the unscarredside showed, and I knew he wasn’t just talking about Narcissus.

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