Page 108 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“It feels good not to fight or worry or push at it, but just to let go,” I said.

Nathaniel kissed the top of my head, then turned to rub his face against Damian’s cheek. The vampire turned it into a kiss and Nathaniel had to flex power like the sharp tug on a leash. “Not yet, handsome,” he said, and the vampire moved back so that he could talk to them again. I was sitting up a little straighter because I hadn’t liked that tug-on-the-leash feeling.

“Who is going to be in charge of your triumvirate, Jean-Claude?” Nathaniel asked.

“Jean-Claude will be in charge of it,” Jake said.

“Will he? Will you?” Nathaniel asked, looking from him and back to the raven-haired vampire standing over us.

“They don’t want to be evil, and they all see controlling the others as evil,” Rodina said.

Nathaniel glanced at her and nodded.

I sat up a little straighter, pushing so that I wasn’t glued to his side. “If I can’t be in charge of the three of us, I’m not going to work with Jean-Claude any better. I’m so conflicted about Richard showing up like this after so long.”

“But don’t you remember that Richard had his own version of theardeurbriefly in the hotel room in Asheville?” Nathaniel asked.

I nodded. “He wanted me to be in love with just him, monogamous with just him, and if I hadn’t had Jason to do an emergency metaphysical shout-out, Richard might have succeeded.”

“I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, Anita.”

“Just like I didn’t know,” Nathaniel said.

“It’s never happened again, not with anyone,” Richard said.

“But if Jean-Claude gives you both the fourth mark and he’s too conflicted to take charge and so is Anita, wouldn’t it be tempting to roll them both? I think it would have to be both, I don’t think you could do just one, but you might be able to roll them so that it was just the three of you again. You might be able to erase everyone else they love but the three of you.”

“I am more powerful than Damian, by far,” I said.

“You are, but you also have a near phobia of forcing yourself on anyone unless safety and lives are at stake.”

“And might I be tempted to roll over both Richard and Anita and make them mine in a way thatma petiteis never quite mine.” Jean-Claude nodded, thinking it over, as I fought to escape whatever Nathaniel had done to me.

“I can tell you it’s fucking tempting to make yourself the adored one,” Nathaniel said.

“I already adored you,” I said as I moved a little away from him on the couch, hoping that would help me clear my head.

“Lucky for me, because if I’d made you love me when you didn’t, you’d have probably killed me to be free of it.”

I wanted to argue, because I loved Nathaniel and had for years, but I thought of all the vampires that had tried to control me over the years, and... “If you’d been just someone I knew and had no place in my life, yeah, I would have risked death for all of us rather than stay enslaved.”

“And if I wasn’t a nicer person, a better person, it could be enslavement,” Nathaniel said, and he looked up at them.

“Master vampires are not nice, or the better person,” Rodina said.

“We try to be,” Jean-Claude said.

“Anita is still too conflicted to be in charge; that leaves you or Richard, and you don’t want it to be the Ulfric.”

“You don’t trust me to do what’s best for everyone?” Richard asked.

“I’m happy for your personal growth, and embracing that you’re bisexual for Jean-Claude is a big deal. Congratulations, but breakthroughs aren’t permanent unless you keep doing the work. The fourth mark could give you so much of what you’ve wanted for so long, it’s going to be tempting, like apple-in-the-Garden-of-Eden-level temptation,” Nathaniel said.

“I don’t want to take people over, and especially not Anita when I can feel that she’s not in love with me anymore, in fact she’s pissed at me. If she wakes up tomorrow thinking I’m great, then I’ll know I’m to blame.”

“Maybe not, Jean-Claude’s life would be a lot easier if you and she were in love again.”

“I would never betray us all, and it would be a betrayal,” Jean-Claude said.

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