Page 55 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“So I thought, and if they could attack me, it would not be here, not while I was surrounded by lust. It is the element where I command.”

“You are steadier now, more in command of yourself,” Wicked said.

“I felt better when Graham touched me, too, but not this much better,” I said.

“Wolf is my animal to call,ma petite.”

“Mine, too,” I said.

“Wolf comes to you through your shared marks with me and the absent third of our triumvirate, but it was mine first. The first power that came to me and marked me as a master vampire.” He seemed utterly sober now, as if he’d drunk a dozen cups of coffee and beendunked in ice water in the last few seconds. He was still wearing the leg-hugging blue leather boots and the thong, but the clothes didn’t matter; he was suddenly every inch a king, dominant to everyone and everything he surveyed. Jean-Claude hid it most of the time; I think it was habit because playing the fop who got by on his looks and seducing the right people had been how he’d hidden in plain sight from other powerful vampires for centuries. He’d hidden just how powerful he was even from me at first, and I was good at judging ages and power levels. Standing there in an outfit that would have made most people put him in the beautiful-bimbo box, suddenly all the camouflage was gone. He stood there in a mantle of power and command that didn’t need crowns or scepters. The intelligence in his face and the certainty with which he held his body said he could walk into a throne room dressed like a stripper and it wouldn’t matter, they’d still curtsy as he passed and believe he had a right to sit down wherever he damn well chose.

21

THE WICKED TRUTHand Ethan went ahead of us because they wouldn’t let us go through first. Buzz and the other security people were locked shoulder to shoulder trying to keep the crowd away from the door. They had their heads down or an arm raised to shield their faces. I could see fingernail marks bleeding on them. The crowd turned toward us as one, a beast with many faces, and I knew that wasn’t my thought, but Jean-Claude’s. He’d seen a crowd like this before, more than once. I was suddenly flooded with memories of other rooms, other crowds; the clothing was a lesson in centuries of fashion. Belle Morte, the creator of Jean-Claude’s bloodline, had enjoyed the chaos of it, and what came next.

Jean-Claude gripped our hands harder to steady himself, and he reached out through both of us for help. Graham was a doorway to the werewolves, though it was an imperfect door because we weren’t connected to Graham, only to his wolf. I was a doorway to the wererats, the clan tigers, and the wereleopards, because I had my own animals to call of each; my lioness and hyena were still waiting for their special connection, so there was less for Jean-Claude to use. My wolf had chosen its other half, and because the need was great we had a moment of feeling Jason on a very different kind of stage, him hesitating because he felt us thinking at him too hard. Jean-Claude drewus back so we wouldn’t make him fall, or drop a ballerina, and we were solidly back amid the overturned tables and chairs and the crowd flowing over the stage like ants over a piece of candy, so that all you can see is their bodies but not what lies underneath. I had a second of almost pure terror, as if when they stepped away from the stage there would be something underneath them, in the midst of them.

Jean-Claude didn’t have to tell me he sensed it, too; I could feel what he was feeling, thinking, and I had a dizzy moment of not being sure if I was walking in the stiletto heels or the soft leather boots. Graham couldn’t meld with us, he wasn’t a part of us, only his wolf half belonged to Jean-Claude because all wolves belonged to him.

I wasn’t sure which of us thought it wasn’t enough, this wasn’t enough connection to our wolves, and then I knew it was Jean-Claude, because I thoughtwolf, not plural.It will have to do, he thought, and I was stumbling in the stiletto heels, unable to walk in them when I wasn’t sure what body I was driving.

Graham moaned. “What did you do to me?”

“My apologies,lupe, but you are not the big bad wolf that I need.”

Graham was having trouble focusing as he said, “I can be big and bad if that’s what you need.”

Jean-Claude smiled at him, and Graham smiled back like he was happy to have said a smart thing that pleased him. Graham so wasn’t a dominant, which meant he so wasn’t a big bad anything, but he was willing to stand with us and be our wolf, and that counted for a lot. Jean-Claude stopped trying to reach for more energy and concentrated on what we had.

I knew Jean-Claude had grown in power, but I hadn’t really understood what it meant until now. He filled the audience with new memories; there had been a contest for them to vote on which of the security people they’d most want to see dance onstage at Guilty Pleasures. I felt that some of the women had small scrapes and bruises and the pain made them doubt the story, but he took their pain away as his gaze could take the pain of the bite away, except hedid this without meeting their eyes, or needing to; they just went back to their tables, and the security walked or limped over to put the overturned chairs back so they could sit down. Jean-Claude took their confusion of rushing the stage and trying to claw their way past the guards into them seeing the guards try to dance onstage, take their shirts off, some were awkward, and it was endearing. Some of the women laughed, as if it were happening in front of them. Some of the guards moved well onstage, and then Jean-Claude had asked them to vote on who they most wanted to see, and Graham had won.

Jean-Claude was busy implanting the memory that I had come back to guest-star tonight using the name that Nathaniel had given me the first time I’d stepped onstage with him. I was Nikki long before our Nicky came into our lives. I had a moment of missing Nicky so hard that it made my chest tight. He should have been at my side tonight. He would have helped me control things, because we’d worked our issues together, unlike Rodina and Ru.

Jean-Claude breathed through me, “Happy thoughts,ma petite, we will see your lion later tonight, but in this moment I need you to feel my hand in yours and be joyful of it.” He squeezed my hand as he said it, and I squeezed back. I let him see that I was happy to be with him; I chased back the next thought, which was not happy with the metaphysics going wrong and having our only wolf option be Graham. He’d grown as a person, but he still wasn’t one of my people, our people. The stray thought came,But he could be. I didn’t know if it was from Graham, Jean-Claude, or one of the audience. Jean-Claude was driving the bus, because I had no idea how to do this. I was powerful, but I was a better battery than a witch, and whether you called it psychic ability or magic, what Jean-Claude was doing took training and practice that I didn’t have.

I thought of running my hands over Jean-Claude in nothing but the thong and boots and that was a happy thought. It helped chase back the stray thought about Graham. Jean-Claude raised my handand laid a gentle kiss on the back of it to let me know he appreciated me getting into the spirit of things. I did want to run my hands over him and a lot more once we had privacy. He planted images in the audience’s mind of me flirting and teasing with the men as they’d come up onstage for the first time. He made me more suave and debonair than I was capable of with strangers onstage. I’d been Nikki for Nathaniel and Jean-Claude here, but never to a bunch of people I’d never touched before.

He swung us around so that the entire audience could see us like we were being presented to them. They screamed Graham’s name, or just screamed in excitement. They called out Jean-Claude’s name, too, because he was showing more skin than they’d seen from him in years. A few even called my stage name and I waved and smiled like that made me happy. I could pretend to get off the stage sooner.

“Our new werewolf is overdressed, is he not?” The women screamed and called out agreement.

It was one thing to plant Graham being sexy and dancing onstage, and it was another for him to do it, so Jean-Claude thought of something simpler for all of us. Graham knelt in front of us, and the moment he stopped touching Graham the energy felt wrong. He touched the side of Graham’s face, and it was as if his power got a boost. I was supposed to help Graham take his shirt off, but that left Jean-Claude not touching either of us, and that seemed like a bad idea.

Jean-Claude moved me like we were dancing so that I was in front of Graham where he knelt, and he came in at the werewolf’s back. Then he let go of both of us for moment and it was as if the world contracted so fast and hard I was dizzy. I reached out and he gave me his hand, the other back on Graham. Touching made the energy expand again; it was as if Jean-Claude’s area of control was expanding and contracting, which wasn’t possible. He was the king of all the vampires in this country. They were blood-oathed to him, which meant he gained power from all of them.

“What was that?” Graham whispered.

I gave a bare shake of my head because I didn’t know. Jean-Claude smiled and flirted with the crowd, but in his head was the thought, “The other vampire has left something behind.”

What?I mouthed.

He thought, “Power.”

That didn’t answer the question, but before I could ask a better question, he called out to the audience, “Shall Nikki and I help our wolf strip?”

“Yes! Please! God yes!” And more enthusiastic encouragement from the crowd so that the noise was almost too much. It made me wish I’d worn ear protection like I did when I went to the gun range.

Jean-Claude helped me kneel in front of Graham and then went gracefully to his knees behind him. Graham was simultaneously excited to see me and a little apprehensive about Jean-Claude at his back. Not a lot, but a little. Jean-Claude laughed and pressed himself to the other man’s back as he drew me closer, so we hugged him together. The crowd loved it, but Jean-Claude whispered to Graham, “Your virtue is safe tonight,lupe.”

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