Page 107 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

He smiled. “Fuddy-duddies?”

“Yes, damn it,” I said, and laughed. “They’ve lived so long apart from the rest of the world that they don’t know what’s possible.”

Richard wrapped his arm more tightly across Jean-Claude’s shoulders. “You love being onstage, you shouldn’t have to give that up.”

“Until Deimos is found and dealt with, perhaps leave the stage to others,” Jake said.

“Of course,” Jean-Claude said.

“That goes without saying,” I said, “we can’t give him any more openings into Jean-Claude’s power like that.”

“And that brings us to you giving your human servant and yourmoitié bêtethe fourth mark before dawn,” Jake said.

“You’re pushy, you know that?” I said.

“Only when everything I have worked toward for thousands of years is at stake.”

“Touché, Jake, a fine hit that,” Jean-Claude said. He got to his feet in one of those smooth movements that was all grace and centuries of practice. He turned and held his hands out to Richard and me. “Come,ma petite, mon lupe, we cannot leave it undone, for our enemy will use it as a breach in our castle walls.”

Richard took the offered hand and let the vampire help him to his feet. I stared at the offered hand, then raised my gaze up to the two men. It was still Jean-Claude, but Richard was smiling besidehim, smiling like he knew I’d take the hand, like... like we were all starting over, and... panic, I started to panic. I didn’t try and shield it. Richard’s smile slipped. He said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what else I can say.”

“Ma petite, we are shoring up our defenses tonight, and I would like Richard to sleep on the other side of me in the bed tonight, but that is all until we have time to adjust to the changes.”

I turned to Nathaniel beside me on the couch and stared into his amazing lavender eyes. I felt calmer. Damian leaned over him to take my hand, and I felt icy calm like the world was solid and always would be.

“Wow,” I said, “you’re good.” I stared into his green eyes and felt that pull that vampires have like I could fall forward and be safe and steady forever. It was so tempting in that moment.

“Ma petite.”

I leaned toward Damian, but then Nathaniel was in the way. Once I couldn’t see Damian’s eyes, his hand in mine wasn’t enough to make me lean into it. Damian said, “I’m sorry, that was wrong.”

Nathaniel put his arm around me and put his hand over our clasped hands. “Nothing is going to change except that we add another person to our poly group.”

“How can you say that?” Damian asked. “Jean-Claude and Anita both loved him once. He is the missing piece to their triumvirate. I know how much our triumvirate has meant to me, how much I love you both, and that is all from the vampire marks that bind us together. I am still not attracted to any man but you, and all other women seem frivolous and too soft compared to Anita. I am never happier than when the three of us are together. My favorite nights at work are those when Anita comes to partner me for the dances, or you come to teach modern dances to me and the customers.”

“You are so good at learning the dances, so sexy,” Nathaniel said, smiling and leaning toward the green-eyed vampire. Damian leanedin toward him and their lips met, soft and tender. It filled me up with that happy warmth of knowing they were mine and I was theirs. Nathaniel pulled back from the kiss, and I moved in to take his place, so that Damian startled, eyes flickering open, and then he leaned into the kiss and so did I.

I kissed him long and deep, sliding my tongue between the hard tips of his fangs as he opened his mouth wider for me. Our free arms wrapped around each other, and Nathaniel’s arms held us tighter, so we drew back from the kiss to turn to him. I found his mouth, and Damian found his neck.

Jean-Claude yelled, “Enough!” and thrust his power at us. There was a moment of confusion as I wasn’t sure where I was, or who, or even when Nathaniel whispered through us,Enough. I wrapped myself around Nathaniel, a leg over his thigh; part of me knew I might be flashing the room, but it didn’t bother me enough to shift position. Damian was wrapped on his other side, though he was too tall to have his head on Nathaniel’s shoulder like I did. I looked up at Jean-Claude standing over us and could feel how upset he was, but it slipped away on Nathaniel’s pleasure and Damian’s centuries-old control, though he’d given that up to Nathaniel in that moment. I realized that part of Nathaniel’s strength was that he used the icy control that Damian had built for centuries but was afraid to use now. Nathaniel wasn’t afraid of using anything in that moment.

“Are you challenging me?” Jean-Claude asked, and his voice was more astonished than angry. Richard was at his side, but his face said clearly that he didn’t know what to do in this moment; he was out of his depth already.

“No,” Nathaniel said, and his voice was so certain, there were none of the near-overwhelming sensations that Damian and I were experiencing.

“Then what is this?”

“This is the fourth mark when one of the people isn’t afraid of the power. If I weren’t already engaged to marry Micah, if the threeof us weren’t already a happy threesome, this could be it. If I were less moral, I could overwhelm them both.”

“It looks like you already have,” Richard said.

“I let it get out of control to show the two of you what it’s like. I didn’t understand what had happened when I first got control of Anita’s triumvirate. The animal to call isn’t supposed to be able to do this shit. Once I realized what I’d done, I did my best to learn control and not take over Damian especially.” The vampire kissed his cheek, but Nathaniel ignored it and kept talking as if it hadn’t happened. “Anita has you, and her own power as my master, so I probably couldn’t overwhelm her completely, and even now I’m not sure what I did to Damian before I realized that it was me doing it.”

“Richard has come back to me as a lover on his own,” Jean-Claude said.

“That’s good, because if he hadn’t and you were in control of the three of you, he would have given it up to you. By the time I realized that Damian’s consent for a lot of things wasn’t voluntary, it was too late.”

“But it feels so good,” Damian murmured against his face. I was beginning to come out of it, and had moved my one leg off his thigh, but I still wanted to be wrapped to his side with Damian on the other.

---