Page 116 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

Jean-Claude curved his hand around the side of Ethan’s face and the moment he touched him there the stream of new energy got bigger. Jean-Claude helped the weretiger to lay his head on his shoulder. Ethan took that as an invitation and rubbed his face against Jean-Claude’s like a cat scent-marking. Richard came closer, but it was too late for wolf. Jean-Claude touched my shoulder and there was another leap in the energy. My tigress flopped on her side the way that real-world female cats do when they’re in the mood. She rolled around on the ground in invitation, but only I could see it.

I traced my hand up Jean-Claude’s chest where the blood was starting to dry; the blade hadn’t been silver and the wounds had closed. Jean-Claude reached for Dev, and the moment they touched directly, the tiger energy was stronger, the stream overrunning its banks, but the ocean of hyena energy still filled the hallway, because Kane was a fullmoitié bêteof a master vampire and Dev was not. He was mine, but in this moment I understood why my tie to Nathaniel was stronger than any of my other animals to call, because Damian was with us, had been with us from the beginning. To truly make this work you needed a real vampire, not the in between that I had become.

“But I’m part of a real triumvirate now,” Richard said, “why is my power less than Dev’s even before Jean-Claude marks him?”

“I’ve been trained to work energy since I was small,” Dev said.

“Dev was the best magic worker of his generation,” Jake said.

“Then why hasn’t he shown this level of power before?” Richard asked.

“Because Anita didn’t have the fourth mark from Jean-Claude before; as your master grows in power, so do you,” Jake said.

“Think what I’ll be able to do once Jean-Claude marks me himself.”

“You will be nothing!” Kane shouted.

“I am sorry that you are the one who will suffer here, Dev, but I will not lose Jean-Claude to Richard, not if I can hold him to me with shared power,” Asher said, coming closer down the hallway until he stood just behind Kane.

Dev kissed the healed wound on Jean-Claude’s chest like a promise for later, touched Ethan’s hair, and kissed me on the mouth, before he stood up and faced them. “You talk about losing Jean-Claude to Richard’s perfection, but I’m as beautiful as he is, and as unscarred. Why do you never fear losing Jean-Claude to me? Why do you never see me as a threat for Anita, or for Nathaniel? You call him your flower-eyed boy, but he is with me more than you. I sleep in Jean-Claude’s bed almost every day. I sleep on the other side of your flower-eyed boy from Anita, or beside Jean-Claude himself day after day. Richard has not been in that bed to sleep or for anything else in years, but yet you still think that Jean-Claude would leave you for him.”

“I think he would leave us all for him, except Anita.”

Jean-Claude pushed away from the wall and stood with my hand still in his. Ethan stayed close to us. I realized I didn’t know where Angel was; she must have left sometime during the fourth mark when the only thing I could see was Jean-Claude’s chest and Richard beside me. Richard came to stand behind us, putting his hand on Jean-Claude’s shoulder.

“See, see, already they are a threesome again; if the rumors aretrue and the Ulfric fucked him at last, then they will be complete without the rest of us,” Asher said.

Jean-Claude made an exasperated sound and said, “Asher, we are polyamorous, we add to our poly group, we do not have to give up anyone.”

“Yet there you stand, just the three of you as of old.”

Jean-Claude reached his hand out to Dev, who took it, and Dev’s power deepened like a river that could threaten an ocean. “Mephistopheles is our handsome devil, we could not do without him in our lives and in our bed.”

“Where will he sleep now that the Ulfric is back?”

“Tonight he will sleep on the other side of the bed at Nathaniel’s back with Anita between us.”

“And when Micah Callahan returns from his business trip and takes his spot at Nathaniel’s back, where will Dev be then? The Ulfric will be at your back, Jean-Claude, in the place that Dev sleeps when Micah is in your bed.”

I felt Dev’s power falter, the doubts hitting home. Kane cackled that hyena sound that raised the hair on the back of my neck. Richard saved it by saying, “I came back to fit into Anita and Jean-Claude’s life with no expectations. I’m not going to demand that they kick anyone out of their place for me.”

Dev looked back at him. “You mean that?”

“If you sleep with them every night, then you’re important to them. What’s the word, you and I aremetamours, because you’re the lover of my lovers. You were here for them when I was off getting my doctorate and working on my issues. I want a place in their life, but that doesn’t supplant your place, or anyone else’s place in their lives.” Dev smiled at him, and the tiger energy pulsed back to life.

“Where will you sleep when Micah comes back?” Dev asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t even know if Micah would be okay with me sleeping in the same bed with him even if we slept as far away from each other as we could get.”

“When we go to bed tonight, Dev, you will be on the other side of Anita with your arm tucked over both of us,” Nathaniel said.

Jean-Claude raised Dev’s hand and kissed it. “We could not do without our devil.”

“You will be cast out, and after defying Asher like this, you will not be welcome in our bed again,” Kane yelled.

“That is not for you to say, Kane. I am your master and I say who joins us, not you.”

Kane looked back at him, and it was their energy that faltered now. “You don’t need him when you have me. He fills no needs that I cannot fill.”

---