Page 117 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“He is Dev and you are not, that is need enough. I do not have to justify it to you,” Asher said.

“As I do not have to justify my actions as ruler here,” Jean-Claude said. “You cannot hold me hostage for Narcissus, or for yourself, Asher.” He drew Dev into him, so they faced each other. “I have made my choice for my next animal to call and it is not hyena.”

“No!” Kane yelled; the hyena power spiked and then began to bleed away as if the entire ocean was drying up in the sunlight. Asher was crying, the tears tinted pink with blood, shining like pale rubies in the hallway lights. He was done fighting and had moved on to sorrow. I guess it was an improvement.

“I missed you, too, Asher,” Richard said.

The vampire blinked and stared at him. “What did you say?”

“I missed topping you in the dungeon, so much.”

“No, no, Asher doesn’t need that anymore, not from you, he has Narcissus and Anita and Nathaniel,” Kane said.

“I top all of them, I do not bottom to him.”

“What does it matter? It’s still bondage, you still get the need met,” Kane said.

“Topping and bottoming are very different needs,” I said.

“Shut up! I’m not talking to you!”

“You will keep a civil tongue in your head toward my queen, or Iwill tear it from your head and let you wait in silence for it to grow back,” Jean-Claude said.

I looked at the love of my life and thought,Damn, that was a very specific and disturbing threat. “We have tried kindness for Asher’s sake,ma petite, but no more.”

“If I can have some security to make sure we don’t hurt each other too badly, I’ll handle this end of the hallway; you mark Dev before sunrise,” Richard said.

“I will go with him,” Jake said.

“I wish I could,” Custer said, “but Asher controls hyena in a way that you don’t control wolves, Jean-Claude.”

“You and Geoff stay away from Asher until we fix this,” I said.

“You’re a great boss,” he said, smiling and looking at me as if I wasn’t still standing buck naked. When he first arrived he’d stared at the female shapeshifters, but he’d acclimated. Geoff was just looking at the ceiling as he added his thanks. That was okay, it had taken years for me to get used to all the nudity.

“We’ll go,” Rodina said, and she and Ru followed Jake and Richard down the hallway.

Richard said, “I want to flog you while you’re tied up and I want to feel you lust after me and deny you.”

“See, he will only fuck Jean-Claude, no other man, or even you,” Kane said.

“I want to fuck you, Asher, but I want to come up with a bondage scene that will be everything you and I want it to be.”

“No!” Kane yelled, and there was movement, but Jake was there and Kane was just suddenly face first against the wall with his arm twisted up behind him. “I will break it,” Jake said in a voice that carried.

Kane yelled for Asher to help him, but his vampire master was talking with Richard and I knew now why Asher feared Richard stealing Jean-Claude away from him and no one else, because Asher wanted Richard, too.

I felt the sun start to rise like a blow through my heart. Jean-Claude clutched my hand. “Moments only,” he said.

“Make me yours,” Dev said, leaning over to put his mouth on one of the healing wounds.

“Do it,” I said.

“I will collapse unwashed and dead if I can finish it at all.”

“We’ll go to bed smelling like great sex, and we’ll carry you to bed, do it now.”

Dev sucked hard enough that it brought a gasp from Jean-Claude, but it wasn’t a bad sound. He touched his free hand to Dev’s blond hair and said the words with my hand in his, so that it was the same as he’d said over Richard and me, down to thethree shall be as one. And with each sentence the power grew until the last of the hyena energy was blown away in a warm rush of gold tiger energy that seemed to greet the sunrise that I could feel spreading above us.

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