Page 11 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“You came in here tonight sounding like your old self, your old insecure jealous self. That person is not safe to be around, so I’m going to be cautious.”

“Are you saying he hurt you?” Peter asked.

“I hurt everyone around me before the doctor found medication that balanced my brain chemistry. It’s worse than being an addict, because at least that is something you can live without, something outside yourself, but what is wrong with me is inside me. I cannot go cold turkey as they say, because I am my own drug, my own weakness without a different drug to help me see sense.”

“That sounds terrible,” Peter said, and sounded like he meant it.

“It is,mon ami, it is.”

“I’m glad they found meds that worked for you,” Edward said.

Asher looked past Peter to the other man. “Thank you.”

“We can shelve this conversation for privacy with Jean-Claude and the other lovers in our life,” I offered.

“Do you truly feel unsafe with me holding you in my arms?”

Okay, I guess we weren’t going to wait for a more intimate audience for this conversation, so be it. I looked at him and distant like a bell was Jean-Claude’s love for the man in front of me, but my own heart was strangely unmoved. “We’re lovers again, Asher.”

“But you are not in love with me, as I am with you.”

“You hurt me, Jean-Claude exiled you for months, and then you came home with Kane, who makes it impossible. The time we have together without him just enrages him more, so that it’s harder and harder to be together.”

“We are lovers again, but it is as if we are not together, because everything must run through Kane’s jealousy and possessiveness,” Asher said.

“Exactly.”

“If I had married him I would divorce him, but I made him mymoitié bête, my animal half; that is not a tie that can be broken short of death.”

“Yeah, it truly is until death do you part,” I said.

“I do not know what to do about Kane; if I had been healthier I would never have chosen him.”

Edward said, “Maybe without Kane you might not have given therapy a real shot.”

“What do you mean?” Asher asked.

“Anita had to tell me about Kane before we came to St. Louis for this trip, because she wanted Peter and me to know that he was potentially dangerous. I think Kane held up a mirror to your own obsessive jealousy. You finally saw in him what everyone else had seen in you, and you didn’t want to be like that anymore.”

“I knew you were a deadly foe, but I did not know that you were also a wise friend,” Asher said.

“I’m not your friend, I’m Anita’s friend.”

“You don’t like me.”

“You haven’t given me a reason to like you.”

“That is fair.” Asher turned back to me. “Perhaps your friend is correct, and I needed Kane to show me the error of my ways.”

“If that’s true then I’m grateful for that, but that still leaves us with Kane.”

“What happens if you kill him?” Edward asked.

“His death could kill Asher.”

“I thought Asher lived through the death of his human servant once.”

“He did.” I didn’t elaborate on one of the most painful moments in Asher’s or Jean-Claude’s lives. The bare facts and move on.

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