The Harlequin

chapter seven

REQUIEM GLIDED IN wearing a long, hooded cloak as black as his hair. He was the only vamp I'd ever met who wore a cloak like that.

Byron came behind him, carrying a towel that seemed to be full of something. He was still wearing nothing but his G-string. There was still money stuffed in it. He grinned at me. «Hi, duckie.»

«Hey, Byron.»

He always talked like he had just stepped out of an old British movie: lots of loves and duckies. He talked that way to everyone, so I didn't take it personally. He up-ended the towel on the couch beside me. It was suddenly raining money.

«Good night,» Nathaniel said.

Byron nodded and started taking the money out of his G-string. «Jean-Claude used that sweet, sweet voice of his during my act. The pigeons always give it up for him.» He slipped off the G-string, letting some bills flutter to the floor. I used to protest the nudity in front of me, but they were strippers, and after a while either you stopped being bothered by the casual nudity, or you didn't hang at the club. Nudity didn't mean to the dancers what it meant in the real world. Stripping is about the illusion that the customers can have them—the illusion of sex, not the reality of it. It had taken me a while to understand that.

Byron used the towel to dry some of the sweat off his body. He winced, and turned to show bloody scratches high on one buttock. «Got me from behind, just at the end of m' act.»

«Hit-and-run, or did she give you extra money for it?» Nathaniel asked.

«Hit-and-run.»

I must have looked puzzled, because Nathaniel explained. «A hit-and-run is when a customer gets an extra grope, or scratch, or something intimate, and we don't know who did it, and they don't pay for it.»

«Oh,» I said, because I didn't know what else to say. I didn't like watching my boyfriends being groped by strangers. It was another reason I stayed away.

« 'The evening star, love's harbinger, sits before me, and does not even waste a smile upon me. «Requiem's greeting to me. It wasn't what he always said, but it was typical. He'd started calling me his «evening star.»

«You know, I looked up the quote. It's John Milton's Paradise Lost. I'm not sure, but I think it's your very poetic way of complaining.»

He glided in, making sure the cloak showed nothing but the long oval of his face, and even that was mostly hidden by the Vandyke-style beard and mustache. The only color on him was the swimming blue of his eyes: the richest, deepest, medium blue I'd ever seen.

«I know what I am to you, Anita.»

«And that would be?» I said.

«I am food.» He bent over me, and I turned my face so that the kiss he gave was on the cheek and not the mouth. He didn't fight me on it, but the kiss was empty and neutral, the kind of kiss you'd give your aunt. But I'd made certain it wouldn't be more. I'd turned away first, so why did it bug me that he'd just accepted the rebuff and not tried to make the kiss more? I didn't want him pursuing me harder than he was; I'd made that clear, so why did his just accepting the cheek bother me? God only knows, because I had no idea. I was mad at Nathaniel for demanding more of me, and irritated with Requiem for not demanding anything. Even in my own head I was confused.

He glided away to sink into the empty chair near the desk. He made sure the cloak covered him completely, only the tips of his black boots peeking out. «Why the frown, my evening star? I did exactly what you wished me to do, didn't I?»

I fought not to frown harder, and probably failed. «You bother me, Requiem.»

«Why?» he asked, simply.

«Why, just why, no poetry?» I asked.

Nathaniel patted my shoulder, either reminding me he was there or trying to stop me from picking a fight. Either way, it worked, because I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I wasn't sure why Requiem got on my nerves lately, but he did. He was one of my lovers. He was food. But I didn't like it, any of it. He was wonderful in bed, but… there was always that feeling from him that no matter what I did it was never enough. Never what he wanted me to do. There was a constant, unspoken pressure from him. I knew the feeling, but unless you were going to have a «relationship» with a man, it was a pressure you didn't deserve, or wouldn't respond to. He was food, and we were lovers; he was Jean-Claude's third-in-command. I'd tried to be his friend, but somehow the sex had ruined that. I think without the sex we could have been friends, but with it… with it we were neither friends, nor boyfriend or girlfriend. We were lovers, but… I had no words for what was wrong between us, but I could feel it, like an old ache in a wound you thought had healed.

«You told me you were tired of my 'constantly quoting poetry' to you. I'm practicing speaking simply.»

I nodded. «I remember, but… I feel like you're unhappy with me, and I don't know why.»

«You have allowed me into your bed. I share the ardeur once more. What could any man desire above that?»

«Love,» Nathaniel said.

Requiem looked past me to the other man. There was a flash of blue fire in the vampire's eyes: anger, power. Requiem hid it, but I'd seen it. We'd all seen it.

« 'Where both deliberate, the love is slight: Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?»

«I don't know who you're quoting,» Nathaniel said, «but Anita doesn't love at first sight, or at least she didn't me.»

«He's quoting from Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe,» Byron said. The other vampire was counting the money he'd rained down on the couch. He had his back to the other vampire. «And what's bothering him is that he thinks he's wonderful, and he can't understand why you don't love him.»

«Do not tempt me, Byron. My anger seeks only a target,» Requiem said.

Byron turned with his stacked and counted money in his hand. «I can resist anything but temptation,» he said. He glanced at me. «He hates it when you quote back at him.»

«Your tongue doth overstep your purpose, Byron,» Requiem said, his voice purring low with warning.

«My purpose,» Byron said, his gray eyes flashing with a moment of shining power like quiet lightning. He laid his money on the lacquered coffee table and turned to face the other vampire. «I want that glib and oily art, To speak and purpose not.» He sat in Nathaniel's lap, putting his legs across my lap.

Nathaniel put an arm around him, almost automatically, and gave me a look. The look said, What's going on? but since I didn't know, I had no answers. It was like we'd stepped into a fight I hadn't known was happening. I had my hands in the air, above Byron's bare legs. I could ignore the nudity most of the time now, but not when that nudity was sitting in my boyfriend's lap and had flung itself across my legs. My ability to ignore just wasn't that good.

«What's going on?» I asked, my hands finally coming to light on Byron's bare legs, because I felt stupid keeping my hands in the air. If he'd been more on my lap than Nathaniel's I might have just dumped him on the floor, but whatever was happening he'd involved Nathaniel, too, and that meant I couldn't simply act. I had to think, too. Simply reacting was so much easier, not always in the long run, but in the short run, it felt so much better.

«Ask Byron,» Requiem said. «I have no idea why he's acting like this.»

I patted Byron's calf and said, «Why are you sitting in our laps?»

Byron wrapped his arms around Nathaniel's shoulders, cuddling his face next to his. He stared at me, giving me a look out of those gray eyes that made me fight off a shiver. Not a shiver of fear, but one that was all about sex. Nathaniel looked faintly puzzled as their faces pressed next to each other. It was the blatant sex look that made me slide out from under his legs and stand up. «I don't know what game this is, Byron, but Nathaniel and I don't want to play.»

Byron slid off Nathaniel's lap and knelt on the far side of him, so that I could still see the two of them clearly. It was like he was doing serious flirting. Byron flirted, but not seriously, more like it was a casual hobby. There was nothing casual about the look on his face.

He slid his hand along Nathaniel's neck, then grabbed his braid. Grabbed it, and yanked Nathaniel's neck backward at a painful angle. Nathaniel's breath came in fast pants, his pulse visible like a trapped thing in his throat.

My gun was just in my hand. I didn't remember drawing it. I didn't remember aiming it. My own pulse was hammering in my throat. Years of practice had a gun pointed at Byron's face. He was staring at me, his gray eyes straight on, face still serious, but not threatening. I didn't know what was going on, but whatever it was, someone was going to get hurt if it didn't stop.

«Let him go,» I said, and my voice was as steady as the gun pointed at his forehead. I had a sense of Lisandro moving away from the door, coming toward us. I wasn't sure if I wanted the interference, or even if I needed it.

«He doesn't want me to let him go, do you, Nathaniel?» Byron's voice was very careful, even, as if he finally realized that his game could turn deadly.

Nathaniel's voice came strangled with the angle of his neck, and the force of the vampire's hand on his hair, but what he said was, «No, no, don't stop.»

I finally let myself glance at Nathaniel. I didn't normally look away from someone I was pointing a gun at, but there was no sense of menace to Byron. Whatever we were doing, I wasn't sure it was about violence. Nathaniel's hands were gripping Byron's arm, but not like he was trying to stop the vampire from hurting him, more like he was just holding on. But it was the look on Nathaniel's face that made me lower the gun to point at the floor.

Nathaniel's lips were half parted, his eyes fluttering closed, his face slack with pleasure. His body was tense with anticipation. He was enjoying the pain, enjoying being manhandled. Shit.

Byron let go of Nathaniel abruptly, almost with a throwaway gesture. Nathaniel fell back onto the couch, gasping for breath, his eyes rolled back into his head behind fluttering eyelids. His spine bowed, throwing his head back, making him writhe against the back of the couch.

Byron stood there and watched him. «Duckie, this much reaction, you have been neglecting your boy.»

He was right. I'd have liked to argue it, but he was right. The proof of neglect was writhing on the couch in some sort of ecstasy that I couldn't even begin to understand. I liked a little force now and then, but it didn't do this for me. Nathaniel began to grow quiet, eyes still closed, and a smile on his face. I understood for the first time that the violence could be sex for him, really, truly could.

I looked at Byron. «And your point?» I was pretty sure I knew what the point was, but I'd be damned if I'd help him make it.

«I heard rumors that you weren't doing dominance and submission with the boy, but I didn't believe it. I mean, how can you be with Nathaniel and not do BDSM? Bondage and submission is the boy's bread and butter.»

I nodded, and put my gun up. «Do you know how close you came to getting yourself shot?»

«I did once I saw your gun pointed at my face.» The joking was gone again, so serious, and then he smiled. «So exciting.»

«Are you saying you got off on the fact that I damn near shot you?» I laughed a little at the end, but it was a nervous laugh.

«Not got off the way that Nathaniel does, but I like to be dominated sometimes.» He sat down on the couch, squeezed between Nathaniel and the couch arm. He wrapped his arms around Nathaniel's shoulders again, though he was sitting on his knees so that he couldn't put their faces next to each other. Nathaniel cuddled in against him, a peaceful look on his face. It creeped me out. But he cuddled Byron's arms tighter around him, as if he were his favorite teddy bear. He'd never liked Byron that much, and now just a little abuse and he was his best buddy. I did not get it, I just didn't.

Byron hugged him back and stroked the side of his hair. «I'm a switch, Anita, in every sense of the word.»

I frowned at him. «Switch means bisexual, right?»

«There's another meaning for it, duckie.»

«Just tell me, Byron. I'm not very good at subtle.»

«It means that I'm both a sub and a dom.»

«Submissive and dominant,» I said.

He nodded.

«What are you offering?» I said.

«I could help you tame your kitty-cat here.»

«How?» I let the word hold all the suspicion it could.

He laughed. «You can put so much menace and doubt into one word, duckie.»

«Answer the question,» I said.

«Feed the ardeur on me and Nathaniel, while I abuse him. If this is a preview, the energy will be amazing.»

«And what do you get out of it?»

«I get to have sex with you, duckie.»

I shook my head. «Try again, Byron. You like boys a lot more than you like girls.»

«I get to have sexual contact with Nathaniel.»

I felt my eyes narrow at him. «You've never acted like Nathaniel was your type before.»

«I know that he's unhappy, and I want my friends to be happy.»

«That's not all of it,» I said.

«Don't know what you mean, lover.» He settled into the corner of the couch. Nathaniel and he cuddled like they had done it before, though I didn't think they had.

«He's doing it for my benefit,» Requiem said.

I looked at the other vampire, who had never moved from his chair. «Explain,» I said.

«Tell her, Byron, tell her why you're offering.»

«Where has all your poetry gone, Requiem?» Byron asked.

« 'In chains and darkness, wherefore should I stay, And mourn in prison, while I keep the key? «Requiem said.

«That's better,» Byron said. «Have you thought about ending it all, duckie? Is the fact that Anita doesn't adore you that painful to you?»

Requiem just stared at him, and something in that look made Byron shiver. I wasn't sure if it was a shiver of fear or of other things. If he wasn't afraid, he should have been. I'd never seen Requiem look at anyone with that coldness before.

«This has the smell of something that will get out of hand and get people hurt. Since part of my job is to protect everyone who could get hurt, talk to me,» I said.

Byron looked at me. «Nathaniel needs his pain, Anita. I'll help you give it to him, while you're in the bed with us. You get to supervise but you don't have to do the dirty work.»

«Did Nathaniel talk to you about this problem?»

«I know what it's like, Anita, to want a certain kind of touch and be denied it. I spent centuries being given to masters that didn't give a damn what I wanted or needed. You love Nathaniel and he loves you, but eventually, needs left unanswered can curdle love like milk left to spoil in the sun.»

«So this little demonstration is out of the kindness of your heart,» I said, and let my tone say how little I believed that.

«He's tried to tell you, duckie, but you didn't understand.»

«I'm not sure I understand now,» I said.

«But did it help, my little show?»

I wanted to say no, but it would have been a lie. Most vamps could smell or feel a lie, so why bother? «Hate to admit it, but yeah, it helped. Don't pull shit like this again, but you've made your point.»

«Have I?» he said, sliding lower on the couch, so that he and Nathaniel were more intertwined. If it bothered Nathaniel to be that up close and personal with a naked man, it didn't show. Okay, a naked man who wasn't one of our sweeties. Had just a little hair pulling made him like Byron that much? Was Nathaniel's need that great, or had I just neglected his needs that much?

Byron hadn't done anything that I wasn't willing to do. He hadn't done anything bad. Would it be so bad to just tie Nathaniel up and have the sex we would have had without the tying up? Was that so awful? I looked at the two men, cuddled together, the look of peaceful contentment on Nathaniel's face, and realized that I'd been arrogant. I'd assumed that if our relationship ended, it would be me doing the ending. That I'd dump him for being too needy, or too something. In that instant I realized that he might dump me for simply not trying hard enough to meet his needs. The thought made my chest tight. I loved him, I really did. I could not imagine my life without him. So what was I willing to do to keep him? How far would I go, and did I need help to get there? I'd had sex with Byron once before. I'd fed the ardeur off him. Could Byron teach me how to dominate Nathaniel? Maybe, maybe not. But his little show had proved one thing: that I needed someone to show me how Nathaniel worked. I would never have dreamed that simply pulling his hair, putting a little force behind it, would get such an amazing reaction out of him.

«You look like you're thinking too hard, lover.»

«I'm thinking about your little show; isn't that what you wanted?» I asked.

«I wanted it to excite you, but that's not excitement in your eyes.» It was his turn to frown.

«She is not easily captured,» Requiem said.

«She likes two men at once.»

«Not just any two men,» Requiem said, «just as she does not prefer just any single man.»

«You're talking about me like I'm not here; I really hate that,» I said.

«Sorry, duckie, but I was hoping that the sight of Nathaniel and me together would do something for you.»

«It puzzled me.»

Byron laughed, and it made his face look younger, gave you a glimpse of what he might have been at a human fifteen when a vampire found him and made sure he'd never see sixteen. «Puzzlement wasn't exactly what I had in mind.»

I shrugged. «Sorry.»

He shook his head. «Not your fault, dearie. I don't do it for you.»

«I don't do it for you either,» I said.

He laughed again. «The sex was lovely.»

«But you'd have liked it better if it had been Jean-Claude.»

A look slid through his eyes. He actually looked down, lowering his eyes in a show of coyness to hide the look. When he raised his gaze to me again, it was that smiling blankness that he hid behind. «Jean-Claude loves you, duckie; he's made that abundantly clear.»

I might have asked what he meant by that, but the door opened and the vampire in question glided through. His clothes had just looked dark in the club; his usual black. The clothes were black, but they weren't usual.

He was wearing a tuxedo complete with tails—though once you made it out of leather, was it still a tuxedo? Braces like silk suspenders slid over the bare flesh of his chest. I stared at that bare skin the way some men stare at a woman's breasts. It wasn't like me. I mean, it was a nice chest, but to stop there and not look at his face was just wrong. Because as nice as the chest was, the face was better. I raised my gaze to that face. The hair fell past his shoulders in black curls. The line of his neck was encircled with a black velvet ribbon and a cameo I'd bought for him. Up to the kissable curve of his mouth, the curve of his cheek like a swallow's wing, all grace and… Swallow's wing? What the hell did that mean? I would never have described anyone's jawline like that.

«Ma petite, are you well?»

«No,» I said, softly, «I don't think I am.»

He moved closer and I had to move my eyes upward, had to meet that midnight blue gaze. It was like back at the movies when I'd first seen Nathaniel. I was too fascinated, too taken with him. I actually had to close my eyes so the vision of him didn't distract before I could say, «I think someone's messing with me.»

«What do you mean, ma petite?»

«You mean like at the movie theatre,» Nathaniel said. His voice was closer than the couch. He must have moved toward us.

I nodded, eyes still closed.

Jean-Claude's voice came from right in front of me. «What happened at the theatre?»

Nathaniel explained. «She had to get her cross out before it got better.»

«But I'm wearing my cross now,» I said.

«It's inside your shirt now. It was in plain sight before,» Nathaniel said.

«That shouldn't matter unless the vampire is in the room with me.»

«Try bringing it into the light,» Jean-Claude said.

I opened my eyes a crack, glancing at him. He was still heartrendingly beautiful, but I could think again. «That shouldn't matter for this.» I stared up into his face, straight into those wondrous eyes. They were just eyes, beautiful, captivating, but not literally. «It's gone again.»

«What's going on, duckies?» Byron asked. He walked up to us, looking from one to the other.

«Lisandro, leave us,» Jean-Claude said.

Lisandro seemed to think about protesting, but he didn't. He just asked, «Do you want me to stay on the door, or go back to the club?»

«The door, I think,» Jean-Claude said.

«Don't our guards need a heads-up?» I asked.

«This is not the business of the rodere.»

«Lisandro raised a point before you came in, that if we're going to endanger them, they have a right to know why.»

Jean-Claude looked at Lisandro. It was not a completely friendly look. «Did he?»

Lisandro gave him a flat look back. «I was talking about when Anita picks another animal to call, nothing about your orders, Jean-Claude.»

«All that concerns ma petite concerns me.» There was a dangerous purr to his voice.

Lisandro shifted a little and visibly let out a breath. «No offense, but don't you want her to pick a stronger beast next time? Someone who will help your power base?»

Jean-Claude stared at him, and Lisandro fought to both look at the vampire and not look—a trick that I'd mastered over the years, but was glad I'd become powerful enough to give up. So hard to be tough when you can't look someone in the eyes.

«Is my strength the concern of the rats?» Jean-Claude asked.

«Yes,» Lisandro said.

«How?» One word, flat and unfriendly.

«Your strength keeps us all safe. The wererats remember what St. Louis was like when Nikolaos was Master of the City.» Lisandro shook his head, face darkening. «She didn't protect anyone or anything but the vampires. You think about the entire preternatural community, Jean-Claude.»

«I think you will find it is ma petite who thinks of such things.»

«She's your human servant,» Lisandro said. «Her actions are your actions. Isn't that what the vampires believe, that their human servants are just extensions of their masters?»

Jean-Claude blinked and moved farther into the room, collecting me by the hand as he moved. «A pretty conceit, but you know that ma petite is her own person.» His hand in mine felt solid, real, and the world was suddenly safer. Just the touch of his hand and I felt more myself.

«Whatever or whoever is messing with me is still here,» I said, «around the edges somehow, but still here.»

«What do you mean, ma petite?»

«When you touched me, I felt more solid. Your touch chased back a fuzziness I didn't even know was there.»

He drew me in against his body, so that it was almost a hug. I caressed the butter softness of his leather lapels. «Is that more solid still?» he asked.

I shook my head.

«Try touching skin to skin,» Requiem said.

He had stayed in the chair by the desk. We'd moved until we were close to him, not intentionally, at least not on my part.

I kept one hand in Jean-Claude's, but the other I put against his bare chest. The moment I touched that much of his skin, it was good. «Even better,» I said. I traced my hand over the smooth, firm muscles of his chest. I traced the cross-shaped burn scar. Better still.

«Why did you want to speak to Byron and me, Jean-Claude?» Requiem looked up at us, his face fighting for blankness but failing around the edges. He reclined in the chair, body at ease, but his eyes gave him away: tight, careful.

«You've seen this before, haven't you?» I asked.

«Once,» he said, his voice more neutral than his eyes.

«When?» I asked.

He looked at Jean-Claude. «The wererat should leave.»

Jean-Claude nodded. «Go, for now, Lisandro. If we can tell you more, we will.»

Lisandro looked at me as he left, as if he thought I was the one most likely to tell him the truth later. He was right.