Dead Ice
Page 24
Jean-Claude touched my face. “What has put such a solemn look in your eyes, ma petite?”
“Do you remember Phillip?”
Something moved through his eyes, and then he blinked and gave me bland, empty, pleasant face. “Of course I do; he worked at Guilty Pleasures, and I could not protect him.”
“You feel guilty about his death, too?”
“Oh, yes, ma petite, I feel guilty, because I was one of the vampires who took blood from him. I ran the club where he worked. I got him off street drugs, because I won’t allow such things in my club, or on my stage, but he became addicted to being bitten, addicted to giving up his blood to us all. I thought I had saved him from an early death as a drug addict, but I only took him from one addiction to another, and it killed him.”
“I didn’t know that you got Phillip off drugs.”
“We needed a handsome victim for one of our vampire dancers to feed onstage. He was brought to me as that. He cleaned up well, but it was because he had replaced one addiction with another, not because I cured him.”
“Nikolaos killed him, because he was helping me solve the vampire murders.”
Jean-Claude nodded. “That was her excuse. Phillip should have been mine to protect, but I was not powerful enough to help him. I was not powerful enough to help myself, until you came into my life and helped me break free of those who tormented us all.”
I went to him, and Micah let me go so I could wrap my arms around the other man in my life. “I didn’t realize you’d been that close to Phillip,” I said.
“I wasn’t close in the way that most humans mean, but he was my responsibility and I could not keep him from the monsters.”
I nodded. “Me, either.”
“But you killed the monsters that hurt him, and I could not even do that.”
“Revenge is cold comfort when the person you’re avenging is already dead,” I said.
“That is true, ma petite, but it is still comfort, no matter how cold, or how late it is served.”
I went up on tiptoe and put my arms around his neck. “Fuck revenge, here’s to getting there in the nick of time.”
He smiled and leaned down to whisper above my lips, “Yes, very yes.”
We kissed and it was soft, and long, and full of as many shared tears as smiles, but that didn’t lessen it; that made it more.
9
I DIDN’T LIKE having someone else drive my SUV, ever, but having them drive it because I was too emotionally overwrought about something that had happened several years ago just pissed me off. It felt weak, and I hated that. I wanted to aim all that self-loathing and pissiness at someone, and Nathaniel was sitting right there behind the wheel of MY car, driving me to MY job, because I was having some sort of internal crisis that I couldn’t fucking handle. But it was Nathaniel and I loved him too much to take it out on him, which was probably why the other men in my life had picked him to chauffeur me. I hated being managed like this, but it was working, so I sat in the dark in the passenger seat and watched the headlights from the other cars, my arms crossed, and sort of huddling on my anger. I’d moved my gun from the small of the back to my right side, so it didn’t dig in while I sat in the car. I was loving my new innerpants holster, though if I kept moving it around too much the leather wouldn’t conform to my body the way it was designed to. It would be dark enough at the cemetery that I wouldn’t accidentally flash the clients, but even that made me grumpy. Why should I have to hide my gun from clients when they knew I was a marshal? I so wanted to pick a fight with someone, but not with Nathaniel, and that was what Jean-Claude, or more likely Micah, had counted on. Damn it.
I glanced at Nathaniel as he drove, hands precise and careful. He didn’t really like driving at night, and I knew that, so I’d be even less likely to pick at him. Nathaniel was also one third of my ménage à trois with Micah, and one of the last few that we all agreed should get a ring in whatever ceremony we finally decided on, and on the heels of that thought was that the weretigers were pushing us to include one of them in the commitment ceremony. The anger flared over my skin in a shiver of power, and distant as a dream I “saw” all the colors of tiger that I held inside me—white, red, black, blue, and gold—stare up at me.
Nathaniel shivered as he got the bleed-off from the burst of power, my beasts peeking out. He tried to rub one hand down his arm, but that moved the wheel too much and the car did a slight swerve. He put both hands back on the wheel, but I couldn’t afford to distract him like that. He was my leopard to call, which made us so much more intimate metaphysically than just being in love ever could. I had to be the big, tough dominant personality and swallow the rage. It was an indulgence I couldn’t afford right now. Yeah, the men in my life had managed me nicely, putting me with the other love of my life tonight.
I worked at letting go of the anger, and made myself look at him and remember how much I loved him, and how much I wanted to protect him. Me shoving my energy all over him and making us wreck was just stupid, and I tried not to do stupid. Nathaniel was dimmed in the darkness of the car, so that his thick braid looked brown, his skin almost gray-white; only an occasional streetlight flashing over showed the hair’s rich auburn, the skin’s clear, bright, almost luminous undertone that most people on the redhead spectrum seem to have. He glanced at me once, and a stray bit of light turned the grayed eyes to their true pale purple, like spring lilacs.
“At least you’re looking at me, that’s a start,” he said, and went back to watching the road.
“I’m sorry, but my mood was bad enough that saying nothing was the best I had.”
“I know,” he said, softly, as he hit the turn signal before changing lanes with the dark line of cars, their headlights like glowing beads on a string, as the last of rush hour trickled away.
“I love that you understood that, and hate it at the same time, which doesn’t make any sense at all, does it?”
“It makes sense for you,” he said.
“What kind of answer is that?” I said, and it sounded grumpy. There was another whisper of energy, and I took a deep breath in slow, and let it out slow, trying to ease the tension in my shoulders. I forced myself to sit up straighter and not hunch around my anger.
He gave me a sideways glance, frowning, and he was less handsome that way than when he smiled, but not by much. There wasn’t much Nathaniel could do to spoil his beauty, and he worked hard at making the most of his assets by hitting the gym regularly, watching what he ate, and keeping his hair at near ankle length. He’d finally had to trim a few dead ends so that the braid curled around him didn’t actually touch his ankles anymore. I’d have strangled myself to death by accident if my hair had ever been that long, but he wore the hair like he did most things, gracefully; but then cats are known for that kind of thing and he was a wereleopard like Micah. I wondered if he’d always been this graceful, and because I could, I asked.
“Were you always this graceful, or is it the whole wereleopard thing?”
He looked at me and smiled. “I don’t know about graceful, but I got spotted at the YMCA as a toddler and recruited into gymnastics, so I must have been more coordinated, or something.”
“Do you remember Phillip?”
Something moved through his eyes, and then he blinked and gave me bland, empty, pleasant face. “Of course I do; he worked at Guilty Pleasures, and I could not protect him.”
“You feel guilty about his death, too?”
“Oh, yes, ma petite, I feel guilty, because I was one of the vampires who took blood from him. I ran the club where he worked. I got him off street drugs, because I won’t allow such things in my club, or on my stage, but he became addicted to being bitten, addicted to giving up his blood to us all. I thought I had saved him from an early death as a drug addict, but I only took him from one addiction to another, and it killed him.”
“I didn’t know that you got Phillip off drugs.”
“We needed a handsome victim for one of our vampire dancers to feed onstage. He was brought to me as that. He cleaned up well, but it was because he had replaced one addiction with another, not because I cured him.”
“Nikolaos killed him, because he was helping me solve the vampire murders.”
Jean-Claude nodded. “That was her excuse. Phillip should have been mine to protect, but I was not powerful enough to help him. I was not powerful enough to help myself, until you came into my life and helped me break free of those who tormented us all.”
I went to him, and Micah let me go so I could wrap my arms around the other man in my life. “I didn’t realize you’d been that close to Phillip,” I said.
“I wasn’t close in the way that most humans mean, but he was my responsibility and I could not keep him from the monsters.”
I nodded. “Me, either.”
“But you killed the monsters that hurt him, and I could not even do that.”
“Revenge is cold comfort when the person you’re avenging is already dead,” I said.
“That is true, ma petite, but it is still comfort, no matter how cold, or how late it is served.”
I went up on tiptoe and put my arms around his neck. “Fuck revenge, here’s to getting there in the nick of time.”
He smiled and leaned down to whisper above my lips, “Yes, very yes.”
We kissed and it was soft, and long, and full of as many shared tears as smiles, but that didn’t lessen it; that made it more.
9
I DIDN’T LIKE having someone else drive my SUV, ever, but having them drive it because I was too emotionally overwrought about something that had happened several years ago just pissed me off. It felt weak, and I hated that. I wanted to aim all that self-loathing and pissiness at someone, and Nathaniel was sitting right there behind the wheel of MY car, driving me to MY job, because I was having some sort of internal crisis that I couldn’t fucking handle. But it was Nathaniel and I loved him too much to take it out on him, which was probably why the other men in my life had picked him to chauffeur me. I hated being managed like this, but it was working, so I sat in the dark in the passenger seat and watched the headlights from the other cars, my arms crossed, and sort of huddling on my anger. I’d moved my gun from the small of the back to my right side, so it didn’t dig in while I sat in the car. I was loving my new innerpants holster, though if I kept moving it around too much the leather wouldn’t conform to my body the way it was designed to. It would be dark enough at the cemetery that I wouldn’t accidentally flash the clients, but even that made me grumpy. Why should I have to hide my gun from clients when they knew I was a marshal? I so wanted to pick a fight with someone, but not with Nathaniel, and that was what Jean-Claude, or more likely Micah, had counted on. Damn it.
I glanced at Nathaniel as he drove, hands precise and careful. He didn’t really like driving at night, and I knew that, so I’d be even less likely to pick at him. Nathaniel was also one third of my ménage à trois with Micah, and one of the last few that we all agreed should get a ring in whatever ceremony we finally decided on, and on the heels of that thought was that the weretigers were pushing us to include one of them in the commitment ceremony. The anger flared over my skin in a shiver of power, and distant as a dream I “saw” all the colors of tiger that I held inside me—white, red, black, blue, and gold—stare up at me.
Nathaniel shivered as he got the bleed-off from the burst of power, my beasts peeking out. He tried to rub one hand down his arm, but that moved the wheel too much and the car did a slight swerve. He put both hands back on the wheel, but I couldn’t afford to distract him like that. He was my leopard to call, which made us so much more intimate metaphysically than just being in love ever could. I had to be the big, tough dominant personality and swallow the rage. It was an indulgence I couldn’t afford right now. Yeah, the men in my life had managed me nicely, putting me with the other love of my life tonight.
I worked at letting go of the anger, and made myself look at him and remember how much I loved him, and how much I wanted to protect him. Me shoving my energy all over him and making us wreck was just stupid, and I tried not to do stupid. Nathaniel was dimmed in the darkness of the car, so that his thick braid looked brown, his skin almost gray-white; only an occasional streetlight flashing over showed the hair’s rich auburn, the skin’s clear, bright, almost luminous undertone that most people on the redhead spectrum seem to have. He glanced at me once, and a stray bit of light turned the grayed eyes to their true pale purple, like spring lilacs.
“At least you’re looking at me, that’s a start,” he said, and went back to watching the road.
“I’m sorry, but my mood was bad enough that saying nothing was the best I had.”
“I know,” he said, softly, as he hit the turn signal before changing lanes with the dark line of cars, their headlights like glowing beads on a string, as the last of rush hour trickled away.
“I love that you understood that, and hate it at the same time, which doesn’t make any sense at all, does it?”
“It makes sense for you,” he said.
“What kind of answer is that?” I said, and it sounded grumpy. There was another whisper of energy, and I took a deep breath in slow, and let it out slow, trying to ease the tension in my shoulders. I forced myself to sit up straighter and not hunch around my anger.
He gave me a sideways glance, frowning, and he was less handsome that way than when he smiled, but not by much. There wasn’t much Nathaniel could do to spoil his beauty, and he worked hard at making the most of his assets by hitting the gym regularly, watching what he ate, and keeping his hair at near ankle length. He’d finally had to trim a few dead ends so that the braid curled around him didn’t actually touch his ankles anymore. I’d have strangled myself to death by accident if my hair had ever been that long, but he wore the hair like he did most things, gracefully; but then cats are known for that kind of thing and he was a wereleopard like Micah. I wondered if he’d always been this graceful, and because I could, I asked.
“Were you always this graceful, or is it the whole wereleopard thing?”
He looked at me and smiled. “I don’t know about graceful, but I got spotted at the YMCA as a toddler and recruited into gymnastics, so I must have been more coordinated, or something.”
