Skin Trade

Chapter 57-58

  Chapter 57

  WICKED PUSHED AWAY from the car, almost coming to attention. Every inch of height was suddenly there, making the broad shoulders look even more impressive. He had a tan trench coat on over a suit of similar color. His blond hair was silvered with moonlight, the edges of it trailing over the shoulders of the coat. His face was almost painfully masculine, the moonlight and streetlights cutting the high cheekbones and dimpled chin into angles and planes, sharper and even more masculine than I knew was true. His eyes were blue and gray; in this light they were silver and gray. Those eyes widened as he felt me coming for him.

  It didn't matter that he'd never been food before; it didn't matter that we'd never had sex. All my good intentions were gone by the time I crossed the yard and hit the sidewalk.

  I heard the sound the key made to unlock the doors of the car, and glanced back enough to see Edward on the porch. He'd unlocked the car. Always practical, my Edward.

  I turned back to the vampire, and he spoke in a voice that was already rough with the edge of my hunger. "Anita, what's wrong?"

  I wanted to simply fall upon him like some beast. It was as if all the hungers I carried through the vampire marks, and my own magic, had surfaced in one huge swirling, drowning need.

  I looked at that tall, handsome body and thought food. I thought flesh and I thought blood-and, only distantly, sex. I closed my eyes and tried to crawl into something resembling control. If I touched him like this, I wasn't sure whether I was going to try to fuck him or take a bite out of him-a real one.

  The thought of sinking teeth into flesh until that hot, red liquid burst into my mouth. . . But vampire was cold food for that. The wind blew against my back, and I could scent Edward still on the porch. That was warmer. I started to turn around and stopped in midmotion.

  I whispered, "Wicked. "

  "I'm here. "

  "Something's wrong. "

  "I feel your hunger. If you were a vampire, I'd take you to hunt now. "

  "Help me feed. "

  "Can you turn the bloodlust into the ardeur?"

  "I don't know. " And that was the truth. It scared me enough that I started taking my weapons off and dropping them on the ground. I called back, "Edward, get them after we're in the car. "

  "Done," he said.

  I slipped the vest off last, and once its weight was removed, it was as if I could breathe better. My skin was running with heat, as if I'd burn when touched. Some lycanthropes spike a temperature before they shift.

  "Anita," Wicked's voice said from much closer.

  I opened my eyes and he was standing in front of me. This close the light fell full upon him, and I could see every line, curve, of his face. I could stare into those silvered eyes. Staring full into that face, inches from his body, and my gaze dropped to his neck, where the collar and tie kept it safe and neat. I stared at the side of his neck and searched for that pulse, but the skin was quiet. His heart didn't beat. I stepped back; this wasn't right. This wasn't what I wanted. I wanted something. . . hot.

  I turned back to the house, the porch, the warmth. He grabbed my arm, pulled me hard in against his body. Something about the abruptness of it, the strength of it, startled me. I could think for a second. "Get me away from them, Wicked. Take me somewhere. Make me think of sex and not meat. " I put my hands in the front of that button-down shirt and pulled, sending the middle buttons flying. I tore at his shirt until I could wrap my arms around his naked skin. The touch of that much muscled flesh helped me think of other things than what the blood in my friend's veins would taste like.

  "Your skin runs hot tonight. " He wrapped his arms around my waist, lifting me off the ground, and my arms slid to a part of his chest too wide for me to encircle. The next moment we were skyward. I felt the force of it like a solid push of something invisible against the ground, and my feet dangled in empty air.

  Fear helped clear my head and tone down the hungers. I'd never flown by vampire, and I found that my fear of flying worked just fine this way, maybe worse than on a plane. I dug fingers into the shirt I'd ripped, hanging on for dear life. My pulse was choking me, and a scream bubbled in my throat. I pressed my face to his bare chest and fought that awful, perverse urge to look down.

  I finally lost the fight, and did it. The desert stretched under us like some moving carpet. It wasn't as far down as I'd feared. I'd pictured tiny cars and toy houses, but we weren't that far up. Far enough that if he dropped me, I might only be crippled for life, not dead. Not a good thought. Then I realized the ground was getting closer.

  "It's hard to land when you're carrying someone," Wicked said, his voice rumbling up through his chest and against my ear. "I'll roll to take the momentum. "

  "What?" I asked.

  "Keep your arms where they are," he said. "You'll be fine. "

  The ground was coming very fast now, and I had seconds to decide what to do. I started to wrap my legs around him, but he said, "Don't tangle my legs!"

  I stopped, but it left me with only my fear, and seconds to decide what to do with it. I closed my eyes to the rushing ground and held on to him.

  I felt the jolt as his feet hit ground, and then he was rolling forward, letting the momentum carry us down and over. We ended on the ground, on our sides, with his arms wrapped around me, so that he took the impact. I lay there, trying to relearn how to breathe, wrapped in his arms, trapped against his body.

  "Anita, are you all right?"

  I wasn't sure how to answer it, but managed, "Yeah, yes. " My voice sounded breathy and scared.

  He eased off me, drawing away until he could look down at me. He studied my face, then smiled and laid his big hand against my face. "It has been a long time since I did that. I'm out of practice. "

  "Most vampires can't carry someone," I said, still in that frightened voice.

  "I told you, Truth and I are very good at flying. " He smiled again, and this time I knew what kind of smile it was. It helped that he leaned in toward me.

  I stopped him with a hand on his chest. "I don't think I need to feed the ardeur now. You've scared it out of me. "

  He laughed, a deep masculine sound. Everything about him and his brother was so male. I tended to like my men with a little more feminine energy to them, but it was still a good laugh.

  "Your skin is still hot to the touch, as if you're running a fever. Whatever happened back at the house has not left you. When the fear fades, the hunger will return. " His face sobered. "You need to feed before that happens again, Anita. "

  My voice squeezed down again. "I wanted to go back to the house and feed, Wicked. I wasn't thinking that it was Edward, or people, just that they were warm. "

  He nodded, still above me, propped on one elbow, while his other hand traced the edge of my face. The touch was more comforting than sexual. "I need you to release the ardeur before the other hungers rise. You must feed. "

  "What's wrong with me, Wicked?"

  "I don't know, but if you feed the ardeur, the other hungers will be satisfied. "

  "For a while," I said.

  He smiled, but it was sad around the edges. "It's always for a little while, Anita. No matter what you need, you will need it again. " He cupped the side of my face and leaned in again. He laid his lips against mine and kissed me for the first time. It was the most gentle of kisses, a bare touch.

  He drew back, just enough to whisper against my mouth, "Release the ardeur, Anita, feed, so you can get back to your police friends. "

  I thought about Edward and the rest going into a house with a demon, and me not being there to have his back. I would guard the back of any policeman that I went in with, but let's face it, it was only Edward that I'd never forgive myself for.

  I stared up into Wicked's face. "How did you know that would make me do it?"

  "You are loyal and honorable, and you would not leave your friends to find danger without you. Feed, and we will s
ee you back to them. "

  "We?"

  "I called Truth to join us. "

  I frowned at him, and it was so suspicious that he laughed again. "Why?" I asked.

  "Because if we do it right, I won't be able to walk right away, let alone fly. " The look in his eyes made me blush and drop my eyes, which put me looking at his bare chest where I'd torn his shirt. That embarrassed me more, and I was left pushing away from him. He let me sit up, but stayed on his side on the rough ground. I realized there was nothing but bare earth, sand, and rock as far as I could see. The side of a hill loomed over us, behind his back, and that was all. Well, not all, because above us was the night sky. It stretched perfectly black above us, with stars, so many stars. They seemed to burn with white light in a way that they never did in the city.

  "How far out are we?"

  "You mean from the city?" he asked.

  "Yes. "

  "I don't know; it's hard to judge miles from the air. "

  "We're far enough that there's no light pollution. "

  He turned to gaze up at all that sparkling sky. "It is pretty, but then I remember when most of the sky was like this, almost anywhere you went. There wasn't enough light at night to hide the stars, no matter how big the city. "

  I stared up at the glittering blanket of stars and tried to envision a world where the night sky always looked like this, but couldn't do it. This was the sky over far desert, over open water, over places where people were not.

  He touched my hand, a tentative play of fingers. I looked down at him. He looked at our hands, where he traced fingertips over my skin, a light, exploring touch. I could not see his eyes or much of his expression. "Drop your control of the ardeur, Anita, please. I am not powerful enough to force the ardeur to rise, and you are not attracted enough to me for it to happen by accident. "

  "It's nothing personal, Wicked. I see that you're handsome. "

  He looked up at me, and there was something I hadn't expected to see on his face: uncertainty. "Do you, Anita?"

  I frowned at him. "I'm not blind, Wicked. I see what you look like. "

  "Do you?" He looked back down, his fingers tracing up the line of my arm. He found the hollow where the arm bends and traced a single fingertip around that soft, warm spot. It made me shiver, and my breath shook on its way out.

  He smiled then. "Maybe you do. " He kept playing over that spot until I wriggled and told him, "That tickles now. "

  "I don't think it tickles," he said, and sat up. Sitting beside me, he was still much taller. He put his hands on both of my arms, and smoothed his hands up my skin. "Let me in, Anita, let me inside. "

  The double entendre made me frown again, but his hands on my arms distracted me from being unhappy with it. He'd accused me of being squeamish on the phone; with his hands playing on my skin and the weight of him so close, I realized he was right. I'd fallen back into the habit of fighting the ardeur. I could go longer between feedings, so I kept pushing it. I was still fighting it, even though I knew that Edward would be calling the local police. They'd set up a raid on Todd Bering's house. They'd go in, and there'd be at least a demon, maybe vampires, and they'd only have someone like Sanchez with them for magic backup. Sanchez was a powerful psychic, but he didn't know the dead, and I was pretty sure he didn't know demons. If I wasn't there and it all went to shit, I'd always believe that I could have stopped it. I'd always believe that I could have saved some lives.

  All I had to do was have sex with the man beside me and feed the ardeur, and then I could go save the day. It sounded simple enough when you said it like that. Sex, feed ardeur, then hunt one demon, some vampires, and try to keep everyone alive. Yeah, simple.

  But first, I had to let go. First, I had to be willing to be vulnerable with yet one more man. That part I didn't much like; in fact, I hated it. I didn't like being vulnerable, not to anything or anyone.

  "I'm not powerful enough to get through your shields, Anita," he said in a quiet, neutral sort of voice.

  Even now, I was back in control. I could just make him take me back to Edward and the others. But. . . what if I lost control in the middle of the raid on the sorcerer's house? What if the hunger rose in the car with Edward and Bernardo and Olaf? There were worse things I could do than have sex with my friends. I could tear their throats out and bathe in their blood, which was exactly what I might have done if Wicked hadn't taken me far away from them.

  No, whatever was wrong with me, feeding the ardeur really was the lesser evil. A quick feed, and then back to solving crime. I looked at the tall, handsome man beside me and said what I was thinking. "I'm sorry that our first time has to be quick. You're worth taking the time, Wicked. "

  He smiled, and it softened his face. "That is the nicest thing you've ever said to me. "

  I smiled, too. "Once I release the ardeur after not feeding for this long, it can be a little rough. "

  "I'll be careful," he said.

  "I don't mean that. " I shook my head, and just took off the T-shirt that we'd gotten at Trixie's. I sat there in just the bra, in the strangely hot night.

  Wicked gave me wide eyes.

  "I mean we might end up ripping our clothes enough that we won't have anything to put back on. "

  He shrugged and started undoing his tie. "I'd have preferred a more sensual reveal, but you're the boss. "

  I sighed. "I wish that were really true. "

  "You say Get undressed, and I'm doing it; trust me, that makes you the boss. " He had the tie off, and the trench coat went next.

  "You wanted to get undressed eventually, right?" I asked, hands hesitating on my belt.

  "I did. " He took off the torn remnants of the shirt, and just seeing him bare from the waist up made me have to look away. That first nudity with someone I didn't know well always made me uncomfortable.

  My rule used to be that if I was uncomfortable stripping, then maybe I should stop, get dressed, and go home. I'd told Jason, in St. Louis, that I was losing myself. Here I was, far away from home, and it wasn't the men in my life stealing me away from myself, it was the power inside me. And that, I couldn't run away from. It was like that old joke: everywhere you go, there you are. I couldn't leave myself behind, so I couldn't get away.

  Hands came from behind to slide over my ribs, to hesitate at the base of my bra. I reached for the straps, to move them down my shoulders, but his hands got there first, and he lowered the straps, slowly, laying kisses on my shoulders as he bared them. His hands slid to the back of my bra, and unsnapped it. The underwire gave, and the whole thing slid down my arms, so that my breasts spilled out.

  Wicked's hands slid over them, cupping them in his big hands, squeezing them, kneading them, exploring them. I felt myself grow damp, just from that. Those practiced hands drew a small sound from me. My hands slid to the unbuckled top of my pants, but his hands were there first, sliding down from my breasts, to unzip my pants and ease them open, so that his hand slid down the open front to brush the hair between my legs and reach for lower.

  I laughed. "Your hand is too big, and the pants are too tight. "

  "We can fix that," he said, voice low and rough next to my ear. He pulled the pants down my hips in a harsh jerk that bared me to the tops of my thighs. My underwear had come down with the pants, so I was bare to the night.

  His hand touched my bare ass, caressing, cupping, exploring. It sped my breath and put my pulse in my throat. "Wicked," I said.

  "That's the way I want to hear you say my name. " And his hands slid to the front of me as I knelt on the ground. His fingers slid between my legs, brushing that most intimate part, tickling, teasing, until I cried out. His other hand pushed the jeans down until he could spread my thighs wider, and those knowledgeable fingers could reach more, touch more, caress more.

  He tried to reach farther between my legs, but the angle wasn't quite right. His hand was too big for the space he'd made. He made a low, frustrated s
ound in his throat and moved his hand to put a hand on either side of my jeans and jerk them down to my knees. Then he pulled me against the front of his body, and I could feel how large, how hard, how ready he already was, but his other hand went back between my legs. His finger slid inside me, and I cried out again. He pushed his fingers inside me, then slid them out, so he could play my own wetness against that small, sweet spot, near the front of me. His other arm tightened around my waist, pressing me against the hardness of him. It made me grind myself harder against him. His fingers played between my legs, caressing, teasing, until I felt the building weight of pleasure.

  I breathed, "Close. "

  He changed the rhythm of his fingers, faster, over and over and over, until I gasped, "Wicked!" And his fingers spilled me over that edge, drove a scream from my throat, sent me spasming against the front of his body while his fingers played, and coaxed, and kept the orgasm coming, until I couldn't decide if it was all one big orgasm or if he was bringing smaller ones so fast, one after the other, that they blurred into one.

  I screamed my pleasure to the shine of stars, and only after I collapsed in his arms did his hand stop moving, only then did he move me a little from his body, and I felt the head of him begin to push against me. My legs weren't working yet, so he held my weight with one arm around me, while the other helped him find the angle he was looking for. I said his name again, "Wicked. " Then he laid me on the coat he'd spread on the ground and moved away from me.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "Nothing," he said, "absolutely nothing. " I lay there waiting for more of my body to work again, and watched him. He was fumbling through his clothes until he found a condom. I was on the pill, but the rule was that any of the men who weren't my main sweeties had to use a condom. If there was going to be an accident, it needed to be with someone I loved. That I'd forgotten that rule, and he'd had to remember it, said just how far gone I was tonight.

  Wicked crawled back to me, the condom already spread down the length of him. He put his arm around my waist and lifted me off my stomach, so I was almost on my hands and knees. He went back to searching for that perfect angle; the feel of him brushing against me tentatively brought small eager noises from me. I said his name again. Then he found my opening and began to push his way inside, and I had no more air for words.

  He spilled me forward onto the coat he'd spread, with my cheek pressed to the coat and the ground beneath, and the rest of me up, with him inside me. He pushed his way inside me until he couldn't go any farther, his body and mine meeting, stopping, wedded together. He hesitated like that for a moment, then he began to find a rhythm, in and out, pushing himself in long, slow, deep sweeps of his body, plunging into me until he couldn't go any farther, but gently, as if he were afraid of hurting me, then pulling out again.

  I managed to say, "You won't hurt me. "

  "I'm bumping your cervix; I will hurt you unless I'm careful. "

  "I like it. "

  "What?"

  "You've done the prep work, Wicked, it feels wonderful. "

  "Let the ardeur out, and I'll go faster. " He kept that careful rhythm going, though I could feel the tension in his body as he fought himself.

  "Harder," I said.

  "Ardeur," he said, in a voice that showed the strain, like the trembling of his muscles, as he fought to be so careful of me. I didn't want him to be careful.

  I did what he wanted, I did what I needed, I reached into that part of me that was the ardeur, and it wasn't a shield that came down, it was more like I simply stopped fighting it. The ardeur broke over us both in a rush of heat that made us both cry out.

  "Fuck me, Wicked, just fuck me. "

  He stopped being careful, and used all that length, all that width, hard and fast, pounding himself into me until the sound of flesh hitting flesh was loud, and I screamed for him, shrieked for him, orgasming from the feel of him hitting that spot deep inside me, and having to stop, and still he wasn't done. He started again, this time a little more shallow, a little different twist of hips, and I felt the warm, heavy weight growing inside me again. I started to say his name, over and over, my words growing in the ryhthm of my body and his, "Wicked, Wicked, Wicked, Wicked. God!" The orgasm screamed out of my mouth, left my hands scrambling at his coat and the ground underneath. If I could have reached him, I would have cut my pleasure on his skin, but I was left scrambling to find ways to get all that passion out.

  He cried out above me, and his body lost that practiced rhythm and suddenly he was fucking me as hard and fast as he could. I'd thought he'd already done that, but he proved that even there he had been careful. I felt the impact of his body inside me, and without the ardeur, it might have been something besides amazing, but the ardeur took away anything but lust and the joy of it. He brought me one more time, and only then did he lose control. Only then did his body thrust that one last time deep into mine so that we cried out together, and I felt his body shudder inside me, and only then did I feed.

  I fed on the thrust of his body deep inside mine, I fed on the feel of him spilling inside me, I fed on the strength of his body as he rose above me on his knees. I fed on his hand as it gripped my shoulder and braced him for one last shuddering thrust. It made me cry out again, and then he collapsed against my back. He caught himself with his arms, and was tall enough that he could bridge his body over mine, the dampness of his naked chest pressed to my bare back, his body still deep inside me, so that we knelt on all fours together, pressed as close as bodies could touch, our breathing thundering in our ears, and his heartbeat thudding against my back. His heart was beating for me now.

  He pulled himself out of me, with a laugh and a shudder. I gave one last, soft cry, and collapsed to my side, with him curled around me. We lay there, relearning how to breathe, and only then did I look out into the night and see Truth standing in the starlight.

  Chapter 58

  TRUTH STOOD THERE with his serious eyes, and his dark hair in contrast to his brother's. He stared at us with gray eyes and a face that was a match for his brother's under the partial beard that hid that nice jawline and let him be a little more invisible than Wicked.

  I expected him to look away, our modest Truth, but he didn't. He looked at us, his face cold and pale in the starlight with that edge of dark hair. He looked at us, and there was something I'd never seen on Truth's face: hunger. He looked at us like a starving man, or maybe a drowning one.

  Wicked ran his hand down the front of my body, uncurling my legs so that the front of me was bare to his brother's eyes.

  I started to tell him to stop teasing his brother, but the words died unspoken because Truth was walking toward us. He threw his leather jacket to the ground, and his black T-shirt followed. Their upper bodies were almost identical, broad and strong; only a long curving scar, shiny with age, showed a difference. His hands were at his belt when I tried again to say something. It was when he dropped his gun, holster and all, on the ground without a backward glance that I knew something was wrong. Truth and Wicked were always careful of their weapons, always.

  I started to say something, but his hands were at his belt and the pants were peeling back, and I found that it wasn't just their upper bodies that were almost identical.

  I said, "Truth," and I felt it then. The ardeur wasn't gone. When I fed, it went back to sleep, always, unless it had spread to others in the room. But I had to touch someone to have it spread like that. Truth had been too far away, but even as I tried to think that logic all the way through, he was balancing on one leg to pull off first one boot, then the other, and he was in front of us, spilling his pants over his ankles and stepping out of them.

  Still lying on the ground, held against his brother's body, I stared up at him. I had a moment to decide how I felt about that, and then he was kneeling beside us, reaching for me.

  I managed to say, "Truth," and then he pulled me away from Wicked and spilled me to my back. I wa
s left gazing up at him. He fell on top of me, putting his mouth to mine, and kissed me as if he would climb inside and flow down my throat. I kissed him back, kissed him with mouth and arms around his back, tracing his spine, spilling down to the swell of his body where waist ended and other things began. I couldn't reach beyond that; he was too tall.

  He kissed me, long and hard, until soft, protesting noises spilled out of his lips, then he rose off me, too tall to both kiss me and make love to me. He spread my thighs with the strength of his hands. I had a moment to see all that hard, thick length, and then Wicked's hand was there, holding a condom.

  Truth made a sound, low in his throat, but he took it and put it on. By the time he was finished he was making a sound that was almost a growl, low and persistent. Eagerness did not begin to describe that sound in a man's throat. He pressed all that safely sheathed length against me. I watched him push himself inside me, one inch at a time. Just watching him slide inside me threw my head back and made me cry out. I could see the night sky and a million stars dancing overhead as Truth pushed his way inside me.

  He kept himself propped above me, back on his knees, so that almost the only thing that touched me was the long, slide of flesh that kept going in and out of me.

  I cried his name to the stars, and he began to pound himself inside me, harder, faster, his breathing growing ragged as he began to lose his rhythm. I stared up at his body above mine, his eyes looking out into the night and not at me. I started to tell him to look at me, but the orgasm caught me unawares, and I was left screaming, shrieking, hands reaching for any part of him I could, tracing my pleasure in his flesh. He wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted my lower body off the ground as he made that last hard, shuddering thrust, burying himself as deep inside my body as he could, as he spilled inside me and the ardeur fed.

  I fed not just on the sex and the soft sweat of him, but on the fear in him. He'd been afraid of the ardeur since Belle Morte gave him a taste centuries ago. So afraid, yet it had caught him again, caught him in the desert night under a shine of stars and the sweet scent of naked bodies. He collapsed forward, still on his knees, his hands locked around my body, his head falling forward against my breasts. I managed to touch his hair; it was finer than Wicked's, fine and silky under my hands.

  I petted his hair while I learned how to breathe again, and my pulse climbed back into my throat, so that the clean, desert air was like champagne, cool in my throat.

  His body started to shake, and I realized he was crying. I stroked his hair and said, "Truth, Truth, are you all right?"

  He raised his face to me, tears glittering in the hard light of the stars. "I wanted to say no, but I couldn't. I could not resist you naked in the moonlight. "

  "Oh, Truth, I'm sorry," and I meant it. I knew what it was not to have a choice.

  Wicked came to us, putting an arm across the other man's shoulders. "It's all right, she's not like Belle. "

  Truth pulled back from both of us. "The ardeur makes them all monsters in the end. "

  I sat up and, very carefully, very gently, went to him. He actually looked scared, and I wiped his tears away with my hands. He let me, but his eyes were wide, showing too much white, like a horse about to bolt. "Help me not to turn into the monster, Truth. "

  He frowned and looked at me, not like I was something to fuck, or something to be afraid of, but as if he were seeing me-whatever that meant.

  "What do you mean by that?" he asked, voice still thick with tears.

  "I mean, you tell me if I'm becoming a monster. You tell me if the power is turning me into something else. "

  "Jean-Claude will tell you that. "

  "He told me once that he trusted me to kill him if he became as heartless as Belle Morte. That he counted on my not letting him be a monster. "

  "Are you telling me to kill you if you lose control?" he asked, slowly.

  I thought about it. "Not yet, but if the Darkness takes me, and there's no more me left, then yes. "

  "You don't know what you're asking," Wicked said.

  "I know that everyone else loves me too much, but if all that's left of me is the ardeur, then I'm already gone. "

  The brothers exchanged a look, then gave me almost identical looks back. "How do we know when you're gone?" Truth asked.

  I thought about that. "I don't know. "

  Truth touched a finger to my cheek and came away with a single trembling tear. "You mean it. "

  I nodded, and curled my arms around my knees, clutching me to myself. "I thought that it was the men. That living with Jean-Claude and all the others was making me lose control of myself, but they aren't here. It's me. It's me, Truth, don't you see? I don't know what's happening to me, and I don't know how to control it. " I laid my head on my knees and cried. Knowing that I should get dressed, and there was a demon waiting, and I didn't know where Edward was, but all I could think of in that moment was that I didn't trust myself anymore.

  Truth wrapped his arms around me, and Wicked came at my back, so that they held me between them while I cried. They held me while I confessed to them something I wasn't sure I could say to Edward, or any of the men I loved. How do you ask someone you love to kill you if you grow too powerful, too evil? Jean-Claude had asked it of me once, and I had cursed him for it. Now I let the two brothers hold me, and gave them my darkest fear.

  Truth whispered against my hair, "If the ardeur takes you and you become as evil as Belle Morte, I promise. . . "

  Wicked said, "We promise. "

  "We promise," Truth said, "that we will not let you be that evil. "

  "You'll kill me," I said softly.

  They were quiet for a few breaths, and then their arms tightened around me, and they said in one voice, "We'll kill you. "

  And that was the best I could get, that if the ardeur or the Darkness took me, that Wicked and Truth would kill me before I could do whatever it was that either of the evil bitches of the West wanted me to do. It didn't matter that it might kill anyone metaphysically tied to me, because if Marmee Noir possessed me, or I became nothing but a vessel for the ardeur, whatever was inside me would spread to them eventually. The thought of what we could all do, if we became truly evil, truly without pity, was too awful to contemplate. We could rule the vampires and most of the wereanimals in this country, and then we could move on Europe. If Marmee Noir took me over and possessed all that belonged to Jean-Claude and me, there'd be nothing to stop us unless the two vampires holding me now could stop it early, stop it with me.

  I sat there in the starry night, held in the arms of the only two people who I thought might be good enough, ruthless enough, and honorable enough to kill me if I asked. I'd once thought that Edward would do it if it needed doing, but I knew now that even he would hesitate. He loved me too much. But Truth and Wicked didn't love me, not yet, and if we were careful, they never would. I needed them to keep this promise. I needed to know that if I failed, utterly and completely, I had a fail-safe. A fail-safe made of swords and bullets, and two of the finest warriors that had ever walked the planet. As fail-safes went, it wasn't bad.