"Get him out of my sight. Let him heal, but I don't need to see him do it."
More guards came through the drapes, as if they'd been waiting for some signal that they could enter without spooking me into shooting Kane. They got their hands under his arms and helped him to his feet. He couldn't stand, so in the end they formed a cradle with their arms and two of them carried him out of sight--toward medical, I guess. I honestly didn't care, as long as it was away from me.
I turned toward Asher, looked into that beautiful face, remembered the feel of his kiss, his body, his strength. "I don't know what is broken inside you, but if you don't work the issue it's going to get you, or Kane, or both of you, killed."
"You will kill us?"
"No, not if you don't make me, but someone will. Narcissus would have if he'd seen you before Jean-Claude talked him down. You're away from Belle's court for the first time in a century, and it's like you think none of us will hurt you." I stepped up close enough that the oversized blue shirt brushed against me. It was too close, if I really thought he'd hurt me. I stared up at him, tried to see some comprehension in that gorgeous face, but he was hiding his emotions too hard, and it was like staring at a work of art. You could admire its beauty, but you couldn't talk to it.
He started to put his arm around me; I thought he was going to kiss me, but I put my hand on his chest and stepped back out of arm's reach. "The last time you kissed me during one of these little disagreements you damn near ate my lips off my face."
"I am sorrier than I know how to express for that, Anita."
"You're sorry now, but in the heat of the moment you don't think. Because we're not cruel like Belle Morte you think we're weak, but never mistake kindness for weakness, Asher. It's not the same thing."
"I understand," he said.
"Do you? Do you really? Because I don't think you do. I don't know how to teach you this lesson without really hurting you. Is that what it takes to get you to behave like a thinking person? Do you only respond to cruelty?"
"No, no, that will not be necessary," he said, voice as empty as he could make it.
"Look around you, Asher; we aren't vampires that are bored with centuries of life so that we play at cruel games like children pulling the wings off flies. How Belle did her power plays was professional, but how she ran her court was indulgent amateur shit. I have enough memories to know that she wasted so many people, so much potential that could have helped her, and helped people around her. Jean-Claude regrets that waste and works to make his court different, better. Is there any regret in you, Asher?"
"Yes, of course, I regret some of what I've done over the centuries, we all do, even Belle."
"She regrets losing your and Jean-Claude's adoration, I've felt that when she tried to invade my head, but the only other thing she seems to regret is when things don't go her way. Still, she's far more practical than you are."
"She is also more cruel."
"Yeah, she is, but she never lets indulging her cruelty get in the way of business, and you let everything get in your way. If you had made Narcissus your animal to call you could have really brought something to the table, powerwise, but instead you threw it away on a whim to please your lover, and never gave a thought to what might happen afterward. It's like you're stuck at about fifteen and think nothing bad will happen to you."
"I have had bad things happen, Anita."
"I know, which makes your behavior all the more confusing to me."
"Ma petite . . ." Jean-Claude came to us, but I put a hand up to stop him from coming closer.
"No, I'm pissed at you, too."
"Why?" He looked genuinely surprised.
"Where were your bodyguards? Everyone else had guards with them, but not you. You are the motherfucking king of America, and you know that he's dangerous when he's like this. You should have had personal protection with you."
"He was not allowed guards . . ."
"Stop talking," I said.
He gave me narrow eyes.
"Be angry with me, that's fine, but you have to start treating Asher like he is, not like you want him to be. He is childlike, in that throwing-temper-tantrums way. He breaks things and regrets it afterward, but the damage is done. I don't want you to be part of that damage one day, Jean-Claude."
"I would like to say that I would never hurt Jean-Claude, but Anita is too right. I do not think when I am in certain . . . moods. I don't know why I do such things."
"Then talk to that therapist we found for you, and figure it out, before you force me to kill you. Nicky's right, Asher, it would kill something in me to do it, and Jean-Claude would never forgive me, but mark me on this, Asher."
I went to him and touched his face, made sure he was looking down at me with all that golden hair and those eyes, that kissable mouth. I stared up into all that beauty and I said the truth. "Mark me on this, Asher, if you ever do anything that damages Jean-Claude's power structure, or Micah's work with the Coalition, without consulting them first, then you will be punished, and if you won't take good treatment, I'll find someone to give you bad treatment. If the only way you learn is by having the lesson carved into your skin, or painted in blood, or echoed in screams of pain . . . we can do that."
"That will not be necessary," he said quietly, and very slowly, very carefully, as if waiting for me to protest, he put his hand over mine where I touched his face.
"I hope not, because if pain doesn't work, the only thing left is death. Do you understand that?" I spoke slowly, as carefully as his hand had touched mine.
"I do now," he said.
"Good, good. Kane's afraid of me now and that will help, but you aren't afraid of me. I can't make you afraid of me without damaging our relationship more than you already have today."
"I am sorry, Anita, truly. May I kiss you?"
"No, I don't want your touch to make me forget this moment, and I don't want you to think a little sex and bondage will fix it all, because it won't. We may get back to that, but that doesn't make all this okay, it just means I'll have decided it's not a deal killer."
"Are you . . . would you refuse me?"
"Right now the thought of letting you tie Nathaniel and me down, and being at your mercies, and trusting that you'd honor our safewords, just doesn't seem like a good bet."
"And for that, I am even more sorry. I value you both, I love you both."
"Then act like it, Asher, because right now I'm not feeling very valued, or loved." I took my hand away from his face, his touch, and stepped back.
Nathaniel came to me looking handsome in a black suit tailored to his body like a European glove, lavender shirt and a black tie with tiny purple fleur-de-lis. It made his skin look darker, his auburn hair tucked back in a long braid redder, his eyes almost purple, though maybe that was him being angry. He took my hand in his and said, "I hope you can earn back our trust, because I'll miss your body if you don't." Not I'll miss you, but I'll miss your body. I thought that was interesting phrasing; apparently so did Asher.
"My body, but not me; then I have been a bad dominant to you, for you should love me as I love you, my flower-eyed boy." He touched Nathaniel's face, but all he got was a very cold look from that handsome face.
"You've been so into Kane that the rest of us haven't really counted for much," Nathaniel said.
Asher let his untouched hand fall back to his side. "I did not realize that I had neglected all of you."
I said, "You and I pretty much just have bondage sex with Nathaniel, and sometimes without him, but I'm just your bottom, not your submissive. Submissive needs more caretaking."
"I will do better by all of you, I swear it." He looked at Jean-Claude and Richard standing off to one side.
"Does Dev count in all that?" Nathaniel asked.
Asher looked past us to the guards still waiting at the edges. Dev had stayed with them, not moving forward even as far as Nicky had. I wondered if he'd stayed back because he'd been ordered to, or because he didn't trust hims
elf not to hurt Kane, or Asher. It would have been the perfect excuse.
Asher looked at Dev, and it was . . . dismissive was the only word I had for it. It must have cut Dev to the heart. "I am committed to Kane now. I will be keeping the relationships that give me things he cannot, but what Dev and I have is too . . . standard. I could not come up with a need he met that Kane, Jean-Claude, you, and Nathaniel did not."
My chest ached just hearing him dismiss Dev's love like that. I realized I was feeling some of the bleedover of emotion from my golden tiger. He was hurting too badly to be able to shield himself off completely, and in that moment I didn't want him to. What good is being able to sense someone else's emotions if you can't help them cope with them sometimes?
"God, Asher, aren't anyone's feelings real to you but your own?" Sin said it from the far side of the room, where other guards had forced him back from the potential danger. He practiced fighting, but he wasn't a guard, and when the emergency happened they'd treated him like what he was, a guardee.
Sin went to Dev and hugged him. He was almost as tall as the six-foot-three guard, but there was still something very young in his wanting to hug and make it all better. Dev startled and tried to stay in stoic bodyguard mode, and then he hugged Sin back, blond head bowing to mingle with the dark blue. They broke apart and it was Sin who had tears trailing down his face, as if he were crying tears Dev couldn't, or wouldn't, shed.
Micah went to him next and offered his hand, and then did that one-armed guy hug, which was a little awkward since Dev was about a foot taller, but I heard Micah say, "You deserve someone who treats you better than this, Dev."
Nicky hugged him next, and then ended with his hand on the back of Dev's neck, underneath his longish blond hair. Nicky kept his hand on the man's neck, so they touched foreheads, faces apart enough that I could see Nicky's lips move as he said something--I couldn't hear what he said, but whatever it was it made Dev smile.
Domino hugged him, too, and just said, "Dude, I'm sorry."
Dev said, "Thanks, brother."
Nathaniel hugged Micah, and said something so quietly that like with Nicky I could only see his lips moving, but heard nothing. Micah nodded, then motioned me over. I went to them, taking his hand. We put our heads together and Micah said, "Nathaniel wants permission to be with Dev as friends with benefits."
"I thought the two of them had been talking about that, but I thought you were against it," I said.
"Was I jealous at first, yes, but I can't, or don't want to do certain things with Nathaniel. I've learned that I don't know how I feel about some things until we try, but I promise not to be mad at Dev for the one night even if I can't deal with more."
Nathaniel looked at me. "Are you okay with it?"
"I think so, I mean I'm already able to have sex with both of you, and I know how much you miss certain guy-on-guy sex from being in the bedroom with you and Asher, so if Micah is okay with it, then I don't see a problem. Should we ask Jean-Claude?"
"None of us are sleeping with him but you," Micah said, "and you already have his okay for sex with Dev."
"Dev may be negotiating with Jean-Claude for something," I said.
Micah sighed. "We're going to have to ask, then."
"Another spontaneous romantic moment spoiled by poly negotiations," I said.
"Better than not talking about it and having it all blow up in our faces," Micah said.
Nathaniel nodded. We asked Jean-Claude and Dev to join us by the fireplace, and we asked. Yeah, at first it's totally awkward to ask such blunt questions, but it's pretty much the only way to run a poly group, especially one with so many moving parts. Asher had just demonstrated what happens when you don't talk to the people in your lives, so fuck that, let's talk. So we did.
We ended with Jean-Claude turning to Dev and giving a gentle but thorough kiss. He turned to Asher and said, "A male lover who does not wish bondage, but is in my bed in every other way, is a precious gift to me. One I would not throw so lightly away."
"As I have done, you mean?"
"I do not understand your infatuation with Kane, but love is like that, is it not?"
"The five of you have consulted each other, but Richard and I are left out of the requests and permissions."
"Don't drag me into this, Asher," Richard said from where he'd sat back down on the couch.
"But do we not have rights, as well?"
"I wouldn't start complaining that you haven't been consulted about changes in your BDSM and poly, after the lack of communication you've given all of us," he said.
"I will endeavor to do better in the future."
"Well, it's hard to do worse," I said.
"You will take Dev in to punish me?"
"Oh, for the love of God, Asher," Micah said, "not everything is about you. Jean-Claude and Nathaniel miss having a male lover who does the whole ball of wax, and is separate from their BDSM relationships, and thanks to you Dev is looking for new relationships. Dev and Nathaniel will be friends with benefits. Jean-Claude and Dev will be lovers and he'll become a regular blood donor. Everyone gets something they're missing."
"And you, Richard, are you so logical about Dev being added?"
"Fine. I'm about as far into being what Jean-Claude needs as I'm comfortable with, which isn't close to enough. If Dev can meet those needs that I won't, great, as long as I'm not expected to share the bed, or Jean-Claude and Anita, with Dev as a group thing. You, Jean-Claude, and Anita is about as much guy-guy as I want to deal with. Nathaniel and I are nothing to each other except that we share you, Anita, and Jean-Claude sometimes, so what he does is really no business of mine. I see everyone about once a month, maybe twice, and that's it, so it really is up to them as long as our relationships remain as they are."
"So logical. I am afraid my heart is not so easily reasoned with."
"Why does it bother you that we are picking up what you discarded?" Nathaniel asked.
"Dev means nothing to me."
"Thanks, Asher, thanks for that," Dev said.
"I know how to make you happier," Nathaniel said.
Dev looked sad, but said, "How?"
"Brace, literally."
Dev looked puzzled, but I saw him set his body as if he were about to lift something, or do something physically. Nathaniel threw his arms around the taller man's shoulders and jumped up, wrapping his legs around Dev's waist, and kissed him. Dev seemed startled, but then relaxed into it, his hand coming up to cup the back of Nathaniel's head, and then playing his hand along the braid of hair, the other arm around his waist helping hold him in place, though I was pretty sure Nathaniel didn't need the help.
I watched them kiss long and deep, more and more body English in it, and my body clenched so tight that I had to catch myself against the fireplace. Everyone had their kinks and I loved watching my male lovers together; I just did.
"I wish I found that as exciting as you do," Micah said, hugging me.
"Me, too," I said.
Nathaniel broke from the kiss to say, "Me, three."
"I don't," Dev said, "because then Nathaniel wouldn't need me."
"Micah's too well endowed for giving anal, so you'd still have your uses," Nathaniel said, smiling inches from Dev's face.
Dev looked like something hurt, but I don't think it hurt. I think he'd just had a reaction similar to the one that had made me grab the fireplace. "Do you just like receiving?"
"I like giving, too."
"Hard limit either way with me," Micah said, "sorry."
"Me, too," I said, and hugged him.
The two vampires and Richard stayed very quiet. Once upon a time I'd have asked why, but I'd learned that while ignorance may not be bliss, sometimes you really don't need to know.
Dev helped Nathaniel stand again, and Nathaniel gave me that smile, the one that let me know that whatever he was about to say was going to either be wonderful, or make me cringe that he'd said it in front of this many other people.
"I love tha
t you enjoy watching me have sex with other people."
"I like watching my lovers with other lovers, as long as I get to do more than watch eventually."
"Oh, why didn't you say so?" Dev said, and he held out his hand to me, smiling.
Micah kissed me on the cheek. "Go on."
I went to the other men and let Dev and Nathaniel draw me in between them. Nathaniel picked me up around the waist and lifted me so I could kiss Dev, while he nuzzled his face across my breasts, still covered by all my clothes, but it was still almost too much for this much crowd.
"Is there a way for a straight guy to get in here somewhere?" Sin asked.
"If we had another girl or two, we'd have a hell of a daisy chain going," Dev said.
There was movement among the guards. I turned, still held between Dev and Nathaniel, to find three of the Harlequin guards dropping to one knee near us. Echo bowed her short black hair, Fortune with her short blue curls beside her. They didn't surprise me, because they'd shown up to the tiger get-together as lovers earlier, but Magda the werelion took a knee, too. That, I hadn't seen coming.
Echo spoke, "If it meets with your approval, mistress, we would gladly try to help fill out your chain of daisies." She raised her face so I got the full force of those deep blue eyes framed by all that pale skin and black hair. Her face was a delicate oval, and she wasn't much bigger than me, but something about her coloring evoked Jean-Claude; it was probably just the hair-eyes-skin combo, but still . . . it wasn't a bad thing.
"I don't know what to say, I mean, gentlemen?"
"None of us are going to say anything until you do," Micah said. The other men nodded.
I sighed. I was the girl and the one most likely to not want more women. I had Nathaniel and Dev put me down, so I was at least standing on something solid.
Domino stepped forward and said, "Sorry, but do you need to talk to Jade about adding more women?"
"I told her weeks ago that I was looking for women who liked both men and women, that it didn't work for me to be with someone who dislikes men." I had; I just hadn't expected to have so many potential choices this soon.
Fortune looked up at me with a smile almost visible on her broad mouth. Her blue-on-blue eyes were shining as if she knew a joke that I didn't. Echo watched me out of those dark blue eyes. I looked at Magda with her thick blond hair cut just above her shoulders. She so needed a new hairdresser, but if we took her into our bed then Jean-Claude would help her, like he'd helped me. She stared up at me with those gray-blue eyes. They were almost completely gray against the unrelieved black of the guard's typical clothes.