I looked into those big brown eyes, that face so empty without its mane of hair, and watched terror fight with desire. I don't think he'd ever felt the full force of the ardeur before. It overwhelmed him, left him breathless, immobile, but that wouldn't last. I knew it wouldn't last.
I told him what he'd told me, "You can turn the ardeur to hunger, but we're going to have to feed on something, or someone, Richard. It's too late for anything else."
Even his voice in my head seemed strangled, "I feel better and worse. I think I can hunt now. I couldn't have moved that much before."
"Everything has its upside, Richard, and it's down." I was angry with Richard, a fine hot rage that helped keep me treading the water of the ardeur that was trying so hard to engulf me, drown me in desire. But I held my anger to my chest and treaded water for all I was worth.
I felt his hunger change, felt his belly tighten with need for flesh and blood and tearing, and only distant, very distant was the thrill of sex. "I'll hunt an animal, and I'll be fine, I think."
"That won't help me much, Richard," and I let the anger trail down the binding between us.
"I am sorry, Anita, I didn't understand."
I knew in that moment that I could force his hunger back into the ardeur. That just as he forced Jason to change form, I could force Richard's hunger to be the form of my choosing. I knew I could run magic down his skin and force him to feed the way I was going to have to feed. But I didn't. He'd done what he'd done in innocence; I couldn't return the favor, not deliberately.
"Go hunt your animal, Richard."
"Anita… I am sorry."
"You're always sorry, Richard. Now get out of my head before I do something we'll both regret."
He pulled away, but it wasn't a clean break. Normally, his shields were solid like metal doors clanging down. Today, it was like taffy pulling apart, clinging to each other, huge tendrils of sticky, melting candy that even when pulled apart was still two halves of a whole. I wanted to pull us together, to melt into the heat until we were one big hot sticky mess, and today Richard couldn't stop me. He didn't have the control to keep me out of him.
Jean-Claude woke. I felt his eyes flash wide, felt him take that first gasping breath, felt life fill him. He was awake.
Jason was gazing at me with his sky blue eyes. "He's awake."
I nodded. "I know."
Nathaniel spoke as if he'd understood way more of the unheard conversation than he should have, "We're almost to the Circus, Anita."
"How long?"
"Five minutes, less."
"Make it less," I said.
The Jeep leapt forward, accelerating. I crawled into the backseat and fastened the seat belt tight across me. It wasn't to keep me safe in case we had an accident. It was to remind me not to let myself loose until we got to the Circus, and Jean-Claude.
31
I fought the ardeur on the drive to the Circus. I fought the ardeur when I ran through the parking lot and banged on the door. I ran past Bobby Lee's surprised face and managed to say, "Ask Nathaniel about the Jeep." Then I was past him and running for the stairs that led down, down to the underground.
Richard was running, too. He was running through the trees, limbs and leaves slashing at him, but he was never quite there, dodging, moving, like water made flesh, flesh made speed. He ran through the trees, and I heard something large crashing ahead of him. His head came up, and the chase was on.
I hit Jean-Claude's bedroom door, as Richard was catching glimpses of the deer that darted just ahead of him, sprinting for its life. There were other wolves in the forest, most of them in true wolf form, but not all.
I flung the door open and the guards on the door closed it firmly behind me. I don't know what they sensed, or what they saw, and that was probably just as well.
There were still blue silk sheets on the bed, and Asher was still framed in them, motionless, dead. Only the Master of the City was awake, only he moved. I sent a questioning thought and felt all the vampires asnooze in their coffins, tucked in their beds. I touched Angelito for a moment, and found him restless and pacing, confused, wondering why his mistress hadn't succeeded in her diabolical plan.
He looked up as if he saw me, or felt something, then I was back at the bathroom door. Richard had his deer down and struggling. A hoof caught him across the stomach, tore the skin, but there were other wolves there now, and the doe had no chance. A black furred wolf tore into her throat, and I felt Richard riding the deer in human form, holding her as the struggles grew slower, spasmodic, involuntary. The deer's fear faded, like champagne opened and left to go flat.
The bathroom door flung open, hitting the wall, and I didn't remember touching it. I was through the door before it slammed shut behind me, and again, I didn't remember touching it.
Jean-Claude was in the black marble tub. He was kneeling, his long black hair clinging to his shoulders. He'd cleaned up. Feeling me coming towards him like a storm of need, he'd run a bath. Of course, he'd felt me like a storm of desire before, it didn't always mean the storm would fall on him.
I could smell the fresh, hot blood, as Richard leaned down towards the deer's throat. The wolf that had actually made the kill had backed off, so the Ulfric could feed. The deer's skin smelled acrid, almost bitter, as if the fear had bled out of the skin. I did not want to be in Richard's head when he put his mouth to that flesh.
I climbed into the bathtub in my clothes, the hot water soaking my jeans almost to the tops of my thighs. "Help me," it came out in a whisper that I'd meant to be a scream.
Jean-Claude stood up, water streaming down the perfect whiteness of his skin, drawing my eyes down the length of his body, finding him soft and not ready for me. I screamed, and Richard sank teeth into skin that was covered in hair.
Jean-Claude caught me, or I would have fallen into the water. I suddenly couldn't feel Richard anymore. It was as if a door had slammed in my face and there was a second of blessed silence, a quietness that went all the way to my soul.
Jean-Claude spoke into that silence. "I can shield you from our Richard, ma petite, and he from you, but I cannot shield us both from the ardeur.»
I stared up at him, where I'd half-swooned in his arms, his hands at my back, my body bowed down towards the water, my legs soaked with the hot liquid.
I opened my mouth to say something, then he was as good as his word, and the ardeur came roaring back. I convulsed in his arms, and he nearly dropped me, trailing my hair in the water, pulling me upwards, pressing our bodies against one another. My hands, my mouth, my body swarmed over him, traced that slick, perfect skin, caressed the faint tracery of whip scars on his back, which were just another part of his perfection.
He drew back from my mouth enough to gasp, "Ma petite, I have not fed, there is no blood to fill my body."
I gazed up at him and found his eyes as normal as they ever got, midnight blue, lashed with black lace. But there was no power in them. Usually, by the time we've gotten this much foreplay in, his eyes had bled to pure pupilless blue.
I had to swim up through the ardeur, through the need to finally understand what he meant. I pushed my hair to one side, and said, "Feed, feed, then fuck me."
"I cannot roll your mind, ma petite, it will only be pain."