“How many times have you used vampire wiles on me to win a fight?”
He blinked, his eyelids coming down over the fire of his eyes, so that his golden lashes were framed against the bright blue, and for a second it was like looking into the hot heart of some demonic oven with the door half closed.
“If your holy object does not glow, then I’m not harming you, isn’t that what you said?”
I nodded. “I did, but maybe I was wrong, or maybe if I want to be fooled hard enough romantically, my cross just lets me do it; free will and all that.”
“Are you saying your cross is intelligent enough to make judgment calls?”
“No, I’m saying the power that my cross is hooked up to, that I believe in, is intelligent enough to make judgment calls.”
“Or perhaps your God sees no harm in me.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
Asher moved closer to me, so that my vision was full of all that gold hair, that heartbreaking face, and the glow of his eyes. His mouth was still the same pouting perfection that it had been when Jean-Claude first fell in love with him. The Church fathers who had used holy water to try to burn the devil out of Asher so long ago had skipped that full mouth, as if even they couldn’t bear to ruin the angelic beauty of his face. The scars on his face that he was so self-conscious of actually touched only a small part of his right cheek. Only one long, white line of scar reached out toward the perfect curl of his mouth. It was as if when they’d seen what the holy water had done to his face, they hadn’t been able to bear what they’d done. Sometimes when you do evil, you have a realization so bright, so harsh, that you mend your ways. I’d always wondered if the priests who tortured Asher had been converted to a better brand of Christianity, or if their faith had died as they trailed the burns down the right side of his body?
Asher took me in his arms, and the moment he touched me that much, his vampire wiles got a boost of power. Most vampire powers got a boost through touch. He held me and it was as if he were my Prince Charming. I gazed up at him and I couldn’t “see” that his eyes were still glowing, or feel the cold march of his power. He was just suddenly perfectly gorgeous. There was no stop in my head, no cautionary statement, no warning. He kissed me, pressing those full, soft lips to mine. I kissed him back, falling into that kiss with my lips, mouth, tongue, and teeth, until it was more a tasting than a kiss. My hands, arms, body, entwined, pressed, wrapped-I couldn’t get close enough, and when his hands started to pull my shirt out of my pants I reached under the back of his satin jacket and pulled on his shirt, too. Pressing bare skin to bare skin sounded like such a good idea. Pain, and I tasted sweet, copper pennies. It took me a second to realize I was tasting blood, but once I knew what I was tasting I started swimming up through the mind games.
I pushed at Asher, trying to stop the kiss, but the blood that had made me want to stop had him pulling me tighter, his mouth locked on mine, as he kissed me deeply, thoroughly. If his fangs hadn’t been bleeding me, it would have been a great kiss.
I pushed harder, trying to pull away from his painful, sensuous kiss, trying to unlock his arms from behind me. I was making protest noises as if his mouth were a gag, keeping me from telling him, Stop, don’t. One of the reasons I didn’t like gags during bondage sex was that it stole your safe word away. You couldn’t tell whoever was topping you, No. A gag meant you trusted the person to behave themselves, or, you wanted your no taken away. You wanted to leap off the cliff and let the dominant do whatever they wanted to you. Nathaniel found that relaxing somehow; I didn’t.
If he’d been human I could have struggled free without hurting him. I was more than human-strong, but if he’d been only human, there wouldn’t have been dainty fangs to cut my mouth. If he’d been human I wouldn’t have loved him, because he wouldn’t have been Asher.
He was holding me too close, too tight, so the only options I had to get away were things that would injure him permanently, or injure parts of him that I might want to play with afterward. He tightened his arm against my back and moved one hand to the back of my head, grabbing my curls tight. In the right head space, the right moment, it was enough to switch me to a submissive mind-set, but this wasn’t the right anything. Asher deepened his kiss and drove those dainty fangs into my lips again. I made a pain sound, yelling against the tender gag of his mouth on mine. I stopped trying to push farther away from him, and pushed my body closer to him. He seemed to think that meant I was enjoying myself, because his hands loosened on me, not so much trapping me as holding me. I put my leg behind his, hooked his knees, and drove him toward the floor, but he didn’t let go, so we both fell, but if I was falling, and he was going to keep kissing, I should have made sure my knee went into parts of him he wouldn’t enjoy, but I liked those parts of him. I didn’t want to hurt Asher. It’s hard to get away from someone who’s stronger than you are, if you don’t want to hurt them. Shit!
I felt a trickle of warm energy before a hand grabbed my shoulder, and Asher’s. I had a moment to smell the hot, burned-grass smell that meant lion; a second to know it was Nicky, and then Asher’s power swatted outward like a slap, but it wasn’t aimed at Nicky, or me.
Other hands were on Nicky, and I saw a flash of blond hair and summer-tanned skin, enough to know that it was Ares, and then the fight rolled away from us. Asher’s animal to call was hyena. He’d reached out to the nearest one, and Ares’s loyalty of paycheck or preference hadn’t been enough to overcome the magic of Asher’s power over him.
I was still armed to the teeth, had more hand-to-hand training than Asher, but if I wasn’t willing to hurt or kill him, it was all useless. The sounds of snarling, snapping, and grunts of effort let me know that Nicky was fighting to get back to my side.
Then different hands grabbed a handful of Asher’s hair, and my shoulder. I felt the energy rise and knew it was Cynric before I smelled the scent of his skin.
Asher tightened his hands on my back and hair. I felt him laugh into the kiss. He didn’t think Cynric would know what to do next. He was wrong.
Cynric let go of my shoulder, but jerked the vampire’s hair tight and hit him in the side of the face hard enough that it jarred me. I tasted fresh blood, but it wasn’t mine. Asher stopped kissing me, stopped biting me, and one moment he was underneath me on the floor, and the next I was rolled to one side. I had time to spit blood, and then Asher came up off the floor, swinging. Cynric was strong and athletic, and was training with us in hand-to-hand, but he’d never fought for real. Training doesn’t prepare you for a real fight, not completely. Asher had fought for real, for centuries. It wasn’t martial arts; it was just a good old-fashioned punch to the bottom of Cynric’s jaw. The punch lifted Cynric off his feet and sent him careening backward. He fell flat on his back and didn’t get up.
Asher was just suddenly standing above him, his hair like golden fire, eyes blazing, skin almost transparent like crystal as he let himself be consumed by his own power. His humanity was folding away as he stood above the fallen man.
I spat blood on the floor and got to my feet, but wasn’t sure what to do. I could draw a gun, but I wouldn’t shoot him, he knew that. Asher reached for Cynric, but Nathaniel was there, kneeling between them. I’d never seen him move like that, a blur of almost magical speed.