Nathaniel said, simply and clearly, “No.”
He didn’t yell, but somehow that one word was louder than any scream. That one solid No seemed to reverberate through the room.
Asher stood up, straight and proud, all shining power and fearsome beauty, and was stopped, not by violence, but by a different kind of strength. One that women have understood for centuries, that the strongest man is weak in the face of the determination of someone they love. Nathaniel was kneeling in front of Asher, but somehow he was the stronger of the two. Kneeling between the vampire and his prey, Nathaniel suddenly wasn’t anyone’s kitten anymore. He was on the floor, not raising so much as a finger toward Asher, but you just knew he wouldn’t be moved. Nathaniel had drawn his line in the sand with Asher, and if the vampire crossed it, it would cost him things that wouldn’t heal with a bandage. I couldn’t explain how I absolutely knew, but Asher saw it, too, because he just stood there, and let Nathaniel stop him.
Nathaniel said, again, “No.”
The sounds of fighting had stopped. I glanced and found Nicky on his feet; Ares was on the floor in a broken heap, bleeding and hurt worse than Cynric looked.
Jean-Claude knelt beside me, touching my face, coming away with blood on his fingertips. “Enough!” His voice did echo in the room, bouncing around the stone, and the curtains, so that the shadows seemed to repeat the word back and forth, “Enough, enough, enough!”
Asher turned to look at the love of his undead life. “The boy hit me first.”
Jean-Claude raised my face to look at him. I was suddenly looking into those midnight-blue eyes, the black lace of his eyelashes, that painfully beautiful face, the black curls that trailed down his shoulders and halfway down his back. He didn’t fight to keep the concern off his face, or maybe he fought to let me see how worried he was for me. “How hurt are you, ma petite?”
I shook my head. I wiped blood away from my lower lip and said, “I’m okay.”
He wiped his thumb across my lip and came away with fresh scarlet on the white of his skin. “You are not all right.”
“Better than Sin, or Ares,” I said.
He nodded, and kissed me on the forehead. “I am sorry, ma petite.”
“For what?” I asked, but he called to Claudia. “Help her to a chair.”
Claudia was there, helping to my feet, and I seemed to need the help. Maybe Sin had jarred me a little more than I thought when he hit Asher, or maybe getting gnawed on had been more of a shock to the system than I thought.
Jean-Claude was standing, facing Asher. “You make me weak, Asher. I cannot be the master you need, because I love you too much to be as harsh as you need. Anita would not have taken such treatment from anyone else.”
Claudia helped me into one of the new overstuffed chairs. I sat down, feeling shaky, and I wasn’t sure it was just from being bled.
“She does not love me more than all the rest, Jean-Claude, that I know.” His voice was so harsh; it was ugly as he said it.
“The modern term is polyamorous,” Jean-Claude said. “We are polyamorous. It means to love more than just one person, Asher.”
“Anita was here before I returned to you, but the weretiger, Envy, she was not. You and your wolf king, Richard, show me a glimpse of paradise, and then next I know you are both fucking a second woman. I was not enough in your bed, Anita was not enough, none of the other men are enough, it always has to be a woman with you.”
“I love you, we are lovers, what more do you want from me?”
“I want you to have only Anita and me.”
“That’s closed poly,” I said, “Nathaniel explained it to me. It’s like monogamy with only one other person added.” I had to cough to clear my throat, and the taste of blood was fresh and strong. Shit. If I’d been truly human I might have needed stitches inside my mouth.
“Jean-Claude and Richard fuck Envy. Why aren’t you enraged by that?” He yelled it at me.
Envy was one of the new golden tigers who had moved into the underground. She was Dev’s cousin, and as tall, statuesque, and gorgeous as he was handsome. The golden tigers were all pretty easy on the eyes.
“And I fuck about fifteen other guys. It wouldn’t be fair for me to bitch about them having Envy in their beds,” I said. My voice sounded harsh, so I coughed and tried to clear it, and tasted fresh blood. I had a choice of swallowing it, or finding a place to spit. I’d been where I could spit on the stone floor, but now I was surrounded by carpet. I just couldn’t spit on the new carpet.
“Fair, love isn’t fair, Anita. Love is one of the least fair things in the world. Don’t you ever wonder if Envy is better in bed than you are?”
I frowned at him and shook my head. “No.”
“Oh, that is arrogant to not even consider that she might be better in bed than you.”
“There’s only so much of me to go around, Asher. Richard is dating other women in his mundane life. It wouldn’t be fair to make Jean-Claude sit around and twiddle his thumbs waiting for me, when I’m dating other people, too.”
“If you truly love, you will wait.”
“Who made that rule?” I asked.
“Dev wants to sleep with other women, when he has you; doesn’t that bother you, at all?”
I thought about it and just shook my head. “He talked to me about it a couple of weeks ago. He’s got a high sex drive, and I’m giving most of my attention to Jean-Claude, Micah, Nathaniel, and you.”
“Oh, no, include the boy. He takes up more and more of your time.”
I studied the beautiful arrogant face. “You hit him harder on purpose. You’re jealous of Sin.”
“It would be ridiculous of me to be jealous of a boy.”
“Yes, it would,” I said.
“Envy is jealous of you,” he said. “She hates that Jean-Claude drops her the moment you appear.”
“If she has a problem with the way Jean-Claude is dating her, she needs to talk to him about it.”
Asher looked at him. “Well, Jean-Claude, has the fair Envy spoken to you?”
“She has not.”
Asher turned back to me. “Cardinale, Damian’s girlfriend, hates that he leaves her side if you so much as crook a finger at him.”
I shrugged again. “Cardinale and Damian talked to me about that, and I haven’t slept with him since then. If they want to try monogamy, more power to them.”
“Why doesn’t it bother you? Why aren’t you jealous?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and that was the truth. I was so far outside the relationship parameters that I’d been taught to expect growing up that I just didn’t worry about it. “It works for us, Asher.”
“It doesn’t work for me.”
Jean-Claude moved into the room, not stepping between us, but drawing our attention to him. “I love you, Asher. Anita loves you. Mephistopheles loves you. Nathaniel loves you. Narcissus loves you.”
Asher made a harsh sound low in his throat.
“Yes, you do not love Narcissus in turn; the leader of our local werehyenas would love you as obsessively as you seem to desire, but you do not want him, not like that.”
“Narcissus loves the attention he gets from me, Jean-Claude.”
“Of that, I have no doubt, but he cannot love you enough, I cannot love you enough, Mephistopheles cannot love you enough, Anita cannot love you enough, Nathaniel cannot love you enough. It is never enough for you, Asher. In the end, the fact that you do not love yourself defeats us all.”
“Very philosophical,” Asher said, and made sure the words were sneering.
“I have found a city in need of a master where werehyenas are the major animal group. I think you need to visit the city and see if it is a good match,” Jean-Claude said.
Asher stood there, staring at him. “What does that mean, Jean-Claude?
“I thought I was very clear.”