Danse Macabre

8

PASSION LIKE SOMETHING touchable, solid, spilled up through my body and over his. Lust like some thick, heavy paint flowed over us, covering us, trapping us.

I froze, afraid to breathe, afraid to speak, afraid most of all to move. I'd gone from finding Auggie handsome, arrogant, and begi

I wanted to ask him what had he done to me, but was afraid to move that much, and even more afraid to draw his attention to me. Afraid of what he would do, no, not true: terrified of what I would do.

I stayed frozen in his arms. Perfectly still, only my pulse moving. If I could simply not move, I could hold on. I'd won the fight. Auggie was offering himself up as food; that made me the wi

His eyes closed, and his head fell back, almost as if the sex had already started. His voice was hoarse as he said, «I had almost forgotten how it feels to be consumed by passion.» He lowered his face so he could meet my gaze. «I try to forget the touch of it, Anita. I almost succeed in convincing myself it wasn't real, that nothing ever felt so amazing, then she sends me a dream.»

I knew who she was, because when any of Belle's line said her , or she , of course, you knew who she was. Belle Morte. It was always Belle Morte. Their dark mistress, the creator of them all.

«Did you hear me, Anita? Did you hear me?» His arms moved so that he was gripping my upper arms, our bodies still pressed too close together. There was room to try to fight, to try for a weapon, but it was too late for that. If I went for a weapon, I wasn't certain I could make my hands grab a gun, or a blade. My hands ached for the touch of his skin. I wasn't trustworthy. I wanted to scream in my mind for Jean-Claude, but with the ardeur this strong, I wasn't sure if it could spread that way.

Auggie shook me. «Did you hear me, Anita?»

I felt movement, caught a glimpse of black at the sides. If anyone touched us the ardeur would spread to them. Bad, very bad. «Stay back,» I whispered, «tell them.»

Micah said, «Don't touch either of them. It spreads by touch.»

«You touch her and I'll shoot you, Graham.» This from Claudia.

«Look at me, Anita,» Auggie said. «Me.»

I swallowed my pulse, and moved, very slowly, to look at him. I met the charcoal gray of his gaze, and whatever he saw there seemed to satisfy him. «She sends such dreams, Anita. Dreams like this, where lust is something touchable, holdable, caressable, and it's spilling over your skin, drowning you in its need.» He leaned in toward me, as if for a kiss.

I turned my head down, away, still careful, still slow. Move too fast and the ardeur was like a predator, attracted by quick movements. But a small turn of the head, that I could do.

«Don't turn away. Let me kiss you. Let me spill this waiting press of heat over us. Let us drown together.»

I kept my face turned away, my hands in fists, because all I could think of was what his body would feel like under my hands. I wanted to trace his shoulders, his chest, see the muscled promise of him nude before me. It was like months, or years, of dating and wanting all packed into moments. Requiem, one of our imports from Britain, could cause instant body reaction, hours of really good foreplay in seconds of power. Could Auggie hit the emotional markers as fast as Requiem could hit the physical ones? Sweet Mary, Mother of God, help me.

The moment the thought left me, I was calmer, could think more clearly. For years I hadn't prayed during times like this, too embarrassed, but I'd finally realized if my faith was real, then it didn't desert me just because I was outside societal norms.

«No,» he said, «no, I will not come this close and be denied.» He drew me in against his body, and I fought to stay stiff and unyielding when all I wanted to do in the whole wide world was touch him. He rested his cheek against my hair. «I feel your master's nearness, Anita. You wait for rescue, but remember, unless you actually feed from me, then you have not won this fight.» I felt the press of his lips against my temple, soft and hot. «Do you really believe Jean-Claude will win against me? Feed and you win, and so does he.»

He was implying what I'd already thought of, that if Jean-Claude hit the door before I'd won, that we would lose, badly. I'd felt the power in Auggie, and I knew the power in Jean-Claude. If it was a straight-up battle, we would lose. I couldn't let that happen.

Micah's voice came from behind me. He didn't touch me, but he said, «There are other hungers, Anita. Other drives.» He spoke carefully, as if he wasn't sure how well I could hear him.

Micah was right. The ardeur had a habit of swallowing the world, and my logic with it. There were other hungers and they were inside me, just like the ardeur . Once I'd thought to raise other hungers I had to open the marks between Richard, or Micah, or Nathaniel, but I knew better now. The beast wasn't something I got from them. It was something inside me. The fact that it had no way out, no way to make my body match its hunger, didn't make it less real.

I closed my eyes and reached down inside myself, like a metaphysical hand reaching into a sack. Searching for what I needed. Auggie inadvertently helped me. He jerked me off my knees with a crushing grip on my arms. It hurt, but the pain didn't blow my concentration, no, the beast liked anger. Anger and pain meant we had to fight, and we were good at fighting.

Always before the beast had been a process, but now it was like a switch in my head. One moment me, the next, something that wasn't thinking about sex, or even food. Escape, escape, escape!

I screamed into his face, wordless, rage-filled. He jerked me close to his face. He grabbed my hair, and tried for that kiss. But it was too late for kisses. Too late for so much.

I bit him. Sank my teeth into his pouting lower lip. The grip on my hair became painful, and he tried to control my face, my head, my mouth, with that bruising grip. He couldn't pull me off before I bit through his lip, and he seemed to know that, because his other hand went to my jaw, the way you'd grip an animal at the hinge of the jaw, pressing inward. If you have the strength you can force an animal not to bite down completely. If you have the strength you can pry him off.

He had the strength to keep me from biting his lip off, but that was all, unless he was willing to crush my jaw. I kept trying to bite him, and he kept me from doing it. If there'd been enough person left in me I'd have gone for my gun, or the knife, but I'd given up thoughts of knives and guns when I embraced my beast. All I could think of was teeth and claws. I raked my nails down his hands, bloodied him in ribbons to try to get free.

He was going to have to cripple me or let me go. But he had one other option, and he used it. He threw another burst of power into me. He raised the ardeur again, drowned my beast in desire, and things that are only partly about mating. If he'd been like some of Belle's line and only affected me physically, the beast wouldn't have left, but his flavor of Belle Morte's power was more… human. It was not just lust, but love. He had the ability to make you love him. Evil did not begin to cover what he did to me. Because in that moment, I loved him. Loved him completely and utterly. Part of me that was still sane prayed, Don't let this be permanent .

I went up on my knees, stretching toward that full mouth that a moment before I'd been trying to bite off. I gave him the kiss he'd wanted. The fresh blood didn't make it horrible, he was a vampire and… Roses, roses on the air like some cloying perfume. I was drowning in the scent of it, so that as I kissed him, the blood tasted of roses.

Auggie jerked back from me. «Roses, oh, God, you taste of roses.» He pulled back enough to see my face, and the fear showed on his face. «Your eyes, Anita, your eyes.»

I'd seen Belle Morte's eyes in my face before. Her pale brown eyes like dark honey filled with fire. I stared up at Auggie with her eyes, and she saw him, too. While her dark light filled my eyes she saw what I saw.

She whispered through my mind, «Did you truly believe that Jean-Claude being a sourdre de sang would keep you safe from me, Anita?»

Yeah, actually, I had. She knew, and thought it was fu

She gazed up at Auggie, kneeling above us, and I knew what she wanted. I felt regret in her. Regret that Auggie had gone from her bed and her body. «But you exiled him,» I said.

«Stay out of my thoughts, Anita.» She was sitting on the edge of her huge four-poster bed. A bed I'd seen once before in Jean-Claude's memories. She was curled there, a white gown centuries out of date covering the lushness of her body, so that she looked petite, like a dainty pouting child as she leaned against the carved wood. Her hair was a wealth of dark waves longer than my own. For the first time I realized that we looked at least superficially alike. Petite brunettes with ice-pale skin, and brown eyes.

«I was the greatest beauty in all of Europe; how dare you compare yourself to me?» Her power lashed through me, like the sharp blow of a whip.

«Forgive me,» I said, because I'd meant no disrespect. I hadn't meant I was as beautiful as she, only that we shared some traits.

The thought mollified her, but it also freed her to concentrate on why she'd entered me in the first place. Not good. «Augustine,» she said, her voice spilling in a lower alto purr than my normal voice. It wasn't her voice exactly, because she had to use my throat, but it wasn't my voice either. It was close enough to hers to widen Auggie's eyes, and make him go paler than death itself. I don't know if I'd ever seen a vampire go pale before.

«How is this possible?» he whispered.

«You called me,» she said with my lips. «Your power and your blood called me.»

He swallowed, rolling his lips when he did it, so that the blood seeped faster from the cut. The bite was healing as we watched, but it was still bleeding. «I did not mean…»