Cerulean Sins

Belle's whisper, "He will soon enough."

"It looks like it's your turn to take one for the team," Jason's voice from the front.

"What?"

"You're going to get munched on," Jason said.

The combination of my own moral dilemma with the fact that Belle had picked an odd spot for taking blood, one that just didn't make sense to me, was helping me swim to the surface. I knelt back in the floorboard, pulling a little free of Caleb's body.

"No," I said out loud, and none of the men answered me, as if they'd all caught up to the fact that I wasn't really talking to any of them.

Belle's voice in my head. "I have been gentle until now, ma petite."

"I am not your ma petite, so stop fucking calling me that."

"If you will not take kindness from me, then I will cease to offer it."

"If this is your idea of kindness, then I'd hate to see..." I never finished the thought, because Belle showed me that indeed she had been kind.

She didn't roll over me, she crashed into me, in a mind-numbing, breath-stealing, heart-stopping, swat of power. For an instant, or for an eternity, I hung suspended. The Jeep was gone, Caleb was gone, I couldn't see, or feel, or be. It was neither light, nor dark, nor up, nor down. I'd had near-death experiences, I'd fainted before, passed out, but that moment when Belle's power fell through me, that was the closest to true nothingness that I'd ever experienced.

Into that nothingness, that void, Belle's voice fell, "Jean-Claude has begun the dance, but he has left it unfinished between you, the wolf, and himself. He has allowed sentiment to cloud his judgment. It makes me question how well I taught him."

I tried to speak but couldn't remember where my mouth was, or how to draw a breath. I couldn't remember how to answer her.

"I discovered this with the wolf, but could not mend it, for he is not my animal to call. I do not understand dogs, and a wolf is very much a dog." Her voice whispered through me, low and lower, trembling through my body, but for her voice to dance through my body, I had to have a body for her to use. I fell back into my body as if falling from a great height. I was left gasping on the floorboards, eyes staring up at Caleb's startled face and Nathaniel's worried one.

Belle's voice glided through my body like a knowledgeable hand. I suddenly knew who had trained Jean-Claude to use his voice as a tool of seduction. "But you, ma petite, I understand you."

I drew a deep, quaking breath and it hurt all the way to my chest, as if I'd gone a long time without breathing. My voice came hoarse, "What are you talking about?"

"The fourth mark, ma petite, without the fourth mark, you are not truly Jean-Claude's. It is like the difference between engagement and marriage; one is permanent, the other not necessarily so."

I understood what she meant a second before I saw two dancing honey-colored flames appear in the air over me. I knew it was the second mark because I'd had the second mark three times before; twice from Jean-Claude, and once from a vampire I'd killed. I'd never been able to protect myself from it before. I knew from experience that nothing physical would save me. It wasn't something you could hit, or shoot. I hated things you couldn't hit or shoot. But I had other skills now that weren't exactly physical.

I reached down that long metaphysical cord to Jean-Claude. Belle's voice floated over me, she was delaying her moment, drawing out her pleasure and my fear. "Jean-Claude is hours dead, he ca

The dark flames of her eyes began to descend, like some evil angel coming to eat my soul. I did the only thing I could think to do. I reached down the other half of our metaphysical cord. I reached out to a place that hadn't helped me for months. I reached out to Richard.

I had an image of Richard in the hot bath water, cradled in Jamil's arms. Richard looked up as if he could see me. He whispered my name, but either he was too weak to push me away, or he didn't try. For a moment, it was as if it was meant to be, then I was yanked back, shoved into my own head, my own body again. Richard hadn't cast me out this time. Dark honey flames hovered over my face, and there was a vague outline, a ghost of long dark hair, the mist of a face.

Caleb was yelling, "What's in the car with us? I can't see anything, but I can feel it. What the fuck is it?"

Nathaniel's voice came hushed, and strangely loud, "Belle Morte."

I had no time to look up, to see the others, because those phantom lips were speaking. "I will not allow you to gain strength from your wolf. I have given you the first mark and you did not even know it. I will give you the second mark here and now, and tonight with Musette as my proxy I will give you the third. When Jean-Claude and I are equal within you, three for three, then you will come to me, ma petite. You will travel the world if I ask it, do anything, simply to taste my sweet blood."

That phantom mouth lowered towards mine. I knew somehow that if she laid a ghostly kiss on me that I would be hers. I did what I always did, I tried to hit at that face, and there was nothing to touch. I screamed wordlessly, and sent out a metaphysical cry, "Help me!"

Suddenly, I could smell forest, trees, fresh-turned earth, wet leaves underfoot, and the sweet musk of wolf.

Belle could stop me from reaching out to Richard, but she couldn't keep him from reaching out to me.

Richard's power rose like a sweet-scented cloud above me, pushing back those glowing eyes, that phantom mouth.

She laughed, and it slid over my body, made me shudder, my breath catch in my throat. It felt so good, so good, even while my head screamed that it was bad.

"Did you hear someone laugh?" Caleb asked it.

Jason said no. Nathaniel said yes.

Belle whispered along my skin, and even Richard's power breathing against my body couldn't keep her voice out. "With the touch of your wolf's flesh, you might keep me at bay, but not from a distance. The closer the flesh, the closer the ties, and the more powerful. You are already mine, ma petite, you ca

"Help me!" I screamed it out loud to everyone, anyone, and no one. I felt Nathaniel's hand on mine, and that phantom kiss did hesitate, did turn and look at Nathaniel. I felt her call him, like a deep thrumming down my bones. Leopard had been her first animal to call. If she owned me, she'd own my pard.

Nathaniel reached out his free hand as if he could see her.

"No!" I jerked free of him and the moment I broke physical contact it was as if Nathaniel was less real to her. She turned those dark-honey eyes back to me.

"I will have them all, ma petite, eventually."

"No," I said it, but my voice was soft, because I believed she was right.

"You will give them to me, all of them."

Fear poured through me as if I'd been plunged into ice water. The thought of what Belle would do to my pard, my friends. No, I could not let this happen.

"Fuck you, fuck you, Belle, and the horse you rode in on." My anger, my fear, seemed to feed Richard's power. The sweet, nose-wrinkling musk of wolf was so thick it was like being wrapped in invisible fur.

The Jeep slewed to one side. The angry honking of horns and squealing brakes followed it. Jason had given up on finding a safe place and just stopped against the concrete median. Nathaniel and Caleb were thrown across the seat and into the passenger side doors. I didn't have time to worry about the fact that no one seemed to be wearing their damn seat belts.

Belle's eyes pushed through Richard's power. It wasn't effortless. He made her work for every inch, but those burning eyes, that ghostly outline got closer, closer... until I held my breath as if afraid, if I breathed in too hard it would bring her against my mouth.