may be able to use you to increase her own power. If she finds you are beyond her reach in that way, she may decide that you are better off dead."
"If she can't have me, then nobody else gets me either, is that it?"
He gave a small nod, and an almost apologetic shrug. "She is a very practical woman."
"No, she's a very practical vampire. Trust me, Jean-Claude that is a whole new level of practicality."
He nodded. "Oui, oui,I would argue if I could, but it would be lies."
Asher was walking towards us now. His eyes were still glowing that drowning blue as if a winter's sky had filled his skull, but for the rest, he looked as ordinary as he ever did. Which was extraordinary. But at least he wasn't raising a small wind of his own otherworldly power or levitating a few inches off the floor.
"You are both weakened by not sharing the fourth mark. Neither of you is as powerful without it. You know that, Jean-Claude."
"I do, but I also know Belle. She destroys that which she cannot use."
"Or casts it aside," Asher said, voice soft, holding sorrow enough to make my throat tight.
I had my shoes off, my jogging socks tucked into them on the floor. "Casting you aside did destroy you," I said. I meant it to be soft, but it came out pretty much like I usually sound.
He glared at me, his pupils swimming up through the blue fire like an island reborn from the sea.
"What I mean, Asher, is that she chose what would hurt you worse than death. To be cast out from her affections, from Jean-Claude's bed, since his bed was hers."
"She would not kill me because she promised Jean-Claude she would not."
I glanced at Jean-Claude.
"I came back to her for a hundred years, if she could save Asher's life. If he died, I was free of her."
"So she worked to keep me alive," Asher said, and his voice was bitter enough to choke on. "There were nights when I cursed you for my life, Jean-Claude."
"I know, mon ami.Belle Morte often pointed out that if only I would allow you to die, you could be spared such humiliation."
"I did not know that she gave you that choice."
Jean-Claude looked away, not meeting the other man's eyes. "It was selfish on my part. I would rather you alive and hating me, than dead and past all hope." He looked up then, and his face was raw with emotion, so unlike his usual polite blankness. "Was I wrong, Asher? Would you rather have died all those years ago?"
I sat on the bed, watching them, waiting for the answer. In a way I was an audience, in a way I wasn't there at all.
"There were moments when I longed for death."
Jean-Claude turned away. Asher touched his arm, fingertips on the velvet. That small touch seemed to freeze Jean-Claude. If he was breathing, I couldn't see it. "Last night was not one of those moments."
They stared at each other. Asher's fingertips barely touching Jean-Claude's arm. There was so much between them, centuries of pain and love and hate. It was as if all of it boiled in the air, almost visible in the flickering light. I wanted to say kiss and make up, but I knew they wouldn't. I don't know what issues they had about each other, but they seemed unable to do things like that without their Julianna. She'd been the bridge between them. The thing that allowed them to love each other. Without her, they stood on the brink of the abyss and gazed at each other, separated by a chasm that neither knew how to cross.
I could never be Julianna. I had too many memories of her. For God's sake she'd done embroidery. She'd been gentle and kind and everything I didn't think I was. But there was one thing I might be able to do.
I slid off the bed, and went first to Asher, because I didn't want to set him off again. I went on tiptoe, and he had to bend down a little for me to kiss him, but he didn't fight me. I held his face in my hands like it was a cup carved of some delicate stone, something that would shatter if you abused it. I kissed him softly, drinking from that cup as the sacred gift it was. I went to Jean-Claude with the taste of Asher still on my lips. I cupped his face as