Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,136

and I wouldn’t have shot to wound.’

‘That you are strong enough to do it, I have no doubt, but that you could live with it afterward, that I do doubt.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that since Asher left. I know I would have done it. I know that he could still push me far enough that I would do it, but I think it would break something in me that wouldn’t heal. Hell, shooting Ares – knowing that I had brought him into harm’s way. I practically fed him to the big bad vampire, and then I killed Ares. I loved, but I wasn’t in love with Haven, but it killed a part of me to look down the barrel of a gun and shoot him.’

Jean-Claude moved toward me, but I waved him off. ‘No, just no,’ I said.

‘What can I do, ma petite?’ he asked.

‘You’ve just told me that you believe Asher will need killing and that you can’t do it. You’ve just told me that it’s my job, if it has to be done.’

‘You do not have to do it either. We can let him behave badly and simply let him be a weakness for both of us. I cannot fault you for being no stronger in the face of his cruel beauty than I myself.’

I shook my head. ‘You bastard, you know I can’t do that.’

‘Being who you are, no,’ he said, softly.

‘What are we saying then, Jean-Claude?’

‘Our wise leopard king says we should bring him home, because too many of us miss him.’

‘He didn’t just say that,’ I said.

Jean-Claude smiled. ‘No, he said that we either let Dulcia kill him, or we get him the hell out of her territory so he can try to salvage the goodwill he had built up with her and her hyena clan.’

‘Nathaniel misses him terribly.’

‘As does our Devil,’ Jean-Claude said.

‘Even Richard misses having someone to dominate in the bedroom. It gives him somewhere for his darkness to be aimed. He’s been more moody without Asher to play with and abuse.’

‘Mon lupe is surprisingly talented as a dominant.’

‘He’s trying to embrace all of himself, and part of him really enjoys tormenting Asher with both floggers and whips and sexual denial. Asher loves being the first guy on to deflower a heterosexual man, and Richard enjoys flaunting himself with Asher and never letting Asher touch him.’

‘They do seem to fill a need in each other, as does Asher for Nathaniel, and you, ma petite.’

‘And you,’ I said.

‘And Narcissus, our own hyena leader, pines for Asher.’

‘So he fills needs that no one else fills for a lot of us,’ I said.

‘It would seem so,’ Jean-Claude said.

‘I wish we didn’t love him.’

‘I have wished that off and on for centuries.’

‘I bet. Asher is just so … damaged, and he won’t go to therapy and work on his issues.’

‘Therapy will be part of the price for his return,’ Jean-Claude said.

‘We can make him go sit in the therapist’s office, Jean-Claude, but we can’t actually force him to do the therapy.’

‘That is true,’ he said.

‘The fact that I want him home, too, means that you aren’t the only one who has a weakness for him.’

‘Love is both a great strength, ma petite, and a great weakness, which depends on the day, the hour, the moment.’

I went to him, and he met me in the middle of the room. We hugged, but I kept watching his face. ‘We bring him home because we’re not strong enough to tell him to bugger off, is that it?’

He smiled. ‘Something like that.’

‘Ain’t love grand?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said, as he bent to kiss me. ‘Yes, whatever it may hold of pleasure, or pain, or even grief, I would not trade it for its absence.’

We kissed, because we needed to feel the touch of each other, to reassure ourselves that we weren’t being damned fools about Asher, or at least if we were being fools, we were in it together. Sometimes love isn’t about being smart. Sometimes it’s about being stupid together. I hated those moments, but I’d grown to understand that love, real love, is full of choices that make no sense, that should go horribly wrong, but you make the choice anyway. Why? Because love is about hope; you hope that this time it will be different. Sometimes it is – Jean-Claude and I were proof of that – but sometimes it isn’t, and Richard and the three of us were proof of that.

Faint heart never won fair lady; I