Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,76

he said.

‘So only a year older than me.’

‘Yes,’ he said, his voice low and strangely intimate in the darkness.

‘You don’t look older than twenty-five,’ I said.

‘You look early twenties, too,’ he said.

‘Good genetics,’ I said.

‘Are you sure it’s just good genetics?’

I looked at his shadowed face as we drove farther into the night-black mountains. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I’ve made you uncomfortable. I can feel you’re unhappy and I have to stop. I’m your Bride, which means I’m all about you being happy.’

‘I’m not her Bride, or her animal to call; hell, she doesn’t even have the ability to call hyenas, so I’ll say it,’ Ares said.

‘Say what?’ I asked.

Nathaniel started petting my hand, soothing me.

‘You try to ignore Damian, Anita, but he is your vampire to call. He’s your vampire servant, and you did fourth-mark with him and Nathaniel.’

‘By accident,’ I said, and even to me it sounded defensive.

‘Doesn’t matter how, just matters it happened. I know that Jean-Claude has been waiting to see if Damian starts to age, or if you stop aging, before he brings up sharing the fourth mark with you and Richard.’

‘Traditionally, you can’t have more than one fourth mark from more than one vampire. You’re the human servant of just one vampire,’ I said.

‘Traditionally, but you’re human, not a vampire, and you have a vampire servant, not a human one. There’s nothing traditional about you, Anita.’

‘What’s your point?’ I asked.

‘You’re the first true necromancer in over a thousand years. The rules don’t apply to you, Anita.’

‘So?’ And I sounded sullen. I fought wanting to hunch in the seat. I wanted to take my hand back from Nathaniel and just sulk. I fought the urge off, but just wanting to do it meant this was hitting an old, old issue for me. I wasn’t sure which issue it was hitting, but the fact that I wanted to stop touching Nathaniel meant it was something that pre-dated me letting myself love him and all the people in my life.

I forced myself to sit up very straight and keep touching Nathaniel, but his hand had gone very still in mine. I made myself take a nice, even breath and let it out slow. ‘Do you have a point, Ares?’

‘Jean-Claude’s triumvirate with you as human servant and Richard Zeeman as his wolf to call is crippled because Richard won’t man up and be the Ulfric we all need him to be.’

‘He’s doing better,’ I said.

‘As Ulfric, our wolf king, yes, but as the other third to Jean-Claude’s triumvirate he blows. He uses you and Jean-Claude as a booty call and he misses dominating Asher. He can say he doesn’t, but it met a need for him to torment Asher. I think Richard misses the bondage games with Asher as much as Nathaniel and you do. He just won’t ever admit it.’

‘I’m still waiting for your point; so far you’re just telling me shit I already know.’

‘You have a triumvirate of power with Nathaniel as your leopard to call and Damian as your vampire servant.’

‘Again, shit I already know,’ I said.

‘Do you?’ Ares demanded. ‘Because the whole time I’ve worked for you guys I wouldn’t know it. You almost never interact with Damian.’

‘He’s monogamous with Cardinal, and I’m respecting that.’

‘I don’t mean just sex and feeding the ardeur with him, Anita. I mean using him to really make a triumvirate of power, the kind that Jean-Claude wanted to forge.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

He glanced in the rearview mirror again, but this time there was no car to reflect in his eyes, so there was just a shadowed outline of him. ‘Nathaniel, is she lying to me or to herself?’

‘I would say leave me out of this, but …’ He sighed, heavily.

I looked at him. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I feel how drawn you are to all your animals to call and to Jean-Claude. I know how tight we are wound metaphysically, but Damian is always left out. I feel the lack of him, Anita. I can’t describe it any other way, but sometimes when you raise power it’s like there’s a link to him, but it’s less. It’s …’ He looked out the window as if searching for inspiration.

‘It’s what?’ I asked.

He turned back to me, and even in the dark I could feel the weight of his stare. ‘It’s broken. I don’t know how, or what, but it’s damaged, and that break keeps the three of us from being everything we could be as a power.’

‘It’s not just me,’ I