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we?”
“Do you really think your nerves can take being in bed with all four of us? You usually protect your virtue from me as if you were an untouched maiden and I the lecherous villain.”
“By your standards that’s exactly what I am. Remember that I share some of Jean-Claude’s memories. You love being the first man to seduce a straight man. The more macho and homophobic the better, because every time you won the game you knew it was because no one was as beautiful as you.”
“That was long ago, Ulfric; I am no longer the perfect beauty I was then.”
“Beautiful enough to make Jean-Claude and Anita afraid of being alone with you individually, because they love you. That gives a vampire with your abilities a big edge in who’s going to be dominant in bed.”
“You’ll truly let me take blood from you tonight?” Asher asked.
“Do you understand what he’ll do to you, Richard?” Jason asked. “His bite is amazing, more orgasmic than Jean-Claude’s.”
Richard’s pulse got away from him then and pushed at the side of his throat. “So I’ve heard.”
“I can taste your pulse, Ulfric; I frighten you.”
“A little.”
“So arrogant, Ulfric; you think you are proof against me? I would enjoy proving you wrong.”
“You can try,” he said.
Asher rubbed his thumbs along the knuckles of the two guards. It seemed to help him focus. “But you’re not certain you will win this battle of wills. I can feel your doubt. So why would you risk your handsome flesh with me?”
“Anita and Jean-Claude love you; that gives you an edge. But you love them, too, so that balances out. I don’t even like you, and you don’t like me.”
“So it is a stalemate,” Asher said.
“No, because we have one thing you don’t.”
“And that would be what?”
“You want me.”
“Oh, that is arrogant,” Asher said.
“You don’t want me because you like me. You want me because I belong to Jean-Claude and because part of you believes that I’m a greater threat to his affections for you than Anita is. She’s just a girl, and what really scares you is that he’ll find another man to love. You worried about Micah and Nathaniel, but you’ve been in the bed with them and him and Anita. I’m the only one you haven’t seen with him. Until you see us together you’ll never be sure.”
“I have never said that.”
“Not in words, but you’re more jealous of me, because I won’t share him with you the way Micah, Nathaniel, and Jason do. Tonight I’m offering to share, and you want that.”
It was a challenge, and Richard knew his audience. Asher did want what was on the table, and he wouldn’t want to back down from the challenge, especially since it was Richard throwing the gauntlet down. It was a trap, not one we’d spring on purpose, but could Asher really sink fang into Richard for the first time and resist trying his vampire wiles on him? It would almost be too tempting to resist.
“Come home with us, Asher. Let us go back to Narcissus,” Perses said.
“This is a one-night-only offer, Asher,” Richard said.
Asher licked his lips and said, “This could wait until after the weretigers arrive and go again to Las Vegas.”
“No,” Richard said, “tonight, now, or never.” Richard met Asher’s gaze full on; with me and Jean-Claude touching him he was proof against the master vampire’s gaze.
“Don’t do it,” the other hyena said.
“Let go of everyone but the three of you,” Asher said.
Jean-Claude thought at us. Micah squeezed my hand tight, and then he let me pull away. Jason let his hands fall and he stepped back. It was just Richard and us now, but the power was still amazing, a warm rush of magic just waiting for us to decide what to do with it.
“Don’t,” the werehyena said.
“I am master, not you,” Asher said, and he pulled away from them. He stood there, alone, and again I knew why he was not master of his own city. Not because he wouldn’t be powerful enough, but because he let his heart, or his desire, overrule his common sense. You can look out of control and even be crazy as hell—I’d met a few Masters of the City that were—but in the end they were all about survival. But Asher came to us. He stopped a few feet away as if he’d gotten to the edge of something. I think it was the edge of our power.
“I want this,” he said, and his voice was already