"I thought it was you I was protecting, but Asher is right, it was me." He looked at the other man. "You almost consumed me once before Julianna. It wasn't that you were a man that had made me withdraw, it was that your power works on vampires, too. You were very close to making me your slave, and if I wasn't willing to be Belle Morte's slave, then I wouldn't be yours."
"So another man brought in would have worked as well?" Asher asked.
Jean-Claude smiled and shook his head. "No, you chose well for my heart. Julianna was everything I could have dreamed of in a woman at that time."
"You don't have to add the at that time for my benefit, Jean-Claude. I know you loved her; hell, I've felt the memories."
"The person who loved Julianna died when she died."
"We all died that day," Asher said.
"Yes," Jean-Claude said.
The silence sat for a minute full of old sorrow and older loss. Then Micah said, "But if Anita were with you, would you want to be Asher's lover?"
Jean-Claude looked at Micah, then at me, and finally he looked directly across the room at Asher. "Yes."
"Just empty words," Asher said, "to save your hyenas and your power base."
Jean-Claude stood up and held his hand out to me. "Ma petite." I admit I hesitated, but I went and took his hand. Then Jean-Claude turned and held out his hand to the other vampire.
Asher said, "You mean now?"
"You say words are empty. Let me show you actions."
I looked from one to the other of them, and fought a sudden panicking feeling in my stomach. It wasn't that I didn't want to, but it was all moving a little too fast for me and I had a niggling feeling that I was missing something.
Asher stood up. The werehyenas behind him asked, "What do you want us to do?"
"Whatever you were doing. Do your jobs." He went to Jean-Claude's outstretched hand without a backward glance at the two shapeshifters, and that was why Asher would probably never have his own territory. It wasn't lack of power, but lack of wanting power. He would always let his heart overrule his head, and Masters of the City don't survive long making decisions like that.
Jean-Claude led us toward the curtains. The guards standing there scattered as if we'd shouted Boo. Jason was on the other side of them. He raised eyebrows, and just his expression let me know he'd heard and knew what was happening. I reached out my free hand and he gave me his. The moment I touched him his power flared over me like heat in a summer meadow. It felt so good, and then I smelled trees, leaves, forest, and I knew that there were more wolves just outside the big dungeon door.
Jean-Claude, Jason, and I all turned toward the far curtains as Jamil and Shang-Da swept through them. They were both tall and muscular, Jamil with his long cornrows and tailored suit, Shang-Da the tallest Chinese man I'd ever met, hair cut skater straight, his black trench coat flaring around him showing glimpses of the guns underneath. The moment I saw both of them I knew who was coming next, and there he was, Richard, our Ulfric, our wolf king. He was dressed in blue jeans with a leather and denim jacket open over a bloodred T-shirt. His shoulder-length hair fell in foaming waves, a brown shot full of gold and red highlights. He swept in with his guards on either side, and it was like my heart stopped for a moment. Nothing would ever make Richard less than handsome, from the short brown boots peeking out from the jeans to the poured-on jeans and everything I knew lay in them, to the upper body that he'd hit the gym hard enough to make even wider, even more impressive, and then the face. Once I'd thought I'd marry him, and even now my heart and libido leapt up, but my mind went, No, whatever he wants, no. Once it goes to hell, no one can cut you up like the love of your life. Fuck.
Chapter Six
SHANG-DA STAYED BY the two werehyenas near the loveseat, his trench coat swept back to show the weapons more clearly. What was going on? Jamil stayed at his Ulfric's side, and there was something way too formal, too dangerous, about all of it for our normally less-than-action-oriented Richard.
The guards by us fanned out and looked a little uncertain. They'd picked up on the urgency, too.
"Richard, what has happened?" Jean-Claude asked.
"I'm in time, so nothing yet," he said.
Truth and Wicked moved in front of him and Jamil. "You're moving like you have a purpose, Ulfric," Truth said. "What is that purpose?"
He let them stop him. "I'm here to complete Jean-Claude's triumvirate of power."
"I expected you tomorrow for the weretigers," Jean-Claude said, "but tonight is a surprise."
"Did I interrupt something?"
"Yes," Asher said, and that one word was very unhappy.
"Then I am just in time."
Micah came to me with Nathaniel literally in his hand. Micah offered me his free hand, and I let go of Jason to take it. Micah and Nathaniel were the ones who had held me the most when Richard cut me up. Since he'd left Jean-Claude when he left me, it had seemed wrong to cry on Jean-Claude's shoulder.