"I killed him, not you."
"You are my human servant. The council sees all that you do as an extension of my actions."
I stared at him. "You mean anyone I kill is your kill?"
He nodded.
"I wasn't your servant when I killed Oliver."
"I would keep that bit of knowledge to ourselves."
"Why?"
"They may not kill me, ma petite, but a vampire hunter who killed a council member would be executed. There would be no trial, no hesitation."
"Even though I'm your human servant now?"
"That might save you. It is one of our most stringent laws not to destroy another's servant."
"So they can't kill me because I'm your servant."
"But they can harm you, ma petite. They can harm you so very much that you may wish for death."
"You mean torture?"
"Not in a traditional sense. But they are masters at finding that which terrifies you most and using it against you. They will use your desires against you and twist everything you are into a shape of their choosing."
"I've met master vampires that could sense your heart's desire and use it against you."
"Everything you have seen of us before, ma petite, is like a distant dream. The council is the reality. They are the nightmare on which we are all based. The thing that even we fear."
"Yvette and Balthasar didn't seem that scary to me."
He looked at me. There was no expression on his face. It was a mask, smooth, pleasant, hidden. "If they did not frighten you, ma petite, it is only because you do not know them. Yvette is a toady of the council because they are powerful enough to give her a ready supply of victims."
"Victims? You aren't talking about human prey, are you?"
"It can be human. But Yvette is considered perverted even by other vampires."
I wasn't sure I wanted to know, but . . . "Perverted in what ways"
He sighed and looked down at his hands. They lay very still on the tablecloth. It was like he was pulling away from me. I could see the walls clicking back into place. He was rebuilding himself into Jean-Claude, Master of the City. It was a shock to realize that there had been a change. It had been so gradual that I hadn't realized that with me, on our dates, he was different. I don't know if he was more himself or more what he thought I wanted him to be, but he was more "relaxed," less guarded. Watching him put on his public face while I sat across from him was almost depressing.
"Yvette loves the dead."
I frowned at him. "But she's a vampire. That's redundant."
He stared at me, and it wasn't a friendly look. "I will not sit here and debate with you, ma petite. You share my bed. If I were a zombie, you would not touch me."
"That's true." It took me a handful of seconds to understand what he'd just said. "Are you telling me that Yvette likes to have sex with zombies, real rotting corpses?"
"Among other things, yes."
I couldn't keep the disgust off my face. "Good Lord, that's . . ." Words failed me. Then I found a word. "She's a necrophiliac."
"She will use a dead body if nothing else is available, but her true joy is the rotted animated corpse. She would find your talent most appealing, ma petite. You could raise her an unending stream of partners."
"I wouldn't raise the dead for her amusement."