"Now that's just not true," I said, "I lie very well, thank you."
"Not to me."
I shrugged. "I'm doing the best I can here, Jean-Claude." I looked up at the ceiling as if I could see the sky through all the rock above us. "I know one thing, I want whatever we're doing done before dawn. I do not want you guys to fade in the middle."
"Ma petitestill finds it unnerving that we die at dawn," Jean-Claude said.
"What time is it?" Asher asked.
I looked at my watch. "We're down to about two and a half hours."
"Barely enough time," Asher said. And something about what he said, or the way he said it, made Jean-Claude do that masculine chuckle that only men do, and only about women, or sex. I wasn't sure I'd ever heard that sound from Jean-Claude.
I was suddenly very aware that I was the only girl, and they were both men. I know that sounds silly. I mean, I knew that already, but . . . I suddenly felt it. It was like walking into a bar and feeling all those eyes follow you as you walk, like lions watching gazelles.
If either of the men had turned that same look to me, I think I would have bolted, but they didn't. Jean-Claude crawled onto the bed, still fully clothed, and held out his hand to me. I stared at that long-fingered, pale hand, graceful even in that small movement. Asher's hand squeezed, more gently, on my other hand.
I realized in that moment that if I chickened out, that would be the end of it. There would be no pressure from either of them. But Asher would be gone, not tonight, but soon. I didn't want him to be gone.
I took Jean-Claude's hand, and he pulled me gently onto the silk bedspread. Silk is slippery when you're wearing hose. Their hands on mine kept me from slipping off the edge of the bed. They half pulled me onto the bed.
"Why is it," I said, "that younever slide off the bed when you're wearing silk?"
"Centuries of practice," Jean-Claude said.
"I recall when you weren't so practiced. Remember the Duchess Vicante?" said Asher.
Jean-Claude blushed, a faint hint of pink. I hadn't even known he could blush. "What happened?" I asked.
"I fell," he said, trying for dignity and failing, because he smiled.
"What he will not say is that he cut his chin on a silver mirror that he broke when he fell off the Duchess and her silk sheets. Blood everywhere, and the cuckold husband on the stairs."
I looked at Jean-Claude. He nodded, shrugged.
"What happened?" I asked.
"The duchess cut herself on one of the shards of glass and told her husband it was her own blood. She was a very enterprising woman, was the Duchess Vicante."
"So you both knew each other when you weren't perfectly suave."
Jean-Claude said, "No, Asher watched me learn my lessons, but he had five years with Belle before I came to court. If he had rough edges they were worn away by the time I arrived."
"I had them, mon ami," Asher said, and he smiled. I was overwhelmed with a flood of images of that smile. That smile when his hair was in long locks and the hat on his head graceful with feathers, that smile by candlelight, that smile while we played chess and Julianna sewed by the fire, that smile in a spill of clean sheets and Julianna's laughter.
It had been a long time since we'd seen that smile. We drew him to the bed, and the smile vanished. Jean-Claude swept the bedspread aside to reveal sheets a little bluer than Asher's eyes, blue as the daytime sky, cerulean blue. But Asher stayed on his knees, as if afraid to lay upon the bed. I could see his pulse thudding in his throat, and it had nothing to do with vampire or shape-shifter powers, only fear, I think.
Asher was afraid. I could taste his fear on the back of my tongue. I could swallow it, enjoy the bouquet of it, like a fine wine to whet the appetite.
The fear called to that piece of me that was Richard's beast. It roiled inside me like a cat stretching, exploring the space it was trapped in. A thin growl trickled from my lips.
"Control, ma petite,do not lose it so soon."
It was hard to think, let alone talk. I came to my knees and raised Asher's shirt, my fingers playing along his skin. I wanted to rip his shirt off and put my mouth to that tender skin. But it wasn't sex I was thinking of. Vampires may not feed off each other, but a werewolf will eat a vampire.
I closed my eyes, forced my hands away from his body. "I'm trying, but you know what happens if I push the ardeuroff too long."
"The other hungers rise, oui, ma petite.I have not forgotten."