"Wait just a damn minute." I stared from one to the other of them. "Are you saying we become a menage a trois?"
"No," Richard said. He stood up. He walked towards me in his little shorts, flashing the room. "No sex, I promise you that. Even for this, I wouldn't have agreed to sharing you with him."
I ran my fingertips down the silk of his shorts, lightly, almost like I was afraid. "Then why the costumes?"
"We're running out of time, Anita. If this is going to work, it's got to work fast." He gripped my arms, his hands warm on my skin. "You said you'd help me with a plan. This is the plan."
I drew away from him slowly and turned to Jean-Claude. "And what do you get out of it?"
"Your happiness. No wolf will challenge Richard if we are a true triumvirate."
"My happiness, right." I studied his calm, lovely face, and had an idea. "You tasted Jason, didn't you? You tasted the power that he sucked off of Richard, didn't you? Didn't you, you son of a bitch?" I walked towards him as I talked, fighting an urge to hit him when I got there.
"What of it, ma petite?"
I stood right in front of him, throwing the words into his face. "What do you gain from all this? And don't give me crap about my happiness. I've known you too long."
His face was at its mildest, its most disarming. "I would gain enough power that no master vampire, short of the council itself, would dare challenge me."
"I knew it. I knew it. You don't do anything without a dozen ulterior motives."
"I benefit in exactly the same way Monsier Zeeman benefits. We would both secure our power bases."
"Fine, what do I get out of it?"
"Why, Monsieur Zeeman's safety."
"Anita," Richard said softly. He touched my shoulder.
I whirled to face him. My angry words died at the look on his face. So serious, so solemn.
He gripped my shoulders, one hand cupping the side of my face. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."
"Do you understand what he's suggesting, Richard? We would never be free of him." I touched his hand where he held my face. "Don't tie us to him like this, Richard. Once he gets a piece of you, he never lets go."
"If you really believed he was evil, you would have killed him a long time ago and been free of him."
If I didn't do this, and Richard died tonight, would I be able to live with it? I leaned into him, pressing my face against his chest, breathing in his scent. No. If he died and I could have saved him, I'd never be rid of the guilt.
Jean-Claude came to stand near us. "It may have been one of those freakish accidents that cannot be duplicated under controlled conditions, ma petite. Magic is often like that."
I turned my face and looked at him, cheek still pressed to Richard's bare chest, his arms wrapped around my back. "No vampire marks on either of us, right?"
"I promise. The only thing I would ask is that none of us back away. We need a true idea of how much power we can call. If it is not much, then it is moot, but if it is as I believe, then it will solve a great many problems."
"You manipulative bastard."
"Is that a yes?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
Richard hugged me. I let his arms hold me, comfort me, but it was Jean-Claude's eyes I met. There was a look on his face that was hard to describe. The devil must look like that after you've signed on the dotted line and given away your soul. Pleased, eager, and a little hungry.
25
"You and Monsieur Zeeman have a nice visit. I will take my turn in the bathroom, then join you."
Just hearing him say it out loud made me want to refuse. But I didn't. "Are you sure this isn't just your elaborate way of forming us into a menage a trois?"