Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 14. Danse Macabre(142)

Richard shivered beside me, then slid to the floor. «You don't feel that, do you?» His eyes were a little wide. The small hairs on his arms were standing at attention.

«No,» I said.

He looked at Micah and Nathaniel, who were still on the bed, though they'd moved back to give us room. «I think we all need to clear a space for them to work.»

Micah kissed my cheek. Nathaniel brushed his cheek against mine, scent-marking me. They slid off the far side of the bed. Jean-Claude moved up until he was beside the bed. He raised a hand above my face. I felt it, the press of his aura, but faintly, as if my skin were wrapped in cotton, and he could not touch me.

He laid his hand against my face, and that one touch spread in a shivering line across my skin. «Ma petite.» The words breathed along my spine, as if he'd spilled a line of water down my skin. I shivered for him again, and it felt great, but… I opened my eyes and looked up at him. «It's like years ago. I always felt your voice, your touch, but…»

«You have shut yourself away, ma petite, in a tower formed partially of my own vampire marks. You have used my own power against me.»

«Not on purpose,» I said.

Asher glided into view. His eyes were already full of pale blue light. He'd called power, and I'd felt nothing. He came to stand beside Jean-Claude. «More drastic measures, I think.»

I looked up at him, in his satin robe, the deep burnished gold of it that was nothing to the shine of his own hair. «What did you have in mind?» I asked.

Jean-Claude stepped back, giving his place to the other man. Asher raised his hand, laying it against my face in an echo of what Jean-Claude had done moments before. They had always been able to echo each other like that, I thought, and on the tail of that thought, memory crashed over me. I'd shared Jean-Claude's memories before, but not like this. It wasn't one memory, or two, but hundreds. Hundreds of images flooding my mind, drowning me in the scent of Asher's skin, the spill of Belle's hair around our bodies like a second body to caress us all. A woman with hair the color of copper spilled across our pillows, and our mouths locked on her neck, her hands struggling at the scarves that bound her to the bed. A blond, whose breasts we marked together, so that she bore twin love bites. A man in a long, powdered wig, his pants down around his knees, and both of us between his thighs, not for sex, but for blood, and it was what he wanted. Women with their clothing in disarray, red hair in every shade from nearly blond to darkest auburn; blondes from white to gold; brunettes from deep brown to true black; skin like ripe grain, or dark coffee, or wood. Tall, short, thin, fat, starved; bodies flowing under our hands, against our bodies, so that it was as if I experienced a thousand nights of debauchery in heartbeats. But in every memory they moved like shadows of each other. Jean-Claude took the woman, or the man, for sex, or blood, or both, and knew that his golden shadow would be there. That Asher would match his movements, that he would be there to help, to catch the pleasure and make it more. I hadn't realized until that moment that they weren't lovers, but more than that. They had been truly the best and closest person in each other's lives.

I drowned in their memories, drowned in the scent of a thousand lovers, a thousand victims, a thousand pleasures won and lost. I drowned, and like any drowning man, I reached out to save myself.

I reached out metaphysically for someone, anyone. The memories hit Richard like a flood hitting a boulder. I felt the memories crash against him, sweep up and around him. I heard him cry out, and waited for him to push me away, to lock me out, but he didn't. He let me cling to him, let me try to make him my rock in the flood of sensations and memories. I felt his confusion, his fear, his revulsion, and his desire to push it all away, to not have these memories, of all memories. The thought came: there are worse memories.

Jean-Claude's voice. «Non, ma petite, mon ami, enough, enough.» His voice was soft, coaxing. I was lying on the bed, with him holding my hand. He was rubbing my hand the way people do when they're trying to warm you.

«I'm here,» I said, but my voice sounded echoing, tinny.

The bed moved violently. Richard had collapsed on it. His breathing was ragged, his eyes showing too much white. He grabbed my other hand. He felt frightened, shocky, and I realized that he'd taken over some of my reaction. He'd sucked it away like metaphysical poison.

I licked dry lips and said, «I'm sorry.»

«You asked for help,» he said, in a strained voice. «I gave it.»

He usually cut himself out of the memories I got from Jean-Claude; of all the times to not shy away, he picked these memories.