Cerulean Sins( Anita Blake - 11 )(132)

The pants matched the shirt-and not just in color. There were holes on the sides that flashed the perfect smoothness of his hip, down to glimpses of thigh. The holes probably went farther down, but black boots cut off the view just above his knee.

The pants were so tight that he really didn't need a belt, but there was a black cord threaded through the unnecessary belt loops that swung as Micah walked. He was actually almost to me when I realized there were holes on the inside of the pants legs, too.

I shook my head. "There's more holes than cloth."

He smiled at me. "I'm food, so you've got to be able to reach the blood. Jean-Claude didn't want anyone to have an excuse to undress anyone."

I glanced at Jean-Claude. "He's not feeding any of these people."

"Non, ma petite, he is ours, and ours alone, but we do not want to have to undress him either. If all of us keep our clothes firmly in place, then so will they. It would be a faux pax of gigantic proportions if they undress their food and we do not. It is our house, and our rules."

Put that way it was hard to argue, but I still wanted to. Then I looked at Micah's face more closely. "He's wearing eye makeup." I got off the chair that I'd sat in while Stephen fixed me and walked closer to Micah. He was wearing more than just eye makeup, but it was all so artfully done that you didn't see it at first.

"I could not resist those eyes," Jean-Claude said, "they deserved to be decorated."

Micah's hair was tied completely back from his face in a bun that was a graceful mix of French braid and sheer art. "Where did all the curl go?" I asked.

"It has been blow dried straight," Jean-Claude said. He came and almost touched Micah's hair, to show how lovely it was. "He did not protest anything that we did to make him so pretty." Jean-Claude gave me a look, out of his own black-lined eyes. "It was a refreshing change."

Micah blinked those amazing eyes that someone's art had made even more amazing. "You don't like it?"

I shook my head. "No, I like it. I mean, you're beautiful." I shrugged. "I don't know, it's just a very different look for you." I turned to Jean-Claude. "I've never seen you in this much makeup."

"Belle Morte broke me of wishing to see myself this way." He was shielding as he said it, as if whatever memory went with those words was nothing he wanted to share.

"So why pretty Micah up like this?"

"You don't like it," Micah repeated.

I frowned. "That's not it. Why do it now? What do we gain by having you look like this, because don't try and tell me there's no purpose to it." I turned to include Asher in his chair across the room in the look I gave Jean-Claude. "Neither of you would go to this much trouble tonight without a reason. I've heard nothing but both of you complaining that we don't have enough time to get everyone presentable for the banquet." I gestured at Micah. "This took a lot of time that could have been used elsewhere. So I'm asking, both of you, what gives?"

They exchanged a look, then Asher looked studiously at the floor. He pretended to be studying his perfectly manicured fingernails, but I wasn't fooled.

I turned back to Jean-Claude. "Out with it," I said.

He shrugged. It wasn't so much graceful as almost embarrassed. "Musette was finally forced to give us the complete guest list. She has withheld only three names, because they are part of the gift from Belle."

"So three mystery guests, what does that have to do with why you dolled Micah up?"

"One of the vampires coming tonight has an eye for a beautiful man. Both Asher and I fell afoul of him, more than once."

"And," I said.

"To flaunt such delectable meat in front of his table, yet not allow him a taste or a touch, pleases us."

"So you're being petty," I said.

Jean-Claude was suddenly angry, it showed in his face, filled his eyes with blue fire. "You do not understand, ma petite. Belle has sent Paolo to torment us. He is to remind us what we were, and how helpless we were. We went to anyone that Belle gave us to, anyone. She did not do it casually, but if our bodies in another's bed would gain her something she wished, then she used us, and let others do the same."

He stalked in a tight circle, the black coat floating out around him like dark wings. "The thought of sitting at the same table with Paolo again sickens me, and Belle knew that it would. I loathe him in a way that I do not wish to describe. But we cannot harm him, ma petite. Belle has sent him to torment both of us by his mere presence. He will smirk and leer and remind us with every look, every touch of his hands on someone else, what he once was allowed to do to us."