9

THE ARDEUR CAME and the clothes went. The custom-made leather knife sheath ripped away with all the rest. We fell to the carpet naked, all hands and mouths. The heavy metal and glass coffee table got shoved to one side as if it weighed nothing.

I pressed Auggie's muscled body onto the carpet, lay on top of him naked, feeling that he was already hard and ready, but I wanted to start at the other end. We kissed, and his lips were as full and ripe as they'd looked. He kissed delicately, though I knew the ardeur rode him and what he wanted to do was anything but delicate. I licked and kissed along his neck, his upper chest. I came to his nipples, pale and hard in the muscled swell of his chest. I'd never been with anyone who was such a serious weight lifter. It was as if his skin fit tighter over all those muscles, so that it was harder to get a grip with my teeth, but worth the effort.

Sucking on his nipple raised his upper body off the floor, tore a yell from him. His eyes were wide, surprised, his hands reaching for something to hold on to. Someone grabbed one of those reaching hands, and I knew who it was, before Auggie drew him into my line of sight. Auggie drew Jean-Claude in to him, drew him down, as he lay back against the floor, and I worked lower on his body. I licked and bit along his stomach, as he drew Jean-Claude down for a kiss. Something I did raised Auggie up off the ground as their mouths touched, so that I had a good view of it. I had never seen two men kiss, not like that. Not with lips, and tongue. In the months that Asher had been in our bed they had moved toward each other a time or two, but stopped. I had never asked whose sensibilities they were saving, mine or theirs. Now, watching Jean-Claude cradling Auggie in his arms and kissing him so thoroughly... it tightened my body so hard and fast that it was like a mini-orgasm. I'd been told by a very smart friend that to keep saying that I didn't like to be in bed with two men at once was a little silly. A case of the lady protesting too much. My body reacted for me; the sight of them kissing just flat did it for me. I've been told that it's how a lot of men feel about seeing two women kiss. Why should I be any different?

I worked my way down Auggie's body, eyes rolled upward so I could watch them. I came to the long, hard, curve of Auggie's body. Not straight, but truly curved, so that the grace of that hard flesh curled in against his own body. He was hard enough that the head was naked above the silky foreskin. I rolled my mouth over that head, then shoved as much of him into my mouth as I could, as fast and hard as I could. It made me come up choking, but it also tore him away from Jean-Claude's mouth. Made Auggie stare down at me with wild eyes. I went down on him again, slower, lingering over the feel of him in my mouth, so ripe, so thick, and how the hard line of that curve felt going down my throat. I watched them both watch me as I did it. Auggie's eyes wild with sensation; Jean-Claude's face full of pleasure, yes, but also pride. His own vampire marks were open enough for me to know that he was thinking how long and how hard he had worked to get to this point. He started to close the marks as much as the ardeur would let him, but I rose up from Auggie's body and said, "Don't, don't close down. Let's do this. Do it all. He started this fight, not us, let's finish it."

"Do you know what you are asking, ma petite?"

I nodded, then shook my head, my hand still wrapped around the base of Auggie's body. "I don't know, but I won't blame you later."

"Please," Auggie said, his voice full of such pleading, "please, don't stop. God, don't stop."

Jean-Claude and I looked at each other. We had a moment where he weighed me with his eyes. Then he gave a small nod, and said, "As you like, ma petite. For you are correct, he overstepped the bounds of hospitality." He looked down at Auggie. "Bad Augustine, to force the ardeur on ma petite.'"

Auggie nodded, his hand gripping Jean-Claude's arm. "It's been so long, Jean-Claude, so long, and there is no going back to her."

"We must feed on you, Augustine, in such a way that no other visiting master will dare this."

He nodded, though I wasn't certain he really understood what Jean-Claude had meant. Jean-Claude was holding the ardeur back, just enough. Enough so we could think, a little. When he let it go, it would sweep us away, and there would be no second-chance decisions.

"He has to be our message to the other visitors, Jean-Claude, or we won't survive this little gathering. These are your friends, and they nearly rolled us." I looked at him, and I felt the part of me that allowed me to kill, to do what was necessary. This was, in its odd way, a business decision. A political decision, a survival decision. I knew we could roll Auggie; he was more powerful than Jean-Claude, but I could feel it. Feel that we could feed on him in such a way that it wouldn't matter. Not kill him, but take him, make him ours in a way that I couldn't even explain in words.

Jean-Claude spoke as if he'd read my mind, which he probably had. "I feel it also, ma petite, but..."

"No buts," I said, "we can take him, I can feel it."

"Perhaps Belle Morte is too much in your mind still."

It was Asher's voice, strangled with effort. It drew our eyes to him. His hands trembled in the air as if he were holding some great weight. "Hurry, Jean-Claude, hurry. We cannot hold the circle much longer."

"He began this fight," Requiem said, "let us finish it." His hands weren't shaking, but there was a thread of strain in his voice.

Jean-Claude looked down at Auggie. "Understand this, Augustine, we have never fed like this. I do not entirely know what will happen. Are you content with such a gamble, for it is you who will suffer if it goes badly?"

I slid my mouth over him, playing my tongue along the foreskin. He shivered, and simply said, "Yes."

"Ma petite, stop that, or he will not be able to think."

I went back on my knees, and stopped touching him. I put my hands in my lap and behaved. I guess it was cheating.

"Augustine, do you agree to this?"

He nodded, hands reaching for Jean-Claude. "Yes, yes, God, yes, the two of you both, yes, yes!" His grip on Jean-Claude's arm looked almost painful.

Jean-Claude stroked his hair, soothing him. "Then we will do as you ask." He looked at me, and it was as if a door opened in my mind. Some inner guard that he must have used almost constantly to keep the marks from being in full force was gone. It staggered me for a moment, made me reach out to Auggie's thigh to steady myself. The moment I touched him, the ardeur roared back, but this time I could feel Jean-Claude at the other end of his body. I could feel the two different ardeurs like different flavors of fire, and Auggie was our only wood. We'd burn him up, and he wanted us to do it.

I heard Jean-Claude in my mind, whispering, "I am letting go of my control, ma petite, are you ready?"

I nodded. He let go, and I fell screaming into the abyss. An abyss of skin and hands and mouths, and bodies. My own body was one huge throbbing need. And I didn't particularly care how that need got met.

I ended up on the floor with Augustine on top of me. All that curved hardness going in and out of my body, so that I screamed for him. Screamed my need, my pleasure, and my eagerness. He began propped on his arms so I could watch his flesh slide into mine, but then Jean-Claude joined us, and the angle had to change.

We had never put anyone in the middle of us when we both fed the ardeur. All these months with Asher, Micah, Nathaniel, Richard, and Jason, and I'd always been the one in the middle. Jean-Claude and I had fed from each other. He had fed from me while I fed at the man, or men, touching me, but never in all those nights had Jean-Claude been touched by someone other than me when we were all naked together. With the marks roaring open between us, I knew how much that had cost Jean-Claude. How horribly careful he had had to be in the middle of the one moment when you should be able to lose all control. So careful, so afraid of scaring me, disgusting me, making me turn away. So afraid of what the other men might say with a badly placed hand, or caress. So careful, so terribly careful, and now suddenly he didn't have to be careful. I felt the horrible tension in the center of his being relax, like a long-held breath released.

He explored Auggie first with fingers, and used the wetness of my body to lubricate other places that didn't normally lubricate themselves. The marks were wide open, so I got flashes of memory, of other men, and other times. Random images as they occurred to him, but even here he chased them away, still afraid of what I'd think. But Auggie's body was already inside mine, and I felt his eagerness at every probe, every touch. Everything that Jean-Claude did urged him on to more with me, so that all I could think was how would it feel to have Auggie thrusting inside me while Jean-Claude rode him.

Jean-Claude entered him slowly, and Auggie's body stilled above mine, as he concentrated on the sensation of it. It had been a long time for Auggie. As he'd said before, he preferred girls, which meant that even here, with both of us eager, Jean-Claude had to be careful, so careful. Nothing spoils great sex like unintentional pain.

But finally he had everything in he was getting in, and Auggie's body relaxed above me. Relaxed into the rhythm that Jean-Claude found on top of us both. They both found a rhythm, Auggie's body pushing in and out of mine, slowly, ramming home at the end, so that I made small sounds at the height of every stroke.

The two of them found a rhythm together so that the height of one stroke was the height of the other. So that Auggie and I cried out together, and Jean-Claude rode us both. I tried to move with them, but the combined weight pinned me to the floor, so that the best I could do was squeezing Auggie as he came and went inside me. My legs were wrapped around them both, as much as I could, so that Jean-Claude's body brushed against my foot as he moved. I felt that heavy, delicious weight begin to grow between my legs. I knew that orgasm was coming and that this one couldn't afford to be a surprise. But I didn't have to tell Jean-Claude, he knew.

He stared down at me over Augustine's shoulder, his eyes all drowning blue fire, as if a midnight sky could burn. His hair had come loose, strands of it sticking to the sweat on his face. I knew that my eyes were dark brown flame, as if I were a vampire. It had happened before. We stared at each other over Augustine's shoulder, and I felt that weight growing, growing, growing.

Augustine whispered, "Your breathing's changed."

I came screaming, and it was as if that had been the moment both men had been waiting for, as if they had fought long and hard not to go, and suddenly they could.

Augustine shoved himself twice, three times as fast and hard as he could inside me. He brought me again, screaming and writhing on the floor, and only then did he go inside me. His body spasming above me, his body trying to dig deeper inside me, so that I cried out. Jean-Claude's head went back, eyes closed, his body bowed above us both, and we fed. We didn't just feed off Augustine, we fed off all his people in our territory. I felt Haven, the werelion, spasm against the floor, where he still lay in the fallen curtains. I felt Benny, behind the wheel of a car, lose control and have to screech to the side of the highway. Pierce fell against a wall and slid to the floor, his body spasming. Octavius collapsed on the stairs, choking, clawing at the stone, breaking his nails to bloody bits to try to keep it from happening. But nothing could save them, any of them. If we'd been in Chicago we could have fed off every beast and vamp that owed allegiance to Auggie, and he would have let us. For this pleasure he would have sold what was left of his soul and the souls of everyone who worked for him.

We drank them down, all of them; we fed, and fed, and fed, and while we fed Augustine's body kept spasming, and every thrust of pleasure brought me again, which brought Jean-Claude. We fed and orgasmed until Augustine went still between us, collapsed, body twitching. Jean-Claude looked down at me over Auggie's sweating body, a fierce smile on his face. He stared down at me with his eyes gone to blue fire so bright that the skin of his face glowed with it. He glowed with the power we had drunk. So much power, so very much power. I felt like a distant echo that Richard was leaning against a wall somewhere, staggered by the power we'd taken, and shared.

A thought was enough. Micah and Nathaniel were sitting just outside, one against the wall, the other sitting on the floor. Nathaniel laughed with the power rush of it all. We'd shared the power with all our people, all of them. Good, bad, indifferent, everyone with a connection to us was power drunk and glowing tonight. If there had been a metaphysical satellite up there in the sky, our territory would have glowed from orbit.

10

IT TOOK ABOUT an hour to get everyone separated to places where they could clean up. Claudia had sent for reinforcements, so that the wrecked living room was nearly a solid wall of black-shirted guards. Werewolves, wererats, and werehyenas, the people we had treaties with for guard work, all Stood around while Octavius had hysterics. If he'd had more guards with him, and we'd had less, it could have gotten violent, but when you're outnumbered, outmuscled, and your master is saying, Let it go, well, Octavius had to eat it. He didn't like it, neither did Pierce, but Haven, of the Cookie-Monster-blue hair, was voting with Auggie. They both liked us just fine. Jean-Claude and I lay back in his huge bathtub. My clothes were ruined but I had my knife and gun on the edge of the tub. Nothing else had been salvageable. We'd scrubbed and cleaned, and now were just soaking in the hot water. Auggie had probably already finished in the showers down the hall, but Requiem and Asher were in charge of seeing that our guests didn't do anything unfortunate. They were both master vampires over four hundred years old, they could handle it. We'd handled everything I wanted to handle for one night.

Jean-Claude lay back against the edge of the tub, and I lay in his arms, the back of my body cradled against the front of his. He trailed his hand down my arm, and hugged me tighter against him. His body was quiet, pressed against my body. I think we'd both had all we could handle for one night.

His voice came lazy, with that edge that sleep can give it. "What are you thinking about, ma petite?"

"If you hadn't shut the marks down so tight, you might not have to ask." I snuggled my head into the hollow of his shoulder and chest. "You shut them down as soon as we were finished with Auggie. Why?"

His body tensed against me, even his arms where they were wrapped around me, not so comforting anymore. "Perhaps I was afraid of what you would find in my thoughts." His voice wasn't sleepy now, but had that bland emptiness that he used to hide behind.

"What would I have found?" I asked, but I wasn't cuddling now. Tension is contagious.

"If I had wanted you to know the answer to that question, I would not have shut the marks down."

I started to protest, but another thought stopped me. With the marks that wide open, it had only been chance that I hadn't thought of the baby question. Chance and the fact that the ardeur tended to wipe out anything that wasn't pertinent to the moment. Now the fear came crawling back, tightening my stomach, tensing my muscles. Please, God, don't let me be pregnant.

"What is wrong, ma petite?" he asked.

I let out a breath that shook around the edges and said, "You know, Jean-Claude, normally I'd push for honesty, but I think I've had all the revelations I can handle for one night. It's okay, whatever you thought, it's okay."

"It is okay without your ever knowing what the thought was?" he asked.

I settled back into his arms, willing the hot water and the touch of his body to take away that awful tension. "Yes," I said, "yes."

He moved me to the side, holding me in the water, so he could see my face. "Yes, just like that?" His face showed his skepticism.

I stared up into him; his hair was wet and slicked back from his face, so that nothing took away from it. Those eyes a blue as dark as blue could be and hold no touch of black. His lashes thick and black--it had taken me months in his bed to see his upper lashes by candlelight and realize that he had a double row of upper lashes. Him and Elizabeth Taylor. You only saw it if the light was just right, and his head turned just right. Until then, they were just this unbelievable lace around his eyes. I traced the lines and curves of his face, down to the grace of his lips. I let him see in my eyes what I saw, what I felt, gazing at him.

He leaned in, and laid a kiss upon my lips. Then he cuddled me back against him, as we'd been before the questions started. No more personal questions tonight, but there were other questions I wanted answered. "Why did Requiem look like someone had pounded his face into a wall?"

"Because someone had."

That made me turn enough to look at him. "Who?"

"Meng Die," he said, voice soft, face solemn.

"Was that the emergency?"

"Oui. Thank you for sending the extra guards, ma petite, it was wise of you."

I shrugged, and turned so that I was sitting across his legs, my hands against his chest, his arms around me still, but I could see his face now. "How did it get so out of hand?"

"I was called in rather late, ma petite. In truth, I do not know exactly how Requiem and Meng Die allowed their spat to get so terribly out of hand, and so terribly public. Asher, as manager of the Circus, came down to stop it, or take it to a backstage area. That should have been the end of it." His face was closing down, hiding what he thought of the fight, and the aftermath.

"Why wasn't that the end of it?"

"Because Meng Die decided to fight them both."

I sat up in his lap. "Why fight Asher? She's never been his lover."

"But he is your lover."

I frowned at him. "So what?"

"I believe that if a master vampire had appeared who wasn't in your bed, had never been in your bed, the fight might have calmed instead of escalating."

"I'm totally lost here, Jean-Claude."

He looked directly at me, but his face was empty enough that it gave me nothing. "You have not asked the right question yet, ma petite."

"What is the right question?"

"What the fight was about." I frowned harder, and said, "Okay, I give, what was the fight about?"

"You."

Now I was really lost. "What?"

"They were arguing about you."

"What about me?"

"Meng Die thinks you have stolen Requiem from her."

I pushed back enough in the water so I was kneeling, and not cuddled. The water was deep enough that it came to my shoulders. "Requiem isn't my lover. I've worked really hard to make sure he isn't my lover."

"But you have fed the ardeur from him."

"In an emergency, yes. It was to feed, or I was about to suck Damian's life away. I had to feed, but we didn't have intercourse, we didn't even take our clothes off." I thought about it, and added, "Not all of our clothes. I mean, Requiem was fully clothed." I started blushing and couldn't prevent it. I had to stop explaining before it sounded worse and worse. "He has offered to feed you more completely."

"I know."

"Why have you refused him?"

I looked at Jean-Claude, trying to see behind that perfect mask of a face. "I think I was under the impression that I'm having sex with enough men."

His lips twitched. He was fighting not to smile.

"This isn't funny."

He let himself smile. "Ma petite, there have been women over the centuries who traded lands, titles, their honor, everything, for one more night in Requiem's bed. His master in London used him much as Belle Morte used Asher and me. Though because Requiem only did women, he wasn't as flexible as we."

I let that last part go. I still wasn't completely sure how I felt about Jean-Claude doing Auggie. At the time I hadn't minded--in fact, I'd liked it. I'd liked us both doing him at the same time. We'd fucked him in every way possible, physically and metaphysically, and it had felt a-fucking-mazing. That last part was probably going to bug me the most. But one disaster at a time.

"Are you saying you're surprised I turned him down?"

"No, it is typical of you to turn a man down at first."

"At first?" I said, and sounded a little outraged.

He laughed, and it was that touchable sound, as if it were the sound of pure sex, and it went through my head and all the way down my body. "Stop that," I said.

He smiled, face lit with suppressed laughter, but he stopped. "To my knowledge, the only man you have never said no to is your Nimir-Raj, Micah. But the ardeur was newly woken, and so I do not think we can count that one completely. It was your exception, not your rule."

"Fine, but I'm still lost. I have avoided Requiem. Graham made some remark that Requiem was refusing Meng Die's bed and somehow that was my fault."

"Apparently, Requiem told Meng Die that he would not be her lover any longer, because you do not share your men with other women. He seemed to believe that his being in her bed was what kept you from accepting his offer to be your new pomme de sang."

I shook my head. "He shouldn't have assumed that."

He nodded. "Because that isn't why you refused him, is it?"

I shook my head hard enough to move the water around my body. "No. And if Requiem had asked me why I was saying no, I would have told him it wasn't because he was screwing Meng Die."

"Then why?"

"What does it matter?"

"Because he has left his lover's bed in the hope that you will take him to your bed. He is third in rank among my vampires, and second, or perhaps third, in power. Meng Die is powerful enough to be my second-in-command, but her temperament is not suited to it. As she demonstrated today. You have set two of my most powerful vampires at each other's throats, ma petite. I need to know why."

"I did not start that fight," I said.

"No, but you were the cause of it, and if you are to convince Requiem that you will not take him as your pomme de sang, then you must give him a reason that does not include his being Meng Die's lover. His reasoning was sound, ma petite. You have refused all the pomme de sang candidates who have a female lover."

"Graham, Clay, and Requiem are all Meng Die's lovers," I said.

He gave that wonderful Gallic shrug that meant everything and nothing. "So. Is it that you will not take Meng Die's seconds?"

I shook my head. "No, that's not it. You know why not Graham; he might do for a meal, but he'd be a disaster as a permanent member of the household."

"Agreed," he said.

"Clay is in love with Meng Die, she's just about broken his heart, but he wants her, and I say more power to him."

"And Requiem?"

I leaned back against the side of the tub, out of reach. The bath had stopped being comforting. "Did we have to do this tonight?"

"Meng Die threw both Requiem and Asher around like dolls in front of humans. We will be lucky if your police do not come calling and asking questions. She tried to kill Requiem, ma petite, not wound him. She did not care that there was an audience, but Requiem and Asher did not want to kill her in front of an audience. I had the same problem when I arrived on the scene." He was angry now, the first thread of it filling his eyes with light. "She is even now locked in a cross-wrapped coffin. But it is a temporary measure. I must let her out tomorrow night, or kill her. She will see one night as a fit punishment, but beyond that it will be an insult, and she is too powerful to eat such an insult." He fixed those brilliant eyes on me. "So, I ask again, what will you tell Requiem when he tells you that he is free of Meng Die? What excuse will you give?"

"I'm dating three men, living with two more, and having occasional sex with two others. That's seven men. I'm like a pornographic Snow White. I think seven is plenty."

"But it is not, ma petite. Emotionally it may be too many, but metaphysically, and for the sake of our power base, seven is not enough. You must add a lover who is not metaphysically connected to you, and you must pick a new Pomme de sang now that Nathaniel is your animal to call."

"I thought this was optional--you're making it sound like it's almost an emergency. And wait, did you say add a lover and a pomme de sang? I thought I was adding just one, if I added anybody."

"I tasted your power tonight, ma petite; it needs to be fed and fed well. You are like one of those dieting women that thinks she can survive on lettuce leaves and water. It may feel like food, but your body dies anyway."

"I'm not dying," I said.

"No, but your power is seeking a new pomme de sang. Don't you understand what is happening, ma petite? The ardeur is seeking for you."

"Okay, I'm confused now."

"It is not like Augustine to lose control. He is over two thousand years old, ma petite; one of the first vampires Belle made. You do not thrive for so long if you make such mistakes as he did this night."

"Belle messed with him, and with me."

He shook his head. "He raised your ardeur first, before she appeared, did he not?"

"Yeah, he said now he could do what he'd wanted to do all along, and no one could be mad at him."

Jean-Claude laughed, and it was just humor this time. He could control his laugh if he worked at it. "He doesn't know you very well yet. But when I said Augustine is my friend, I meant it. He would not have overstepped his bounds as my guest, not without something being wrong."

"And what's wrong?"

"The ardeur needs more food, ma petite, and like any predator it is seeking prey."

"It's just a metaphysical ability, Jean-Claude, not its own entity."

He gave me a look, and it was eloquent. "You know exactly what the ardeur is, ma petite. You know that it has a mind of its own, similar to the beasts you carry. But I believe that the ardeur can do something your beasts cannot. It is, I believe, putting out the welcome mat."

"Welcome mat?"

He sighed, and slid down in the water until his chin touched it. "You may not like Meng Die, but she is... proficient in bed. I find it inexplicable that Requiem would leave her body, on only the chance that he might be your lover. As I find it inexplicable that Augustine would purposefully insult me by raising the ardeur in you. He, in effect, attacked you, and through you, me."

"He told me to feed from him, because then I'd win the fight, and once you got into the room he said you'd lose."

Jean-Claude sat up so abruptly that he sloshed water in my face. I brushed my eyes clear, while he said, "He said that?"

I blinked at him, still trying to keep water out of my eyes. "Yes."

"Then it is as I have feared. The ardeur is seeking what it needs."

"Are you saying that the ardeur is putting out, what, pheromones?"

"I do not know this word."

"Pheromones, it's a chemical or hormone that some animals give out. The scent attracts mates. I think it was first discovered in moths."

"Yes, pheromones then, yes."

"I'm not agreeing with you, but say it is true; why does it only seem to work on certain people? I mean, it doesn't work on Clay, and I think Graham just wants to fuck. Why Requiem and Auggie?"

"What do they have in common?" he asked.

"They're both vamps of Belle's bloodline, and they're both masters. But thanks to all our imports from London, there are a couple more vampires in town who qualify. They aren't buzzing around me."

"But they do not approach the power level of Augustine and Requiem."

"Are you saying the ardeur is shopping for powerful food?"

"I offer it as an idea."

I thought about it, but finally looked at him. "If this is what's happening, and I'm not saying it is, then is it only vamps from Belle's line, or any master vampire of a certain power level?"

"I do not know."

"Then we need to know before tomorrow's big party," I said. "If there is even the faintest chance that the ardeur is going to do some funky shit with every master vampire above a certain power level, then no way can I go to the party tomorrow. We're going to be neck-deep in Masters of the City. It would be bad if they all decided they wanted to be my sweetie."

He nodded. "There is one other thing they both have in common, ma petite."

"And that would be?"

"They have both been with vampires who held the ardeur."

"You said vampires, plural. You don't mean just Belle, do you?"

"Requiem had a lover who meant as much to him as Julianna did to Asher and me. Her name was Ligeia."

"He told me that Belle killed her out of jealousy."

"Oui. Ligeia was the only woman of her line to acquire the ardeur. It wasn't the full ardeur that Belle, you, and I carry, but there is more: Requiem refused Belle's bed for her."

"And she killed her for that."

"You have been inside Belle Morte's head, ma petite, how can you sound surprised?"

He had a point. "It still seems pretty petty for a vampire who's over two thousand years old," I said.

He nodded. "Oui, but many of the old ones can be extremely petty." He held his hand out to me.

I stared at that hand for a heartbeat, then I took it. I let him draw me through the water and in against his body. Let him press me to the front of his body, wrap his arms around me. "You're afraid," I said, my cheek pressed to the firmness of his chest.

"Oui, I am afraid."

"Why?"

"There are others here who have tasted the ardeur and are masters. We need to test our theory, ma petite, but I fear we run the risk of having you tied permanently to someone, or they to you."

"Auggie isn't tied to me."

"He did not want to leave our side, ma petite. If he does not recover, then he will be as Belle made her victims, hungering for us forever, willing to do anything to be back between us."

"You sound sad."

"He was my friend; I did not mean to enslave him as Belle would. I saw her victims give up everything, betray every vow, every trust, for the sake of her body." He held me tight against him. "It is not a power I ever wished to possess."

"You hold the ardeur."

"Oui, but this is a level of the ardeur that only she possesses. We all believed that only Belle Morte could wield it at such a level."

"You don't want it."

"I want to be so powerful that no one dares challenge me or our people. But I am afraid of this, and what it will mean."

His heart was beating too fast against my ear. Had it been beating all along, or had it just started? "Mean, how?"

"There are those in Europe who already fear my growing power. Knowledge that I wielded the ardeur at the same level as Belle Morte might tip the scales in the council's voting. They might vote to kill us all rather than risk me making a power base in America, as strong as Belle once possessed in Europe. Or the other American masters might collude to kill us, for fear that we would become like the tyrants of the European council."

"How likely is all this?" I asked.

"Possible."

"How possible?" I asked, suddenly realizing that an accidental pregnancy might not be the worst disaster we could have.

"We must understand these new powers, and quickly, ma petite. We must experiment with a master we trust before I allow you to go to the party tomorrow. We must know what we are dealing with, if we can."

Raised voices on the other side of the door. Claudia yelling, "You can't just go in there!"

Richard's voice, angry. "Watch me."

Jean-Claude sighed, and I settled lower in the water. I did not want to fight with Richard tonight. But from the feel of him through the door, we weren't going to have a choice.

Jean-Claude called, "Let him in, Claudia."

The door opened, but Claudia came first, as if she didn't trust Richard in there with us. His power rode through the door like the heat edge of a forest fire, something that should have choked and killed anything in its path. We'd raised his power level along with ours, and we were about to find out how sorry that was going to make us.