He nodded.
"Asher doesn't hold a grudge?"
"Oh, no, he holds a grudge. If the council would allow it, he would have come with the picture and had his revenge."
"To kill you?"
Jean-Claude smiled. "Asher always had a strong sense of irony, ma petite. He petitioned the council for your life, not mine."
My eyes widened. "What did I ever do to him?"
"I killed his human servant; he kills mine. Justice."
I stared back up at the handsome face. "The council said no?"
"Indeed."
"You have any other old enemies running around?"
Jean-Claude gave a weak smile. "Many, ma petite, but none in town at the moment."
I looked up at those smiling faces. I didn't know quite how to phrase it, but said it anyway. "You all look so young."
"I am physically the same, ma petite."
I shook my head. "Maybe young isn't the word I want. Maybe naive."
He smiled. "By the time this painting was made, ma petite, naive was not a word that described me, either."
"Fine, have it your way." I looked at him, studying his face. He was beautiful, but there was something in his eyes that wasn't in the painting, some level of sorrow or terror. Something I had no word for, but it was there just the same. A vampire may not wrinkle up, but living a couple of centuries leaves its mark. Even if it's only a shadow in the eyes, a tightness around the mouth.
I turned to Jason, who was still slumped in the chair. "Does he give these little history lessons often?"
"Only to you," Jason said.
"You never ask questions?" I asked.
"I'm just his pet. You don't answer questions for your pet."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
Jason smiled. "Why should I care about the painting? The woman's dead, so I can't have sex with her. Why should I care?"
I felt Jean-Claude move past me, but couldn't follow with my eyes. His hand was a blur. The chair clattered to the floor, spilling Jason with it. Blood showed at his mouth.
"Never speak of her again in such a manner."
Jason touched the back of his hand to his mouth and came away with blood. "Whatever you say." He licked the blood off his hand with long slow movements of his tongue.
I stared from one to the other of them. "You are both crazy."
"Not crazy, ma petite, merely not human."
"Being a vampire doesn't give you the right to treat people like that. Richard doesn't beat people up."
"Which is why he will never hold the pack."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Even if he swallows his high morals and kills Marcus, he will not be cruel enough to frighten the rest. He will be challenged again and again. Unless he begins slaughtering people, he will eventually die."
"Slapping people around won't keep him alive," I said.
"It would help. Torture works well, but I doubt that Richard would have the stomach for it."
"I couldn't stomach it."
"But you litter the ground with bodies, ma petite. Killing is the best deterrent of all."
I was too tired to be having this conversation. "It's 4:30 in the morning. I want to go to bed."
Jean-Claude smiled. "Why, ma petite, you are not usually so eager."
"You know what I mean," I said.
Jean-Claude took a gliding step towards me. He didn't touch me, but he stood very close and looked at me. "I know exactly what you mean, ma petite."
That brought heat in a rush up my neck. The words were innocent. He made them sound intimate, obscene.
Jason righted the chair and stood, licking the blood off the corner of his mouth. He said nothing, merely watched us like a well-trained dog, seen and not heard.
Jean-Claude took a step back. I felt him move, but couldn't follow it with my eyes. There had been a time only months ago that it would have looked like magic, like he'd just appeared a few feet away.
He held his hand out towards me. "Come, ma petite. Let us retire for the day."
I'd held his hand before, so why was I left standing, staring, like he was offering me the forbidden fruit that once tasted would change everything? He was nearly four hundred years old. Jean-Claude's face from all those long years ago was smiling down at me, and there he stood with almost the same smile. If I'd ever needed proof, I had it. He'd struck Jason down like a dog he didn't much like. And still he was so beautiful, it made my chest ache.
I wanted to take his hand. I wanted to run my hands over the red shirt, explore that open oval of flesh. I folded my hands over my stomach and shook my head.
His smile widened until a hint of fang showed. "You have held my hand before, ma petite. Why is tonight any different?" His voice held an edge of mockery.
"Just show me the room, Jean-Claude."
He let his hand drop to his side, but he didn't seem offended. If anything, he seemed pleased, which irritated me.
"Bring Richard through when he arrives, Jason, but announce him before he comes. I don't want to be interrupted."
"Anything you say," Jason said. He smirked at us, at me, a knowing look on his face. Did everyone and their wolf believe I was sleeping with Jean-Claude? Of course, maybe it was a case of the lady protesting too much. Maybe.
"Just bring Richard to the room when he comes," I said. "You won't be interrupting anything." I glanced at Jean-Claude while I said the last.
He laughed, that warm touchable sound of his that wove over my skin like silk. "Even your resistance to temptation grows thin, ma petite."
I shrugged. I would have liked to argue, but he'd smell a lie. Even a run-of-the-mill werewolf can smell desire. Jason wasn't run-of-the-mill. So everyone in the room knew I was hot for Jean-Claude. So what?
"No is one of my favorite words, Jean-Claude. You should know that by now."
The laughter faded from his face, leaving his blue, blue eyes gleaming, but not with humor. Something darker and more sure of itself looked out his eyes. "I survive on hope alone, ma petite."
Jean-Claude parted the black and white drapes to reveal the bare, grey stones that the room was made of. A large hallway stretched deeper into the labyrinth. Torchlight gleamed beyond the electricity of the living room. He stood there, backlit against the flame and the soft modern lights. Some trick of light and shadow plunged half his face into darkness and brought a pinprick glow to his eyes. Or maybe it wasn't a trick of the light. Maybe it was just him.
"Shall we go, ma petite?"
I walked into that outer darkness. He didn't try to touch me as I moved past him. I'd have given him a brownie point for resisting the urge, except I knew him too well. He was just biding his time. Touching me now might piss me off. Later, it might not. Even I couldn't guarantee when the mood would be right.
Jean-Claude moved ahead of me. He glanced back over his shoulder. "After all, ma petite, you do not know the way to my bedroom."
"I've been there once," I said.
"Carried unconscious and dying. It hardly counts." He glided down the hall. He put a little extra sway to his walk, somewhat like Jason had done on the stairs, but where it had been funny with the werewolf, Jean-Claude made it utterly seductive.
"You just wanted to walk in front so I'd have to stare at your butt."
He spoke without turning around. "No one makes you stare at me, ma petite, not even me."
And that was the truth. The horrible truth. If in some dark part of my heart I hadn't been attracted to him from the beginning, I'd have killed him long ago. Or tried to. I had more legal vampire kills than any other vampire hunter in the country. They didn't call me the Executioner for nothing. So how did I end up being safer in the depths of the Circus of the Damned with the monsters than above ground with the humans? Because somewhere along the line, I didn't kill the monster I should have.
That particular monster was gliding up the hallway ahead of me. And he still had the cutest butt I'd ever seen on a dead man.
22
Jean-Claude leaned one shoulder against the wall. He'd already opened the door. He motioned me inside with a graceful sweep of his hand.
My high heels sank into the deep, white carpet. White wallpaper with tiny silver designs graced the walls. There was a white door in the left-hand wall near the bed. The bed had white satin sheets. A dozen black and white pillows were grouped at the head of the bed. A fan of black and white drapes fell from the ceiling, forming a partial canopy over the bed. The black lacquer vanity and chest of drawers still sat in opposite corners. The wallpaper and the door were new. Guess which bothered me more.