Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(101)

Jean-Claude yelled, “Enough!” and thrust his power at us. There was a moment of confusion as I wasn’t sure where I was, or who, or even when Nathaniel whispered through us, Enough. I wrapped myself around Nathaniel, a leg over his thigh; part of me knew I might be flashing the room, but it didn’t bother me enough to shift position. Damian was wrapped on his other side, though he was too

tall to have his head on Nathaniel’s shoulder like I did. I looked up at Jean-Claude standing over us and could feel how upset he was, but it slipped away on Nathaniel’s pleasure and Damian’s centuries-old control, though he’d given that up to Nathaniel in that moment. I realized that part of Nathaniel’s strength was that he used the icy control that Damian had built for centuries but was afraid to use now. Nathaniel wasn’t afraid of using anything in that moment.

“Are you challenging me?” Jean-Claude asked, and his voice was more astonished than angry.

Richard was at his side, but his face said clearly that he didn’t know what to do in this moment; he was out of his depth already.

“No,” Nathaniel said, and his voice was so certain, there were none of the near-overwhelming sensations that Damian and I were experiencing.

“Then what is this?”

“This is the fourth mark when one of the people isn’t afraid of the power. If I weren’t already engaged to marry Micah, if the three of us weren’t already a happy threesome, this could be it. If I were less moral, I could overwhelm them both.”

“It looks like you already have,” Richard said.

“I let it get out of control to show the two of you what it’s like. I didn’t understand what had happened when I first got control of Anita’s triumvirate. The animal to call isn’t supposed to be able to do this shit. Once I realized what I’d done, I did my best to learn control and not take over Damian especially.” The vampire kissed his cheek, but Nathaniel ignored it and kept talking as if it hadn’t happened. “Anita has you, and her own power as my master, so I probably couldn’t overwhelm her completely, and even now I’m not sure what I did to Damian before I realized that it was me doing it.”

“Richard has come back to me as a lover on his own,” Jean-Claude said.

“That’s good, because if he hadn’t and you were in control of the three of you, he would have given it up to you. By the time I realized that Damian’s consent for a lot of things wasn’t voluntary, it was too late.”

“But it feels so good,” Damian murmured against his face. I was beginning to come out of it, and had moved my one leg off his thigh, but I still wanted to be wrapped to his side with Damian on the other.

“It feels good not to fight or worry or push at it, but just to let go,” I said.

Nathaniel kissed the top of my head, then turned to rub his face against Damian’s cheek. The vampire turned it into a kiss and Nathaniel had to flex power like the sharp tug on a leash. “Not yet, handsome,” he said, and the vampire moved back so that he could talk to them again. I was sitting up a little straighter because I hadn’t liked that tug-on-the-leash feeling.

“Who is going to be in charge of your triumvirate, Jean-Claude?” Nathaniel asked.

“Jean-Claude will be in charge of it,” Jake said.

“Will he? Will you?” Nathaniel asked, looking from him and back to the raven-haired vampire standing over us.

“They don’t want to be evil, and they all see controlling the others as evil,” Rodina said.

Nathaniel glanced at her and nodded.

I sat up a little straighter, pushing so that I wasn’t glued to his side. “If I can’t be in charge of the three of us, I’m not going to work with Jean-Claude any better. I’m so conflicted about Richard showing up like this after so long.”

“But don’t you remember that Richard had his own version of the ardeur briefly in the hotel room in Asheville?” Nathaniel asked.

I nodded. “He wanted me to be in love with just him, monogamous with just him, and if I hadn’t had Jason to do an emergency metaphysical shout-out, Richard might have succeeded.”

“I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, Anita.”

“Just like I didn’t know,” Nathaniel said.

“It’s never happened again, not with anyone,” Richard said.

“But if Jean-Claude gives you both the fourth mark and he’s too conflicted to take charge and so is Anita, wouldn’t it be tempting to roll them both? I think it would have to be both, I don’t think you could do just one, but you might be able to roll them so that it was just the three of you again. You might be able to erase everyone else they love but the three of you.”

“I am more powerful than Damian, by far,” I said.

“You are, but you also have a near phobia of forcing yourself on anyone unless safety and lives are at stake.”

“And might I be tempted to roll over both Richard and Anita and make them mine in a way that ma petite is never quite mine.” Jean-Claude nodded, thinking it over, as I fought to escape whatever Nathaniel had done to me.

“I can tell you it’s fucking tempting to make yourself the adored one,” Nathaniel said.

“I already adored you,” I said as I moved a little away from him on the couch, hoping that would help me clear my head.