Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(102)

“Lucky for me, because if I’d made you love me when you didn’t, you’d have probably killed me to be free of it.”

I wanted to argue, because I loved Nathaniel and had for years, but I thought of all the vampires that had tried to control me over the years, and . . . “If you’d been just someone I knew and had no place in my life, yeah, I would have risked death for all of us rather than stay enslaved.”

“And if I wasn’t a nicer person, a better person, it could be enslavement,” Nathaniel said, and he looked up at them.

“Master vampires are not nice, or the better person,” Rodina said.

“We try to be,” Jean-Claude said.

“Anita is still too conflicted to be in charge; that leaves you or Richard, and you don’t want it to be the Ulfric.”

“You don’t trust me to do what’s best for everyone?” Richard asked.

“I’m happy for your personal growth, and embracing that you’re bisexual for Jean-Claude is a big deal. Congratulations, but breakthroughs aren’t permanent unless you keep doing the work. The fourth mark could give you so much of what you’ve wanted for so long, it’s going to be tempting, like apple-in-the-Garden-of-Eden-level temptation,” Nathaniel said.

“I don’t want to take people over, and especially not Anita when I can feel that she’s not in love with me anymore, in fact she’s pissed at me. If she wakes up tomorrow thinking I’m great, then I’ll know I’m to blame.”

“Maybe not, Jean-Claude’s life would be a lot easier if you and she were in love again.”

“I would never betray us all, and it would be a betrayal,” Jean-Claude said.

I scooted farther toward the end of the couch away from all of them, but mainly Nathaniel. “Don’t ever roll me like that again.”

“I shouldn’t be able to roll you at all,” he said.

“I don’t care, just don’t.”

“Even when we have date night with Damian?”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and let it out while I counted slowly, but I had to breathe again, before I counted enough to not be pissed. “Damn it, Nathaniel, I love you, but this is pushing it.”

“Our triumvirate works because I’m in charge of it; I’m careful, but I make it work so that all three of us are happy with it.”

“Nathaniel embracing the power saved your lives in Ireland,” Jake said.

“But it was my necromancy that let us raise an army of ghosts,” I said.

“But it was Nathaniel who bridged the gap between your power and the battery of energy that he and Damian offered you.”

I sat there for a few seconds, sighed, then said, “No, I don’t want you to stop making the triumvirate work with Damian. Part of me hates saying that, but I may never be ready to take charge of it, and I know Damian won’t be.”

“Good, and thank you. I’m sorry this scared you, but I had to make sure Jean-Claude and Richard understood what could go wrong with the fourth mark.”

“Thank you, mon minet, though perhaps I should stop calling you my kitten, for it seems you have become a very grown-up cat.”

“I love it when you call me your kitten, you know that. I don’t want to be one of the big cats, I’m happy being a little one.”

“With the power you have over Anita and Damian, you could be a major player,” Nicky said.

“I don’t want to be a major player; I just want the people I love to be happy and safe.”

“If you wanted to make me refuse to do the fourth mark tonight with them, then you succeeded,” I said.

“No, Anita, the point is you have to do it.” He turned toward me with Damian draping his arms across his shoulders, still drunk on power. “And you have to do it now, before sunrise, because you cannot leave Jean-Claude that vulnerable.”

I shook my head.

“I love you, so much, but if you don’t do the fourth mark then it’s like having a house with an alarm system but you leave the door wide open. All the metaphysical power in the world won’t save us if Deimos or some other vampire gets in through that open door.”

“We would have gone happy to do the fourth mark if you hadn’t done this,” Richard said.

“Anita wouldn’t have.”

I looked down, not wanting to meet anyone’s gaze, but my emotions were so raw it didn’t really matter. I looked up into Richard’s handsome face, but I was strangely alone in my head, and I did not want him. Pretty was as pretty does, and we’d hurt each other too much, too often. I was happy now; my life worked, damn it, and it had never really worked with Richard.

“The fourth mark won’t work if she’s still fighting it,” Nathaniel said.

I looked at him. “You think I’d have said no at the last minute.”

“I’m sorry, but yes.”

I rolled that around in my head, and couldn’t argue with it. “Damn it.”

“Dawn is coming, ma petite, what would you have of me, of us?”

I looked up at one of the loves of my life, my fiancé, and didn’t have a good answer. I looked at Richard standing solemnly at his side, because he didn’t know what to do anymore either. Jesus, Nathaniel, did you have to do it this way?