Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(111)

“We’ll go,” Rodina said, and she and Ru followed Jake and Richard down the hallway.

Richard said, “I want to flog you while you’re tied up and I want to feel you lust after me and deny you.”

“See, he will only fuck Jean-Claude, no other man, or even you,” Kane said.

“I want to fuck you, Asher, but I want to come up with a bondage scene that will be everything you and I want it to be.”

“No!” Kane yelled, and there was movement, but Jake was there and Kane was just suddenly face first against the wall with his arm twisted up behind him. “I will break it,” Jake said in a voice that carried.

Kane yelled for Asher to help him, but his vampire master was talking with Richard and I knew now why Asher feared Richard stealing Jean-Claude away from him and no one else, because Asher wanted Richard, too.

I felt the sun start to rise like a blow through my heart. Jean-Claude clutched my hand. “Moments only,” he said.

“Make me yours,” Dev said, leaning over to put his mouth on one of the healing wounds.

“Do it,” I said.

“I will collapse unwashed and dead if I can finish it at all.”

“We’ll go to bed smelling like great sex, and we’ll carry you to bed, do it now.”

Dev sucked hard enough that it brought a gasp from Jean-Claude, but it wasn’t a bad sound. He touched his free hand to Dev’s blond hair and said the words with my hand in his, so that it was the same as he’d said over Richard and me, down to the three shall be as one. And with each sentence the power grew until the last of the hyena energy was blown away in a warm rush of gold tiger energy that seemed to greet the sunrise that I could feel spreading above us.

Truth and Wicked dropped in the hallway. I heard a sound and glanced to see Richard catch Asher before he hit the floor. I still had Jean-Claude’s hand in mine, and he was still holding me tight.

Dev rose up with Jean-Claude’s blood smeared on his mouth. “You’re still awake,” Dev said.

“The energy buoys me up, but it will not last, I think, so kiss me, my devil, with my blood across your lips.” He didn’t have to ask twice. They wrapped their arms around each other and kissed like

they meant it, until Dev came back with fresh blood on his lower lip from getting nicked on a fang.

“Forgive me, I was carried away,” Jean-Claude said.

Dev’s tongue slid over the blood, and he smiled fierce and so happy, maybe happier than I’d ever felt him. “I’m not sorry, I love that you lost control with me the way you can with Anita.”

Jean-Claude smiled at Dev and took his hand as he still had mine. “Take me to bed before the magic leaves and I die again.”

Richard turned toward us with Asher insensible in his arms. “Does he sleep in his coffin, or in a bed now?”

“He sleeps with me!” Kane yelled, still up against the wall with Jake holding him in place.

“Take Kane to a cell tonight and guard him well. No harm shall befall him tonight, but if a night imprisoned teaches him nothing there will be time for punishment,” Jean-Claude said.

Jake turned Kane around and marched him deeper into the underground. We didn’t exactly have cells, but we had guest rooms that were more easily guarded than others. Kane ranted and raved that Asher would hear about this, but we ignored him. It was pretty much the only logical thing to do with him.

Angel came down the hallway as Jake was leading them away. She’d brought the other gold tigers with her. They were all tall and golden-to brown-skinned with varying shades of blond hair and eyes ranging from blue to hazel blue to pale brown. “I thought we’d need help; I guess I was wrong.”

“Your help is much appreciated, our angel,” Jean-Claude said.

“We can at least take Wicked and Truth to their room,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. She smiled at me, then both of us. Her smile melted a little around the edges when she got to Richard, but she said, “Tucking two gorgeous vampires into bed, no problem.”

“Where do I take Asher?” Richard asked again.

“I want you with me, mon lupe. When I finally die for the day I want to feel you at my back.”

Richard handed Asher to Custer to carry. I sent Geoff with him to tuck Asher into his coffin for the day. That was where he preferred to sleep when he would wake up alone. Nathaniel came up the hallway in the wrong direction. Apparently he and Damian had gone through while I was otherwise occupied, just like Angel leaving. “Why didn’t you help?”

“Damian likes to be in his room before dawn, and you didn’t need your leopard and another vampire you were connected to, this had to be all about you and Jean-Claude and other animals to call.” I couldn’t argue with him, but I did ask if I’d missed anything else while I was pressed to Jean-Claude’s chest. Everyone assured me that was it.

We got to our bedroom with its orgy-sized custom-made bed. We did the cleanup that washrags and toothbrushes could manage, and then we all crawled into bed. I was in the middle, Jean-Claude beside me, though usually Micah or Nathaniel slept between Jean-Claude and me. I still didn’t like that he truly died and then his body would cool during the hours we slept, but tonight I wanted to feel him pressed against me as his life slipped away, so he’d feel me holding him as the last thing. I curled up in the circle of his naked body, still warm and alive as he wrapped his arms around me. Nathaniel spooned on the other side of me and Jean-Claude’s arms went across me to him, and then Dev