Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(50)

“Mine, too,” I said.

“Wolf comes to you through your shared marks with me and the absent third of our triumvirate, but it was mine first. The first power that came to me and marked me as a master vampire.” He seemed utterly sober now, as if he’d drunk a dozen cups of coffee and been dunked in ice water in the last few seconds. He was still wearing the leg-hugging blue leather boots and the thong, but the clothes didn’t matter; he was suddenly every inch a king, dominant to everyone and everything he surveyed. Jean-Claude hid it most of the time; I think it was habit because playing the fop who got by on his looks and seducing the right people had been how he’d hidden in plain sight from other powerful vampires for centuries. He’d hidden just how powerful he was even from me at first, and I was good at judging ages and power levels. Standing there in an outfit that would have made most people put him in the beautiful-bimbo box, suddenly all the camouflage was gone. He stood there in a mantle of power and command that didn’t need crowns or scepters. The intelligence in his face and the certainty with which he held his body said he could walk into a throne room dressed like a stripper and it wouldn’t

matter, they’d still curtsy as he passed and believe he had a right to sit down wherever he damn well chose.





21

THE WICKED TRUTH and Ethan went ahead of us because they wouldn’t let us go through first.

Buzz and the other security people were locked shoulder to shoulder trying to keep the crowd away from the door. They had their heads down or an arm raised to shield their faces. I could see fingernail marks bleeding on them. The crowd turned toward us as one, a beast with many faces, and I knew that wasn’t my thought, but Jean-Claude’s. He’d seen a crowd like this before, more than once. I was suddenly flooded with memories of other rooms, other crowds; the clothing was a lesson in centuries of fashion. Belle Morte, the creator of Jean-Claude’s bloodline, had enjoyed the chaos of it, and what came next.

Jean-Claude gripped our hands harder to steady himself, and he reached out through both of us for help. Graham was a doorway to the werewolves, though it was an imperfect door because we weren’t connected to Graham, only to his wolf. I was a doorway to the wererats, the clan tigers, and the wereleopards, because I had my own animals to call of each; my lioness and hyena were still waiting for their special connection, so there was less for Jean-Claude to use. My wolf had chosen its other half, and because the need was great we had a moment of feeling Jason on a very different kind of stage, him hesitating because he felt us thinking at him too hard. Jean-Claude drew us back so we wouldn’t make him fall, or drop a ballerina, and we were solidly back amid the overturned tables and chairs and the crowd flowing over the stage like ants over a piece of candy, so that all you can see is their bodies but not what lies underneath. I had a second of almost pure terror, as if when they stepped away from the stage there would be something underneath them, in the midst of them.

Jean-Claude didn’t have to tell me he sensed it, too; I could feel what he was feeling, thinking, and I had a dizzy moment of not being sure if I was walking in the stiletto heels or the soft leather boots.

Graham couldn’t meld with us, he wasn’t a part of us, only his wolf half belonged to Jean-Claude because all wolves belonged to him.

I wasn’t sure which of us thought it wasn’t enough, this wasn’t enough connection to our wolves, and then I knew it was Jean-Claude, because I thought wolf, not plural. It will have to do, he thought, and I was stumbling in the stiletto heels, unable to walk in them when I wasn’t sure what body I was driving.

Graham moaned. “What did you do to me?”

“My apologies, lupe, but you are not the big bad wolf that I need.”

Graham was having trouble focusing as he said, “I can be big and bad if that’s what you need.”

Jean-Claude smiled at him, and Graham smiled back like he was happy to have said a smart thing that pleased him. Graham so wasn’t a dominant, which meant he so wasn’t a big bad anything, but he was willing to stand with us and be our wolf, and that counted for a lot. Jean-Claude stopped trying to reach for more energy and concentrated on what we had.

I knew Jean-Claude had grown in power, but I hadn’t really understood what it meant until now.

He filled the audience with new memories; there had been a contest for them to vote on which of the security people they’d most want to see dance onstage at Guilty Pleasures. I felt that some of the women had small scrapes and bruises and the pain made them doubt the story, but he took their pain away as his gaze could take the pain of the bite away, except he did this without meeting their eyes, or needing to; they just went back to their tables, and the security walked or limped over to put the overturned chairs back so they could sit down. Jean-Claude took their confusion of rushing the stage and trying to claw their way past the guards into them seeing the guards try to dance onstage, take their shirts off, some were awkward, and it was endearing. Some of the women laughed, as if it were happening in front of them. Some of the guards moved well onstage, and then Jean-Claude had asked them to vote on who they most wanted to see, and Graham had won.

Jean-Claude was busy implanting the memory that I had come back to guest-star tonight using the name that Nathaniel had given me the first time I’d stepped onstage with him. I was Nikki long before our Nicky came into our lives. I had a moment of missing Nicky so hard that it made my chest tight.