51

I ENDED UP sitting, facing Nathaniel, him inside me. I wrapped my legs around his waist with him buried as deep inside me as he could go. It reminded me of earlier with London, so intimate a lovemaking. But staring into Nathaniel's eyes from inches away, with his body inside mine, my hips riding him, it was more. London had had to hold my hair, force me to stare into his face. I wanted to stare into Nathaniel's face, wanted to watch his moods swim across his face. Wanted to watch him watch me.

Jason's hands slid down my back, cupped my buttocks. They'd decided to change places when Jason had mentioned that he'd never gone with me orally. Intercourse, yes, but not oral sex. Nathaniel had told him, "You have to feel her do this. She's amazing."

"I've had foreplay from her."

"That was when she was trying to be good, it's better when she's trying to be bad."

"Better than Raina?"

Nathaniel had nodded.

A look of almost pain had crossed Jason's face, and he'd said, "Can I change my order, please?"

So we'd changed the order.

Without a lot of foreplay I didn't normally go in this position, but there'd been foreplay. Small G-spot orgasm always makes intercourse more fun. Big G-spot orgasm means you're done for the night, as in Stick a fork in me, honey, I'm done. Requiem had done just enough, and not too much, so that my body was tighter than normal, but still wet, still spasming with aftershocks. Every thrust of Nathaniel's body brought tiny spurts of pleasure, made me move my hips against his body, and drive him deeper inside me.

Jason licked a cool, wet line up my spine. It made me shiver, and lean a little back into his hands. Nathaniel kissed me, hard and completely, drowning his tongue inside my mouth, until I had to relax my mouth wide. He drove his body inside me, as if he were imitating himself at both openings.

It brought me screaming, the orgasm trying to bow my spine, tear my mouth off his, but his hand at the back of my head kept our mouths pressed together.

Jason bit my back, and it made me scream more. Nathaniel let go of my hair, and let my upper body fall back into Jason's arms. "I didn't feel her feed."

"She didn't feed."

Nathaniel's body started finding a new rhythm from the slightly different angle. My breathing started to change almost instantly. I kept my legs around Nathaniel's waist, his hands supporting most of my weight. "Move back," he told Jason. Jason did, and my body bowed backward, my hands seeking his body.

I was suddenly staring, upside down, at a very intimate part of Jason's anatomy. Nathaniel's hands were strong and firm at the small of my back. He gave me the foundation I needed to stretch off into space, and reach for the other man. I wrapped my hand around him, tight and firm. He made a small noise for me. I wanted him to make more.

Nathaniel's body just kept going inside me, over and over, deep, and smooth. I felt the beginnings of another orgasm building. I wanted Jason inside my mouth before that happened. I wanted to feed on them both. Nathaniel had put a condom on before being inside me, but Jason would slip naked between my lips. I could suck him clean, and naked, and I wanted it. In that moment the ardeur, my own special hunger, might not have cared whose body I was playing with. I needed to feed.

Jason wasn't quite at the angle I needed, and I said, "Please, please." He used his own hand to help guide himself between my lips. My hands wrapped around his thighs and ass. I started to make love to him with my mouth. To suck, lick, and writhe my mouth, my tongue, and ever so lightly my teeth, around the smooth muscled length of him. I moved my mouth, strained my throat to meet each thrust.

I lost myself in the sensations at my mouth, and Nathaniel reminded me, hard and fast, that I had two men to satisfy. I fought to keep both rhythms going: my hips writhing to meet Nathaniel's thrusts, and my mouth and throat to meet Jason's.

Jason's hands found my upper back, and he helped support me with one hand, while his other hand found something to hold on to. Their hands were like a safety net, holding me, supporting me, helping me fuck them.

"Are you close?" Jason asked, and his voice sounded strained.

For a moment I thought he was talking to me, but his body kept me from answering. Nathaniel said, "I can be."

"Either she has to slow down, or I'm going to go."

Nathaniel's hands tightened at the small of my back, and he sat up higher, and changed the angle of my hips at the same time. It was like he'd been waiting to do it. It forced my legs higher up his back, put my pelvis at a more than forty-degree angle. His next thrust made me scream around Jason's body.

"God, Nathaniel, stop that, or I'm..."

He thrust two, three times, with every word. "Just... a... little... more!" And he brought me, screaming, screaming with Jason's body thrusting inside me, so that I screamed around him. My nails dug into his body. Jason thrust one last time as deep and hard as he could down my throat, and I felt him go, felt it hot but too far down to be thick. I got only the heat, and the spasming of him inside my throat. Nathaniel thrust deep and hard between my legs, a heartbeat later. It made me scream as I was trying to swallow Jason down. It made me have to suck harder or choke.

Jason cried out, his body spasming, his nails digging into my back where he held me. He screamed my name, and the ardeur finally fed. I fed. I drank them both down, and the rush of energy tightened our bodies, made us all cry out. Nathaniel thrust inside me again, brought me again. Jason spasmed deep inside my throat again; I felt him spill inside me. A moment before I'd been fighting not to choke or throw up, and now the ardeur rode me, and I drank him down as if he were exactly what I wanted. I drank them both down; everywhere our skin touched I got small sips, but down my throat, and between my legs, that was food. It was exactly what I needed, exactly the way I needed it. Maybe the feeding would last longer if I fed on men who weren't tied to us metaphysically, but I didn't love anyone who wasn't tied to us. So I had to feed more often, so what?

We ended on the floor of the limo, with Jason on the bottom, me in the middle, and Nathaniel on top of me, as if the last orgasm had pulled us all to the floor.

"Wow," Jason said.

"Yeah," I said.

Nathaniel laughed, low and a little unsteady. "I love you, Anita," he said.

"I love you, too," I said. I could feel Jason's heart thudding against my back.

"I feel left out," he said, from underneath me.

Nathaniel didn't so much raise his head, as move his eyes, to look at the other man. "I love you, too, or I wouldn't enjoy sharing her with you this much."

I managed to roll my head back enough to glimpse Jason's face. "I love you, Jason, you are our very dear friend."

"I thought I was just everyone's fuck buddy."

I cuddled against the front of his body. Nathaniel crawled up until he managed to wedge himself around us both. "You're the best friend I've ever had."

Jason smiled at us both, his eyes full of more emotion than I think he knew what to do with. He managed a version of his usual grin. "And I thought the most interesting thing I'd ever do with a best friend was watch football."

Nathaniel smiled at him. "We can if you want, but you'll have to explain the rules to me."

"I am not watching football," I said.

"I hate football, let's just keep fucking," Jason said.

"Not tonight," I said.

"We need to get inside," he said.

"Whoever can move, stand up first and get dressed," I said.

He laughed, hugged me, and laid his head against Nathaniel's. "God I love my friends, but if you guys can fall to one side, I think I can stand."

"I'll have to work on that," I said.

"What?" he asked.

"You've recovered too quickly. I must have done something wrong."

The laughter faded around the edges, and there was suddenly a very serious look on his face. "You did everything right. You were wonderful."

"As good as the person who gave you the teeth mark hickey on your neck?"

He grinned, as he started trying to wriggle out of the pile. "Better actually, but if you tell her I said so, I'll deny it."

"Tell me who I'm supposed to be nice to, and I will."

He was opening a box of moist towelettes. Wiping a little of the sweat, and other things, off his body, he said, "Have you met all of the Cape Codders?"

"Samuel and his family, yeah."

Jason shook his head. "Not the family, the entourage."

"There was a man and woman with them."

"Her name is Perdita. Perdy." He stuffed the towelettes into an empty garbage bag, apparently there for the purpose. "Jean-Claude wanted to know some of what you could expect when you fuck Sampson."

"He sent you to fuck one of the mermaids so I'd be forewarned?"

Nathaniel got up slowly. Jason tossed him the box of towelettes, and dragged the plastic off our clothes. Hadn't really needed the plastic. We hadn't been that messy.

"He didn't send me to fuck her, just to find out what the transformation of a mermaid, and maybe male siren, could entail." He grinned at me. "Jean-Claude left it to me to decide how to get that information."

I'd forgotten that I'd agreed to try to bring Sampson's powers. So much had been happening; it was hard to keep track. It was always especially hard to keep track of things that made me uncomfortable. Having agreed to have sex with Sampson qualified.

"If the bite is a sample, ouch."

"It wasn't all ouch. I'll give you a full report after we've survived the ballet."

We got cleaned up as best we could. An emergency makeup kit for touch-ups had been in the limo. I'd thought maybe I'd smear my lipstick. It was a little more extensive than that, but we managed.

We were dressed, and almost as fresh as when we started the evening. Requiem had gone to report to Jean-Claude, or maybe he just hadn't wanted to watch. Nathaniel and Jason escorted me back inside. Lisandro was rear guard. Claudia and Truth met us at the Fox club entrance.

Underneath those stoic bodyguard faces I saw worry. But I didn't need their faces to tell me; I could feel it. It wasn't Marmee Noir, or Belle Morte. It was the vampires we'd invited to town. I wasn't sure what they were doing, but whatever it was, it was powerful.

Jason and Nathaniel shivered on either side of me. "What the hell are they doing up there?" Jason whispered.

"I don't know," I said, "but we're going to find out." I started up the stairs on Nathaniel's arm, with Jason's hand in mine. Normally, I'd have tried not to hold on to too many men at once in public, but the hell with it. One, we all needed the comfort. Two, my reputation couldn't get any more trashed than it already was.

52

OUTSIDE THE CURTAINS to the seats, I had to let go of Jason's hand so he could go back to Asher's box. I didn't want to let go of him. I wanted to wrap both him and Nathaniel around me like a security blanket. I put my arm around Nathaniel's waist, tucking myself in under his arm. He hugged me, and whispered against my hair. "You all right?"

I nodded. Jason would have called me a liar, but Nathaniel just accepted it. He might not believe me, but he wouldn't call me on it. Nathaniel parted the curtains. The music swelled around us and the world was suddenly golden. The air sparkled with glitter. Out of that scintillating cloud a vampire floated. It was Adonis, the vamp who had almost rolled me with his gaze earlier. His costume had changed to a ballet version of 1700s dress, which meant: fairly accurate from the waist up, and tights from the waist down. I'd seen vampires fly before, but not like this. He hung in the air as if he could have hung there forever. Other vampires appeared out of the glitter, hanging in the air as if they'd been pinned there. Adonis hovered just outside our box, so close I could see his blond curls moving in the wind. What wind? The wind of his own magic.

Jean-Claude and Damian turned from that vision to look at me. Jean-Claude let me see a moment of relief in his eyes, before his face became the blank, perfect mask that he would wear for the public tonight. Damian reached out for me. I gave him my free hand, without thinking that I was touching Nathaniel, too. It was as if his touch completed a circuit. It wasn't just a leap of energy, it was a feeling of deep contentment. It was like suddenly being wrapped in a warm electric blanket. It felt so good. I couldn't think of anything I wanted more than to wrap them both around me and sleep. I just knew that it would be healing and exactly what I needed. Not all psychic flashes are ambiguous, or hard to interpret. Some of them are crystal clear. Problem is, they always seem to come when you can't possibly act on them. Looking at the vampires spinning and diving through the falling glitter, somehow a nap didn't seem likely.

I took my seat beside Jean-Claude, and Nathaniel went to the seat on the other side of Damian, where Micah had started the evening. But to get everyone sitting down, I had to let go of Nathaniel. It was almost wrenching to let go of him, like giving up a shield when you know you're about to go into battle. No, not that, Nathaniel wasn't my shield. He was my warmth on a cold night. He was what kept me safe and sane. Well, not always safe. Safety lay elsewhere. I squeezed Damian's hand, and let go of it. There, it didn't feel so bad not to be touching Nathaniel. For some reason giving up them both was easier than giving up just one of them.

I took Jean-Claude's hand, and that was safety. That was armor in the face of battle. There was love there, too, but Jean-Claude sought power more than safety. Just touching his hand energized me. I wasn't thinking nap now, I was thinking battle. It was the difference between a soldier and a general. One sleeps when he can, the other has to be preparing for the next conflict.

The glitter had fallen down, so that the vampires were revealed in all their grace. They danced in the air. They held their places, and danced. Damian leaned in and whispered, "Do you have any idea how much strength it takes to do what they're doing?"

I shook my head.

Jean-Claude leaned in and gave the barest whisper. "To fight gravity, and your own body's desire to touch earth; it is impressive." He squeezed my hand a little tighter, as if watching the dozen vampires dance in their perfect, solid circle was exciting, or nerve-racking. I was too insecure to drop shields and check for sure. So much had already gone wrong tonight that caution seemed smarter.

Nathaniel was leaning forward in his seat. His face was rapturous. I glanced at our other box. Micah gave me a smile and I gave one back. But it was Jason who caught my eye. He was sitting on the edge of his chair like Nathaniel. They wore almost identical entranced looks. Not entranced by vampire powers, but by the beauty and strength of the dancers. I realized that I'd taken away from the performance the two people in our group who would have appreciated the dancing most. They both had dance training. They both danced for a living. Yeah, they took their clothes off while they did it, but Jean-Claude had insisted that all his dancers have some training. You couldn't just shake your booty on stage at Guilty Pleasures. Jason and Nathaniel were the two that had taken to the dancing most. They were the ones who helped the other dancers work up new acts. And I'd taken them away from the dancing. The looks on their faces made me regret that. Among all the regrets tonight, that was another.

Asher was very still, watching the show. It was a stillness that a stranger wouldn't recognize, but he wasn't a stranger to me. He was as enraptured by the show as the boys. He just had several hundred years of cool, and wouldn't let it show that much.

The music changed, and the vampires hesitated. They pretended not to know what was coming next. They were close enough to us that I could see their expressions of surprise, as they turned one by one, or two by two, to look at the stage below them.

A woman stepped on stage, dressed in one of those long white gossamer dresses. I would have said the dress floated around her as she tiptoed on stage, but compared to the vampires, it didn't quite float. But it was delicate, and she was lovely. Her hair was long and shining brown, tied back in a high ponytail. The hair moved with her like an extension of her body as she danced, slowly, tentatively across the stage. It reminded me of what Nathaniel did with his hair on stage some nights. Not the same kind of dance, but the same awareness of the hair as an extension of the dance.

She was young, as in not long dead. I whispered against Jean-Claude's hair, "Is she supposed to be human?"

"Oui."

She was fresh enough that once upon a time, I might have believed the illusion, but that was long ago, and I knew vampire when I saw it.

The vampires above us began to circle downward, the way vultures will when they decide that the thing on the ground is finally dead.

One of the female vamps landed, lightly, on the stage. She had hair almost as dark as mine, but how much of all those curls were real and how much a wig, I couldn't tell. She went up on her toe shoes, as the girl did. They mirrored each other from across the stage. The girl held her hands out, beseeching, asking a question, or wanting something. The dark-haired vampire mimicked her, made fun of her. It was amazingly well done. Sometimes the ballet leaves me confused, but there was no confusion here. The human was asking for help, and the vampire wasn't going to give it.

Another female vamp touched down, brown hair this time, then a blonde. The three vamps linked arms and danced across the stage. The girl went to her knees, begging with graceful arms. She was wearing more base than the rest; it gave her a rosier skin tone, made her look alive.

Three male vampires alit upon the stage. They joined the dancing women, linked hands, boy, girl, boy, girl. The girl in white continued to beseech them. They laughed at her, and broke into couples. They danced around her. The men were able to do amazing leaps, and carry the weight of the women as if it truly were nothing. The leaps were amazing, but after seeing them fly, it just didn't impress. Once you've seen someone fly, what's a little grand jet¨¦?

They began to circle around her, close and closer. She finally realized her danger, and began to try to run, but the circle had closed. They would grab her and throw her back into the middle. She fell like white and brown water, spilling all that hair like a shining cloak across the white dress. The vampires began to dance close and closer, the circle tightening in graceful, flowing movements, but tightening all the same.

There was movement above us. I had forgotten that there were vampires still hovering in the air. They had risen to the ceiling, using it like a rear stage area, but now they dropped delicately to the stage, and suddenly you realized that the vampires in the circle were nothing. The dancers who hit the stage now rolled power outward like a trembling line of cold. So cold, it almost burned. They stalked across the stage, in a rolling predatory dance that made me afraid for her. Silly. I knew they'd done this act across the country. I even knew that she was already dead, but still my body reacted to the menace in their movements.

The audience below us gasped. They'd seen the whole show, and they didn't know she was dead.

The circle of couples parted as the other vampires stalked forward. Two men, and three women, stalking across the stage. The girl stared at them with fear plain on her face. She begged with graceful arms, on her knees. When that didn't help, she got slowly to her feet, and her fear was palpable. Someone was projecting emotions onto the audience. There weren't many who could roll me that easily.

I looked up to find one last vamp hovering at the ornate ceiling. Adonis, the blond that had damn near gotten me with his gaze. He wasn't looking at me. His attention was all for the stage. I think he was waiting for his cue. It wasn't him. Oh, I was slow tonight. It was Merlin again. Merlin who I hadn't seen in the flesh, but only through memory. I didn't poke at his power. He wasn't hurting anyone. I was afraid if I poked at him, made him stop projecting emotions into the crowd, that it might raise Marmee Noir again. I was not up to another visit from the Mother of All Darkness tonight. So I left Merlin alone. We'd discuss his sins later, in private.

The vampires were chasing her around the stage. It was a beautifully choreographed game of cat and mouse. They would jump out at her, use that incredible speed to stop her from leaving the stage. She'd almost run past them, but they would be there, grabbing a hand, throwing her backward, sliding her prettily across the stage. I wondered how she kept the white tights so white doing all that.

I felt Adonis move forward. I felt his power reach outward. He flew slowly toward the stage, going down as if on wires, so slow, so incredibly slow. It wasn't a bird of prey, it was like a picture of some heaven-bound saint, except this one was coming down, not going up. He touched the stage and the dancers froze. A red-haired vampire came to his hand as if he'd commanded her. The dancers all formed couples, and began to dance around the girl. She was huddled in the middle, not begging anymore. She had given up on asking for help. She huddled like a white star in the center of the bright colors of the vampires.

They danced, and showed that they could do traditional ballet. Then the music changed. The couples gave themselves more room, and they began to do dancing that would have looked more at home on the stage at Guilty Pleasures than at the ballet. It was still beautiful, graceful, predatory, but it was also very sexual. Nothing that would get you arrested, but as they had been able to convey menace, pity, and derision, with a gesture and a look, now they conveyed sex.

The girl hid her face, as if it were too awful to watch. It was Adonis who stood above her. She raised a startled face, slowly, the way the actors look up in a horror movie when they hear that noise, and know, somehow, that the monster is right there. She gazed up at the handsome man, with that look on her face, in the posture of her body. No matter how beautiful he was, she made you see him as hideous, dangerous, frightening.

He grabbed her wrist, and they did a slow dance, with him half-dragging her, and her trying to stay farther away from him. Her reluctance for him to touch her screamed through her every movement. But he won, as you knew he would. He jerked her into his embrace, and went skyward. He flew her out over the audience, while she struggled, and pounded at him with little fists. So he dropped her. She actually screamed, before another vampire caught her. Caught her just over the audience's heads. The audience gasped and screamed with her. The vampires played catch with the girl. One would rise, then let her struggles make him drop her. She began to cling to them, and they tore her hands from their clothes and flung her to the air. Then Adonis caught her again, and he held her close. I caught the shine of tears on her face as he floated past us. He grabbed that shining fall of hair, and wadded his hand in it. He pulled her neck into a graceful, straining line, and pretended to bite her. Then he threw her to the next vampire, and that one bit her, too. They began to close in around her in a tight floating ball of arms and legs. When they parted, her neck was dotted with fake blood, and she went eagerly to them. Embracing them with graceful arms. It became a lovely feeding frenzy. From one set of arms to another, from one man, one woman, to another, until the vampire's faces were stained crimson, and the girl's dress looked like an accident victim's sheet. The fake blood made the dress cling to her body, so you could see the muscles, the small tight breasts. It was both alluring and utterly disturbing.

The audience was silent with tension, as the vampires landed on the stage again. They surrounded her, hiding her from view. It gave the illusion that all of them were feeding at once, though I knew logistically that wasn't possible. Too many mouths to fit like that.

A new vampire stalked onto the stage. He was dark-haired, and darker-skinned, pale, but I couldn't tell if it was makeup or skin tone. He chased back the other vamps. He saw the bloody almost-corpse, and he wept. His shoulders rose and fell with it.

Adonis laughed at him, one of those big stage laughs, with the head back.

The dark vampire raised a face livid with anger. They began to dance around the stage. They danced with her bloody corpse as their centerpiece. The other vampires vanished behind the stage. The two men danced. Adonis had more bulky muscles. The dark man was tall and lean, and more graceful than anyone I'd ever seen. He moved like a dream of water, and even that didn't do him justice.

Adonis's dancing came across as clunky, human in comparison. Somewhere in the middle of the dance, I realized I was looking at Merlin.

Merlin won the dancing fight. For that was what it became. They fought in the air, and on the ground, and it looked real. Real anger seemed to be involved, and I wondered if it was projecting, or if they were truly pissed at each other and the fight gave them an excuse to vent it.

Adonis was vanquished, not killed, and that left Merlin on stage alone with his dead love. He leaned over her, held her in his arms, and rocked her. My throat was tight, damn him. He wept and I fought not to weep with him. Jean-Claude did some of this with the audience at the clubs, but he wasn't this good. No one I'd ever met was this good at projecting emotions.

A mob entered from stage right. They had crossbows and torches. They shot the weeping vampire. The crossbow bolt appeared in his chest like magic. Even knowing it was stage trickery it looked real. He collapsed on top of his dead love, and the lights circled round the two dead lovers. He died curled around her, as if, even in death, he would protect her.

The mob came, and the weeping man who had shot the vampire picked up the dead girl. He cradled her in his arms, and a woman from the crowd joined him in weeping. Parents, I thought. They cradled her, much as the dead vampire had. They carried her offstage, weeping, and left the vampire dead.

The stage was empty for a moment, then the vampires returned. They crept out on the stage, cautious, afraid. They seemed bewildered by the dead vampire. It was Adonis who knelt by him, touched his face, and wept. He picked the fallen man up in his arms, cradling him. Then he rose skyward, and the vampires flew away with their fallen leader. They flew away weeping to the sounds of music that sounded like the violins were weeping with them.

The curtain went down and there was a moment of utter silence. Then the audience went wild, clapping, making noises of all kinds. The audience came to its feet and the curtain reopened. The humans came out first, the chorus, but the audience stayed on their feet through it all. When Adonis took the stage, they clapped louder. When the girl and Merlin came down to bow, well, the crowd actually screamed. You don't hear screaming much at the ballet, but you heard it now.

Roses were delivered to the girl, and to Merlin. More than one bouquet of them, in different colors. They bowed, and bowed again, and finally the audience began to quiet. Only then did the curtain close, and the dancers exited to the soft sound of applause and the excited babble of the audience, already asking themselves, "Did you see what I saw? Was it real?"

We'd survived the ballet. Now all we had to survive was the cast party afterward. The night was young. Damn it.