Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [991]
Rafael nodded, his face still serious. We couldn’t seem to get a smile out of him this morning. “Am I your cup of tea, Anita?”
I felt Richard stiffen beside me. I glanced around him to Jean-Claude. “Can I talk plainly without upsetting the political apple cart here?”
“Talk, and we shall see.”
Not a rousing endorsement, but I’d take what I could get. “You’re handsome, and if it was a date, we could talk, but you want to skip to sex, and I’m just not that casual about it.”
He gave me a look. It was a very judgmental look. I gave him an unhappy look back.
“Yeah, I have a lot of lovers, but they aren’t casual lovers, Rafael.”
He let out a breath, sipped some coffee, then said, “Perhaps not, but there is something about being your lover that seems to up the power level of every man that you…give yourself to.”
“Not true,” I said.
“Name a single lover you have had who has not gained power from it.”
“I can name three: London, Requiem, and Byron,” I said.
“The first two were master vampires before you slept with them. It’s hard to judge how much power they arrived in St. Louis with, and how much they may have gained. Byron you slept with only once. Once doesn’t seem to be enough.” He sat his coffee down on his plate. “Fine, your regular lovers gain power.”
“I think you overestimate me.”
Rafael handed his plate to Louie, who stood and put it on the coffee table, as if he’d been told to do it. Rafael looked at me. He looked at me as if he would see through me to the other side. It was a look to study, weigh, and measure a person. I tried not to squirm under that gaze, but it was hard work.
“What?” I asked.
He looked at Jean-Claude. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
“I am not certain that I know what you mean,” Jean-Claude said.
“Jean-Claude, every lover Anita has gains power. Asher was a master vampire in name only, almost, but since he’s been in her bed he’s gained enough power to have his own territory if he didn’t love you both too much to leave. Nathaniel was everyone’s victim; now he is becoming someone to be reckoned with. You, personally, have gained more power than you ever dreamed.”
“And you believe that it is ma petite who has given me power, not that I have shared my power with her?”
“She has her own triumvirate of power, Jean-Claude. Her own vampire servant in Damian.”
“I am not the power behind the throne, Rafael. Trust me, Jean-Claude is plenty powerful enough for both of us.”
“He is, but he gained most of that power after you became his lover.”
“I gained powers after he made me his servant,” I said, “not the other way around.”
“I’ve been talking to some of the wererats in Europe,” Rafael said. “They speak of your Belle Morte, the creator of your bloodline. They say that she could give power to her lovers, if she chose.”
“Belle Morte does not choose to share power with anyone,” Jean-Claude said.
“No, but she can; through sex, she can make her lovers more powerful. Legend has it that once she made kings and emperors through her touch. She changed the face of Europe through her bed.”
“She ruled from her bedroom, that is true, but not in the way you think. She chose only the powerful, only those who could give her something she wanted. And I did not gain power in her bed. I was her pawn for centuries. As was Asher.”
“Masters of the City often kill their own vampire children if they become too powerful, true?” Rafael said.
“Some do.”
“But isn’t it strange that so many of the vampires who were nearly powerless around Belle Morte have gained power the longer they are away from her?”
“What are you saying, Rafael?”
“I have heard rumors that some masters can retard the powers of their followers.”
“Some can, but I do not believe Belle is one of them.”
“Why not?”
He gave that shrug again.
Frankly, the rats were a little too well informed for comfort. I’d seen a master vampire gain new powers once in America and far enough away from his old master.