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By Root 3871 0

and again. It was like floating, skinless, formless, just above the bed, and I could feel their heartbeats inside my body. Finally I could feel Jean-Claude and Asher, feel their hearts give a massive beat and feel the life flood through their bodies and spill in a long, hot, line of pleasure that seemed to be pulled from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads, as if every piece of their bodies, every atom, exploded in pleasure at once. Nathaniel, Jason, and I screamed for them, because their mouths were still locked on the blood, still drinking, still feeding. Then it was over, and the five of us lay motionless, except for the frantic rise and fall of our chests, trying to breath, trying to remember what it was like to be inside our own skins, with just one heart inside us, instead of five. We melted back into our own skins, only the faint dew of sweat and the panicked thunder of our pulses beating against each other’s bodies.

Jean-Claude and Asher pulled back from Nathaniel and Jason just as they’d bitten them—together, in a synchronization as perfect now as it had been two centuries ago. Belle Morte filled my mind with images—images of the two of them making love to her before Asher was scored, when they were her perfectly matched pair. I had a confused image of them making love to her at the same time. The feel of them pushing inside her, as perfectly aware then as now of where each other’s bodies were, and of exactly what they would do. She missed them, and it was partially my love of Asher, my seeing him as beautiful, that made her regret. The sharing wasn’t only one way; she was getting my feelings, too. But I was myself again. The desire had been well fed, sated, so now I could do what I did best.

I called my magic, pulled it around me like a breath of cool wind against my sweat-soaked skin. Nathaniel and Jason pulled back from me, eyes still unfocused.

Jean-Claude and Asher raised up above each of the smaller men, their eyes as out of focus as the lycanthropes’, but Jean-Claude said, “Ma petite, what . . .”

I reached for him. “Take my hand.”

“Ma petite . . .”

“Now!”

Belle’s power cut through me like a whip in a practiced hand. She’d been using it to tickle my skin; now she meant it to hurt. I writhed on the bed, only Jason’s and Nathaniel’s weight keeping me from flailing. My vision was being consumed by brown flames.

A hand in mine, cool flesh, and the moment Jean-Claude touched me I could see again. I was his human servant, he was my master, we were part of a triumvirate of power. If Richard had been here we could have chased her back to the hell she crawled out of. I sent the call in my head, screaming psychically for Richard, but the answer came against my skin. Jason stared at me, confused. He said, “Anita . . .” I felt Richard’s power in Jason, the link of their pack. The power of the triumvirate leaped between Jean-Claude’s hand, my hand, and Jason’s body. It would work, it had to work, because I could feel Belle Morte rising inside me again, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to chase her back.

I drew my necromancy like a great dark cloud, a storm ready to break, filling the room with the tingling brush of magic. Nathaniel drew back, whispered, “Nimir-Ra.”

The power pressed like lightning in a bottle, but the bottle was my body, and there was no release without one more thing . . . blood. The last time we’d done overt triumvirate magic I’d asked the boys to give me blood, watched as Jean-Claude had sunk fangs into Richard for the first time, but not today. Today I needed the blood, I wanted the blood. I would not share.

I used my free hand to lower Jason’s face towards me, but I didn’t kiss him. My mouth moved down the side of his cheek, and I whispered, “I need blood, Jason. Say yes.”

He’d been holding himself off of me with his arms, but he whispered, “Yes,” and collapsed his upper body across my breasts, his hand sliding along my stomach as if he meant to do other things. I could smell the blood just below the surface of his neck, could taste his pulse like candy on my tongue, and