Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [47]
“What do you mean, help Jean-Claude? Isn’t it you and me that are in the mess?”
“This story is going to cause Jean-Claude to lose serious face among the other Masters of the City,” Jason said.
“When we come back not married, they’ll know it was all lies.”
“If you were a normal human servant you would have a lot less freedom, Anita. Some of the masters see your freedom as Jean-Claude being sort of pussy-whipped.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Jason held his hands out, as if to say, Don’t shoot the messenger. “Remember, most of the masters are men and most of them come from an age when women knew their place, so there’s that problem, but most of them also see human servants as very much servants.”
“Are you saying that I’m making Jean-Claude look bad in front of the other masters?”
“Remember when Jean-Claude invited all the main Masters of the City that he sort of trusted to the big party?”
“I remember.”
“They were supposed to meet you that night. They had brought pomme de sang candidates for you to taste.”
The entire thought of it all had made me so uncomfortable that I’d dreaded the night. The idea was that I could simply dance with each candidate, turn them down as not my cup of tea, and be done with it. That way I didn’t have to be alone with any candidate, and I could politely refuse them all. It had seemed like a good plan until my version of the ardeur had shown itself so unpredictable.
“We decided I was too dangerous to ‘taste’ the candidates. I would have been introduced to everyone, but that would have been it.”
“But you never even got to be introduced, did you?”
“You know I didn’t.” I sounded sullen even to myself.
Jason went down on his knees in front of me. “Don’t be mad, but don’t you see how it made things look for Jean-Claude? He had commanded his servant to do something and she didn’t. You didn’t even bother to make the grand entrance with him.”
“I was a little busy,” I said.
“I know you and Asher were confronting some very bad vampires—the leaders of the vampire dance troupe that had damn near rolled every Master of the City in that audience. Jean-Claude and you, and Auggie, saved the day, kept them from eating us all.” He put his hands over mine.
“Asher and I were negotiating with the leaders.”
“Yes, and the other masters were okay with that. Jean-Claude did it deliberately to show how much he trusted Asher’s powers.”
I widened my eyes at him.
“Asher is seen as weak, Anita. A very weak second-in-command, there only by the grace of love and centuries of friendship.”
My hands were still under his. He was touching me, but I wasn’t touching him back. I didn’t like this conversation and I really didn’t like that Jason was beating around the bush. He was leading up to something. The more careful he was, the more I was certain I wouldn’t like it.
“Asher proved himself when Jean-Claude nearly died in December.”
Jason nodded and squeezed my hands; when I still didn’t respond he dropped his hands away from me, and just stayed kneeling. “He was ruthless and effective, and he surprised a lot of people.”
“Not me,” I said. “I knew he was tougher than everyone thought.”
“So tough he nearly killed you.”
I stood up and walked a little distance away from him. “Jean-Claude told me to feed and go meet the other masters.”
“Asher was food, I know that. But food doesn’t usually bite back.”
“You’re creeping up on some idea here, Jason. It’s not like you to play twenty questions so gently. You usually go straight for the meat of the problem.”
He stood up. “Okay, if you don’t like the gentle approach, we can skip to the point.”
“I wish you would.”
He gave me a look. “Liar.”
“All right, I don’t want to hear your point, because I think I won’t like it, but I’d rather just hear it and get it over with than have this long lead-up.”
Jason made his point, holding up a finger for each part of it. “You have more freedom than any human servant is ever allowed. You dissed the other masters when you didn’t appear for the party, especially when they knew you were