Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [49]
“Which is why you and he aren’t allowed to be alone together anymore. The other masters saw that as fitting punishment, but expected more severe punishment for Asher. That made Jean-Claude look weak, too.”
“How serious is this, Jason?”
“Jean-Claude has to be seen as bringing his house back to order. He must do things that make him look strong to the others.”
“Are you seriously saying that some other master might challenge Jean-Claude for his territory, just because of this rumor?”
“Remember, Anita, most of these guys come from a time when if a man couldn’t control his wife, he was seen as less than a man. There are vampires out there who are beginning to think that it’s not his power, but yours that makes him strong.”
“I’m his human servant, Jason.”
“Yes, a human servant with her own vampire servant, and her own animal to call. An animal to call that is a different animal from her master’s.”
“It gives Jean-Claude a hold on the leopards, too.”
“No, it doesn’t. Micah and his leopards answer to Jean-Claude out of courtesy and Micah knowing a good thing when he sees it, but he is not drawn to Jean-Claude. He’s drawn to you, just like all the other big cats. That’s your energy, not Jean-Claude’s.”
“But I’m drawn to the wolves.”
“You’re metaphysically tied to Richard, our Ulfric, our wolf king, too. So who’s to say that it’s your tie to Jean-Claude that gives you wolf or your tie to Richard?”
“I’m still missing something, aren’t I?”
“Jean-Claude heard a whisper, not even a rumor yet, that some of the masters are speculating that if you were their human servant they could be as powerful as Jean-Claude, but they would be strong enough to keep you in line.”
“They would, would they?” I said.
“This isn’t funny, Anita.”
It wasn’t like Jason to discourage any attempt at humor on my part. Things were bad, maybe much worse than I knew. “I’m sorry, Jason.”
He smiled at me. “It’s okay, you can’t know what you aren’t told.”
“Why would Jean-Claude not tell me?”
“Because you aren’t going to change. He doesn’t even want you to change, really, but we have to find a way to change the perceptions of what is happening in St. Louis.”
“How?”
“Stop discouraging the rumors that have Jean-Claude making love to all your men. If you shared them with him, then it would explain his patience.”
“But it’s not true.”
He gave me a look.
“A master vamp can smell a lie on me, if they’re powerful enough. I can control my face, my eyes, my body, my voice, but Jason, I don’t know how to control the scent of my skin, or the speed of my pulse. I’m not that good at lying.”
“Almost no one is,” he said.
“Then how do we lie to a bunch of Masters of the City?”
“Don’t lie,” Jason said.
“What does that mean?”
“Let Jean-Claude share the men, or let him sleep with others.”
I stared at him, openmouthed, and finally recovered enough to say, “You volunteering?”
He laughed then, and let himself fall back on the bed with his legs dangling off it. “I’ve told you before, Anita, I asked and he turned me down. He turned me down because he thought you wouldn’t approve.”
“But you don’t like men,” I said.
“Not generally, but Jean-Claude just gets past all the exceptions for me. Maybe it’s being his pomme de sang, but you’d have to be a lot more purely heterosexual than I am not to think about it.”
I remembered Jason telling me this, but I had put it in that box with all the other thoughts I didn’t want to think.
“I thought you told me you experimented with some other guy, and it wasn’t your cup of tea.”
“Let’s just say I like giving more than receiving.”
I must have looked puzzled, because he sat up and kissed me on the forehead. “You are terribly cute for someone who is the first living succubus in recorded history.”
“I am not cute.”
“You are, you just don’t like that you are.”
I don’t know what I would have said to that, because there was another knock on the door. This time it was food. I wasn’t sure I was really hungry anymore, but I was grateful for anything that stopped this conversation.