Cerulean Sins - Laurell K. Hamilton [160]
“I do not believe anything has happened to Richard, ma petite.”
“No, you’re afraid he’s going to take a pass on the whole evening. That would make us look damned weak.”
“Damian flies almost as well as I do,” Asher said, “he’ll find them, if they are close.”
“And if they’re not? I mean, Richard is shielding so hard that neither Jean-Claude nor I can reach him. He doesn’t usually do that without a reason, usually a pissy one.”
Asher sighed. “I do not know what to say about your wolf king, but I know that he is not our only problem.” He looked at me, and there was a stubborn set to that handsome face. “I am not being temperamental.”
I didn’t bother to debate him. Asher was temperamental, he just was. “Fine, but the problem is that Musette can smell this lie. She asks me if you’re mine, I say, yes, she doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t believe me because I don’t quite believe it. You aren’t totally mine. It’s too new to feel that real, and that’s what she’s picking up on. She’s practically chased me around the room finding new ways to ask if I’m fucking you, and even that caught me.” I shook my head, and missed the feel of my hair against my skin. I touched the back of my bare neck and it felt vulnerable.
“If it is only for their visit, I understand,” Asher said.
“No, no, damn it, it’s that we haven’t had intercourse.”
Asher looked at me, then raised his gaze to Jean-Claude. “In this she is very American. If you have not had intercourse, you have not had sex with ma petite. It is a very American mind-set.”
“I covered her back in my seed, and that does not count?”
I blushed so suddenly that I felt dizzy. “Can we please change the subject?”
Jean-Claude touched my shoulder, and I jerked away. I desperately wanted comforting, and thus I couldn’t let him do it. I know it made no sense, but it was still true. I’d stopped trying to talk myself out of myself and begun to try and work with what I had. I was a mess of contradictions. Wasn’t everybody? Though admittedly, I might be a teensy bit more contradictory than most.
I walked away from him, from both of them, but that also took me away from the lights, closer to the waiting pools of darkness. I stopped. I didn’t want to walk into the dark. I spoke half turned around, as if I didn’t trust my back to the dark completely. “Why are there plates on the floor?”
Jean-Claude moved towards me, graceful in those amazing boots, the dark coat swirling around him, the embroidery catching the light here and there like faint blue stars. The blue shirt seemed to float from the darkness, bringing his face to my almost painful attention, emphasizing how truly lovely he was. Of course, he’d probably planned for exactly that effect.
His voice seemed to fill the cavern like a warm whisper, “Be at peace, ma petite.”
“Stop that,” I said, and realized I turned my back on the greater darkness, turned towards him like a flower turns to the sun, turned because I couldn’t not look at him. This wasn’t vampire powers, it was the effect he had on me, had almost always had on me.
“Stop what?” he asked, voice still warm and peaceful, like a comforting blanket.
“Trying to use your voice on me. I’m not some tourist to be soothed by pretty words and a good delivery.”
He smiled, then gave a small bow. “Non, but you are as nervous as a tourist. It is not like you to be so . . . jumpy.” The smile had vanished, replaced by a small frown.
I rubbed my hands up and down on my arms, wishing the silk and velvet wasn’t there. I needed to touch my own skin, with my own hands. The cave was around fifty degrees, I needed the long sleeves, but