Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [153]
The marks between Jean-Claude and I were wide open and had been when Primo attacked me. When he bit me, he wasn’t just tasting me. Blood of my blood, wasn’t just a pretty phrase. It was real. I understood in that moment that with the marks cranked open, to take blood oath to one was blood oath to both. I could control the dead, and Jean-Claude had power over any vampire that took blood oath, or that he’d made. Primo had been overwhelmed with a double whammy. Because in that instant, my blood had been Jean-Claude’s, and his mine. I had a moment to wonder what all this might be doing to our reluctant Richard, but the thought didn’t last. I had enough problems of my own without borrowing his.
I looked down at the big man at our feet and knew that Jean-Claude was utterly sure of him. Utterly certain that Primo’s oath to us would hold him. It wasn’t like reading minds. I just knew that Jean-Claude was no longer worried about Primo. He was confident of him. I wasn’t.
I turned to look at Jean-Claude, to try to persuade him of just how dangerous Primo could still be, but of course, my being willing to turn away from Primo said that in my way I was certain of him, too. And that was wrong. He was like walking rage with a big muscular body to back it up. That wasn’t safe. That could never be safe.
I think I would have turned back to Primo, but I was suddenly looking at Jean-Claude, and the world vanished. There was nothing but Jean-Claude. Black velvet had been made into a waist-length military jacket with silver buttons down the front and a high stiff collar to frame a white mound of cravat. A silver tie tack with a sapphire in its head pierced the white at his throat. The jacket fit the spread of his shoulders, emphasized his slender waist, and took the eye to the black leather pants that looked as if they’d been braided together on the sides, as if he hadn’t so much slipped them on as been bound into them. The boots were only knee high, made of the same rich dark velvet as the coat. I was bespelled and I knew it, and I couldn’t help but stare, but I left his face for last, because I knew in what was left of my self-control that if I looked into his face, I would truly be lost.
One slender hand came up to my lowered face. That hand surrounded by a spill of white lace. He touched my chin, the barest of touches, and began to raise my face upward. It was a delicate touch, I could have fought or stopped him, but I didn’t want to. It had taken all of my willpower simply to avoid his face at first glance.
His black curls mingled with the velvet until it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. His eyes were huge and beautiful, a color darker than the sapphire at his throat. His eyes were as dark as blue could be and did not hold a single shade of black. His face was a pale perfection like a painting almost finished. He was pale, and the fingers against my face were like ice. He was like some pale sculpture waiting for someone to breathe it to life, except for the dark glitter of those eyes. Those eyes held all the life in the world.
His voice was low and soft, like fur sliding across my skull. “Ma petite, let me in. Let me in. Do not leave me to the cold.”
I actually opened my mouth to say, of course, but closed it. Once before when we’d been less bound than this, he’d taken energy from me without drawing blood. That had been because big bad vamps were in town and he needed to not look weak in front of them. And if they were to find out that his human servant didn’t allow him to take blood, he would have looked weak indeed.
He needed to feed, desperately so. “Why?” I found my voice, hoarse and not at all like the smooth pull of his. “Why is your energy so low?”
“I have done what I could from a distance to make your day easier.”
I reached up and laid my fingers against his cheek. “You’ve drained