Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [156]
I actually closed my eyes and did the deep-breathing exercises that I’d learned. Draw yourself to the center of your body. Draw yourself in and center yourself down a line that goes into the earth itself. Marianne called it grounding, and it was. Grounding, as in being grounded, solid on your feet, secure.
But it was hard to stay focused, because Jean-Claude’s voice was still there, and closing my eyes didn’t get rid of it. “Who among you has not wished to tame a savage heart, to take a man and change him beyond reckoning? To make him into what you wish him to be? Primo kneels before your beauty, and he is what you will make of him. He will rise and fall to your desires.”
I felt Jean-Claude walk between me and Primo. Even with my eyes closed, even with me trying to anchor myself, I felt him like a hand sweeping all my concentration away. I looked up and saw him touch Primo’s face, the lightest of touches. “Show them that magnificent body.”
Primo shook his head. He did not want to play.
I felt Jean-Claude’s will flex, like a muscle squeezing around Primo. I felt that flare of warmth spill out from him to the bigger man. I had actually stepped closer to them, when Byron pulled me back.
“I wouldn’t advise that,” he said, and again I felt the pull of those soft gray eyes, like being wrapped in the warmest of blankets.
Primo stood, and that turned me back to them. The big man balled his hands into his black, blood-soaked shirt, and tore it like it was paper. Naked from the waist up, he was magnificent, if you were into giants. It wasn’t the hugeness that came from weight lifting. It was just how big he was.
“Who will be his first kiss?” Jean-Claude asked.
I felt the movement before I turned and saw the audience. There was no fear now, Jean-Claude’s voice had taken their fear. All I saw now was eagerness, at worst, uncertainty, as if they just weren’t sure. The first few hands went up with money in them, and once that happened, more followed. No one wants to be first, but no one wants to be left out, either.
Byron pulled gently on my shoulder. “We need to bind that wound, Anita. Let’s go backstage.”
“He’s right,” Nathaniel said, and he was closer now. Close enough that I could see that there was some blood spattered on his lavender shirt. He must have been closer to Primo than I remembered. But I wasn’t thinking well. It was as if I hadn’t been quite myself since I got out here. What was wrong with me?
I nodded. “Okay, okay, yeah.”
I let Byron and Nathaniel lead me away, but my glance stayed turned to the room. The brunette from the alleyway was running her hand up Primo’s skin, and that skin was clean and smooth, no blood, no signs of the struggle. She ran her hands over his skin, but his glance was for me. His eyes held a mute appeal for help, and I didn’t understand why.
Jean-Claude touched the big man’s bare back, and Primo’s face turned back to the woman. There was no confusion on his face now. There was nothing but lust, and in that moment I understood. Jean-Claude was controlling Primo. He was manipulating the vampire more than he had ever manipulated the audience. They’d come for a little bit of lascivious fun. Primo had come to be Master of the City, but instead, he was just another act at Guilty Pleasures. He kissed the brunette like he’d breathe her in, as if to kiss her were life itself. When he let her go and one of the security guards eased her shaking body into her seat, money sprang up in hands throughout the room. Welcome to show business, Primo, I thought.
36
THE DOOR CLOSED, and like magic it was quiet. The backstage area was soundproofed, but it was more than that today. It was as if with the closing of that door I could think again, really think. I knew that proximity to Jean-Claude could make things worse, usually proximity meant touching. Tonight, in the same room was too close.
I shook my head. “What the hell is happening?”
“We have a first aid kit in the dressing rooms,” Byron said. He tried to lead me toward one of the doors on the right.