Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [230]
“It means that the ardeur doesn’t rise on its own anymore.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Jason said, he was studying my face like he was puzzled by my expression.
“That’s the good news,” I said, “the bad news is that the ardeur doesn’t rise, but it still needs to be fed. It won’t remind me, it’s time to be fed. That’s what happened with Damian earlier. I hadn’t fed the ardeur in over twelve hours, a lot over, but it hadn’t raised either.”
“So you didn’t feed it,” Nathaniel said, softly.
“Exactly,” I said.
“And you started sucking energy off of Damian,” he said.
I nodded. “He called inside my head, sort of.”
“Then you fed the ardeur,” Jason said.
I nodded.
“Before you got to the club,” Nathaniel said, and his voice was soft.
“Yes.” I turned and looked at him, and what I saw in his eyes both made me feel bad and pissed me off. He looked hurt, and it wasn’t my fault. But saying it wasn’t my fault that I had to have sex with other men sounded wrong somehow, so I didn’t say it. He had every right to be tired of me fucking everyone but him.
“I did the minimum for a snack, just to tide me over,” I said.
“With who?” he asked, and his eyes were wide and careful.
“Requiem.”
“If you were already feeding off of Damian’s energy, then you needed to have fed the ardeur earlier, right?” Jason said. I think he actually wanted to know, but I think he was also trying to stop a fight before it started. I wasn’t sure we were going to fight, but I wasn’t sure we weren’t, either.
I thought about Jason’s question and finally said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You gain energy through the ardeur, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And now you’re the power source for a new triumverate. Your energy powers Damian especially, and to a lesser extent, Nathaniel?”
“Why a lesser extent for me?” Nathaniel asked.
“You’re alive. You make your own heart beat; Damian doesn’t.”
Nathaniel nodded. “Okay.”
“What’s your point, Jason? I know you have one.”
“Would I have a point?” he said with a grin.
I shook my head. “There’s a very fine mind hiding beind those baby blues. You just don’t let everyone see it, so yeah, you have a point. What is it?”
“Anita is having to eat more often, right?”
We both nodded.
“What if she needs to feed other things more often?”
I think we both took breath to ask what he meant, then we both got it at the same moment. “Oh, shit,” I said.
Nathaniel said, “Oh, God.”
“Before tonight it was every twelve hours, fourteen if I stretched it,” I said. “How much more often could I need to feed?”
Jason spread his hands wide. “How should I know? I’m just pointing it out.”
“It makes sense,” Nathaniel said. “You fed off of Requiem about how long before we fed?”
I thought about it, tried to do the math in my head, and it was harder than normal, because that little flutter of panic was so loud. “Two hours, maybe less.” I shook my head. “No, absolutely, not. I cannot feed the ardeur every two hours.”
“No, but you could keep like snacks in the Jeep and eat every two hours,” Nathaniel said. “Like I said, if you meet one hunger, the other hunger lessens.”
The panic pulled back a little, not much, but a little. “Are you sure that peanuts in the car are going to do it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think so.” He suddenly looked young, and not sure at all.
I hugged him, and he hugged me back. “God, Nathaniel, God, we were already low on daytime feeds. What am I going to do?” I let some of that panic out in my voice.
He squeezed me tighter. “We’ll work something out. I’m sorry, I got mad about Requiem. It’s just . . .”
“That everyone gets me, and you don’t,” I said.
He nodded. Then drew back enough to smile at me, that wonderful smile. He took my hand and placed it on the side of his neck. I felt the marks of my teeth under my fingertips. “This was good, Anita. This was exactly what I wanted in that moment, exactly.”
I had to smile back at him, but the smile didn’t last. “What time is it?”
Jason answered, “Ten o’clock.”
Great. Less than two hours of sleep. Out loud I said, “I fed on you at about two in the