Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [71]
I didn’t know how to fight against nothing. I didn’t know what to do. We were dying, and I didn’t know what to do.
20
JEAN-CLAUDE CALLED IN my mind, “Ma petite,” but the fear swelled upward and covered his words. I knew he was talking in my head, but I couldn’t understand what he said. The fear was drowning him out like one radio station overwhelming another. His words were like the ghost sound of a distant station, just under the sound of the terror, but all I could hear, all I could feel, was Moroven’s fear.
Nathaniel collapsed against me, mouth still open, gasping as if the air were too thick to breathe. Me dying was one thing, but it wouldn’t just be me. Nathaniel and Damian lay across my lap, their hair mingling like bright and dark ribbons.
Gregory knelt in front of me; I’d almost forgotten he was there. I usually had trouble reading his face when he was in half-leopard form, but this face, this face I could read. Even under spotted fur and yellow kitty-cat eyes, the hunger showed through. Not lust, hunger. He said in that growling voice, “They smell like food.”
“I know.” Richard’s voice, and it turned me to him. I stretched my hand out toward him. He’d dragged us out of Damian’s memory, maybe he could drag us out of this.
He looked . . . unhappy, angry. I let my hand begin to fall, but he took it, at the last minute, he took my hand in his. Instantly there was the sweet scent of forest and the musk of fur. The fear receded a little, like a wave of the ocean pulling back, but there was another wave just off shore, and you knew it was coming.
I could talk now, and what I said was, “Help me.”
Jean-Claude’s voice swelled inside me, pushed back the fear enough so I could hear his words. “You must raise the ardeur, ma petite, you must. She does not understand a clean lust, free of pain and terror. Use our Richard, and I will be able to join my powers to yours, and we can defeat her.”
I stared up into the face of the man that Jean-Claude had so causually called “ours,” and knew he wasn’t. I could smell that wonderful musk, the calm of pine and leaf mold, but the look on his face was anything but calm. His brown eyes were full of a fine, shimmering anger. Touching his hand like this, I should have felt that anger dance over my skin, but I didn’t. All I could feel was Moroven’s power like a storm hovering over me. The only emotion left in me was terror.
“Ma petite, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” I managed a whisper.
“Then what is wrong?”
I wanted to ask him, What am I supposed to do, wrestle Richard to the floor and ravage him? But all that came out was, “Can’t, I can’t.”
“Can’t what, ma petite?”
“Can’t feed off Richard.” It seemed silly to say that out loud while staring up into that handsome, angry face, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to say it silently in my head. Talking was hard enough.
“Richard has agreed to this, ma petite.”
I shook my head. “Don’t believe it, he’s angry.”
Richard looked even angier, but he said, out loud, “Jean-Claude’s telling the truth, Anita, I agreed to feed the ardeur.” His face was dark and frowning with his rage. He’d agreed, but he didn’t want to do it. Come to think of it, neither did I. I did not want to go down this metaphysical path again. We’d worked so hard to separate ourselves out, and sex with Richard would bind us close again. I didn’t want that, wasn’t sure my heart would survive being broken again. There’s only so much emotional super glue in a person’s soul, after that everything just stays broken.
“I cannot hold Moroven’s fear off forever, ma petite, you must act before my strength fails us all.”
“Easy for you to say,” and it almost sounded like my own voice, not breathy with terror, but nicely sarcastic. Good. “It’s not your lily-white ass on the line.”
“If I could fly to you,