Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [84]
“Healing and a little facial reconstruction, you are good,” he said, and his tone made it not a compliment.
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I know,” and those two words just sounded tired. “Jean-Claude told me once that he couldn’t remember what he and Asher looked like before Belle, but he’d seen others before and after. Belle never chose people who weren’t pretty, but some afterward were more beautiful than before. It wasn’t a common thing even in her bloodline, but it happened often enough to start the legend that it always happened to her blood.”
I looked at him. “And when did you and Jean-Claude find time for all this information sharing?”
“When you deserted us for more than half a year. We had a lot of time to talk, and I had a lot of questions.”
I couldn’t argue with the “deserted us” part, so I ignored it. “I asked him once if his body and face were vampire tricks, and he said no.”
“Vampire tricks aren’t real,” Richard said, “this,” and he motioned at Damian with his good arm, “is.”
“But Damian’s been a vampire for a long time; if this kind of change was going to kick in, then it should have done it by now.”
“I’m not of Belle’s line,” Damian said. He was touching his face with just the tips of his fingers, as if that made it less awful, or something.
“But Anita is,” Richard said. “Through her ties to Jean-Claude, she is a part of Belle’s line.”
“I’m not a vampire,” I said.
“You feed like one,” he said.
Anger was finally rearing its ugly comforting head. If I could get mad, I’d feel better, and Richard’s presence wouldn’t bother me so much. “You’re as tied to Jean-Claude as I am. It’s only luck that’s kept the ardeur from you, Richard. Next time we get an extra special treat, maybe it’ll be your turn.”
“I can’t heal with sex, and it looks like you can.”
“Did you raise the munin when you were with Damian?” Dr. Lillian asked.
I shook my head. “I’d have noticed Raina being around. She’s sort of hard to miss.” I heard a distant echo in my head, Raina’s “ghost” saying, so glad you noticed. I shut that particular metaphysical door tight, locked it, and bound it with silver chains. All metaphorical, or metaphysical, but all real just the same. A part of Raina lived inside me, and nothing I could do seemed able to rid me of her completely. I could control her to a point, but not exorcise her from me. God knows I’d tried.
“If it wasn’t Raina, then one of you was able to heal during the sex,” Dr. Lillian said. She said it like it was just logical. Two plus two is four, that kind of thing.
I was shaking my head long before I realized I was doing it. Shaking my head over and over. “I didn’t do this.”
“Then who did?” Richard asked. His face wore the arrogance of his anger. When he looked like that, he was both more handsome somehow, and less approachable. It was one of the few times I was sure that Richard was aware of just how handsome he was, when he was angry enough to want to strike out and cause someone pain. Why does anger make people pretty? Rage doesn’t. Rage makes you ugly, but a little anger, that just seems to add spice. One of nature’s cruelties, or maybe it’s to keep us from killing each other more often.
“I don’t know, but he didn’t look like this after the sex. He didn’t look like this in the bathroom when Mor . . . she-who-made-him popped up. He didn’t look like this in the hallway,” I took a step closer to Richard, “or the bedroom,” another step, “or the living room.” Another step, and I was as close to him as I could stand and still see his face comfortably. He was almost a foot taller than I was, there were angle issues.
“The closest person connected to Jean-Claude in this room at that moment wasn’t me.”
He looked down that perfect profile at me. “I didn’t go near him.”
“Jean-Claude might know the answer to this,” Micah said. He was behind me, not too close, but close enough that if I’d done something stupid, I wondered if he’d planned on interfering.