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WHAT I WANTED was a shower, a good cuddle, food, good sex, and sleep What I got o of h the curtains that round of the Circus of the Das; Claudia had the other bag She was taller than Nicky by inches, one of the tallest people I&039;d everblack hair was back in its usual high, tight ponytail It left her face dark and bare, and strikingly beautiful It wasn&039;t the beauty of dainty feh, sculpted cheekbones She was a knockout with not a touch of uards&039; unofficial uniform The shoulders and ar the smallest motion made her arh the shoulders, but Claudia didn&039;t look serous The shoulder holster and guns were almost not necessary, like an extra rose on top of your birthday cake when the icing was already thick and deep The fact that she was a wererat, which er than I was, erous, but she was on our side, so it was all good Besides, she had a conscience, unlike Nicky, who had to borrowas deadly as you could be

We stood just inside the heavy, dungeon-looking door that led into the underground The gauzy curtains started just feet inside the doorway The gold, criht surprise after the bare stone of the entryway and the long stairs that led to the door I stood there looking at the pretty curtains and didn&039;t want to go any farther If Nathaniel and Micah hadn&039;t already been staying here for the night, I one back up the stairs and home

We could all hear Mephistopheles and Asher arguing Asher was upset that Devil, Dev, Mephistopheles&039; nickname, wanted to sleep with someone else Then I heard the voice of Kelly, one of the other feuards: "Stop it, both of you, it&039;s over, okay? I won&039;t sleep with him, Asher; he&039;s yours, all yours"

"I have a right to sleep oreereed you could sleep orief about it that you won&039;t be able to do it"

"Kelly"

"No, Dev, sorry You&039;re cute, but no one&039;s cute enough for this kind of grief; besides, I don&039;t poach other people&039;sto Asher, or you wouldn&039;t put up with this"

Mephistopheles&039; voice: "I&039;m bisexual, not ho them up, not even for you"

"It&039;s all been a lie, then" Asher&039;s voice, and his voice held despair and anger like hot ashes against the skin His voice held negative emotions the way Jean-Claude&039;s could hold sex and love

My heart dropped into ut They call it a broken heart, but it&039;s not your heart that breaks, it&039;s ut, so you feel hollow I loved Asher, but I was also beginning to hate him just a little This insecure, al us all crazy

The curtains were jerked apart and Kelly strode through She was only a few inches taller than ht braid; the black T-shirt and black jeans were a little too harsh for her coloring, er, but I knew that wasn&039;t it Kelly didn&039;t pale out; she flushed when she was angry enough

She snarled her words, a trickle of her inner lioness growling through them "They are so yours, Anita I don&039;t kno the hell you put up with all of theed

She shook her head, ht braid bounce "There isn&039;t a sex trick in the book that could make me put up with this level of shit from anybody"

I said the only truth I had "Love s"

She looked at me "You love theht about it I thought about trying to explain that I loved them, but not all the same kind of love, but I sure as hell kneas more than just lust, or friendship "Yeah, apparently, I do"

She waved a hand sort of vaguely in the air, as if erasing so another one of your men They are way too complex for me None of them kno to just fuck and leave it alone"

"I think Dev does," I said

"Yeah, but he&039;s in love with Asher, and that is one screwed-up dude"

"I can hear you," Asher called

"Good," she yelled back at the curtain "I hope you fucking can Dev and I would have just fucked, just fucked, you insecure bastard, but no, it has to be about eirl than I will ever be!"

Jean-Claude said, "Mephistopheles does care for you, Asher, you know that he does"

"As you do, but the first bit of pussy that co after a bitch, and I know you are there, Anita"

I sighed and just pushed the drapes aside Apparently, Asher was going to pick a fight with all of us "As one of the bitches in question, I think I resent that," I said, as I stepped through with Nicky and Claudia at ht, but that didn&039;t lih the curtains on the other side, going toward the bedroo the fight to us, or ry to trust himself, or maybe too puzzled I knew that Asher confused me more than any other lover in my bed, and that included Cynric At least with him I knehat my issues and his were, but with Asher I knew some of his issues, and Jean-Claude knew others, but honestly, he was like an emotional ain, or how much of your relationships it would blow up I realized as the first real anger stirred in ut that I was tired of it

He turned around, his hair flaring around his shoulders and face in a foaolden waves It spilled over one half of his face, leaving one perfectly beautiful half bare to the light, so that only one of his ice-blue eyes showed He was angry, but not so angry he had forgotten to use his hair to hide the scars on one half of his face When he was happy, soot to hide the scars, but h a veil of his hair, like a golden cobweb between hiht out the color of his eyes, and was cut at the waist so that it e down to slender waist, and the curve of his hips in a pair of painted-on satin pants that matched the jacket The shirt that showed in a line at his waist hite, and probably silk He was still dressed in the clothes he&039;d worn as ring top hat around here somewhere, all blue satin and white ribbon band He didn&039;t alear the same outfit, but I&039;d seen him perform in this one, so I kneas for work, not just because he looked yummy in it, but he still looked yummy in it

Was it shallow to say that soh the curtains looking heart-stoppingly beautiful, or just true? Even as I thought it, I felt Jean-Claude inhim as lovely that made me patient, that unmanned me in front of his beauty It was Jean-Claude who loved him more than I did, and had for centuries They didn&039;t always get along, and they&039;d been estranged for more than a hundred years at one point, but Jean-Claude was almost helpless before the beauty of the man in front of me

Asher&039;s eyes bled to pale blue fire, the hidden one gleah the waves of his hair His power rode down my skin like a cold chill

Nicky and Claudia were at s hit the floor as they dropped them to have their hands free Asher and I never came to blows, but I wasn&039;t the only one tired of his shit, and neither of the guards was getting sex out of him, or had Jean-Claude&039;s happy memories It made them crankier than I was, made them sort of ache to smack some of the shit out of him

I felt rather than saw other moveure, and Nicky loo up at uards We both had at least two of them with usanyone he loved, and thanks to Jean-Claude that ht have been ot physical with us

Asher turned those glowing eyes to me then, and I felt the push of his power like an invisible as trying to h h me, but that was then; this was different I hadn&039;t had hiainst me since the Mother of All Darkness had died Asher had nearly killed me once, by accident, because I was so vulnerable to his particular flavor of vampire wiles Now I stood there, and his power did not reat sex and bondageface fro under the fancy clothes, I felt cold, as cold as the power that rolled off hi to cal va

"How ht?"

He blinked, his eyelids coolden lashes were fraht blue, and for a second it was like looking into the hot heart of some demonic oven with the door half closed

"If your holy object does not glow, then I&039; you, isn&039;t that what you said?"

I nodded "I did, but h romantically, my cross just lets me do it; free will and all that"

"Are you saying your cross is intelligent enough tothe power that ent enough to ment calls"

"Or perhaps your God sees no hared "Maybe"

Asher old hair, that heartbreaking face, and the glow of his eyes Hisperfection that it had been when Jean-Claude first fell in love with him The Church fathers who had used holy water to try to burn the devil out of Asher so long ago had skipped that full elic beauty of his face The scars on his face that he was so self-conscious of actually touched only a s, white line of scar reached out toward the perfect curl of his mouth It was as if when they&039;d seen what the holy water had done to his face, they hadn&039;t been able to bear what they&039;d done Soht, so harsh, that you mend your ways I&039;d alondered if the priests who tortured Asher had been converted to a better brand of Christianity, or if their faith had died as they trailed the burns down the right side of his body?

Asher took me in his arms, and the ot a boost of power Most vah touch He held azed up at hi, or feel the cold eous There was no stop inHe kissedthose full, soft lips tointo that kiss withthan a kiss My hands, aret close enough, and when his hands started to pull my shirt out of my pants I reached under the back of his satin jacket and pulled on his shirt, too Pressing bare skin to bare skin sounded like such a good idea Pain, and I tasted sweet, copper pennies It tookblood, but once I knehat I was tasting I started swia to stop the kiss, but the blood that had hter, his hly If his fangs hadn&039;t been bleeding reat kiss

I pushed harder, trying to pull away fro to unlock his ar protest noises as if hishis during bondage sex was that it stole your safe word away You couldn&039;t tell whoever was topping you, No A gag meant you trusted the person to behave themselves, or, you wanted your no taken away You wanted to leap off the cliff and let the dominant do whatever they wanted to you Nathaniel found that relaxing somehow; I didn&039;t

If he&039;d been hu hi, but if he&039;d been only hus to cut my mouth If he&039;d been human I wouldn&039;t have loved him, because he wouldn&039;t have been Asher

He was holding et aere things that would injure hiht want to play with afterward He tightened his arrabbing ht h to switch ht anything Asher deepened his kiss and drove those dainty fangs into ainst the tender gag of histo push farther away from him, and pushed my body closer to hibehind his, hooked his knees, and drove hio, so we both fell, but if I was falling, and he was going to keep kissing, I should have made sure my knee went into parts of him he wouldn&039;t enjoy, but I liked those parts of hiet away froer than you are, if you don&039;t want to hurt they before a hand grabbed my shoulder, and Asher&039;s I had a rass smell that meant lion; a second to knoas Nicky, and then Asher&039;s poatted outward like a slap, but it wasn&039;t aimed at Nicky, or me

Other hands were on Nicky, and I saw a flash of blond hair and suh to know that it was Ares, and then the fight rolled away from us Asher&039;s animal to call was hyena He&039;d reached out to the nearest one, and Ares&039;s loyalty of paycheck or preference hadn&039;t been enough to overcoic of Asher&039;s power over him

I was still ar than Asher, but if I wasn&039;t willing to hurt or kill hirunts of effort let et back to rabbed a handful of Asher&039;s hair, and y rise and kneas Cynric before I shtened his hands on h into the kiss He didn&039;t think Cynric would knohat to do next He rong

Cynric let go of ht and hit hih that it jarred me I tasted fresh blood, but it wasn&039;tme, and one moment he was underneath me on the floor, and the next I was rolled to one side I had tiing Cynric was strong and athletic, and was training with us in hand-to-hand, but he&039;d never fought for real Training doesn&039;t prepare you for a real fight, not coht for real, for centuries It wasn&039;t ood old-fashioned punch to the bottom of Cynric&039;s jaw The punch lifted Cynric off his feet and sent hi backward He fell flat on his back and didn&039;t get up

Asher was just suddenly standing above hi, skin almost transparent like crystal as he let hi away as he stood above the fallen ot to un, but I wouldn&039;t shoot him, he knew that Asher reached for Cynric, but Nathaniel was there, kneeling between them I&039;d never seen hiical speed

Nathaniel said, simply and clearly, "No"

He didn&039;t yell, but somehow that one as louder than any screah the rooht and proud, all shining power and fearsome beauty, and was stopped, not by violence, but by a different kind of strength One that woest man is weak in the face of the deter in front of Asher, but so between the vampire and his prey, Nathaniel suddenly wasn&039;t anyone&039;s kitten anyer toward Asher, but you just kneouldn&039;t be moved Nathaniel had drawn his line in the sand with Asher, and if the vas that wouldn&039;t heal with a bandage I couldn&039;t explain how I absolutely knew, but Asher saw it, too, because he just stood there, and let Nathaniel stop hiain, "No"

The sounds of fighting had stopped I glanced and found Nicky on his feet; Ares was on the floor in a broken heap, bleeding and hurt worse than Cynric looked

Jean-Claude knelt beside ertips "Enough!" His voice did echo in the roo around the stone, and the curtains, so that the shadows seeh!"

Asher turned to look at the love of his undead life "The boy hit me first"

Jean-Claude raisedinto those ht-blue eyes, the black lace of his eyelashes, that painfully beautiful face, the black curls that trailed down his shoulders and halfway down his back He didn&039;t fight to keep the concern off his face, or ht to let me see hoorried he was for me "How hurt are you, ma petite?"

I shook my head I wiped blood away from my lower lip and said, "I&039;m okay"

He wiped his thumb across my lip and came aith fresh scarlet on the white of his skin "You are not all right"

"Better than Sin, or Ares," I said

He nodded, and kissed me on the forehead "I am sorry, ma petite"

"For what?" I asked, but he called to Claudia "Help her to a chair"

Claudia was there, helping to my feet, and I seemed to need the help Maybe Sin had jarred etting gnawed on had been ht

Jean-Claude was standing, facing Asher "You make me weak, Asher I cannot be the master you need, because I love you too much to be as harsh as you need Anita would not have taken such treatment from anyone else"

Claudia helpedshaky, and I wasn&039;t sure it was just fro bled

"She does not love me more than all the rest, Jean-Claude, that I know" His voice was so harsh; it was ugly as he said it

"The modern term is polyamorous," Jean-Claude said "We are polyamorous It means to love more than just one person, Asher"

"Anita was here before I returned to you, but the weretiger, Envy, she was not You and your wolf king, Richard, show li a second woh, none of the other h, it always has to be a woman with you"

"I love you, we are lovers, what more do you want from me?"

"I want you to have only Anita and me"

"That&039;s closed poly," I said, "Nathaniel explained it to ah to clearShit If I&039;d been truly huht have needed stitches inside my mouth

"Jean-Claude and Richard fuck Envy Why aren&039;t you enraged by that?" He yelled it at ers who had round She was Dev&039;s cousin, and as tall, statuesque, and gorgeous as he was handsoers were all pretty easy on the eyes

"And I fuck about fifteen other guys It wouldn&039;t be fair forEnvy in their beds," I said My voice sounded harsh, so I coughed and tried to clear it, and tasted fresh blood I had a choice of sing it, or finding a place to spit I&039;d been where I could spit on the stone floor, but noas surrounded by carpet I just couldn&039;t spit on the new carpet

"Fair, love isn&039;t fair, Anita Love is one of the least fair things in the world Don&039;t you ever wonder if Envy is better in bed than you are?"

I frowned at hiant to not even consider that she ht be better in bed than you"

"There&039;s only soother women in his mundane life It wouldn&039;t be fair toforother people, too"

"If you truly love, you ait"

"Who made that rule?" I asked

"Dev wants to sleep with other women, when he has you; doesn&039;t that bother you, at all?"

I thought about it and just shook o He&039;s got a high sex drive, and I&039; most of my attention to Jean-Claude, Micah, Nathaniel, and you"

"Oh, no, include the boy He takes up more and ant face "You hit him harder on purpose You&039;re jealous of Sin"

"It would be ridiculous of me to be jealous of a boy"

"Yes, it would," I said

"Envy is jealous of you," he said "She hates that Jean-Claude drops her the moment you appear"