"Yes, it should work that way," I said.
"Then she's holding people against their will, and that's illegal, right?"
"Yes," I said, studying his happy face.
"Then the police will help us free the people I left behind."
"Theoretically," I said.
He shook his head, and his hair was still so wet it clung to his neck and shoulders rather than moving with the gesture. "Or maybe just telling the Roane that She-Who-Made-Us has lost control of the city and can't stop an invasion of foreign vampires will be enough."
"Enough for what?" Nathaniel asked.
"Only fear of her power and obedience to their ruler keep the seal folk from fighting against their enslavement."
"You think once you tell them she's losing power, that will change," I said.
The happiness in his eyes changed to something closer to rage. It flashed in green fire for a moment deep in his eyes, and then he was smiling again. "Yes, yes, they will rise up if they think they can win."
"You seem very certain," I said.
He swung Nathaniel's hand again. "I feel very certain of a lot of things today. I didn't when I first woke up for the night. I didn't when you came to talk to me, but somewhere in all the talking I just started feeling better and better. I think it's seeing the two of you." He actually raised Nathaniel's hand as if he meant to kiss it, then stopped himself with a bemused smile on his face. "This isn't like me at all, is it?"
"Nope," I said.
"No," Nathaniel said.
He looked lost for a moment and then laid his lips gently to the back of the other man's hand. He rose back up and started walking down the hallway with us, still hand in hand. "I don't care. I feel . . . hopeful for the first time in centuries. We can do this."
"Do what?" I asked.
"Stop the vampires in Dublin and rescue everyone that I left behind." He sounded so certain. Nathaniel looked at me and I gave a small head shake. We'd let Damian have his moment. Who were we to rain on someone's moment of unadulterated happiness, hope, and certainty of victory? Moments like that were too rare to spoil. Usually they came with good antidepressants, or alcohol, that rush after great sex, or the first blush of being in love when all things seem possible, and apparently, vampire mind tricks. Who knew?
23
DAMIAN LOUNGED IN the second big chair by the electric fire in Jean-Claude's room. He was still smiling, happy, and relaxed. He sat in the chair wearing nothing but the towel and even his mannerisms were more like Nathaniel's, or maybe Jason's, or even Jean-Claude's if he was trying for nonchalant. Either this was a part of Damian that I'd never seen, or he was being seriously impacted by whatever Nathaniel had done to him.
Jean-Claude sat in the other big chair across from him and asked, "Is this a problem, or a desired result, ma petite, mon minou?"
Nathaniel and I exchanged a look. He gave a small shrug. I answered, "Sort of both."
"Explain, please," he said.
"Damian was wishing that Anita and I would desire him the way we desire Micah."
"Not as you desire me?" Jean-Claude asked.
I don't know what Nathaniel would have said, because Damian said, "I could never be you, Jean-Claude. No one is you."
Jean-Claude gave a small bow that seemed to involve just his neck and barely his shoulders. He made it look utterly graceful. I'd have looked like I was having a spasm in my neck. "A pretty compliment from a pretty man."
I waited for Damian to get stiff and vaguely offended, but he laughed, damn near giggled, and did a bow from his waist while sitting down, and damn me if it wasn't graceful and very sexy. That might have been helped along by the fact that he let go of his towel to sweep his hand out and down as if he were holding a hat to touch to his chest, so the towel slid into his lap, leaving the tops of his hips bare. The towel covered the tops of his thighs and the critical area of his lap, but not much else as he settled back into the chair.
"You have never taken a compliment of that nature from me with such grace, Damian," Jean-Claude said.
The other vampire smiled. "I am sorry for that, Jean-Claude, truly."
"You are comfortable with me saying you are pretty, attractive even?"
"You are one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen. Why would it not be a compliment coming from you? Most people live their whole lives waiting for someone like you to want them."
Jean-Claude narrowed his eyes and took in a long breath, and let it out even slower. "I do see your problem, my pretties."
"I did not mean to do this," Nathaniel said.
"It's like he's drunk," I said.
"Not drunk, ma petite, but freed of his usual doubts and personal issues. You have had our werewolf, Richard, almost this relaxed through my powers."
I thought about it, and finally nodded. "I have, but it didn't last like this, or get . . . stronger."
"Is he getting more at ease as time goes on?"
Nathaniel and I both nodded.
"That is interesting. I offered the ability to be at ease to Richard and he agreed, but he could not let himself sink into it completely. He fought against it, because so much of what vexes him are lines that he does not wish to cross."
"Richard would so do you, if he could get out of his own way," Damian said, and he laughed again.
"Bluntly put, but I believe he would have done so at least once by now if his issues were not entrenched so deeply in his psyche."
"What man doesn't like dishing it out?" Damian said.
"He does seem intoxicated," Jean-Claude said, looking at us.
"Why is it just Damian and not all three of us?" I asked.
"Nathaniel was in control. In effect he played master so he would not be . . . intoxicated."
"Okay, why isn't it hitting me?"
"For the same reason that my powers do not intoxicate you."
"And that reason would be?" I asked.
"You are a master in your own right, as is Richard."
"So we're powerful enough to fight off the effects?" I asked.
"And I believe that neither of you wishes the effects to be permanent."
"You are too far away," Damian said, holding his hands out to th
e room.
"Whom are you addressing?" Jean-Claude asked.
Damian blinked and seemed to have to think harder than the question warranted. "No offense, Jean-Claude, but I was addressing Anita or Nathaniel."
"Do you have a preference for which of them comes to hold your hand?"
Again it seemed to require more thinking than it should have, but finally Damian said, "I don't . . . I don't think so, but I very much want to touch one of them."
"He was himself when we first got to the room after he woke up," I said.
"Go hold his hand, ma petite. Let us see what happens."
I wasn't sure how much I liked being an experiment, but I went because Damian's face was losing that happy glow. It was almost as if sadness were seeping in as the happiness faded. Surely there had to be more than two choices for him. What had Nathaniel's mind-fuck done to Damian?
I took his outstretched hand in mine; there was a hum of power as our fingers touched, and as more of our hands touched, the power rose until when we settled our palms against each other's, it was like a jolt of electricity, except it didn't feel bad; it felt good. It sped my pulse until I had to fight not to pant as if I'd been kissing someone too long and too hard, and forgotten to take a deep enough breath.
"Wow," I said, "that's new."
"That was amazing," Damian said; his face was flushed as if he'd taken more blood from somewhere.
"What were you thinking when you touched him, ma petite?"
"Nothing. I mean that I didn't like being the experiment and that I didn't want him sad. I preferred him happy to sad, or something like that."
"And you, Damian, what were you thinking?"
"That I wanted the power to rise between us. I want what Nathaniel did to raise our power level."
"Why?" Jean-Claude asked.
"To have more power, of course." He started rubbing his thumb along my knuckles as he said it.
"Most vampires would mean that, but you do not. You said the expected. We want the truth."
"I . . ." He looked up at me, then at Nathaniel, who was still standing in front of the fireplace halfway between the two chairs. He held his hand out mutely for the other man.
Nathaniel moved toward us, but Jean-Claude said, "Let him answer the question first, mon minou."
I squeezed Damian's hand and said, "The truth, Damian, just tell us."
He swallowed hard enough that I could watch his throat work and see the pulse in the side of his neck. He was a vampire; they didn't always have a pulse, and they certainly didn't have such a rich, throbbing beat in the side of their necks.