Crimson Death
Page 106

   Nathaniel held out his hand, and after a moment so did I. We let him wrap his hands around us and pulled him to his feet. I don’t know what I would have said, but it was Nathaniel who spoke first. “Are you going to apologize to Dev, too?”
   “God, yes. I have treated him the worst of the three of you, I think. Jean-Claude, having put up with me for centuries, is ahead in needing me to apologize for so many things, but I owe Mephistopheles something truly . . . I do not know how to apologize to him. I was so cruel, and I let Kane be cruel to him as well.”
   “Are you just apologizing to him, or are you wanting him back in your life, too?” I asked.
   “I did not appreciate how easy Mephistopheles made the relationship. I thought love had to come with fights and drama, so what I had with him couldn’t be love.”
   “And now?” Nathaniel asked it ahead of me.
   “Now I see him in Jean-Claude’s bed, all smiles and a very content cat, and it hurts me.”
   “Does it hurt you to see Jean-Claude with another man, or to see Dev happy with someone else?” Nathaniel asked.
   Asher sighed, and it was for effect, but he was always going to be a bit of a drama queen. It was just part of who he was as a person. You can modify yourself and learn to do better, but your basic personality remains.
   “I am not sorry to see Mephistopheles happy with someone else. He deserves that. I have seen him walking hand in hand with you as well, Nathaniel. I was jealous that all of you had picked up that which I threw away and found it gold where I had seen only dross, but that was at first. I began to see more and more how much Kane had poisoned me against our handsome devil, but it was I who had listened to the poison and let it take root.”
   “You’re taking responsibility for everything. What the hell? Did they put you on antidepressants?” I asked.
   “Antianxiety medication, yes.”
   All three of us stared at him. “Mon ami,” Jean-Claude said, and the surprise showed in his voice.
   Asher started to look embarrassed, but I squeezed his hand and said, “I’m proud of you.”
   It was Asher’s turn to look surprised.
   “Very proud of you,” Nathaniel said.
   “I honestly didn’t expect you to get that much use out of the therapist we made you go see,” I said.
   “I, too, thought you were going because we said you must,” Jean-Claude said, moving up beside us.
   “I admit that at first it was just as you feared, but I was so unhappy without all of you. So many needs, not just wants, but needs that you had all filled for me and now I had nothing. Even Narcissus, in the dungeon and the bedroom he likes a level of humiliation that none of you would tolerate, let alone desire.”
   “If you’re going to apologize to Narcissus, you might want to do it in a neutral setting with bodyguards to protect you,” I said.
   “Surely not bodyguards.”
   “Asher,” Nathaniel said, “we’ve all been going to therapy, too; Narcissus hasn’t.”
   “He is dangerous, mon ami.”
   “Very dangerous,” I said. “You hurt his ego and you damaged his reputation. He’s still fighting to regain the respect of his own hyenas.”
   “Kane says that the hyenas have gone back to their old ways and it is business as usual.”
   “If Kane truly believes that, then he’s delusional in more than one way,” I said.
   “How is he delusional?” Asher asked.
   “That someone as vindictive as Narcissus won’t get his revenge on Kane and you.That obsession is the same thing as love. That if you’re possessive enough and want it badly enough, the person you love will love you as much as you love them. That any one person could keep you content.”
   “Even I thought that the right person could do the last part.”
   I shook his hand where he still held mine. “You were delusional, too, remember?”
   He smiled. “Yes, I do.”
   “We really do need to get going, Anita,” Nathaniel said. I looked at him and there was a new, more serious person looking back at me. He’d probably been stronger and more sure of himself for a few months, but I hadn’t quite realized it until this moment when he stood there holding someone he’d been in love with enough to want to offer a ring, and he was ready to leave him and the apology of epicness behind.
   “My words have not moved you,” Asher said.
   “The apology is great, almost perfect, and if you can do the same for Dev, then we can all sit down when we come home and talk about being together again, but I’m still going to Ireland.”
   “Do you think I am lying?”
   “No, but we will be with the police and one of the good things about vampires being known under the law is that they have to obey the law, too, so if she tries to harm Damian, or me, or Anita, the human authorities can come down on her.”
   “What can they possibly do to her?”
   I said, “I keep hearing about her castle by the sea. I wonder what would happen with a few well-placed bombs, or even missiles. We are going to be playing with military friends.”
   “Blowing her lair up would not rescue Damian, or Nathaniel, or you, but only make you die with her.”
   “I’m just explaining that once we can bring the full weight of human intervention into vampire hunting, the options get really fun.”
   “Mon ami, the Harlequin and other bodyguards are also going with them. It is not merely human police and soldiers who will be protecting them.”
   “Then I must be content with that.”
   “Yeah, you must,” Nathaniel said.
   Asher looked at him. “You are very angry with me.”
   “Yes, I am. Did you expect that I would accept your apology and everything would just go back to the way it was?”
   Asher did that long blink that meant he was thinking. “Perhaps.”
   “I’ve had months of you not with me. I didn’t just curl up into a corner and wait for you. I never dreamed you’d work through your issues and be willing to get on medication.” Nathaniel let go of Asher’s hand. “None of us expected that from you.”
   “It is a sign of how much I want to be well enough to be with you again.”
   “It’s a sign of how unhappy you are with just Kane,” Nathaniel said.
   As if his name had conjured him, Kane swept the drapes aside and strode into the room. If I could see him objectively, he was tall, dark, and sort of handsome. Okay, maybe he was handsome, but the scowl on his face and the sourness of his energy just sort of ruined the packaging for me. His hair was almost black, but cut short and styled close to his head so that the hairdo looked like a hundred you see every day. He was attractive but in a totally mundane sort of way. He looked like someone that my college roommate might have wanted to date, but not someone that should have been Asher’s main squeeze. Maybe it was having so many memories of him with Jean-Claude; after that, everyone else looked sort of ordinary. Okay, not everyone. Nathaniel wasn’t, or Micah, or . . . maybe it was love that made people more than ordinary, and I so did not love Kane.