Crimson Death
Page 17

   “So I’m not important at all,” she said.
   “You said it. I didn’t,” Ricky said.
   “What are your orders when a principal is in danger?” I asked.
   “To protect them at all costs and to take out the threat,” Ricky said.
   “Tonight that threat was you, Cardinale. If they’d come to the door before the light blinded us all you’d be shot, if not dead, so get jealous all you want, but don’t do it on the clock where security is going to have to help deal with it, because it’s going to get you dead.”
   “He was half naked and covered in blood down his back. How was I supposed to know that you hadn’t already fucked each other?”
   Damian spoke for the first time. “I have never cheated on you, Cardinale, never.”
   “But you were sleeping with her when you started sleeping with me.” And she pointed a very accusing finger at me. I’d have said it was overly dramatic, but after all the glowing and holy objects, it wasn’t that dramatic.
   “I never lied about Anita or anyone else, Cardinale. I never lied to you about anything.”
   “I can’t stand the thought that you want to be with other people.”
   “I don’t want to be with other people.”
   “But you think Anita is beautiful, and you think Echo is beautiful, and you admire Fortune.”
   “I admire beautiful women with a look, or a glance, but that is all.”
   “That is not all you do with the customers that you take blood from.”
   “That is not all you do with the ones you drink from either.”
   “But I don’t enjoy it; it is just food, and it is more than that to you.”
   I felt like we were in the middle of an old fight, and I was tired of it already.
   “I’ve told you that feeding was all the softness I had in my existence for centuries, so it means more to me than simple food. It was all the kindness She-Who-Made-Me would allow me.”
   “Why am I not enough for you?” She yelled that part.
   “Because I cannot feed on another vampire! Because it is my job to seduce the crowd and choose someone to feed upon. It is part of the show here, and it gains us money and more customers, which makes us more money, and that is what this club is supposed to do.”
   “I cannot watch you flirt with all the women night after night, and know that if I would allow it you would fuck them while you feed.” She wasn’t yelling, but her hands were in fists as she fought to keep her voice even.
   “I would not have public sex with strangers, Cardinale. That is very different from feeding on blood in public,” he said.
   “But you’d fuck Anita in private if I allowed it, wouldn’t you?”
   “It’s a girl trap,” I said out loud.
   Damian looked at me and said, “I know, but I don’t care.”
   “Do not drag me into this further than I already am.”
   “I’m sorry, but you’re already in it, because she won’t let you out of it,” he said.
   “What’s happening?” Roger the guard asked.
   “He’s about to tell the truth,” Ricky said.
   “Why is that bad?” Roger asked.
   “It just is.”
   “Shut up,” Cardinale said. “This is between Damian and me.”
   “Then have the conversation with just the two of you,” I said, and started for the door. Surely with two security guards to back me up, I could get out of the office without Cardinale doing something we’d all regret.
   “No, if he wants you that badly, I want you in the room when he says it.”
   Fuck, just fuck. “You know, this is your relationship, Cardinale, not mine, so I don’t really care what you want. I’ve got a night off, and I’m going to go enjoy it while you let your jealousy issues wreck your relationship on your own damn time.” I was at the door with Ricky and Roger parting the way, so I was in the doorway with them behind me, between me and Cardinale, the possible threat, like good bodyguards.
   I was really hoping that Damian would let me get out of the room before he answered her, but I knew . . . hell, I could feel that he’d reached a level of anger with the situation where he wanted it to blow up, to be done. I could feel his loneliness now; whereas before he just told me he was lonely, now I felt it. Loneliness, anger, frustration, and . . . need. A need beyond sex, or blood, or even love; there were so many reasons I shielded around Damian. Shit.
   “I’ve already asked Anita to be my lover again, and if sleeping with her and Nathaniel will stop these nightmares, then I’ll do that, too.”
   I hesitated between one step and another, then kept going. I wanted out of the room, out of the mess, out of their relationship, but more than that, I wanted away from Damian’s emotions before he dragged me further into whatever was happening between them.
   Cardinale yelled after me, and the door was open so some of the customers would likely hear it. “Are you and Nathaniel both going to fuck him now?”
   Ricky and Roger had closed in behind me like a movable wall of security. I stopped walking so abruptly that Roger almost ran into me, but Ricky said, “Don’t do it, boss.”
   “Do what?” Roger asked.
   “Just walk away, boss,” Ricky said.
   Cardinale screamed, “Are you that much better in bed, Anita? Is that it? Is that why everyone wants you, because you just fuck so good?”
   “Shit,” Ricky said, softly under his breath.
   Even Roger had caught up, because his eyes were wide and he asked, “Can we shoot her, or do we have to do nonlethal?”
   “Nonlethal if you can,” I said, and turned around to look back into the room. Cardinale’s eyes were starting to gleam the way jewels do when light comes in behind them. My cross wasn’t glowing yet because it might just be her anger showing. Damian stood by his desk, his pale upper body still smooth and bare with his long hair falling straight and crimson around all that white skin. Our eyes met, and the marks between us let me feel the defeat in him. He didn’t know what to do with Cardinale anymore; it wasn’t that he didn’t love her, because he did, but he wasn’t “in love” with her anymore, because she’d beaten that out of him with the constant jealousy, the recriminations, the accusations, and the lack of faith in him and their love.
   Out loud I said, “What do you want me to do, Damian?” I felt so many emotions from him and knew he was deeply conflicted. Part of him would be relieved if it were over between them, but part of me—I mean, him—would miss her and what they had together. I looked at the tall woman standing there with her amazing cheekbones, knowing it wasn’t from dieting but from starving most of her human life. She’d come to being a vampire partly so she’d never be hungry again and because she was beautiful enough for the Master of London to want her in his bed forever. But he’d never made her feel secure; she was just one lover among many. He’d never promised her otherwise, but she’d done the same thing to him she was doing to Damian, so that in the end, no matter how lovely she was to look at, the sex wasn’t worth the emotional blowups. Damian knew all that about her, so suddenly, so did I. There was a long list of bad boyfriends in her human past who had taught her she was okay for a lark, a week, a month, months, but eventually there’d be someone else who caught their eye.