“I must close the ties between us more than this, ma petite, or one hunger could feed into another.”
“Understood,” I said.
“Why is the hunger so much worse?” Richard asked.
“Jet lag can make such things worse,” Jean-Claude said.
“Now you tell me,” I said.
“I did not dream you would leave your hotel room without feeding Damian.”
I couldn’t argue that; it had been careless, even stupid.
“I will think upon what you have shown me, ma petite. I will talk to Pierette and Pierrot since they traveled to the Emerald Isle more than any of the other Harlequin. Perhaps they will have more insight to share.”
“Have Sin help you. Pierette talked to him a lot easier than I thought she would talk to anyone.”
“I will include our young prince.”
Damian pulled me out of my seat and drew me back into the dimness of the rear of the van. His eyes glowed brighter without the sunlight to compete with them. Nathaniel came with us.
After pushing Richard back onto the bed, Jean-Claude stroked the thickness of his hair to one side, so he could see the strong, clean line of his neck. In the van we didn’t have enough room for even two of us to kneel comfortably. Nicky helped us fold up some of the seats, as if we were making room for getting a delivery.
I, we, felt Jean-Claude’s bloodlust and underneath that, or entwined with it, was another kind of lust. It was as if something about my triumvirate powering up was affecting how much feedback we got between both groups.
Richard rose and glared at the other man. “No,” he said, as if we couldn’t all feel exactly how negative his reaction was to Jean-Claude seeing him as a lust object.
Dev touched my arm, which made me look at him. “I need to know if it’s as bad as the glimpses I’m feeling,” he said as if that explained anything.
“If what is that bad?” I asked.
“Richard and Jean-Claude.” He held on to my arm, and I could suddenly feel his energy like warm sunlight. It seemed to chase away the anxiety that had automatically attached to Richard’s attitude. I realized it was just that: automatic. He behaved a certain way, and I felt a certain way. Jean-Claude had similar problems with him. It was as if he’d conditioned all three of us, himself included, to function badly together. I’d always assumed that Dev being so easy to deal with meant he wasn’t a deep thinker, or a deep feeler, or somehow by being easy and fun, he was less. In that moment of warm clarity, I realized that Dev was easier because he simply had fewer hang-ups than the rest of us.
Richard snarled, “Get out of our heads, Devereux!” The moment he used the last name, I realized that bit of knowledge had to have come from my memories in Ireland. I hadn’t shared that specifically with Richard, which raised the question of how much had just quietly been transferred between us all without anyone knowing.
“No,” Dev said, “don’t you go all serious, too.”
“The serious tones down the ardeur,” I said.
“But it will need to be fed today,” Nicky said, “and you need to pick the time, not get surprised by it in the middle of a police investigation.”
He had a point.
“Everyone has a point, but me,” Richard said, and just like that, he wasn’t pretty enough to overcome his deficits. I wasn’t perfect, God knew, but I tried harder than this. That thought went through everyone’s head, which didn’t help anything.
Dev stopped touching me, and things were a little less bright. It felt depressing, like Jean-Claude, Richard, and I were just trapped on the hamster wheel of the same damn issues we’d been working on forever. I did my best to think how much I appreciated Richard working through his issues in therapy, but underlying all of it was the pattern the three of us had set up, a pattern that didn’t work.
Dev was texting someone on his phone, which made me want to grab his phone and throw it. This was not the time or place, damn it! We were having a crisis.
“Ma petite, you must find a way to be less loud in our heads.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean . . .”
“It’s the truth, Jean-Claude. It’s just the truth. No amount of therapy is going to fix the three of us,” Richard said. He was sitting up in bed now, with the sheet tucked around his waist, and all that muscled beauty as useless to Jean-Claude as it was to me even though one of us was sitting right next to him and the other was half a world away.
Tired of waiting for our impromptu therapy moment, Damian had pulled Nathaniel to him. They kissed, but Nathaniel turned his face to the side and offered his neck. The fang marks on it from yesterday showed against his skin.
“Nathaniel can’t donate blood today after all you took yesterday,” I said.
Nathaniel’s eyes sprang back to life like a lilac spark. I felt a spurt of anger from him. It reminded me of the anger he’d shown to Bobby Lee back in St. Louis. I did not want a repeat of that. Damian kissed the side of his neck just over the unhealed bite mark, and then raised his head to say, “She’s right, Nathaniel. I took blood from you four times yesterday. You must rest.”
“Four times?” Nicky said. “He needs red meat and lots of it.”
“They both do,” Damian said.
Nicky looked at him and quirked an eyebrow. “How many times?”
“Anita has two bites.”
“Six times, impressive.”
“It’s all about blood pressure,” I said, “more blood, more pressure.”