Anita Blake 22 - Affliction Read Free Page B

deliberately when I felt the weight deep inside my body like the promise of orgasm. ‘Don’t you dare!’
    The power began to retreat. He’d never been able to make me do the full-blown orgasm over the phone with just his voice until he’d been made head of the new American version of the vampire council. I’d known that it meant that all the master vampires had to make a fealty oath to Jean-Claude as their leader, but I hadn’t understood that it came with a power bump, or what that might mean. We’d had no choice. It was us in charge or someone else, and I trusted us.
    ‘I am sorry,
ma petite
, this new power level is a heady thing. I can see why the other masters fear the head of the council, because to be head and take the oaths of their leaders means we have a little bit of all their power. It is a great deal of power.’
    ‘You’re saying if you weren’t a better person that power corrupts and this much power would corrupt you absolutely?’
    ‘I am not always certain that it is I who am the better person,
ma petite
, but together we are the better person.’
    ‘I don’t think I’m always the civilizing influence, Jean-Claude.’
    ‘Nor do I, but through all the metaphysics we have Richard’s conscience, Micah’s sense of fellowship, Nathaniel’s gentleness, Cynric’s sense of fair play, and Jade’s memories of the terrible use that her master made against her of his ultimate power. The people we have gathered and bound to us have helped make us powerful, but they also help me remember that I am not a monster and do not wish to be.’
    ‘Can you not be a monster just by deciding not to be one?’ I asked, and he knew me well enough to know that it wasn’t his impending monsterhood I was worried about.
    ‘You are not a monster,
ma petite
, and if we are both conscious of the possibility I believe we can avoid becoming such.’
    ‘So, what do we need to do before Micah, Nathaniel, and I show up at the hospital?’
    ‘Are you intending just the three of you to go?’
    ‘Well, us and the pilot, yes.’
    ‘You must have bodyguards with you,
ma petite
.’
    ‘If we take guards, won’t the locals be even more sure we’ve come to take them over?’
    ‘Some, perhaps, but if our enemies were to realize that my human servant, her leopard to call, and her King of Beasts were all alone and unguarded, I fear the temptation would be too great to see what would happen to the rest of us if the three of you died.’
    ‘Kill enough of our power structure and the rest die with us; yeah, I remember the theory.’
    ‘It is more than theory,
ma petite
. You have seen Nathaniel and Damian almost die when you drained them of energy. You have felt the loss when Richard and I were injured. Let us not test the theory of what would happen if three of us were injured simultaneously.’
    ‘Agreed, but it has to be minimal guards, Jean-Claude. We’re going to be seeing Micah’s family for the first time. Let’s not scare them too much.’
    ‘You feel confident that you can protect yourself and them with minimal guards?’
    ‘With the right ones, yeah, I do.’
    ‘So confident,
ma petite
. It is both admirable and a little frightening to me.’
    ‘Why frightening?’ I asked.
    ‘Just because you are dangerous, even deadly, and kill easily and well, does not make you bulletproof,
ma petite
.’
    ‘Or bombproof,’ I said. ‘I’m not Superman. I know I can be hurt, and I’ll have Nathaniel and Micah with me. Regardless of the metaphysical fallout, if they got hurt I don’t know what I’d do.’
    ‘And if it were I that were hurt?’
    And there it was: This beautiful, amazing man could still feel insecure, still wonder if I loved him, or at least how much. Since we could all feel each others’ emotions when we weren’t shielding like sons of bitches, it was interesting that we could all still be insecure sometimes. In Jean-Claude, whom I’d once thought the ultimate ladies’ man, it was endearing and