back in that torch-lit room. I could feel their hands on me, but all I could see was what Belle showed me.

"Touch her bare skin," Auggie said.

Asher and Jean-Claude began to glide around the bound man. It was almost a dance, the swaying of cloaks, the grace of their movements.

Hands glided over my bare arms. The moment his bare skin touched me, the memory began to grow dark. It was as if the lights were dimming, hiding what was happening.

"No!" Belle shouted, and she pulled me back into that dark hall, all those centuries ago.

The cloaks were gone, and their bodies were pale and perfect. I heard Augustine protest. "You promised me the ardeur."

"I keep all my promises, Augustine."

Jean-Claude glowed like some dark star, laying only his hand on the naked back of the other man. Augustine said, "Ah, now I understand." He lifted his face at an awkward angle to look back along his body at Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude knelt in front of him, so he didn't have to strain. He cupped Augustine's chin in his hand, and spoke, so low that Belle could have not heard it. "I have given you but a taste. If you find my touch repulsive, then I can stop." He put his face next to Augustine's mouth, as if he were kissing the other man's neck. He gave Augustine a chance to breathe his answer, "You have such fine control over the ardeur, so soon."

"Out."

"If this is but a taste, and all she will allow me, then I want it."

Jean-Claude pulled back enough to see the other man's face. He cupped Augustine's face in his hands. I realized that I was seeing Jean-Claude's face through Augustine's eyes. I watched Augustine see the uncertainty in the other man's eyes. "Would you risk her anger to save me?"

"I do not enjoy force."

Asher knelt beside Jean-Claude, and there was a look I'd never seen on his face. Arrogance, fierceness, something predatory, and something else. Something dangerous, and unpleasant.

Asher's voice fell into the memory. "Jean-Claude, do not let Anita see me like this." Until that moment I hadn't known Asher was somewhere in the room, waiting for us to win, or lose, this battle. And he was seeing what Belle was forcing me to see. How was she doing this?

"You are all blood of my blood, Anita. I can do many things to that which is mine."

Hands on me, cloth tearing, my body jerking with the force of it. The