turies who traded lands, titles, their honor, everything, for one more night in Requiem's bed. His master in London used him much as Belle Morte used Asher and me. Though because Requiem only did women, he wasn't as flexible as we."
I let that last part go. I still wasn't completely sure how I felt about Jean-Claude doing Auggie. At the time I hadn't minded—in fact, I'd liked it. I'd liked us both doing him at the same time. We'd fucked him in every way possible, physically and metaphysically, and it had felt a-fucking-mazing. That last part was probably going to bug me the most. But one disaster at a time.
"Are you saying you're surprised I turned him down?"
"No, it is typical of you to turn a man down at first."
"At first?" I said, and sounded a little outraged.
He laughed, and it was that touchable sound, as if it were the sound of pure sex, and it went through my head and all the way down my body. "Stop that," I said.
He smiled, face lit with suppressed laughter, but he stopped. "To my knowledge, the only man you have never said no to is your Nimir-Raj, Micah. But the ardeur was newly woken, and so I do not think we can count that one completely. It was your exception, not your rule."
"Fine, but I'm still lost. I have avoided Requiem. Graham made some remark that Requiem was refusing Meng Die's bed and somehow that was my fault."
"Apparently, Requiem told Meng Die that he would not be her lover any longer, because you do not share your men with other women. He seemed to believe that his being in her bed was what kept you from accepting his offer to be your new pomme de sang."
I shook my head. "He shouldn't have assumed that."
He nodded. "Because that isn't why you refused him, is it?"
I shook my head hard enough to move the water around my body. "No. And if Requiem had asked me why I was saying no, I would have told him it wasn't because he was screwing Meng Die."
"Then why?"
"What does it matter?"
"Because he has left his lover's bed in the hope that you will take him to your bed. He is third in rank among my vampires, and second, or perhaps third, in power. Meng Die is powerful enough to be my second-in-command, but her temperament is not suited to it. As she demonstrated today. You have set two of my most powerful vampires at each other's throats, ma petite. I need to know why."
"I did not start that fight," I said.