The Nutcracker and The WereRat King

I quietly slip my keys into the door lock and sort of sneak into my own apartment. It was early early morning- the inky night sky just now surrendering to that gray murk that immediately precedes a fiery sunrise and my neighbors are still nestled snug in their beds with visions of rare roast whobeast dancing in their heads. I want to emulate them... the sleep part anyway. I‘ve reached my daily quota of whobeasts, werebeasts, whatthehell?beasts and things that bump and grind in the night.

It had been a very long twenty-four hours on very little sleep.

The work part had been taxing, irritating, Bert riddled. Too many clients all wanting to raise great-aunt Snookiepoo twice removed on their father’s cousin’s side of the family. It was almost Christmas and the dearly departed were dearly missed. The families that could afford it wanted to pay their respects in person. Mostly they just paid Animators, Inc.

Time for punch and parties and tinsel and trees and VISA and zombies.

I’m an animator. I raise the dead. The zombie part is my specialty.

I’d seen too many clients sandwiched together tighter than a BLT. But I had to admit I really hadn’t minded. While I dutifully listened to each and every story about why so-and-so should be dragged from their peaceful not-so-eternal repose and forced to commune with people that my boss, Bert was soaking for money like a fire hose on a sputtering match, my thoughts had repeatedly strayed to my plans for this evening- and night.

I had the night off. The only one until the new year. And I didn’t plan on spending it with any objectionable monsters... only a sublimely gorgeous one. Jean-Claude, the beyond humanly beautiful studmuffin and incomparably sexy Master of the City had tickets for us to that perennial holiday favorite – The Nutcracker performed by the St. Louis Ballet Troup.

It’s my favorite ballet. I love the story, I love watching the dancer’s grace and athletic poweress, I love the sugarplum visions the costumes and settings create and I love the message of wholesome goodness triumphing over evil.

I also love my date... sort of.

In addition to being an animator I am a vampire hunter. To be exact I am The Executioner. The living scourge of vampire kind. The only legally licensed hatchet man for three states- or is that stake woman? Well, I will use stakes if I have to but a shotgun with silver bullets is my preference- messy yes but better than being up close and personal with a creature that could make my head spin 360° like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist. Only in my case it wouldn’t be connected to my body afterwards.

I didn’t date vampires. I killed them.

Once upon a time.

Now I still kill them but I date one too.

Jean-Claude is that vampire... actually he is THE vampire in St. Louis. Master of the City. And he’d wooed and pursued me zealously, subtly, overtly, manipulatively and any other way he thought would attain his goal. He can be an invasive bastard but he has the best butt I’ve ever seen on a corpse. Or a living man for that matter... well, except maybe for Richard. No, no maybes. They run neck and neck for best bod. Or is that butt cheek verses butt cheek?

Whatever.

All Jean-Claude’s wiles had finally achieved their desired effect on me especially since I honestly had been hot for him from the moment we first met and long before I willingly let myself drown in his midnight blue eyes. Not because of their vampiric power to bespell whoever he wished but because of his masculine sensuality, his unnatural natural beauty, his wicked sense of humor and well, because every girl has a little place in her heart that is drawn to the ‘bad boys’.

As a rule vampires are very ‘bad boys’. Even the female ones.

So as master vampires go, Jean-Claude is a sweetie.

Don’t get me wrong; he still terrifies me at times. More than I will admit even to myself and never to him. He can be calculating, controlling, cunning and cold-blooded without a fault if required. Hah! Cold-blooded. Just a little vampire hunter joke.

Unfortunately Jean-Claude concealed his powers and talents so vigilantly for so long that many didn’t believe he was strong enough to hold the city after the old master was well and truly slain. She was a nasty piece of work- sadistic and psychotic and warranted being gutted and hung to rot.

I did that.

I personally delivered the coup de grace to Nickolaos during that coup d’etat.

Hmmm. Interesting that Jean-Claude and that plethora of terminology for violent insurrections are all French.

Anyway, the preternatural skeptics were wrong. Very wrong. Jean-Claude is strong enough to hold this city especially with his... human servant- that’s me too supposedly and his animal to call joined into the Triumvirate by marks of power.

‘Animal to call’ is a misnomer too. That would be Richard. Richard Alaric Zeeman, junior high school teacher, MA in progress in preternatural biology, Audubon and Broadway musical enthusiast, flawlessly toned and heartstoppingly handsome all around big hunky boy scout. He gets my merit badge for lighting inner fires with just a smoldering glance of his cocoa brown bedroom eyes. My on again off again sorta sweetie. We were engaged for a day. Then I saw him eat someone and I had second thoughts as well as a queasy stomach.

Did I mention Richard was a werewolf? He’s the Wolf King in St. Louis. The Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke lycanthropes. Terminally furry. It used to be his only fault, besides having never killed anyone. Then he challenged the old Ulfric in a battle to the death for succession. Richard won the throne and lost me. Sort of. The killing part I was okay with, it was the after game tailgate party of chips and chunks that got to me.

Seeing the man of your dreams clad in just ginger fur, howling in triumph and gulping down his vanquished rival’s arm on one slurp is a bit of a downer.

I truly believe I would never have discovered the pleasure of Jean-Claude’s body, the mental joining that heightened sexual awareness of having a vampire lover if things hadn’t gone to hell in a lunch bag with Richard. Him, I loved. Still love. Richard Zeeman I will always love. I just need to be able to be with him for more than five seconds without us fighting about something. And get past his epicurean practices. We are ‘working’ on our relationship and trying to salvage it, whatever ‘it’ is.

One petite step forward, two werewolf sized leaps backward make for slow progress.

He doesn’t want to give up on us being an ‘us’ and... neither do I. Really.

I can’t dream of him not being part of my life... preferably a large and intimate one.

But Jean-Claude... no matter what happens between Richard and me, Jean-Claude will remain a major part of my life as my lover and ...confidant... and not just because I’m his so-called human servant and bound by these damnable marks. Its because more than just that dark, whispering corner of my necromancer’s soul has truly fallen in love with him. Love, not just lust.

The Executioner and a master vampire.

Irony at its best.

I hang up my coat and shrug out of my evening dress. I picked it out for myself despite Jean-Claude’s offer to have one custom made for me. Sometimes his fashion sense doesn’t exactly jive with mine. I prefer something elegantly sexy, teasingly revealing, ultimately comfortable that I wouldn’t flash the whole theatre in if I had to do something preposterous- like chase down a rogue ogre or fight off a horde of ill-mannered socialites or trudge around Hilltop campus in yucky slush. And of course, I always make sure my clothing fits in a way I can conceal as many weapons as possible underneath. I had even gone all out for the holiday spirit by choosing a heartsblood red dress that saran wrapped me tight enough to force me to buy special underwear for it. Petite or not, spandex has its drawbacks.

When he first marked me as his human servant Jean-Claude inundated me with erotic and tempting dreams of us together in which he invariably looked sumptuously edible and I resembled a bolt of gauze. The Master of the City tended to want to dress me in reality as well as those dreams like some sixteenth century French tart in cleavage displaying long, diaphanous gowns that billowed around and tangled up my legs and offered no where to stash a knife much less a gun. Sheesh, priorities here Jean-Claude.

Of course his other preference vacillated to the opposite extreme... kind of a Barbie does bondage concoction of bare skin, black leather, bare skin, four inch stiletto heeled fuck-me-now pumps and more bare skin. It was winter. The bare skin part was a no go.

Unlike his private reserved season seating at The Powell, we had to make do with orchestra center seats at the Edison. He’d even apologized as if these weren’t the best seats in the house. The first time I had been escorted to the symphony at the posh and opulent Powell by St. Louis’ new leading vampire I speculated that Jean-Claude enjoyed the physical building as much as the performances. Modeled after the Palace of Versailles, the Powell Theatre probably brought back memories of centuries in the French court as both living man and undead incubus. I remember watching his dark sapphire eyes take in the ornate surroundings with a quiet and utterly human look of wistfulness highlighting his too beautiful face.

Sometime he still scares the hell out of me.

“Remind you of home?” I asked while cautiously touching his arm. He had been warm and human and very male to touch and made what constituted ‘living’ even more indefinable and my attraction to him easier to justify. His preternatural grace and elegantly erect carriage had been as commanding as any king’s but well, he was after all THE Master of the City, I’d reminded myself. And Jean-Claude had looked like he belonged in high court that night- tailored black slacks without a hint of any slack, knee length black double-breasted waistcoat over a vest of black satin with silvery thread fleur de lis hand embroidered on it, a snowy white shirt with frothing lace dangling below his long slender hands and a matching cascade down either side of the open front, black cuffed boots of the softest deerskin sheathing perfect legs. Over it all was a sweep of black velvet opera cape and silk top hat that blended into his ebony waves like an apparition of animate obsidian.

He should have looked ridiculous.

Instead he looked like he’d just paused to appraise his appearance in the Galerie des Glaces. Knowing Jean-Claude’s mesmeric attraction of the opposite sex- which he readily admits partaking of in wanton caprice, I mused it would probably have been after some illicit carnal assignation with one of Marie-Thérèse’s retinue of delicate virginal, hot-blooded Spanish handmaidens. For the young suave incubus the ‘hot blooded’ would be as orgasmic as actual intercourse.

He was breathtaking. Heart-stopping. A walking orgasm.

And he knew it.

Jean-Claude had smiled down at me with not even a glint of fang and working very hard at being human.

“My ‘home’, ma petite was a wooden hovel with a dirt floor and not enough food to feed a sewer rat. I lived in the splendor of the court – both that of the living and the undead but somehow it was never ‘home’.” He had offered his arm and no further explanation as he escorted me to our seats.

Sometimes the only thing aristocratic about him is he's a royal pain in the ass.

Here on the campus of Washington University and in the more modern Edison, he still looked like he belonged there perfectly. In second skin black jeans, Christmas crimson peek-a-boo shirt that was barely buttoned and offered a tantalizing see through view of the darker rosy brown nub of erect nipples beneath and the same crush of touchable opera cape Jean-Claude would have topped many a woman’s Santa wish list.

Including mine.

We sat in the finest seats in the theatre and fell under the spell of a wizardly toy maker, an animated Nutcracker, a handsome prince, candyland sprites and the dastardly Rat King.

Jean-Claude had leaned close to me as the crowd wildly applauded the triumph of the Nutcracker/Prince over his fallen nemesis to whisper in my ear with more warm pepperminty breath than necessary and a wet flick of tongue to earlobe that was totally unnecessary but definitely enjoyed.

“And would you applaud like that, ma petite if the fallen Rat King were the one you know?” His voice was like wearing a velvet dress inside out and luxuriating in the sensual brush of the materiel’s nap against skin until it makes you shudder. No one, no one has a voice like Jean-Claude.

He could make “Good evening” take on a zillion different meanings- all of them erotic, exotic, and sublimely libidinal and sexually enticing. Jean-Claude could bring me to climax by reading the yellow pages with that voice.

Audiorgasm.

I blinked to focus on his question rather than that hard knot of lust spasming deep and low inside me. When his hand casually slid to rest on my knee my body surged in anticipation and I shifted enough to keep my specialty undies from sticking any more than they already were.

“Uh, no. But then Rafael would never be the bad guy.” I whispered into the soft ebony curls that brushed against my face. He was so close only a finger span separated our lips and I could feel the warmth of his body, see the faint flush of color in his pale perfect skin that confirmed he had fed already and was fully capable of embarking on any sexual odyssey I chose.

Rafael was Rodere of the Black Crown clan. The WereRat King. The tall, strikingly handsome, Latino leader of the wererat lycanthropes in St. Louis had allied himself and his rats with Richard over the former Ulfric and had stood up for me more than once. He was a fair but dominant leader and I considered him a trusted friend.

“True”. Jean-Claude kissed me eider light on the lips and turned back to the dance. “Perhaps that is why he allies himself with our wolf. Monsieur Zeeman is not the ‘bad guy’ either.”

For one second- or maybe two, I wanted to shriek or shake him or something. That tidbit of foreplay had left me hotter than St Lou in August and definitely bothered. The fact he was now praising Richard bothered me too in a different context- but then Jean-Claude could afford to be magnanimous. It was his bed I was sharing tonight, not the Ulfric’s.

Richard.

My thoughts seemed to circle back to him of their own accord like some infinite loop. Like a drug that never completely flushes from your system because it has left an indelible change, a permanent alteration in your body ... or on your soul. We had enjoyed the theatre too though our initial outing to the Fox had been unexpectedly ruined by running into a rather surly and antagonistic acquaintance. The same one I was cuddled against tonight.

That had also been at Christmas and we had made plans to revive our live theatrical performance intake by seeing the Broadway musicals performed at the Muny once the weather became hospitable. What better than to sit outside amidst the canopy of oaks and fresh air and enjoy an old fashioned musical with a confirmed Rodgers and Hammerstein addict, super hunk and outdoor enthusiast who just happened to be a closet alpha werewolf?

Richard could make me pant and howl and whimper with pleasure and desire and I’m not even a lycanthrope. What would it have been like if we had actually consummated our still overwhelming physical attraction... to feel Richard’s preternatural heat wave over me, to imbibe the scent of his cologne and skin and hair until I was inebriated on his masculinity then ride his flawlessly muscular toned body to the brink of release before falling eagerly into that chasm of orgasmic bliss...

“Ma petite?”

“Hunh?” I glanced at my lover. Had I been so wrapped up in my daydreams of what was, what could have been and what could still be that I had lost track of everything else? Even the beautiful monster I was involved with? Yep.

I beamed a Pollyanna smile at him and returned my attention to the corps of dancers just as Clara and her prince piled into the swan boat to travel to his enchanted realm. I wondered if there is such a place... safe, secure, where troubles melt like lemon drops... oops, wrong story.

Through the second act, I had held Jean-Claude’s hand and he had possessively and temptingly rubbed the top of my hand with his thumb making small silent promises of things to come. Like me.

We looked like your average American couple albeit making an eccentric fashion statement and I wondered how many of these whitebread middle class folks surrounding us had any clue there was a dangerous monster in their midst. It still amazes me that people can’t pick a vamp or lycanthrope out of a crowd unless it’s baring fangs or flaunting fur.

Of course there are some monsters that can pass for human- even to me.

Like Jean-Claude if he wanted to.

Like Richard had.

After the standing ovation I had followed Jean-Claude’s chauffeured car back to the Circus of The Damned for our own private pas de deux. I had insisted on driving myself just in case Dolph beeped me or some other cataclysmic preternatural occurrence happened. Well, actually I wouldn’t have been exactly beeped since the pager was on vibrate so as not to disturb the theatre patrons. And since I had to hook it on the inside of my garter belt- my first concession to Jean-Claude’s erotic fantasies for the night, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be paged or not. It was my night off despite Bert and his avarice machinations and I had plans- a lot of plans and all of them triple X in nature with a certain devastatingly handsome French master of erotica. But hey, a vibrating pager against my inner thigh was a nice cheap thrill too.

Then we were there in his rooms- rooms with walls of silk and a bed with sheets of satin and a flickering fireplace and white roses everywhere except for the single red one in a vase by the bed. He knew the right touch to make it romantic without being saccharine. I guess after four hundred plus years he should have it down to an art. He’d told me once it was genetic. It came with being French. I don’t know. I’m not French and I definitely came- over and over... He and I had engaged in our own dance on the black carpet and the satin sheets and the leather couch and in the lavish marble bath replete with swan faucets- the most intense and intimate of dances- the wicked dance.

He was insatiable as a lover and I lost count of how many times, how many ways we had done the ‘wicked deed’ by the time the night drew the curtains on the final act of our performance. I had kissed him one last time, hard and deep and careful of the sharp fangs that had skimmed my skin so often that night but never pierced my flesh even when he had slowly licked and kissed his way across my breasts and up the soft vulnerable line of my throat. I had let him. I trusted him now- mostly. He said he loved me and at times like that I believed him. I had felt his heart thunder against mine, the coursing and call of my blood thrummed in my head as an echo of his need as he nuzzled that great life vein in my neck and... didn’t harm me.

Because he knew I’d kill him if he did?

No. I think as much as he can, Jean-Claude really loves me.

Just as I know Richard still loves me.

Killing monsters before they kill me is a piece of fruitcake compared to sorting out my love life.

Jean-Claude had gone to his coffin to sleep the undead’s slumber so I crawled into my Jeep and plowed through the light snowfall back to the apartment. I needed to sleep before meeting clients this afternoon. My apartment was quiet and still and comfortable with only the burble of the fish aquarium’s filter making some ambient white noise.

Normally I take a shower before going to sleep but Jean-Claude and I had spent so much time splashing and snorkeling for submerged treasure in his enormous bathtub I was afraid if a single drop of water even misted my skin I’d turn into an unpitted prune. Some day I’ll think to ask him about this water baby fetish of his.

Maybe for Christmas I’ll get him a rubber duck. Just for fun. If I can find one with fangs.

More vampire humor.

So I pulled the Firestar out of my purse and stuffed it under my pillow, tugged my Chilly Willy sleep shirt on and grabbed my still numero uno bed partner from the window seat. Snuggling under the covers I spooned Sigmund my favorite stuffed penguin against my chest, closed my eyes and counted pirouetting sugarplum sheep.

I knew once I fell asleep I’d be out like the undead.

Faux Pas
Chapter 2

I cracked my eyes and peered through the gloom. I must have only been asleep a few minutes because it was abyss dark in my bedroom. The heavy drapes effectively barricaded my windows from almost all light seepage but now there wasn’t even a glimmer of sunshine anywhere- including the bottom where the opaque brocade dragged on the carpet. I sighed, snuggled Sigmund against my cheek and started to let my lids flutter closed again.

For some reason I was really drained. Sleep, I needed more sleep... my eyes narrowed and focused on the door jamb.

My living room light was on. I could see the thin line of artificial brightness striping across the bottom of the doorway. I hadn’t left it on so that meant... someone was in my apartment.

I reached for the 9mm Browning Hi-Power hanging from its shoulder harness over the headboard of my bed. The Firestar under the pillow was good but the Browning made a much neater hole going in and a much larger one exiting. I yanked and found myself armed with an enormous sucker- one of those giant lollipops you get at amusement parks that are a spiral of hard crayon colored sugar impaled on a fat cardboard stick and taste the same no matter what flavor they are supposed to be.

After a moment of panic I vowed the culprit in this obvious hoax would pay dearly.

I scrabbled under my pillow for my backup but ...nothing. I glanced at the door again but heard no sounds, sensed no movement so whoever did this was either gone- a guerilla hit and run prank like TPing trees at Halloween or they were waiting for me to come out.

I didn’t like either scenario.

This wasn’t a joke.

How could someone have gotten in here without waking me? Who?

Edward? He could but...no, he’d have just sat on the edge of the bed and stared at me till I woke startled and proactively plastered myself to the ceiling. Then I would have shot him. Tried to anyway. He’d have just given me that good ole boy smile. No, this was not Edward’s M.O.

A vampire could have done this... one strong enough to cloud my mind. Was there someone that strong in St Louis?

Yes. His name was Jean-Claude.

But... he was asleep, inert, resting- dead or whatever you wanted to call what the undead do when they aren’t well, living. Even though I knew he was old and powerful enough to remain functional for a time even with the sun up that was only if he was well rested and freshly fed. I had worn him out as completely as he had me in our ardent aerobic exercises during the night. Moreover he would have to haunt someplace secure from any stray probing shaft of sunlight – like the bowels of The Circus, not my apartment. That eliminated my fanged sweetie and the lesser vamps weren’t capable of mobility after dawn.

By now I had noiselessly tossed all my bedclothes in a heap that vaguely resembled that mashed potato mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and still not found the Firestar. Could I bash my stalker with the lollipop and knock him senseless? These damn things were pretty hard but unless he/she/it had a fatal sugar intolerance I didn’t think it would be too effective.

That left me- mano a mano against the unknown.

Shit.

I crept to the door vowing to store knives between my mattress and boxspring from now on and a shotgun in my clothes cupboard. The worse that could happen would be I’d accidentally shoot the swoosh off my Nikes.

I reached the door staying low and to one side and listened again.

Just the drone of the fish filter sending its tiny bubbles through a glass enclosed ocean reached my ears. But I could feel a presence.

I grabbed the knob, twisted and flung the door open while simultaneously hurling myself in a roll across the floor to end up behind my pristine white couch. I had the willies under my Chilly Willy shirt.

“Ma petite you are giving the ... uh, penguin a thrill.” Jean-Claude nodded at my nightshirt.

It was hiked up to my waist and my nipples were quite visibly poking against the jersey from a puree of fear and adrenaline. I imagine this type of reaction was the real root for the word ‘tit-illation’. I sagged on the floor like a deflated blow up doll.

“Why are you here? How are you here? Why are you dressed like that?” I demanded in one breath as I dragged myself upright using the back of the couch as support.

“I don’t know. I believe this is a dream”. Jean-Claude’s masculinely stunning face looked much too serious for someone routinely amused by just about everything I did.

A dream?

“I told you to stay out of my dreams”. I exploded. “You promised”.

“This is your dream, Anita. You brought me here”. He sound exasperated, confused and his accent had thickened in emphasis of the words ‘you’ and ‘me’. He only got Frencher when he was agitated or aroused or purposely speaking it. My vote was for agitated.

Even worse he’d called me Anita. Always a bad portent and I could hear him muttering something to himself.

“Quelque chose ne tourne pas rond.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He took a step toward me and stopped again as I rudely gawked at him. I gawk at him routinely- how can anyone not?- but I do try to do it covertly. Jean-Claude’s ego didn’t need any additional boosting from me. But now it wasn’t because he looked devastatingly sexy- which he did, but he was dressed like... Drosselmeier. Well, Drosselmeier goes punk Goth maybe.

Black deerskin pants of onionskin thin leather that appeared airbrushed on and had molded exactly to every centimeter of equipment a beneficent Mother Nature had endowed Jean-Claude with rode low on his hips. The pants cross-laced over a flap- no zipper to snag in the short ebony curls nested beneath or buttons to fumble over in hasty undoing and it was... awesome. Like a frame for what was amply and obviously underneath I just stared at the square where ‘X marked the spot.

I licked my lips.

No sucker ever tempted me like that I can tell you.

Maybe this was Drosselmeir goes VampGQ.

I wanted to see him from the back, to see how that malleable leather cupped his cute butt and highlighted his lean hips but he had that stupid opera cape on. Knee high boots of the same supple leather encased his lower legs making them seem even longer and leaner. I let my eyes travel upward after a lengthy pause to rest and rejuvenate at the JC groin area waystation.... the display there was perking up and I didn’t want to miss anything.

“Ma petite”. He sounded like forbidden fruit on the verge of rotting from not being eaten in time. Ripe. Firm. Succulent. Mouth-wateringly tempting. Amused.

I bit my lip to keep the drool from escaping and forced my eyes up as far as the curled black hair between his waistband and belly button. No shirt. Jean-Claude rarely fastened his shirts but he usually did wear one. Instead he had a short bolero cut jacket of black velvet on. It didn’t button either. It did look touchable and stark against his pale skin and made the harsh cross-shaped burn scar on his chest seem more severe. His hair was loose in waist-length ebony curls that would have made Shirley Temple lime green with envy.

“Your hair’s longer.” I pointed out. Was he like those old Tressie dolls? Turn the key and the hair lengthened or shortened? Jean-Claude's hair had grown considerably longer- from barely brushing his shoulders to midback like Richard’s - since we had been having more than brief chance encounters. He knew I liked my men with long, silken manes on top and satin-smooth chested... he was already naturally perfect in the latter and had augmented the former to my taste. I still hadn’t figured out how a corpse could grow hair... he never needed to shave so it had to be selective adornment. Just one of those fleeting things that makes you say...Hmmmm before returning to priorities. But now his hair tumbled and frothed down to the small of his back in one tidal wave of ebony spirals.
Perched on top of that silken mass was the silk top hat he’d worn at the Fox’s production of Guys and Dolls.

“Oui. And you have a ... holiday tree.” He turned slightly to nod at the corner of my living room.

“No. I don’t”.

Ooops. Yes I did. There was a Christmas tree in my apartment. I hadn’t put it there. It was...ugly.

It was one of those hideous ungainly silver foil things from the sixties and it filled the entire corner of the room. There were neon red lights haphazardly strung all over it and what looked like stained glass balls. I padded over to investigate and saw that all the ornaments were identical and somehow familiar. I felt frown lines merging on my forehead and peered more closely at this arboreal aberration.

“They are miniatures of the chandelier at the Fox” Jean-Claude said from so close behind me I almost jumped out of my clothes. Not a bad idea but I had already listed backward into his arms and was pressed against his chest. This was nice too.

“Don’t sneak up one me” I rebuked him without a hint of vehemence. “You said this is a dream? I’m awake. How can it be a dream?” I looked up at the bottom of his chin- not quite as far up as if it had been Richard’s body I was cocooned alongside but still far enough.

“I believe you are dreaming you are awake.”

Sure. That made sense.

“So I dressed you this time?” When he had first marked me, Jean-Claude discriminately sent me soft porn visions in which he looked like every woman’s wet dream and I looked like a refuge from Wuthering Heights- after a bad night on the moors. Right now he smelled like leather and rain fresh hair and male musk and cinnamon.

“You smell like cookies.” I blurted out.

He twisted slightly, taking me with him so I could see the glass of milk and plate of cookies on my side table. I didn’t have milk or cookies in my apartment. Of course, since I had a 9mm Hi Power Sucker as a weapon, having Santa snacks was doable too.

“Merde”. He growled and jumped back a step, dragging me with him again. We both snagged on the hem of the opera cape and went down. I enjoy being on top but usually in a bit more controlled manner. I heard a grunt and his hand maneuvered me slightly to one side.

“Are you okay?”

“I do not think my balls will be jingling for a while”. He informed me as he rubbed the damaged area.

“Here. I’ll do that”. Hey, I always like to volunteer to help if I can. I slipped my hand over the leather- so thin and soft I could feel the pulse of the big vein in his groin throbbing underneath. With the way something else was throbbing I didn’t think Jean-Claude needed to worry over his ability to jingle all the way.

“Mmmmm.” He purred at me like some overgrown piebald cat that had just lapped up all Santa’s milk. “Look at the tree, ma petite.”

I stared at the straining flap under the leather thong ties and wonder if I should undo his bow.

“The Christmas tree, ma petite.” He remonstrated.

Oh. Right. I swiveled to see what silver was up too.

“Whoa. Hi-ho silver, away!” I blurted out too stupefied to think beyond childhood clichés.

“Excusez-moi?” Jean-Claude’s forehead perceptibly puckered in confusion without marring his beauty one smidgen.

I just waved my hand to let him know it was human American TV thing and not something a matured French Vampire would appreciate. In a display of pure seasonal selflessness I kept my hand gesture low, gently skimmed over the leather flap so my abrupt movement wouldn’t alarm him or anything.

At the moment I estimated silver was about twenty-five feet and still growing. My ceiling was going with it. I slumped against my vampire lover to regroup and recoup.

“What’s going on?” I searched his dark azure eyes half veiled under the long thick lace of black lashes. How could he look perfect and my hair looked like it was styled by a cussianeart? It was my dream; I should have looked sexy and competent.

“I may be mistaken but I think we are in an illusionary adaptation of The Nutcracker.” Jean-Claude looked up at me and rose to lightly brush my lips with his.

He didn’t feel like a dream. He didn’t smell like one either. He sure as hell didn’t taste like one. He always looked like a waking wet dream.

“Then you should be the Prince, not Drosselmeir.” I frowned at the misguided casting.

“I fear I am a victim of my couture.” His lips twitched at the sides in a very human attempt to not laugh in my face. “I believe it is called... type-casting?”

Okay. That will teach him to dress like he did when he was alive- four hundred plus years ago.

So who was my prince?

Richard was my only alternative for the role.

”So is this a pleasant dream or a nightmare?” We both sat up and watched as the tree continued to skyrocket into the starry void of what should have been my roof. I glanced around and lay my hand on Jean-Claude’s sinewy thigh just for the reassurance that he was solid, real, warm, there with me. It was getting perceptibly colder, maybe because my roof was gone and so were my walls. We were sitting on an inky black abyss of a stage with only the props of my couch, the supertree, the snack laden table and the lollipop left.

“I have the feeling that it is not pleasant.” Jean-Claude pulled me against him and wrapped the ends of the cape around me. I hadn’t realized I was shivering. I could see my breath puff out in a pale mist in front of me.

“Ma petite!” His voice’s whispered caress was lost in alarm and surprise. “I am with you...”

I almost toppled backward as my support simply vanished.

”Jean-Claude! Jean-Claude!” I forced the fist sized lump out of my throat so I could efficiently screech into the surrounding darkness.

“Jean!” He was gone. Just like that and with a sinking feeling comparable to driving a cement truck into the Missouri river I knew he hadn’t gone poof! of his own volition. This hadn’t been a vampiric display of now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t.

Someone or something had snatched him away.

I gathered up his cape lying in a puddle of blacker than black velvet around me and pulled it close. Jean-Claude’s cologne and the scented shampoo he used clung to the cape and I buried my face into it, committing it to memory just in case... and he was still with me. I felt his touch spiral through me through the marks and I didn’t fight him off this time. I was lost in some dream dressed in just a penguin nightshirt and my lover’s cape and armed with a gross yellow sucker. It was getting darker and colder like an arctic clipper heralding an approaching blizzard.

The way this was going the sugarplum fairy was going to show up in steel toed clogs and saute all over me.

I wasn’t ready for my pas seul.

Dreamwolf
Chapter 3

I huddled up in the residual warmth of Jean-Claude’s cape and shifted a pair of sweat pants to the top of my Christmas wish list. It was freezing and I could feel lethargy washing over my skin and invading every nerve ending of my body. It was like human fuel line freeze-up; my neural synapses were becoming too ice clogged to fire. I know people die from hypothermia and this is how it’s insidious progress starts- drained, cold, sleepy... frozen stiff.

This energy drain had gone into remission when I was with Jean-Claude but now it was reviving, leeching away my spirit in tiny increments like a measured drip from a faucet.

Maybe, I reasoned, maybe if I just curled up in Jean-Claude’s cape and fell asleep, when I awoke I’d be in my nice snuggy bed with Sigmund and this would be nothing more than an exceptionally bizarre dream. But could I fall asleep if I was already asleep? Did I have to dream I fell asleep so I could really wake up? This was too convoluted for my ice encrusted brain cells to spark over so I just did what I do best.

I got pissed at the whole situation.

There was nothing around me but dark, shimmery white mist and cold. Obviously the Swan taxi service didn’t make stops here. There was no reason to stay where I was since all the furniture had now vanished too so I turned right – hoping right was right and started to walk. My toes were curling from the chill underfoot and my legs where one giant connected goosebump but thankfully the cape protected the rest of me. It had been midcalf on Jean-Claude but dragged the ground behind me like a wedding gown’s train. If I held the front together with my hand virtually no wind got through to score my bare legs. There was a pocket inside the cape, probably for a fashionable gentleman’s gloves and sundries that was just the right size for the lollipop to fit in so I didn’t have to carry it.

It might come in handy eventually- either as a bludgeon or I could gnaw at it if I got desperately hungry.

Since there were no landmarks to judge time by- no moon, no stars, no sun, no Indiglo Timex, I just walked until I was tired. That was either several hours or all of ten seconds. Something was siphoning away my verve and it wasn’t just the environment. I felt like a clogged sink when the water trickles out at a slow and uneven speed but still eventually emptied. I didn’t want to empty. I had a bad feeling about that. Every time I felt my eyelids droop or started to sit and rest disembodied wildfire blue eyes gleamed over me and I felt a whisper of a touch brush within me, a cool but comforting caress of love and longing and power that I recognized intimately.

Jean-Claude.

He was with me through the marks, bolstering my fading energy with his own power just as he had taken power from me by making me his human servant during his battle with Nickolaos. I’m not really his servant. It’s just a vampire term. I remind myself of that frequently.

So I walked some more.

Nothing changed.

“Where the hell is my swan sleigh?” I yelled into the abyss. “My freakin’ feet are cold!”

The wind hissed around me and my hair stood on end as I deciphered words concealed in the air current.

“You... will...be...at... rest.... soon...” It murmured. It was a nice voice, not Jean-Claude quality but soothing, calming like a lullaby. Rest it promised and right now that sounded pretty damn good.

“No.” An intimate voice purred in my head. It sounded even better- a voice of silken whispers and sensuality promising to share all the elusive secrets of the night. That voice was unmatchable. It overpowered the other’s sweet lulling and cautioned me to beware.

There was something out there. An unknown entity.

I hugged Jean-Claude’s cape tighter, thankful for its protection- thankful for his protection. I could take care of myself, I knew it and he knew it but at this moment I welcomed his ethereal presence like a suit of dream armor. I said some respectably unrespectable cuss words at whatever it was out there and ambled on.

Where was my Prince?

I continued walking until I wasn’t sure if I had feet anymore, then I sat down despite my inner foreboding- just for a minute I vowed, to chafe my cold feet so I could feel them again. I wasn’t even sure if my toes were still attached or just numb stumps trudging along. I tugged the cloak close, propped my knees against my chest and rubbed my feet ... until my forehead dropped to rest on my knees.

I was so weary.

It was so cold...

Something touched my hair, something radiating warmth and gentleness that sent tingles zinging all through me. I must have ended up next to a blastfurnace somehow because heat enveloped and saturated me in a rush. God, it felt better than sex.

And I wasn’t even tired now that I was warmer... I opened my eyes to stare at what was petting my hair. Even if it was a monster, it was warm and smelled luscious and ... I knew that touch.

And the heat.

And the scent of fields, and moonlight and spice and... fur.

And I knew this monster.

“Richard.” I stared into his rich deep brown eyes. Human eyes- no wolf gold there at the moment. This was a good monster. I stuck out my arms and plastered myself against him like a shrunken T-shirt.

The hell with our disagreements and uncertainties. He wanted to be my protector- the big bad wolf in shining white armor, so right now I was willing to let him. He was warm and I was ... scared. Just a little.

A tiny wee bit.

Mostly I was just cold and tired. Yeah, that was it.

Smooth muscular arms pulled me close and off the ground, I buried my iceberg of a nose into the thick nutmeg hair and delved deep until I reached his neck. I was in his lap, my body curved against his and Jean-Claude’s cape falling around us like a comforter. Richard continued to run one hand through my hair while his cheek rested against the top of my head, his other hand massaged and kneaded the small of my back before working its way down over hip, buttock, thigh, calves, feet. Not a single cell in my body was cold now.

Actually, there was sweat damping my breasts and more wetness strategically accumulating farther down my body. Richard could make me hot and bothered in a flick of a whisker. That had never changed nor diminished despite our opposing views of what our relationship should be.

“Better?” he murmured against my forehead, the silk of his lips brushing my skin and just enough breath expelled to make me want to pounce on him – dreaming or waking. When he spoke like that it was like a cat’s purr but different- a low throaty rumble that combined the wolf’s feral bass, a cat’s contentment and a man’s desire. Everything in me knotted up and I scooted around in his lap so I straddled him, my knees on either side of his thighs and my face breastbone level. I licked the delicate skin at the hollow of his throat and listened to that same rumbly reply only wordless now. Just a primal sound. Just ...sex. Pure and sweet and more than human.

I forgot about being lost, cold, and stuck in some freaky dream...

“Yes. Much better. Aren’t you cold?” I searched his eyes and knew the answer before he spoke. He was lycanthrope, alpha werewolf. His body temperature hovered around a nice normal 101° without his fur. Richard was never cold. I tangled my warming fingers in his hair pulling him against me by it and resting my face against his shoulder. He had tucked the cape under my legs and around me and cupped one strong hand on each of my cheeks- the ones I sit on, to hold me against him.

“No, You know cold doesn’t affect me.” He breathed in my ear and a tongue that could do more to ignite me into a seething inferno silently than with any words traced the shell of my ear and sucked in the soft nub of lobe. Maybe it was good I didn’t have pants on; there’s nothing worse than wet pants in cold weather. Something hard and demanding had grown beneath me as swiftly as the silver Christmas tree had rocketed skyward. I let my hand trail down his perfect smooth chest, trickle through the dark brown hair that pointed in directional arrow surety southward to his burgeoning testament of desire.

Richard wore only a pair of sweatpants of a medium brown shade so close in color to his hereditarily flawless tanned skin that from a distance he would look naked. Right now I wouldn’t have minded him naked instead. Wherever he had inherited his natural lineless coffeewithextracream flesh tone it hadn’t been from his Dutch ancestors and it was just right with his autumn browns hair, white teeth and gazebo eyes. Richard’s whole soul was displayed in his eyes. Right now though I stared at the string ties where the sweats rode below waist level, the material stretched taut and straining from the pressure of his abundantly endowed and very aroused human maleness.

There was a raggedness to the wind now, deep and unsteady and tumulus that forced me to look up. It was the wind; it was also Richard’s breathing...and mine. His eyes were dark and fathomless and poor Chilly Willy was getting poked by hard nipples that capped my breasts like icebergs on the arctic seas.

“Anita...” All breathe. All need. All male.

I started to reach for his mouth when the voice in the wind slithered over us...”all ... three.”

Fuck.

I just comprehended part of the storyline. Whatever ‘it’ was that had me trapped in this dreamstate, whatever had poofed Jean-Claude away was after something and my conclusion was power. The power of the Triumvirate and now he had it within his grasp.

This was my dream and I had pulled Jean-Claude and Richard into it with me.

I swallowed and leaned back. Was Richard my Prince? Or was he another character? Would he just disappear like Jean-Claude had?

I glanced to the side and froze- this time not from the atmosphere. There was my sleigh- sled actually. Dog sled. Like as in Iditarod. I looked at Richard and had the horrible feeling I knew what- who was going to pull it. My guess was a welsh cob sized, fat-free ginger colored werewolf.

“Wake me up.” I commanded him tightening my grip on his hair.

“I can’t. I’m here with you, like Jean-Claude.” Richard brushed my hair back from my face and looked at me like I was one of his students that refused to do her assignment. Of course his students did their homework. The boys looked up to longhaired, with-it Mr. Zeeman and the girls all had crushes the size of Missouri on him.

Okay. This was my dream... I should be able to direct it right? I should be able to wake up....

“Richard, something snatched Jean-Claude away. What could have that kind of power in a dream?” Like me Richard also had a degree in preternatural biology; this seemed an opportune time to compare notes. So I leaned into him closer as the wind snapped and bit around us and felt the intrusive other’s presence buffeted away by Richard’s aura, by Jean-Claude’s touch, by my anger and lust.

Werewolves and vampires can scent the faintest whiff of lust on a person like we can smell week old garbage. Not terribly romantic in a logistical, objective way but subjectively it sure stoked Richard’s and Jean-Claude’s fires to know – to absolutely know, how deep my passion for each of them ran no matter how much I acted otherwise.

“I don’t know. Something from a fairy tale- a dark and harsh one like Hans Christian Anderson or the Brothers Grimm or some obscure ethnic folktale.” Richard shook his head in uncertainty.

I nodded. I had no idea what this thing was, but his theory made as much sense as everything else.

”Are you my Prince?” I forced a playful tone into my voice. I don’t like to let Richard know I’m ... uhm, not frightened exactly, just not totally secure. His penchant to want to lope to my rescue and guard me from danger characteristically doesn’t include killing as an acceptable means to an end. Richard can’t justify killing. One of our other small dissimilarities. If something’s gonna try to kill me, I try my damnedest to kill it first.

Simple. Clean. Foolproof.

He just doesn’t understand that tenet of Blakedom.

“I tried to be, but you didn’t want that.” His voice hinted at a shard of bitterness but his eyes burned with an inner fire that had nothing to do with the wolf lurking just beneath his humanity. “I think I am ... part of you. The part of you that wished for a human lover as much as I wished I could be that for you.”

So, I can be a heel at times. I’ll admit it to myself but no one else. I originally had pretty rigid guidelines about not becoming involved with monsters. Them verse us. Then Jean-Claude sauntered into my life and blurred that line. And Richard... Richard erased it.

Until he ate Marcus and I freaked.

Now, I think I’m more comfortable with the monsters than with people. Maybe that’s what scares me the most.

I hugged him hard enough that one more squeeze and I would have popped out his back. I love you, I told him silently. I just love Jean-Claude too. I felt him kissing my neck, his lips sweet against my skin, his hands under my Chilly Willy shirt kneading my back, soaking me in his power.

“I guess I’m supposed to go in the sled?” I mumbled finally, my words dampened in the thick muffler of his hair. I was in his lap again and really contemplated dozing off there. Maybe if I dreamed I fell asleep in Richard’s arms, when I really woke- it would be a 6’1”, sumptuously toned, autumn gold in walnut haired, honeyed-brown eyed, smooth skinned junior high school wereteacher I’d be hugging instead of a plush penguin.

“I guess.” Richard looked as lost as I felt. He boosted me up to stand- my legs sturdy and solid under me now from the power ‘hit’ of being with him. Then he rose and looked down at me silently- revealing nothing. Jean-Claude is a more than a half-foot taller than me. Richard is taller than both of us. He is all lean, toned muscle- not overdone or overwhelming but ... a perfect masculine sculpture. He is one of those men that you know he’s big and powerful but it is so elegantly refined and so thoroughly contained you don’t realize it until something happens. Then you just suck in your breath and your gut and get out of his way.

Richard slid the sweats off, stepping out of them to reveal a body of muscular perfection and the lineless tan that nature and genetics had graced him with.

“Richard, don’t. You’re naked”. My plea had nothing to do with modest. Hyperheated werewolf or not, I didn’t want certain parts of him exposed to the raw savage cold. I still had plans for him and his... trappings.

“You’ve seen me naked before. I was naked when we met”.

Oh yes, he was. Talk about a hot flash of a different type. I remember that specific flash of thigh, the lean hard sinew, the impressive... male accoutrements he heedlessly displayed as he had struggled into a pair of sweat pants then instead of out of them. I also hadn’t been personally involved with any shapeshifters enough to know that most regarded nudity as a suitable fashion choice. After having seen how a shifter’s change trashed whatever they were wearing it made perfect sense. For Richard au naturel was the perfect choice... as long as it was me doing the ogling.

“You’ll freeze your”... I waved at his reigning jewels... "stuff off."

Hell, that was the last thing I wanted to happen- dream or reality.

“I can think of a way to keep it warm”, he purred deep and throaty.

Me too. Lots of ways....

I touched him, letting my hands slip down his side, across his groin and clench in the fine hair nesting his genitals.

“Anita”. It was sex, human and male and primal that rumpled out of him.

No. If- when, I made love with Richard it would be for real not a dream. I wanted him for real. I was surprised a little at how much I wanted him.

I looked up and saw the rich amber glow that typically filled his eyes when his beast prowled its way to the surface.

“Richard?” I loved him in spite of our differences. I knew he’d never purposely hurt me... his strength was that of an athletic, toned male buoyed up by lycanthropy to super hero magnitude. I loved him, wanted him. But I knew if I had to, for my own self-preservation I could shoot him- or whack him on the snout with my lollipop because when he was like this... on the border of wolf and man, he scared the shit out of me.

“Put these on”. He extended the sweats to me.

Sure, Richard. You’re only twice my size, these will fit. I took the pants, still warm with his preternatural heat and human lust and scrambled into them. Even pulling the strings as tight as I could I looked like I was standing in a feed sack but I was warm. Very warm. I looked up at him, at his too handsome rugged face, the soft dimple in his chin, and the desire in his eyes and smiled.

“You’re still going to get cold”. I warned.

Richard stepped back from me several strides and shook himself like a big...wolf. His hair, always so soft and wavy and full of auburn highlights on a brown base cascaded around his shoulders partly hiding his face.

God, he was beautiful.

I sucked in a breath. I though breathing was involuntary, you just did it but somehow whenever I was with Richard or Jean-Claude that mechanism seem to go on the fritz. I sucked in another breath and held it. Richards’s eyes had gone gold, his bones slithered and shaped into something else, his smooth tan skin sprouted thick tawny fur and I was more or less face to face with a wolf whose head was even with my boobs.

Werewolf.

He eyed me steadily, sizing up my response, then rubbed against me like a dog. I hugged him close, his warmth washing over me and through the invisible marks I felt him in me, touching my heart, my mind.

In my dream he’d forgone the weregoo stuff.

My wolf flipped the traces of the dogsled over his head and turned to stare at me again.

Great, Richard was giving me a ride. I crawled into the sled, tucking my legs under me, reveling in having warm legs and wrapped Jean-Claude’s cape tight around the rest of me. The wind slashed into my face, crisp and cutting as he surged into that even graceful loping stride that a wolf- natural or unnatural can attain and hold endlessly.

How far did we travel in this never changing gloom? I can’t even judge but suddenly my wolf- Richard, slowed to a walk then stopped and shrugged out of the traces. It did sort of look different here. I have hyperacute night vision- nothing compared to a werewolf or vampire but only lacking by the skin of a hen’s tooth. There were murky shapes in a circle, trees I think, dead and twisted and gnarled that formed some sort of glade.

Richard trotted back to me and before I could clamber out of the sled, he shoved his face up along the side of mine, skimming my face into my hair. Jowl to cheek, his incredibly soft fur rubbed my face, his breath on my ear and neck. Classic alpha werewolf greeting.

Ulfric to his chosen lupa.

Snuffling your lover. I could get into that.

So, I decided this was no time to consider any outstanding arguments or differences between us and threw my arms in a bear hug around the heavy ruff of his neck and buried my face in his hair.

Hair. Yes, it was hair, not fur. Human hair- brown with a gold and copper sheen and a sheet of sleek waves foaming across his shoulders.

His shoulders were human now too. All of Richard was human.

I let my eyes drop down and enjoyed the view. It was my dream after all.

I let my hands skim his back, enjoying the smooth skin, the tight muscles rippling below, the heat of his body generated from male human lust not lycanthropy. My heart tried to jump out of my throat as everything deep inside that always reacts in hormonal overload to Richard popped into gear but luckily my heart was forced back into place. It couldn’t escape past the tongue that was blocking its path, a tongue that probed and stroked, and twirled in a pirouette with mine.

Richard was an incomparable kisser, better than even Jean-Claude. Vamps fangs were always ready and waiting for just a prick of bloodletting during any unwary French kiss. Richard always made sure he was fangless.

“Anita, I don’t understand this... this dream, but I do know I love you. My heart and passion and power are always here for you.” His words were just a reflection of the emotion and depth mirrored in his true brown eyes.

"Richard”, I stroked his smooth cheek, tracing his jawbone with a finger, wanting to discard forever any and all disparities that were wedged between us. Petty. They were petty and unsubstantial in the greater scheme of our relationship.... “ I love....”

He was gone.

Poof.

Gone.

Just like Jean-Claude.

He hadn’t even heard me tell him...

“Richard!” I shrieked. Yes, me. I shrieked. Whatever was yanking the men that were integral to my life away I didn’t know if it was doing it safely. Was Jean-Claude unharmed? Was he still resting in lifeless repose in his coffin, recharging his mystical battery to rise at dusk as a living vampire or had my need roused him early? Where was Richard? Was he home, sprawled comfortably in his bed asleep or off doing arcane werewolf shit with the pack?

Were they okay or were they hostage to my dream?

“Richard.” I murmured and tightened Jean-Claude’s cape around me.

“Anita”

“Ma Petite”.

The vagrant wind whispered their voices to me. I could feel their power pour into me through the ephemeral lines of the marks. I wasn’t cold and I wasn’t drained and it was because of them. Wherever they were they were all right. I was armed with my supersucker and the power of the Tri and ready to face whatever it was haunting me.

Bring it on.

I eyed the misty clearing looking for any sort of clue as to what would manifest itself next. I was used to fending for myself but there seemed to be a scripted structure to my somnambulant reverie that required carrying out. Both my real life princes had been relegated to other roles in this Kafkaesque production.

Who was left from the casting call to step in? Jason? I snorted out loud at that visualization. For a cocky, smart-assed Lothario he was actually a good albeit highly irritating guy but definitely not princely material. I sincerely suspected Jason took the role of ‘wolf’ too much to heart when it came to chasing women and it had nothing to do with being a lycanthrope.

Not Dolph and, yeesh absolutely not Zebrowski. Edward? No, Edward already had a role that transcended any dreamstate- Edward was death. Maybe the newest member of Jean-Claude’s inner vampire circle, his long time friend and sort of vamp mentor, Asher? He had the looks of an earth god- almost as yummy as Jean-Claude and Richard, as well as the bearing of someone well versed in courtly etiquette. But I didn’t know him that well and besides, he’d originally wanted to bite me in a not nice way and do serious damage to Jean-Claude in retribution over a centuries old grudge. No, ‘le chardonneret’ was not mon mec.

When I had a spare second to ponder life’s idiosyncrasies, I wondered if those unnaturally naturally gorgeous studmuffins were as ruthless, arrogant and macho pigheaded as living men as they are now or if turning vamp somehow boosts that testosterone induced male ego crap thing to hyperpotency. Both have more than their share of self-assured smugness. Its justifiable but still grating.

I sighed into the cape, rubbing my cheek against the soft crush of velvet and pulling it around my face to ward off the cutting edge of the wind. My legs were toasty warm... Richard, I love you I silently thanked him.

The wind whistled and thrummed around me full of somnolent murmurs and drowsy coaxing and lullaby humming. It was that voice again trying to make me weary, trying to sap my spirit.

It wasn’t working too well right now since I was still charged up with preternatural voltage via a direct hookup to the Triumvirate. My immediate concern was to keep my guard up so this ...thing... couldn’t follow that link and snare us all. I scouted the area once more.

There were definitely tree shapes here- but they were twisted and gnarled and misshapen like the ones in the ‘Babes in Toyland’ Haunted Forest. Well, okay the Nutcracker Prince’s realm was sort of a magical Toyland where the coryphées did their pas de bourrée and jetés. And I was used to haunted stuff- generally, and even dressed like this I was a babe... at least to the two men that mattered, so the backdrop wasn’t too farfetched.

A especially arctic stream of air tried to grip the back of my neck, was thwarted by the high collar of the cape but still managed to give me a goosebump prickle in warning that I had company. And this time it wasn’t an undyingly fanged or periodically furry friend and lover.

I turned, putting on my best ‘vampire hunter/executioner tough gal stranded without a decent weapon’ look and faced my newest companion.

It was the Nutcracker.

I felt my toes curl and not from the cold.

Outwardly it looked like your classic Steinbach Nutcracker- red coat, black pants and boots, white gloves and that ragged white clown hair sticking out from under a black Prussian helmet. It was about eight feet tall, stacked like a burr oak and was what Pinocchio would have been if Tim Burton had carved him instead of Guippetto. It even looked wooden – stiff and rigid but was moving with the astounding grace and fluidity of, well, a ballet dancer. The creepiest part was its face-a mobile wooden cylinder, with living black eyes that were shaped just like the painted toy’s, a lump of a nose and its teeth... I clenched my jaws as The Nutcracker smiled at me.

I doubted this thing had a lever sticking out of its back but the smile was that same disjointed opening of the jaws that marked the real thing. Red lips outlined snowy teeth- with a line of blood red teardrops trailing from one corner of those harsh lips. Red as blood because it was blood. The etched lips curled up to show teeth like a medieval portcullis- stakes of white wood so familiar looking I shivered under the cape. Whitethorn stakes, honed to stabbing sharpness- just like the ones used to stake a vampire’s heart. Just like the ones I had used when I was learning my trade with my mentor Manny. The Nutcracker’s jaws clicked shut so the teeth aligned perfectly in a sawtooth row.

I tightened my jaw and held my ground.

This was positively not my prince.

The only possible identification that popped into my mind was this was a composite ghost of all the vampires I’d staked from Christmas’ past come to haunt me like Marley had Scrooge.

“So vibrant and full....” The thing whispered to me through its teeth in that same tender soothing tone. “So many dreams, so many memories...”

“What the hell do you want?” I graciously snarled back. They say first impressions are the most significant.

The thing made that sharp-stick-smile again and its eyes crinkled at the corners like weathered wood cracking from age in a display of humor. I guess it found me as amusing as Jean-Claude usually did. The Master of the City could chuckle at me all he pleased since I ogled his ass at every opportune moment making it was an even trade. This ...Nutcracker... didn’t have anything worth swapping for.

“You, little animator.”

Yikes. That was what Jean-Claude had originally called me before switching to ‘ma petite’. I’d initially hated both but discovered when he called me by my name it usually meant trouble so I quit bitching about the pet name. Now I kind of like it, especially when he purrs it in my ear with his lips burring against my skin as he speaks. But coming from this monster it was just plain infuriating. I narrowed my eyes and watched as it took a couple of strides toward me.

“Stop right there.” I warned. “I’m armed.” With a King Kong sized banana lollipop.

“The most dangerous thing you are armed with is your tongue”. The Nutcracker leered at me. I felt something loop around me, swaddle me tight and start to drain my energy again. I shuddered and realized there was nothing physically touching me; it was crawling through me from the inside like a mind snake.

Something cool and sharp severed the sensation, a barrier slamming down, a guillotine blade cutting through the tentacles of attack.

The Nutcracker made a hissing noise and rocked back a step.

I knew where the parry to the monster’s power thrust had come from. In my waking dreams I saw those sapphire eyes gazing at me with a human love and longing, desire kindling at the feel of his smooth perfect flesh beneath my hands. Just as clearly I remember those midnight eyes full of blue fire, ebony curls lashing around him in the storm of his unleashed power- his true power, as it had flared in battle with Nickoloas as every vestige of humanity that I loved in him dropped away. Jean-Claude had slammed a barricade down on the monster’s invasion.

The Nutcracker sneered and glared at me.

“The tie is strong... it will be so filling to drink you dry.” He murmured still in that sweet croon.

Drink me dry? If he thought he was sinking those pig sticker teeth into me, he was in for a big surprise. The Tri was no Tyrolean smorgasbord. No one fed off me. And while Richard was naturally blessed with a whopper that I would love to sample, he wasn’t a cow. He was what ate the cow. And Jean-Claude had centuries of practice perfecting the midnight snack but he was the one that did the nocturnal nibbling.

Maybe the sucker was hard enough if I rammed it in those wooden choppers it would break all its teeth? It did on people....

“What are you and what do you want?” I demanded again. I’d unobtrusively yanked the sucker out of the cape pocket. I didn’t really think it would work as a weapon, but if I couldn’t outrun this monster I’d have to fight it- hand to hand. Wait a minute... it had a sword stuck in its belt. So it was armed with a tactile weapon as well as the sandman voice and whatever was making me fatigued again. If I could get the sword away from it....

“There is nothing to fear or fight”. It spread its gloved hands at me in placation. “Many summon me willingly, dreaming of an endless slumber, an uninterrupted repose. Wouldn’t you like to sleep...sleep...sleep...”?

Yes...yes...yes...I felt myself nodding off on my feet under the effect of the hypnotizing words. I was still cold- not frozen but cold and I was tired.

“You could immerse yourself in your dreams, dreams of safety and peace, of your lovers and their bodies against yours, of the nights in court and all those who secretly arranged to tryst with you, risking and giving all to just be with you once....” the words were floating through my mind in a haze, like when you’re concentrating on driving but listening to the radio as well.

“Remember the touch of the night, of the wet, verdant wood and the glimmering call of the moon, of the scent and the chase and the desire and need you cannot quench....”

I blinked and realized the Nutcracker was only a step away. I stumbled back, tripped on the cape and started to fall. I felt heat wash through me and faster than the eye could follow, an unbound energy and vitality sprang through me. I landed, rolling like a cocoon in the cape, heaved back to my knees and was up and away while the monster was still turning to follow me. I ran, I worked out, I was in excellent condition but I didn’t have this kind of litheness and swiftness.

Preternatural grace.

Lycanthrope speed.

Richard’s warmth brushed my face from inside out and was gone.

So was the lethargy and dullness. Gone.

“You want the power, don’t you?” I kept the distance between us, circling, feigning, bounding around with Richard’s channeled momentum. “Are you some kind of incubus or something?”

"Something.” The Nutcracker smiled at me again, creeping me out as thoroughly as it had the first time.

“Well, you may as well give it up. Go back to your never ever land.” I sounded pretty damned convincing. There was one thing that worried me...

“You will tire eventually. Your Master of the Night will succumb to the daylight and not be able to succor you. Your Wolf King will drain himself to death to protect you... then you will be mine. All of you”.

Yep. That was what worried me.

Catch me and reel in Jean-Claude and Richard as well.

I glanced around, looking for somewhere to run, someplace to hide, something to chainsaw massacre this thing with but there was just the ugly woods and ... a throne.

Damn, now where did that come from? In the ballet, Clara and her Prince had sat on the royal thrones to watch the Arabian, Chinese and Russian dancers. In real life my royal throne was located in my bathroom.

Okay. That meant things were still faintly shadowing the plot of the ballet. I tried pinching myself to wake myself up but only succeeded in giving my thigh a black and blue mark. I rubbed the painful spot and realized there was an extra warmth tingling through my legs, my body, an edgy energy that belonged to Richard. The clothes were some sort of tangible aid and acknowledgement of his and Jean-Claude’s bond to me.

“Sit with me.” The big woodenheaded monster cooed, motioning to the throne.

“There’s only one chair.” And I was keeping it between the two of us.

“You can rest in my lap. I will cradle you.” He sounded so reasonable- visions of me sitting in my dad’s lap while he rocked me to sleep, reading a bedtime story, playing guardian against the monsters under the bed filled my head...superlative sophistry.

“My dad never did that. He married some blonde bitch after my mother died and didn’t give a hoot for me”. I informed the dreammaster. His trick hadn’t worked here... he must have channeled Richard’s or Jean-Claude’s memories in error. Richard had a strong loving family; Jean-Claude had been sold as a whipping boy to some arrogant French lout. My vote for ‘whose dream was this’ went to Richard.

“Besides, look at you- you big walking whittled whatsis. If I sat in your lap you’d end up with the biggest freakin woodie in the world.” I jeered at it and shifted around so I had the throne almost directly between us. ”You’re not my type.”

I could be coy with the best of them.

Regrettably, I was wearing out again and didn’t want it to detect that. The cold was eating my toes off and icing my blood flow to glacier status. My legs and hips were warm but my torso was so cold I was afraid my nipples would tink off if touched like fragile icicles crashing from their support when bumped. The cape kept my neck and back heated and shielded from the wintry blasts that were escalating to include blustering snow flurries but there were still vulnerable spots in my defenses.

Like no real weapon.

Crap.

“You will not prevail against me, Anita Blake. No one does. And you and those bound to you are a treasure that I will not abandon.” The tranquil and serene timbre of the voice was at total odds with the words and yet I could feel it’s stillness insinuating itself through mere slivers of cracks in my barricades.

I wanted two things at once- two things just as at odds as the Nutcracker’s words and tone. I wanted to call out for Jean-Claude and Richard, to feel their strength buoy me up again but I also wanted to cut the thread that circled us like a gift bow. If this thing did get me, I didn’t want it getting my men as well.

My men. Two. Most woman have a hard time finding one wonderful guy, I’d found two. Well so neither was human and both could be a monstrous pain in my ass but what we had together was unlike anything I’d ever dreamed of.

Dreams. Everything kept coming back to sleep and dreams. This Nutcracker had some link to dreaming. I couldn’t remember studying about any lore or creature like this.

I was almost too washed out and preoccupied with my reveries to see the monster lunge at me, his white gloved hand flashing out like a bad Jacko impersonation. Again something propelled me away, something that prowled deep within and overrode my human reactions to respond with feral instinct. Richard’s beast...

The Nutcracker snagged the edge of the cape let out a howl and snatched its hand back, fingers smoldering and stinking of campfire ashes. I danced away and tightened my grasp on the lollipop. If that thing tried that again, I’d crack it in the face. It wouldn’t help and it certainly would hurt- the monster that is.

I had no idea why Jean-Claude’s cape had roasted the Nutcracker’s pinkies but I was thankful for any advantage gained.

“Enough games. You will weary long before I so do not prolong this.” The Nutcracker extended his hands in a welcoming gesture. I noticed the fingers of the one white glove were fricasseed and apparently so were the fingers. There were stumps there now like a forest after a raging fire. Lamentably it didn’t seem to be bothering the Nutcracker as much as I hoped. Its voice stoked feelings of peace and comfort and serenity in the hearth of my heart... I wanted to rest by that blaze ensconced in the embrace of Jean-Claude and Richard.

I felt a hand grip my wrist where I had it outside the cape and instinctively jerked back with a surge of strength. I don’t think it was lycanthrope aided now, it was sheer mortal panic. The force was enough to tear free from the Nutcracker but I lost my footing, reeled sideways and crashed headfirst into the throne. My supersucker skittled across the smooth ground- unscathed.

Bright pixie lights did rainbow glissades behind my eyelids and a bass drum thumped a tempo deep in my head.

I was probably the only one in the world that could give herself a real concussion in a imaginary dream.

The Nutcracker tilted at the waist in a stiff bowing gesture to peer down at me.

“Go to hell.” I wished him a happy holiday.

A warm resonant chuckle greeted my sentiment.

If the world wasn’t spinning like a tilt-a-whirl I probably would have been better able to respond but as it was I just succumbed to the lurching and hunched over in a semi-fetal stance. A supplementary acrid burning in my throat escalated into a full fledged assault as I rifted up some unidentifiable stomach contents. Right on the Nutcracker’s shiny square toed black boot.

“Gack.” I noted loquaciously. The monster stepped back stiffly and made a sharp military precise kick with its leg, sending the offending stomach sludge sailing off into the gloom. It’s boot still looked nasty- like it had tried to polish them with blackberry jam.

I remembered similar episodes of upchucking at preternatural crime scenes when I had first joined RPIT as their on-call expert. Those incidences had been both embarrassing and ghastly. This one was much more emotionally rewarding.

“I have never experienced this reaction before.” The Nutcracker informed me, perplexity lacing the singsong serenity of its tone.

Good to know I could keep it on its soiled toes.

I crawled around the chair like a giant beetle with Jean-Claude’s cape dragging over me like a carapace. The monster watched me with dark brooding eyes as I peered at it over the throne’s armrests.

“What’da ya want?” Gee, I articulated that well considering my tongue felt like a loofa sponge and my head was about to pop like a champagne cork under pressure. Strong, firm, resolute, redundant.

“You, your vampire lover, your shapeshifter lover... and all the dreams and memories you contain.” The Nutcracker did the spike smile thing again and nodded at me like I was a recalcitrant three year old being bidden to take a nap and answering...why? Why? Why?

The dreams and memories we contain? What the hell did that mean? It sounded like we were specimen bottles brimming full with motes of memories.

Jean-Claude is over four hundred years old. From the little he has told me of his living life it was a blend of famine, poverty, and abuse and pampered, educated, aristocratic dalliances. That’s around thirty years of life crammed full of experiences, events, interludes and observations that make Indiana Jones look like a slovenly couch potato. Only Jean-Claude’s are real... not fiction. He was ‘brought over’ as the vampires refer to it as a sexual plaything for the lascivious, sadistic and morally depraved master vampires to toy with. A victim of his own earthly beauty and devastating sensuality he became a victim of some sort of demonic vampire syndrome he calls the ardeur. He won’t tell me much other than it made him sexually insatiable. I thought he was like that anyway.

Even much of his ‘life’ as the undead had been a horror for him- those he loved tortured, disfigured and killed, his own body ransomed for aid from the council, passed around from one deviant monster to another until now. Now he was the Master of St Louis, the dominant, calculating, astute equivalent of the GQ cover boy for all mainstream entrepreneurial vampires. He was the owner of strip clubs and other preternatural ‘entertainment’ that routinely sucked the tourists dry of money and other precious fluid commodities. He was gorgeous. Memories and dreams? Jean-Claude was like tapping into the main silver vein of the mother lode.

And Richard... Richard is only a couple years older than I am but he has seen so much, experienced so much as a were that his dreams are probably chock full of lycanthrope myth and recollections and... horrors. His normal middle-class American human dreams and aspirations were shattered by a faulty shot of anti-lycanthropy vaccine. The tainted dreams that replaced them included the horror of his beast and its needs and of being initiated into the intricacies of shapeshifter sex by the wicked bitch of the west, Raina. He learned the ways of lycanthropy in an unstable, deviant pack until his human ethics pushed him into challenging the ancient laws of the lukoi. Oh, and the munin! All the memories and power of the deceased pack members – their spirits, their ghosts were harbored in the munin- tales and legends going back to Lykaon of Arcadia. And the Ulfric amassed them in his heart and soul. So did his lupa- that’s still me even though it’s sort of iffy at the moment.

So, not only do I have my own dreams to haunt me- of my mother and her death, my grandmother and necromancy, of discovering my talent with the dead, of the monsters I’ve battled and slain, the crystal clear vision of the creatures that gave me each and every scar that tattoos my body but I have the memories of the lukoi and those that I touch as Jean-Claude’s ... ah, human servant. Then there are the memories and dreams I cherish most- of the love between myself and Richard and Jean-Claude.

Take those? I don’t think so.

The Nutcracker smirked at me, pointy teeth bared.

My head felt like a sonic explosion and I remembered another time I had a concussion... and then the pain was gone. Just like that. Just like now. I blinked but kept my face neutral. The same touch swallowed my pain now as it had when the vampire Aubrey had decked me into a wall, the same velvet rub inside my throbbing body, the same elimination of pain, the first mark... Jean-Claude.

“You are hurt. You should rest. Sleep.” The Nutcracker crooned at me not realizing the power of the marks made me more invulnerable to injury, made me heal faster, that Jean-Claude had ...fortified me. It thought I was down for the count and I had no intensions of letting it know differently.

“Yeah, tired. “ I touched my head with one hand and eyed the lollipop from under my upraised arm. The Nutcracker had glanced at it several times- quick, furtive looks that it either thought I didn’t note or just didn’t care. That stupid sucker was making it edgy.

Maybe it was a weapon after all.

“Sit. In the chair, relax... do you wish entertainment?” The thing purred at me.

Sure, turn the TV on, I thought. Maybe we can catch the “The Little Match Girl” on the Family channel. That should spark a hot flash in a big wood burl like you.

“Ugh.” I stuttered. I thought I was doing an excellent performance of portraying severely damaged goods. A warmth prowled through my body... feign, wait, watch, stalk... it whispered in my mind... wolf on the hunt... lukoi...Richard.

The Nutcracker looked around searching as if to summon something- perhaps the proposed entertainment and I lunged across the space like a sugar-seeking missile target locked on that wad of sweet corn syrup. The monster swung back too late as I clutched the stick in my hand and aimed the big round yellow disc at it. My feet were under me, firm and ready to sprint, the cape fluttering in the pervasive wind, Richard’s beast slavering in me to fight or flee- all the same to an alpha wolf.

The Nutcracker drew its sword- heavy, broad, almost as long as I am tall and glittering silver in the gloomy light. It had instantly assumed a defensive position but now as the seconds ticked by and we stared each other down, I saw it relax slightly. Then that sharp stake grin appeared again.

Shit, I was doing something wrong.

“You are holding it backward. Let me.” A soft deep voice said from directly behind my right shoulder as a lean, strong hand relieved me of my sorry excuse of a weapon. My heart was thudding in my throat- I had heard no one approach, sensed no other entity even functioning on Richard’s heightened feral instincts. My eyes followed the hand upward.

The hand connected to a muscular arm of rippling sinew corded from labor and exercise under skin of a rich Latino cappuccino brown. That relayed into a tall, darkly handsome man who made no effort whatsoever to conceal the supernatural affinity radiating from within almost black, sultry eyes. The soft, full lips set in a proud angular face flashed a faint smile at me- his teeth dazzling Colgate white against the canvas of his umber skin and short, thick black hair. His left forearm bore a ragged burn scar- a four pointed crown branded onto his body. Even dressed casually in faded jeans that rode low and snug on lean hips and a plain, sleeveless black muscle shirt with slightly scuffed black hightop Nike’s he could never have been regarded as ordinary. He balanced the sucker stick lightly in his hand as I summoned a smile in return.

Like I had told Jean-Claude, Rafael would never be the bad guy.

The Were Rat King
Chapter 6

“Do you need help to stand?” Rafael flicked a brief look at me still hunkered in my marathon starter’s crouch before returning a predatory gaze to the Nutcracker.

“This is not your affair”, the monster snapped, all vestiges of sugar and spice and everything nice vanishing from its tenor.

“Anita?” Rafael inquired again ignoring the Nutcracker’s admonishment.

“No. I’m good”. I scrambled to my feet, swooshing the cape around me so I stayed warm but could move freely.

“Yes. You are.” The Rodere of the Dark Crown Clan complimented me, “but this maybe beyond your skill to defy alone”.

Great. Why were all the men in my inner orbit so damn macho ego challenged? Why were they all committed to the big, badass tough guy role while viewing me like I was just some piece of feminine fluff? I didn’t get the moniker ‘The Executioner’ because I dressed to kill.

Oh wait, my inner light bulb sputtered on. Jean-Claude, Richard, Rafael- all super studly alpha males. So, it’s not image or attitude that make them excessively, exasperatingly protective; it’s in their genes – or jeans since I guess it is gender related to an extent. Or maybe it just comes with being the leader of a group of beings capable of using my Jeep as a free weight and more than occasionally prone to snacking on us mere feeble mortals.

I had half a mind to explain to Rafael that friend and ally or not, he really didn’t need to protect me. I didn’t need mollycoddled. Luckily that insert foot-in-mouth half of my mind was decisively overridden by the other half- the part connected to the lobes of reason and self-preservation that said ‘you have no weapon but your wits’. So I used them and just kept my mouth shut.

Help