His eyes lost their remembering look, but they didn't regain the shine of pleasure. "If Jean-Claude had not offered me a home when our old master got himself executed, Belle Morte would have had me. If any other master had offered for me, anyone less than a le sourdre de sang , then I could not have refused her. You have no idea how rare it is that Jean-Claude has gained enough power to be his own fountainhead of blood. Not more than three vampires in nearly eight hundred years have gained that kind of power. It protected all of us when our old master lost his mind and went against the council's orders. An entire court of nearly all Belle's line, when it fell apart, she tried to pick up all the pieces."

Britain was the only other country in the world where vampires were legal. They had rights, and you couldn't just kill one of them simply because they were a vampire. It was murder. But in America we'd been doing it almost four years, and the Brits were newer at it. There'd been some hitches. Hitches that the human media and powers that be didn't know about. The Master of the City of London had been very old. He'd been one of the first master vamps that Belle Morte made, oh, so long ago. Sometimes the really ancient vampires don't take well to newfangled ideas. You know, electricity, modern medicine, and the fact that they were supposed to expose themselves to public view in a very modern, rock star sort of way. London had had more of Belle's lovely vampires than any but three other groups, and that included Belle's own court. So when the vamps got legal, the vampire council wanted the Master of the City to play to the human media. He called himself Dracula, because once the real vampire Dracula was assassinated, the name was up for grabs. Only one person at a time can hold a name per country, and only one person per time can hold some of the more well-known names. Dracula wasn't really Dracula, but the news media didn't seem to understand that, and they'd enjoyed talking about how they had the real Dracula as their Master of the City. They'd only wanted him to be as politically correctly visible as Jean-Claude and a lot of the masters in this country, but the new Drac didn't take well to it. In fact, he went buggers and started slaughtering humans.

The council managed to hush most of it up. To assassinate Dracula again, and just to prove that vampires can be as superstitious as the next bunch, they declared Dracula a dead name. No other vampire was allowed to choose it, or hold it. There had been two of them, and both had broken council law and had to be assassinated. Two was enough.

Jean-Claude had offered the London vamps a home. Not all of them, but many of them. All of them that could trace their lineage to Belle Morte. Who better to be strippers and dancers than the most beautiful and seductive vampires in the world? I couldn't argue with his logic. But lying there trapped under the weight of two of those vampires, I had to wonder if part of what was happening was just too damn many of them in one place. Was there such a thing as vampire pheromones? Probably.

"You're safe now," I said, "so everybody off the animator. I need to get up."

"That I did not offer means I am no gentleman," Requiem said, and he came to his knees with more grace than I was going to manage.

Byron got to all fours, head hanging down like a tired horse. I could see down the line of his body, and he looked tired, spent. "I can't feel my legs below my knees, so I'm as far up as I'm getting for awhile. Sorry, luv."

His getting up even that far left me suddenly naked from the waist down, or as naked as mattered to me. I never felt dressed in just thigh-highs and boots, and still wearing the shirt complete with gun didn't matter either. My skirt was up so high that the front of me was totally exposed, and for me, that was naked. I know, I know, how middle-America, how small town. But truth is truth. If you gave me a choice of covering anything, that would be it.

I tried to pull the skirt down, but I was lying on too much of it. Requiem stood and offered me a hand, but Nathaniel was on the other side, with his hand out. There was a look I couldn't quite read on his face, and this time I fought not to read his mind. I'd had enough surprises for one evening. But I took Nathaniel's hand and not Requiem's.

Nathaniel had to take both my hands to pull me out from under Byron. When he got me standing, my knees wouldn't hold, and he had to catch me around the waist. I looked at Requiem, who had spilled his black cloak around himself. I thought he was insulted, so I said, "Nothing personal, Requiem."

He gave me a brief and rare grin. He smiled, but grinning was rare. "I am not insulted, my lady." He spread the cloak wide suddenly, so that the front of his body showed. The cloak was black, but his slacks were not. The pale gray slacks were stained on the front as if he'd not quite made it to a bathroom, but that wasn't really what the stain was. It wasn't the stain that got me, it was the fact that the stain ran from his groin down one leg of his pants nearly to his knees.

I gave him raised eyebrows.

I expected embarrassment, but didn't get it. "A task well done, m'lady, a task well done."

That made me blush, which made him laugh, that deep rolling chuckle that was all masculine. Byron joined it, and his was not as deep a sound, but had just as much maleness to it. He was finally on his knees, instead of all fours.

Nathaniel didn't join in the laughter. He was helping me pull my skirt into place. Something about his face, his silence, reached the vampires.

Requiem made a low sweeping bow that flared the cloak around him, like wings. He used the cloak, or one similar to it, on stage. "My apologies, Nathaniel, it did not occur to me to ask your favor when I entered. Jean-Claude is our master and hers, but not yours." He looked up at Nathaniel, giving him the full force of those startling blue eyes.

"Anita doesn't need my permission for anything," Nathaniel said, but his voice made the words not ring true.

I sighed. I guess I couldn't blame him. He'd spent a lot of time lately watching everybody else but him get so much more than just sleeping privileges. But I couldn't apologize in front of the vampires without explaining way too much. So I didn't try.

"You get to sleep with her every night, mate, don't begrudge us a few crumbs from your table."

He took a breath like he'd say something, but I stopped him with a hand against his lips. "It was a metaphysical emergency. Nathaniel wants to opt out of those for awhile."

He looked at me, and I felt his smile against my hand. A smile just for me, because no one else could see it. He kissed the palm of my hand and moved it away from his mouth, but some piece of unhappiness had faded from his eyes. It made me smile.

"Let's bandage that wrist."

I glanced at the wrist in question. The gauze had glued itself to the wound, and it had begun to close. Byron had put a lot of pressure on it. "And find my underwear," I said.

Byron lifted what was left of my black undies from under the tables. "I think they've had it, luver."

I sighed. Bert had been right, the skirt was too short, and it was certainly too short to wear without underwear.

"I might have something that fits you," Byron said.

"What?" I asked.

"A thong, but at least the front bits will be covered." He smiled when he said it.

I shook my head, but I took his offer. A little underwear was better than no underwear at all.