Free Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton

Musette.”
    â€œAll fear her,” Asher said.
    Damian nodded. “All fear her.”
    I laid the top of my head against Damian’s chest, shaking my head back and forth, messing up my hair, but I didn’t care. “Damn it, if you’d just let me kill her tonight, now, it would save so much trouble. I’m right, you know I’m right.”
    Damian raised my face so I had to meet his eyes. “If you slay Musette, then Belle Morte will destroy Jean-Claude.”
    â€œWhat if Musette does something really terrible?”
    Damian looked behind me at Asher. I turned so I could watch the vampires exchanging glances. Asher finally spoke, “I would never want to tell you that under no circumstances are we to slay Musette, because there may come a time when she gives you no choice. I would not have you endanger yourself by hesitating, if that time comes. But I think that Musette will play the political game very well and will give you no excuse so awful as that.”
    I sighed.
    â€œIf you don’t handcuff Damian to Anita tonight, she’s never going to make it through Musette’s little show,” Jason said.
    â€œI do not believe that will be necessary,” Asher said, “will it, Anita?”
    I frowned. “How the hell should I know? Besides, I’m fresh out of handcuffs.”
    Jason drew a pair out of his jacket pocket. “You can borrow mine.”
    I frowned harder. “What are you doing carrying around a pair of handcuffs?” I held up my hand. “Wait, I don’t want to know.”
    He grinned at me. “I’m a stripper, Anita, I use all sorts of props.”
    On one hand it was good to know that Jason didn’t carry the handcuffs around for his own love life. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know that handcuffs were part of his props as a stripper. What kind of shows were they doing down at Guilty Pleasures these days? Wait, I didn’t really want an answer to that question either.
    We all trooped to the back door of Circus of the Damned. We didn’t use Jason’s handcuffs, but I did end up walking down all those stairs holding Damian’s hand. There was a growing list of people that walking hand in hand with I would have found romantic or titillating. Damian wasn’t on the list, more’s the pity.

6
    D EEP UNDER THE Circus of the Damned were what seemed like miles of underground rooms. They had been the home of St. Louis’s Master of the City, whoever that happened to be, for as long as anyone could remember. Only the huge warehouse above ground had changed. Jean-Claude had modernized the underground, redecorated some of it, but that was all. It was still room after room of stone and torches.
    To soften the stone look, Jean-Claude had used huge gauzy drapes to make a sort of tent for his living room walls. The outside was white, but once you parted the first set of hangings the “walls” were silver, gold, and white. Jason had reached out to part the drapes, when Jean-Claude pushed through. He motioned us all back, a finger to his lips.
    I swallowed my greeting. He was wearing skin-tight leather pants tucked into thigh-high boots, so it was hard to tell where the pants left off and the boots began. The shirt was one of his typical shirts, something sort of 1700s, with mounds of ruffles at sleeves, and neck. But the color of all that silk was something I’d never seen him in. A vibrant blue somewhere between royal and navy. The color made his midnight eyes bluer than ever. His face was as always flawless, breathtaking. It was, as always, like some wet dream come to life, too beautiful to be real, too sensuous to be safe.
    My heart was hammering in my throat. I wanted to fling myself on him, to wrap myself around him like a blanket. I wanted all those black curls to sweep along my body like I was being caressed by living silk. I wanted him. I almost always wanted him, but tonight, I