by L. Zephaniah  (zephania@pantek.com)
 
 

Adult:  Graphic sex (N/L/V), violence, rape.
Sincere thanks to Portia and Barb Vainio for their tact, their honesty, and their suggestions.
Permission to archive to JADFE and NightHaven, should they so desire.
 

". . . When you have a friend in the Nightcrawler . . . who needs enemies?"

Chapter 1

     Nick Knight effortlessly piloted his vintage Cadillac through the streets of Toronto.  He enjoyed the feeling of the night air caressing his curly hair as he wheeled the huge car around the corner, leaving the lake shore area and heading for the Raven nightclub.
     He was restless tonight, he didn't know why...  <Well, yes,> he admitted to himself, <he did know why. He needed sex.  Vampires needed more than just blood, and he had been alone too long. A shame, really, that Natalie was out of town at that forensics conference -- well, not a shame, since he couldn't have what he needed with her, anyway.>
     He broke off his turbulent thoughts abruptly, getting himself back under his usual rigid control.  No sense arriving at the Raven with lust burning him up inside. He didn't want to deal with LaCroix's mocking smirk. He shook his head.  <LaCroix.  What was the old vampire up to?  They had not had this good a relationship for centuries -- what did he want?  Was he really mellowing, accepting Nick as an individual, not just as his own shadow?>  Nick shook his head.  He had learned his lessons long ago:   never trust LaCroix.

     In his broadcast booth at the Raven, Lucien LaCroix prepared for his nightly radio address.  He couldn't seem to focus on his subject; he was distracted, irritable.  <He'd had that damn dream again,> he remembered angrily.  First, he'd relived the crisis of his daughter/master Divia, as she tried to slay all around him, to leave him as solitary as he'd unwittingly left her.  In the dream, she'd nearly succeeded -- LaCroix reminded himself yet again that Urs and Vachon had survived the attacks.  He steepled his fingers, regaining his composure with difficulty.
  The second part was always worse.  Nicholas's partner on the police force -- <the merest baby, surely not old enough, let alone skilled enough, to protect his son's back> -- had made a stupid, rookie mistake and gotten herself killed.  Nicholas, of course, blamed himself, and fell into one of those bouts of melancholia he was prone to.  Then, that <woman,> the coroner, made demands on his Nicholas which could not be fulfilled.  In trying, Nicholas had killed her.  Nicholas, turning at last to his master, had then -- LaCroix broke the thought off.  It was only a dream, nightmarish as it seemed.  <A typical parent's dream,> he supposed;  <his child's partner was a liability to him;  his lover got him into trouble; he died; and LaCroix was left alone, again.>
     He wondered briefly if the nightmares were some part of the aftereffect of Divia's attack.  She'd threatened to leave him alone, solitary, and in the dreams he was...  <No.  He would not allow her that vengeance.  Still, he thought as he touched an empty place in his mind, this time she is gone.  Nineteen hundred years, more or less, and only now was she not with him.  Even when he'd thought her dead and buried, still there'd been that silent presence... a presence he recognized only by its absence.  Now, she was truly gone, and he was truly alone.>
     <No.  He was not alone.>  He reached out to Nicholas,  reassuring himself.  <Still alive.  Unhappy, frustrated, but alive.>  LaCroix shook his head ruefully.  Nicholas was burning up inside, a conflagration waiting to draw his master into it. < That,> LaCroix realized, <was probably the source of his own inability to focus.>  LaCroix tried again to tune his son's lust and frustration out; tried once again to focus on his monologue.  He squashed his own mounting desires firmly.  Nicholas's needs were triggering his own, but he would, as always, control them.

     Nick pulled the car into a parking space and walked the short distance to the club, pulling his thoughts away from dangerous subjects as he went.  Fortunately it was a Wednesday night.  He and Tracy were both off, but she was tied up volunteering at a homeless shelter.  Only on Wednesdays could he be reasonably relaxed at the Raven, safe from discovery, secure in knowing the young blonde detective would not suddenly "pop in" to see Vachon and find him, instead.
     A line waited at the front door.  As usual, the place was crowded with the denizens of the dark and the wanna-bes.  He casually bypassed the queue, raising an eyebrow at the burly doorman and receiving an answering nod.  The crowd watched, resigned, as yet another regular entered before them.  He crossed the room to the bar, casually sidestepping some aggressive revelers.  Somehow, the person in his usual seat was just leaving, and Miklos was already pouring his usual drink.  He sat down, smiling genuinely at Miklos, and wrapped his fingers around the stem of the goblet.  Miklos smiled back.  No matter what anyone else said or thought, Miklos liked Nick.  The bartender set the bottle on the bar beside him, and moved away to serve someone else.
     Nick reached out with his mind and let LaCroix know he was here.  <Never let the old demon think you had any secrets; it was always safer to let him know.>  Nick swirled the ruby liquid in his glass idly, watching the lights reflected off the surface.  LaCroix was busy with his broadcast.  Nick smiled.  He had timed his visit to coincide with the broadcast -- he really didn't want to encounter LaCroix tonight.
     "Drinking alone?" a sweet young voice interrupted his thoughts.  He turned to find Urs leaning on the bar beside him.
     "Care to join me?"
     "No, I'm waiting for Bourbon.  We're going to the Jays game tonight."  She broke off to wave at another friend, and Nick smiled a lukewarm welcome as Javier Vachon joined them and took a place at Nick's other side.  Vachon caught the bartender's eye, and Miklos brought him a drink.  He swigged it eagerly.
     Nick had just turned his attention back to Urs when an aggressive young vampire came and put an arm around the pretty blonde.  Urs removed the arm with an expression of disdain.  Nick raised an eyebrow, while Vachon motioned for another drink.
     The fledgling, seeing the company Urs was keeping, decided to have a little fun at Nick's expense.  After all, everyone knew Nick was strange; he wouldn't kill, wouldn't drink human blood.  He was a cop.  It was a mystery to everyone why LaCroix, of all people, tolerated him around.  Mardale didn't see why he should have to tolerate this pariah, why he shouldn't make a play for Urs himself.  Maybe if he ran off the freak he could get Urs to himself.
     "C'mon, baby," he began confidently, "let a real man show you what's what.  You don't need this pretty blonde bimbo," he said, nodding at Nick, "when I'm around."  He stroked Urs's shoulder suggestively with the back of his hand.
     Urs jerked free from his grasp.  "Get lost, Mardale."
     Mardale turned spiteful eyes to Urs's two companions.  "Hey, Vachon, adding another blonde to your harem?" he asked suggestively, leering at Nick.  "He's almost as pretty as this one.  Lots prettier than that skinny blonde mortal you've been seeing.  I'll take this one off your hands," he said with hearty insincerity, "while you work on that one."  He gestured dismissively toward Nick.
     Vachon was taken aback at Mardale's effrontery.  He opened his mouth to stop him, but somehow Nick silenced him with a glance.  Vachon shrugged; the insult was to Nick, not him, and Nick just never allowed himself to be goaded by such insignificant punks.
     Mardale again grabbed Urs's arm, and Vachon instinctively moved to take the man outside for a lesson in manners.  He stood up, his chair crashing violently to the floor behind him.  The two men faced off, Mardale still holding Urs by the arm.
     Nick quelled Vachon's hotheaded response with a raised eyebrow and a significant glance at LaCroix's broadcast booth, then reached out and gently but irresistibly removed Mardale's hand from Urs's arm.
      Mardale looked at him in surprise; he hadn't expected that kind of strength. "What's it to you, pretty boy?"
     Nick didn't visibly react to the insult, just stared Mardale in the eye and lowered his mental barriers a bit. Just enough to allow his vampiric aura, which he normally suppressed to almost nothing, to emerge and wrap itself, like an octopus, around the young punk.  Mardale, shocked at the feeling of age, of power, of <darkness> and menacing anticipation suddenly emanating from the sissy in front of him, closed his mouth and backed off.
     Nick clamped the barriers back into place as Mardale moved away, and smiled casually at Urs as if nothing had happened.  She and Vachon both looked at him a moment, then continued as if no one had ever interrupted.  They had both experienced this side of Nick before.
     Urs and Nick resumed their interrupted conversation quietly, discussing the Jays and their chances against the Red Sox tonight.  Clemens would be pitching against his old team tonight, and it should be an interesting matchup.  Vachon, not really a baseball fan, leaned back against the bar and watched the two converse amicably.  The noise level in the bar was high, and Nick and Urs leaned close together to be heard.
     <They were a lot alike,> mused Vachon; <both unhappy with what they were, both wanting something they couldn't have.  Physically they were alike, too; two curly blond heads, two sets of wide, innocent blue eyes, two flawless ivory complexions.  Male and female, yes, but a lot alike.>  He continued studying them until Bourbon appeared to escort Urs to the game, and Nick returned to quietly contemplating his own drink.  Vachon felt a stirring within him, and eyed Nick speculatively.  He was beginning to wonder where his own thoughts were taking him.  He was pulled from his reverie by the approach of a stranger.
     "Nicholas."  The stranger stated his recognition calmly, self-confidence in every line of his body.  He radiated age and strength.  His eyes assessed Nicholas boldly, almost proprietarily.  Vachon picked up his drink, ready to move away.
     "Andovar."  Nick looked absolutely indifferent, just acknowledging the other's presence.
     "I'm surprised to find you here," the stranger continued.  "I didn't feel you until just a moment ago."  He raised his eyebrows in question.  Nicholas responded only with a noncommittal grunt; the other must have felt him when he intimidated Mardale.  "You are here with LaCroix?"
     Nicholas lowered his glass from his lips.  He didn't wish to be rude to LaCroix's old friend, but neither did he wish to renew the "friendship" for himself.  He'd never liked the man.  "LaCroix's in the back, finishing his show."  He stated the obvious, then turned back to his drink and his companion.
     Andovar took his dismissal calmly;  he really hadn't expected a warm welcome from LaCroix's enchanting son.  Perhaps LaCroix would be more accommodating to his desires . . .   "I'll catch him later, then," he responded casually.  "<Au revoir,> Nicholas.  Nice to . . . see . . . you again."  He nodded regally to Nicholas and Vachon, then strolled off into the crowd.
     Nick poured himself another drink from the bottle and met Vachon's gaze directly.  Vachon watched the stranger move away, then looked curiously back at Knight.  "What did he want?"  The whole conversation had seemed mysteriously pointless to him, but he didn't doubt it was loaded with undertones.
     Knight swirled his drink around the glass, watching as if mesmerized by the fluid.  He seemed lost in thought, but suddenly raised his eyes to Vachon.  "The same thing you want," he replied in a low, throaty voice.  Vachon raised his eyebrows in question.  "Me." Nick's quirky smile slanted across his face as Vachon looked at him in surprise.  "The only difference," he continued, "is that <he's> not going to get me."
     Vachon felt a curl of need tighten within him.  <How had Knight known of his desire?  He'd barely begun to recognize it, himself.>  He looked into the other vampire's eyes, seeing the flecks of gold, the sensuality shimmering under the surface.  His own desire answered, and he felt his own eyes melting into gold as his erection stiffened in spite of himself.  He smiled uncertainly.  "He's not?"
     Knight just grinned at him.
     Vachon abandoned caution and grinned back.  "So.  Are you joining my harem of blondes, or am I joining your harem of brunettes?"  Uneasy at the thought of coupling with someone so much stronger than he, but more than willing, he covered his insecurity with a joke.
     Nick laughed out loud.  People often commented on Vachon's penchant for blondes, but few ever mentioned Nick's liking for brunettes.  Natalie and Janette -- both dark ladies.  Tracy and Urs -- both blondes.  And now, a blonde for Vachon, a brunette for Nick-- what could be better?  "No strings."
     "What about LaCroix?" asked Vachon nervously.
     "What about him?"
     Vachon looked at Nick closely.  "I've heard things, Knight, over the years.  Even before I came to Toronto, I heard things.  Whispers about what happens to people who get between you and him."
     "Don't worry about it," replied Nick seriously.  "He doesn't care about, er, casual sexual encounters."  <In fact,> Nick reflected to himself, <he'd probably be relieved.>  That disjointed broadcast he'd listened to on the way here showed Nick was oozing sexual frustration through their bond, and the older vampire was nearly as tense and distracted as Nick.
     Vachon stared at Nick a moment, then decided to trust him.  Nick didn't like to kill things; he also didn't like to get things killed.  Including, Vachon hoped, himself.  "My place," he waggled an eyebrow suggestively, "or yours?"
     "What's wrong with right here?" asked Nick, his voice low and seductive.
     Vachon felt his own eyes start to go gold with lust, but held back.  "Right under his nose?"
     "Safer here, actually.  He's always suspicious of secrets."  Nick paused.  "If he thinks I'm keeping a relationship with you secret, he'll think it's something to worry about."
     "He won't mind?"  Vachon asked for one final reassurance.
     Nick looked at him steadily.  "No."  He considered briefly.  "The worst that might happen is he might decide to join us."  That thought almost stopped him, but the lust had him in its grasp.
     Vachon considered the idea only briefly; the thought of LaCroix actually joining them was too remote, he decided, to worry about. "If you can stand it," he said lightly, "I guess I can."
     The two vampires retired to a back room without further words.  By the time they had threaded their way through the crowd, each had worked himself into a fine state of readiness.  Without speaking, Nick shut and locked the door, then began stripping.  His eyes were aflame and his fangs had dropped.  Vachon was in a similar state, and ripped his pants down over a hard erection. The two men met in a fangs bared embrace that might almost have been a battle.

     Back in the broadcast booth, LaCroix was fighting the bond with Nicholas. <He wished his son would get some relief, would just go fuck somebody.  Anybody.  He'd been suggesting it, obliquely, for weeks.  Nicholas's continuing tension was driving his master absolutely crazy.  If Nicholas didn't do something soon, the younger vampire would probably kill that little mortal, the medical examiner, before he even knew he was kissing her.  Either that, or LaCroix would kill Nicholas.>
   LaCroix tried once again to concentrate on his broadcast. He instead found himself concentrating on the link with Nicholas.  Something had changed, something was --  <aaaahhh.>  Nicholas was taking care of the problem, at last.  LaCroix leaned back in his chair, relaxing in relief.  He allowed the link to open a little; voyeurism could be such a pleasure.  And Nicholas wasn't exactly doing this quietly.
     <Well, well,> thought LaCroix, <he's doing it here at the Raven.  And it must be with one of our kind; a mortal would be dead by now.>  Another wave of passion washed over LaCroix.  Nicholas's need had been so great, his lust now was so heady, that LaCroix stopped resisting the answering lust within him.  He flipped the broadcast to music, and rose and left the broadcast booth.
       He followed the waves of lust to one of the back rooms.   The two inside were radiating so much energy he was surprised the mortals didn't feel it.  He stopped at the locked door, then turned the handle with enough strength to force it, breaking the lock.  <Owner's privilege,> he thought to himself with a smirk.  He stepped inside, where Nick and another writhed on the floor.
     Nicholas was on his knees and elbows, crouched over the body of a male vampire, performing fellatio on him with almost devout passion.  The other lay on his back, facing the opposite way, with Nicholas's shaft buried in his mouth up to the hilt.  The two vampires at first ignored LaCroix, but Nick raised his head just enough to snarl "Go away!" around the shaft in his mouth.
     LaCroix cocked an eyebrow.  <So impolite.  He'd just watch a while.>  The other two vampires got on with it;  far too much passion was flowing between them for something so trivial as an audience to interrupt it.  <Far too much need was flowing,> thought LaCroix, <for anything, short of a freight train, to interrupt it.>  He could feel the lust, the rapacious need, flowing around him like a river in spate.
     Vachon continued his explorations of Nick, oblivious.  He reached his hands up around Nick's back, pulling him closer, than ran his hands over the round cheeks of Nick's buttocks.  Nick groaned in response,  arching his back and holding himself off Vachon with one hand while he ran the other up the sensitive inner thigh.  Both forgot LaCroix's presence in the ecstasy of the moment. The vampires within were firmly in control.
     Vachon, vigorously massaging Nick's rear cheeks, pulled them apart and pushed them back together rhythmically.  Nick, groaning with delight, responded by pumping in time into Vachon's ready throat.  Vachon returned the favor.
     LaCroix, inundated by the power of the lust flooding him through the link with Nicholas, overwhelmed by the sight of Vachon's olive hands on Nicholas's beautiful ivory cheeks, by the glimpses of the secret entrance hidden within, suddenly threw caution to the winds.  Touching Nicholas's mind, he found only the vampire -- and the vampire wanted intercourse.  He stripped his pants off with vampiric speed and dropped to his knees behind Nicholas.  Looking down at his own rampant shaft, oozing pre-cum, he decided that would do for lubrication.  He grabbed Nicholas by the hips, holding him still while he plunged his length within. The force of his thrust lifted the smaller man off his knees, only LaCroix's hands keeping him from falling.
     Nicholas cried out at the sudden pain and shock of the unexpected entry, but LaCroix was not about to release him.  Vachon continued his ardent devotions to Nick's cock, and soon had him responding to the passion again.  LaCroix pounded himself in and out, almost viciously.
      Vachon, from his vantage point between Nick's legs, watched in awe.  Nick's thighs tensed and released with the effort of withstanding LaCroix's assault, the corded muscles knotting with every thrust, but he never paused in his attentions to his other lover.  Vachon accepted the sudden addition to their tryst as Nick had, and let the passion sweep him on.
     Nick's attentions, though frequently interrupted by the unavoidable movements of his body in response to LaCroix's forceful stroking, kept Vachon exhilarated.  The inevitable breaks were compensated for by the enjoyment of watching the action above him.  LaCroix plunged in deeply, withdrew smoothly, to plunge in again.  Nick's  muscles stood out, impressive, sensual.  The lurching of his body in response to the master vampire's forcefulness was intensely exciting.
     LaCroix, satisfied that he was in, released Nick's hips and let his weight fall onto Nick's back.  Suddenly, Vachon feared that Nick was about to be overwhelmed;  every slam into his rear was slamming him closer to the floor, closer to Vachon.  The view of LaCroix's cock sliding in and out of Nick, enticing as it was, was just getting too close.  Vachon was trapped underneath.  He eyed the femoral artery on Nick's thigh, bulging with the stress Nick's muscles were sustaining.  His fangs ached for it; but his heart quailed.  He pulled back from Nick involuntarily, moving to escape.
     "Stop, LaCroix," gasped Nicholas.  "Please, stop," he begged, but LaCroix, face hardening, ignored him.  "Wait, LaCroix."
     LaCroix, his expression martyred, paused a moment.  He might wait; he wouldn't stop altogether.  He'd been refused too long to accept rejection now.
     "You can stay there, LaCroix," Nicholas panted, looking back over his shoulder at LaCroix, "just wait a moment."  LaCroix stayed still, stony eyed, guarding against the possibility that Nicholas might think he could escape at this late point.  Nick got his breath back and continued, "We're going to crush Vachon.  Let him turn around."
     LaCroix raised his weight off Nick's back, and Nick managed to raise himself enough for Vachon to whisk himself out from under.  Vachon, himself hot and ready with the thrill of Nick's ministrations and LaCroix's stroking of Nick, decided he wanted what Nick was getting, and reversed himself underneath.  Nick, quickly grasping his desire,  spread his own pre-cum, with a little extra saliva, over his shaft, then entered gently.  LaCroix, who had, he felt, waited quite patiently for quite long enough, thrust violently into Nicholas once more, churning his hips in a 'get on with it, already' reminder.
     Nick, already thrusting his hips forward, couldn't counteract the sudden onslaught and found himself completely buried in Vachon.  Vachon and Nicholas grunted in unison, both absorbing the force of LaCroix's powerful motion.  LaCroix let his weight fall forward again, while Nicholas, using both arms and still crouching on his knees, tried to keep their combined weight off Vachon -- at least enough so the smaller man could breathe occasionally.
     LaCroix set up a powerful rhythm, in and out.  Nick tried to use that rhythm, pushing out from Vachon and meeting LaCroix, then into Vachon as LaCroix withdrew, but the strokes were too powerful.  He found himself pushing into Vachon as LaCroix slammed into him, withdrawing on the backstroke.  LaCroix, with the strength of almost two millennia behind him, was essentially fucking both younger vampires at once.  Nick surrendered himself to the thrust.
     The three vampires rode the waves of passion.  Nick had denied himself for too long, LaCroix had been denied Nicholas for too long, and Vachon was swept away with the power of the encounter.  The waves crested and began to break into the churning maelstrom of orgasm.  LaCroix bit savagely into Nicholas's neck.  Nicholas plunged aching fangs into Vachon.  LaCroix extended his wrist to Vachon, who seized it with both hands, pulling it toward him and twisting his own body to better reach.  He bit avidly and sucked down the splash of blood with a savage joy.
     Orgasm washed over them, sweeping away thought and control, leaving only mindless exhilaration.   The three sucked the blood down avidly.  All three had well and truly released the beast within themselves, and the vampire in each was content just to feed, lost in the passion.  LaCroix, tasting once again the particular blood he most lusted after, worked his fangs in deeper, releasing more of the blood, reveling in the flavor, the instant sunshine.  Nicholas's beast, in such need and for so long denied any blood except cow, grabbed fierce control of him and just fed, relishing the moment, the flavor, the power of the blood.
     Vachon was overwhelmed by the dark power of LaCroix's blood.  He felt himself drowning in the deep currents of that immense power -- the oldest vampire he had ever shared blood with.  Just as he began to fear he would be lost entirely, the blood changed.  Lightening, somehow; filled with effervescent bubbles of joy and light that he, in awe, soon diagnosed as Nicholas.  The blood of the two older vampires had not, as he had always experienced before, blended into a single flavor; the two, like oil and water, had mixed without losing their own distinctive individualities.  LaCroix's blood, with Nicholas's mixed in, was like a fine dark champagne.  <After this>, thought Vachon, <everything else will taste flat.  Like a beer without the fizz.  No wonder LaCroix won't give him up.>  His last coherent thought was to wonder what Nick tasted like straight, without the dark flood of LaCroix.
     The three vampires continued the blood exchange for a measureless time.  Vachon, surfacing again,  wondered at his insatiable appetite.  He had not felt such a hunger since the First Hunger, that beautiful mortal hunter, snagged as he returned home with the day's catch.  LaCroix, his own memories triggered by Vachon's, relived his own first kill -- a nubile servant girl, her terror of the ravening vampire overlaying her terror of the erupting Vesuvius.  The two shared their memories of the avid, unrelenting hunger that had driven them.  Nicholas, responding, shared the memory of his own first kill -- a beautiful woman provided by his master, mesmerized and delectable, with Janette and LaCroix in the background urging him on...  Overcoming his reluctance, and coaxing him to feed... the candles lit everywhere... the remembrance of her delicate flavor...
     Vachon, accepting, bathed in the beauty of the setting, the sensuality of the atmosphere of Nick's memory.  Only gradually did he see the strangeness of it...  Nicholas being coaxed...
     LaCroix suddenly overwhelmed Nick's sharing with a return to his own memories at Pompeii, with stirring images of the harrowing atmosphere of his own conversion, the hot ash falling all around him as the hot urges raced through his blood.  The memories swept the other two vampires along with him as they fed and fed.

     At last sated, the three vampires lay together, a tangle of arms and legs.  LaCroix lay on  his right side facing Nicholas, his right arm cradling the heads of both younger vampires.  Nicholas  lay half on his left side, half on his stomach; facing and half supported by LaCroix.  Vachon curled spoon fashion against Nick's back.  LaCroix, recovering first, took the opportunity to watch his favorite creation sleep.  Nicholas, for all his 800 years, still slept like a baby, his face soft and innocent, his sleep deep and still.  Vachon, with his scruffy beard and hair, looked like a fallen angel next to him.  LaCroix, regarding his Nicholas closely, reached over and brushed a damp curl off his forehead, surprised to see tension still in Nicholas's face.  He touched their link lightly, then pulled himself gently out from under the other two.
     Nick, hardly stirring in his sleep, relaxed onto his stomach.  Vachon never moved.  LaCroix reached over, gently running a large hand down the curve of his son's back, over the rise of his buttock.  He paused, then gently separated the round cheeks.  Nick woke, and moved restlessly.  "No, LaCroix," he moaned, "not again.  Not now."  LaCroix bit into his own wrist.  "Please, LaCroix," Nick begged, "not yet.  I can't -- "
     Vachon opened his eyes, drowsily.  Something in Nick's voice disturbed him; something that said Nick didn't expect to be listened to, expected LaCroix to have him again, ready or not.  He lifted his head, hardly knowing what he could do to protect his friend, and watched, suddenly alert.
     LaCroix let his blood drip down his hands and off his fingers, holding them still above Nick's rear end.  He had taken Nicholas hard, without adequate preparation, and had torn him.  After the centuries it had taken to get back into Nicholas, he couldn't let his playmate remember it with pain -- especially since he hadn't exactly been invited to the party.  He let the blood pool over the injury, filling it and healing as only one's master's blood could heal.  Nick let out a moan of relief as a pain he had hardly been aware of in the afterglow was suddenly relieved.  He relaxed into sleep once again.
     LaCroix allowed the blood to flow a moment longer before again checking the injury.  It was strange,  he reflected, that injuries inflicted in this way did not heal as quickly as others.  Perhaps it was the effect of the ejaculate, or the fact that the wound was kept forcibly open by the physical requirements of their passion.  It would have healed, certainly, but this blood would hasten it.
     He met Vachon's gaze, one eyebrow raised.  Vachon moved closer to Nick, holding the other man close in his arms, and closed his eyes.  LaCroix wasn't going to hurt Nick, and probably not him, either.  Might as well relax.
     LaCroix smiled to himself as he looked at the two younger vampires, already asleep again.  So, young Vachon had more character than one might think.  Not every casual sex partner would try to defend his lover against unbeatable odds.  If LaCroix had wanted  Nicholas, nothing Vachon could have done would have stopped him, but he had been ready to try.  LaCroix looked again at his Nicholas, sleeping soundly, and again brushed the hair from his forehead.  No more tension, this time; all stresses released in the cathartic round of sex and lust, all pains healed.
     LaCroix rose and dressed himself.  He had a club to run.  And, he suspected, Nicholas would be happier if he didn't have to face his master, face the fact that he had had lustful, uninhibited sex with his master, tonight.  He left.

Chapter 2

     The next night, Captain Reese called Nick and Tracy in on a homicide victim, discovered in the park.  Tracy responded immediately,  joining Natalie at the scene.  Tracy ducked under the police tape already in place, quickly orienting herself and getting an overview of the site.  She crossed over to where Natalie and the forensics team were gathered.  A blanket covered the victim.  As she reached out to flip the top back,  Natalie said "Tracy, wait --"
     "Bad one?"
     "No, it's just --"
     Tracy pulled back the blanket and gasped.  The victim was a blonde man, with blood soaking the hair at his temple.
     Natalie continued sympathetically.  "It's not Nick."  She had tried to spare the young detective what she knew would be a moment of  <déjà vue> -- she'd had one herself, and it had not been pleasant.
     Tracy swallowed, very glad of the instant reassurance, but unhappy Natalie'd known she'd need it.  "Thanks, Natalie.  I just saw him at the station, but still --" she shook her head, "does give you a turn, doesn't it?"
     "What does?"  Both women turned to see Nick standing over them, looking down at the body.  They didn't respond.  He raised his eyebrows, then just said, "Fill me in."
     "White male, mid thirties, just under six feet tall.  Beaten, sodomized; apparent cause of death a blow to the head."
     Nick turned his attention to the victim.  "Any ID?"
     Natalie silently shook her head no.  Nick didn't appear to see; he was lost in thought.  Natalie wondered if he'd even noticed the resemblance to himself, when she saw his eyes lose their focus...

======

     Nicholas sat by a fire in the cold of a winter night. He and LaCroix had just had another fight -- Nicholas wanted to be left alone; LaCroix insisted he still needed protection.  A third vampire, Andovar, had joined them the night before.  He was, indirectly, the cause of the argument.  Nicholas did not like him, and mistrusted the way the older vampire's eyes seemed to follow him around.  He'd experienced those looks before, as a mortal.  As a young, blonde, mortal boy, traveling with an army of men too long without women.
 
======

     Nick firmly pushed the flashback away.  It was only because he'd seen Andovar again, he thought; no relation to this case.  He came back to the present to find Tracy waving a hand in front of his face.
     "Nick? Nick? You in there?"
     Nick  buckled down to start the investigation.  He and Tracy spent several hours questioning the witnesses and assisting forensics in examining the scene.  It was immediately obvious that the murder had occurred elsewhere; the victim's clothes were missing and there were no signs of the blood that should have been spilled during the vicious beating he had been given.  No one had seen anything but the body; no one had heard anything unusual.  It was late; the day shift could better question the residents of  the nearby apartment buildings.
     The case continued during the daylight hours.   Missing Persons provided the ID --  a prosperous, respected lawyer, he seemed an unlikely candidate for this kind of crime.  He'd been working late at his office on a big case, but had phoned his wife just before leaving at 8 pm.  He'd never gotten home.  His car was found in the parking lot of his office building.  Tracy went to interview the wife early in the evening, before Nick could be out and about.   As soon as he clocked in, Nick went over to the coroner's office to see Natalie and check on the autopsy report.
     "No signs of any drug use.  No alcohol in his system," Natalie summarized.  "The body was clean; he was in one helluva fight, but it doesn't look like he did much damage to the other guy."
     Nick looked surprised.  "Nothing under the nails?"
     "Nope. This guy was reasonably fit, but he wasn't a fighter."
     "We sure the perp was a male?"
     "Well, he was definitely raped.  We're testing now.  There was definitely a male involved, though."

======

     Nick again found himself sitting defiantly by the campfire.  Andovar was talking persuasively to LaCroix.  "He says he doesn't need your protection, Lucien.  Perhaps a little object lesson is in order."
     LaCroix was definitely irritated, not least because Nicholas was defying him openly, in the presence of another vampire.  "Perhaps."
     "Remove your protection from him for one night.  A single night.  Perhaps he'll learn his lesson."  Andovar looked at Nicholas appraisingly.  "Perhaps I can make it worth your while in another way."  He removed a large ring from his thumb.  "Legend says this is the ring of Merlin, of the Misty Isles.  Possibly magical, though I don't dabble in those ideas."  Nicholas started to regret provoking LaCroix.
     LaCroix, intrigued,  took the ring.  He turned it over and over in his hands, attempting to read the runes scripted on it, then turned to look again at Nicholas.
     Nicholas, scared now, lashed out in anger.  "I'm not for sale."  He knew it was a mistake the moment he said it.

======

     "Nick.  Nick."  Natalie called him back.  He refocused his eyes on her report.  "Where were you?  Something to do with the case?"
     Nick sighed, and rubbed a hand across his face and through his hair.  "Hope not."
     Natalie took a good look at her only living -- or at least, not dead -- patient.  He composed his face, putting away the negative emotions of his flashback to smile at her.  "Welcome back.  How was the symposium?"
     Natalie looked at him searchingly.  "About as much fun as a coroner's conference ever is.  Still, I got a lead on a possibility for you."
     "Yea?"  Nick  looked up at that.
     "Yea."  She paused.  "Hey, Nick, something's changed in you.  You were so tense  when I left, frazzled."
     "I know.  The fever, the amnesia, the possession, Divia -- it was all just too much."
     "So what'd you do?"  Nick looked away.  "C'mon, Nick, you did something, I can tell."
     Nick didn't answer.
     "You didn't," Natalie continued in sudden fear.
     "Didn't what?"
     "Go back to human blood.  You didn't."
     Nick looked rattled, now.  "Of course not."
     "Thank God.  Anything but that.  C'mon Nick, I'm your doctor.  I need to know what you did to relieve all that stress."  She waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming.  Nick looked stubborn, remote.  "If you were human," Nat continued, "I'd just think you went out and had sex."
     Nick threw the clipboard down with a clatter and turned to leave, but Nat put a hand on his arm to restrain him.  "Nat, I can't --"  He broke off, and turned to face her.  "I'm sorry, Nat, I had to do something.  I couldn't think, couldn't work.  I was dangerous to be around.  So I, uh. . ."
     Natalie could tell he was embarrassed, that this was something very difficult for him to  discuss.  "It's okay, Nick, what did you do?"
     Nick paced around the room, looking everywhere but at her.  "I had sex," he muttered.
     Nat was hurt; <who was she?>  She bit the thought back.  "I thought vampires  couldn't have sex."  <Good; that sounded calm, clinical.>
     Nick still wouldn't look at her.  "Not with humans," he said, so quietly she almost couldn't hear.  "It's too dangerous.  For the human."  Natalie gave him a look of complete non-comprehension, and Nick forced himself to continue.  "And not satisfying.  For the vampire."  Natalie raised an eyebrow.  "For vampires, sex is the blood exchange."  He kept his eyes firmly on the floor.  "Everything else is just foreplay.  We have to --" he broke off.
     "Have to. . . ?" Natalie prompted, leadingly.
     "Bite."
     "Bite. That's why it's too dangerous to do with humans?"  Nick just nodded.  "So you went out and found a lady vampire, and bit, so to speak."
     "Not exactly."
     Nat could hardly hear him.  <Lord, this was like pulling teeth.>  "What, exactly."
     Nick ran his hands through his hair.  Nat could almost perceive a blush starting around his ears, but she knew he couldn't blush.  Nick turned and faced her, almost angrily.  "The vampire's gender doesn't matter; only the blood matters.  It's not like I have a whole lot of options."
     "Aren't there any -- "  Natalie started to ask, but Nick was out the door.  <Damn,> thought Natalie.  <Guess I pushed him a little too far.<  Still, that was more than she'd learned about vampire sexuality in the last six years.  <Wonder if all vampires are this skittish about discussing sex, or is it just Nick?>

     Nick walked around the block once to cool himself down before he walked back to his car.  He didn't want to hurt Natalie; he'd chosen Vachon partly because he thought it might make her less jealous, less hurt than if he found a female vampire.  By the time he'd gotten to his car, he had resolved to find a way to explain it to her.  If he could find the words.  And the courage.
     He started up the caddy and pulled out. LaCroix's dulcet tones caressed the airwaves, and Nick gave him his attention.
     "When we fight our natures, fight what we <are>, surely then we cause ourselves the most pain?  Give in to what you are; give in to who you are."  Nick looked at the radio in disgust.  "Pleasure lies in seeking others who share your desires.  Share your desires with me, because I <am> the Nightcra--"  Nick snapped the dial on the radio to off, and drove in silence to the precinct.  He wasn't ready to even think about LaCroix, about what he had shared with LaCroix, let alone have it broadcast to all of Toronto.
     Tracy had returned from her interview with the deceased's widow and looked up from her reports as he entered.  Nick gave her a tense smile, then passed her Natalie's autopsy report. She grinned easily at him, handing over her own stack of reports.  Nick sat down and began leafing through them irritably.
     Tracy looked at him.  "Jeez, Nick, calm down.  What's the problem?"
     "No problem,"  Nick said curtly.
     Tracy shook her head with a more in sorrow than in anger expression that would have done credit to LaCroix.  "Nick, I thought you were through with this."  Nick looked  up in question.  "You're so tense, so moody.  You need to go get laid again."
     "Huh?"
     "Well, isn't that what you did last Wednesday?  I mean, you were driving us all crazy, and all of a sudden you're Mr. Mellow.  Now you're all tense again --"
     "Why," began Nick in a low, threatening voice, "can't anyone think about anything but my sex life?"  He closed his mouth tightly and stared at Tracy menacingly.
     <Oops,> thought Tracy to herself.  She'd spoken as she would have to one of her college buddies.  She'd forgotten Nick wouldn't take it quite the same way.   "Sorry."   <Wow>, she thought.  <That look's as threatening as Vachon's best vampire stare -- and Nick doesn't even do the gold eye fang face bit.  I forgot how private a person he is.>  She watched in awe as Nick slammed down the reports and rose from his chair.  <Talk about tense.>
     Nick stalked from the room, desperately quelling the vampire within him.  <Had he really been so obvious?>  Ever since the demon had possessed him, he'd been struggling with the renewed strength of his vampiric urges.  The hunger, the lust, the anger; all rising in overpowering waves to drown his nascent humanity.  He clamped his jaws shut, forcing his fangs back up out of sight, keeping the gold from his eyes.  He would control it.  He could control it.  This, too, would pass.
     Once Nick had himself in hand again, he walked up to Missing Persons for the rest of their information.  He brought the file back down to his desk and sat down across from Tracy.  "Finished with that autopsy report, yet?" he asked, as if nothing had ever happened.
     Tracy looked at him.  "Sure," she responded, following his lead.  "Here it is."
     Somehow, Nick made it through the end of the shift.  He didn't snap at anybody, he made a determined and fairly subtle effort to be pleasant to everybody.  By the time he could leave, he was exhausted.  He left with relief.

     By the end of her shift Natalie had done some thinking of her own.  She wanted to talk to Nick; she might have gotten more out of him than ever before, but she needed to know more.  The morgue was definitely not the place for this conversation -- someone might overhear, but even more important, it was too easy for Nick to escape.  She would have to beard the lion in his den.  She'd have to visit Nick at his loft.
     Natalie left work almost an hour late, as the sun was rising.  She wanted to give Nick a chance to feed, to relax after what she was sure had been a trying shift, but she wanted to catch him before he went to sleep.  She drove over with some trepidation, having second thoughts, third thoughts, all the way.  <Maybe this wasn't such a great idea.   Maybe she shouldn't try to talk to him when he was, well, trapped by the daylight.>
     By the time she arrived, Nat had realized that trapping him, forcing him, was not what she wanted.  She still wanted the chance to talk to him, but if he didn't want to see her, talk to her, that would be his choice.  She left her car, walked to the door, and rang the buzzer. Nick could choose to let her in, or pretend to be asleep.
     Inside, Nick was contemplating a glass of cow's blood with resignation.  He heard the buzzer, rose, and saw Natalie through the camera.  He froze a moment.  He didn't want to talk to her, didn't want to continue their conversation.  He just wanted to be left alone, alone to --  <To what?> he asked himself sardonically.  <To be lonely?>  He owed her an explanation, and the fact that it would be hard, next to impossible, for him to talk was beside the point.  She was his friend, his doctor, and maybe something more.  He wanted to be truthful with her.  He opened the door.
     Natalie took the elevator up, opened the heavy door, and walked in.  Nick stood beside the window at the far side of the room with his back against the wall, the first rays of the rising sun coming in past him.  He looked at her expressionlessly for a moment, then crossed the room to welcome her.  "Soda?" he asked, unsmilingly.
     "Please," Nat responded, and watched as he went to the refrigerator and removed one of the cans he kept for her.  He put ice in a glass, poured in the drink, and brought it out to her.  Taking it, she sat on the sofa.  He picked up his own glass and retreated to the armchair rather than sit beside her.
     "Nick," Natalie began, uncertain how to proceed.  "I know you don't want to talk about this, and I want you to know you don't have to."  She paused.  "I don't want you to feel trapped here --"
     "I am trapped."
     "Yes, but only by the sun, not by me."  He raised a questioning eyebrow.  "You tell me to leave, I'll leave.  I'm not trying to force you."
     Nick picked up the remote, and the blinds on the window began to close, shutting out the reminder of his entrapment.  The room darkened, and Nick reached out and turned on the lamp beside him.  He didn't need it; the light was for Natalie.  "What do you want to know?"
     Natalie took a deep breath.  "I want to know about vampire sex."  She got it out quickly, before she could reconsider.  "All of it."
     Nick picked up his drink, considering, playing for time.  He took a long swallow, and Natalie thought he wasn't going to answer her. She was almost surprised when he began to talk, in a low voice she could hardly hear.
     "I've told you, over and over, that I'm not human, that we -- vampires -- are not human," he began.  "Sex is one of the least human parts about us."  He took another long drink, giving himself another long moment.  Natalie waited.  "It's not really about sex; it's about blood.  What you think of as sex is just foreplay.  Just an enjoyable path to get to the feeding embrace."  He still hadn't looked at her, watching the blood in his glass as if mesmerized.  "We bite each other, drink from each other.  It's the ultimate sharing.  We can know each other's thoughts, lives, feelings, selves.  We drink until we feel the other in our veins, more strongly than our selves; until we taste ourselves coming back through the blood of the other."  His voice had roughened in the telling; she suspected even thinking about it was exciting to him.  "We experience each other's orgasms, along with our own, through the blood."
     "That's why gender doesn't matter."
     "Right.  Sexually, I've always liked women, but for the feeding embrace, blood is blood.  A male is as exciting, as fulfilling, as a female."
     "So you picked a male."
     "Yes."  He rose, and began pacing.  "It seemed less disloyal to you."  He paused, facing the closed windows, and ran his hand through his hair.  "You have to understand, Natalie.  Since that demon took me -- " he paused.  "I know you don't really believe, but it reawakened all my vampiric urges.  The hunger -- it's all I can do to stay away from human blood.  I've been guzzling cow."  He continued speaking to the window, that symbol of his entrapment..  "The anger.  Everyone at work has commented on how irritable, distractible I've been lately."  Natalie almost smiled, but stopped herself when she realized how hard that was on Nick.  How much he must hate people talking about him, to him, about what he saw as a basic inhumanity, a damning sign of the vampire within him.  "And the lust,"  he ground out in a throaty whisper.  He didn't explain further, but after a long moment he turned and looked at Natalie.  "All our appetites are inhuman.   Inhumanly strong, irresistible.  I couldn't stop all of them."  He turned away again.  "It was either drink blood, kill someone, or have sex.  It was tearing me apart."
     Natalie sat where she was, thinking, She wanted to go to him, comfort him, but something held her back.  She had always felt he was wrong when he said he wasn't human anymore; but this, this was inhuman.  She remembered when she had injected his blood into a brain damaged boy.  It had temporarily helped the brain, but it had also released a level of anger and aggression that had not been there before.  She had not considered, then, how that side effect must affect Nick.  If the smallest drop of vampire blood made a human violently aggressive, what did a whole body of that same blood do?  When Nick said he couldn't control it, that it was tearing him apart, she'd have to accept that it was.   He wasn't a weakling who just couldn't control normal appetites; he was a strong man driven almost to the point of insanity by the vampirism in his blood.
     "Nick," she began, rising at last and standing beside him.  "You know I don't really understand, can't really understand the appetites that drive you.  But I believe you."  She reached out and turned him to face her, meeting his questioning gaze squarely.  "If you say it was tearing you apart, that you had to do something, I accept that it was."  She took a deep breath.  "You do what you have to, to control it.  If that means sex with a vampire -- even a female vampire -- then you do that.  I mean it."

Chapter 3

     The next Wednesday night, Vachon sat at the bar in the Raven, drinking his usual and idly surveying the crowd.  He knew Nick was usually in on Wednesdays, because Tracy wouldn't be, and hoped he would be in tonight.  <That had been something, last week.  Hell, he had never imagined -- all right, he had imagined -- he had never expected to get someone as old and powerful as Nick into bed.  And he had never even dared to imagine getting LaCroix!>  His insides clenched at the memory.  He was scared  that it would happen again, and terrified that it wouldn't.  He checked his watch again.  <Nick never came in until late,> he reminded himself.  <Relax.  Calm yourself.  You can't really make the advances anyway.  Nick has to do that.>
     Vachon forced his mind off his sex life and concentrated desperately on the scene around him.  As noisy and crowded as ever, it seemed somehow empty without either Nick or LaCroix present.  Vachon moaned.  <Think of something else.>  He focused his attention behind the bar, where Miklos was breaking in a new barman.
     "These are the special wines, William,"  the older vampire was saying..  "You have to always remember who gets which."  Vachon looked at the younger vampire, William.  He was still in his first century, Vachon recalled; he'd been a bartender as a mortal.  Miklos had probably taken him on when his bar tab got too high.  Vachon sipped his drink, wishing his own finances would stretch to the better vintages.  "LaCroix's private stock is here; that only goes to his 'special guests'.  You will learn who they are."  Vachon listened idly to the continuing flow of indoctrination:  the various prices, who was to be given which brands, the special vintages.  His ears perked up when he heard Nick's name.  "LaCroix's 'special guests' are never asked to pay.  You know Janette, of course, and Nicholas, but Nicholas gets this bottle over here."  William made a disparaging comment, but Miklos continued unperturbed.  "And only Nicholas.  The Raven does not generally serve carouches."  William looked rebellious, and Vachon recalled that he ran with Mardale's crowd, one of those who liked to harass Nick.  "He is not a carouche.  He is LaCroix's son, LaCroix's 'special guest,' and that is all you need to know."
     Vachon tuned out again.  No one understood what was between Knight and LaCroix, probably not even the two involved.  The best thing to do was to stay as far away from "between" Nick and the old master as possible.  He sighed.  If only it weren't such a fantastically, deliciously erotic place to be.
     He let his thoughts flow aimlessly.  <LaCroix -- now there was a surprise.>  He'd accepted Vachon's presence in Nick's life without even a raised eyebrow.  Vachon's visits to the Raven had continued as before; the powerful ancient had not changed in his demeanor towards the younger at all.  Vachon wondered what it was he found so attractive in the elder.  Certainly the man was not his usual type, even if he was blonde. . .  His power and personal charisma seemed to be what pulled one to him, not so much his physical appearance.  Still, Vachon didn't delude himself that the feeling was mutual. LaCroix wanted Vachon only as an adjunct to his fulfillment with Nick.
     <Nick, now...  Nick,> Vachon mused, <was as much an enigma as ever.  A beautiful, desirable enigma, but an unfathomed mystery none the less.>  Vachon sipped his drink, slowly.  <William had one thing right, though.  Nick was different.>  Whatever it was that made the man what he was, it was more than a passing affectation.  Nick didn't just play at having a conscience, and evidently his quiet but well-known refusal to drink human blood was more deeply seated than a shallow desire to irritate his master, or please his mortal love.
      Vachon tried to recapture that fleeting memory of Nick's first kill, before LaCroix had overwhelmed it.  Try as he would, he could find no resemblance between what Nick had seemed to feel and the burning first hunger every other vampire he'd ever known had felt.  He sighed.  The burning hunger <this> particular vampire still felt for <that> particular vampire.  He lifted his glass and drained the remainder.
     Nick slid quietly into the empty seat beside Vachon, smiling a silent greeting.  Vachon smiled back, almost in spite of himself.  Miklos came up, unhurried but immediately, and poured a glass for Nick.  Nick pointed to Vachon's glass and Miklos refilled it from a second bottle, leaving both bottles on the bar.  Nick tasted his, his face impassive.  The excellent wine in the mixture diminished the unsatisfactory flavor of the bovine blood, but it was still noxious;  his own compromise between his nature and his conscience.  Vachon raised his glass to his lips and savored it slowly.  He hadn't expected it to be cow, but he also hadn't expected it to be LaCroix's best stock.  The private stock, unless Vachon missed his guess.  Clearly, there were advantages to being a guest of a 'special guest.'  He whistled softly.
     "Good stuff?"  Nick asked quietly.
     Vachon sipped again, reverently.  "Almost alive."
     Nick nodded, resigned to his own choice.  The human blood would taste wonderful, but would he respect himself in the morning?  Self respect was much more important than a fleeting taste that would fade and die in a few hours.
     Vachon intercepted an envious glare from William, the new barkeeper.  He could almost read his thoughts on his face.  <'That wuss, Nick, spurns the best stock for that cow swill, when I'll never even get to taste it . . .' > The idiot had better learn his place in the Raven, or he wouldn't last long.  William turned away, and Vachon pushed him out of his mind.
     "So, Nick, why do you come here, anyway?" Vachon asked tentatively.  "I mean, you don't even drink the stuff.  You don't like the company, you just sit here, usually alone, and drink one glass, then leave."
     Nick raised an eyebrow.  He had been unaware that anyone was interested in his movements.  He shrugged in resignation.  "LaCroix."
     "Huh?"
     "LaCroix likes to see me.  If I don't visit here, he visits me, at my place."  Nick leaned closer to Vachon, to add in a conspiratorial tone of voice, "It's a lot easier to leave here than it is to kick him out before he's ready, believe me."  He sat up straight  again, regarding his beverage morosely.  "Plus, I can time it when I know he's busy, so I don't actually have to talk to him."
     Vachon was taken aback.  Everyone wondered why LaCroix tolerated Nick's presence; the actual truth was that he <desired> Nick's presence.  <Nick> was the one who was tolerating <LaCroix's> presence.
 

     He felt Nick tense beside him, and looked up to follow the direction of his gaze across the bar.  Andovar, the powerful old vampire he had seen last week, raised his glass in a mocking salute to Nick.  Vachon looked back at Nick.  Only the tension in that lounging body revealed his reaction to that salute; he looked icy, remote, indifferent.  After a long second, Nick inclined his head in regal acknowledgment.  It was a response worthy of and similar to LaCroix's own haughtiness.  Only one seated as close to Nick, as attuned to Nick as Vachon now was, would sense the stress.
     Nick returned his attention to his companion, dismissing Andovar from his presence as obviously as a king dismisses an unwanted servant.  Vachon, watching Andovar curiously, saw him wave to someone else across the room, and saw LaCroix approaching.
     LaCroix, entering the bar to greet his son, was irritated to be diverted by even so old a friend as Andovar, but did not reveal it by so much as a hair twitch.  He strolled over and sat down, welcoming him.  Vachon noticed that while Nick might seem oblivious to the by-play, he was still tense, waiting.  He turned his attention back to the other two men.  LaCroix appeared to listen politely to a proposition from Andovar.  The old Roman glanced their way, briefly, before returning a firm head shake to Andovar.  Andovar began speaking again, gesturing with his hands, animated.
     Vachon wished he could hear them.  He had a feeling that Nick knew what the conversation was about, and that he didn't like it.  Only when LaCroix left Andovar, with a final, firm shake of the head, did Nick relax.  Vachon remembered asking Nick, last week, what Andovar wanted; he remembered, uneasily, the answer.  He didn't like what he was thinking.
     LaCroix made his way over to his son and Vachon, and slid fluidly into a seat beside Nick.  Nicholas looked at him in greeting, but did not smile.  LaCroix shook his  head in resignation.  "I said no, Nicholas.  I didn't, and I won't."  Vachon wondered what the hell they were talking about, but Nicholas just smiled faintly, and LaCroix continued.  "What difference --"  He broke off as Nick glanced quickly at Vachon, then seemed to acquiesce to Nick's desire to keep Vachon out of it.
     The three men sat together quietly for a bit, sipping their drinks, seemingly relaxed.  Nick could feel the delicious tension rising within him, prompted by the ever-present knowledge of  their encounter last week, spurred on by the possibility of an encounter this week.  Tonight.  He had thought about it, off and on, all week; not even Natalie had distracted him from it.  He could sense the growing tension in the other two men, by their postures, by their scents, and knew they could sense his arousal as well.  Still, he gathered, he was going to have to be the one to get things started.  Vachon would never dare suggest such an encounter to LaCroix; he was brash, but not stupid.  <LaCroix . . .  Well, you never knew with LaCroix.>  But this time, it seemed, he wanted a willing partner; this time, he would leave it up to Nicholas.
     For some reason, it amused Nick that the two of them were going to go on sitting there, not acting on their impulses, for as long as Nick stayed and didn't invite them.  He glanced at LaCroix, and knew from his expression and the link between them that LaCroix knew more or less what he was thinking, and was choosing to also be amused.
     "So," Nick began, and chuckled to himself when his companions gave him their attention with flattering alacrity.  He decided to change his tactics in mid sentence.  They both deserved to be teased a bit.  "Has the news gotten out yet?"
     Disappointed, Vachon raised his glass and began to drink again.  LaCroix raised that mobile eyebrow and quirked a smile.  "What news?"
     Nicholas shamelessly assumed his most innocent expression.  "The news that Vachon has  added not one, but two new blondes to his harem?"
     Vachon had just taken a large mouthful of bloodwine. Nick's words and expression so shocked him that he sprayed it out through his mouth and nose all over himself.  <He'd added two?  Nick and, and, and LaCroix?  to his harem? He'd never even realized LaCroix was another blonde, not that way.  He meant, he knew he was blonde, but he was so, so LaCroix, no one would ever --> Vachon sputtered, gasping for  breath.  <If anyone did know about their encounter, they'd know who had added whom to whose harem, and no one would think it was Vachon's harem.>
     LaCroix laughed outright, and Vachon was more than relieved; he felt like he could breathe again, like he might possibly live to see another night.  The old vampire signaled Miklos to bring a towel over.  Nick watched, eyes twinkling with humor, as Vachon cleaned off the front of his shirt, then mopped the bar with some embarrassment.
     Vachon had to smile.  He should have guessed, he supposed, that Nick had a  sense of humor.  He was frequently morose and detached, but there had been hints before.  But LaCroix?  His "humor" consisted of viciously cutting quips and mordant sarcasm.  Playful banter -- with Nick, of all people -- was just too unexpected.
     "What's the matter, Vachon,"  Nick asked, still with that innocent expression, "don't you <want> us in your harem?"
     Vachon looked at him, speechless, mouth hanging open.
     "LaCroix,"  Nick continued, "he doesn't want us."
     "Apparently not,"  LaCroix bantered back.  "I feel so hurt."  Actually, he was quite thrilled.  Nicholas seemed to accept that there was an 'us', a sexual 'us' that included his master and long time adversary.
     Vachon couldn't believe it, the two most powerful, feared vampires in Toronto were <playing>. Two pairs of blue eyes, one ice, one slate, twinkled at him.  Vachon closed his mouth, grasping for a response, any response, but then the whole conversation  just hit him.  "That <would> be putting the wolves in with the lambs, wouldn't it?" he began.  "I don't know how it was done in <your> century, but in <my> century, you never put the wolves in the barn with the lambs.  At least, not if you wanted to keep the lambs."
     "These modern ways," sighed LaCroix.  "I wouldn't hurt the lambs."
     Nick looked stricken.  "I might," he admitted.  "Good thinking, Vachon."
     Vachon laughed, and even LaCroix smiled.  Not even a reference to Nick's atrocious choice of nourishment was going to upset him.  He was enjoying this.
     Nicholas looked at the two smiling, relaxed faces and decided it was time.  "LaCroix," he said with a sparkling, mischievous look, "do you have any lambs in <your> barn?"
     LaCroix came to attention with amused interest.  "Not yet," he mused.  "I prefer wolves.  Why do you ask?"
     Nick turned back to Vachon.  "If we put the wolves in <his> barn, they can all play and no lambs'll get hurt.  Wanna play?"
     Vachon nodded, dumb with continuing surprise.  "Maybe I could clean up, first," he said, indicating his blood stained shirt.
     Nick nodded, and suggested that Vachon use the bathroom in LaCroix's barn --er, apartment -- and that the two other wolves would join him shortly.  LaCroix nodded, and the two older wolves watched him walk out before continuing.
     "Smoothly done, Nicholas.  I see you still know how to be discreet."  Nicholas  just nodded; it would be far too obvious if they all went to LaCroix's private quarters <en masse.>  "I'm pleased to see you in such good spirits, <mon petit.>  I had rather feared you might have regrets about last week."
     "Some, I won't deny, LaCroix," returned Nicholas.  "It was good, but intense.  I want to have <fun> tonight," he said wistfully.  LaCroix nodded.  He had not forgotten how much fun Nicholas could be.  Nicholas looked across the room and noted Andovar had returned.  An expression of distaste crossed his face.  "Well, the first lamb is in the barn; shall I be the second?"
     LaCroix turned to see what had disturbed his son, and saw Andovar crossing the room towards them.  "By all means, Nicholas," he began.  "I'll join you as soon as I dismiss this little problem."  He looked his protégé in the eyes.  "No one is going to spoil this evening for us, for me.  I'll get rid of him."
     Nicholas looked at him a moment, gauging his mood, then decided to trust him  and just have fun.  "Baaaa," he bleated, and followed Vachon's path out of the room.
 

     Vachon had taken advantage of LaCroix's bathroom and showered.  He emerged,  wearing only his pants and toweling his hair dry, just as Nick entered.  Nick, worried about what LaCroix and Andovar were doing, welcomed the distraction and refocused his attention onto the physical.  He let his eyes trace the smooth curve of Vachon's chest, lingering on the dark curly hairs, before following their pattern down where it disappeared into his pants.  He felt the desire return.
     Vachon, peering out from under the towel and his own damp hair, welcomed him.  "Bit overdressed, aren't you, Knight?" he asked.
     Nick laughed.  "Don't rush me," he returned, as he crossed to the fireplace and lit the gas flame.  Instant atmosphere, he thought, then handed a lighter from the mantelpiece to Vachon, telling him to light the candles.  He was overdressed, he mused, and began unbuttoning his jacket.  He had come straight from work tonight, a short shift to put some paperwork to bed for the crown.  He unfastened his shoulder  holster and folded it neatly around the gun, laying it down on his neatly folded jacket.  He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled the shirttails out of his pants, then removed his shoes and socks.  He stretched sensuously, wearing only pants and the loose shirt.
     Vachon finished lighting the candles and turned to face him.  He let his eyes have their turn tracing the path from Nick's chest to pants.  The open shirt obscured the fine golden hair on his chest, but revealed the shadowed hollow of his stomach.  Vachon moved over to the older man, and reached out a hand to caress his stomach and flanks, hidden under the shirt.
     LaCroix entered at that moment, somewhat irritated by Andovar's persistence, but instantly distracted by the sight before him.  "You started without me?" he asked, put upon.
     "Just clearing the decks a bit, LaCroix," answered Vachon, when it became obvious Nick wasn't going to.  "I've never known anyone as, uh. . . , buttoned up as our Detective Knight, here, in his cop clothes."
     "Unbuttoning Nicholas, my dear Vachon," LaCroix grinned salaciously, "is not a matter to be taken lightly."  He moved over to the two other men, and placed one hand on each of them.  "I've always enjoyed opening presents.  Opening Nicholas is even more fun."  He looked directly into Nicholas's eyes.  "One of my favorite pastimes, in fact."
     Vachon grinned, and stepped into LaCroix's caress.  He began unfastening LaCroix's shirt.  Nick stood tense, accepting the touch but nothing more.  LaCroix looked at him; clearly the encounter with Andovar had given Nicholas time to remember his misgivings.  Last week, he had been in the throes of passion, unable to stop and think about the ramifications of having sex with his master. This week, LaCroix could tell, he was having doubts.  LaCroix stopped himself from uttering a nasty remark about cold feet and faint hearts, and instead set about assuaging those doubts.
     As Vachon finished unfastening LaCroix's shirt, LaCroix suggested he go into the bedroom and grab some pillows.  "Oh yes, and in the bathroom there is some oil.  Get that as well."  Vachon looked from Nick to LaCroix and back, realizing the two had some unfinished business.  He nodded, and left the room, in no hurry.  LaCroix continued gently, "What is it that bothers you, <mon fils?>"
     Nick, reassured by LaCroix's reaction, finally reached out and touched the older man.  "I don't know, maybe Andovar, maybe --" He broke off, and turned away.  "I just want sex, LaCroix, nothing more.  I picked Vachon because he wouldn't want more, because it would just be casual, with no strings attached."  He turned back to LaCroix.  "I'm not trying to come back to you."
     LaCroix nodded, and raised his hand to trace the line of Nick's jaw from ear to throat.  Andovar had reminded Nicholas of a time when LaCroix had considered him a possession, to be used as LaCroix wanted.  His timing had indeed been unfortunate.  "Even so, my dear."  He sighed.  "I understand, Nicholas, and I accept that."
     Nick reached out and placed his hand on LaCroix's waist.  He smiled.  "So what did he offer you this time?"
     "Truly, a magnificent price, but I told him you were not for sale."
     "Not yours to sell."  Nick stated it firmly, as if he believed it.
     LaCroix snorted.  "No," he concurred, reluctantly.  "But why would you mind so much, Nicholas?  You could easily fight him off, now.  You never did consider yourself 'bought,' anyway, you always fought."
     Vachon reentered the room as Nick replied.  "Yes," murmured Nick, putting both hands on LaCroix's waist.  "I never felt bought," he said, "but I always felt sold."
     Vachon got that sick feeling again; he was sure he didn't want to know.  LaCroix raised his hands and cupped Nick's face, tenderly, raising his chin until their eyes met.  Vachon  couldn't tell what communication was exchanged between them, but evidently some was.  Nick turned to Vachon and smiled, then opened the embrace and pulled him into the circle.
      Just as the three were about to move to the fur rug before the blazing fireplace, LaCroix's phone rang.  "Damn!" LaCroix swore.  Any more interruptions to quell Nicholas's ardor, and there might be nothing to interrupt.  He answered abruptly, fuming, then gestured to the other two to continue while he quickly handled the call.
     Vachon pulled Nick over to the fireplace, and down onto the rug.  Unable to wait any longer, he began running his fingers under Nick's shirt.  Nick, distracted once again by the phone call, soon responded in kind, running his fingers over Vachon's sensitive sides.  An impish thought overtook him, and he began to tickle the younger man.  Vachon, in the throes of delight, clapped his hands over his mouth so as not to disturb LaCroix, then, once he had his laughter under control, attacked Nicholas as well.  The two wrestled, tickling and laughing as quietly as possible.
     LaCroix hung the phone up with a crash, then removed the receiver from the base so no more calls could come in.  With his legendary foresight, he crossed to the neat pile  of Nicholas's clothing and removed his son's cell phone, turning it off before dropping it again on the pile.  At last he turned to the other two men, who had stopped tickling to watch his actions.
     They made quite a picture, thought LaCroix, enjoying the golden glow of the firelight reflecting off Nicholas's ivory skin and golden curls.  Vachon was an interesting contrast; the light caressing his olive complexion and finding highlights in his brown hair.  His eyes, as Nick's, had a light all their own.  LaCroix walked across the room and stood, towering over the other two.
     Nick reached a hand up and hauled LaCroix unceremoniously to the floor.  LaCroix offered no resistance; he wanted to be there.  He reached out and surprised Vachon with a tickle in an especially vulnerable spot, then turned and began tickling Nicholas.  Vachon, still in awe of the old master, joined him in tickling Nick rather than attacking LaCroix.  LaCroix, remembering times in the past when he had tickled his sensitive son until it was torture, kept his touches light and sensual so that Nick was laughing, but not overwhelmed.
     "No, Vachon," laughed Nick.  "Not me.  Get him!"  Suiting actions to words, he went after LaCroix.  Vachon valiantly attacked LaCroix's flanks, but the old vampire had himself well in hand and didn't laugh.  "Hold him, Vachon," continued Nick, as he draped himself over LaCroix's lower legs and began pulling his shoes and socks off.  LaCroix struggled to escape, but Vachon held him tightly by the wrists.   Somehow, Vachon couldn't quite figure out how, LaCroix managed to get the younger vampire's pants off without ever escaping from his grasp.
     "Keep trying, Vachon," gasped Nick.  "He is ticklish.  He's just controlling it."  Vachon twitched in surprise as LaCroix again began tickling him, his own face still as stern as a marble statue.  Suddenly, Nick was tickling the bottoms of the old vampire's bare feet, and LaCroix could hold back no longer, letting a faint giggle escape.  It was like the first water over a dam, cracking the concrete and allowing the flood to escape.  Suddenly, Vachon found the old vampire responding with laughter to his every teasing touch, and trying desperately to heave Nick off his legs, away from his sensitive feet. The three kept tickling each other, all laughing happily.
     .  LaCroix escaped from Vachon's grasp by wriggling out of his own shirt.  He was free long enough to grab Nicholas, still draped over his legs, and remove his pants deftly.  Nick struggled out of his grasp, and quickly pulled LaCroix's pants down, leaving them snarled around his ankles while Nick again attacked LaCroix's feet.  Vachon, seeing Nick was the only one with clothing beyond undershorts still on, turned and traitorously grabbed him, holding him still while LaCroix removed the shirt.
     LaCroix, finding Nick trapped, deftly removed his shorts as well, then buried the rampant shaft thus exposed in his own mouth.  Nick, finding himself being rapturously sucked, turned on the traitor, Vachon, and whipped his shorts off as well.  He began running his tongue up the sensitive underside of the younger man's cock. Vachon let himself relax to the floor, where he quickly found and removed LaCroix's shorts and began playing, quite skillfully, with the old master.
     The three vampires relaxed into an uneven circle on the fur rug, suckling and licking in turn.  Only the soft sounds of tongues and lips sliding over silken flesh disturbed the new silence; broken, occasionally, by a soft moan or whimper of delight.  The three continued for some time, none in a hurry, until Nick began to think of wanting more.  Without breaking the circle, he reached out and grabbed the oil Vachon had brought back.  He poured it over his fingers carefully, reveling in the slick feel of it, the warmth it had drawn from the fireplace.  He carefully began inserting a finger into Vachon's rear, then passed the small bottle to LaCroix.
     LaCroix, nudged by the bottle in Nick's hand, looked up, surprised.  He couldn't believe what Nicholas was apparently suggesting, but Nick, figuring he was going to be taken no matter what, had decided he wanted to be prepared this time.  Last week had been intensely pleasurable, but also painful.
     Vachon opened his legs wider to allow Nicholas easier access, and Nick, never interrupting the actions of his mouth and tongue, ran his fingers in and out of the slick, oiled opening.  He skillfully stretched the muscle, applying just enough pressure to stimulate and relax, never enough to hurt.  Every now and again he pushed deeper, stimulating the sensitive gland inside.
     LaCroix, mirroring Nick's actions, spread the oil between Nick's cheeks, stretching and stimulating him.  He released Nicholas from his mouth, and brought his hand, well oiled, around to his son's cock, oiling that as well.  The feel of skin sliding against skin, slick with the warm oil, overwhelmed Nick, and he suddenly broke the circle.
     He grabbed the pillow Vachon had brought earlier,  and turned the younger man onto his back, his hips on the pillow.  Vachon raised his legs eagerly, and Nick entered smoothly, his well-oiled cock sliding home without a pause.  Vachon moaned with pleasure, and put his arms around Nick, pulling him down for a passionate kiss.
     LaCroix, having released Vachon to Nick's ministrations, took up the bottle of oil and applied it to his own cock, then positioned himself behind Nick.  He paused a moment, admiring the play of the muscles in Nick's buttocks and thighs as Nick stroked in and out of Vachon, then gently seized the round cheeks.  Nick paused and allowed LaCroix to separate him, then plunge deeply, slickly, inside.  LaCroix, with almost incredulous delight, watched as his penis plunged deep within Nick's cheeks, deeply into his body.  He released his hold on Nick's rear, and fell forward, supporting himself with his arms on Nick's back.
     Nicholas drove himself into Vachon's willing body, while LaCroix slammed into him on the backstroke.  Vachon clung to Nick's body, his arms encircling his back, feverishly trying to get closer, to get him in deeper, to prevent him from withdrawing totally.  Nick had no intention of withdrawing; he held himself up with one hand and pushed his other hand between the two vampires to caress Vachon's straining erection.  He  began another backstroke so he could again push forward into Vachon.  LaCroix used Nick's own motion to push himself further in, holding his weight off Vachon by leaning his hands against Nick's shoulders.  Nick was lost in the passion of the moment, his own shaft sublimely stimulated by Vachon's tight muscles while his rear was strenuously worked by LaCroix.  <Soon, soon, it had better be soon . . .>
     Vachon came first, sinking his fangs savagely into  Nick's shoulder and flooding their heaving bodies with his bloody semen.  He couldn't reach his favorite spot; Nick was taller than he and LaCroix kept pushing him forward, further out of reach, but he still could feel Nick's blood hitting the back of his throat, gushing into his mouth as the steady pounding tore the wound deeper around his fangs.  The taste, the sensation of the blood was everything he had imagined.  Drinking Nick was like drinking the sunshine.  There was age; there was power; but most of all, there was the incredible light, like nothing Vachon had ever tasted before.  He could feel Nick's blood entering his own bloodstream, blending in, but not merging the way blood usually did.  Just as with LaCroix the previous week, the lightest parts of Nick's blood seemed to keep separate, to provide little bubbles of pure joy, the bubbles in the incredible champagne of their blended blood.
     Nick kept stroking, more than ready for release but holding off, waiting for LaCroix, staying on the thin edge of control as long as he could.  LaCroix stroked faster, deeper, pushing Nicholas further forward with every thrust, until he could hold back no longer.  He struck the artery on the left side of Nick's neck, his entire body pulsating with the force of his orgasm, his entire being reveling in the taste of the blood.
     Nick, feeling both his partners succumbing, moved to reach his own release, bending his head down to bite Vachon.  Unfortunately, LaCroix's final thrust had shoved him too far up, and Vachon was too far underneath him.  He couldn't reach him for the blood he needed to reach orgasm.  Frantically, he reached further, but LaCroix's fangs held him firmly in place.  He pushed harder, tearing his own flesh against both the other men's fangs, but still he couldn't reach.
     Vachon and LaCroix, both sucking furiously, both deep in the throes of orgasm, barely registered his mounting desperation as Nick tried again to reach Vachon, or to turn and reach LaCroix.  Suddenly, the desperation began to taste like fear -- fear that once again he would be denied, would be drained, would be . . .  LaCroix suddenly realized his favorite's desperation and freed a hand.  He quickly swung it up and around to offer his wrist to Nicholas, to allow him to drink.
     Too late.  Nick, now in the throes of terror, panicked.  He was nearly drained, he was trapped, and a hand was coming at him.  With the very last of his strength, he ripped himself from the dual embrace, shredding his flesh against fangs that could not withdraw fast enough, flinging LaCroix off his back violently and tearing himself out of Vachon.  The force of his plunge careened him into the wall, where he sat a moment, stunned, before regaining his senses enough to look for escape.
     Vachon, shocked, stunned, turned on his side towards Nick and curled himself in an almost fetal position.  He shook a little; interrupting both coitus and the feeding embrace so suddenly was painful, almost dangerous.  He closed his eyes a moment, trying to feel why Nick had panicked.  He opened them slowly and turned to look at LaCroix, hoping to forestall the murder he expected to see in the elder's eyes.  LaCroix's reaction to such a sudden rejection was bound to be violent -- extremely violent.
     LaCroix calmed himself with a supreme effort.  He found the sudden cessation as disturbing as any other vampire would, but he had the advantage of knowing the reason; of knowing who had caused it.
     He had.  Two hundred years ago.
     He sighed, and looked at Nick calmly.  "I'm sorry, Nicholas."  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  "It was not my intention. . ."  He paused again, then continued with difficulty.  "I didn't realize you couldn't reach Vachon.  I was offering you my wrist."  Nick hardly appeared to be listening, and Vachon had to strain to hear LaCroix's rough whisper.  "It was not my intention to strike you, to hurt you."
     Vachon's mouth dropped open of its own accord.  He had expected anger from LaCroix, violent anger, and had only hoped to get out of its range with his own skin still intact.  Breaking a feeding embrace, breaking a feeding embrace with your own <master> no less, was a punishing experience for all involved, and usually most of all for the culprit.  He turned disbelieving eyes back to Nick.
     Nicholas seemed almost unaware of LaCroix's words, staring into space, seeing something that only existed inside his head.  In the continuing quiet, Vachon drew himself up to a sitting position, staring curiously at Nick.
     Nick looked bad, Vachon acknowledged to himself.  He was sitting where he had fallen after a final abortive effort to stand and escape.  His skin, normally a golden ivory, was pale, paler even than LaCroix's alabaster white.  Two lines of blood ran down the front of his chest to drip on the floor, one from where Vachon had bitten him, low on the collarbone, and one from where LaCroix had fed, at the juncture of his neck and shoulder.  Both wounds, large and ragged from his efforts to escape, still bled sluggishly -- Nick didn't have enough blood left to either bleed quickly or heal. His chest and the lean hollow of his stomach were smeared with the bloody smudge of Vachon's come.  A single drop of blood escaped from one blue eye, tracing a path down his cheek, past his still extended fangs.  The sight was all the more poignant because of the otherwise complete lack of expression, even awareness, visible on Nick's face.
     LaCroix suddenly rose and stalked into the kitchen, Nick's eyes swiveling to follow him.  LaCroix opened the refrigerator door and grabbed  two bottles, then snagged two mugs from the shelf and returned.  He handed one of each to Vachon, who still sat stunned, then approached Nicholas.  He stopped a good three feet away, squatting down in a less threatening position, and opened the bottle.  He poured the mug full, and reached out to hand it to Nicholas.  "Come, Nicholas.  It's cow.  Drink."  Nicholas regarded him with a dead expression, making no move to take the mug.  "Nicholas.  You must drink.  It's only cow."
     Vachon couldn't believe LaCroix even had any cow on hand, it seemed so out of character, but Nicholas reached out, his arm trembling with weakness or fear.  He took hold of the mug, but when LaCroix would have released it he hadn't the strength to hold it up.  LaCroix moved closer to Nicholas, bringing the mug to his mouth.   Nicholas flinched back, apparently in fear, but LaCroix reached one arm behind his back, holding him in place, while he gently held the mug to his mouth.  Nicholas drank deeply, and when LaCroix poured a second mugful, he was able to hold it and drink it on his own.
     Vachon concentrated suddenly on his own drink -- a much better vintage, he was glad to find.  He couldn't believe what he was seeing before him.  He had always, somehow, known there was strong feeling between Nicholas and LaCroix, some kind of unbreakable tie, but he had never expected to see LaCroix act with kindness.  Most of the habitués of the Raven thought LaCroix despised Nick, found him and his quibblings about human blood contemptible, his involvement with mortals laughable.  And they all <knew> Nick hated LaCroix.  No one had ever understood why Nick came to the Raven, why LaCroix had pursued Nicholas around the world when he seemed to barely tolerate his actual presence.  Vachon idly swirled the ruby liquid around in his mug.  Obviously more was going on here.  Vachon didn't think he needed to be caught in the middle of it, whatever <it> was.  He rose to dress and make a quiet exit.
     LaCroix stepped between him and the door.  He placed his hand gently on Vachon's arm, detaining him. "Wait, please."  He nodded towards Nicholas.  "Take care of him for me, will you?"
     Vachon looked at him in disbelief.  No one was ever tolerated between LaCroix and Nicholas.  Hate him or love him, LaCroix had to have him.
        Lacroix sensed his shock.  "Really.  He won't -- can't -- tolerate me right now.  And he still needs --"  LaCroix broke off before he begged, and drew himself up.  "I would account it a favor if you would see to Nicholas now."
    Vachon nodded his head slowly.  <You didn't refuse LaCroix favors, not if you could help it.  And he always repayed.  Always.>
    LaCroix hurriedly gathered his clothing and dressed.  Casting a last glance at Nicholas, who had not moved, he left, his face set like granite.  He paused at the door, and turned to address his son.  "Good bye, Nicholas.  I won't come in again."
     Vachon closed the door behind him.  <With that aura,> he thought, <the Raven will soon empty out tonight!  Even the mortals would sense it.>
    He turned thoughtfully toward Nick.  He knew Nick was not the weakling so many of the younger vampires thought;  he was strong, both physically and mentally.  <Whatever was bothering him had to be something big,> Vachon thought disjointedly, <and if LaCroix was tolerating his breakdown it had to be unspeakably big.  What the hell could he, Vachon, do?>
    He looked at Nick, who had lowered his face to his hands, his fingers clenched in the curly golden ends of his hair, and was suddenly reminded of Urs.  When Urs hurt, she cried, she just wanted to be held.  As if compelled, he went and sat beside Nick, reaching out and touching him tentatively on the leg.
     Nick flinched, raising his head quickly to see who was there, relaxing infinitesimally when he saw Vachon.  "I'm sorry, Vachon," he began unsteadily.  "I didn't mean to --"  He broke off, taking a deep breath.
    Vachon reacted to the pain in his eyes without thought, putting his arm around Nick's shoulders and pulling him into an embrace.  Nick held himself stiffly upright, resisting the comfort.  "Hush, Nick, it's all right."  Vachon pushed a damp curl off Nick's forehead with his free hand.  "It's all right."
    Nick allowed himself to relax, and Vachon just sat and held him in silence.  After a long while, Nick began to cry.  Vachon held him tighter, as he would Urs, until finally he stopped.  The two sat in silence a while longer, until Nick pushed himself back against the wall again.  "Feeling better?"
    Nick looked at Vachon, then down at himself, and gave a kind of strangled half- laugh.  Vachon followed his gaze.  "What a mess, huh?"
    Vachon half-smiled in rueful acknowledgment, then rose and grabbed a towel from the bathroom, dampening it thoroughly and cleaning himself up.  He  gently wiped the semen stains off his own belly, then scrubbed his chest vigorously to get the sticky stuff out of his hair.  He wiped the blood -- Nick's blood -- off his face.  He rinsed the towel, wringing it out, then brought it out to Nick.  When Nick would have taken it, he forestalled him, steadying the older man with one hand while he gently cleaned him up with the other, starting at his face and working down.
    Nick tolerated it passively.  The wounds on his shoulders had not healed much, but he didn't even flinch when Vachon cleaned them off.  His only reaction was to suck in his belly when Vachon hit a ticklish spot, then quietly take the towel and finish the job himself.
    Vachon poured them each another mug, placing Nick's within easy reach, then leaned back casually against the wall and watched while Nick finished toweling off his rather lavish endowments.  Nick dropped the towel and reached for his mug, leaning back against the wall and cradling it in both hands, drinking deeply.  He poured the rest of the bottle in and sat back again with a resigned sigh, before again looking at Vachon.  He found Vachon looking at him rather intently.  "I'm OK, really, Vachon.  You can stop looking at me that way."  Nick ran his hand through his hair.  "And . . . thanks, Vachon.  Thanks for being there.  For not . . ."  He broke off.  "For not despising me."
    Vachon nodded his head; no words were necessary.  They continued sipping in relaxed silence.  Nick finished his mug and placed it carefully on the floor by the empty bottle.  Vachon had long since finished, and now reached out and laid a gentle hand on Nick's arm.
     Nick looked up questioningly, and Vachon lowered his leg to reveal his renewed erection.  Nick gazed at it speechlessly for a moment, then reached out and gently touched the bobbing tip with his finger.  "<Merçi du compliment,> Vachon, but I really don't think you want me right now."
    "Why not?  It wasn't me you pulled away from, was it?"
    "Of course not."  Nick sighed.  "But . . . LaCroix triggered a major flashback for me there, and I won't be able to stop replaying it . . . and you don't want to experience it in the blood exchange."
    Vachon trailed a finger across the wound he'd made on Nick's neck.  "I figured he did.  Want to tell me about it?"
    "Not particularly."
    "Let me guess, then.  LaCroix knows what it is, right?"  Nick nodded.  "And he didn't kill you for pulling out at the critical moment.  He wasn't even angry at you."  Nick looked unhappy, but Vachon continued tracing his fingers down Nick's chest, distracting him.  "So I have a pretty good idea what it was, already."  He reviewed the emotions he had received through the blood link, emotions he had failed to read during the ecstasy of sharing Nick's blood.  The beginnings of a flashback of incredible power, the associated feelings of panic, of despair, of --   "And since LaCroix tolerated it --"  Vachon broke off to trace his fingers seductively up Nick's inner thigh.  "Since LaCroix tolerated it, I have a pretty good idea how bad it must have been, and who did it."  Nick shuddered, whether in response to the caress or his own thoughts Vachon couldn't tell.  "But Nick, you needed this when we started, and I'm guessing you need it even more now.  LaCroix said he wouldn't come back in.  It'll just be the two of us."  He ran the flat palm of his hand around Nick's ribcage, pulling him forward.  "We both know you'll rerun the whole thing in your head whether we do this or not.  Wouldn't it be easier to rerun it with a friend?"
    Nick looked at him in disbelief.  "Easier for me, sure.  But Vachon, you <really> don't want to share this."
    "I want to share <you,> Nick.  Anything worth having is worth a little pain, don't you think?  And whatever I share in your blood will fade, quick enough.  For me, anyway."  Nick still looked unbelieving, so Vachon continued with a leer.  "And you know, Nick, you taste good."  Nick bit back a laugh.  "Really good."
    Nick allowed himself to relax into Vachon's arms, and they again began to make love.  Slowly, this time; Vachon had reached satiation the first time, after all, and Nick was too depleted, physically and emotionally, for the physical exuberance they had started off with so much earlier in the evening.  They kissed, they fondled, they lay side by side gently suckling each other's organs.  Their arousal grew and grew, until suddenly Nick reoriented himself and pulled Vachon's face to his for a tonsil swallowing kiss, all fangs and bloody tongues.  They ground their stiff erections against each other, and simultaneously plunged their aching fangs into each others' necks.  Orgasm swept over them sweetly, thunderously, and they continued sucking the blood from each other.
    And inevitably, Nick found himself remembering.  He tried desperately to keep it from his mind, to forget it, but Vachon urged him to let go, gave him his acceptance through the medium of their shared blood.  And Nick remembered.
    Vachon drank it in.  Glimpses of Nicholas and LaCroix from two centuries before.  Lovers; lovers in love.  Sex; soft loving sex, aggressive violent sex, completely consensual, loving sex.  The feeling of total acceptance, total love.  Even in the most violent sex.  Vachon could feel Nicholas try to stop, but urged him on.  <Get it out, cleanse the wound.  Go on.>  Nicholas sobbed around the wound he had made in Vachon's neck, but did not withdraw his fangs from the comforting contact.
    Rape.  He still reeled from the shock of it; his lover, his love, was raping him.  <Why?>  he screamed silently, <why are you doing this?  You can have whatever you want, however you want it, why are you making it rape? >
     Vachon nearly withdrew in shock.  With a lover as passionate, as willing as Nicholas, it was nearly impossible to make it rape.  But LaCroix had managed, culminating by throwing Nick's broken body contemptuously out the window to await the dawn.  LaCroix had broken his legs, broken his arm, smashed in part of his ribcage, and finally snapped his spine as if it were kindling.  Drained, unable to heal, unable to move, he had lain where LaCroix had thrown him until the light hit him.
    A wonderful motivator, that light, it had motivated him to use the last of his strength to half levitate, half drag himself into the shadow of  the back steps of the building.  He couldn't get under them; they were solid stone, as was the cobbled paving he lay on.  He couldn't get out of the sun, and he began screaming, mentally and vocally, first screaming for LaCroix to help him, help him please, then just screaming in mindless agony as he burned.
    A passerby stopped to help, and he grabbed him and drained him dry.  He tried desperately to scrabble under the body, out of the burning light.  Another approached, and he had two bodies, stiffening over him.  He curled under the corpses, trying to avoid their blank, reproachful eyes, trying to avoid the knowledge that he had killed two humans who had only wanted to help him.
    When LaCroix didn't respond, didn't come, he finally began to accept that it was all real.  That LaCroix, for some reason, no longer loved him, no longer wanted him; despised him.  He hurt.  He ached.  He could feel LaCroix inside their rooms; could feel when he fell asleep, ignoring Nicholas's agony as he would ignore a half-crushed ant under his feet.
    Through the long bright afternoon, Nicholas just endured.  When evening came, when the first shadows fell, Nicholas left.  He was dazed, he was in terrible condition physically, he was in agony mentally; but he left.  Not because he was afraid, although he was, but because that was what LaCroix wanted.
    Vachon felt Nick's devastation; Vachon lived Nick's flashback.  He hauled himself back a little.  It would fade.  He was whole in body and mind, and it would fade.  He sent a wave of acceptance and reassurance to Nick.  <It was done, it was over, it was a long, long time ago.>  Nick felt his support and gradually relaxed.  They continued the blood exchange a while longer, until Nick felt peace return to him.  They withdrew their fangs and lay twined with their arms around each other, and slept.
    Some time later, Vachon woke, stretching languorously, then turned back to gaze at his lover.  He gently traced the curve of Nick's cheekbone with one finger, as he thought back on what had transpired this evening.  He sighed.  He wanted to do it again, without the background story, without the pain, but Nick had been nearly drained the first time, fed only on cow, then emotionally exhausted himself with that horrendous flashback.  Vachon knew Nick was going to sleep quite a while longer.
    Vachon, on the other hand, felt quite wonderful physically, if a little stretched emotionally.  He had fed heavily from Nick the first time, enjoyed a quite wonderful bottle of LaCroix's best, then shared a blood exchange.  He had a lot more energy than even when the evening started.  No way he could lay still when he felt this good.
    He gently untangled his body from Nick's, who never stirred even as Vachon rolled him onto his back into a position that at least <looked> comfortable.  The Spaniard showered quickly, then redressed himself, finally finding his shirt on the far side of the room, behind the sofa.  He gathered up Nick's clothes, placing them in a neat pile on the coffee table, then finally gathered up Nick, placing him in a neat pile on the sofa.  Nick woke briefly as he laid him down, still naked, on the cold leather, but Vachon just smiled at him and kissed him reassuringly.  Nick smiled back.  "I have to leave now, Nick."  He stroked Nick's arm comfortingly.  "I want to do it again, but I don't think you're up for it right now."
    Nick was surprised into a soft laugh by the atrocious pun, and Vachon slapped him lightly on the chest in approval.  He ducked into the bedroom, grabbing a folded quilt off the bed, and returned to spread it over Nick's pale nakedness.  Nick sleepily pulled it up.  "You'll be OK here?"  Vachon asked gently.
    "Yeah," Nick replied.  "He won't hurt me.  He's not in that kind of mood."
    Vachon raised an eyebrow.  How Nick could possibly know that, could feel safe in LaCroix's rooms alone, was beyond him -- not with that rape still ringing through the corridors of his mind.  But if Nick felt safe, no doubt he was.  "OK.  See ya?"
    "See ya."  Nick was already drifting off to sleep when Vachon closed the door behind him.

    Vachon stalked angrily into the bar of the Raven.  Miklos quickly poured him a glass of good bloodwine, then indicated the private booth in the back corner.  Vachon nodded his head curtly, and carried his glass with him to where LaCroix waited.  He seated himself briskly, then sat forward and sipped at his cup.  LaCroix waited. <Let him.  Let the old bastard wait.>  He wasn't going to speak first.  He could play these stupid power games too.
    LaCroix kept his face impassive, internally amused at the bravado of the young vampire before him.  He checked his link with Nicholas; his son was asleep, peacefully asleep.  <Very well, he owed this young rascal for that, at least.>  He had expected Vachon to stay until Nicholas had recovered himself enough to dress and leave; that Vachon had stayed and been able to somehow get Nicholas past the flashback was an added debt.  "You look quite, er, replete, young Vachon," he said, so easily it denied any power play was made or perceived.  "Is Nicholas?"
    Vachon knew perfectly well what LaCroix was doing, and suddenly decided not to play anymore.  He cut right to the heart of the matter.  "Why?"  LaCroix raised an eyebrow in question.  "Why did you do that to him?"
    LaCroix snorted.  "If Nicholas didn't tell you, why should I?"
    Vachon erupted from his seat, reaching across the table as if to grab the old devil by the front of his shirt.  He stopped himself just in time.  He sat back, but his temper still burned hotly.  "You owe me, you old devil," he ground out. "I just lived through that rape, and I feel like you raped me.  I want to know why."
    "Nicholas knows why.  Surely you read that in the blood, if you wanted to know."  LaCroix seemed glib, unmoved.
    Vachon looked at him in disbelief.  "Nick hasn't got the faintest clue why.  It's probably the one thing that bothers him the most."
    LaCroix raised his head angrily, and reached out for his drink with a hand that wanted to tremble slightly.  Nicholas <had> to know why.  How could he have kept that from Vachon?  He skewered Vachon with a haughty glare.  "Really, Vachon, it's not as if it were the first time someone raped him; it wasn't even the first time <I> raped him."
    Vachon looked faintly nauseous at LaCroix's words, at the unthinking revelation of what life as 'LaCroix's favorite' entailed.  He swallowed, but anger kept him from backing down.  "You <owe> me an explanation.  And even more, you owe <Nick> one."
    LaCroix looked at him stonily.  He did owe the scruffy Spaniard; Vachon had stayed with Nicholas, seen him through yet another crisis, because LaCroix had asked him to.  He sighed.  "Very well.  You won't like it."
    "I <already> don't like it.  Tell me."
    LaCroix looked away from him.  Baring the soul was never easy for him;  admitting to mistakes even harder.  But he owed the importunate bastard.  "We were in love," he began.  Vachon nodded, he knew that.  LaCroix remembered his feelings silently.  <I loved him more than anyone, anything.  I began to think I loved him more than me.  I found myself doing things I normally wouldn't, doing things because I knew Nicholas would be pleased>.  He paused for a long moment.  "I felt I was losing control, that Nicholas was controlling me.  That could not be."  <I had to stop him.  I had to stop him before I lost myself in him.>  LaCroix turned back to Vachon.  That was the hard part of the conversation; admitting to love.  <I had to prove to him, and to myself, that I was in control.  That even if I was powerlessly in love with him, he was still mine.>  Loss of control in a relationship was what he feared most; what had hurt most with Divia.  Loss of control was the beginning of the end. <I loved him, and I resented him for it; hated him for the power that gave him.>   He continued aloud, "I decided to show him that I could do anything I wanted with him, to him, and he would still come crawling back to me.  So I raped him. I beat him, I drained him, I threw him out, and I waited for him to crawl back.  But he never did."
    Vachon looked at him, stunned.  "That was all one of your little mind games?  Just to prove who was in charge?"  LaCroix nodded sullenly, a dangerous expression in his eyes, but  Vachon's anger pushed him on.  "And you think <Nick> understood that?"  He  laughed humorlessly.  "I haven't known Nick as long as you have, but even I know Nick doesn't play those games.  He doesn't even understand those games."  He shook his head at LaCroix in disbelief.  "You'd have to be thick as a brick to think he had the slightest idea what you were up to."
    "Then why didn't he come back?  I waited, until the sun came up.  He chose to burn to death rather than come back to me.  So I tuned him out."  <I couldn't stand listening to him burn.>
    Vachon looked at him in disbelief.  "Why didn't he come crawling back?"  He shook his head in utter amazement.  "Probably because he couldn't crawl, you sadistic son-of-a-" Vachon  bit back the epithet.  "You broke his legs," LaCroix nodded, "his arm, you stove in half his ribs," Lacroix nodded twice more, acknowledging impassively.  "You drained him dry, and you broke his back.  Then you threw him out the window.  When he hit the ground, it severed his spinal cord.  He couldn't move."
    LaCroix sat stunned.  "I . . . I broke his back?"
    Vachon rolled his eyes in disbelief.  "You broke his back."  He continued in words of one syllable.  "He could not crawl back to you.  He could not move.  And you left him there to burn in the sun."
    LaCroix replayed the events of that day in his perfect memory.  Rape, beating, draining, flinging Nicholas across the room, then out the window.  He replayed it again.  Nicholas hurtling across the room, hitting the window ledge with a crunch.  It was possible. He'd been too angry, too intent on forcing Nicholas to make an obvious submission, to bother to gauge the individual effects of each injury he'd inflicted...  He'd blocked out his lover's pain, concentrating only on his own fury. He dropped his head into his hands.  "Shit."
    "All for your <pride.>  He begged you to help him, to save him, and you were too proud to even listen.  Too intent on proving you were the master of the situation."  LaCroix looked stricken.  <Good.  Maybe he was getting the message.>  "He almost died the true death.  He suffered through agonies.  He's still suffering.  All because you were too proud.  Too proud to save the love of your life."   Vachon forced himself to stop.  LaCroix was listening, letting him talk to him this way, but he couldn't go too far.  LaCroix might, upon reflection, decide to chastise him for it.
    He was relieved when LaCroix turned his attention to the far side of the room, and turned to see what had captured his attention.  Nick had entered the room, and was making his way unsteadily over to where Miklos was automatically pouring a glass of cow.  He had dressed, but wasn't his usual immaculate self.  His hair curled every which way, and his clothing was wrinkled, but damn he looks good, thought Vachon, with a faint stirring in his loins. They must have been talking longer than he'd thought.  He had expected Nick to sleep longer.
    Nick's two erstwhile lovers watched him in silence as he collapsed onto the bar stool and began drinking.  A young vampire, arrogant as only a new fledgling could be, made some comment, loudly, to another who sat beside Nick.  Vachon didn't hear it across the noise of the crowded room, but he could guess what it was.  He'd heard the same things said to and about Nick often enough.  Nick just ignored him, and Miklos poured him another glass.
    "It always amazes me," Vachon began, quietly angry.
    LaCroix turned back to him, one eyebrow raised.
    "It always amazes me that the young ones all think he's so weak, so contemptible.  He's stronger than any of them.  Even on that diet of swill he could destroy them all so easily, and they don't get it."
    LaCroix snorted.  It was a source of infinite amusement to him, as well.  "It is an interesting little test I set them."
     "I can't believe they think he's weak.  That they don't notice that the old ones all respect him.  Avoid him, but respect him."
    LaCroix snorted.  "The old ones either know him, or know me.  Either suffices.  No weaklings survive 800 years; and no one else has ever survived as my favorite for so long.  Not by a long shot."  It was a tacit acknowledgment of the difficulties of being LaCroix's 'favorite.'
    "Janette?"  He had heard of the elegant vampire who was Nick's sister.
    "No, she was only two centuries when I found Nicholas.  The rest -- "  he shrugged negligently.  "Either I tired of them and cast them out, or they killed themselves when they couldn't take it anymore."  He grinned evilly, and Vachon suppressed a shudder.
    He turned to again watch Nick.  The obnoxious fledgling, one of Mardale's crowd, stood so close to him that Nick was forced to tilt his head back to meet his eyes.  The fledge growled menacingly and showed his fangs; a foolish act even in the darkness of the bar.  Nick stood his ground, meeting his stare expressionlessly.  Nick never moved, just let his vampiric aura deepen and swirl around him until the fledge suddenly, uncertainly, closed his mouth over his fangs and stepped back.  Nick shut down the aura and returned to his drink, wrapped in complete indifference.
    LaCroix laughed softly.  "The fool will convince himself that never happened."  Vachon nodded, he'd seen it before.  "And Nicholas never seems to care."
    "He's learned the hard way that the only one whose good opinion he can't live without is his own.  Two hundred years ago, it was yours; but he thought he lost it and learned to live without it."  He laughed humorlessly, swirling his drink in his glass and watching the ruby glints.  "They think his indifference is weakness; it's really strength."  He raised the glass briefly to his lips, then set it down without drinking.  "Why do you do that?"
    "Do what?"
    "Set him up.  The young ones think he's contemptible, because they think you despise him.  The old ones avoid him, because they think you love him."
    "Just limiting his options a bit.  Amusing myself, as well."
    Vachon snorted.  "Limiting his options.  Trying to keep him all to yourself?"  He went on, answering his own question.  "He won't fall in love with anyone who's capable of physically overpowering him; he's had all of that he can stand with you.  He's not interested in the young ones.  And you scare off everyone in between."
    LaCroix nodded.  "Physically he's incredibly strong, even for his age, even on his diet.  He has defeated me, physically, three times in the past couple of years."
    Vachon raised an incredulous eyebrow.
    "The first time he could have killed me, but the idiot didn't realize the stake had to be wooden."  He shook his head in disbelief.  "The second time he didn't make that mistake; I died."  He laughed at the expression on Vachon's face.  "I'm much too old to die, you know."
    "That wasn't what -- " Vachon shook his head.  "You really are a brick, you know.  Even the stupidest fledge knows the stake has to be wooden. Nick is far from stupid.  If he had you staked, incapacitated, and didn't finish you off, it wasn't because he didn't know how.  It was because he didn't want to."
    LaCroix paused, arrested, then shook his head.  "I'd've killed me."
    "Nick's not you."  Vachon started to say more, than stopped himself.  "I'm going home," he said abruptly.
    LaCroix was deep in thought, hardly noticing as he waved Vachon away.  Vachon stopped one more time, then turned and looked intensely at LaCroix. "I'd've killed you, too," he bit out, then flung himself away before he could say more and dig his grave any deeper.

    LaCroix rose from his seat and tentatively approached Nick at the bar.  He gave a single hard look at the obnoxious fledge, causing the youngster to suddenly recollect business elsewhere, then took the vacated seat casually.  He kept well back from Nick, granting him space, not hovering behind him with an arm leaning on the bar as he was wont to.  Nicholas looked over at the motion, his face expressionless, his eyes wary.  When he realized LaCroix sat beside him, he flinched involuntarily, then turned back to his drink, running one hand through his disheveled hair.
    "Nicholas."  Haunted blue eyes met his.  "I know you're not up to talking about this tonight,"  Lacroix said, "but perhaps tomorrow?  Either here, or I could come to you, whichever you prefer?"
    Amazed at the gentle request, neither a command nor a demand, just a request with a willingness to accept refusal implicit in it, Nicholas nodded slowly.  "Here,"  he acquiesced.  He had feared LaCroix would be rather more forceful in dealing with this latest rejection by his son;  he wanted to know what was behind this strange gentleness.
    LaCroix nodded, watching as Nicholas raised his glass again to his lips, his hand trembling.  He touched their link lightly; it was just fatigue, not fear.  "Stay the day?  You're tired; you can be alone if you wish."
    Nicholas just shook his head in denial; he wanted nothing so much as to be home, to be where he felt most safe.
    "OK," agreed LaCroix.  "Just stay and drink until you're strong enough.  No one will disturb you."  He waved Miklos over, gave him quiet instructions, then disappeared into the back rooms.  Nicholas looked after him with a puzzled stare.

    Across the room, other eyes also stared after LaCroix.  Andovar, surrounded by Mardale and a group of his young cronies, also watched.  Andovar looked thoughtful.
    They turned their attention to Nick. "Boy, he looks whipped," gloated Mardale, still smarting from the altercation with Nick over Urs earlier in the week.  "I don't think
LaCroix's too pleased with him tonight."
    "No," answered Andovar, "doesn't look like Nicholas pleased him at all."  He had felt the delicious emanations from the back room earlier in the evening.  Nicholas's condition, combined with LaCroix's mood, certainly indicated that something had changed.  Just the thought of what LaCroix could do, probably had done, to Nicholas excited him. Perhaps a displeased LaCroix would be more receptive to his own desires?
    "Hey, William," called Mardale, "did you see Nick?  Looks like LaCroix really laid into him tonight."
    "Yea, it does.  Boy, I'd like to get that wuss.  He's no better'n a carouche, but we have to treat him like he owns the place.  Really frosts me."
    "Well, it sure looks like now would be the time.  If LaCroix's unhappy with him, maybe he'll even appreciate it."  The young vampires all laughed raucously.   Andovar considered approaching LaCroix, but decided to wait.  Nicholas was no good to him in a weakened condition; he'd wait until he'd regained some of his strength.
Chapter 4

    The next evening when Nick returned to the Raven, things were in full swing.  The music was loud and raucous, the crowd large and gyrating.  He took his usual seat at the bar, back turned to most of those present, and sensed LaCroix waiting for him.  He announced his presence through their link, and knew LaCroix would be out soon.  Miklos was busy at the far end of the bar, but the second barman came over, polishing a glass and quickly pouring him his drink.  He left the bottle and turned to serve some other customers.
    Nick regarded the ruby liquid before him somberly before raising it to his mouth.  The sweet aroma drifted to his sensitive nose before he drank, teasing, tantalizing.  He slammed the glass back down on the bar.  Human.  Nick couldn't believe it.  He had thought LaCroix had started to accept him as he was; to accept that Nicholas was a separate being with his own mind; to allow him the independence he needed.  He had seemed so solicitous last night.  Nick felt as if he had been slapped in the face, slapped back into his place as LaCroix's slave.  Angry, hurt, he threw some money on the bar, knowing LaCroix would be insulted, would know it was a declaration of independence.  As quickly as it had come, the anger left him, leaving behind resignation and pain.  He rose, and left quietly, without protesting.
    LaCroix, making his way across the crowded room, felt Nick's silent pain as he quickly exited the bar.  Pe