Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10

by Laurell Hamilton

  I had to clear my throat to talk. “I noticed,” I said.

  He had the grace to blush. He bent slowly to kiss me. I didn’t try to stop him, but I didn’t help, either. I usually rose on tiptoe to meet him halfway. I stood there, too scared to move, forcing his tall body to bend at the shoulders, to fold down towards me. The long, thin-fingered hand that I was holding convulsed around me, the claws playing lightly on my bare forearm.

  I tensed, and his power poured over me. I held onto his hand while the muscles and bones slid back into place. I held on with both hands while his hand re-formed under mine. My skin shuddered with the spill of power.

  His lips brushed mine, and I kissed him back, almost swaying. I let go of his hand, my fingers brushed his bare chest, playing over his hardened nipples. His hands slid around my waist, fingers kneading upward, over my ribs, along my spine. He whispered into my mouth, “You’re not wearing anything under this T-shirt.”

  “I know,” I said.

  His hands slid under the shirt, caressing my back, pressing our bodies together. His naked body touched me, and even through my jeans, it made me shudder. I wanted to feel his naked flesh against mine so badly, I could feel it like a hunger in my skin. I slipped the T-shirt off, and he made a sound of surprise.

  He stared down at my bare breasts, and he wasn’t the only one excited. He ran his hands over my breasts, and when I didn’t stop him, he dropped to his knees in front of me. He looked up at me, his brown eyes filled with a dark light.

  I kissed him while he knelt in front of me, as if I’d eat him from the mouth down. The feel of him against my naked flesh was almost too much.

  He broke from the kiss and ran his mouth over my breasts. It brought a surprised moan from my throat.

  There was a knock at the door. We froze. A woman’s voice that I didn’t recognize said, “I didn’t come all this way to listen to you make out, Richard. I’d like to remind you that all of us have incredibly good hearing.”

  “Not to mention sense of smell.” That was Jason.

  “Damn,” he said softly, head buried against me.

  I leaned my head over him, burying my face in his hair. “I think I’ll just climb out the window.”

  He hugged me around the waist and stood, passing his hands over my breasts one last time. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

  He reached for his jeans and underpants still lying on the bed. I touched his arm, bringing his attention back to me.

  “I want you, Richard. I love you. I want you to believe that.”

  He stared at me, his face grew strange and solemn. “You haven’t seen me change into a wolf yet. You need to see that before we go any further.”

  The thought did not excite me, and I was glad I was the girl, so it didn’t show. “You’re right, though if you’d played your cards right, we might have had sex first.”

  “It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  “So you’re saying even if we’d been alone you’d have stopped and shapeshifted.”

  He nodded.

  “Because it wouldn’t be fair to sleep with me until I’d seen the whole package?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You are such a boy scout, Richard.”

  “I think I just lost one of my merit badges,” he said. The look on his face brought a rush of heat up my neck.

  He grinned and slipped on his pants. He wore briefs. He pulled on his jeans and was careful zipping them up. I watched him get dressed with a proprietary air. An air of anticipation.

  I picked the T-shirt up from the floor and pulled it back on. Richard came up behind me, sliding his hands under the shirt, cupping a hand around each breast, kneading them. I leaned back against him. He was the one who stopped, hugging me around the waist, picking me an inch off the floor. He turned me around and gave me a quick kiss. “When you make up your mind to do something, you really make up your mind, don’t you?”

  “Always,” I said.

  He took in a deep breath through his nose and out through his mouth. “I’d try to make it a quick meeting, but . . .”

  “Edward should be here soon, so it doesn’t matter.”

  He nodded, his face falling. “I almost forgot that someone was trying to kill you.” He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me, eyes searching my face. “Be careful.”

  I touched the bandage on his shoulder. “You, too.”

  He pulled a black T-shirt from a drawer and slipped it on. He tucked it into his jeans, and I made myself stay away from him while he fumbled with his zipper. “Join us after you get dressed.”

  I nodded. “Sure.” He left, closing the door behind him. I sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. Damn. I didn’t want to lose Richard. I really didn’t. I wanted to sleep with him. I wasn’t sure how I felt about seeing him change into full animal form. The hand thing had bothered me enough. What if I couldn’t take it? What if it was too gross? Dear God, I hoped not. I hoped I was a better person than that. A stronger person than that.

  Richard was afraid that if he started to kill, he’d just keep killing. It wasn’t a completely unreasonable fear. I hugged myself tight. The feel of his body against mine clung to my skin. The feel of his mouth on me . . . I shivered, and it wasn’t fear. It was stupid to love Richard. Having sex with him would make it worse. He was going to be dead soon if he didn’t kill Marcus. Simple as that. Jean-Claude would never have endangered himself like that. Never. You could always trust Jean-Claude to survive. It was one of his talents. I was almost sure it wasn’t one of Richard’s. Last night should have proved to me beyond any doubt that I should dump him. Or that he should dump me. You could agree to disagree on politics, or even religion sometimes, but you either killed people or you didn’t. Homicide was not something you could be neutral on.

  Jean-Claude didn’t mind killing people. Once upon a time, I’d thought that made him monstrous. Now I agreed with him. Will the real monster please stand up?

  11

  * * *

  I’D FINALLY gotten dressed, red polo shirt, black jeans, black Nikes, the Firestar 9mm in its inner-pants holster. The gun was very visible against the red shirt, but hey, why try to hide it? Besides, I could feel the roil of power just outside the door. Shapeshifters, not all of them happy. Strong emotions make it harder to hide their power. Richard was one of the best at hiding it that I’d ever met. He’d fooled me for awhile, made me think he was human. No one else had ever been able to do that.

  I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that it wasn’t facing a room full of lycanthropes that bothered me, it was facing a room full of people who knew that Richard and I had been making out. I preferred danger to embarrassment any day. I was used to danger.

  The bathroom was just off the living room, so when I opened the door, they were all there, clustered on or around the couch. They glanced at me as I stepped out, and I nodded. “Hello.”

  Rafael said, “Hello, Anita.” He was the Rat King, the wererats equivalent of pack leader. He was tall, dark, and handsome with strong Mexican features that made his face seem stern. Only his lips hinted that perhaps there were more smiles than frowns in him. He was wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt that left the brand on his arm bare. The brand was in the shape of a crown, and was the mark of kingship. There was no equivalent mark among the wolves. Being a lycanthrope meant different things, depending on the animal; different cultures as well as forms.

  “I didn’t know the wererats would be interested in the packs’ internal squabbles,” I said.

  “Marcus is trying to unify all shapeshifters under one leader.”

  “Let me guess,” I said, “he gets to be leader.”

  Rafael gave a small smile. “Yes.”

  “So you’ve thrown in with Richard as the lesser evil?” I made it a question.

  “I’ve thrown in with Richard because he is a man of his word. Marcus has no honor. His bitch Raina has seen to that.”

  “I still think if we killed Rain
a, Marcus might be willing to talk with us.” This from a woman who I thought I’d seen before but couldn’t place. She sat on the floor sipping coffee from a mug. She had short blond hair, and was wearing a pink nylon jogging suit, jacket open over a pink T-shirt. It was a jogging suit made for looking at, not working out in, and I remembered her. I’d seen her at the Lunatic Cafe, Raina’s restaurant. Her name was Christine. She wasn’t a wolf, she was a weretiger. She was here to speak on behalf of the independent shapeshifters. Those who didn’t have enough people to have a leader. Not every kind of lycanthropy was equally contagious. You could get cut to pieces by a weretiger and not get it. A werewolf could barely cut you and you got furry. Almost none of the cat-based lycanthropy was as contagious as wolf and rat. No one knew why. It was just the way it worked.

  Richard introduced me to about fifteen others, first names only.

  I said hi and leaned against the wall by the door. The couch was full, and so was the floor. Besides, I liked being out of reach of any shapeshifter I didn’t know. Just a precaution.

  “Actually, I’ve met Christine before,” I said.

  “Yes,” Christine said, “the night you killed Alfred.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “Why didn’t you kill Raina last night when you had the chance?” she said.

  Before I could answer, Richard interrupted. “If we kill Raina,” he said, “Marcus will hunt us all down.”

  “I don’t think he’s up to the job,” Sylvie said.

  Richard shook his head. “No, I still won’t give up on Marcus.”

  No one said anything, but the looks on their faces were enough. They agreed with me. Richard was going to get himself killed and hang his followers out to dry.

  Louie came out of the kitchen carrying two mugs of coffee. He smiled at me. Louie was Richard’s best friend, and he’d gone on a lot of hiking dates with us. He was five foot six, with eyes darker than my own, true black, not just darkest brown. His baby-fine black hair had been cut recently. He’d worn it long for all the time I’d known him, not a fashion statement like Richard; he just never got around to getting it cut. Now it was short enough that his ears showed, and he looked older, more like a professor with a doctorate in biology. He was a wererat, and one of Rafael’s lieutenants. He handed me one of the mugs.

  “These meetings have been so much more pleasant since Richard bought that coffeemaker. Thanks to you.”

  I took a big breath of coffee, and felt better instantly. Coffee might not be a cure-all, but it was close. “I’m not sure everyone is happy to see me.”

  “They’re scared. It makes them a little hostile.”

  Stephen came out of the guest room dressed in clothes that fit too well to be Richard’s. A blue dress shirt, tucked into faded blue jeans. The only man in the room that was close to Richard’s size was Jason. Jason never minded sharing his clothes.

  “Why does everyone look so grim?” I asked.

  Louie leaned against the wall, sipping coffee. “Jean-Claude withdrew his support of Marcus and threw in with Richard. I can’t believe neither of them mentioned that.”

  “They said something about having formed a bargain, but they didn’t explain.” I thought about what he’d just told me. “Marcus must be pissed.”

  The smile faded from his face. “That is an understatement.” He looked at me. “You don’t understand, do you?”

  “Understand what?” I asked.

  “Without Jean-Claude’s backing, Marcus doesn’t stand a chance of forcing the rest of the shapeshifters under his control. His dreams of empire building are finished.”

  “If he doesn’t stand a chance, why is everyone so worried?”

  Louie gave a sad smile. “What Marcus can’t control, he has a tendency to kill.”

  “You mean he’d start a war?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not just with Richard and the pack, you mean, but an all-out war with all the other shapeshifters in town?”

  Louie nodded. “Except the wereleopards. Gabriel is their leader and he sides with Raina.”

  I thought about it for a second or two. “Sweet Jesus, it would be a bloodbath.”

  “And there’d be no way of containing it, Anita. Some of it would spill over onto the normal world. There are still three states in this country that will pay hundreds of dollars in bounty for a dead shapeshifter, no questions asked. A war like this could make the practice look practical.”

  “Do you two have something better to do?” Christine asked. I was beginning not to like her. It was she that knocked on the door and interrupted Richard and me. Frankly, for that I was sort of grateful. The thought of everyone hearing us go further would have been too embarrassing for words.

  Louie moved back to sit on the floor with the others. I stayed leaning against the wall, sipping my coffee.

  “Are you going to join us?” she asked.

  “I’m fine where I am,” I said.

  “Too good to sit with us?” a man in his late thirties with dark blue eyes asked. He was about five foot eight; it was hard to tell with him sitting on the floor. He was dressed in a suit, complete with tie, as if he was on his way to work. His name was Neal.

  “Not good enough,” I said, “not good enough by half.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. “I don’t like having a normal here.”

  “Leave it alone, Neal,” Richard said.

  “Why? She’s laughing at us.”

  Richard glanced back at me from his corner of the couch. “Come join us, Anita?”

  Sylvie was sitting beside Richard, not too close, but still, there was not enough room for me. Rafael sat on the end of the couch, spine straight, ankle propped on one knee.

  “Couch looks full,” I said.

  Richard held out his hand to me. “We’ll make room.”

  “She isn’t even pack,” Sylvie said. “I won’t give up my seat to her. No offense to you, Anita, you don’t know any better.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, not hostile, but the look she gave Richard wasn’t exactly friendly.

  “No offense taken,” I said. I wasn’t sure I wanted to sit on the couch surrounded by lycanthropes anyway. Even supposedly friendly ones. Everyone in the room was stronger and faster than I was, just a fact. The only leg up I had was the gun. If I sat right beside them, I’d never get it out in time.

  “I want my girlfriend to sit with me, Sylvie, that’s all,” Richard said. “It isn’t meant as a challenge to your position in the lukoi.” His voice sounded patient like he was talking to a child.

  “What did you say?” Sylvie asked. She looked shocked.

  “We are the lukoi. Anita knows that.”

  “You shared our words with her?” Neal said, outrage thick in his voice.

  I wanted to say that it was just words, but I didn’t. Who says I’m not getting smarter?

  “There was a time when sharing our secrets with normals could get you a death sentence,” Sylvie said.

  “Even Marcus doesn’t allow that anymore.”

  “How much of our secrets do you know, human?”

  I shrugged. “A few words, that’s all.”

  Sylvie stared at me. “You want your human girlfriend to cuddle up next to you, is that it, Richard?”

  “Yes,” he said. There was no trace of anger in his voice.

  Personally, I didn’t like the way she’d said “human.”

  Sylvie knelt on the couch, staring at me. “Come human, sit with us.”

  I stared at her. “Why the change of heart?”

  “Not everything has to do with the pack hierarchy. That’s what Richard is always telling us. Sit by your lover. I’ll scoot over.” She did, curling up on the couch, near Rafael.

  The Rat King glanced at me. He raised an eyebrow, almost a shrug. I didn’t trust Sylvie, but I trusted Rafael, and I trusted Richard, at least here, today. I realized that I would have trusted Rafael last night. He wouldn’t have the moral qualms that Richard had. Poor R
ichard was like a lone voice crying in the wilderness. God help me, I agreed with the pagans.

  Louie and Stephen were curled on the floor, close by. I was among friends. Even Jason, grinning up at me, wouldn’t let me get hurt. Jason was Jean-Claude’s wolf to call, as was Stephen. I think if they let me get killed, they might not survive much longer than I did.

  “Anita?” Richard made it a question.

  I sighed and pushed away from the wall. I was among friends, so why were the muscles in my back so tight it hurt to move? Paranoid? Who me?

  I walked around the couch, coffee mug in my left hand. Sylvie patted the couch, smiling, but not like she meant it.

  I sat beside Richard. His arm slid over my shoulders. My right arm was pressed against his side, not too tightly. He knew how much I hated having my gun hand impeded.

  Leaning into the warmth of his body, I relaxed. The tightness in my shoulders eased. I took a sip of coffee. We were all being terribly civilized.

  Richard put his lips against my face, and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Those two words earned him a lot of brownie points. He knew what it had cost me to sit down among the wolves, rats, and cats. Not sitting with him would have undermined him in front of the pack and the other leaders. I wasn’t here to make the situation worse.

  “Who saved you last night, Stephen?” Sylvie asked. Her voice was sweet, face pleasant. I didn’t trust her at all.

  Every eye turned to Stephen. He tried to huddle into the floor, as if he could go invisible, but it didn’t work. He stared at Richard, eyes wide.

  “Go ahead, Stephen, tell the truth. I won’t be mad.”

  Stephen swallowed. “Anita saved me.”

  “Richard was fighting about twenty lycanthropes at the time,” I said. “He told me to get Stephen, so I did.”

  Neal sniffed Stephen, running his nose just above the other man’s face and neck, down his shoulder. It wasn’t a human gesture, and it was unnerving in the well-dressed man. “He has her scent on his skin.” Neal glared at me. “He’s been with her.”

  I expected an outcry, but instead, the others crowded around Stephen, sniffing his skin, touching him, and bringing their fingers close to their own faces. Only Sylvie, Jason, Rafael, and Louie stayed sitting. One by one, the rest turned to Richard and me.