“Tonight is the full moon, ma petite. His beast calls to him.” Jean-Claude padded across the carpet towards us.
“Let me up, Richard.”
Richard went to his hands and knees, leaving me to squirm out from under him. I stood, and he knelt in front of me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Richard.” I stared at Jean-Claude.
Richard ran his hands down my ribs, fingers digging into the flesh as if he were massaging my back. It brought my attention back to him. “I would never hurt you willingly. You know that.”
I did know that. I nodded.
“Trust me now.” His voice was soft and deep, with a roll of bass to it that wasn’t normal. He started pulling my shirt out of my pants. “I want to touch you, smell you, taste you.”
Jean-Claude padded around us, not coming any closer. He circled us like a shark. His midnight blue eyes were still human, more human looking than Richard’s.
Richard raised my shirt free of my pants, pushing it back until he exposed my stomach. He ran his hands over my bare skin and I shuddered, but it wasn’t sex, or not only sex. That warm, electric power of his flowed from his hands across my skin. It was like having a low-level current tracing over me. It didn’t quite hurt, but it might if it didn’t stop. Or it might feel very good, better than anything else. I wasn’t sure which thought scared me more.
Jean-Claude stood just out of reach, watching. That thought scared me, too.
Richard put his hands on either side of my exposed waist, holding the shirt up, draped over his wrists.
Jean-Claude took that last step, pale hand outstretched. I tightened up, fear overriding the remains of desire. He let his hand fall back without touching us.
Richard licked my stomach, a quick, wet motion. I stared down at him, and he stared back with brown eyes. Human eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Anita.”
I didn’t know what it had cost him to swallow his beast back down inside, but I knew it hadn’t been easy. There were many lesser lycanthropes who could not go back once they started to change. It would have been more reassuring if his true brown eyes hadn’t held a darkness all their own. But it wasn’t his beast, it was something more basic, more human: sex. Even lust doesn’t cover that look in a man’s eyes.
Jean-Claude was standing behind me. I could feel him. Without touching me at all, I could feel his power, like a cool, seeking wind. He brushed his face against my hair. My heart was beating so loudly I couldn’t hear anything but the thundering of my own blood in my head.
Jean-Claude brushed my hair to one side. His lips touched my cheek and his power burst over me in a quiet rush, cool as a wind from the grave. It flowed through me, seeking Richard’s warmth. The two energies hit, mingled inside me. I couldn’t breathe. I felt that thing inside me that could call the dead from the grave—magic, for lack of a better word—I felt it coil and flare against them both.
I tried to pull away from Richard, but his fingers dug into my ribs. Jean-Claude’s arms tightened around my shoulders. “Build the power, do not fight it, ma petite.”
I fought the panic, my breath coming in quick gasps. I was going to hyperventilate and pass out if I couldn’t get a handle on it. I rode the power and my own fear, and I was losing.
Richard’s mouth bit gently at my stomach. His mouth sucking my skin. Jean-Claude’s lips touched my neck, nibbling gently. His arms cradled me against his chest. Richard was a growing warmth at my waist. Jean-Claude like some cool fire at my back. I was being eaten from both ends like a piece of wood going up in flames. The power was too much. It had to go somewhere. I had to do something with it or it was going to burn me alive.
My legs buckled, and only Richard’s and Jean-Claude’s hands on me kept me from falling. They lowered me to the floor, still cradled in their arms. My shoulder touched the ground, then my hand, and I knew what I could do with the power. I felt it surge through the ground, seeking, seeking the dead. I rolled onto my stomach. Jean-Claude’s hands were on my shoulders, his face brushing mine. Richard’s hands were under my shirt touching my back, roaming higher, but it was all secondary. I had to do something with the power.
I found the dead I needed, and it didn’t work. The power continued to build until I would have screamed if I could have gotten enough air. A step, an ingredient, something was missing.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at both of them. They stared down at me. Jean-Claude’s eyes had gone solid, midnight blue. They both leaned towards me at once. Richard went for my mouth, Jean-Claude went for my neck. Richard’s kiss was almost a burning. I could feel the brush of fangs as Jean-Claude fought not to bite me. Temptation was everywhere. Someone’s hand was under my shirt, and I wasn’t sure whose it was anymore. Then I realized it was both of them.
What was one thing I needed for raising the dead? Blood. I must have said it out loud: “Blood.”
Jean-Claude raised up, staring at me from inches away. His hand was just below my breast. I’d grabbed his wrist without thinking about it. “What, ma petite?”
“Blood to finish it. We need blood.”
Richard raised his face up like a drowning man. “What?”
“I can give you blood, ma petite.” Jean-Claude leaned into me. I stopped him with a hand on his chest, at the same time that Richard put a hand on his shoulder. The power poured over us in a searing wash, and I was seeing white spots.
“You won’t use me to sink fangs into her for the first time,” Richard growled it at him. His anger fed the magic and I screamed.
“Give me blood, or get off me.” I held up my own wrist between them. “I don’t have a knife, someone do it.”
Richard leaned over me. He swept his hair back from one side of his neck. “Here’s your blood.”
Jean-Claude didn’t argue. He leaned into him, lips drawn back. I watched in a sort of slow motion as he bit the side of Richard’s neck. Richard tensed, a hiss of breath as the fangs sank home. Jean-Claude’s mouth sealed over his skin, sucking, throat working.
The power roared through me, raising every hair on my body, creeping through my skin until I thought I’d come apart. I sent it all outward to the dead that I’d found. I filled them up and still there was too much power. I reached outward, outward, and found what I was looking for. The power left us in a cool, burning, rush.
I lay gasping on the floor. Jean-Claude lay on my left, propped on one elbow. Blood stained his lips, trickling down his chin. Richard lay on his stomach to my right, pinning my arm underneath his cheek. His chest rose and fell in great gasps, sweat glistening along his spine.
The world was gold-edged, almost floating. Sound returned slowly, and it was like I was listening down a long tube.
Jean-Claude licked the blood from his lips, wiping a shaking hand across his chin, licking the hand clean. He lay down beside me, one hand across my stomach, his head cradled on my shoulder. His bare chest and stomach lay across my arm. His skin was almost hot, feverish. He’d never felt like that before. His heart pounded against my skin like a captive bird.
His hair fell against my face. It smelled of some exotic shampoo and of him. He gave a shaky laugh and said, “It was glorious for me, was it good for you, ma petite?”
I swallowed, and was too tired to even laugh. “Trust you to know just what to say.”
Richard raised himself up on his elbows. Blood trickled down his neck where two neat fang marks showed. I touched the bite mark, and my fingers came away stained crimson.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“Not really.” He grabbed my wrist, gently, licking the blood off my fingers, sucking them clean.
Jean-Claude’s strangely warm hand caressed my stomach under my shirt. He undid the button of my pants.
“Don’t even think it,” I said.
“Too late, ma petite.” He bent and kissed me. I could taste the metallic sweetness of Richard’s blood on his tongue. I rose up to meet him, pushing at
his mouth. I’d asked for the blood, not either of them. The truth was, we weren’t done with the bloodletting today. Whatever I’d called from the grave had to be put back. That would take blood, fresh blood. The only question was who would donate it and how would it be gathered. Oh, one more question, how much blood would we need?
26
* * *
JEAN-CLAUDE’S fingertips slid along the edge of my pants. Richard grabbed his wrist. Anger flared from both of them, and that shared power flickered to life.
“You won’t use this as an excuse to get into her pants, either,” Richard said. His voice was thick and dark with more than anger. His hand tightened on Jean-Claude’s wrist.
Jean-Claude balled his hand into a fist and bent his arm at the elbow. Concentration and anger touched both their faces. I could feel the trembling effort through their chests. Their anger prickled along my skin. It was too soon to do all this shit over again. “You can arm-wrestle later, boys, we’ve got to go see what I raised from the dead.”
There was a fraction of hesitation, then they both looked down at me. Their arms were still straining against each other. Richard’s face showed the effort. Jean-Claude’s face had gone blank and curious, as if it was no effort to hold off a werewolf. But I could feel the fine trembling through his body. Illusion was all with Jean-Claude. With Richard it was all nerve endings and reality.
“What did you say, ma petite?”
“She said she raised the dead,” Richard said.
“Yep, so get off me. You can fight later, but right now, we need to check on what I did.”
“We did,” Jean-Claude said. He eased away from Richard, and after a second, Richard released his hand.
“What we did,” I said.
Richard stood, the muscles in his bare legs moving under the skin, and it was hard not to touch them, feel the movement of him. He offered me a hand up.
“Give me a minute,” I said.
Jean-Claude stood as if drawn to his feet by strings. He offered me a hand, too.
They stood glaring at each other. Their anger played through the air like invisible sparks. I shook my head. I seemed to be more worse for wear than either of them, poor human that I was. I’d have actually taken a hand up, which was rare for me. I sighed, got my feet under me, and stood without help from either of them.
“Behave yourselves,” I said. “Can’t you feel what’s in the air? Anger works just fine to call whatever it is, so stop it. We may have to do it again to lay to rest what we’ve already called from the grave.”
Jean-Claude looked instantly relaxed, at ease. He gave a low bow. “As you like, ma petite.”
Richard rotated his neck, trying to loosen his shoulders. His hands were still balled into fists, but he nodded. “I don’t understand how what we did called zombies.”
“I can act as a focus for other animators. It’s a way to combine powers and raise an older zombie or more than one or two zombies. I don’t know how to do anything else but raise the dead, so when you shoved that much power in my face . . .” I shrugged. “I did what I know how to do.”
“Did you raise all of Nikoloas’s old cemetery?” Jean-Claude asked.
“If we’re lucky,” I said.
He put his head to one side, puzzled.
Richard looked down at himself. “Can I get some pants on?”
I smiled. “Seems a shame,” I said, “but yeah.”
“I will fetch my robe from the bathroom,” Jean-Claude said.
“Help yourself,” I said.
“No comment about how it is a shame that I am getting dressed?”
I shook my head.
“Cruel, ma petite, very cruel.”
I smiled and gave him a little bow.
He returned the smile, but there was a challenge to his eyes as he walked towards the bathroom.
Richard was sliding into his jeans. I watched him zip them up and button them into place. It was fun just to watch him dress. Love makes the smallest movements fascinating.
I walked past him, towards the door, leaving him to put a shirt on if he was going to. The only way to ignore him was to just not look. The same theory worked with Jean-Claude most of the time.
I walked to the door. My hand was reaching for the knob when Richard grabbed me from behind, lifting me off my feet, carrying me back from the door.
My feet were literally dangling off the ground. “What the hell are you doing? Put me down.”
“My wolves are coming,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Put me down.”
He lowered me enough for my feet to touch the floor, but his arms stayed wrapped around me, as if he was afraid I’d go for the door. His face was distant, listening. I heard nothing.
A howl echoed up the corridor and raised the hairs on my arms. “What’s going on, Richard?”
“Danger,” he almost whispered it.
“Is it Raina and Marcus?”
He was still listening to things I could not hear. He pushed me behind him and went to the door, still shirtless, wearing nothing but his jeans.
I ran for the bed and the weapons. I got the Firestar out from under the pillow. “Don’t go out there empty-handed, dammit.” I dragged the Uzi out from under the bed.
A chorus of howls went up. Richard flung the door open and raced down the hallway. I called his name, but he was gone.
Jean-Claude came out of the bathroom in his black, fur-lined robe. “What is it, ma petite?”
“Company.” I slipped the Uzi’s strap across my chest.
The sounds of snarling wolves came distant. Jean-Claude ran past me, the long robe flying out behind him. He ran like a dark wind. When I got out to the corridor, he was nowhere in sight.
I was going to be the last one there. Dammit.
27
* * *
RUNNING full tilt towards a fight was not the best way to stay alive. Caution was better. I knew that, and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but getting there in time. In time to save them. Them. I didn’t dwell on that; I ran, the Firestar gripped tightly in my right hand, the Uzi in my left. I was running like an idiot, but at least I was armed.
A roaring shout thundered off the walls ahead. Don’t ask me how, but I knew it was Richard. I didn’t think I could run any faster. I was wrong. I spilled into the open, breath coming in throat-closing gasps, not looking left or right. If someone had had a gun, they could have blown me away.
Richard stood in the middle of the room, a zombie held at arm’s length above his head. A wolf the size of a pony had pinned another zombie to the floor, savaging it. Stephen stood at Richard’s back in human form, but crouched and ready to fight. Cassandra stood back from them. She turned to me as I skidded into the room. There was a look on her face that I couldn’t quite read, and didn’t have time to puzzle over.
Jean-Claude was at the far left, away from the werewolves. He was staring at me, too. I couldn’t read his face, but he was in no danger. He hadn’t waded into the zombies. He knew better. Richard didn’t.
The room had been a narrow rectangle, but the far wall had blasted outward, scattering rubble across the floor. It looked like the zombies had crawled out from behind the wall. A graveyard that I, at least, hadn’t known was there.
The dead stood in front of the ruins. Their eyes shifted to me as I saw them, and I felt the weight of their gaze like a blow to my heart.
The fear for everyone’s safety was gone, washed away in a rush of anger. “Richard, put it down, please, it won’t hurt you. Call Jason off the other one.” It had to be Jason unless there was another werewolf down here. And if it was someone else, where was Jason?
Richard turned his head to look at me, the zombie, once a human male, still held effortlessly above his head. “They attacked Jason.”
“They wouldn’t have done anything without orders. Jason jumped the gun.”
“They didn’t attack us,” Cassandra said. “They started pouring out of the wall. Jason changed a
nd attacked them.”
The giant wolf had opened the zombie’s stomach and was tearing at intestines. I’d had enough. “Grab the wolf,” I said. The zombie under him locked its arms around the wolf’s forequarters. The wolf sank teeth into the corpse’s throat and tore it out in a spurt of dark fluid and flesh.
The rest of the zombies, somewhere between sixty and eighty, surged toward the wolf. “Let him up, Jason, or I’ll show you what it’s like to be attacked by zombies.”
Richard bent his elbow and tossed the zombie away from him. The body tumbled through the air and landed in the mass of waiting zombies. They fell like bowling pins, except that these bowling pins got to their feet, though one lost an arm in the process.
Richard crouched by his wolves. “You’re attacking us?” He sounded outraged.
“Pull your wolf off my zombie and it stops here.”
“You think you can take us?” Cassandra said.
“With this many dead, I know I can,” I said.
Stephen’s face crumpled, almost like he’d cry. “You’d hurt us.”
Shit, I’d forgotten. I was their lupa now. I’d threatened to kill Raina if she hurt Stephen again, and here I was about to feed him to zombies. There was a logic gap somewhere.
“If I’m supposed to protect you all, then you have to obey me, right? So Jason gets the fuck off my zombie or I beat the hell out of him. Isn’t that pack protocol?”
Richard turned to me. There was a look on his face I’d never seen before: anger and arrogance, or something close to it. “I don’t think Jason really expected you to demand his obedience. I don’t think any of us did.”
“Then you don’t know me very well,” I said.
“Mes amies, if we kill each other, won’t Marcus be pleased.”
We all turned to Jean-Claude. I said, “Stop.” All the zombies stopped at once like a freeze frame. One tumbled to the floor, caught in midshuffle, rather than take that last partial step. Zombies were terribly literal.
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 28
