“Ease down, Bernardo, he’s okay.” I held my hand out to Ethan.
He shook his head. “He’s armed, and he’s scared of me. I’ll stay farther away.”
I glared at Bernardo. “Stand down, Bernardo. He’s my”—what word should I use?—“lover. It’s okay.”
“Edward said that you were with a local weretiger. He said you were feeding the ardeur.”
“Then why is your hand still on your gun?” I asked.
“Because from the smell and look of the bed he just changed shape recently, which means he’s hungry. You’re his lover, he likes you; he doesn’t know me.”
“New shapeshifters are compelled to eat right after the change. That stops being true as they get more practice. Do you really think I’d be alone with a shapeshifter so new that he’d lose control like that?”
“You’re like me, Anita; you don’t always make good decisions when you find new tail.”
“I don’t like that phrase. None of my lovers are just ‘new tail.’”
He shrugged, hand still touching his gun. “Fine, but when we see someone we want to sleep with, we don’t always think it through first.”
Was he right about me? He was certainly right about the ardeur picking quick and hard, and not always the best choices. I had more control now, but . . . If he was right, he was right, and I had to let it go.
“And, Anita, this is a small room, and honestly if I didn’t trust you, I’d have my gun out and pointed at your blond friend. Pointed, aimed, and ready to shoot would be my only chance against something as fast as a lycanthrope in a room this small, Anita.”
I nodded. “I know that.”
“Then why are you bitching that I’m touching my gun?”
It was a good point. I shrugged, which made the towel begin to slip again. I caught it earlier this time, so I was still covered. “Fine. Ethan, this is Marshal Bernardo Spotted-Horse.”
Ethan waved a hand that was big enough to palm Bernardo’s skull. I guess in the end there was nothing I could do to make Bernardo comfortable with the big weretiger in the small room, and then I realized something else. Ethan was naked. He was like most wereanimals and not bothered by nudity, but in this shape he wouldn’t fit in any clothes he’d brought for his under-six-feet human form. Well, maybe the boxers?
But a lot of men had problems with other men being nude, especially if they were well endowed. There was always a measuring stick in a man’s mind when it came to certain things. Who was taller, and who was, um, well, bigger.
I tried to look at Ethan in this form from a guy’s point of view, and realized there might be more than one reason that a human male might be intimidated.
I looked back at Bernardo, and it was my turn to grin. “Is the nudity bothering you? I mean, Ethan’s?”
Bernardo shook his head, but his eyes sort of flickered downward.
My grin got broader. “Of all the human men I’ve seen nude, Bernardo, you are the last person I thought would be intimidated by size.” I laughed, I couldn’t help it.
“Are you saying that he’s as big in human form as I am in this form?” Ethan asked. Most men wouldn’t have asked that blandly.
I glanced back at Bernardo. “From what I remember, yeah.”
Bernardo gave me a mild version of his sexy smile, but it never reached his eyes. They were all wary, and worried about the most dangerous thing in the room. He’d flirt, but not until he was sure of the weretiger. The way he was acting, I wasn’t certain there was a way for him to be comfortable around the weretiger in half-man form.
“Is he an old lover of yours?” Ethan asked.
“No,” I said, and my face was still soft with the fading laugh.
“Then how do you know how well endowed he is?” Ethan asked.
I looked at him. “Are you jealous?”
The cat face frowned, but there was a very human intelligence through those eyes. “I think so, and I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t work for you, and it doesn’t work in the red clan. The women totally get to pick the men, so I can’t even say it’s my culture.” He spread those big hands that I knew with a flick of his muscles could reveal claws big enough to slice me open. “It’s just that it’s been a long time, and the thought of sharing this soon hurts a little.”
I went to him, and was out of hands. I put the gun on the edge of the bare mattress and turned back to the towering, furred figure. I’d learned a long time ago that being physically intimidating didn’t keep you from getting your feelings hurt. Everyone’s heart is the same size.
I hugged him one-armed, until his arms wrapped around me, holding me close enough that the press of our bodies would hold the towel in place. I hugged him with both arms then, letting my hands play in the soft, thick fur of his back. He leaned down over me, bending more and more of that tall upper body over me until he could press his face against the top of my head. He huffed against my hair; it was something a lot of cats did, sort of halfway between a breath going out and in, and a soft sound that was used for talking to kittens or favorite people. It was a good, caring sound. I hugged him tighter, rubbing my cheek against the warmth of him. The fur was thinner on the front of him so that I could touch his skin through the silky fur. He was so warm.
“Thank you,” he said, as he stood up straighter. Something about the hugging and moving made the towel begin to slide down, but all Bernardo was seeing was my bare back. He could see that. I kept hugging the big weretiger, and looked up until I could meet those blue and gold eyes. “You’re welcome, and thank you for stripping the bed.”
“We’d have ruined the mattress otherwise.”
“I know, but thanks for thinking of it anyway. I like men who are domestically inclined.” I grinned at him, but he was still too serious. I tried again. “I do want you, and I’m inviting you now to come to St. Louis when this case is over.”
He smiled that flash of frightening teeth, but I’d been around enough beast forms to see the delight in his face, and the happiness in his eyes was unmistakable. He picked me up, sudden, unexpected, and effortless. He lifted me so he could look into my face. There are no lips to kiss in beast form, but I’d been dating lycanthropes for a while, and I knew to put my face against his and let him rub his furred cheeks on one side of my face and then the other. I returned the gesture, and put my arms around his shoulders. I realized the towel was no longer covering me. I had a choice of ruining the moment for modesty’s sake, or not worrying about the fact that Bernardo was seeing my bare ass. I decided not to worry, and let the joy in Ethan’s face be all the covering I needed. In the end, if you can make somebody that happy, what’s a little flashing between friends?
26
WE WRAPPED ETHAN’S new golden self in the last of the bedspreads, and had him fold all that size into the backseat of Bernardo’s rental car. While still in the room, Ethan had said, “I could be waiting for you when you get back.”
“I’ll be gone for hours, maybe until morning,” I said.
“I’d wait.”
I smiled at him. “If the bad guys weren’t killing weretigers, then I’d say yes, but I don’t want you here by yourself.”
“You don’t think I can take care of myself?”
Watching for male ego, I’d said, “You need to eat now that you’ve changed forms. Though I don’t like anyone else knowing you have a gold form, the only safe-ish place I can think to take you is back to the red clan.”
“But not forever,” he said, and even through the gold and the pointy fangs meant for meat-rending, he was unsure, almost afraid.
“I promise, Ethan, it’s not forever, but I gotta go catch bad guys now.”
So he’d hidden in the backseat, and I’d called Alex so someone would be there at the entrance to meet him. Alex was actually about to go into a press conference for his day job as a reporter, but he promised that two guards would be there, and they’d take care of Ethan for me. “I’m the prince of the clan, Anita; they’ll do what I say.”
“Unless your mother the queen disagrees,” I said.
He’d laughed. “Well, there is that.”
But there were two guards waiting to take Ethan into the underground and help hold all the weapons that didn’t fit on his taller man form. They raised eyebrows at glimpses of his fur through the bedspread.
I told them, “No one else knows, and I want to keep it that way.”
“We have to tell our queen,” one of the guards said.
“And if I tell you not to, what then?”
They looked at each other. “You are a little queen, but you won’t kill us for keeping secrets from you; she might.”
“If Ethan gets hurt because you let others know he has a third color form, and I think it’s your fault, do you really think I won’t kill you?”
“So, his safety is our safety?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I can take care of myself, Anita, you know that,” Ethan said.
“Against anyone but the bad guys we’re chasing, I’d agree, but you saw him tear up a dozen of you guys in seconds. I want you safe.”
He’d wrapped me in the bedspread and the warm muscle and fur of his body. “I’ve never had a woman care about me like that.”
I didn’t say that I was more worried about losing one of the few goldens we had who wasn’t part of the bloodline the good Harlequin had hidden away, genetic diversity and all that, and that I didn’t love him yet. I let him believe what he needed to believe so I could go back Edward up with the other cops. I didn’t have time to discuss love and lust and the difference with Ethan. Those conversations were always long ones.
Bernardo drove me through a fast-food drive-up. Not the healthiest, but I needed meat; burgers would do. It would help delay the next need to feed, and I wanted to delay that and still keep my healing ability. I had a faint scar on my right arm, and it was my own damn fault for not taking care of my metaphysical business. It was while we were in line waiting to pick up the order that Bernardo said, “Before we meet up with Edward, I have to tell you something. He made me promise.”
“That’s ominous,” I said, looking at him.
He smoothed his big, dark hands around the wheel, and that one gesture looked like a nervous gesture. Not good.
“What the hell is it?” I asked.
He took off his sunglasses, and took a deep breath. “I’m not the only one Edward called in to help watch his back while you were hurt.”
I had a moment of not understanding, and then I got it. “Jesus, not Olaf.”
Bernardo looked at me with eyes as dark a brown as my own. “Yeah, he called in the big guy.”
I sat back in the seat and would have folded my arms over my chest, but there were too many weapons and the vest in the way. “Shit,” I said, and the one word had a lot of feeling to it.
Olaf was also Marshal Otto Jefferies, an alias that allowed him to work for the armed forces on special projects sometimes, and the name on his U.S. Marshal badge. He’d never broken the law on U.S. soil to my knowledge, but in other countries, under his real name, he had. He earned his money as a mercenary and assassin, but his hobby was killing women. He’d kill and torture men, too, but usually only if necessary for work. Small, dark-haired women were his victims of choice, and I was very aware that I fit his victim profile. He’d made me aware of it the first time we met.
“Why did he invite Olaf to come play?” I asked.
“He didn’t know how long you’d be out of commission. He needed backup, and since he has one of the warrants of execution he got to call in anyone he wanted. If he can’t have you, he wants us.” There was a certain unhappiness to Bernardo’s voice.
“You sound jealous,” I said.
He frowned at me as he eased the car up in line behind the other cars in the drive-up. “Maybe it’s a little hard on the ego for Olaf and me that he prefers you to us. You’ve never been military. You’ve never been a lot of things that the three of us have been, and yet Edward prefers you as his main backup.”
“You mean because I’m not a big, strong man, you feel slighted that Edward likes me better?” I let my tone speak for my view of that particular attitude.
Bernardo gave me a flat look. His face was still handsome, but there was now something in the eyes that might once have made me nervous. I was way past being nervous from hard looks. Hard looks couldn’t hurt me, and it wasn’t close to the hardest look he was capable of anyway. He didn’t mean it.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Isn’t it?” I asked, and gave him flat look for flat look.
I watched something slide through his eyes, and then he smiled. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Probably,” I said, “but what did you just think of?”
He gave me a quizzical look, shook his head as if to chase the puzzlement away, and said, “It is exactly that. I thought I was a little more evolved, but you’re right. I’m this big, macho guy, with all this training that you don’t have, and Edward would rather have you at his back than me. Edward is better at judging men and what they’re capable of than anyone I’ve ever met except this one sergeant.” He shook his head again. “Never mind, but my point is that if Edward believes you’re better than me, or Olaf, at this job, then he must be right. It does hurt my ego that you sit there all itty-bitty and cute as hell, and you must be more dangerous than I will ever be. Yeah, that fucking bothers me.”
I smiled, I couldn’t help it. It was so terribly honest. Most men wouldn’t have said it out loud, even if they’d thought it. It made me wonder how much therapy Bernardo had had, but I didn’t say that part out loud. What I said was, “I’m flattered that Edward thinks I’m that good, because I know just how good you and Olaf are, well, when he’s not distracted by the whole serial killer thing. But you’re good, when you’re not distracted by a woman.”
“I just dragged you out of someone’s bed so you could hunt bad guys, Anita; don’t throw stones at my hobbies.”
“I had to feed the ardeur, you know that.”
“Yeah, but after a while it doesn’t matter why you do something, Anita, only that you do it, and you are as into sex as I am now.”
I started to try to argue, but we were at the window to pay. I handed him money, and he tried to hand it to the teenage girl at the window. She didn’t take the money because she was staring at Bernardo.
He flashed her that dazzling smile and folded the money into her much smaller hand. He folded her fingers around the money, managing to half-hold her hand as he did it. It made her blush, and she stammered as she took the money and tried to count change back. I was betting that the change would be wrong; she was too flustered to count.
She handed him back some bills and coins. He handed them to me. I started unfolding it all and counting change against the receipt in my hand.
“Is this your girlfriend?” she asked.
“No, we just work together,” he said, smiling.
The blush had begun to fade, and now it climbed up her neck and face again. “I get off at five o’clock.”
“Sorry, babe, but you’re way too young for me, and I’ve gotta work anyway.”
“I’m eighteen,” she said.
I doubted that. Apparently, Bernardo did, too.
“You got ID that proves that?” he said.
She dropped her eyes, and finally shook her head. The car behind us honked. A man with a badge that said Manager came into her little cubicle. She mumbled, “Please drive to the next window, sir.” He was talking to her about her conduct as we drove forward to the suddenly empty line in front of us. The other cars had gotten their food and left while he was flirting.
“You have to be really careful with the younger women,” he said. “They’ll lie about being over eighteen and it’s never them that gets in trouble. Police always believe that the young, innocent girl was taken advantage of. I had one sixteen-year-old who kept sending me lingerie shots of herself. In some states my receiving t
hat kind of shit in my email could get me up on child pornography charges.”
“What’d you do?”
“I turned her in to the cops. Told them I was concerned that she’d send this stuff to someone who wasn’t as moral as I was and get herself hurt.”
“You didn’t,” I said.
“Oh, yeah I did. The girls think it’s a game, or something, but it’s not them that goes to jail. I don’t like them that young anyway.” Then he looked at me, and the moment I saw the look I knew whatever he said next would be some kind of teasing, and I wouldn’t like it. “But you do, don’t you?”
“I do what?” I asked.
“Like them that young, or is it just a rumor that you’ve got that weretiger, Sydney, or something, from Vegas living with you now?”
“His name’s Cynric, and it’s not a rumor.”
“Sixteen is too young even for me, Anita.” But he smiled as he said it, enjoying being able to be morally superior. “And he was a young sixteen, Anita, what little I remember of him.”
What was I supposed to say, that I hadn’t meant to have sex with Cynric? That we’d been possessed by the biggest, baddest vampire of them all, Marmee Noir? It was true, but after a while the explanations just sounded hollow, because I kept having to make them.
“He’s seventeen, and he’s legal, and he’s in St. Louis because he’s the only male blue tiger alive today that we can find. He’s on the Harle . . . bad vampires hit list.”
Then I realized that wasn’t true anymore. Ethan was blue, and he was all grown up. Could I send Cynric home to Vegas? And if I could, should I? He was already my blue tiger to call, but Alex was my red and he didn’t live in the same state. Of course, the Harlequin might kill him to hurt me. Shit.
“So you’re keeping Cynric safe,” Bernardo said.
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