Лорел Гамильтон - Danse Macabre

I stilled my breath, and sighted the gun in the middle of that face. The eyes had bled back to blue; they looked almost artificial with the blood all around them. I swallowed hard, and let my body go very still. My voice was soft, but strangely carried through the room, as if everyone had gone quiet. «The rules are, you don't harm the weak. I've got no use for bullies. If you get into another fight like tonight, when you know you've lost, you've lost. You don't try for one last bit of damage. That's street fighting, and that's not what we do here.»

«You won't shoot me,» he said, and he sounded sure of that.

I felt myself smile, and knew it was the smile that creeped me out when I saw it in a mirror. It was a cruel smile, a smile that said Not only would I kill you, but I'd enjoy it .

His eyes went a little uncertain at that smile. Good.

«I will shoot you. I'll kill you, if I have to.»

«Do you want to touch me?» he asked, his voice less breathy now.

«Yes,» I said, «I want to strip off and roll on top of you like a dog scent-marking.» I gave a very small nod. «I feel the call of your power, Haven.»

«If you kill me that all goes away.»

«Then it goes away. I don't compromise my rules, Haven, not for lust, or power, or love.» I was going to have to either shoot him soon, or lower the gun. Important safety tip: if you're going to do the big threatening speech, be in a comfortable shooting stance when you do it. My hands hadn't started to waver, but they would soon. «Ask the men in my life, I don't compromise.»

I watched him think about it. Think about coming off the floor and trying me. «Don't, Haven.»

«Don't what?» he asked, all innocent, but innocent just didn't work on him.

«Don't try me right now. If you do, I'll pull the trigger.»

«Why? I won't hurt you. I'll just try to take the gun away.»

«I'll shoot you, because this is our moment of understanding. You will either live by my rules, or you will die by them.»

«I don't believe you,» he said.

I let all the air out of my body, and the two-handed shooting stance didn't seem hard to maintain at all. I was suddenly focused, and ready. I felt myself sinking away into that white, staticky place, where I killed. I don't know what my eyes look like when I'm like this, but whatever was on my face, Haven saw it. I watched his face change, and stop being sure of itself. Tension ran out of his body, his muscles, and he lay quiet on the floor, and very still, as if he were a little afraid to move suddenly. Good.

«It's my way, or no way,» I said, and the words were squeezed out, because I'd let my air go, so I could shoot him.

He licked his lips, and spoke softly, carefully, being sure to move nothing but his mouth. «Your way.»

«If I put this gun away, are you going to try to hurt me?»

«No,» he said.

«Why not?» I asked, still staring at him down the barrel of the gun.

«You'll kill me.»

«You sure of that?»

Some look passed through his eyes — pain, fear, something close to all of it. «I know that look, the one on your face. I know it, because I have one just like it. You will kill me, and I don't want to kill you. I can't win, so I won't play.»

I stared at him a heartbeat longer. I thought about pulling the trigger. One, because I was ready to; two, because I was almost certain he was going to be trouble. But in the end I lowered the gun, and backed away until I was out of reach of him. I backed away, and made certain I didn't give him my back. I didn't offer him a hand up, and neither did anyone else.

I WENT TO one knee beside Richard, my gun not pointed at Haven anymore, but still out. We just weren't that far away from the fallen werelion. Tosay I didn't trust him was an understatement. The awful thing was, even knowing that he was bad news, knowing that he'd tried to cripple Richard just because he wanted him to hurt, knowing all that, part of me still wanted to touch him. Part of me wanted to go over and start licking the blood from his wounds. But the image in my head of me doing it wasn't of me, not human me. The image in my head was of a huge golden lioness licking his wounds. I shook my head hard to clear the image.

I glanced at Richard. He was huddled over his leg, hands over his knee, but not touching it, as if that had hurt. Not good. I put my gaze back to Haven. I didn't want him getting up without my knowing it. If I shot him, I didn't want it to be because he'd startled me, and years of training with a gun took over. No, if I shot him, I wanted it to be on purpose.

«How bad is it?» I asked.

He spoke through gritted teeth. «It's not dislocated, but it hurts.»

I called, «Claudia.»

She came to stand over us. «We need a doctor.» I thought of Travis's arm. «Maybe more than one.»

«Dr. Lillian is on her way.» Doc Lillian was a wererat, and the local shapeshifters' most popular doctor for emergencies we didn't want anyone else to know about.

«Good.» I fought the urge to look at her, and kept my gaze on Haven. He didn't seem to want to do anything but lie there and bleed, but I wanted to be sure of him. Sure meant looking at him. «Could you guys earn your pay, and actually secure him?» I didn't try to keep the irritation out of my voice.

«Yes, ma'am,» she said. She motioned and Lisandro, Ixion, and Graham came up to stand around the fallen werelion. Haven didn't seem to notice. Had he passed out? Not my most immediate problem. I got to holster my gun without firing it, a rarity for me. I touched Richard's face. «The doc's on the way.»

He just nodded, face pinched and pale with pain.

I looked up at Claudia. «Where the hell were you guys while Haven was abusing Travis and Noel?»

«If I say 'right over there, will you get pissed?»

I stood up. «Yes.»

She gave me empty cop face, though I knew she'd never been a cop. «This was a dominance challenge. We are not allowed to interfere in challenges of other animal groups.»

«This wasn't a challenge for leadership of anything,» I said.

Claudia gave me a look that said, clearly, I'd missed something. Whatever showed on my face finally let her know that I didn't know what the hell she was hinting at.

She sighed. «Sometimes I forget that you miss the obvious.»

«What did I miss?» I asked.

«Your Ulfric has established himself as dominant to this guy.» She smiled down at Richard. «Truthfully, I didn't think the Ulfric had it in him.» There was a grudging compliment in her voice. «You needed for someone to establish dominance over him, if you planned to keep him.» She jerked a thumb in Haven's direction. «Guys like this have to be forced to obey the hierarchy.»

«You mean the hierarchy of the werelions?»

She shook her head. «Anita, if you add this guy to your men, then someone had to beat the shit out of him, at least once, so he'd know who was boss.»

«I'm boss,» I said.

She smiled at me. «I like you, Anita. I respect you. I take orders from you. But a guy like Haven is going to see you as a girl, a piece of ass. Unless you can personally beat him to a pulp, he's not going to behave for you. He'll tell you to your face what you want to hear, but you've got Nathaniel, Micah, Damian. I mean you have a lot of non-coms around you. You don't want to bring home a lion to play with your kittens unless you have a big dog to balance it out.»

I frowned at her. «Are you saying that Richard is my big dog?»

«Maybe it's a bad example, but it's the best I've got.»

«You don't think he would respect me — Haven, I mean?»

She shook her head. «He's got trouble written all over him, Anita.»

«You think I should throw him back?»

Her dark eyes widened, surprised. «Does my opinion count?»