Лорел Гамильтон - Danse Macabre

«I trust your judgment, and you're the only girl here.»

«Why do you need a girl opinion?» she asked.

«Because I'm tired of all the damn testosterone.»

She grinned at me. «I'm not sure I'll say anything that the men won't say on this one, Anita. Estrogen doesn't make me stupid, and you'd have to be stupid to want to keep Cookie Monster over there. I mean he could be a bodyguard, if we made the rules clear, but to take home as a lover, no way.»

I nodded. «I agree.»

«Then why ask?»

I hugged myself. «Because, knowing all of it, I still want to touch him.»

She shrugged all that muscled upper body. «Then you're fucked.»

Richard's voice came strained. «You can't want to keep him, not now, not after this.»

I knelt beside him. He grabbed my hand, so hard and sudden it startled me. «I don't want to keep him.»

I watched him try to think past the pain. «But,» he said.

«But it's not always about what I want.»

His hand convulsed around mine, until I had to fight not to cry out. «Shift, Richard, you can heal this if you shift.»

He shook his head. «If I shift I'll have to spend at least four hours in animal form. Can't go to the ballet as a wolf.»

«You're not going to enjoy the evening like this.»

His grip on my hand loosened, just holding me for a moment. He stared into my face like he was trying to memorize it. «Do you want me not to go?»

I frowned at him. «Why would you ask that? Of course, I want you to go.»

He almost smiled, but winced instead. «You've got a lot of men to juggle, maybe one less would make tonight easier.»

I drew his hand against my breasts, and touched his face. «You didn't just assume I needed help to handle Haven. You asked me first, and waited for me to answer. I know you wanted to wade in and pull him off us. Thank you for asking, for waiting.»

He grimaced, and tried to make it a smile. «I'm glad you're happy about it, but my waiting cost Travis a broken arm. Joseph's not going to want us to borrow his lions, if we keep breaking them.»

That made me smile. «Good point, but the lioness in me is looking for someone strong.» I looked at the wall, because I could feel that beast moving around inside me, as if it were pacing the cage of my body. I did not want another round of almost-shifting. I raised Richard's hand to my face. I sniffed it, and it didn't help. Yes, it was Richard, but he'd touched Haven, and the smell of lion was on his skin, along with wolf. The prickling warmth started to swell inside me.

I let go of his hand, and stood up.

«What's wrong?» Claudia asked.

«Her beast is trying to rise again,» Richard said from the floor.

I nodded, and stepped farther away from Richard, and kept moving. I wanted distance between me and Haven. This didn't feel like the way I'd bonded to Nathaniel. This instant attraction to Haven felt like… I turned and found Micah standing there, closer than I'd realized. He hadn't wanted to interfere with me and Richard. I could feel my eyes widening. I reached out to him, and the wolf and lion quieted. Leopard stirred, and the movement almost doubled me over. Micah caught me, helped me stand up straight. But the leopard liked him too much, and I had to push him away from me. I stumbled, and Jean-Claude was there to catch me. I clung to him, burying my face against his chest, drawing in the scent of clean silk and him. I actually ripped his shirt open, so I could put my face directly against his skin. I drew in the sweet, clean, scent of him, as if he were air, and I'd been suffocating. His cologne was sweet, and always smelled as expensive as it was, but it was the scent of his skin underneath it, mixing with the cologne, that I needed. It helped clear my head, helped me ease the beasts back to sleep.

I rubbed my face along the smooth outline of his cross-shaped burn scar. Jean-Claude didn't see the scar as an imperfection, and neither did I. It was something extra to play with when I kissed his chest.

His arms held me tight, and he whispered, «I felt your fear flare to life, ma petite . What has happened?»

I spoke with my face still buried against his chest. «I'm trying not to make Haven my animal to call.»

Jean-Claude stroked my hair, trying to soothe me, like a child who's woken from a bad dream, but this bad dream wasn't going to end with me waking up. It wasn't going to be all right.

«You are drawn to Haven, and he to you, ma petite . You have broken his link to Augustine.»

I nodded my forehead against his chest. «Yeah, but he's not Auggie's animal to call, he's just one of his lions.»

I felt Jean-Claude look behind him.

«That's right,» and that was Auggie. He'd come to stand near us. «He's bound to me, but not as an animal to call.»

I nodded again, my face still buried against Jean-Claude. I didn't want to see Auggie's naked chest. I didn't want to be distracted by yet another metaphysical problem; one at a time was plenty. «What did I do with the leopards before I got an animal to call, Jean-Claude?»

«I do not understand, ma petite , what…«Then he went very still. He was still holding me. I was still clinging to him, breathing in the scent of his skin, but his heart had stopped beating, his breathing stilled. He was doing that be very still that the old vampires could do, but this time I was pressed against him while he did it. I'd never been this close to him when he went this still. Until it stopped, I hadn't even been aware his heart was beating. It made me look up at him. Made me meet that beautiful, flawless face, and see it look unreal, masklike, as he stared, not at me, but behind me.

I turned and looked where he was looking. Micah stood there, staring at us. The look on his face was enough; he'd had the same awful thought I'd had.

I licked my lips and whispered, «Do the lions have a name for their queen?»

He said it out loud. «I felt it, when you saw him coming down the hallway. He won't be your animal to call. He'll be Rex to your Regina.»

RICHARD ENDED UP back in Jason's room. Dr. Lillian pumped him full of painkillers, so he'd sleep and heal. I had to promise him guards I trusted at his door to make sure none of our «guests» visited him while he was drugged and helpless. Seemed like a reasonable request to me. In fact it was so practical that it gave me hope that he was finally beginning to realize that life wasn't a Boy Scout jamboree.

Lillian said if Richard had been human, he'd have been on his way to the emergency room, and on crutches for weeks afterward. But he wasn't human and two hours of sleep would heal a lot of the damage. Why not try to heal him with metaphysics? Because Richard had never let me heal him with magic. It was his choice, and I was okay with it. He'd done so much right in the last hour that I'd cut him slack. Acres of slack.

Haven was unconscious in the guest room he'd started the day in, with additional guards. He wouldn't be going anywhere for at least forty-eight hours, so said the doc. Fine with me; out of sight was just dandy for the Cookie Monster and me.

I'd started to get upset again, like pace-the-room upset, but Jean-Claude had touched me, and Auggie had joined him. I ended up on the couch cuddled between them and feeling strangely calm. «You've rolled my mind, haven't you?»

«You have the ability to keep me out, ma petite . Merely decide to push me out, and I will be forced to go. I think you need the calm.»

I couldn't argue with that. I turned with my head in Jean-Claude's lap, and looked at Auggie, who had my legs across his lap. «But he's helping you.»

«A very little bit,» Auggie said, and did that face that was supposed to be humble, but never made it.