Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

It was a threat, though I didn't understand exactly what the threat had been, but I knew a threat when I heard one. Cesar moved up beside me. "She merely wishes to speak, my lord Pinotl. Is that so much to ask?"

"She also touches me." They both stared at my hand on his wrist.

"I'll let go if I have your word that you won't cut him until you've heard me out."

Those eyes came back to rest fully on my face, and I felt the force of him thundering down on me. I could almost feel his skin vibrate under my hand. "I can't let you bleed him for something that wasn't his fault."

He never said a word, but I felt movement behind me, and I knew it wasn't Cesar, because he turned toward the movement. I looked back and found two of the jaguar men coming towards us. They were probably not going to hurt me, just stop me from interfering. I turned back to the priest, met his eyes. I let go of his wrist. I had a few seconds to decide whether to draw a gun or a knife. They weren't trying to kill me, so the least I could do was return the favor. I slipped a knife out, holding it against my leg, trying to he unobtrusive. I'd made the decision to go for the knife and not the gun. I hoped it was the right decision.

One of jaguars was the tanned, blue-eyed one. The other was the first African American I'd seen in the club, his face very contrasting with all the pale spotted fur. They advanced on me in a roil of energy, a low growl escaped from one of their throats, the faintest of threats. That one faint sound raised the hair at the back of my neck. I backed up, putting the kneeling man between me and the two jaguars.

The priest had laid the obsidian blade against the man's right cheek. He hadn't started cutting yet. "Are you just going to cut each cheek, is that it? Will it stop there?"

The blade tip bit into his cheek. Even in the dark I could see the first liquid drop, a faint gleam, like a dark jewel. "If you just want to slice him up a little, fine. It's your business. I just don't want to see him mutilated or killed for something he couldn't have sensed."

The priest sliced the other cheek, slower this time. I think I was making things worse. I asked it out loud, of everyone and no one. "Am I making things worse?"

The cheek closest to me began to heal, the skin reknitting as I watched. I had an idea. I stepped closer to the priest and the kneeling man. I kept an eye on the two jaguars across from them, but they just stood watching. They'd backed me off, maybe that's all they were supposed to do.

I touched the kneeling man's chin, turned his face towards me. The other cheek was completely healed. I'd never seen an obsidian blade used and hadn't been a hundred percent that it didn't act like silver. But it didn't. Shapeshifters healed the damage. The priest was still holding the obsidian knife upright in his hand.

The audience broke into thunderous applause, the sound rising like thunder through the small backstage area. The actors were pouring away from the white screen. The act was almost over. Everyone had turned at the noise and the movement, even the priest. I put my finger against the tip of the obsidian knife and pressed. The tip was like glass, the pain sharp and immediate. I drew back with a hiss.

"What have you done?" the priest demanded, and his voice was too loud, it must have carried out into the crowd.

I spoke lower. "I won't heal, not as fast as he did. It'll prove that I'm not a lycanthrope."

The priest's anger filled the air like something hot and touchable. "You do not understand."

"If someone would talk to me, instead of hugging their secrets so damn close, I wouldn't be blundering into things."

The priest handed the blade back to the kneeling man. He took the knife and bowed his forehead to it. Then he licked the blade, carefully around the sharp edges, until he came to the point and my blood. Then he slid the tip between his lips, into his mouth, sucking it down like a woman taking a man into her mouth. His mouth worked around the blade and I knew it was cutting him, as he swallowed it. I knew it was cutting him up, but he made it look as if it were something wonderful, orgasmic, as if he were having a very good time.

He watched me as he did it, and his eyes weren't serene anymore. They had filled with heat. It was the same heat you could see in any man's eyes when was thinking about sex. But not when the man was sucking on a glass sharp blade, cutting his mouth, tongue, throat, drinking his own blood, with a taste of my blood as a chaser, Someone grabbed my hand, and I jumped. It was Cesar. "We must be on stage. You must take your seat." He was watching the kneeling man, all the men, carefully. He eased me around the group of them, and all eyes followed like I was some wounded gazelle.

The other three women were already in place, standing behind the now dim white screen. They'd taken off some clothing. The giggling blonde was down to pale blue bra and panties, still laughing her head off. The Hispanic had taken off her skirt and was down to a pair of crimson panties that matched the red camisole she was still wearing. She'd kept the matching red high heels, She and the blonde were leaning against each other, swaying and laughing. Ramona wasn't laughing. She still stood quietly, unmoved and unmoving.

The priest's voice came from backstage. "Disrobe for our audience." His voice was soft, but Ramona grabbed the bottom of her shirt and lifted. Her bra was an ordinary bra, white and simple. It wasn't meant to be lingerie, and I doubted she'd planned on anyone seeing it tonight. She let her shirt fall to the floor. Her hands went to the top button of her pants. I pulled away from Cesar and grabbed Ramona's hands. "No, don't."

Her hands went slack in mine, as if even that small interference had broken the spell, but she didn't look at me. She didn't see what was in front of her, just the internal landscape that I couldn't see.

I picked her shirt back up and placed her hands over it. She clutched it automatically, covering most of the front of her.

Cesar took my arm. "The screen is going up. There is no time."

The screen began to slowly lift.

"You can't be the only one dressed," he said. He tried to slide the jacket from my shoulders, and bared the shoulder holster.

"We'll scare the audience," I said.

The screen was to our knees. He grabbed the front of my shirt, jerking it out of my pants, baring my stomach. He dropped to his knees and was licking my stomach as the screen came up completely. I tried to grab a handful of hair to pull him off me, but there wasn't enough hair to grab. The hair was much softer than it looked, much softer than my hair would have been if you shaved it to stubble. His teeth bit gently into my skin, and I put my hand under his chin, raising his face, so that he either had to take his teeth out of my skin, or bite deeper. He let go, let me raise his face to stare upward at me. There was a look in his eyes that I couldn't read, but it was something large and more complex than you see in a stranger's eyes. Complex I didn't need tonight.

He was on his feet in a movement so liquid and graceful that I knew that Edward would spot him for what he was, not human. He went to the one with all the hair first, giving her a tonsil-cleaning kiss, as if he'd crawl into her from the mouth down. Then he spun her like a dance move, and jaguar men were there to escort her and her arm full of clothes back to her table. The blonde was next. She kissed him, running pale nails down his back. She gave a little jump and wrapped her legs around his waist, forcing him to hold her weight or fall. The kiss was long, but she was in control of it. Cesar walked her to the edge of the stage, still clinging to his body like a limpet.

The jaguar men pried her away from his body, one pale limb at a time, until they had to carry her above their heads while she struggled, and then finally went limp, laughing as they carried her back to her table.