Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

I nodded. ‘I’m a little surprised myself, but yeah, I can wait.’

He put his head to one side and looked at me. ‘Will I think it’s a good idea to wait?’

‘Yeah, I think you will,’ I said.

He narrowed his eyes at me. ‘Would you understand if I said you’re being way too reasonable, and it’s actually making me nervous?’

I laughed. ‘Yeah, actually I would.’

He smiled, and this time it was brighter, more his usual smile. ‘Tell me, Anita, because now I’m convinced that it’s something about what my dad told us about Van Cleef and the pseudomilitary stuff.’

‘It may not be pseudo, but it’s not about that.’

He gave me a look.

‘Promise,’ I said.

‘You know you have to tell me now, because I’ll be thinking of the worst things.’

It was my turn to put my head against his shoulder. ‘I’m trying to be reasonable, Micah; let me do it. Let me be the grown-up for once.’

He touched my hair, lifted my face so we were looking at each other. ‘Now you’re scaring me.’

‘Damn it, we are both relentless in our own way,’ I said.

‘Yes, we are; it’s one of the things I loved about you from the beginning.’

I held his hands, looked him in the eyes. I was afraid of this talk, because if he could keep this from me, then he was capable of keeping other things, big things, things that could blow us up as a couple. I realized I was afraid to have the talk, and afraid not to, which made no sense at all.

‘And I loved that you loved that about me, because I’d had so many men who had hated it.’

‘Then whatever it is, we can get through it, Anita. We both value too much about each other to let anything spoil everything.’

Sitting there holding his hands, looking at him, I believed him, but … I’d always believed him and now I felt like he’d lied to me, but … Oh, fuck it.

‘Okay, here goes. Are you really fighting the leaders of the other animal groups to force them to join our Coalition?’

‘Sometimes.’ He said it as if it were nothing, ordinary, like Of course .

I tried to take my hands back, but he held on. ‘Why are you angry?’

‘Why am I angry? For the love of God, Micah, you’ve been going out of town and having battles to the death and you didn’t think I needed to know that?’

‘Lower your voice,’ he said.

I wanted to yell louder, but he was right; I’d just said he was committing murder according to human law. I lowered my voice and leaned in closer, but my voice was still angry, just softer, like angry whispering.

‘How could you keep that from me?’

His face closed down, his own temper showing. He didn’t get mad often, but when he did it could be as bad as mine. This was going to go so badly.

‘I didn’t keep anything from you. I just didn’t tell you.’

‘That’s the same thing, it’s just words to cover it up,’ I said.

He let go of my hands and said, ‘Do you tell me every time you risk your life as a U.S. Marshal?’

‘No, but that’s different.’

‘How?’ he asked.

I wanted to say, It just is , but that wasn’t an answer. I opened my mouth to explain the difference and stopped. I frowned at him. ‘I see it as different, very different.’

‘Why is it any different? They’re both our jobs, and both our jobs can be dangerous.’

‘But I didn’t know your job was dangerous,’ I said.

He studied my face. ‘What did you think we were doing to get all the other groups on board with the Coalition?’

‘I thought you were persuading them. I thought you were using diplomacy, logic that it just made sense to join.’

‘I do most of the time, but you’ve been around enough shapeshifters, Anita. You know that some animal groups aren’t about logic or being reasonable.’

‘If I’d thought about it, I guess I would have assumed that some of the bodyguards did the one-on-one combat for you the way that most of the Clan tiger queens have a champion.’

‘I’m not a weretiger, Anita. You brought all of them on board when you were able to call all of them to us.’

‘Magic and sex won us the weretigers,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘What won us the rest?’ I asked softly.

‘You know that I sleep with some of the female dominants.’

I nodded. ‘You share me with enough people, I can’t bitch.’

He smiled. ‘You mean you don’t have room to bitch, but you still could,’ he said.

I shrugged. ‘It would be stupid and unfair if I complained.’

He smiled wider and touched my face, gently. ‘A lot of women, and men, are really unfair to their other half, Anita. You have a reputation for being unreasonable and violent, but you’re one of the most practical women I’ve ever been with.’

‘And you’re the most practical man I’ve ever been with,’ I said.

‘Most people wouldn’t think that was very romantic,’ he said.

I smiled. ‘A little ruthless practicality is very important in our lives.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is.’

‘When you can pick a champion, do you?’ I asked.

‘I do.’

Then I realized that he was taking people who were my friends, or more, and I thought about them being in danger. Fuck.

‘What now?’ he asked.

This time I just answered the question. ‘I just realized that means that anyone who travels out of town with you is maybe in as much danger as you are. I should have known that.’

‘You mean I should have told you, or you should have known?’

‘Both, maybe, I don’t know, but, Micah, you’re my size; most animal groups are led by the biggest, baddest motherfucker they’ve got. How have you been winning so many fights? I’ve seen you in practice and you’re good, but you’re like me; we just don’t have the reach. Most taller people have longer arms and legs; they can just hit us before we can hit them, unless we’re lucky, or they aren’t good at fighting, but to fight your way to the top of a pack, or a pride, you have to be good.’

‘Usually, I do something utterly ruthless and very abrupt before they’re expecting it. Leopards are fast, faster than most lions, or tigers; I just have to make the first blow count.’

‘You mean kill them with the first blow,’ I said softly.

‘Yes,’ he said, and studied my face. ‘Does that bother you?’

I thought about the fact that he had been killing people fairly casually for years and I hadn’t known. I didn’t like that part, but I knew without a doubt that if he hadn’t killed them, they would have killed him. I wanted him alive and in my life more than I wanted some humane ideal of the world.

‘No, I don’t think it does. If anything bothers me it’s the fact that we’re heading into their territories and forcing ourselves on them.’

‘It started with invitations from groups that wanted to hear about the Coalition. They wanted to join, and then we had a few groups that attacked the ones that had joined us, because one of the things they agree to do is not to make war. We’re trying to make a no-war rule that sticks like the Vampire Council did with the vampires, but lycanthropes don’t have centuries of obeying a central government. Some of them want to keep their independence or simply think that werelions are better than werewolves, so they don’t want to be in a mixed animal group, which is the whole idea of the Coalition.’

‘Lions are the most aggressive. I’m assuming that you were able to persuade a lot of the hyena groups through sex since they’re matriarchal.’

He grinned. ‘Most of them, but honestly some of the animal groups prefer their own animal, so sometimes the guards help. I don’t always like sex as rough as the hyenas do, or the lions for that matter. Some of the guards are happy to help out.’