Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

‘Who would normally take her to get an X-ray?’ Edward asked.

‘A technician would come to get her. He would take her down and bring her back when it was done.’

‘Why don’t you go set that up,’ Edward said.

‘Ah, yes, good plan,’ Dr Cross said. He got tangled in the curtain on his way to the door, fumbling at it. ‘So sorry, I seem to be clumsy today.’ He finally got free of the curtain and out the door.

‘I’ll bet twenty dollars that he comes back with the wheelchair and the idea that he’ll take you to X-ray personally,’ Edward said.

I frowned at him, but I could feel the texture of Dr Cross’s hair on my fingertips. The sound of the shower stopped. Micah would be out soon, but if I had a cracked pelvis sex seemed like a bad idea.

‘I forgot to ask about getting the IV taken out.’

‘You forgot a lot of things,’ he said.

I sighed. ‘It wasn’t on purpose.’

‘You captured him at least twice with your gaze, Anita. You vamped the vampire.’

‘Not possible,’ I said.

‘Yeah, neither is you healing a silver bullet in a little over twenty-four hours.’

We looked at each other.

The door opened, letting out a puff of steam and the sweet smell of clean skin and water. I turned to see Micah standing in fresh jeans and T-shirt. His hair was almost black when it was this wet, and straighter, so you could see that it reached midback on him, instead of the inches shorter it would be when the curl contracted it all up. The unbound wet hair I liked; the clothes … I was disappointed. I’d really wanted him to come out naked and wet, and the moment I realized that I knew I was in trouble, because that would have been completely inappropriate in front of Edward.

‘I need to feed soon,’ I said.

‘Did the doctor say you could have solid food?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘What did he say?’

Edward answered. ‘That he wants an X-ray to make sure the crack in her pelvis healed along with the bullet wound. He’s supposed to send a technician to wheel her down.’

‘But he wouldn’t take the IV out?’

‘She forgot to ask,’ Edward said, ‘and he forgot to offer.’

Micah frowned from one to the other of us. ‘What did I miss?’

‘She captured the vampire doctor at least twice with her gaze. He damn near groped her.’

‘Was he inappropriate?’ Micah asked as he moved to the couch and the overnight case.

‘Not as inappropriate as the ardeur wanted him to be,’ Edward said.

Micah looked at me. ‘Anita, is he right?’

I sighed and slumped down on the pillow. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘We’ve got a twenty-dollar bet that Dr Cross decides to wheel her to X-ray personally.’

‘I didn’t take the bet,’ I said.

‘Because you know he’s coming back through that door for you, and you also know that you cannot be alone with him.’

Micah sat down on the couch to put on socks and a pair of ankle-high boots. ‘She’s not usually drawn to vampires without a connection to Jean-Claude.’

‘I can only tell you what I saw,’ Edward said.

He pulled the jeans’ straight legs down over the boots so that his legs were one nice, long line, or as long a line as our inseams could get. He stood up, smoothing down the jeans, checking his belt with its silver buckle. He’d tucked the forest-green T-shirt into the jeans. The shirt made his eyes much greener, sinking the gold into the background. The green-gold of his eyes was like some humans with gray-blue or green-blue eyes, the color changing with mood, clothes, so that one minute the eyes were one color and the next the other, and sometimes all at once. I wondered if the gray in Dr Cross’s eyes would do that in the right shirt?

‘Wow,’ I said out loud.

‘What?’ Micah asked, as he walked toward the bed.

‘I just wondered if Dr Cross’s eyes would change to more gray if he wore a gray shirt the way the green makes your eyes greener, and not as gold. I just met the man; I shouldn’t be thinking about dressing him to match his eyes.’

‘No,’ Micah said, ‘you shouldn’t.’ He was at the bedside now.

I reached for his hand and he gave it to me. The moment our hands touched, heat leapt from me to him, a flare of power that marched down our bodies in a wash of goose bumps.

Micah jerked his hand out of mine. ‘Shit!’

‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ I said, but my voice was breathless with the rush of power. I wanted to pull his shirt out of his pants. I wanted him to climb into the bed with me and let his wet hair spill across my body.

‘Stop it, Anita, stop projecting your need!’ He backed away from the bed. I could see his pulse in his throat like a trapped thing. I wanted to set it free.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slow, counting as I did so. I did it a few times, and when I felt steady I opened my eyes. Micah was watching me from the couch.

‘You weren’t just thinking sex, were you?’ he asked in a quiet, serious voice.

I shook my head.

‘What else is there to the ardeur ?’ Edward asked.

We both looked at him and then back at each other.

‘He’s your friend, maybe one of your best friends. I don’t know what he knows and what he doesn’t.’

It was funny to hear Micah call Edward one of my best friends. By girl standards he wasn’t. We’d never shop together, or talk about men, or … but we did talk about our relationships, which was somehow different from talking about guys. We trusted each other with our lives, and … so many things.

‘When Micah pulled away just now I could see the pulse in his neck, and I thought about setting it free.’

‘What does “setting it free” mean?’ Edward asked.

‘I didn’t think it all the way through, but I was really thinking about tearing his throat open enough so the pulse could escape, so the blood could escape.’

‘Is that the vampire marks talking, or your ties to all the wereanimals?’ he asked.

‘A little of both, I think,’ I said.

Edward looked past me to Micah. ‘If you had just given in to the sex, would she have gone to thinking about blood and violence?’

‘Not as likely,’ Micah said, ‘but violence gets sort of mixed up with sex for shapeshifters sometimes. But if she feeds the ardeur soon, then she’s not going to tear someone’s throat out.’

‘And if she doesn’t feed the ardeur soon?’

‘If she were a true shapeshifter, then she’d lose control of her beast and shift, unexpectedly, maybe.’

‘But she can’t change shape,’ Edward said.

‘No,’ Micah said.

Edward looked at me. ‘So how long a window do we have before you lose control?’

‘Define lose control ,’ I said.

‘That soon, huh?’ he said.

‘I did almost roll the vampire doctor. I could feel that I could mind-fuck him and then fuck him. He feels like food.’

‘You’re almost entirely immune to vampire gaze, but you’ve never been able to bespell a vampire yourself,’ Micah said.

‘Tell that to Damian. I rolled him pretty completely when I made him my vampire servant.’

Micah seemed to think about that for a second or two. ‘Interesting; you’re right, your ability to control the undead has been growing stronger the whole time.’

‘This is a vampire that I have no connection to, Micah; always before it’s been one that I’ve interacted with, or one that was bound to Jean-Claude. This doctor has no connection to any of us.’

‘Jean-Claude is the new king of all the vampires in this country, Anita. We’ve had masters from all over the country come to St Louis and blood oath themselves to Jean-Claude. If Dr Cross’s master gave up power to us, then he’s our vampire whether you’ve ever met him or not.’