Laurell Hamilton - Bullet

Since I still had Nathaniel’s hand and he still had Micah by the hand, Asher led us all to Jean-Claude, as if the tigers weren’t sitting there. Nathaniel took some cue because he let go of my hand and Asher twirled me onto the loveseat beside Jean-Claude. Asher kissed my hand again and moved away, as Micah sat down on the other side of me. Maybe that was what was upsetting Asher, that he had to move off the loveseat. Maybe, but his and Richard’s mood had made me tense, looking for something wrong. There better really be something wrong and not just the two of them being pissy, because for my tension level to rise this way there better be a damn good reason. I didn’t have the energy to spare for anything but good reasons.

Jean-Claude put an arm across my shoulders, drawing me into the curve of his body. His voice whispered through my mind, spreading shivers down my skin. Mind-to-mind communication wasn’t always this titillating with Jean-Claude. What was up?

“ Ma petite , these tigers are not like the others. I do not know what is different about them, but something.”

I mind-talked back to him. “You’re afraid of them.”

“Tiger is not my, or Asher’s, animal to call. Perhaps you can tell us what is wrong with them.”

Micah sat down on the other side of me, putting his hand on my thigh so he wasn’t holding my gun hand. Nathaniel sat down at our feet with only Jean-Claude’s legs between him and Richard’s wolf.

Dino and Nicky took up posts on the other side of the two new men so that they were flanked by four of our guards, though honestly I wasn’t sure Jake would help us against them if the shit hit the fan. He could pretend not to care about them, but it was a lie.

I looked at the two men and they looked back at me. They were both tall and athletic looking. They had that sense of energy contained that some of the wereanimals had even at rest, as if the difference between sitting quietly and furious action was only a thought.

One had curly yellow hair that fell around his ears, longish, but not long by my standards. The same was true of the other one, though his longish hair was straight with only the slightest wave to it, as if it got longer the ends would flip under or up. They both had strong faces; one was a little more triangular through the jaw, and the other more square, but they looked alike, down to the arrogant expression on their handsome faces. They looked at me with pale eyes. Curly Hair with his soft triangular chin had the palest brown eyes I’d ever seen, until I wanted to give it another color, but had no word for it. Brown eyes shouldn’t look pale in a golden-tanned face, but these did. The other’s eyes were pale blue and gold, or brown, as if blue eyes could be hazel. His skin held a soft gold tan, too, until the longer I looked at it the more I wasn’t sure it was a tan at all, but just their skin color. But no one, not even clan tigers, had skin that was pale gold, almost yellow, as if their skin were warmed by the sun even inside.

“I’m Anita,” I said, finally.

Straight Hair with his blue-hazel eyes said, “Mephistopheles.”

I blinked at him. “What do you go by?” I asked.

“Mephistopheles,” he said.

I looked at him, waiting for him to crack a smile, but he just gave me serious arrogant handsome. There was no smile coming.

I turned to Curly Hair. “And you are?”

“Pride,” he said.

I frowned at them. “Come again.”

“My name is Pride,” he said. His voice was a touch apologetic as if he weren’t too happy with it, either. I wondered if Mephistopheles was so adamant about his name because only a bold front would make it work at all.

I wanted to ask if their mother hadn’t liked them, but resisted. I turned to Micah. I gave him a look that I hoped said clearly, These are the best of the five?

“One of the other gold tigers is named Envy,” Micah said, face as empty as he could make it.

I wanted to ask if he was joking, but knew he wasn’t. “Elementary school must have been interesting,” I said, finally.

“We were homeschooled,” Pride said.

“I’ll just bet you were,” I said.

Jean-Claude breathed through my mind, “Do you sense it?”

I sensed they were arrogant and way too full of themselves, but suspected that part of it was bravado. Bravado always hides fear, or at least uncertainty.

“Sense what?” I asked him.

“Something,” he said.

Out loud I said, “You were homeschooled.”

“I just said so,” Pride said.

“Okeydoke, have you ever been this far from home?”

They looked at each other, and Mephistopheles glanced back at Jake and then quickly back at me. “No,” Pride said.

“Why does that matter?” Mephistopheles said, and his arrogance went up a notch to almost angry. He was hiding it well, but he wasn’t comfortable.

“Just trying to get a feel for things,” I said.

“Your Nimir-Raj picked us for you,” Pride said.

“And I’m going to be talking to him about that later,” I said.

Micah leaned in and whispered a bare brush of air against my ear. “The others were more scared, or angrier.”

I put my hand on his thigh through the jeans. I wanted both to comfort him and be comforted, and touch did that. I didn’t like these men. I sure as hell didn’t want to keep them permanently.

Nathaniel leaned back against both our legs, letting his hand begin to play over my calf inside the knee-high boots he’d chosen for me. He didn’t like them, either.

Asher moved to stand behind Jean-Claude, putting his hand on the other man’s shoulder. I knew why Asher wasn’t happy with them, and why Richard wasn’t, either. None of us were happy with them. Jake and I would soooo be having words later.

“Do you guys want to stay with us?” I asked.

They looked at each other again, and Mephistopheles caught himself before he could look at Jake again. Pride said, “We were told we don’t have a choice.”

“I’m a big believer in choices,” I said.

“If we leave here, they’ll kill us,” Mephistopheles said.

“If you want to stay here until it’s safe to leave, that’s one thing. But what I want to know is, do the two of you want to stay here with us and be our tigers?”

“What will you do if we say we don’t?” Pride asked.

“I really don’t like to force people to do anything.”

They looked at each other again. “That’s not what we heard,” Mephistopheles said.

“What did you hear?” I asked, and that first thread of anger trickled into the words.

“Didn’t you make him your Bride?” Pride asked. He nodded toward Nicky.

“Yes.”

“That’s force,” he said.

I couldn’t argue with that, and I didn’t know them well enough to explain that I’d done it to save the two men sitting next to me, that Nicky had kidnapped me and I’d used the weapons I had at hand. I couldn’t explain myself to them, so what could I say?

“Yes, it is.”

“But you don’t want to force us?” he asked.

“Let’s say I’m not wanting to add to my list of sins today.”

They frowned at me. “Sins?” Mephistopheles said. “What does that mean?”

“It means that taking someone’s free will away forever seems sort of evil to me. I’d rather not do it again.”

“What would cause you to do it again?” Pride asked.

“Self-preservation, or protecting the people I love.”

He looked past me to Nicky. “Did you threaten Anita and her people?”

“Yes,” Nicky said.

“How?”

“Can I tell them?” he asked.

I thought about it and then said, “Sure.”

“I helped kidnap Anita, and we threatened to kill Micah and Nathaniel and Jason, who’s Anita’s wolf to call. We took her weapons, we used magic to make sure she couldn’t call for help, and we injured her. She used the powers she had left to make me willing to do anything to protect her and the men she loved.”