Лорел Гамильтон - Rafael

“Sex slaves,” Rafael said.

“Excuse me?”

He smiled, but not like it was entirely funny. “The rumor says that Jean-Claude’s seductive powers will turn us all into sex slaves for him and his vampires and those wereanimals closest to him and you.”

“I’ve heard that rumor that everyone who joins any group in St. Louis has to sleep with one of us, but the whole sex slave thing is new. Do they think we’re pimping people out, or how will it work?”

“I do not know and neither does Hector, but he is homophobic, so the fact that I’m supposed to be sleeping with Jean-Claude seems to threaten him and other young men in our clans. The last fight I won was someone like Hector, someone I saw as a potential next king. Even if I win tonight, Anita, I am starting to destroy the future of all I have built, for a kingdom is only as good as its leader. If the person who follows after me is a bad king, then he will destroy everything that we have worked so long and hard for, and if I keep killing the best and brightest of our young men, then I will win the battles, but eventually the war will be lost. Do you understand what I mean?”

I nodded, wrapping the towel around me, and having to fold it at the top so that I’d be able to walk later without tripping. “I think so, you’ve defeated all the would-be kings who would have been bad leaders, but now you’re starting to fight the ones that you think could rule, just not now and not yet.”

“Exactly, even if I win tonight, it is still a loss for the future of my people.”

“I don’t care if it’s a loss for future generations, Rafael. I don’t give a flying fuck if Hector would age into being a great king. He doesn’t get to kill you tonight. He doesn’t get to wear your crown a decade too early. He isn’t a fit ruler tonight, and tonight is all that matters, Rafael.”

“So fierce, would you miss me that much, or is it only as an ally and a part of your power base that you will mourn me?”

“You know I care for you as more than a friend and ally.”

“I’m attracted to crazy bitches, Anita; that means that love to me is about drama and screaming and horrible behavior. That makes me feel loved; as fucked up as that is, it is still the truth, and before you ask, I am speaking with the therapist that Micah recommended. I even know that I was raised by someone who was that kind of unstable crazy, and that is why I chase it. Knowing why doesn’t change that it makes me feel loved, or that it tears down my life and breaks my heart again and again. I am a king and I cannot afford any more unstable would-be queens, but you are so sane, Anita, so pragmatic at times that I don’t know what you feel, or what I feel.”

“Therapy takes time,” I said.

“I hope someday to be able to love a woman who doesn’t play games or burn my belongings in the driveway.”

“Or stab you,” I said.

He smiled. “Yes, that, too, but I still miss the women who go with that kind of insanity.”

“Do I say I’m sorry, or do you want me to pick some of your stuff that I don’t think you’ll miss much and plan a bonfire for you? We could roast hot dogs and make s’mores.”

This time he smiled at my joke. Brownie points for me. “That will not be necessary, but perhaps a summer cookout in the backyard, around the pool, with s’mores toasted over the fire pit would be nice.”

I smiled. “That sounds good.”

“It does.”

I handed him one of the other towels. “If you don’t dry your hair soon, you’ll have to wet it down and start over, and if I don’t put in all the leave-in conditioners, Jean-Claude will make me start over on mine.”

He started drying his hair, still smiling. “Let us find a bed and do more things that put a smile on both our faces.”

I was about to agree with him when Jean-Claude whispered through my head, “ Ma petite , how close are you to feeding on Rafael?”

I very carefully thought back, “Why?”

I could suddenly see Jean-Claude still dressed for fencing practice, though the way he and the other older vampires practiced it was more traditional combat arts. I did mostly kali, which was Filipino martial arts, though my main instructor, Fredo, was helping me incorporate the knife skills I’d been using for years, so it wasn’t a pure style of Sinawali, but as Fredo taught me, What is kali? I am kali. Which basically meant that you should do it the way that works best for you. Kali isn’t just a martial art, it’s a combat style, and that means you do it the way that keeps you alive. Martial arts have referees and point systems. Combat arts have, did you live? I liked all the blade classes, from the various types of sword and knife work to the axe class that Truth and Wicked had just begun teaching. Some people thought blades weren’t practical for modern day, but they should look up the Tueller Drill. A regular human being with no supernatural speed can still stab you before you can draw, aim, and fire a gun if they’re within twenty-one feet of you. Between twenty and eighteen feet you may shoot them as they stab you and die together, but eighteen to sixteen feet and they will stab, or club, or smash your brains in, faster than you can shoot them. But honestly even without the practical statistics, I just seemed to like anything with an edge. Saturday’s class was vampires and wereanimals that had lived when the sword was the weapon at a gentleman’s side. It was one of the few blade classes I wasn’t trying to take.

Jean-Claude smiled up at me, because my visual was looking down at him as if I were a hovering camera; it was always the view from the mind-to-mind peeks. His black curls were back in a loose ponytail, but with or without the hair to frame it his face was still almost too lovely to be real. Once I thought it was vampire wiles that made him so beautiful, but it was just him.

He said, “I am soon to take my turn upon the field, and I need my concentration. The sweetness of your combined release will be most distracting.”

I didn’t try to talk anymore; I just lowered my shields enough so he could see Rafael and where we were in the process.

Rafael said, “What does Jean-Claude want?”

It made me startle and look at the other man, which made me lose the visual of Jean-Claude. I started to ask him how he knew anyone had contacted me, let alone knew it was Jean-Claude, then I realized he was rubbing at the goose bumps on his arms. “You felt the energy,” I said.

“I know when Jean-Claude is in your head.”

I didn’t have to file it away to share later, because Jean-Claude just knew what I knew, because he was in my head. “Interesting,” he whispered, and then was gone so that Rafael and I were alone again in the showers. Our thoughts and our feelings private and ours again.

“He’s at the new sword class the older vamps and shapeshifters are doing. He doesn’t want us to be feeding the ardeur while he’s on the practice mat.”

“I didn’t think they used live blades,” Rafael said.

“They don’t, but you can still get hurt even with a dull practice blade.”

“True enough,” he said.

“I know that the wererats like to use live blades for most of their practices,” I said.

“If it is not silver, then it will heal almost instantly if you are a powerful enough shapeshifter.”

“Yeah, you’re powerful as fuck, so you’ll heal, but I’ve seen some of your people after the wererat-only practices and they don’t all heal like you do.”

He smiled and it had that arrogance, or maybe confidence, that he hid most of the time behind a diplomatic, almost humble demeanor. But since I’d been his lover, I’d seen him when he wasn’t so controlled, and you didn’t get to be king without being confident or even arrogant.