Лорел Гамильтон - Rafael

Asher shook his head hard enough to have his hair shiver around his shoulders. The golden strands glinted in the lamplight, and just like that I was back to being distracted by his beauty. Damn it.

“You see what Narcissus wills you to see—the fop, the cross-dresser that can outqueen the most flamboyant gay queen, he makes a joke of himself partly to stop others from doing it for him. He is extremely sensitive about being born intersex.”

“I’ve seen him nude and honestly it didn’t look that much different to me.”

“But it is not us that looks in the mirror every day.”

I looked at the beautiful man with his hair hiding half his face, so that only the angelic beauty of the unscarred side showed, and I knew he wasn’t just talking about Narcissus.

“I’ve felt how powerful Narcissus’s inner beast is, but in a physical fight Rafael will kill him.”

“It is not that simple, ma petite .”

“What do you mean?”

Asher answered, “Female werehyenas are bigger than the males just like the real animals, but in werehyenas they are monstrously bigger, and they usually only have one form, bipedal, because they use their hands for more than fighting.”

“So, because Narcissus is half woman and has girl parts, he’s this really big powerful half man, woman, whichever he prefers. My money is still on Rafael.”

“Female hyenas do magic; literally, they can do spells like out of fairy tales and legends.”

“I’ve never heard this before.”

“That’s because they don’t tell outsiders. I didn’t realize how unusually the St. Louis hyenas were run until I was sent away to Dulcia’s territory. She runs her hyenas in the traditional manner. The fact that their leaders can work magic is what has given the hyenas in this country an edge over other animal groups.”

“Wait, hyena shapeshifters are rare in this country. The magic, or whatever, hasn’t helped them gain the upper hand in most of the cities I visit,” I said.

Asher sat up in the bed, letting the robe spill forward and show the edge of the hard scars on his chest. It wasn’t comfort with me that had made him forget, but how strongly he felt about what he was telling me. That made me listen, because he hated showing his scars most of the time. “Most of the original werehyenas were slaves. Their own tribes sometimes turned against them, bound them with magic and sold them into slavery, because they feared to kill them since they believed their spirit would just take over another hyena or even another person. They gave the spells to control them to the new masters. The spells were forgotten or lost and after a few very bloody rebellions being put down, the werehyenas went underground. They hid what and who they were from everyone. It is why it is so rare for a group of hyenas to be prominent in an area. They do not want to call that much attention to themselves if they are run in a traditional manner.”

“Narcissus runs a very public bondage club over the river in Illinois. He dresses to attract attention.”

“Dulcia did not speak well of him.”

“I’ll bet, but wait a minute, werehyenas are contagious just like all the shapeshifters, so how did they pass on the magic, or is it more like a natural psychic gift?”

“It’s natural and comes with the change once the person can control the violent part of the beast. If they wanted to train the woman, they trained her; if they didn’t think she could be trusted with their secrets, they executed her before she could come into her full power. For a long time, they killed any white women who survived an attack, and all clans were led by women of color. The oldest and most successful clans still are run that way. They thought of Narcissus as a man until he changed for the first time, and he’s trained in their mystical arts. No one has challenged him and survived.”

“I always wondered about that, I mean he’s not much taller than me, and he’s slender, delicate-looking even, and he has these big muscle guys in his clan.”

“The men are afraid of the females in the clan and they should be.”

“That’s why he didn’t want to let women into his clan, he was afraid that a full female would beat him?” I said, thinking about it as I said it.

Asher nodded. “But that hasn’t happened, he’s still the biggest bitch around.”

“Are you seriously saying that Narcissus would beat Rafael in a real fight?” I asked.

“I’ve seen Narcissus fight two of the females that came into his clan, and I have not seen Rafael fight, but unless Rafael can do magic while he’s fighting hand to hand, then I do not see how he could win,” Asher said.

I tried to wrap my head around the idea that fragile-looking Narcissus would win against the much tougher-looking Rafael. I mean, if they were professional fighters in boxing or mixed martial arts, Rafael would be cruiserweight or heavyweight and Narcissus would be bantamweight at best and maybe even flyweight. The only reason I even knew all the weight classes was that the new shapeshifter fight league had reached out to St. Louis to see if anyone wanted to come play. There was no way that the two men would ever be in the same match, no way.

“Asher has always had a good eye for male flesh, ma petite . If he bet on a fight, he usually won. When we were with Julianna, Asher’s betting prowess helped us live comfortably on our own.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard him use Julianna’s name without the usual sinking of sorrow from either of them. She’d been Asher’s human servant and the love of both their lives at the time. Twenty years of bliss before the Church burned her as a witch for consorting with vampires and poured holy water over Asher. Her death could have killed him, especially as injured as he was, but he’d survived. It made me wonder if he’d survive Kane’s death. I didn’t ask out loud, it was a little too cold-blooded even for me.

“So, you’re saying if Asher thinks Narcissus will win, then he probably will?”

“Oui.”

“You know, before I realized Hector was the rat to call for another vampire, I’d have been worried about Narcissus killing Rafael and leaving a vacuum of power at the top of the wererat hierarchy,” I said.

“Or for Narcissus to be king of both hyenas and rats,” Jean-Claude said.

“Wait, that’s not possible. They don’t allow leadership to cross over like that.”

“But that was before the Coalition began to draw all the many different animal groups under one leadership; our Micah has started to forge them into one voice for human politics. For many local problems they now reach out to him and the larger group, which is formed of many different wereanimals.”

“Are you saying the Coalition may have set precedents for Narcissus to try to do a sideways coup?”

“He’s threatened it,” Asher said.

“Jesus, when were you going to tell me about all this?”

“I just heard about it myself. I told Jean-Claude because I saw him first, and now I am telling you. I will leave it up to the two of you who else needs to know.”

“Micah needs to know,” I said.

“We will tell everyone when they arrive,” Jean-Claude said.

“We can’t let Narcissus bully us like this, not with another vampire trying to move in on us,” I said.

“We are all in agreement, ma petite . We will begin to discuss our options when our others arrive.”

“I am sorry for my part in the problems with Narcissus,” Asher said.

“Your part, your part? It’s all your fault.”

Asher took in a breath big enough that I could watch his chest rise and fall, which since he didn’t have to breathe at all meant it was a very big sigh. “My anger wants to deny it, to find excuses to say that it was the vacuum of power after Raina and Marcus died when Richard took over the werewolves that allowed Narcissus to grow the hyenas into a force to rival both the werewolves and the wererats. That if Richard had policed them as tightly as Marcus had, Narcissus would not have the power to threaten us now.”