Шарлин Харрис - Dead As A Doornail

The big man half carried me over to the wall. That was a good distance from the fight. He helped me turn and sink down into a sitting position.

Quinn lowered himself to the floor, too. He was so graceful for someone so large that I was absorbed in just watching him move. He knelt by me to pull off my shoes, and then my tights, which were ripped to shreds and dabbled with blood. I was silent and shaking as he sank down to lie on his stomach. He gripped my knee and my ankle in his huge hands as if my leg were a large drumstick. Without saying a word, Quinn began to lick the blood from my calf. I was afraid this was preparatory to taking a bite, but Dr. Ludwig trotted over, looked down, and nodded. "You'll be fine," she said dismissively. After patting me on the head as if I were an injured dog, the tiny doctor trotted back to her attendants.

Meanwhile, though I would not have thought it was possible for me to be anything but on the knife-edge of suspense, the leg-licking thing was providing an entirely unexpected diversion. I shifted restlessly, stifling a gasp. Maybe I should remove my leg from Quinn's possession? Watching the gleaming bald head bob up and down as he licked was making me think of something worlds away from the life-and-death battle taking place across the room. Quinn was working more and more slowly, his tongue warm and a little rough as he cleaned my leg. Though his brain was the most opaque shifter brain I'd ever encountered, I got the idea he was having the same reaction that I was.

When he finished, he laid his head on my thigh. He was breathing heavily, and I was trying not to. His hands released their grip but stroked my leg deliberately. He looked up at me. His eyes had changed. They were golden, solid gold. The color filled his eyes. Whoa.

I guess he could tell from my face that I was, to put it mildly, conflicted about our little interlude.

"Not our time and place, babe," he said. "God, thatwas . . . great." He stretched, and it wasn't an outward extension of arms and chest, the way humans stretch. He rippled from the base of his spine to his shoulders. It was one of the oddest things I'd ever seen, and I'd seen a lot of odd things. "Do you know who I am?" he asked.

I nodded. "Quinn?" I said, feeling my cheeks color.

"I've heard your name is Sookie," he said, rising to his knees.

"Sookie Stackhouse," I said.

He put his hand under my chin so I'd look up at him. I stared into his eyes as hard as I could. He didn't blink.

"I wonder what you're seeing," he said finally, and removed his hand.

I glanced down at my leg. The mark on it, now clear of blood, was almost certainly a scrape from the metal of the door. "Not a bite," I said, my voice faltering on the last word. The tension left me in a rush.

"Nope.No she-wolf in your future," he agreed, and flowed to his feet. He held out his hand. I took it, and he had me on my feet in a second. A piercing yelp from the cage yanked me back into the here and now.

"Tell me something. Why the hell can't they just vote?" I asked him.

Quinn's round eyes, back to their purple-brown color and properly surrounded with white, crinkled at the corners with amusement.

"Not the way of the shifter, babe.You're going to see me later," Quinn promised. Without another word he strode back to the cage, and my little field trip was over. I had to turn my attention back to the truly important thing happening in this building.

Claudine and Claude were looking anxiously over their shoulders when I found them. They made a little space for me to ease in between them, and wrapped their arms around me when I was in place. They seemed very upset, and Claudine had two tears trailing down her cheeks. When I saw the situation in the cage, I understood why.

The lighter wolf was winning. The black wolf's coat was matted with blood. He was still on his feet, still snarling, but one of his hind legs was giving way under his weight from time to time. He managed to pull himself back up twice, but the third time the leg collapsed, the younger wolf was on him, the two spinning over and over in a terrifying blur of teeth, torn flesh, and fur.

Forgetting the silence rules, all the Weres were screaming their support of one contestant or the other, or just howling. The violence and the noise blended together to make a chaotic collage. I finally spotted Alcide pounding his hands against the metal in futile agitation. I had never felt so sorry for anyone in my life. I wondered if he'd try to break into the combat cage. But another look told me that even if Alcide's respect for pack rules broke down and he attempted to go to his father's aid, Quinn was blocking the door. That was why the pack had brought in an outsider, of course.

Abruptly, the fight was over. The lighter wolf had the darker one by the throat. He was gripping, but not biting. Maybe Jackson would have gone on struggling if he hadn't been so severely wounded, but his strength was exhausted. He lay whining, quite unable to defend himself, disabled. The room fell completely silent.

"Patrick Furnan is declared the winner," said Quinn, his voice neutral.

And then Patrick Furnan bit down on Jackson Herveaux's throat and killed him.

QUINN TOOK OVER the cleanup with the sure authority of one who's supervised such things before. Though I was dull and stupid with shock, I noticed he gave clear, concise directions as to the dispersal of the testing materials. Pack members dismantled the cage into sections and took apart the agility arena with efficient dispatch. A cleanup crew took care of mopping up the blood and other fluids.

Soon the building was empty of all but the people. Patrick Furnan had reverted to his human form, and Dr. Ludwig was attending his many wounds. I was glad he had every one of them. I was only sorry they weren't worse. But the pack had accepted Furnan's choice. If they would not protest such unnecessary brutality, I couldn't.

Alcide was being comforted by Maria-Star Cooper, a young Were I knew slightly.

Maria-Star held him and stroked his back, providing support by her sheer closeness. He didn't have to tell me that on this occasion, he preferred another Were's companionship to mine. I'd gone to hug him, but when I'd neared him and met his eyes, I'd known. That hurt, and it hurtbad ; but today wasn't about me and my feelings.

Claudine was crying in her brother's arms. "She's so tenderhearted," I whispered to Claude, feeling a bit abashed that I wasn't crying myself. My concern was for Alcide; I'd hardly known Jackson Herveaux.

"She went through the second elf war inIowa fighting with the best of them," Claude said, shaking his head. "I've seen a decapitated goblin stick its tongue out at her in its death throes, and she laughed. But as she gets closer to the light, she becomes more sensitive."

That effectively shut me up. I was not about to ask for any explanation of yet another arcane supernatural rule. I'd had a bellyful this day.

Now that all the mess was cleared away (that mess included Jackson's body, which Dr. Ludwig had taken somewhere to be altered, to make the story of how he'd met his death more plausible), all the pack members present gathered in front of Patrick Furnan, who hadn't resumed clothes. According to his body, victory had made him feel manly.Ick.

He was standing on a blanket; it was a red plaid stadium blanket, like you'd take to a football game. I felt my lips twitch, but I became completely sober when the new packmaster's wife led a young woman to him, a brown-haired girl who seemed to be in her late teens. The girl was as bare as the packmaster, though she looked considerably better in that state.

What the hell?

Suddenly I remembered the last part of the ceremony, and I realized Patrick Furman was going to fuck this girl in front of us. No. No way was I going to watch this. I tried to turn to walk out. But Claude hissed, "You can't leave." He covered my mouth and picked me up bodily to move me to the back of the crowd. Claudine moved with us and stood in front of me, but with her back to me, so I wouldn't have to see. I made a furious sound into Claude's hand.