Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

He licked the corner of his mouth. “Mine.”

I smiled. “Once he drew blood it was all over.”

Nicky made a little hands-out gesture, as if to say, Of course .

“You broke my damn ribs,” Domino said in a voice thick with blood and the damage to his nose.

“The way you’re coughing blood, one of them might have nicked your lung,” Nicky said, but he didn’t sound sorry.

“Does he need an ambulance?” I asked.

“A doctor, but not an ambulance, unless he wants to pussy out and says differently.”

“Fuck you,” Domino said; he coughed more blood, then bent over something that hurt.

“No ambulance, I guess,” I said.

“He needs a hospital,” Susannah said, “and you should be in handcuffs.” She looked at Zerbrowski. He spread his hands wide and said, “Just because he lost the fight doesn’t mean he didn’t throw the first blow and start the fight.”

“That’s insane,” she said.

“No, it’s just the truth,” I said.

“You’re not going to call me a bully?” he asked.

“No.” In my head, I thought, A lion maybe , and to the uninitiated that amounted to the same thing. Werehyenas would fuck you up quicker, cripple you, so the fight could end sooner, but werelions would kill you quicker, and they were more likely to start the testosterone throw-down among themselves. When dealing with other wereanimals they tried to tone it down. Our old lion pride hadn’t worked that way, and it was only when talking with Micah about other prides having issues across the country that I’d learned some of the cultural divide. I’d also seen it when Nicky fought anyone. He didn’t start fights, because he knew I wouldn’t approve, but he sure as hell finished them.

“Are you going to be mad at me?” he asked.

I thought about it and shook my head. “No.”

He smiled. “Does this mean the winner gets the girl?”

“Don’t push it.”

He smiled wider, which made him touch the cut in the corner of his mouth with his tongue again, more exploring to see how deep it was, which meant the wide smile had hurt, at least a little.

“I’ve still got to dump the ashes in the stream, and then we can get Domino to medical.”

“I can put the ashes in the water,” Manny said. “You take care of your boy.”

I shook my head. “I’ll finish my job, and we’ll stop on the way home to dump more in the river, because I’m still working.”

“You can’t mean to make him wait to get medical attention while you do all that,” Susannah said, holding Domino a little close and protectively.

“If he wants you to drive him to a hospital, or to the Circus of the Damned, that’s fine with me.”

“He beats me to shit, and you reward him,” he said, and he was coughing a little less.

I went to one knee beside him. “Nicky didn’t start this fight; you did. You drew first blood, and you did it while you were supposed to be on duty as my bodyguard, so you didn’t just take your attention away from guarding me, you took Nicky’s away from the job. If something bad had happened while the two of you were fighting, I’d have had to deal with it, with no help from either of you, because you let something spook you tonight. You let yourself lose sight of the job.”

“Heaven help anything that comes between you and your job,” he said.

“I’m done, you’re done, we’re done.”

His eyes got worried then. “What do you mean?”

“I think I was pretty clear, Domino.” I stood up.

“Anita, don’t do this.”

“You’re the one complaining that I’m not as serious with you as I am with Nicky, that I don’t have enough time and attention for you; well, you’re right. There are too many of you and not enough of me, so if you don’t like the way I run our relationship, then let’s be done. Now you’re free to find someone else who would think you’re the victim here, and not that you just picked a fight that you were too fucking weak to win.”

“I lose one fight and I’m weak.”

“You knew better than to pick a fight with Nicky. You train with him, Domino. You’ve seen him spar. Hell, you’ve sparred with him. You knew what would happen the moment you threw the first punch, and if you didn’t that makes you weak and stupid.”

“Anita, how can you say that?” Susannah asked, and she seemed genuinely outraged, but I was done discussing it.

I started walking toward the slope that I knew would eventually lead me to the stream. Nicky fell into step beside me. “In case you need bodyguarding between here and there,” he said, voice almost neutral.

I smiled and transferred the jar of zombie ash to my right hand, and offered him my left to hold. “What if we have to go for our guns?” he asked.

“I’ll risk it.”

“As your bodyguard I should refuse.”

“It’s up to you,” I said.

He smiled and took my hand. His knuckles were skinned and bleeding a little. It probably would have bothered Susannah, but it didn’t bother me. We walked through the graveyard, me covered in Domino’s blood, Nicky skinned up from hitting him, and I was okay with that. I felt relieved to be done with Domino; one tiger down, a few more to go.

DOMINO WAS TRYING to get out of his clothes when we came back from the stream. Susannah seemed confused as he asked for help out of the straps of his holsters and his shirt. She looked up at me. “He’s delirious.”

“No, he just doesn’t want to ruin his leather holsters when he shifts,” I said. I squeezed Nicky’s hand, knelt in the grass beside them, and started helping him take off the holsters that held both his handguns and the extra ammo clips.

Susannah was still half-cradling him as I started helping him slip his bloody shirt off. He flinched, and it was obviously hurting a lot. Nicky loomed over us. “Shirt’s ruined anyway, just let it shred.”

“Get away from him!” Susannah said.

“No, he’s right. I can lose the shirt,” Domino said in that stuffy voice you get when your nose is well and truly fucked up.

“Lose it, how?” she asked.

I helped him pull his shirt back down, trying not to hurt his ribs. “He’s going to shapeshift and that will help heal some of the damage.”

“Shift into what?” she asked, but she let him lean back without any sign of flinching.

“Pants aren’t bloody,” I said. “You like them enough to save them?”

“I’ll do tiger, not half, pants . . .” He swallowed hard, as if something hurt when he talked. He coughed again, spat more blood, and curled his shoulders down like he was wanting to cradle an injury in his torso.

Nicky finished for him. “If he shifts into his full tiger form the pants may not rip; we’ll just have to help him out of them once he changes.”

“You’re not touching him,” Susannah said.

“You think we’re enemies now, don’t you?”

“You beat him senseless, so yes.” She seemed outraged that he’d even mention it.

“We enemies now, Domino?” he asked.

“No, help me out of these pants, I’m not sure I can control what form I take, just got these tac pants.”

Nicky took a knee on the other side of Domino. Susannah put an arm around Domino’s shoulder and leaned them both back away from him. Domino made a pain sound, because bending that way obviously hurt.

“Don’t touch him!”

“You’re hurting me,” Domino managed to say.

“You’re bending him the wrong way,” I said.

Susannah said, “How can you be so calm?”

I wasn’t sure if she was talking to Domino or me, but I answered. “Because it’s over.”

“He’s still bleeding and hurt; it’s not over.”