Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

“Neither you nor I let the vampires feed on us.”

“I’m going to try it with Jean-Claude.”

We both looked at Nicky. “You were very clear on not being food for the vamps,” I said.

He nodded as we got the last of Domino’s clothes off him. He leaned on the grass, totally nude and a little less excited to be there, but then it had been painful and Domino didn’t mix pain with sex.

“I’ve decided to try it,” Nicky said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you are going to have to cut your list down, especially if you add another tiger. Keeping lovers who will also feed Jean-Claude is practical, and you can be surprisingly practical in this area.”

I was in love with this man, and he thought I might jettison him because I was overwhelmed. I wasn’t sure what that said about me; for Nicky it was just part of being a sociopath. If you’re not meeting enough needs, why do I need you?

“I don’t think I can be with Jean-Claude like that. I’ve seen him take blood and it’s too close to sex,” Domino said.

“True, but Jean-Claude respects limits.”

“Why not get rid of people that she only sees every once in a while, like Rafael, or the swan king?”

“They’re too powerful as allies, and the feeding of the ardeur is part of what keeps them our allies, and it is an amazing power feed when she takes either of them,” Nicky said.

“Yeah,” Domino said, buck naked on the grass, “it’s a rush, like a drug rush.”

Nicky nodded.

“We undressed you so you could change form, not so you could discuss my feeding schedule.”

“If Jade liked you better, would you be okay with just her?” Nicky asked.

He nodded, winced, got very still, and said, “I would love her if she’d let me, but she’s so afraid of men, it makes me one of the bad guys to her, just because I’m attracted to her.”

“She’s a mess,” I said.

“That’s not fair,” he said, and motioned at me, as if he meant to point, but the moment he did fresh blood spilled out of his mouth, and he began to gasp, as if he couldn’t breathe.

“Your lung just collapsed,” Nicky said.

“Shapeshift,” I said.

Domino collapsed slowly to his side, his breathing so harsh it hurt to hear it. His skin was already darkening around the edges as he fought to breathe.

“Why doesn’t he change?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“He’ll pass out and then he’ll change, right?”

He shook his head. “No, if he passes out he could die.”

“What?”

“Vampires don’t need to breathe; we do.”

“Fuck!” I touched his face and the moment skin touched skin I couldn’t breathe. My chest was on fire, and there was one sharp point that just fucking hurt. I was on the ground still touching him; our eyes locked. I stared into those orange and yellow eyes and thought, We’re dying .

NICKY JERKED MY hand off Domino, and I could breathe again. It still hurt, but it was distant, dull, aching, as if my chest were sore from a days-old beating. Nicky pulled me into his lap and I lay there watching Domino writhe, gasping for air. He reached out to me, and Nicky grabbed my hand, kept me from touching again.

“Change form, Domino,” Nicky said.

Jean-Claude’s voice was loud in my head as he said, “ Ma petite , what is happening?”

I didn’t bother talking, just let him “see” what I was seeing. “Shield from him, Anita.” He almost never used my real name. “Shield, or he will drag you down with him. I will shield as many of the others as I can.”

And he was gone, doing what he’d urged me to do, shielding hard and complete like the walls of a castle newly made, perfect and unassailable. My shields hadn’t had six hundred years of practice, and they weren’t as perfect as his; I could still feel Domino through my shields, and it was hard to ignore him while he was right in front of me dying. I could feel Nathaniel and Damian the strongest, because they were the first animal to call I’d ever found and my vampire servant. Damian was supposed to be to me what I was to Jean-Claude. I felt the others I was tied to, but Jean-Claude had done his best to shield them from me. I felt them all offering their energy down the leash that held them to me, but there was other power even closer. I looked up at Nicky while he held me. I’d accidentally drained him to death once, and I wasn’t joking about the “death” part. The doctor had to restart his heart twice, and no one had been nearly this badly hurt. If he’d been my lion to call I would have been able to feel him giving up his energy, but he was my Bride, which meant the energy flow was one way, and much more subtle. I had to fight through the aches, the fear, worries, all of it, to find a quiet place in my head where I could feel the flow from him to me.

It was there flowing from his skin to mine. I pushed myself out of his lap to fall on the grass and crawl away from his reaching hands. “NO!”

I lay there between the two men, one trying to drain my life away and the other willing to give his. I turned on my side and told Domino, “Change, damn you!”

He stared at me, eyes wide, face starting to change colors the way you do when you’re choking. I knew it hurt as much to breathe as it sounded, as he lay on the ground and gasped his life away.

I knew how to call someone’s beast. Richard had taught me, and as if thinking about him was enough I smelled forest, thick with evergreens that didn’t grow anywhere near this cemetery. I heard Richard whisper in my head, “Anita.”

“Help me bring his beast.” I said my part out loud, because it was too hard to think inside my head, in that moment. I expected him to argue with me, because we always argued, but he didn’t. I don’t know if Jean-Claude had contacted him, or if he saw what was happening, but he just reached down that long metaphysical line and poured the warmth of his energy into me. I smelled the musk of wolf, and saw him, the morning sunlight shining through his shoulder-length brown waves with lines of gold and red, all framing that permanently tanned face with its almost heartbreakingly handsome lines. The moment I met his brown eyes they changed to wolf amber and the rush of energy danced along my skin in a warm surge of power. I rolled over and pressed my hand to Domino’s shoulder. This time he didn’t drag me down into his pain; I shoved power into him, and didn’t care that it wasn’t gentle, we were out of time for gentle. I slammed it into him the way you’d hit someone’s heart with electricity and adrenaline to restart it.

Domino’s body reacted as if I’d hit him with real electricity, spine bowing, limbs straining, blood pouring out of his mouth as the ribs ripped through more of his lungs, and then his pale skin rippled like silk over water one moment, and then the next his body exploded in a wave of hot liquid that poured over me, so that I was blind until I used my other hand to wipe my eyes.

A white tiger lay on its side, black stripes crisp and clean in the light, like it had been newly made right this moment. It lay dry and somehow unreal in the middle of the wet grass. It was a white tiger twice the size of a natural one, which made it the size of a horse. I didn’t see my lovers in their pure animal form much; sometimes I forgot just how massive they were in this form.

I felt that warm pulse of energy again, and the scent of wolf and evergreen was strong. Richard thought at me, “Is Domino okay?”

I looked at that huge, furred side and waited for it to breathe. I didn’t realize that I was holding my own breath waiting for it until the tiger breathed, and I let my own out, and had to take another quick breath to sort of catch up.