Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10

by Laurell Hamilton

  I’m going home, and I’m going to start by seeing all the friends I’ve neglected for the past few months. So Ronnie is dating Richard’s best friend. So what? She and I can still be friends. Catherine’s had two years of honeymooning. Time I stopped using that as an excuse not to see her. I think I’m just uncomfortable with how terribly happy she is with a man that I found ordinary and a little boring. But she glows around him. I haven’t done much glowing lately around either of my two men.

  I’m going to start seeing the werewolves in Richard’s pack again, and Jean-Claude’s vamps. First renew friendships, then if that works out okay, I’ll see the boys. It’s a cautious plan, nay cowardly, but it’s the best I can do. Okay, it’s the best I’m willing to do. Because the truth is that I am no closer to a solution to my love life than I was when I broke off with them over a year ago. The few times I fell off the celibacy wagon don’t count because I was still trying to avoid them. I don’t want to avoid them. I just want to know what exactly it is that I do want. Once I figure out what I want, who I want, the next question is can I have who I want or will the loser pull our little house down around us in bloody ruins. I would say it’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, but Richard and Jean-Claude are worth so much more than that to me. Maybe Ramirez is right. Maybe if I truly loved one of them, the choice would be easy. Or maybe Ramirez doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

  Edward loves Donna and Peter and Becca. They’re all seeing a therapist together, but I think Peter is still lying about what really happened. You can’t get good therapy if you lie to your therapist. But I think Peter is counting on Edward to be his therapist. Scary thought, isn’t it?

  Edward loves Donna. Do I love Richard? Yes. Do I love Jean-Claude? Maybe. If it’s really yes for Richard, and maybe for Jean-Claude, then why don’t I have my answer? Because maybe, just maybe, there is no one right answer. I’m beginning to worry that whatever I decide, I will be left mourning the one that got away. Once, I’d been afraid if I chose Richard that Jean-Claude would kill him rather than share me, but strangely the vampire seems willing to share, and Richard isn’t. Maybe Jean-Claude loves the power of the triumvirate more than he loves me, or maybe Richard is just jealous. I certainly wouldn’t share either of them with another woman. Fair is fair. Which brings me back to the original question: who is the love of my life? Maybe I don’t have one. Maybe it’s not love at all. But if it’s not love, then what is it? I wish I knew.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  NARCISSUS IN CHAINS

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2001 by Laurell K. Hamilton

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://us.penguingroup.com

  ISBN: 1-101-14633-8

  A BERKLEY BOOK®

  Berkley Books first published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  First edition (electronic): October 2001

  This one’s for J., who renewed my faith in men, love, and happiness. Thank you.

  Acknowledgments

  To my writing group, who didn’t get to see this one before it went to New York. Tom Drennan, Rett MacPherson, Deborah Millitello, Marella Sands, Sharon Shinn, and Mark Sumner. May this be the last book that doesn’t get to go through the group due to time constraints, or any other reason. Thanks to Joan-Marie Knappenberger for letting Trinity come over to play with Melissa while I did last-minute things. Thanks to Darla Cook, who helps keep me sane, and Robin Bell, for almost the same reason. Thanks to all the fans for their enthusiasm. Anita and I, both, appreciate it.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Epilogue

  1

  JUNE HAD COME in like its usual hot, sweaty self, but a freak cold front had moved in during the night and the car radio had been full of the record low temperatures. It was only in the low sixties, not that cold, but after weeks of eighty- and ninety-plus, it felt downright frigid. My best friend, Ronnie Sims, and I were sitting in my Jeep with the windows down, letting the unseasonably cool air drift in on us. Ronnie had turned thirty tonight. We were talking about how she felt about the big 3-0 and other girl talk. Considering that she’s a private detective and I raise the dead for a living it was pretty ordinary talk. Sex, guys, turning thirty, vampires, werewolves. You know, the usual.

  We could have gone inside the house, but there is something about the intimacy of a car after dark that makes you want to linger. Or maybe it was the sweet smell of springlike air coming through the windows like the caress of some half-remembered lover.

  “Okay, so he’s a werewolf. No one’s perfect,” Ronnie said. “Date him, sleep with him, marry him. My vote’s for Richard.”

  “I know you don’t like Jean-Claude.”

  “Don’t like him!” Her hands gripped the passenger-side door handle, squeezing it until I could see the tension in her shoulders. I think she was counting to ten.

  “If I killed as easily as you do, I’d have killed that son of a bitch two years ago and your life would be a lot less complicated now.”

  That last was an understatement. But . . . “I don’t want him dead, Ronnie.”

  “He’s a vampire, Anita. He is dead.” She turned and looked at me in the dark. Her soft gray eyes and yellow hair had turned to silver and near white in the cold light of the stars. The shadows and bright reflected light left her face in bold relief, like some modern painting. But the look on her fac
e was almost frightening. There was a fearful determination there.

  If it had been me with that look on my face, I’d have warned me not to do anything stupid, like kill Jean-Claude. But Ronnie wasn’t a shooter. She’d killed twice, both times to save my life. I owed her. But she wasn’t a person who could hunt someone down in cold blood and kill him. Not even a vampire. I knew this about her, so I didn’t have to caution her. “I used to think I knew what dead was or wasn’t, Ronnie.” I shook my head. “The line isn’t so clear-cut.”

  “He seduced you,” she said.

  I looked away from her angry face and stared at the foil-wrapped swan in my lap. Deirdorfs and Hart, where we’d had dinner, got creative with their doggy bags: foil-wrapped animals. I couldn’t argue with Ronnie, and I was getting tired of trying.

  Finally, I said, “Every lover seduces you, Ronnie, that’s the way it works.”

  She slammed her hands so hard onto the dashboard it startled me and must have hurt her. “Damn it, Anita, it’s not the same.”

  I was starting to get angry, and I didn’t want to be angry, not with Ronnie. I had taken her out to dinner to make her feel better, not to fight. Louis Fane, her steady boyfriend, was out of town at a conference, and she was bummed about that, and about turning thirty. So I’d tried to make her feel better, and she seemed determined to make me feel worse.

  “Look, I haven’t seen either Jean-Claude or Richard for six months. I’m not dating either of them, so we can skip the lecture on vampire ethics.”

  “Now that’s an oxymoron,” she said.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “Vampire ethics,” she said.

  I frowned at her. “That’s not fair, Ronnie.”

  “You are a vampire executioner, Anita. You are the one who taught me that they aren’t just people with fangs. They are monsters.”

  I’d had enough. I opened the car door and slid to the edge of the seat. Ronnie grabbed my shoulder. “Anita, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad.”

  I didn’t turn around. I sat there with my feet hanging out the door, the cool air creeping into the closer warmth of the car.

  “Then drop it, Ronnie. I mean drop it.”

  She leaned over and gave me a quick hug from behind. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business who you sleep with.”

  I leaned into the hug for a moment. “That’s right, it’s not.” Then I pulled away and got out of the car. My high heels crunched on the gravel of my driveway. Ronnie had wanted us to dress up, so we had. It was her birthday. It wasn’t until after dinner that I’d realized her diabolical scheme. She’d had me wear heels and a nice little black skirt outfit. The top was actually, gasp, a well-fitted halter top. Or would that be backless evening wear? However pricey it was, it was still a very short skirt and a halter top. Ronnie had helped me pick the outfit out about a week ago. I should have known her innocent “oh, let’s just both dress up” was a ruse. There had been other dresses that covered more skin and had longer hemlines, but none that camouflaged the belly-band holster that cut across my lower waist. I’d actually taken the holster along with us on the shopping trip, just to be sure. Ronnie thought I was being paranoid, but I don’t go anywhere after dark unarmed. Period.

  The skirt was just roomy enough and black enough to hide the fact that I wore the belly band and a Firestar 9 mm. The top was heavy enough material, what there was of it, that you really couldn’t see the handle of the gun under the cloth. All I had to do was lift the bottom of the top and the gun was right there, ready to be drawn. It was the most user-friendly dressy outfit I’d ever owned. Made me wish they made it in a different color so I could have two of them.

  Ronnie’s plan had been to go to a club on her birthday. A dance club. Eek. I never went to clubs. I did not dance. But I went in with her. Yes, she got me out on the floor, mainly because her dancing alone was attracting too much unwanted male attention. At least with both of us dancing together the would-be Casanovas stayed at a distance. Though saying I danced was inaccurate. I stood there and sort of swayed. Ronnie danced. She danced like it was her last night on Earth and she had to put every muscle to good use. It was spectacular, and a little frightening. There was something almost desperate to it, as if Ronnie felt the cold hand of time creeping up faster and faster. Or maybe that was just me projecting my own insecurities. I’d turned twenty-six early in the year, and, frankly, at the rate I was going, I probably wouldn’t have to worry about hitting thirty. Death cures all ills. Well, most of them.

  There had been one man who had attached himself to me instead of Ronnie. I didn’t understand why. She was a tall leggy blond, dancing like she was having sex with the music. But he offered me drinks. I don’t drink. He tried to slow dance. I refused. I finally had to be rude. Ronnie told me to dance with him, at least he was human. I told her that birthday guilt only went so far, and she’d used hers up.

  The last thing on God’s green earth that I needed was another man in my life. I didn’t have a clue what to do with the two I had already. The fact that they were, respectively, a Master Vampire and an Ulfric, werewolf king, was only part of the problem. That fact alone should let you know just how deep a hole I was digging. Or would that be, already have dug? Yeah, already dug. I was about halfway to China and still throwing dirt up in the air.

  I’d been celibate for six months. So, as far as I knew, had they. Everyone was waiting for me to make up my mind. Waiting for me to choose, or decide, something, anything.

  I’d been a rock for half a year, because I’d stayed away from them. I hadn’t seen them, in the flesh anyway. I had returned no phone calls. I had run for the hills at the first hint of cologne. Why such drastic measures? Frankly, because almost every time I saw them, I fell off the chastity wagon. They both had my libido, but I was trying to decide who had my heart. I still didn’t know. The only thing I had decided was that it was time to stop hiding. I had to see them and figure out what we were all going to do. I’d decided two weeks ago that I needed to see them. It was the day that I refilled my birth-control pill prescription, and started taking it again. The very last thing I needed was a surprise pregnancy. That the first thing I thought of when I thought of Richard and Jean-Claude was to go back on birth control tells you something about the effect they had on me.

  You needed to be on the pill for at least a month to be safe, or as safe as you ever got. Four more weeks, five to be sure, then I’d call. Maybe.

  I heard Ronnie’s heels running on the gravel. “Anita, Anita, wait, don’t be angry.”

  The thing was, I wasn’t angry with her. I was angry with me. Angry that after all these months I still couldn’t decide between the two men. I stopped walking and waited for her, huddled in my little black skirt outfit, the little foil swan in my hands. The night had turned cool enough to make me wish I’d worn a jacket. When Ronnie caught up with me I started walking again.

  “I’m not mad, Ronnie, just tired. Tired of you, my family, Dolph, Zerbrowski, everyone being so damned judgmental.” My heels hit the sidewalk with sharp clacks. Jean-Claude had once said he could tell if I was angry just by the sound of my heels on the floor. “Watch your step. You’re wearing higher heels than I am.” Ronnie was five feet eight, which meant with heels she was nearly six feet.

  I was wearing two-inch heels, which put me at five five. I get a much better workout when Ronnie and I jog together than she does.

  The phone was ringing as I juggled the key and the foil-wrapped leftovers. Ronnie took the leftovers, and I shoved the door open with my shoulder. I was running across the floor in my high heels before I remembered that I was on vacation. Which meant whatever emergency was calling at 2:05 in the morning was not my problem, not for another two weeks at least. But old habits die hard, and I was at the phone before I remembered. I actually let the machine pick up while I stood there, heart pounding. I was planning on ignoring it, but . . . but I still stood ready to grab the receiver just in case.

  Loud, booming musi
c, and a man’s voice. I didn’t recognize the music, but I recognized the voice. “Anita, it’s Gregory. Nathaniel’s in trouble.”

  Gregory was one of the wereleopards I’d inherited when I killed their alpha, their leader. As a human, I wasn’t really up to the job, but until I found a replacement, even I was better than nothing. Wereanimals without a dominant to protect them were anyone’s meat, and if someone moved in and slaughtered them, it would sort of be my fault. So I acted as their protector, but the job was more complicated than I’d ever dreamed. Nathaniel was the problem. All the others were rebuilding their lives since their old leader had been killed, but not Nathaniel. He’d had a hard life: abused, raped, pimped out, and topped. Topped meant he’d been someone’s slave—as in sex and pain. He was one of the few true submissives I’d ever met, though, admittedly, my pool of acquaintance was limited.

  I cursed softly and picked up the phone. “I’m here, Gregory, what’s happened now?” Even to me, my voice sounded tired and half-angry.

  “If I had anyone else to call, Anita, I’d call them, but you’re it.” He sounded tired and angry, too. Great.

  “Where’s Elizabeth? She was supposed to be riding herd on Nathaniel tonight.” I’d finally agreed that Nathaniel could start going out to the dominance and submission clubs if he was accompanied by Elizabeth and at least one other wereleopard. Tonight it had been Gregory riding shotgun, but without Elizabeth, Gregory wasn’t dominant enough to keep Nathaniel safe. A normal submissive would have been safe in one of the clubs with someone there to simply say, “no thanks, we’ll pass.” But Nathaniel was one of those rare subs who are almost incapable of saying no, and there had been hints made that his idea of pain and sex could be very extreme. Which meant that he might say yes to things that were very, very bad for him. Wereanimals can take a lot of injury and not be permanently damaged, but there is a limit. A healthy bottom will say stop when he’s had too much or he feels something bad happening, but Nathaniel wasn’t that healthy. So he had keepers with him to make sure no one really bad got ahold of him. But it was more than that. A good dominant trusts his sub to say when before the damage is too great. The dom trusts the sub to know his own body and have enough self-preservation to call out before he is in past what his body can take. Nathaniel did not come with that safety feature, which meant a dominant with the best of intentions could end up hurting him badly before realizing Nathaniel wouldn’t help himself.