Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10

by Laurell Hamilton

  I could see his pulse in his neck, beating like a trapped thing. His beast was trapped, too, trapped by his control, his fear. I could feel it, as if it were literally pacing inside his body, like a wolf in a cage at the zoo; pacing, pacing, never free. It might be a large, roomy cage, but it was still a cage. Raina gave me a visual that drove me to my knees. I saw Richard pinned under my body, chained to a bed, and when he came inside me, he shifted at the same moment. That was release for the shapeshifters; anything else was holding back.

  Richard knelt in front of me. “Are you alright?” He touched my arm, and that was a bad thing. My beast roared across our skins, hit his in a blow that I felt physically in my stomach and ribs, like a punch. It staggered Richard, made him fall forward into me, and we clung for a second, arms around each other, our bodies pressed together. The ardeur flared over us like invisible flame, and we knelt in the heart of that fire like the wick of a candle. His heart beat against my arms, where they lay pressed to his chest, as if my skin had become a drum and he beat inside me, filled me with the rythmn of his body. My own heartbeat found a home inside Richard’s body. We were filled with the rise and fall, the pulse and beat of each other, until I couldn’t tell whose heart was in my chest, whose blood rushed through us. For a trembling moment we pressed above one another, as if our skin would give way and we would finally be what the marks had promised—one being, one body, one soul. The power broke apart, as Richard struggled against it, like a drowning man, breaking apart the power like arms shatter water; you can move it, disrupt it, but it flows back around you, swells over you, engulfs you. Richard screamed, and I felt him fall back.

  I opened my eyes as his hand pulled away, and my hand tried to hold him. His hand was almost free, only his fingers still caught in mine, when the ardeur pressed around us, and I knew his control was fragile enough that I would feed. I felt his confusion, felt him struggling to decide what to hold on to and what to let go. I realized that the shields had come down long ago, because he couldn’t hold the marks closed, keep himself in human form, and keep me from feeding, all at the same time. He screamed again, and I felt Richard decide, felt the conscious choice of the lesser evil. He shoved his beast down, down, deep inside himself, and he shut the marks between us like slamming a door. It was so sudden that it felt like the world had lurched. I had a moment of dizziness, was almost sick, then the ardeur rode over us, through us, like a thundering thing to trample us both underfoot, until we were just flesh, bone, blood, just meat, just need. I saw Richard’s back arch, his head fling back, and through the ardeur I felt the growing pressure, tightness in his body, seconds before that hot release spilled over him, and I held his hand while his body rocked with the strength of it, and the pleasure of it drew me to my knees, almost as if the power itself lifted me up for a second, held me, rocked me, and I fed, I fed, and fed, and fed, until we were left lying on the floor, sweat-covered, breathing in gasps, our hands still locked together.

  Richard pulled away first. He lay there, eyes unfocused, breathing labored, his heart beating too fast, filling his throat. He swallowed hard enough that it sounded like it hurt. I felt weighted, heavy with the feeding, almost like I could sleep again, like a snake after a big meal.

  Richard found his voice first. “You had no right to feed off me.”

  “I thought that was the idea of you staying until morning,” I said.

  He sat up slowly, as if he were stiff now. “It was.”

  “You never said no.” I rolled onto my side, but didn’t try and sit up yet.

  He nodded. “I know that. I’m not blaming you.”

  He was, but at least he was trying not to. “You could have stopped me, Richard. All you had to do was either leave the marks open between us or let your beast go. You could have held the ardeur out. You made your choice on what to control.”

  “I know that, too.” But he wouldn’t look at me.

  I propped myself up on my arms, almost sitting. “Then what’s wrong?”

  He shook his head and got to his feet. He was a little unsteady, but he went for the door. “I’m leaving, Anita.”

  “You make that sound awfully permanent, Richard.”

  He turned and looked at me. “No one feeds off me, no one.”

  He’d closed himself so tight that I couldn’t tell what he was feeling, but it was plain on his face. Pain. His eyes held some deep pain, and he’d pulled so far away in his mind, his heart, that I couldn’t tell what it was, only that it hurt him.

  “So, you won’t be here tomorrow morning when the ardeur comes again?” My voice sounded almost neutral when I asked.

  He shook his head, all that heavy hair sliding around his shoulders. His hand was on the doorknob, his body turned away enough that he hid himself from me as much as he could. “I can’t do this again, Anita. For God’s sake, you have the same rule. No one feeds on you either.”

  I sat up, arms wrapping around my knees, holding them tight to my chest. I guess I was covering my nakedness, too. “You’ve felt the ardeur now, Richard. If I can’t feed off of you, then who? Who do you want me to share this with?”

  “Jean-Claude . . .” But his voice dropped off before he could finish.

  “It’s a little after noon and he’s still dead to the world. He won’t wake in time to share the ardeur with me.”

  His hand tightened on the doorknob hard enough for me to see the muscles in his arm tense. “The Nimir-Raj, then. I’m told you’ve already fed on him once anyway.”

  “I don’t know Micah that well, Richard.” I took a deep breath and said, “I don’t love him, Richard. I love you. I want you.”

  “You want to feed off me? You want me to be your cow?”

  “No,” I said, “no.”

  “I am not food, Anita, not for you or anyone else. I am Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, and I am not cattle. I am the thing that eats the cattle.”

  “If you had shifted, then you could have blocked the ardeur, kept me from feeding, why didn’t you?”

  He leaned his forehead against the door. “I don’t know.”

  “Honesty, Richard, at least with yourself.”

  He turned then, and his anger flared across my skin like a whip. “You want honesty, fine, we can have honesty. I hate what I am. I want a life, Anita. I want a real life. I want free of all this shit. I don’t want to be Ulfric. I don’t want to be a werewolf. I just want a life.”

  “You have a life, Richard, it’s just not the life you thought it would be.”

  “And I don’t want to love someone who is more at home with the monsters than I am.”

  I just looked at him, hugging my knees to my bare chest, my back pressed up against the bed. I looked at him, because I couldn’t think of a damned thing to say.

  “I’m sorry, Anita, but I can’t . . . won’t do this.” He opened the door then. He opened the door, and he walked out, closing it behind him. The door closed with a soft, firm click. I sat there for a few seconds not moving. I don’t even think I was breathing, then slowly the tears squeezed out, and my first breath was a ragged gasp that hurt my throat. I rolled slowly to the floor, lying in a tight, tight ball. I lay on the floor and cried until I was cold and shivering.

  That’s how Nathaniel found me. He pulled the blanket from the bed and wrapped it around me, picked me up, and climbed onto the bed with me in his arms. He held me in the curve of his body, spooned against me, and I couldn’t feel him through the thick blanket. He held me and stroked my hair. I felt the bed move and opened my eyes to find Cherry and Zane crawling around me. They touched my face, took my tears with the tips of their fingers, and curled around me on the other side until I was cupped in their warmth.

  Gregory and Vivian came next and climbed onto the bed until we all lay in a warm, thick nest of bodies and covers. And I was hot and had to peel the blanket back, and their hands spilled over me, touching, holding. I realized that I was still naked and so were they. No one ever put on clothes unless I made them. But the t
ouching wasn’t sexual, it was comfort, the warm pile of puppies, and everyone in that pile loved me in their way. Maybe it wasn’t the way I wanted to be loved, but love is love and sometimes I think I’d thrown away more love than most people ever get a chance at. I was trying to be more careful lately.

  They held me until I fell asleep, exhausted with crying, skin hot. But down in the center of my being was a cold, icy spot that they couldn’t touch. It was the place where I loved Richard, had always loved Richard, almost from the first time I’d seen him. But he was right on one thing. We couldn’t keep doing this. I wouldn’t keep doing this. It was over. It had to be over. He hated what he was, and now he hated what I was. He said he wanted someone that he wouldn’t have to worry about hurting, and he did want that, but he also wanted someone human, ordinary. He couldn’t have both, but that didn’t keep him from wanting both. I couldn’t be ordinary, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever been human. I couldn’t be what Richard wanted me to be, and he couldn’t stop wanting it. Richard was a riddle with no answer, and I was tired of playing a game I couldn’t win.

  39

  I SLEPT LIKE I was drugged, heavy, with harsh, fragmented dreams, or nothingness. I don’t know when I would have woken, but someone was licking my cheek. If they’d shaken me or called my name, I might have been able to ignore it, but someone was licking my cheek in long languorous movements that I couldn’t ignore.

  I opened my eyes and found Cherry’s face so close I couldn’t focus on it. She moved back just enough so I wouldn’t feel cross-eyed looking at her, then said, “You were having a nightmare. I thought we should wake you.”

  Her voice was neutral, her face blank, cheerful in an anonymous sort of way. It was her nurse face, cheerful, comforting, telling you nothing. The fact that she was naked, lying on her side, propped up on one elbow so that her body showed in one long line didn’t seem to distract from her professionalism. I could never pull that off naked. No matter what else was happening I was always aware that I didn’t have clothes on.

  “I don’t remember what I was dreaming,” I said. I raised a hand to smooth the wetness along my cheek.

  “You taste salty from all the crying,” she said.

  The bed moved, and Zane peeked around my other shoulder. “Can I lick the other cheek?”

  It made me laugh, and that was almost miracle enough to let him do it, almost. I sat up and instantly regretted it. My whole body felt stiff and abused, aching, as if I’d been beaten. Hell, I’d felt better after some of the beatings I’d taken over the years. I hugged the blanket to me, partially to cover my nakedness, partially because I was cold.

  I leaned against the head of the bed, frowning. “You said nightmare. What time is it?”

  “About five,” Cherry said. “I could say daymare, if you like, but either way, you were—” she hesitated—“whimpering in your sleep.”

  I hugged the blanket tighter. “I don’t remember.”

  She sat up, patting my knee under the blanket. “Are you hungry?”

  I shook my head.

  She and Zane exchanged one of those looks that say just how worried about you people are. It made me angry.

  “Look, I’m okay.”

  They both looked at me.

  I frowned at them. “I’ll be okay, alright.”

  They didn’t look convinced.

  “I need to get dressed.”

  They both just lay there staring at me.

  “Which means get out and give me some space.”

  They exchanged another of those looks, which bugged me, but at a nod from Cherry, they both got up off the bed and went for the door. “And put some clothes on,” I said.

  “If it’ll make you feel better,” Cherry said.

  “It will,” I said.

  Zane gave a little salute. “Your wish is our command.”

  That was actually a little too close to the truth, but I let it go. When they were gone, I picked out some clothes, some weapons, and made it to the bathroom without seeing anyone. I wouldn’t have put it past Cherry to make sure I had a clear shot to the bathroom. They were managing me, but this morning, make that afternoon, I didn’t care enough to complain.

  I was as quick in the bathroom as I could be, and for some reason I didn’t like looking in the mirror. I was trying not to think, and seeing my eyes staring back at me like those of a shock victim made it hard not to think about why I looked so pale, so shell-shocked.

  I put on my usual black undies and matching bra. It was getting to the point where I didn’t own a white bra. Jean-Claude’s fault. Black jogging socks, black jeans, black polo shirt, shoulder rig, complete with Browning Hi-Power, the Firestar in its interpants holster in front almost lost against the black shirt. I even added the wrist sheaths and the two silver knives. I didn’t need this much firepower for walking around the house, especially with so many shapeshifters running around, but I was feeling shaky, as if my world was less solid today than yesterday. I’d always thought that Richard and I would work something out. I wasn’t sure what, but something. Now, I didn’t believe that. We weren’t going to work anything out. We weren’t going to be anything, except the bare miniumum to each other. I wasn’t even sure his invitation to be Bolverk was still on the table. I hoped so. I could lose him as my lover, but I couldn’t let him send the pack to rack and ruin. If he didn’t cooperate, I wasn’t sure how I was going to stop it, but that was a problem for another day. Today my goal was just to survive, just to get through the day. I huddled my weapons around me like comfort objects. If I’d been alone in the house, or if it had just been Nathaniel, I would have carried Sigmund, my stuffed toy penguin, around with me. That was how bad a day it was.

  I did have a moment when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in my bedroom where I stopped and had to smile. I looked like I was dressed in casual assassin chic. I’d teased some of my friends who were assassins or bounty hunters about assassin chic, but sometimes you gotta go with the stereotypes. Besides, I look great in black. The black-on-black look made my skin look almost translucent, like it should have glowed. My eyes were swimmingly dark. I looked almost ethereal, like a wingless angel on a bad day. Alright, maybe a fallen angel, but the effect was still striking. I’d learned long ago that if you’re feeling unloved by the man in your life, the best revenge is to look good. If I’d really wanted to follow the strategy completely, I’d have put on makeup, but screw that. I was still on vacation. I didn’t wear makeup on vacation.

  There was a crowd in the kitchen. The order for everyone to wear clothes had been taken to heart. Cherry had on cutoff jean shorts and a white men’s shirt with the sleeves torn off, so that little bits of thread decorated the arm holes. She’d tied the ends of the shirt so her stomach showed as she moved around the kitchen. Zane’s gaze followed her wherever she moved. I wasn’t sure how Cherry felt about him, but Zane was beginning to act like a man in love, or at least very serious lust. He sat at the table wearing the leather pants he’d taken off last night, ignoring his coffee and watching Cherry.

  Caleb leaned against the counter in his jeans, with the top button unbuttoned so that his belly-button ring showed. He sipped coffee and watched Zane watch Cherry with an odd look on his face. I couldn’t decipher it, but I didn’t like it, as if he were trying to think how to cause trouble between them. Caleb struck me as one of those who liked to cause trouble.

  Nathaniel was sitting at the table, his long hair in a braid down his back, chest bare, but I knew without checking that he’d have something on. He knew me well enough to know I liked my houseguests clothed.

  Igor and Claudia stood when I came into the room. His tattoos were even more striking in the full light of day. They graced his arms, what I could see of his chest through the white tank top, and the sides of his neck, like liquid jewels, brilliant, eye-catching. Even from a distance they were beautiful against his pale skin. I wasn’t much into tattoos but I couldn’t picture Igor without them—the look just worked for him. He’d pu
t on the shoulder rig, and it still looked like it should chaff with the tank top, but, hey, it wasn’t my skin. The Glock sat under his arm, a black spot on all that pretty color, like an imperfection on a Picasso.

  Claudia looked positively ordinary beside him—if a woman that was so damn close to seven feet and muscled better than most men could look ordinary. The gun at the small of her back wasn’t nearly as noticeable as Igor’s. Her black hair was still pulled back in a tight ponytail, leaving her face clean and empty, and that included her eyes. Claudia had cop eyes, or bad-guy eyes, the eyes of someone who doesn’t let you see what’s inside. I didn’t meet many women with eyes like that, outside of the police. If her face had been a little softer, she’d have been beautiful. But there was something in the set of her jaw, the way she held that full mouth that said, back off, no touching. It robbed her of something that would have changed everything about her.

  The two of them came to take up posts to either side and a little behind me. I would have protested, but I’d discovered last night that it didn’t do much good. They took orders from Rafael, not me. He’d said, “Keep her safe,” and that was what they were going to do. I was too . . . whatever the hell I was to waste energy on telling them to back off. They could follow me around if it made them feel better. This afternoon I just didn’t care.

  Merle was standing in the corner of the cabinets, near enough to the coffeemaker that Igor crowded him while I poured my coffee. I didn’t know who had made a fresh pot, and I didn’t care; just the sight and smell of it made me feel better.

  Merle was wearing the cowboy boots, jeans, and jean jacket over bare chest that he’d had on last night. He was sipping coffee out of one of the few plain mugs I owned. The scar on his chest was very white, ragged, pitted in one spot as if that had been the deepest part of the wound. It did look like lightning carved into his chest and stomach. I wanted to ask what had happened, but there was a look to his eyes as he watched the kitchen that said he probably wouldn’t tell me, and he’d definitely see it as intrusive. None of my business anyway.