She snarled at him, at me, at everyone. Her fangs were ivory-white, and at less than ten feet, impressive as hell. This close, even a real leopard might have gotten to me before I could fire a killing shot. You aren't supposed to hunt big game with a handgun.
The leopard took another belly crawl forward. "Elizabeth." That one word flung outward burned along my skin and made me gasp. The leopard came up short like she'd hit the end of her leash. She rolled on the floor, struggling, slashing the air.
"She hates you, Anita," Padma said. His voice was normal now, conversational, but whatever he was doing to the wereleopard was still happening. I could feel it like ants marching down my skin. Ants with red hot pokers in their little hands.
I glanced at Jean-Claude, wondering if he could feel it. His face was blank, empty, unreadable. If he felt the pain, it didn't show.
I wasn't sure admitting I could feel it was a good idea. "Stop it," I said.
"She would kill you if I let her. You killed the one she loved, their leader. She would have her revenge."
"You've made your point. Let her go."
"Mercy for one who hates you so?" He glided into the room, slippered feet barely touching the floor, as if he rode always on tiny currents of his own power.
I should have been sensing his vampire powers. But he was almost a blank, as if something was keeping him in check or protecting me. I glanced at Jean-Claude again. Was he powerful enough to keep us safe now? Had the triumvirate helped him that much? His face told me nothing, and I didn't dare ask, not in front of the Master of Beasts.
The leopard lay on its side, panting heavily. It watched me with pale green eyes, and it was not a friendly look.
"When I called them," Padma said, "she tried to bargain with me. They have no alpha and yet she tried to bargain. Elizabeth would bring the leopards without a struggle to do with as I like, if I would let her kill you. Help her kill you." The Beast Master motioned behind him, and a small, slender woman stepped up beside him, like she'd been waiting in the hallway for his call. Like a well-trained dog. She was nude except for a necklace that must have weighed five pounds and burned with diamonds. Her skin was that pale shade of dark that says African-American via Ireland. Bruises decorated her face, running in purple stains down her body. She was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen, even with the bruises. She was perfectly proportioned from forehead to slender feet. Her eyes were brown and flicked from the leopard on the floor to Jean-Claude to the rat-man. Back and forth, back and forth, until finally she settled on me.
She pleaded with her eyes, and I didn't need words to know that she was saying, Help me. That I understood, but why me?
"When Elizabeth came, she brought the others with her. I chose Vivian as my present to myself." Padma stroked her hair absently, the way you'd pet a dog. "I will give her a gift for every harm I do her. She will be rich, if she survives."
The air around her trembled like the wash of heat off a summer road. Another wereleopard that I'd never met. How many of them were there? How many people had Elizabeth delivered over to the bad guys?
"What is this, a father-son rape outing?" I asked.
Padma frowned at me. "I grow tired of you, Anita Blake."
"It's mutual," I said.
"We forced the Traveler out of his host body, but his power still shields you. He was to keep you from sensing your vampires' distress. Now he seems to be protecting you from the full rush of my powers. A pity. You would tremble at the feel of them."
Jean-Claude touched my shoulder lightly. The touch was enough. I wasn't here to trade clever repartee with the Master of Beasts. Killing him sounded like a really good idea, but I've met older vamps that you couldn't take out with silver bullets. It would be just my luck that Padma was one of them.
Padma called the leopards to him. The yellow one rolled around his ankles like a big kitty-cat. Elizabeth sat like a well-trained dog.
Willie and Hannah were oblivious to the room. He touched her gently, as if she were glass. They kissed, and that one chaste touch of lips said it all, tenderness, love. Willie and Hannah were just plain gone on each other. It was beautiful.
"You see why I gave her to my son. Such anguish her abuse would have caused them both. But the Traveler needed their bodies."
I stared at him. It was bad enough when I thought the choice was just because Hannah was blond and lovely, but to know it was deliberate cruelty and not just lust -- that made it worse.
"You son of a bitch," I said.
"Are you trying to make me angry?" Padma said.
Jean-Claude touched me again. "Anita, please."
He rarely used my real name. When he did, it was either very serious or something I wouldn't like. This time it was both.
I don't know what I was about to say, because suddenly the Traveler lifted his shield. Padma's power crashed over us. It thundered over me, filling my head, scrambling every thought I had. I fell to my knees like I'd been hit by a hammer between the eyes.
Jean-Claude stayed standing, but I felt him sway beside me.
Padma laughed. "He cannot re-enter another host and maintain his shield."
A voice came like a wind easing through the room. I wasn't sure if I heard the voice out loud or if it was just in my head. "He will need his powers in the hallway. I chose to lift the shield. Enough games, Padma. Let him see what lies beyond." There was a scent with the words; fresh turned earth, the smell of roots pulled from the ground. I could almost feel the crumble of rich black soil between my hands. I squeezed my hands around the Browning until they shook, and I still couldn't shake the sense of earth between my hands on the gun. Even staring at the gun, seeing it was clean, didn't make it go away.
"What's happening?" I asked. Surprised and pleased that I could form a coherent sentence.
"They are council," Jean-Claude said. "They have taken off, how would you say, the gloves?"
"Shit," I said.
Padma laughed. He stared at me, and I knew he was concentrating just for little ol' me. His power slammed over me, into me. It was halfway between putting your hand on a live electric wire and shoving the same hand into fire. The electric heat ate through my body. The heat gathered in the center of me. It flexed like a fist growing larger, larger. If he spread his fingers inside me, he'd tear me apart, burst me from the inside out with just his power. I screamed.
16
A cool touch slid over the heat. A wind, cool and easeful as death, swept over my body. The wind blew my hair back from my face. Blessed coolness filled me. Jean-Claude's hands caressed my shoulders. He was kneeling on the floor, cradling me in his arms. I didn't remember falling. His skin was cool to the touch. I knew that somehow he was throwing his hard-won warmth away. His warmth to cool the fire.
That awful pressure inside of me eased, then shrank. It was like Jean-Claude was a wind blowing out Padma's fire. But it cost him. I felt his heart slow. The blood in his veins flowed slow and slower. The warmth that mimicked life was leaving him, and death seeped inside to fill its place.
I turned in his arms so I could see his face. The face was pale and perfect, and you'd never have known, just by watching, what it had cost him to save me.
Hannah turned to us, her battered face set in calm lines. "My apologies, Jean-Claude. My compatriot has let your servant's defiance best his judgment."
Willie stepped away from Hannah, shaking his head. "Damn you, damn you."
Hannah's grey eyes turned to him, angry. "Do not tempt me, little one. You cannot trade insults with me and survive."
"Willie," Jean-Claude said. There was no power to the word, just a warning. It was enough. Willie stepped back.
Jean-Claude looked at the Traveler in his new body. "If he had killed Anita, I might have died with her. Is that why you have truly come? To kill us?"
"I swear it is not." Where he'd made Willie glide, Hannah was awkward on her stiletto heels. He didn't fall, but he didn't glide either. It was almost heartening. He wasn't perfect.
>
"To prove my sincerity," he said, "take your warmth back from your servant. We will not stop you."
"He thrust me out," Padma said. "How can you allow him to grow strong again?"
"You sound afraid," the Traveler said.
"I do not fear him," Padma said.
"Then let him feed."
I leaned into Jean-Claude's chest, resting my cheek against the mound of silken ruffles on the front of his shirt. His heart had stopped beating. He wasn't even breathing. He'd used too much of himself up.
I watched Padma from the safety of Jean-Claude's arms and knew I would kill him. I knew that Padma wanted us dead. I'd felt it. No one as powerful as he lost control that badly. He'd nearly killed me, us, and it would all have been a tragic accident. Bullshit.
The Browning lay where I'd dropped it, but I'd tasted Padma's power now. Silver might not be enough to kill him. Wounding him seemed like a really bad idea. Kill or leave him the hell alone, like any big predator. Don't fuck with it unless you can finish the job.
"Feed from your servant," Padma said. "I will not stop you. The Traveler has spoken." That last held a touch of bitterness. Council member or not, Padma feared the Traveler, or he'd have fought him more. Compatriots but not equals.
I knelt, gripping Jean-Claude's arms through the rough lace and the glittering material of his jacket. His arms felt reassuringly solid, real. "What ... "
He stopped me with fingers on my lips, a delicate touch. "It is not blood that I need, Padma. It is her warmth. It is only a lesser master that must take blood from his servants."
Padma's face had gone empty, blank. "You have not lost your knack of insulting without being insulting, Jean-Claude."
I stared up at Jean-Claude, even kneeling he was taller. His voice eased through my mind. "No questions, ma petite, or they will know you are not wholly mine."
Since I had a lot of questions, that pretty much sucked. But if I couldn't ask direct questions, there were other ways. "Does the Beast Master have to sink fang to jump-start his heart?"
"Oui, ma petite."
"How ... vulgar," I said. It was one of the most civilized insults I'd ever come up with. It worked, too.
Padma hissed at us. "Do not test my patience too far, Jean-Claude. The Traveler is not the head of the council. You have enough enemies here now that a vote might not go your way. Press me too hard and I will force a vote."
"Force a vote to what end?" Jean-Claude asked. "The Traveler has promised that you are not here to kill me. What else would you vote upon, Master of Beasts."
"Get on with it, Jean-Claude." Padma's voice was low with a sound that was almost a growl. It sounded more animal than vampire.
Jean-Claude touched my face gently, turning me to look at him. "Let us show the Master of Beasts how it is done, ma petite."
I didn't really like the sound of that. But I knew one thing for certain, Jean-Claude needed his strength back. He'd never be able to repeat the trick of thrusting out a council member when he was so cold, so drained.
"Do it," I said. I had to trust him. Trust him not to hurt me. Trust him not to do something awful or embarrassing. I realized that I didn't trust him. That no matter how much I loved his body, I knew he was other. I knew that what he thought of as okay was not necessarily okay at all.
He smiled. "I will bathe in your warmth, ma petite. Roll you around me until my heart beats only for you. My breath will grow warm from your kiss." He cupped my face between the chilled skin of his hands and kissed me.
His lips were velvet, his touch light, caressing. His hands slid up the sides of my face, fingers gliding through my hair next to the scalp, kneading, massaging. He kissed my forehead and shuddered.
I tried to kiss him again, and he drew back. "Remember, ma petite, if any of your fair body touches mine too much, it will deaden. Do not be so eager to lose the sweet sensation of your lips for the night."
I went very still in his arms, thinking about what he'd just said. Bodies touching, bare skin needed, maybe? But if any part touched too long or too forcefully, my skin would deaden, but only for the night. Jean-Claude was really very good at giving information without seeming to. Made me wonder how often he'd had to do it in the past.
He slipped the coat off my shoulders until it hung nearly to my waist. He ran his hands over my skin, kneading his fingers into me. His hands were warm. He slid his hands over the coat, gripping my arms through it, but no bare skin. He kissed my throat butterfly light, his face rubbing up my neck, my cheek.
He drew back from me with a quick rush of breath. I put my hand over his heart, and there was nothing. I caressed his face, touching the big pulse in his throat. Nothing. I wanted to ask what we were doing wrong, but didn't dare. Didn't want the bad guys to know we didn't do things like this much. Sex we did, the otherworldly vampire shit we skipped if I could manage it.
He started unbuttoning his shirt.
I looked at him, eyes a little wide.
He bared a circle of his stomach.
I just looked at that glimpse of pale skin. "What?" I asked.
"Touch me, ma petite."
I glanced at the watching vampires. I shook my head. "No foreplay in front of the bad guys."
"I could simply take blood, if you would prefer," he said softly. He said it as if we did it every night. We'd done it twice voluntarily on my part. Once had been to save his life. The second time had been to save him and Richard. I did not want to donate blood. Sometimes I thought bloodletting was more intimate than sex to a vampire. I didn't want to do that in front of company either.
I stared up at him, getting angry. He was asking me to do very intimate things in front of strangers. I didn't like it, and he knew I wouldn't like it. So why hadn't he warned me? Had he really not thought we'd have to do this tonight?
"She is angry with you," Padma said. "Is she truly that modest?" He sounded doubtful. "Could it be that you cannot truly do what you say you can do?"
Hannah's body stood legs apart balancing on the unfamiliar high heels. "Are you as weak as Padma? Just another bloodsucker?" The Traveler shook his head, Hannah's hair sliding across the shoulders of her ruined dress. "What else have you been bluffing about, Jean-Claude?"
"Damn you all to hell," I said. I slid my hands inside Jean-Claude's shirt, fingers sliding over his stomach. He was cold to the touch. Dammit. I pulled his shirt out of his pants, none too gently, and ran my hands over his skin. I kneaded my fingers along the muscles of his back, and could feel heat rise up my throat into my face. Under other circumstances, in the privacy of a bedroom, it had possibilities. Now, it was just embarrassing.
He drew my arms out. "Careful, ma petite, or your hands will grow cold."
My fingertips were cold as if I'd been outside without gloves. I stared up at him for a second or two. "If I can't touch you with my hands, what do you suggest I use?"
Padma suggested something explicit enough to make me point a finger at him. "You stay out of this."
He laughed at me. "She is truly embarrassed. How terribly precious. Asher said she was a virgin before you. I did not believe him, until now."
I let my head drop to my chest. I was not going to say it. I did not owe the vampire council a rundown on my love life.
Jean-Claude's hand moved into view. He never touched me, but just the movement of his hand brought my face up to meet his gaze. "I would not ask this of you here and now, if it were not necessary. You must believe that."
Looking into his blue, blue eyes, I did believe him. Stupid, but true. "What do you want me to do?"
He raised his fingers and put them just above my lips, so close that if I breathed in, he'd have had to touch me. "Use your lovely mouth over my heart. If our bond is as strong as I believe it to be, there are shortcuts, ma petite."
I sighed and pulled his shirt up, baring his chest. In private I loved running my tongue over the cross-shaped burn scar on his chest. But this wasn't private. Hell with it.
I laid my lips against t
he cool skin of his stomach, and licked a quick, wet line up his chest.
He drew in a sharp hiss of breath. How could he be breathing and not have a heartbeat? No answer to that, but I'd seen it before. Vampires that breathed but did not have a pulse.
I ran my tongue over the smoothness of the cross-shaped burn scar, ending with a kiss over his heart. I felt my lips grow cold. It wasn't the tingling cold of winter, though. It was just as he'd said. His body stealing my warmth. My life seeping away into him.
I knelt back away from him, licking my lips, trying to feel them. "How's that?"
He laughed, and the sound slid down my back like an ice cube, rubbed purposefully and long to the base of my spine.
I shuddered. "You're feeling better."
He lifted me suddenly, hands on my thighs. I let out a surprised yip, putting my hands on his shoulders for balance. He wrapped his arms around my legs and stared up at me. The pupil in his eyes had bled away to a shining blue fire.
I felt his heartbeat in my throat. His pulse raced through my body. He let me slide slowly through his arms. "Kiss me, ma petite, as we are meant to kiss. I am warm and safe to touch."
"Warm but never safe," I said. I started to kiss him when I was inches above his forehead and continued the kiss as I slid down his body. He kissed me like he would eat me from the mouth down. Fangs pressed hard and sharp, and he had to draw away or draw blood. The kiss left me breathless, tingling, but not with cold.
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