The rat started to ease into the light, and the leopard followed it as if it were hunting. One great black shape hunting the smaller and then the next moment the rat was huge, as big as the leopard.
I blinked and tore my attention away from inside me to the room and found that Rafael had moved beside me. It was like being plugged into a wall socket—a jolt of energy that shot through me to the rat inside. So much power it almost hurt, and just like that the rat jumped the leopard hard enough that it staggered me. Rafael grabbed my arm to help steady me, but the rat got bigger and the beasts were tearing me up.
I jerked away from him, and Nathaniel was there, holding me. The moment he did the panther roared inside me and the rat was getting the worst of it, but they were still tearing me up inside. I knew the damage wasn’t literal, I knew they weren’t tearing up internal organs, it just felt like it.
I didn’t need to see Rafael to know he was kneeling with us and the rat grew again, sending the leopard rolling. Nathaniel rolled himself around me, and the leopard fought back, but I needed it to stop.
“Rafael, back off!” I yelled.
“What’s happening?” Micah asked.
“I can feel the rat inside her now,” Rafael said, and he didn’t sound upset about causing me pain, more like he felt wonderment as if something about it felt good.
Nathaniel said, “It’s not supposed to work this way.” His voice sounded like he hurt, too. They should have both been hurting; that was part of what a moitié bête could do, take some of your pain.
“I’m a king,” Rafael said, as if that made sense of it all.
“You’re not her king, I am,” Micah said, and he touched my face, still standing above us all. His leopard rose in a wave of warmth and power that went directly from the skin of his hand to where he touched my face. His leopard poured down into that darkness and pulled my leopard to it. He didn’t try to fight the rat, he just called my leopard like a black shadow to meet his, and there was no more room for anything else, especially not with Nathaniel beside us.
“Her eyes,” Claudia said.
Nathaniel’s skin ran warmer and he looked at me with the gray eyes of his leopard. He was the only shapeshifter I’d ever met whose natural eye color was more exotic than his beast’s.
Micah said, “Look at me.” Still on our knees, we looked up at him, and I knew that for the first time all three of us were looking at each other with leopard eyes.
13
WHEN THINGS HAD calmed down enough that my eyes weren’t the bright yellow of my leopard, I turned on Rafael. “What the fuck was that about?”
“I didn’t know your eyes could change like that,” Rafael said. He looked shaken and he had apologized, but it was too late for that, at least to me.
“It’s just started happening,” Micah said.
“What? Why, Rafael? Why did you keep pushing at it when you knew you were hurting me?” It was all I could do not to touch him physically, and I didn’t mean in a romantic way. I wanted to at least shove him, but I knew better. If I shoved him and he did anything aggressive at all, I’d do more. I wanted to do more. I was pissed, and I was about to risk life, limb, and maybe more with him as my closest animal to call. No one else would get to me in time if he pulled something like this again.
“The power, Anita, I’m so sorry, but the power was incredible. It felt so good and I could feel that there was more, that if we just touched more, the power between us would be even more.” He reached out as if to touch my hair, and I hissed at him like a cat does. That sort of scared me, so I just walked farther away from him.
“Could he bring her rat for real if we weren’t with her?” Nathaniel asked.
That stopped the fight. We all looked around at each other. Jean-Claude cut to the heart of it. “If ma petite is to choose a beast form at last, then we need to discover if she can choose which one it will be.”
“She might get more than one form like I did,” Micah said.
“We can’t take that chance,” Nathaniel said, shaking his head.
“What would be so wrong with her being a wererat?” Rafael asked.
“I thought you were our friend,” Nathaniel said.
“I am.”
“Then you know for our happiness she needs to be a wereleopard.”
“We all date between species here in St. Louis,” Rafael said.
“Don’t get cute, Rafael,” I said. “If I change, it needs to be leopard.”
“I will not argue the point, you are far better at relationships than I am, but I honestly did not know that your eyes had started to turn so easily.”
“It doesn’t happen all the time,” I said.
“But it’s happening more often,” Micah observed.
I nodded and agreed.
“Why was the connection so much stronger right off the bat?” I asked.
Nathaniel said, “Since Damian and I became a triumvirate with Anita, none of the other animals to call have a stronger connection than I do, until just now.”
“Has anyone else been a leader of their group?” Benito asked.
“Micah is,” Claudia said.
“No, Micah is not her moitié bête, he is her Nimir-raj; it is a different connection,” Jean-Claude said.
“How can he be her leopard king when she is not truly a wereleopard?” Rafael asked.
“Much of what ma petite does metaphysically is impossible, it is one mystery among many.”
“But Rafael is the first animal to call who ruled his animal group,” Micah said, and he drew me into the circle of his arms. I tried to let the lingering anger go and ease into it, but I couldn’t do it. I let him hold me, but I couldn’t relax against his body.
“Why should that matter this much?” Nathaniel asked.
“I don’t know,” Micah said.
I willed myself to melt into his arms, his body, and let go of the terrible tension and the ache in my gut from what my inner beasts had done. I had a thought that made the relaxing even harder.
“What do I do if this happens again tonight?”
“I was allowed one other wereleopard with me. We need to pick someone for you that isn’t a wererat,” Micah said.
“I’ll go,” Nathaniel said.
“No, Nathaniel, and you know why,” I said.
“I can’t fight well enough,” he said.
“It’s not your strong suit,” I said.
Micah kissed the side of my neck, and I snuggled in against the side of his face. We both reached for Nathaniel at the same time, and he came to us and wrapped his arms around us both. We held each other in a three-way hug, and the rising level of leopard was like some vibrating purr of energy. It felt so right. It felt like home. They were home. If any animal energy was home, this was it.
“Do you have any animals to call that can fight well enough to go in with you tonight?” Benito asked.
“It doesn’t matter, she is my queen, so only wererats can stay at her side,” Rafael said.
“You can feel some of this energy, I know you can,” I said. “Do you really want me to lose this with them tonight by accident?”
Rafael took in a big breath of air and let it out slow. “No, of course not.” But I didn’t have to be a full-on shapeshifter to know he’d just lied.
“You want her to be your queen for real,” Micah said, not accusing, just as a statement.
“After the power I just felt, who would not?”
“You son of a bitch,” I said, and started to go forward, but Micah and Nathaniel held me closer. I sank into the warm, vibrating energy, but the edge of my own anger started adding to it, and it wasn’t as relaxing.
“You didn’t want me to lie, and now you do not want the truth. What do you want from me, Anita?”
“King or no king, Rafael, don’t think you will ride roughshod over me now that y
ou’re my rat to call.”
“If I were a human or vampire servant, there would have been sacred words and an exchange of body fluids, but because I am only a beast, your power just called out to me and I answered, because I chose to answer; all your other beasts have been accidental or had no choice in the joining.”
“What’s your point, Rafael?” Micah asked.
“Anita’s power called me like you would call a dog, but I am king of the rodere and no one’s dog to call to heel.”
“We did this to keep you alive tonight, don’t make it about egos now,” I said.
“I am saying that your power may work the same on me, but I had to want the connection; perhaps that is not the only difference in our joining compared to all your other animals to call.”
Jean-Claude finally spoke from where he had been watching us all, and probably feeling the energy like a disinterested metaphysical observer. That he did that used to bug me, but I understood now that he couldn’t sense as much if he was tangled up in it sometimes. I wanted his insight more than I wanted him in our group hug.
“Ma petite will not go with you tonight if she cannot bring one of her other moitié bêtes with her.”
“You said this was the best way to stop the vampire that’s trying to take over the rats,” I said.
“It is,” he said.
“If they kill Rafael, they could possess us all,” Claudia said.
“They could turn us against all of you,” Benito said.
“We will find another way to defeat the vampire that is trying to test our powers,” Jean-Claude said, his face blank and empty of emotion.
“But you will have lost the rodere as your food and as your military arm,” Rafael said.
“If you win tonight, we lose nothing.”
“Weren’t you telling me all afternoon how dangerous a moitié bête could be?”
“You are one now as well, Rafael. You have extra powers even if ma petite is not beside you. We have done our part.”
“Please, Jean-Claude, don’t do this,” Claudia said.
“We do not beg the vampires for anything,” Rafael growled at her.
“If the vampire is there tonight and can call rats, then you being my beast half without me there with you isn’t going to be as strong as if I were a real vampire,” I reminded him.
“With you by my side, how much stronger would it be?”
“A lot,” Nathaniel and I said in unison.
“Let her bring one extra person with her,” Claudia said.
“It will undermine her claim as queen.”
“Not as much as her not being there at all,” Benito said.
Rafael looked at the two wererats. “You, too, Benito?”
“I don’t understand all the metaphysics, my king, but I know that changing her into one of us and losing the closeness I feel between her and the leopards is poor repayment for her risking her life for us tonight.”
“She risks her life to save all that Jean-Claude and Micah have built,” Rafael said.
“My king,” Benito said, and just that, but Rafael’s face softened out of that arrogant handsomeness that he hid behind sometimes, usually when he knew he wasn’t going to win an argument.
“I give you my word, Jean-Claude, Micah, Nathaniel, Anita, that I will not do anything tonight to call your rat above the others. I was drunk the way you can be when a power first manifests itself, but I am a king and I am better than that. I will not betray the trust you have in me.”
“How do I trust you with my gut still aching from what you did?” I asked.
“I have given you my word, Anita. In all the years we’ve known each other, have I ever broken my vow?”
I stared at him and finally said, “No, you haven’t.”
“Your word is good,” Micah said.
Nathaniel said, “Your word is good, but I felt your power and your force of will. I knew you were king, but I didn’t understand what that meant, until now.”
“All kings are powerful, or we would not be kings of our animal groups,” Rafael said.
Nathaniel shook his head, hard enough for his hair to fly around his face. “I don’t mean that. I mean I could literally feel your will, your willpower pressing on me when we were . . . inside Anita just now. Your strength of purpose is frightening, Rafael.”
“Is that a complaint or a compliment?” he asked.
“Neither, both.”
“I must go and change for the fight, and prepare myself mentally, so if you have a point, make it.” There was a touch of irritation, almost anger, which was unusual for him. Shit, I hoped he didn’t get any of my anger issues.
“Let Anita have one person with her like Micah did.”
“Claudia will stay with her.”
“Someone not rat.”
“I gave you my word.”
“I’m not worried about your honor; I’m worried about the energy of that many wererats in that close a proximity to Anita just after she’s made you her rat to call.”
“No one mentioned that was a problem before,” Rafael said.
“I hadn’t felt her rat be stronger than I’ve ever felt it inside her. Now I have.”
“What do you mean?” Micah asked.
“We’ve helped Anita stay human because we play her beasts off each other. One of us will let her smell our skin and different beasts, it’s kept her from choosing or changing form for real.”
“We know all that,” Rafael said, and again there was that note of impatience that wasn’t typical of him.
“When Anita goes to our pard, she has Micah and me with her. When she goes to the lupanar she has Richard with her, or sometimes it’s the leopards and the wolves together. She’s never had to walk into one of the big group meetings without one of us at her side.”
“Are you saying, mon minou, that she needs Rafael to stay near her tonight?”
“No, I know that’s not possible, but I do believe Anita needs at least one other beast with her so that she plays the energies off each other if she needs to.”
“None of the other beasts to call may come, it would undermine me almost as much as if one of her other kings came at her side.”
“Pierette can stay with Anita and Claudia.”
“No, no leopard, it will be seen as Micah’s token.”
“Not if you introduce her as a potential lover.”
“What is it with all of you pressuring me into a three-way?”
“Rafael has already turned it down, turned her down,” I said.
Nathaniel stared at the other man. His face said it all, astonished. Rafael actually looked uncomfortable and started explaining like a guy who thinks himself macho and cool and turned down something cooler-than-thou. “I’m sure she is lovely, but I have never had a woman suggest a three-way without it going terribly wrong.”
“I tried to convince him the offer was legit and not some deep-seated girl trick to see if he’d cheat on me, but in his defense one ex stabbed him and another burned his stuff over three-ways,” I said.
“You are dating the wrong people,” Nathaniel said.
“As I explained to Anita earlier, I have dated the wrong people for many years.”
“We’ve all been with Anita and Pierette, and nobody stabbed anyone or set anyone on fire,” Micah said, as if he couldn’t quite believe the last part.
Nathaniel literally waved his hand in the air as if erasing the whole thing, then said, “You don’t have to sleep with Pierette if you don’t want to, though why you wouldn’t want to—no, never mind. My point, Rafael, is just let Pierette be with Anita as her girlfriend and potentially yours. She can hang on both of you in sight of the crowd.”
“It will start the women fighting over me again.”
“But the other women aren’t Anita’s lover and Pierett
e is,” Nathaniel said.
“You mean the old idea that Rafael would be free to sleep with women that I’m already sleeping with, but no one else?”
“Yes, and taking her in there as both your guard and your girlfriend means that she can touch you. If you need to smell her leopard, she can put bare skin near your face, and it will look like flirting.”
“Mon minou, you have become devious.”
Nathaniel smiled. “I’ve always been devious; I was just really bad at it.”
“It is a way for Anita to have extra protection to fight her way through the crowd where you can’t help her, and energetic help to hold human shape after you go down to the pit,” Micah said.
“And no man’s reputation has ever been harmed by having two beautiful women on his arm,” Jean-Claude said.
“It depends on the man,” Rafael said, “but your point is made.” He looked at Claudia and Benito. “What do the two of you think?”
“I am relieved that Anita and Claudia would have an extra pair of blades with them,” Benito said.
“Pierette got an invitation from Fredo, too. She’s good with a blade and incredibly fast,” Claudia said.
“How is she empty hand?” Rafael asked.
“Still good,” Claudia said.
Rafael nodded. “All right, I agree.”
“Thank you for agreeing,” Nathaniel said.
“You have become far more determined than I remember you being, Nathaniel.”
“You remember the anger issues Richard had for so long that turned out to be Anita’s anger in him?”
“I remember, we were all relieved when she discovered how to take back her anger.”
“I think I’ve gained some of her resolve.”
“Anita is one of the most resolute people I know,” Rafael said.
“Yes, she is.”
The two men looked at each other for longer than seemed necessary, and then Rafael said, “I will have to watch you more closely from now on then, won’t I?”
“More like you should stop discounting me when you negotiate with us.”
“I do not discount you.”
Nathaniel gave a small smile. “It’s okay, most people do, or did.”
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