Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #16 - Blood Noir (31 page)

I was at the end of the bed, one leg half off the edge, when I froze, staring at what lay on the floor.

A second weretiger, still in tigerman form, was curled on his side. His fur was red and black stripes. The sight of him brought a flash of memory like a broken picture. I remembered being above him, straddling him, his claws in my back. Not a fight, but sex. For the life of me I couldn’t remember him in human form. I couldn’t remember how, or when, he joined us. Oh, my God. Fear ran over my skin in a cold wash. What had I done? What had the
ardeur
done to me? Shit, shit, shit.

Weapons, then call Jean-Claude. Someone had to know what the hell was happening. Didn’t they?

I angled to the corner of the bed, where I’d touch Jason’s furred legs. I knew enough about lycanthropes to know that being in tiger form meant the red tiger would not be waking anytime soon, but I had the horror-movie image in my head of me stepping off the bed and him grabbing my ankle. I knew better, but still I couldn’t make myself step close to his clawed hands. I climbed over Jason’s unresisting legs rather than risk that imaginary grab. God, I needed Jason to shift and get closer to waking. I did not want Crispin to wake first and be the only one awake with me. I was finally on the floor; yea! I hadn’t woken either of the weretigers; double yea! I stood there a moment in the hush of the hotel room, only the sounds of the men’s breathing deep and even competing with the air conditioning. I enjoyed simply not being on the bed with them. I felt a little less trapped.

Standing, I ached more, as if bruises and cuts had been waiting to tell me they were there. I ignored them as best I could while I scanned the floor for weapons. The floor looked like a clothing store had put up a fight and lost. I saw the remnants of Jason’s blue shirt tangled with a man’s white dress shirt. Jeans lay beside dress slacks. A man’s suit jacket lay whole and untouched near the doors, as if when the red tiger hit the door he had immediately taken off his jacket. It had to be his, unless another man was hiding in the room somewhere. I really wished I hadn’t thought of that. I pushed the thought away and concentrated. One problem at a time. Finally, in a tangle of my shirt and jeans I glimpsed my shoulder holster, which file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

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meant the Browning couldn’t be far behind. I walked toward it, and it hurt to walk, as in I had to fight not to limp or put a hand over my stomach as I moved. Fuck. Something was wrong with my back, too, as if some muscle or other was hurt.

Kneeling was an experience in controlled movement and not reacting to everything that hurt. I knelt on carpet that was stiff with dried fluids, and tried not to think too hard about what some of those fluids might be. I remembered now that this was where I lost most of my clothes. I checked the Browning to make sure it was still loaded as the memories washed over me. Crispin and Jason and I on the floor. There’d been no more fighting. Whatever the fight had been about, they’d shared me just fine. Oh, God.

I remembered sex with the weretiger here and on the bed. Jason had lost human form here during sex, too, but I also remembered sex on the bed with him. Dear, God, what in hell had gone wrong with the
ardeur
?

With the gun in my hand I felt a little better, a little more myself, but I had still woken up in a hotel room with three men, two of them strangers, and apparently we’d had sex. Lots of sex, and I could remember only bits and pieces of it. That had never happened before with the
ardeur
. I was supposed to be gaining control over it. I looked at the wreck of the carpet and finally back at the bed and the men there. This was
so
not gaining control of anything. No, this was definitely losing control. I was digging through the clothes trying to find my cross when there was a sound from the bed. It froze me; I held my breath like an idiot. All wereanimals could hear a heartbeat, and there was no way to hold that.

The sound wasn’t repeated, so I went back to searching and found my cross. The chain had been snapped. Damn. I gripped it in my hand and that was a little better. I felt that prickling energy of lycanthropy, like a wash of electricity across my skin. I turned to the bed, gun pointed. No one moved, but one minute Jason was all movie wolfman and the next his wolf body was melting away and his human body rising up through the receding fur like an island rising from the ocean. The larger wolfman body melted back into the more compact human form. He was still probably a couple of hours or more from waking, but it was progress.

If it had been Micah, or Richard, or a few others, they wouldn’t have had to pass out for hours after the change, but Jason and apparently the two tigers weren’t powerful enough not to fall into the coma just before the shift and just after. Or…I lowered the gun, having thought of another awful possibility.

Had the massive
ardeur
feeding taken too much of their energy? It was possible to drain someone to death with the
ardeur
. Logically, I knew that if they died they would revert to human form. But fears like this have nothing to do with logic. I suddenly went from afraid of the two weretigers to wondering if I’d killed them. No, no I’d seen Crispin and Jason breathing. I’d heard it. But I hadn’t really looked that closely at the red tiger. I stared at him now, trying to see the rise and fall of his chest.

I actually held my breath trying to see that wide striped chest move. I thought for a heartbeat he was dead, and then his body moved with his breathing. I let out the breath I’d been holding in a long sigh.

The bed moved as someone shifted position. I knew who it had to be before Crispin rose up on his arms and blinked blue tiger eyes at me.

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I pointed the gun at him, two-handed, and the move was too fast. It pulled on the claw marks on my arm, and hurt like a son of a bitch. I held the pose, but had to fight my body to do it. I told him,

“Don’t move!”

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42

HE DIDN’T MOVE,
but he said, “Do you wake all your lovers up at gunpoint?” His voice seemed deeper than it had last night. He coughed to clear his throat. It made me jump, not good when holding a gun. I fought to calm my body. If I shot him, I wanted it to be on purpose, not because I flinched. But I was afraid to take my finger off the trigger, because he was a lycanthrope, and they were just that bloody fast.

“I remember you fighting with Jason and me,” I said, gun still pointed at him. He frowned. “Yeah, but the fight with your wolf was about you, being your mate. There was plenty of you to go around last night.”

“Thanks for the phrasing,” I said.

He smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend a woman holding a gun on me. But my point is that there’s no reason to fight when you share yourself so well. Besides, I got to go first.” The smile filled his eyes with a dark light. Not otherworldly, just a man looking at a naked woman whom he’s fucked. That possessive, sure-we’ll-get-to-do-it-again look. Crispin hadn’t earned that look, not yet. My wounded arm was beginning to try to twitch. I fought to keep my aim steady. How badly was I hurt?

“If you’re not going to shoot me, may I get up and use the bathroom?”

“You don’t believe I’ll shoot you, do you?”

“I don’t remember everything from last night, which means I’ve been rolled. You rolled my mind just like any other vampire. Not that I’m complaining, the sex was mind-blowing, but you did mind fuck me. Legally, it’s rape. You raped me, not the other way around, Anita. I mean, I would have said yes, but a man likes to be asked. I should be the angry one, not you.”

I wanted to argue with his logic, but couldn’t. I did the one thing I could do: I lowered the gun. My arm was going to make me do it soon anyway.

“Does this mean it’s safe to go to the bathroom?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Great.” He got up, and it was interesting to see him moving a little stiffly, too. When the sex has been rough enough for the lycanthropes to be sore, us humans are going to be hurt. There were scratches on his back, and they didn’t look like claw marks. Had I done that? And if I had, why hadn’t they healed when he shifted back? Only damage by silver or another lycanthrope could survive the shift of forms for the most part. So why would my nail marks still be on his body?

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I pushed the thought away. I’d worry about it later. I had way more immediate problems to worry about. What had Crispin said? That I’d mind-fucked him just like any other vampire. Had I done that? Had the
ardeur
done that?

Water started running in the bathroom.

I needed Jean-Claude. I reached out to him down that long metaphysical cord that bound us and found…nothing. I could not sense him. It was like some huge, white blankness where he should have been for me.

Fear came back in a rush of near panic. I started shivering and couldn’t stop. I fought the urge to scream at Jason to wake up and tell me if he could sense Jean-Claude. Was it just me, or was something wrong with Jean-Claude? I had a cell phone once. Where was it? When metaphysics fails, you can always try technology.

I started digging through the ruined clothes with the one empty hand I had. Where the hell would the cell phone be? Had I had it with me last night? Or was it in the luggage still? I couldn’t remember. Damn it, what was wrong with me?

The water stopped running in the bathroom. Crispin opened the door and came out. “Did you lose something?”

Just my mind
, I thought. Out loud I said, “My cell phone.”

He frowned, thinking. “I remember weapons, but not a phone.”

“I thought you didn’t remember last night.”

“I remember parts, so you’re right, maybe there was a phone. I’ll help you look for it.” He came to kneel by me. It was too close after last night, and we were both too nude for comfort, but I needed the help. Was it silly not to want to be this close to him naked? Silly or not, it made me uncomfortable. Did he really think I’d rolled him on purpose? Did he really think I’d done the equivalent of metaphysical rape? He’d said it, but he didn’t seem that upset by it. I’d threatened to kill people for less; hell, I
had
killed people for less.

“You know, you could look more effectively if you had both hands free,” Crispin said.

“The gun makes me feel better,” I said.

“And the cross in the same hand?” he asked.

“The chain broke.”

He stopped rummaging through the clothes to look thoughtful again. “You jerked it off and threw it away.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

He shrugged, then winced. “You did it.” Then he looked at me a little harder. Those strange blue eyes studied me. “You don’t remember everything, do you?”

I debated on what to admit, but finally went for the truth. “I remember it breaking, but not who did it.”

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“You did it, and that charm of yours, too.”

“Charm,” I said, “what charm?”

He looked at my face like he was trying to see through me, then finally said, “This charm.” He held his left arm out to me. At first I didn’t understand, and then I saw the burn in his arm. It was a circle with an animal in the middle of it, done a little soft the way brands get most of the time. I peered at it, getting closer to the skin of his arm. I thought at first it was Cerberus, the dog that guarded Hades in Greek myth, but the animal had five heads. Cerberus only had three. Then I saw, or thought I saw, stripes on the animal. It was a tiger, a tiger with five heads. He’d said it was my charm that had done it. I stared at the mark on his arm and didn’t know what he was talking about. I reached out toward the brand, stopping just short of touching it. Something stirred in my mind. Was it a memory? Was he right? Had I done this?

I tried to remember. Tried to bring that nebulous thought to the front of my head, but it was like this darkness. There was nothing there to remember. Crispin was a stranger to me. Was he lying? I needed Jason to wake up. I needed someone I knew and trusted. Shit. Something was wrong with me. That much I knew. But I didn’t know what was wrong, or why I couldn’t figure anything out. It was…wrong, too. The fact that I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. That was a clue. I knew it was, but it was as if my brain wouldn’t, or couldn’t, make sense of it. Crispin growled low in his bare chest. “I smell wolves.”

A second later I felt the energy of them coming down the hallway, but I knew the taste of this energy. I reached out, and could suddenly smell forest, the rich earth of leaves, and the comfort of pine. I had a tactile moment of paws on the leaves and earth of the forest floor. I smelled the harsh, sweet musk of wolf, so thick that it tightened things low in my body, in a good way. Only one werewolf could make me react like that. But it couldn’t be him. He would never have risked coming here with other wolves. He would never have risked this much potential media. He was in deep cover, our Ulfric, and coming here like this was not the way to stay hidden. But impossibly, I felt him out there in the hall, felt him move closer, and knew that there were at least two other wolves with him. Our wolves, our pack.

Crispin was on his feet, his otherworldly energy swirling off of him like invisible fire. It was way more power than he’d had last night. Had he hidden it? Was I that bad at tiger energy? Shit. I stood up, a little slower, gun in hand. “It’s my Ulfric and my pack.”

“What are they doing here?” he growled from human lips. Once I’d thought growling voices from human mouths was strange. Now it was so low on my weird list, I didn’t blink.