Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #16 - Blood Noir (36 page)

“Most of the lovers in my bed don’t ‘know me’ in every way, Richard. We have sex; that’s not a relationship.”

He shook his head. “I need to do what Jean-Claude wanted me to do, and then I can go back to St. Louis.”

“You’re leaving,” Jason said.

“I can’t be here with this much media. You both know that.”

I nodded. “I thought the same thing when you showed up.”

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“What did Jean-Claude want you to do?” Jason asked.

Richard pointed a finger at him. “No, I don’t need to hear from you right now. You are one of my lesser wolves, and you may have gotten my lupa pregnant. That’s a killing offense in most packs.”

“We had no choice, Richard,” I said.

He shook his head, sending the ponytail sweeping over his shoulders. “I don’t mean what happened here. I mean in St. Louis. I mean making love because you wanted to, not because you fed the
ardeur
.” He glared at us both, anger enough to burn in his eyes. “Don’t try to tell me that you take Jason to your bed only because he’s food. I bought that at first, Anita, but it happens too often.”

“You sound like you’ve been listening to Perdy,” I said.

“Perdita and I have had a few talks. She thought a little tit-for-tat might be interesting.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means,” Jason said, “that Perdy offered to have sex with him so they could have their revenge on us for cheating with each other.” Jason’s voice was empty when he said it, as if it hurt too much to share it even by tone of voice.

“I hadn’t had sex with Jason in months, Richard, not even for food. I took him off the roster when I realized it made Perdy so uncomfortable.”

He gave a harsh laugh, and again there was that slap of power, worse this time, like biting insects along my skin. He swallowed the power back, then said, “Uncomfortable? You broke her heart, the two of you.”

Jason and I exchanged a look. He shrugged. Oh good, he didn’t know what to say either. “Why would I lie to you about how often I’ve been sleeping with Jason, Richard? I have no reason to lie to you. We aren’t monogamous.”

“Thank you so much for reminding me of that.” His voice was harsh when he said it.

“You’re no more monogamous than I am, Richard. Don’t try to pretend you are.”

“I would be, if you would only…”

Shang-Da went down on one knee in front of Richard, sweeping his long black coat out, so that you got glimpses of some of the armament underneath. He held one big hand up toward Richard. Most of the animal groups had a version of this. It was a request for attention, and a show of subservience.

Richard looked down at him. “What is it, Shang-Da?”

“Perhaps now is not the time to air our personal matters in front of strangers from other animal groups and vampire kisses.” His voice was as empty as he could make it, but there was an edge of anger to it. That anger carried a thread of warmth that he couldn’t quite swallow. Jamil had moved closer to both of them, but it was clear he wasn’t sure what to do, or how our Ulfric would take the interruption. The very uncertainty of Jamil in that moment let me know that I needed to pay more attention to my duties as lupa. They were afraid of Richard. That had never file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

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happened before. I’d urged him to be a stronger king, but seeing it now, like this, made me regret. So much about Richard made me regret.

The phone rang. I jumped. God, who could it be?

Jason said, “It might be the hospital about my dad.” He looked at Richard, as if for permission. Richard nodded. It made me feel a little bit hopeful. He was still Richard, somewhere in there. Jason picked up the phone and said hello, then, “Just a minute, I’ll see if she’s available.” He held the phone against his chest. “It’s Peterson. He says he’ll answer your questions now. Do you know what he means?”

“Yeah.” I went for the phone.

“Who’s Peterson?” Richard asked.

“The head security guy for the Summerlands,” I said.

“And you’re going to take his call, now?”

“I need to know how much danger we’re all in. This call may tell us that.”

“And that’s more important than this?” Richard asked. His otherworldly energy grew a little hotter.

I kept walking for the phone; farther away from his power was better right now. I remembered another reason he and I had broken up. He never could understand that emotion, no matter how strong, shouldn’t make you forget the bad guys. “Just because the metaphysics has hit the fan, Richard, doesn’t make the other problems go away.”

“How can you do that, Anita?”

“Do what?” I was at Jason’s side now. All I had to do was reach out and take the phone, but I was afraid of what Richard would do.

“Concentrate on business, on bad guys, when you may be pregnant with someone else’s child?”

“And why can’t you concentrate on business in the middle of the crisis, Richard?”

His handsome face went angry, sullen. “Because I’m not a coldhearted bitch.”

That was it. I held out my hand to Jason. He gave me the phone, but his eyes stayed wary and focused on someone behind me. I was betting on who. As for me, I didn’t want to see Richard right now.

“Blake here.”

“This could lose me my job,” Peterson said.

“Then why tell me?”

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“Because Schuyler seems like a better person than Keith. I don’t want him dying for that little bastard.”

“Talk to me, Peterson.”

“Keith is hiding, even from us and his family. Last we heard he eloped to Vegas and married a vampire.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Yeah, but it’s not legal. He can still marry his fiancée, and his family is determined he go through with it, if we can find him.”

“So far, it’s a scandal but it won’t endanger Jason.”

“Ask me why it’s not legal.”

“Okay, why isn’t it legal?”

“The vampire bride is already married. She’s married to a Master of the City.”

I was quiet for a second, then said, “Seriously?”

“Deadly serious,” he said.

“No master would take that kind of insult.”

Jason looked at me, eyes a little wide; maybe it was my “master” comment, but truthfully he probably was picking up at least some of the other end of the conversation. He was standing that close, and his preternatural hearing was that good.

“The Master of the City in question has put a bounty out on Keith. He wants his wife alive and Keith dead. He’s sent people to do the job; we just don’t know who they are. Until you and Schuyler surfaced they were looking elsewhere for Keith, but if they think he’s trying to hide in plain sight…”

He let it trail off.

“They’ll come for us,” I said.

“Maybe.”

“Is Keith this stupid?”

“Yes, but she pressured him. It’s not an excuse, but she seemed to know him. Not him, but she seemed to know his great-great-whatever-grandfather, Jedediah. Something about him being the love of her life.”

“Didn’t Jedediah die by vampire attack, something about him either trying to convert the vampires to his faith or seducing the wrong vampire lady?”

“Those are the two versions,” Peterson said.

“Are you saying that Keith has gotten himself mixed up with the same vampires that killed Jedediah Summerland?”

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“Maybe.”

“Well, shit.”

“
Shit
about covers it,” he said.

“What Master of the City is it, Peterson?”

“No, I won’t tell you that.”

“I might be able to take care of both our problems.”

“No, we can’t let this go public, Blake. It will sink the governor’s chances of the nomination. We have to find Keith, and get the wife back to her husband as quietly as possible.”

“You don’t understand vampires; I do. The master won’t back down. There’s no quietly fixing this, Peterson. If his hired people don’t do the job, then he will. Your little bastard is a dead man.”

“No, Blake, my little bastard is too high-profile for the master to come after him personally.”

“He might not be thinking that clearly, Peterson.”

“I’ve told you all I can. If something happens, now you know.”

“I really do appreciate it, but let me help you. Tell me the name, or the city. I can do things you can’t.”

“Someone’s coming, I’ve got to go. Be careful, Blake.” He hung up. I turned to look at Jason. His face was a little pale, as if he’d heard just enough to understand how deep a hole Keith Summerland had dug for himself.

“Did you catch all that?”

“Enough.”

Alex Pinn said, “Keith Summerland is involved with vampires. Oh, man, this is too sweet.”

I’d sort of forgotten about Alex’s job. “I was told you were too deep in cover to risk a story about this.”

“About wereanimals, yeah, but not vampires. I’m not one of those.”

“You cannot use this, Alex. Peterson risked his job warning me.”

“What are you talking about?” Richard asked.

I wanted to share with Richard, but one look at Alex’s eager face and I knew that I’d already overshared. I owed Peterson more than that. “I can’t say right now, Richard; later.”

“More secrets! More lies!” And just like that, Richard’s power filled the room. My skin ran with heat, as if I’d been thrown into a hot bath. It didn’t hurt, but it was hard to get a full breath. So hot, so thick, so powerful; Richard’s power filled the room.

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It called to all the wolves in the room. They could not help but answer their Ulfric’s power with a little of their own. Jason was closest to me, so his power flowed along my skin first. It was like someone had turned on a second tap of hot water, to make warm water hotter. We didn’t need hotter. We needed to cool down. The question was how to do that.

Shang-Da’s power and Jamil’s hit me almost at once, and I was suddenly drowning in the scent of wolf. That sweet musk and I could feel it, my wolf, inside me. Not see her, but feel her like the brush of fur against parts of me that nothing should have touched but a blade. The sensation was so uncomfortable, so eerie, that I shivered. Richard mistook the shiver, because he said, “You can protest all you want, Anita, but you enjoy the power. There are things that the wolves can do for you that the vampires cannot. You just keep fighting it.”

The wolf inside me moved through my stomach, like a hand in places it should never go. Nausea rolled over me. I had to swallow hard.

“She didn’t shiver from pleasure, Richard,” Jason said.

“Now you know her better than I do, little wolf?”

His power seemed to fill the room so there was no air left to breathe. My wolf didn’t come running up that long tunnel inside me. No, the wolf was too close for that. I felt it move inside me, brush fur and claws against the inside of my body.

“Richard, please, something’s wrong. Help me.”

It was Crispin who came to me. Crispin who walked through the rising power. Still nude, still a stranger, but it was he who came to me.

“Don’t touch her,” Richard growled.

Shang-Da, still on his knees said, “Ulfric, please, you will bring her beast, and we will have yet one more problem to deal with.” He looked up at Richard. I’d never seen Shang-Da look so imploring.

Jamil came to the other side and went onto one knee, as well. “Please, Ulfric, your power is choking us all. You will bring all our wolves.”

Crispin stood in front of me now. He had stopped short of touching me, as Richard had asked. That got him an extra point. He was not making anything worse. In fact, looking up into his blue eyes, his tiger eyes, helped still that sense of fur gliding on the wrong inside-out of my skin. Jason was closest to us, but I think he could sense my wolf so terribly close under the skin. He knew better than to add his touch to Richard’s power. Jason walked toward the other werewolves. He stayed out of Richard’s immediate reach, but he went down, not on one knee, but on all fours. He bowed his head and crawled toward the bigger man.

I’d seen the gesture before, from Jason and other wolves. It was his attempt to apologize to Richard for any offense. Jason, too, was trying to make things better. Only Richard stood there filling the room with his warm, crawling power, and made it worse. Why was it always Richard, lately, who pushed things worse? Or me? Never forget me. I could screw things up too, but not tonight. I was too scared to fuck it up on purpose tonight.

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“Richard,” I said, “did you find the charm?”

He turned and it was as if his power were some huge beast, as if his power turned with him and stared at me out of his wolf amber eyes. I don’t know if it was the look, or the power, but it made that brush of fur whirl inside me. I stumbled, and only Crispin’s hand kept me from falling. The moment he touched me, the wolf receded. I could breathe through Richard’s power. I clung to Crispin’s hand with both of my own, and it was like the world was a little more steady. I waited for the white tiger to rise inside me, but it didn’t. I just felt better. Richard’s power lashed out, coming with his voice, like something thick and touchable that slammed into me. “I said, don’t touch her!”

Crispin staggered with me, as if whatever Richard had done was solid to him, too. But the weretiger kept us on our feet and drew me in against his body, shielding me from Richard. It was gallant, but if anything was guaranteed to make Richard more pissed, that was it. He came for us, came for us in a blur of speed, and rage, and power, and I was still standing in a towel with only a gun in my hand, and a strange weretiger on my arm. If I wasn’t willing to shoot Richard, I was about to run out of options.