The Killing Dance

I clicked the safety back in place, put the gun down the front of my pants, and slipped the T-shirt over it. Armed, but not visibly, I opened the door. Jason stood there, gri

"Is it my turn next?" he asked.

I sighed, picked up my clothes, tucked them under my arm, and closed the door behind me. "What are you doing here, Jason?"

"You don't sound happy to see me." He was wearing a fishnet T-shirt. His jeans were faded and soft with one knee completely out. He was twenty and had been a college student before he'd joined the pack. Now he was Jean-Claude's wolf, and playing bodyguard and breakfast entree to the Master Vampire of the City seemed to be his only job.

"Isn't it a little early in the morning for fishnet?"

"Wait until you see what I'm wearing to tonight's gala opening of Jean-Claude's dance club."

"I may not be able to make it," I said.

He raised his eyebrows. "You spend one night under Richard's roof, and you break a date with Jean-Claude." He shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Look, neither of them own me, okay?"

Jason backed up, hands held up in mock surrender. "Hey, don't shoot the messenger. You know it will piss Jean-Claude off, and you know he'll think you slept with Richard."

"I didn't."

He glanced at the closed door. "I know that, and I am shocked, Anita, at your choice of bed partners."

"When you tell Jean-Claude that I slept with Stephen, you make absolutely sure he knows we just shared the bed and nothing else. If Jean-Claude gives Stephen a hard time because of your word games, I'll be angry. You don't want me angry, Jason."

He looked at me for a heartbeat or two. Something slid behind his eyes, his beast stirring to life, just a touch. Jason had a small streak of what Gabriel had a big streak of. A fascination with danger, pain, and simply being an all round pain in the ass. Jason was tolerable, not a bad guy, all in all; Gabriel was perverted; but it was still the same personality flaw done small. After what I'd seen last night, I wondered what Jason would have thought of the entertainment. I was almost sure he'd have disapproved, but not a hundred percent sure, which told you something about Jason.

"Did you really draw a machine gun on Raina and Gabriel last night?"

"Yeah, I did."

A woman stepped out of Richard's bedroom with an armful of towels. She was about five foot six, with short brown hair so curly it had to be natural. She wore navy slacks and a short-sleeved sweater. Open-toed sandals completed the outfit. She looked me up and down, sort of disapproving or maybe disappointed. "You must be Anita Blake."

"And you are?"

"Sylvie Barker." She offered a hand and I took it. The moment I touched her skin, I knew what she was. "Are you with the pack?" I asked.

She took her hand back and blinked at me. "How could you tell?"

"If you're trying to pass for human, don't touch someone who knows what they're looking for. Your power prickles down my skin."

"I won't waste time trying to pass then." Her power flooded over me, pouring like a blast of heat when you open an oven door.

"Impressive," I said, glad my voice was steady.

She gave a small smile. "That's quite a compliment, coming from you. Now, I've got to get these towels to the kitchen."

"What's happening?" I asked.

Sylvie and Jason exchanged glances. She shook her head. "You knew Richard was hurt?" She made it a question.

My stomach clenched tight. "He said he'd be all right."

"He will be," she said.

I felt my skin go pale. "Where is he?"

"Kitchen," Jason said.

I didn't run, it wasn't that far, but I wanted to. Richard sat at the kitchen table, shirtless, his back to me. His back was a mass of fresh claw marks. There was a bite mark in his left shoulder where a piece of flesh was missing.

Dr. Lillian was blotting blood off his back with a kitchen towel. She was a small woman in her mid-fifties with salt-and-pepper hair cut in a short, no-nonsense style. She'd treated my own wounds twice before, once when she was furry and looked like a giant man-rat.

"If you had called for medical attention last night, I wouldn't be having to do this, Richard. I do not enjoy causing my patients pain."

"Marcus was on call last night," Richard said. "Under the circumstances, I thought it best to go without."

"You could have let someone clean and bandage the wounds."

"Yes, Richard, you could have let me help you," I said.

He glanced back over his shoulder, his hair spilling around his face. There was a bandage on his forehead. "I'd had enough help for one night."

"Why? Because I'm a woman, or because you know I'm right?"

Lillian took a small silver knife to the lower half of a claw mark. She sliced the blade down the wound, reopening it. Richard took in a deep breath and let it out.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Lycanthropes heal, but sometimes without medical attention, we can scar. Most of the wounds will heal, but a few of them are deep enough that he really needs some stitching before the skin starts to close, so I'm having to reopen some of the wounds and add a few stitches."

Sylvie handed Dr. Lillian the towels.

"Thank you, Sylvie."

"What are you two lovebirds fighting about?" Sylvie asked.

"Let Richard tell you, if he wants to."

"Anita agrees with you," Richard said. "She thinks I should start killing people."

I walked over to where he could see me without straining. I leaned against the cabinet island and tried to watch his face rather than Lillian's slicing knife. "I don't want you to start killing people indiscriminately, Richard. Just back your threat up. Kill one person and the rest will back down."

He glared up at me, outraged. "You mean make an example of one of them?"

Put that way, it sounded sort of cold-blooded, but truth was truth. "Yeah, that's what I mean."

"Oh, I like her," Sylvie said.

"I knew you would," Jason said. They exchanged a glance that I didn't quite get, but it seemed to amuse the hell out of them.

"Am I missing a joke here?"

They both shook their heads.

I let it go. Richard and I were still fighting, and I was begi

"No painkillers?" I asked.

"Anesthesia doesn't work well on us. We metabolize it too quickly," Lillian said. She wiped the silver knife on one of the clean towels and said, "One of the claw marks drops below your jeans. Take them off so I can see."

I glanced at Sylvie. She smiled at me. "Don't mind me. I like girls."

"That's what you two were laughing about," I said to Jason.

He nodded, smiling happily.

I shook my head.

"The others will be here soon for the meeting. I don't want my ass hanging out as everyone comes in the door." Richard stood up. "Let's finish up in the bedroom." There were a ring of puncture wounds just below his collarbone. I remembered the man-wolf lifting with its claws last night.

"You could have been killed," I said.

He glanced at me. "But I wasn't. Isn't that what you always say?"

I hated having my own words fed back to me. "You could have killed Sebastian or Jamil and the rest wouldn't have jumped you."

"You've already decided who I should kill." His voice was thick with anger.

"Yeah," I said.

"She's actually making pretty good choices," Sylvie said.

Richard turned his dark, dark eyes to her. "You stay out of this."

"If it was just a lovers' quarrel, Richard, I would," she said. She went to stand in front of him. "But Anita's not saying anything that I haven't said. That most of us haven't begged you to do. For a few months, I was willing to try it your way. I hoped you were right, but it isn't working, Richard. Either you're alpha male or you're not."

"Is that a challenge?" he asked. His voice had grown very quiet. Power flowed through the room like a warm wind.

Sylvie backed up a step. "You know it's not."

"Do I?" he said. The power in the room built, growing like a flash of electricity. The hairs on my arms stood to attention.

Sylvie stopped backing up, hands in fists at her sides. "If I thought I could defeat Marcus, I'd do it. If I could protect us all, I would. But I can't do it, Richard. You're our only chance."

Richard loomed over her. It wasn't just physical size. His power flowed over her, filled the room, until it was almost chokingly close.

"I won't kill just because you think I should, Sylvie. No one is going to force me into it. No one."

He turned his gaze on me, and it took a lot to meet his eyes. There was a force to them, a burning weight. It wasn't a vampire's drowning power, but it was something. My skin shivered with his power, his energy, and I didn't turn away.

I stared at the wounds just below his neck and knew I'd come close to losing him. That was unacceptable.

I walked closer until I could have reached out and touched him. His otherworldly energy whirled over me until it was hard to draw a good breath. "We need to talk, Richard."

"I don't have time for this right now, Anita."

"Make time," I said.

He glared down at me. "Talk to me while Lillian finishes up. I've got people coming over for a meeting in about fifteen minutes."

"What meeting?" I asked.

"To discuss the Marcus situation," Sylvie said. "He scheduled the meeting before last night's adventure."

Richard stared at her, and it wasn't a friendly look. "If I'd wanted her to know about the meeting, I'd have told her."

"What else haven't you told me Richard?"