Skin Trade

“Oh, God,” I said, and tried to stand up. Domino clung to me, and I fought the urge to slap at him in a kind of panic. “I fed on your anger, damn it. I fed on your anger so you wouldn’t look at me like that!”

He gave me calm eyes, and he shouldn’t have.

“Fuck,” I said.

“Talk to me, Anita, Bernardo. What’s happening?” Edward asked.

“Wait, Edward, just wait.” I turned to Victor. “Can you fix this?”

Bernardo said, “Anita has it under control.” The look on his face didn’t match the surety of his words, but he was giving me the benefit of the doubt.

Victor looked where I was pointing, at Domino. “You mean undo your possession of him?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You are queen,” Bibiana said, “you do not ask any male for such help.”

“Fine, can you undo it?” I asked.

Victor studied me some more. “You said you fed on his anger. I thought the ardeur was all about sex.”

“I can feed on anger, too. I thought if I didn’t feed on lust, or love, for your people that I wouldn’t bind them to me. I don’t want any more men, damn it.”

“Jean-Claude can’t feed on anger, can he?” Victor asked.

That was a little too close to truths we didn’t want to share with anyone. That I had powers that my master didn’t share. I tried to be cool about it, but my pulse had sped. Weretigers are like living lie detectors. They can sense, smell, all those little involuntary body functions.

“Can either of you make it so he isn’t”-I waved a hand at Domino-“like this?”

“It may pass on its own,” Victor said.

“Are you sure?”

He smiled. “No, but what you’ve done seems to be a combination of vampire and Chang tiger. You’ve rolled him. If you leave him alone, he may recover. If it’s more vampire than wereanimal, then you know that you’ll be able to repossess him anytime you want.”

I licked my lips and said the only truth I had. “I don’t want to possess anybody.”

“I felt your power. I felt you shove it into my mother. I felt it blocks away.”

“Would it sound childish to say she started it?”

He gave a quick smile. “It’s a little childish, but I know my mother.”

“Victor,” Bibiana said.

“You know you tried to raise her tigers, Mother. You know you provoked her power. Don’t deny it.”

“I would never deny it,” she said.

Bernardo said, “Chang-Bibiana promised that if Marshal Blake could call Crispin away from her, she would answer our questions.”

Bibiana wouldn’t look at anyone in the room.

“Did you promise the marshals that, Mother?”

She gave a little nod, still not looking at anyone.

“Then answer her questions, like you promised.”

I did my best not to glance at the blue boy. “I think a little privacy would be good before we start discussing an ongoing police investigation.”

“I don’t want to leave,” he said.

Ava tugged on him. “Come on, Cynric.”

“No,” he said, and pulled away from her. “You’re not pure. You don’t know how it feels to be part of a clan.”

“Cynric,” Bibiana said, and her anger cracked like a hot whip through the room, “you will show Ava the respect she deserves. One of our brethren attacked her. He broke the most sacred rule among the clans. She is not one who sought this life.”

He looked sullen for a moment, then guilty. “I’m sorry, Ava. I didn’t mean it.”

She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “It’s all right, Cynric, but let’s leave the marshals to talk to Bibiana and Victor.” He let her lead him through the far door, but he looked back as the doors closed, and the disturbing thing was that I was there to meet his eyes.

Bernardo touched my arm, made me look at him. “You all right?”

Was I all right? That was an excellent question. What I needed was an excellent answer. I said the only thing I could think of. “We have work to do, Marshal Spotted Horse.”

He gave me a look that raised one eyebrow, then nodded. “Yes, we do, Marshal Blake.”

“Ask your questions, then get the fuck out of there,” Edward said, “I do not want Anita in that room when Max joins his wife.” Edward was absolutely right. Bibiana had almost rolled me on her own, without her master at her side. There were so many reasons to want this thing cleared up before the vampires rose for the night.

The fact that there was no way on God’s green earth to solve this crime before dark was not only disappointing but getting more dangerous every minute.

36

ONE OF THE white female tigers with hair the color of pale buttermilk, and eyes like a spring sky, came and took Domino deeper into the penthouse. He didn’t want to leave me, but between me and Victor, he did what we wanted. If he got out of my physical presence and started breaking free of the fascination, then I could leave him here to his life. If it didn’t start to wear off at all, then I’d have to take him with me. What I’d do with him after that, I had no bloody idea. Other people pick up stray puppies; I kept collecting men. Crap.

The rest of us settled down on the overstuffed couches. Bernardo and I sat far enough away from each other on our couch that we wouldn’t get in each other’s way if things went south. Crispin sat as close to me as any boyfriend, an arm across the back of the couch touching my shoulders, one hand on my leg. I could have told him to back off because I was working, but it would have hurt his feelings, and I knew enough about lycanthrope society to know that touching was just what they did.

Bibiana sat across from us, with her son and Rick. No one touched her much. Maybe tigers were different from the other animal groups I was familiar with? I’d ask later.

“What do you know about what happened to the police here?” I asked.

“Only what we heard on the news,” Victor said.

Bibiana simply looked at me with those uptilted blue eyes. Her silent scrutiny might have been u

If this had been a normal interrogation, there would be rules, methods. I should have volunteered little and asked repetitive questions. But we were burning daylight. Once the vampires rose for the night, and Vittorio added his power to his daytime servants… I had no idea what he would do. Slaughtering the SWAT team like that and mailing me the head was throwing down a serious gauntlet. I thought that if it was Vittorio and not someone framing him, or even if it were, then when darkness fell, all hell was going to break loose. We didn’t have time for hours of questions.

Crispin began to move his hand on my thigh in small circles. He’d picked up my tension and was trying to soothe me. It didn’t really work, but I appreciated the effort.

“Anita?” Bernardo said, making a question of my name. He looked at me, trying for blank, and failing to hide some concern around the edges. He’d seen some seriously weird shit from me in the last hour. In fact, he’d been a damn good sport about all of it. Did I owe him, like, flowers? What did you get a coworker for not freaking when you went all metaphysical on him? A card? Did Hallmark make a card for that?

Crispin leaned over me, his breath warm against my hair. “Anita, are you all right?”

“Anita,” Bernardo said again, and this time he didn’t try to keep the worry out of his voice.

Edward joined in my ear. “Bernardo, what’s wrong with Anita?”

“I’m fine,” I said, “I’m just thinking.” I turned back to the weretigers on the other couch. “We’re ru

Bibiana gave a regal nod. “I am honored.”

“One, I need you to listen to Victor and Max, and not screw with my i

“You could tell her just to leave your i