Skin Trade

The thought made me open my eyes. “No”-my anger flared, and it felt good-“he’s family; you don’t do family.”

“So prudish, but very well, the tigers will do.”

“No,” and I could look her in the sparkling eyes because my anger helped push that soft, insistent power back.

“You really can feed on anger, how interesting. It does not come from my bloodline.”

The first spurt of fear washed through me and drowned the anger. That was something we hadn’t wanted anyone else to know.

“It is dark, and the vampires rise where your body sleeps, ma petite.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“The tiger queen was kept away from you by your friend and her son, but now the vampires rise, and they will be naughty. If they are as naughty as I think they will try to be, I will give you the ability to fight back.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked, and the fear was real. I needed to break the dream before she finished whatever she had pla

“You ca

“What are you going to do?” I asked again.

“You don’t trust me.”

“No,” I said.

“After I saved you and my Jean-Claude, still you doubt me?”

“I’m afraid of you.”

She was suddenly in front of me, pressing us together, coming for her kiss. “Good, that’s good. I would rather you love me, but if not love, fear will do.”

“Machiavelli,” I said.

“Where do you think he got it from?” she laughed, as she pressed her mouth to mine. Her voice eased through my head, or maybe it echoed in the hallway. “If they do not attack you, then my gift lies dormant. I can be no more fair than that, ma petite.”

It was a kiss, but it was also heat. Vampires are supposed to be a cold thing, but she was not. She burned with all the life she had fed on for centuries, and she pushed that fire inside my mouth, into my body. One minute I was kissing Belle Morte, the next I was awake, gasping, staring up at a ceiling I didn’t know, and had an arm across my shoulders. For a moment the dream and reality met, and then I saw the muscles and that it was male. It wasn’t Belle, but what the fuck?

Edward was standing over me and whoever belonged to the arm. “You started to go into shock, and they said being close to the aura of another wereanimal like yourself would help.”

I turned my head to find Victor blinking at me, as if he, too, had slept. From the feel of things, I wasn’t sure he was wearing any clothes. “And this seemed like a good idea to you, Ed… Ted?”

“It helped, Anita. The moment he touched you, like this, it helped.”

“See, you are one of us, Anita.” It was Bibiana’s voice.

Edward handed me the Browning BDM before he took the blankets off me, which let me know that things were not good. Victor tightened his body around me, where he’d curled into place. The sudden tension let me know that he might not have known his mom was there either. Me in a drugged sleep was one thing, but why had Victor slept through it all?

Edward helped me sit up. “How does it feel?”

I waited for it to hurt. “Not bad.” It felt way too good, actually. “What time is it? How long?”

“It’s been four hours.”

Victor’s arm wrapped around my waist, and I had to admit that it felt solid and real and not bad. But then when I was cha

I could see more of the room now. Bibiana sat on a little couch that was to one side of the room. This was the first time I’d really seen the room. It was a little apartment complete with a round bed that would have looked fine in a red velvet whorehouse. The couch was the same red velvet. There were chairs and cushions and a small kitchenette. The table I was lying on was the dining table, with carved chairs pulled back from it to make room for the doctor and everyone else.

The doctor was still there. He came forward to check me out, and Edward let him check my pulse. I was shirtless, so checking the stitches was easy enough. He had to move Victor’s arm to move bandages aside. “It’s almost healed.” He looked at me. “I saw that the claw marks had come from inside you, like it was clawing its way out; you’re not human, are you?”

“I shared my energy with her,” Victor said. He sat up on his side of the table, drawing the blanket around the bareness of him.

“But if she had not had her own white tiger for you to share with, it would not have worked,” Bibiana said.

“Whatever,” I said. I let Edward help me stand. I could stand. Yea!

Edward looked at me, then moved his hand away. I stood on my own. “Good, we’re out of here then.” He put my backpack over his shoulder.

He’d already added some of my weapons to his visible arsenal. We started for the door.

Then I felt it, like a cold breeze down my back. I said, “Vampire.”

Edward grabbed my arm and hustled us for the door, where Rick and some of the other white tigers blocked the way. We aimed our guns at them in unison. “We’ll just say you jumped us,” I said. “With all the dead cops in this town, they’ll buy it.”

“Anita Blake, so good of you to visit my little family.”

I didn’t even turn around. “Hi, Max. Thanks for the hospitality.” Then I screamed at the men blocking the door. “Move, or bleed!”

Max’s voice. “Move out of the marshals’ way. She’s a federal cop; you don’t mess with the Feds. It’s bad for business.”

The tigers at the door looked to another part of the room. They were looking at Bibiana.

“I am master of this city, and I say get the fuck out of the marshals’ way.” His voice had gone ugly with rage.

The weretigers moved, a little.

“Keep going,” I said, and we waited for them to move well away from the door. As they moved, I moved sort of with them, so I had my back to Edward and my empty hand on his back, so I could feel his movement and still watch the room. Edward would know that left him the door and the room beyond.

He opened the door with an audible click, and we eased through it. I looked away from the weretigers long enough to see Max in a doorway on the other side of the big bed. He was dressed in 1940s gangster chic, mostly bald, tall, but solid. If you didn’t know what you were looking at, you’d say fat, but it was all hard and muscled. Bibiana was glaring at him.

“Thanks, Max,” I said.

“Tell Jean-Claude that I know the rules.”

“I’ll do that.” And Edward was through the door, and my hand on him took me with him. We were into the other room; all we had to do was get the door shut.

Bibiana had to have the last word. “You have slept with my son. Tell me, what did you dream?”

The question was so odd that it made me stumble at the doorway. “Anita,” Edward said.

“It’s okay,” I said. I concentrated on the gun in my hand and watching the room. I kicked the door shut behind us, and we were suddenly in the dimness and noise of the club beyond.

Edward moved up beside me, both putting his arm around me and lowering my gun hand down to my side. He leaned over and whisper-shouted into my ear, “Ease down.”

The club was crowded, mostly with men at the tables and stages. The only women were the waitresses and the dancers.

Edward started leading me through the crowd. He slipped into that half-drunk-boyfriend-who-brought-my-girlfriend-to-the-strip-club act like someone had turned a switch. He was suddenly a good ol’ boy who was having a good ol’ time. The best I could do was not look too uncomfortable under his arm and try not to let anyone bump the gun in my hand. Though no one noticed the guns once we were away from the door, or they pretended they didn’t. I’d noticed that a black gun against black jeans in a dark club was pretty invisible.