Danse Macabre

"Prides with really strong females don't get taken over much," Pierce said, "because you gotta sleep sometimes." He almost smiled when he said it.

I nodded. "That's how I'd be thinking."

"Your local pride has very weak females," Auggie said, his voice still that empty master's voice, so it could have been almost anyone talking. "Your Rex's wife is weak, and since the females of the lions are just like the males, it's forced him to reject a lot of strong women."

"Are you saving that if someone killed Joseph, there wouldn't be enough fight in his pride to do much about it?"

"His brother would be a problem," Pierce said, "but other than that, yeah."

"You would definitely have to kill both of the brothers," Auggie said, "but after that the pride would be helpless." He looked past me at the lions.

Noel was staring at him with a sort of soft horror. It was Travis who said, "Sounds like you've thought this through."

"It's why you brought dominants," I said. "You came pla

Auggie gave me flat eyes.

"You evil bastard."

"It's not me that's left his pride open, ripe for the picking, Anita. He did that himself."

"He loves his wife, that's not a crime," I said.

Auggie shrugged.

"Anita." Noel's small voice brought me back to look at him. He inched closer to me, his hand out, his face showing his fear. "Please, Anita, please, try me."

I wanted to say, I won't let them hurt you and your people, but I couldn't. Not and be truthful. We had an alliance with the lions, true, but if Joseph had truly let his pride get this fucked up, and it was truly the lion's way to take over the pride like this, then no other animal could interfere. We could help each other, but we couldn't interfere directly in the dominance hierarchy of the other groups. Not unless we wanted to start glomming us all into some kind of super-group. Wereanimals didn't do well in mixed-species groups. Too many cultural differences.

The only way I could send Haven home was to find another lion that my lioness liked. Shit. Noel stared at me, hand outstretched. The fear in his face made him look even younger and more inexperienced. No animal group could operate without dominants. You needed muscle and strength, and

strength of will. If Joseph had truly done what Auggie said, then his pride was in the gravest of dangers. If it wasn't Haven or Pierce now, it would be someone else later. Of course, if one of them were my semipermanent pomme de sang, then other lions might hesitate to attack them.

Hell, master vamps from around the country who hadn't had the ballet troupe go anywhere near them were offering up pomme de sang candidates. We'd be seeing potential feeds for months even after this batch went home. We'd already had inquiries from animal groups that weren't aligned with any vampire. You know you're big fish, when all the sharks want to come play.

I did the only thing I could think of. I took Noel's hand and drew him to­ward me. I wasn't sure what we'd do when he got to me, but we'd think of something.

43

NOEL SMELLED OF fear. He smelled like food, but not food for the ardeur. He smelled like meat tliat just hadn't stopped squirming yet. I pushed him onto the floor, raised his shirt to his shoulders. I stared down at his bare chest and stomach. He was breathing so fast, so hard, that his stomach rose and fell with it. I lowered my mouth over that pale, soft flesh. I stopped with my face just above his skin, so close that my breath came back warm against me. With that warm breath, came his scent, stronger, richer. It made me close my eyes. But I was too far into beast mind for sight to help or hurt that much. It was all about die smell of him, the sound of his breathing, and his heartbeat. I laid my ear against his chest so I could hear that frantic beating, so clear, so wonderfully afraid. I put my hand on his stomach so I could ride the movement of it, as he breathed.

"Slow your breathing, Noel," Micah said, "or you're going to hyperven­tilate."

"I can't help it," Noel said, voice breathless, "she's not thinking about sex."

"If you act like food, then you're food," Travis said from behind us.

I lay there on the floor, my head over his heart, my hand on the quick rise and fall of his stomach. So soft, so... tender.

The thought slid my face down his body, until I rested at his sternum, the upper edge of his stomach. So close now that I could not so much see the fast rise and fall of his body as feel it under my cheek. I rolled my face over, and kissed his stomach.

He jerked, as if I'd bit him, and made a wonderful whimpering sound.

I buried my mouth in the soft, easy flesh of his belly. I took as much of his flesh into my mouth as I could hold, and not draw blood. I bit him, hard and deep, and it took all my willpower to rise up from diat flesh, and leave it whole.

I pushed back from him, crab-walked until the wall stopped me. The sen­sation of all that warm, tender flesh filled my mouth. I could still feel it, a sensory memory that would haunt.

"Talk to me, Anita." Micah's calm voice.

I shook my head. "Food," I whispered, "just food."

"Noel is just food," Micah said.

I nodded, eyes still closed.

"Get up, Noel." Travis's voice, unhappy, angry.

"I'm sorry," Noel said.

I finally opened my eyes, to watch him drag his shirt back over his body. He wouldn't meet anyone's eyes, as if he'd failed.

"It's okay, Noel. Auggie and Pierce are right, Joseph shops for bottoms."

"He's not a bottom," Nathaniel said. "If he had been he'd have enjoyed the biting, and the danger. It might even have been enough to push you from food to sex." Nathaniel shrugged. "He's too straightlaced."

Once I would have argued.

"I would ask one favor," Travis said.

We looked at him.

"Can you come to me, instead of making me crawl to you?"

I remembered what I'd forgotten to ask, and asked it. "Is the broken arm the worst injury?"

"At least two cracked ribs, maybe a small break. Dr. Lillian said she'd need X-rays to be certain. No concussion, too hardheaded for it, I guess." He tried to smile and almost made it.

I crawled toward him. Micah moved so I could do it. Nathaniel crawled beside me. I glanced at him. "I don't think Travis will want company on this."

"I'm the only submissive you've collected. Everybody else is a dominant."

That stopped me, made me think about it. I actually sat back on my knees. "Damian isn't a master."

"No, but he's submissive because he doesn't have the power to be domi­nant. I'm submissive because I like it."

I frowned at him. "If you have a point, make it."

"Ask if the pride has anyone who swings more like I do."

I thought about all the men. Was Nathaniel right? Was everyone else a dominant personality, except for him? Richard, yep; Asher, yes; Jean-Claude, way yes; Micah, yes; Jason, no.

"Jason," I said.

"You rang?" and it was Jason coming into the hallway. His short blond hair was cut neat and tidy like a junior executive. The body would have qual­ified, if the executive worked out in the gym enough. He was about my height, short for a man, and boyishly handsome most of the time. But he glanced at Noel getting shakily to his feet, Travis with his obvious wounds,

Nathaniel and I so close together and him so very nude. Jason took it all in, and his face changed. I could never put my finger on it, but he looked sud­denly older, more grown-up, and his eyes, the color of spring skies, filled up with a knowledge, a weight of intelligence. He hid it most of the time, but there was a very nice mind in that smiling, very nice body.

The look vanished, replaced by his usual smart-ass, flirting look, but I knew him too well, now, to be fooled.