Burnt Offerings

"What are you doing, human?" Padma asked, staring up at me.

"I'm his lupa and his third. I'm doing my job." I held Richard's face in my hands, and that was enough. The physical touch was all it took to strengthen his control. I felt his heart slow, the pulsing of his body ease. I felt that great shape sink back into the depths. Richard drew on my mark like a drowning man with a rope, coiling it around himself.

"No," Padma said. "He is mine."

I smiled at him. "No, he's mine. Whether we like it or whether we don't, he's mine."

Richard's eyes bled back to their normal brown, and he mouthed the words, "Thank you."

Padma stood in a rush, so quick it was almost like magic. He grabbed my wrist, hard enough to bruise, and I said, "You can't challenge me, because I'm not a vampire. You can't feed off of me, because I can only play victim once tonight, and Asher was my once."

Richard lay on the floor, one arm braced so he wasn't actually lying down, but I had a flash of how bone-weary he was, so tired, so weak.

"You know our rules well, Anita," Padma said. He jerked me close to him, bodies almost touching. "You are not vampire, or food, but you are still his lupa."

"You going to try and call my beast?" I said. "You can't call what's not there."

"I felt your power with the little werewolf." He raised my hand to his face and sniffed along my skin like he was smelling some exotic perfume. "You smell of pack, Anita. There is something in you to call. Whatever it is, I will have it."

"She is not part of the bargain," Jean-Claude said.

"She interfered," Padma said. "That makes her part of this bacchanal. Do not worry. I will not hurt her. Too much."

He leaned into me and spoke low, soft. It was French, and I didn't speak enough French to follow it. I caught the word for wolf, and power, and moon, and I felt the power rise inside of me. It was too soon after Jason. The power was too close to the surface, too near. Padma called to it, and I didn't know how to stop it. The power burst over my skin in a hot wash. My knees buckled and he caught me, as I collapsed against his body.

Richard touched my leg, but it was too late. He tried to strengthen my control, as I'd done for him, but I didn't have any control yet. Padma called and the munin answered. I was cha

The power filled my skin, and I stood, pressing my body into Padma, staring at him from inches away. The power wanted to touch someone, anyone. It didn't care. I cared, and I had enough control this time to refuse it. I said, "No." I pushed away from him, falling to the ground as I did it.

Padma followed me, touching my hair, my face, as I crawled away from him. "The power is sexual in nature, a mating urge perhaps. How very interesting."

Jean-Claude said, "Leave her alone, Master of Beasts."

He laughed. "What do you think would happen if I kept calling her beast? Do you think she would give in? Do you think she would fuck me?"

"We will not find out," Jean-Claude said.

"If you interfere with my fun, then it is challenge between us."

"That is what you have wanted all along."

Padma laughed again. "Yes, I think you should be killed for the Earthmover's death. But I ca

"But if you kill me in a duel, then no one will blame you, is that it?"

"That is it."

I huddled on the floor, hugging myself, trying to swallow the power back, but it wasn't going anywhere. Richard crawled to me, touching my bare arm. I recoiled from him as if his touch had burned, because I wanted him, wanted him in a way so raw and primitive it made my body hurt.

"Don't touch me, please."

"How did you get rid of it last time?"

"Sex or violence, the munin leaves after sex or violence." Or healing, I thought. Though that had been sex, too, in a way.

Padma's power rode over us like a tank, a tank with a spiked tread. We both screamed, and Jean-Claude screamed with us. Blood poured from his mouth in a red rush, and I knew what Padma had done. I'd felt him try to do it to me. He'd shoved his power into Jean-Claude and opened it, burst something inside of him.

Jean-Claude fell to his knees, blood spattering the white shirt. I was on my feet without thinking, standing between Padma and Jean-Claude. The power burned along my skin. My anger fed it as if it truly were a beast.

"Get out of my way, human, or I will kill you first, and then your master." It was like standing inside an invisible wall of fire and pain to be this close to Padma now. He'd weakened Richard, then me, done something to the marks. Without us, Jean-Claude could not win.

I stopped fighting the energy inside me. I embraced it, fed it, and it spilled out of my mouth in a laugh that raised the hairs on my arms. It wasn't my laugh. It was a laugh I'd never thought to hear this side of hell.

Padma grabbed me, a hand on each arm, lifting me off my feet. "I am allowed to kill you if you interfere with a duel."

I kissed him, a soft brush of lips.

He was so startled for a second, he just froze; then he kissed me back, locking his arms behind my back, still with my feet dangling off the ground. He raised his face enough to say, "Even if you fuck me here and now, it won't save him."

That laugh spilled from my lips, and I felt a darkness fill my eyes. That cold, white part of me where there was nothing but static and silence, the place where I killed, opened up inside my head, and Raina filled it. I remembered the feel of Nathaniel's heart in my hands, the moment I'd realized I could kill him, that I wanted to kill him, more than I wanted to heal him. So much easier to kill.

I locked my arms around Padma's neck and kissed his mouth. I shoved the power into him like a sword. His body stiffened, arms opening, but I was holding on now. His heart was slick and heavy. It beat against the power like a fish in a net. I crushed the power around it. He fell to his knees and screamed into my mouth. Blood flowed in a warm gush, filling my mouth with the warm salty rush of it.

Hands pulled at me, tried to tear me away from Padma. I clung to him, legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck. "Back off or I'll shatter his heart. Back off now!"

Thomas fell to his knees beside us, blood trickling down his chin. "You'll kill me and Gideon."

I didn't want to kill them. The power began to slide away, buried in regret. "No," I said it out loud. I fed the power on my anger, my outrage. The munin swelled and filled me. I squeezed Padma's heart -- gently, slowly.

I laid my face against his cheek and whispered, "Why aren't you fighting back, Master of Beasts? Where is that large, burning, power of yours?"

There was no answer but his labored breathing.

I squeezed a little tighter.

He gasped. "We could die together," he said in a voice wet with his own blood.

I rubbed my cheek against his face. The blood from his lips smeared along our skin. I'd always known that blood was a turn-on for lycanthropes but I'd never fully appreciated the appeal. It wasn't so much the feel of the blood as the smell of it. Hot, sweet, flatly metallic, and underneath, the scent of fear. He was so very afraid. I could smell it, feel it.

I raised back from him enough to see his face. It was a mask of blood. Part of me was horrified. Part of me wanted to lick him clean like a cat with a bowl of cream. Instead I gave his heart a little extra squeeze and watched the blood flow faster from his mouth.

His power built in a warm wash. "I will kill you before I die, lupa."

I held him and felt his power begin to build, still weakened, but enough to do the job. "Are you still a good Hindu?" I asked.

His eyes showed confusion.

"How much bad karma have you accumulated this turn of the wheel?" I gave a quick lick over his mouth and had to put my forehead against his and close my eyes to keep from doing what the munin wanted. What Raina would have done if she'd been here. "What would be punishment enough for your evil deeds in the next reincarnation, Padma? How many lives would it take to balance this one turn?"