Flirt

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said.

“I can’t love you,” he said.

“Do you mean you aren’t capable of loving me, or that you can’t possibly love me yet?”

“The second one.”

I held my hand out to him. “Take my hand, Nicky.”

He put his hand out immediately and took mine. “I can’t refuse you?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

He frowned. “Why doesn’t that scare me? It should scare me.” He sounded afraid, but he kept my hand in his, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles like an idle gesture of long practice. I doubted he even knew he was doing it.

For my part, I didn’t just feel healed, or full, but better. I felt energized, as if rolling Nicky so thoroughly had fed the ardeur more completely than simple sex. Was this what it felt like to truly embrace the power? Was it just better this way, or was there something about Nicky that made him yummier? Was this how Jean-Claude felt when he used his powers fully? I’d ask him when I got home, if I got home. There were still a lot of problems between me and surviving the night. One of those problems was striding toward us through the tombstones.

Jacob’s energy rode before him like the promise of lightning on an edge of storm. “What the fuck did you do?”

“I fed like we agreed.”

“I felt what you did and it was more than that.” He had a gun out now, pointed very steadily at me.

“You said you knew what I was, Jacob,” and I felt something when I said his name. I felt that thread that the ardeur had attached to him pull, as if I could call him by simply saying his name.

“Jacob, put the gun down.”

He actually started to lower it, and then caught himself. “Do that again and I will shoot you. We’ll eat the second half of the money before I let you roll us all.”

“Then let me raise Be

“We don’t have a home,” Nicky said, “we have hotel rooms. Places we rent.”

“We keep moving so we don’t have a territory, Nicky, you know that.”

“We’re lions, Jacob, we need a territory. We need a place to be.”

“You’ve witched him,” Jacob said.

“You gave him to me for food, Jacob. What did you think would happen?”

“Not this,” and he sounded pained, as if he took it as a personal failure that he hadn’t understood. “This is how you have all the men. You feed on them and they’re yours. I’ve seen male vampires do that. Brides they’re called.”

“You mean like the Brides of Dracula?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, and the gun was still pointed at me.

“The Grooms of Anita just doesn’t have a ring to it, Jacob.”

“No, it doesn’t, but Nicky is looking at you like you’re his whole world. It’s not just sex, is it?”

“No.”

“I should shoot you for this.”

“Jacob, you wanted me well enough to raise the dead. You wanted me to feed on Nicky. You wanted me to have enough power to do what Be

The gun began to tilt toward the ground again.

“I’ve done exactly what you wanted, Jacob.”

“Lying bitch.” And the gun came back up, but it wasn’t steady now.

“You took his guns after he barely touched me. You and he nearly fought to the death over me, when I’d barely touched either of you. What did you think would happen if you gave him to me to fuck, Jacob? What did you think would happen to Nicky if you gave him to me?”

He rolled his lower lip under, and bit it, I think. “Fuck,” he said.

“I don’t mind, Jacob,” Nicky said, “it’s okay.”

“No, she’s right. She barely touches us and we fight. She didn’t even kiss you and I didn’t trust you with a gun anymore, then I let her fuck you over.” He lowered the gun to point at the ground. “Raise the zombie, Anita; we’ll sort out who’s guilty of what later.”

I threaded my way through the gravestones with Nicky still holding my hand. In a way it wasn’t just him that had been rolled, because it felt very good to touch him. It had that familiar feel to it, his hand in mine, like an old lover that you’d just found again. It was a lie, but the ardeur could make lies seem like truth. It was part of the gift, or part of the curse, depending on how you wanted to look at it. If it got us all out alive, I’d call it a gift, at least until I had to take Nicky home with me, and then I was going to have some explaining to do. He followed me home, can I keep him? had never worked for puppies when I was a child, and it seemed totally inadequate for a whole human being.

The grave with the crowd around it was bathed in moonlight distant from the tall trees. Be

Ellen was walking toward the grave from farther out in the cemetery. Had she been checking on her circle of power? Did she need to be that close to it to check it? If she couldn’t just think and know, then she really wasn’t that powerful. Being a werelion should have made her a more powerful psychic, so either she was that insecure or she’d sucked before becoming one of them.

Nicky and I got close enough and the figure sitting by the grave turned and looked at us. I saw the dark hair and the angular face. Silas was too hurt to stand, so why wasn’t he at a hospital?

I asked Jacob, who was just behind us. “Why isn’t Silas at a hospital?”

“We can’t explain the wound, and we don’t want the police involved.”

“That was a silver blade,” I said.

“We figured that out,” he said, and his voice was unhappy enough that I didn’t have to know the nuances of it to hear the tone.

“You damn near gutted him, Anita,” Nicky said.

“We’ll get him to a doctor, but not until after the job is done.” There was a thread of anger that I didn’t quite understand.

“You’re punishing Silas, why?”

Ellen answered as she came up on the other side of the grave. “He overdosed the hooker. He was only supposed to give her enough to make her compliant.”

“What?” I asked.

“He was supposed to get the human sacrifice,” Nicky said.

I stopped walking and turned to see Jacob. I’d forgotten about Silas’s errand. How could I have forgotten? “So some poor working girl gets into Silas’s car and never goes home again?”

“Would you rather we pick some random stranger off the street for it?” Jacob asked.

I let go of Nicky’s hand and stared at them all. “What kind of people are you to have agreed to this?”

“She’s a meth-addicted hooker. Dying quick and easy tonight is better than what she’ll do to herself.” Jacob said.

“Fuck that,” I said, and was up in his face. “That was not your choice. You had no right.”

“I am the Rex of this pride; I have every right.”

I looked at him, and he met the look, and then dropped his gaze. “You didn’t feel right about this one, and the more you learned the less you liked it.”

“Get out of my head!”

“I’m not in your head, Jacob; I’m looking at your face. It must be a lot of money.”

He glared at me. “It is.”

“Enough money?” I said.

“Raise the zombie, and we’ll find out.”

“ Be

“He thinks you do.”

“Jacob,” someone said, and it was the first time I’d heard Silas’s voice. It was deep to match the size of him. He was more than a head taller than either of the others. “Why are you talking to her?”

“I am Rex, not you. You don’t get to question me, with your mistakes while you’re dying on the ground and bleeding out your gut.”

Silas struggled to his feet, using the gravestone to help him stand. Be