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“Because you are Mine.” The voice snapped like a whip. “As Lawrence was Kit’s. Closer, even, born not only of blood but of flesh and bone, and I will not risk—”
“You’re not risking anything!”
“That is correct. I am not. Not this time.”
“Damn it, Mircea!” I hung on to the phone, mad as hell but not able to give this up. I needed this job. And not just for the money, although a steady income was something I thought I could get used to. I needed it because of what I was.
I couldn’t just not hunt. It didn’t work that way. Even with Claire here it didn’t. Her presence made it easier to postpone episodes, to maintain some level of control. But I was what I was. A life lacking in violence might be the norm for most people, but for me it was a one-way ticket to the crazy house, and not just for a brief visit. The creature that lived inside my veins demanded blood; the only thing I’d ever been able to decide was whose.
And now he was taking that away.
“That Duergar mix of yours,” Mircea said after a moment. “You are fond of him, are you not?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“How would you like to see him walking headlong into a danger you cannot even name?”
“That’s not…” I gripped the phone tightly so I wouldn’t shove it through the wall. “That’s different. He’s a child.”
“And when he is not?” Mircea asked softly. “When he is an adult, when he has developed whatever abilities fate has decided for him, do you think you will feel one whit differently than you do today? Do you think you will suddenly not mind if someone takes him from you, if they threaten him, if they hurt him?”
“You never…” I swallowed, because he was doing it to me again. Just like every fucking…Goddamn it. “You never cared before.”
“I have always cared.”
“Then let me hunt.”
“No.”
“Mircea. I can find the ones who did this. I can—”
“What you can do is obey me,” the voice said, going cold again. “For once in your life, you will do as I say!” And the phone went dead.
Chapter Eleven
“That went well,” Ray said, sipping beer.
Claire came up behind me, saying nothing but sliding a slim white hand onto my shoulder. And reminding me that her usual passive abilities were nothing compared to what she could really do. Like when she abruptly pulled the rage off me, as fast as someone whipping off a cloak.
“Stop it,” I choked out. I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted to break something. But instead, I saw myself slowly replacing the receiver, and my hand didn’t even shake.
“It’s better than having you burst a blood vessel,” she said drily, her own hand sliding away. Her cheeks were a little pink, but otherwise she looked perfectly normal. I tried to work up some annoyance about that, but it fizzled out, too. When she was making an effort, Claire was like a dozen Prozac in a shot of whiskey. If I’d been wearing a mood ring, it would have just flipped to mellow, stoner blue.
“Damn it, Claire,” I said, trying for heat and getting only warm fuzzies.
“He’s right,” she said simply. “You know he is.”
“I don’t know anything of the kind.”
“You can hunt other things.”
“I don’t want to hunt other things.”
“You’ll get used to it,” she told me, with zero sympathy. Claire wasn’t big on sympathy. Claire was big on getting your shit together and getting on with it, as demonstrated when she took a stack of plates off the counter and pushed them into my stomach. “Can you set the tables?”
I glared at her, black eyes into green, and she narrowed hers back. She didn’t budge. But the plates poked me in the stomach again, a little harder this time. I bit my lip on a smile, amused and pissed off at the same time because I shouldn’t be feeling amused.
“You’re gonna need more plates than that,” Ray piped up.
