Page 12 of Danse Macabre (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 14)

He just stared at me, a look on his face that I couldn't read. "You mean that, don't you?" He smiled, almost sadly, shook his head, and wouldn't meet my gaze. "Oh, Anita, you make me feel jaded, and very old."

"Do I apologize for that?" I asked.

He looked up, smiling still. "No, but that you meant that question makes me wonder about my choices for your pomme de sang. I looked for good sex, dominants, because everyone needs more muscle. I did not look for good conversation, or someone with interests like yours. I wasn't looking for a date. I was looking for food and fucking."

"You need a woman in your organization, Auggie. Being all guys limits you."

"Are you saying I need a woman's touch?"

"Yeah, and there isn't a woman of Belle's line that will go with you just to be your whore. We promised them that they'd have choices when they came here."

"Are you saying I have to court them?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I am."

"And Jean-Claude agrees to this?" Octavius said.

I nodded. "He gave his word that no one would be forced to have sex against their will."

"Ah," Auggie said, then he laughed. "Dating. I haven't dated in decades. I wonder if I remember how."

"The Master of the City does not have to date," Octavius said, "he commands."

"You're in the wrong town for that attitude," I said.

"You are so certain of that?" he said.

"Absolutely."

"Taste Haven," Auggie said. "If you don't like him, then I'm going to have to send home for some less dominant take-out."

I looked up at the tall man in front of me. He looked down with that soft, laughing face, and I just didn't buy it. It was like the smile and sparkly eyes was his version of a cop face. A way to hide everything.

He dropped gracefully to his knees. Which made him not that much shorter than me. I added at least another inch to his height. He laughed, that joyous laugh that seemed so sincere. "You should see your face, so suspicious. I just thought that this way you have your choice of wrist or neck. With me standing, you can't reach my neck."

It made sense, so why didn't I like it? No answer other than the one I'd had since I saw him. Being close to him reacted with that primitive part of the brain that keeps you alive if you don't argue with it. Touching him was dangerous in some way, but in what way? The trouble with the primitive brain is that it doesn't reason, or explain, it just feels. I could just touch him, then turn him down. He'd be on his way back to Chicago, no harm, no foul.

I reached for his hand, and he gave it. I wondered if I'd get that jolt of energy like I had from Pierce, but his hand was simply warm. His hand was very passive in mine, but when I pushed back the sleeve of his jacket, he had on a French-cuffed shirt, with real cuff links. "Shit."

"You don't like French cuffs?"

I frowned down at him. "It'll take a while to unhook your wrists."

He gave me that smile again, but the blue eyes weren't quite as neutrally cheerful. I got to glimpse the coldness under that smile. For some reason it made me feel better. I liked truth, most of the time.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked, and his voice held just a hint of uncertainty. Good.

I shook my head. "Nothing." I smoothed my hand up the side of his face, turned him so the line of his neck stretched above the collar of his dress shirt. I bent over him, one hand on his shoulder for balance, the other cradling the side of his face. The neck was always so much more intimate than the wrist.

I meant to simply lay my lips against his neck. But when I was close enough to smell his skin, all my good intentions vanished. He smelled so warm, so incredibly warm. I wanted to put my mouth against that warmth, but not to kiss. I put my face so close to the warm, smooth line of his neck that a hard thought would have made my lips touch his skin. But I kept just above his neck, and breathed in the scent of him. Warm, a faint hint of some powdery sweet cologne, barely there, soap, and underneath just the scent of his body. Human, and deeper still, where my breath blew back hot from his skin, the musky hint of cat. Cleaner, less sharp than leopard. But definitely cat, not wolf, not dog. I breathed in the scent of lion as it rose from his skin, as if my breath called it forth.

My arms slid down his back, across his shoulders, folding my body around his. He'd behaved himself until then, hands at his sides, but now he reached for me, wrapped me in the strength of his arms, the force of his fingers, kneading at my body through my clothes.

I heard him whisper, "Oh, God."

I laid the gentlest of kisses against that hot, smooth skin, a feather's touch of a kiss, and it wasn't enough. I could smell what I wanted just below the surface. I could smell his blood like something sweet and metallic. I licked along his neck, licked over the warm, jumping life of his pulse. He shuddered in my arms.

I heard a voice. "Anita, Anita, don't do this." I didn't know who it was, and didn't understand what they were talking about. I needed to taste his pulse, feel it quiver between my teeth until it burst hot and scalding in my mouth.

A wrist appeared near my face. I smelled leopard. Micah called me back from that quivering edge. "Anita, what are you doing?"

I didn't unwind from Haven's body. I raised my face only enough to see Micah. "Tasting him," and my voice sounded hoarse and not mine.

"Let him go, Anita."

I shook my head, and felt Haven's fingers hard and firm, as if he had claws to sink into my body, and I wanted him to do it.

Graham came next, putting his wrist between me and that pulsing candy. But the musk of wolf was not what I wanted.

Nathaniel was next, putting the sweetness of his wrist between me and Haven's neck. He still smelled of vanilla, but that wasn't the scent I was after tonight. I shook my head. "No."

"Something's wrong, Anita, you need to stop."

I shook my head again, sending my hair flying over the kneeling man's face. He made a sound low in his throat from the sensation of it. The sound made me push Nathaniel away and lay my mouth over the shivering of Haven's pulse, not a kiss, no, my mouth was too wide for a kiss. My jaw tensed to bite him, and two things happened simultaneously. Someone grabbed a handful of my hair, and a wrist I didn't know well was suddenly in my face.

A voice that had already gone growling deep said, "If it is lion you want, then here I am."

I followed that scent upward, as he pulled my head backward with my hair. Joseph stood above me, his hair golden, his eyes already the deep, perfect amber of lion.

The man at my feet wrapped himself tighter around me, not kneading me with his fingers now, but clinging. "No," Haven said, "no, she's mine. Mine!"

"Not yours," Joseph growled. He drew his wrist upward and my body followed the line of his skin. It wasn't Haven I wanted, it was lion. Would any-one do? Maybe. It wasn't a person I chased, but a scent.

Haven came up off the floor in a movement too quick to follow. He was just suddenly moving, and Joseph was there, and the next moment they were across the room, crashing through the drapes into the stone wall beyond.

The drapes cascaded down around them, so that half the living room wall was ripped away, revealing the bare stone and the torch-lit corridor beyond.

The guards waded in, trying to separate them. I was left standing, staring, not entirely sure what had happened, or why. Joseph had saved me, from something, something...

Cloth ripped, loud and violent. Haven came up, out of the ripped drapes, and sailed across the room, to find the drapes at the other side. They collapsed around him, but he never tried to rise. He was just a shape under the cascading cloth.

Joseph stepped out of the fall of white and gold cloth, half his shirt ripped away. His hands were half-clawed, and his face was beginning to lose its human shape, like his body becoming soft clay. His hair was lengthening, starting to form the golden halo of his mane.

Auggie stepped to the edge of the spilled cloth around him, and his voice echoed through the room like the whisper of a giant. Intimate, soft, and thunderous all at once. "Lion, I am master here, not you."

Joseph growled at him with teeth gone long and dangerous. His voice was so low and growling that it was hard to understand. "I am the Rex of the St. Louis Pride. I was invited to see the lions you brought, and I have found them wanting."

Octavius came up beside Auggie, laid a hand on his back, and the power level rocked off the scale. It was like a metaphysical earthquake, except nothing moved, nothing you could see anyway. But it stumbled me on my high heels. Joseph staggered back a step from it. The others turned startled faces toward Auggie, but they weren't as affected as Joseph.

"Have you ever met a master vampire that could call your animal, Rex?" Auggie asked.

Joseph was breathing harder than he should have been, but he managed to growl, "No."

"Let me show you what you've been missing." He didn't gesture, or speak, but suddenly the air was hard to breathe. The air was so heavy with power that we should all be choking on it. But it wasn't meant for us.

Joseph collapsed to his knees, snarling, fighting, but he could not stand against it.

"Let me see your human eyes, Rex."

The growing mane began to shrink. The fur that had been climbing over his skin began to be reabsorbed. His face was reshaping itself. Only when he was Joseph again, fully human again, did the air ease a little.

"What do you want, vampire?" Joseph said, in a human voice that sounded breathy.

"Obedience," Auggie said, and there was nothing friendly about that one word. The good-natured man was gone, and the master vampire was revealed. "Come to me, Rex, crawl to me."

Joseph fought him. You could watch the struggle of it on his face, but finally he dropped to all fours.

"Stop it, Auggie," I said, "leave him alone."

"He is my beast, not Jean-Claude's. There is no tie between my host and the lions."

"There is tie between me and the lions. I invited Joseph here tonight."

He never looked at me, but Octavius did. He put those perfect chocolate eyes on me, and his face held nothing but arrogance. Which pissed me off. Anger is bad, but sometimes, well, it has its uses.

I moved toward them. I put myself between them, blocking his view of Joseph. It was like I'd taken a punch. Nathaniel was there to grab me, and the moment he touched me, I felt better. He was my animal to call now, not just my type of animal, but truly my animal to call, as Richard was to Jean-Claude. It was sort of like a furry human servant, and it gave some of the benefits. Power, extra power.

"Joseph and his people are our allies. My leopards and I have a treaty with them. To harm one is to harm both."

Auggie looked at me then, his eyes swimming gray like clouds with lightning caught inside them. "If Jean-Claude had made this treaty I would have to abide by it, but you are a human servant, Anita. You do not bind me, as your master would. Just as, if you visit us in Chicago, deals made by Octavius alone are not binding on your master."

"So you'll hurt Joseph because why, because he stopped me from doing some metaphysical shit with your lion? Is that it?"

"He is lion, and no lion can resist me."

"He is the Rex of St. Louis, Auggie, you have no authority over him," I said.

"Would you challenge me with Octavius at my back? Would you set yourself against me with your master busy elsewhere?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"I will punish him for his insult to me and mine, Anita. I will do it. You can either allow it, gracefully, or you can force me to control you, as I control Joseph."

"If you think you can control me, Auggie, knock yourself out."

It was suddenly harder to breathe again. Micah came in at my other side. He was my Nimir-Raj, and it helped me think, but it didn't help me fight. "Graham," I said.

He came to my reaching hand, and the moment I touched him, I could feel the wolves. Feel the tie through Richard to the pack. That neck-ruffling scent of wolf. The green peace of woods and fields, and...

I staggered, and only Nathaniel and Graham's hands kept me on my feet. Pierce the werelion was at Auggie's side.

I wanted to call Jean-Claude, but was afraid to. Auggie was his friend, but what I was feeling pushing against me, filling the very air, was more powerful than anything I'd ever felt from Jean-Claude. If I lost to Auggie, then I lost. But if Jean-Claude lost to him, then there was a chance he would be defeated as Master of the City. And right there, in that moment, I saw the real reason I hadn't wanted these bastards in our city. I hadn't trusted us to be strong enough.

I would not cost us the city. I would not be the ruin of us all. I would not. I was trying to fight him as if I were another master vampire, but that wasn't what I was. I was a necromancer. I was supposed to have control over all the dead. We would see.

I let go of the men who held me up. I took a step away from the hands of the living, and opened that part of me that I always had to shield. That part of me that was like some great closed fist, tight, tight, or who knows what we could do, by accident or by design.

I almost never unleashed my necromancy outside a cemetery. But there were no dead bodies for the power to find, there were only vampires. My power blew out from my body like a chill wind, and it found its mark.

"What is this?" Auggie asked. Octavius's face didn't look so arrogant over his shoulder. Pierce moved away from him as if something about my power had made it hard to keep touching him.

"If being human servant or Nimir-Ra gains me nothing, then there are other titles, Auggie. Other powers to be invoked."

He licked his lips, a nice nervous gesture. "What is this power?"

"Haven't you heard, Auggie, I'm a necromancer."

"There are no true necromancers," Octavius said, but his voice didn't sound so certain.

"Have it your way, but you will leave Joseph and his people alone while you're in my city."

"Or what?" Auggie asked, his eyes still full of gray light.

"I have another title among the vampires; do you know what it is?"

"The Executioner, they call you the Executioner."

"Yeah, they do."

"Are you threatening to kill me?" He managed to sound amused, even with my power breathing around his body.

"I am telling you the rules. You do not mess with our people. And all the vampires, all the shapeshifters, and other supernatural to be named later, qualify as our people."

"We were attacked," Octavius said.

"Fine, you've proved your point. You forced him to swallow his beast. I say it's enough."

"I am a master vampire, a ruler of a city; you do not dictate to me."

"If you're vampire enough to make me back down, then come and get me, Auggie. I stand here alone, no animal to call, no Nimir-Raj, no vampire at my back. I stand here with nothing but my own power. Are you vampire enough to do the same?"

He smiled. "Are you saying to step away from Octavius and my lion, and meet you in the middle of the room, for what? A duel? You would die."

"A testing of wills then," I said.

"You cannot hope to win," he said.

"If that's true, then you have nothing to lose, do you?"

"Anita," Claudia said, "I'm not sure about this."

"Come to me, Augustine, come to me." I put everything I had into that command. I wanted him to come to me, now. Before Jean-Claude got here.

He pushed away from his human servant and his lion. He started walking toward me, just like I wanted. "Augustine," Octavius said, "do not do this."

"Come to me, Auggie, come to me."

He had taken two more steps, before he frowned at me. "You are bidding me to come. You are truly calling me."

"I told you what I was."

He shook his head. "I will not come to you."

"Afraid?"

"Cautious," he said.

"Fine, then I'll meet you halfway, that's fair."

"Anita," Graham said. I ignored him. I started walking toward the waiting vampire. "Meet me partway, Auggie."

He started toward me, not gliding, but stiffly, as if his body wasn't working quite right. He finally stopped before he reached me. Stopped with a look you don't get to see on a master vampire's face often. Nervous, he was nervous.

"What happens when we meet in the middle, Anita?"

"If you get past me, fine, but if you don't, then I win."

"That doesn't seem fair; you have only to stand your ground, but I must walk past you."

We both stopped about two feet away from each other. I coaxed my power, whispered to it what I wanted. I wanted him to obey me. I'd never tried this so overtly against any vampire. A Master of the City was probably not the place to start, but it was too late now.

He swayed on his expensive shoes. "I will not."

"Will not what?" I asked, but my voice held the power that was breathing around us. My voice knew what.

I expected him just to keep resisting. I should have remembered that there were other options.

"You want me, Anita, you can have me. I can do what I wanted to do all along, and Jean-Claude can't even get mad."

I hesitated, stumbling in my mind, the power flickering. "What..."

He moved faster than I could follow, closing the distance, taking me in his arms. I was suddenly pinned against his body, my arms trapped. My power pushed at him, but his power pushed back.

"I feel it, your power, and God, you are powerful. If you were just a necromancer you might even win, but you aren't just that, are you?" He lowered his face toward me, as if he meant to kiss me.

"Stop, I command you to stop."

He actually hesitated, swallowing hard, closing his eyes, but when he opened them, it was as if his power had taken a catastrophic leap. The gaze from his eyes stopped the breath in my throat. "Strong, but not strong enough." He flexed his power, like some invisible muscle, and that flexing shot through my body. It bowed my spine, and only his arms kept me upright. We half fell to our knees, as if my collapse caught him by surprise. He ripped my controls away from the ardeur. He did it better and quicker than Thea had dreamt of. He brought the ardeur, with my body wrapped in his. He brought the ardeur knowing that once it rose like this, he would be my food. Which, of course, was what he had meant. He could do what he'd wanted to all along, and Jean-Claude couldn't even get mad.

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