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“She does not want us all to be happy if what makes us happy makes her uncomfortable,” Pierette said.
Angel moved so I could see the other woman. Pierette wasn’t huddling over the pillow now. She was more just sitting with it in her lap.
“I told you that you can start traveling out of the country soon.”
“And I thank you and Jean-Claude for that, but I miss what we did when we traveled. You won’t let us do the things we need to do to make all the vampires and shapeshifters fear us again. Jean-Claude tries to be a good king, a fair ruler, and he won’t let us do what is necessary to keep our threat strong.”
“Pierette,” Ethan said, and reached a hand toward her.
“I know I am spoiling our plan, but it wasn’t working anyway. I look the part, but I played it too scared. He likes to break his victims down, not start with them broken.”
“You were the wrong bait,” Olaf said, “and so was she.”
“I’m serious when I say if we could find a way to guarantee my safety, I would totally fuck you—at least once,” Angel said.
I looked at her. I think I looked shocked, or like I didn’t believe her.
“Oh, come on, Anita, he’s hot. If you weren’t scared you’d end up on the menu, you’d have done him by now.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I have offered sex to Anita without her being on the menu, though menu is incorrect,” Olaf said. “I do not find cannibalism titillating.”
“Good to know,” I said.
“Should I be offended that you’re not making the offer to me?” Angel asked.
“Anita is the Woman for me, the only one I want to be with more than once. The only one that makes me want to find ways to satisfy my desires without destroying her.”
“She and the others tell us that you want her to hunt monsters with you so you can cut them up and kill them together as foreplay,” Pierette said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I miss hunting down vampires that have broken our laws. I miss tormenting them, making examples of them. I miss doing terrible things in the name of those I serve.”
Pierette sat up straighter with every word. By the last one, her pillow had fallen to the floor, and she sat cool, confident, centered in herself in a way I hadn’t seen before. Was it real, or was it an act? Would the real Pierette please step the fuck forward?
“This is much better bait for me, but I do not believe this lie any more than I did the other,” Olaf said.
Pierette looked at him. “I’m not lying about this.”
“You are good at hiding it. Your breath, your pulse, nothing changes, but your scent does. No matter how controlled you are, you can’t control that. Even one of the great fallen Harlequin cannot control the smell. Lies smell bitter on your skin.”
“You are only guessing that I was one of the Harlequin.”
“You keep almost calling Anita your queen. Only the bodyguards of the old queen of vampires would do that.”
“And if I was one of them, then I would be a spy and assassin extraordinaire. I would hunt monsters with you, Olaf, and I would have far fewer morals about it than Anita does.”
“I think if you got me alone, you would try to kill me. You would say later that I had attacked you, and you were forced to defend yourself. How brave of you, how tragic for me.”
“I admit that was the original plan, but as Angel says, you are attractive and far more compelling than I expected.”
“You seek to distract me, but I am not that easily put aside from my goals.” He turned back to Edward as if the women had ceased to exist. “Have you slept with Anita and any of her girlfriends?”
“No.”
“I will not ask the other. It is insulting.”
