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"He's not going to make it in time," Jason said.
Nathaniel stood in the center of the room like he was lost. "What now?"
The door shuddered again.
Jason went to the door, leaning against it. "Nathaniel, help me!" Nathaniel joined him, putting his shoulder against the quaking wood.
Hands pushed past the edge of the table. Asher took one hand off the table to break the wrist like match wood. There was a scream, and the hand pulled back.
He spoke as if he wasn't using almost all his strength to hold the table against the broken window. "May one ask why the local werewolf pack is trying to kill us?"
"They're not trying to kill us," Jason said. "They're trying to f**k her." He leaned his entire back against the door. Whatever was at the door left abruptly, and Jason almost fell against the suddenly quiet door.
The window cleared, too. It was suddenly terribly quiet, too quiet, as the old saying goes.
"What is going on?" Damian said.
"Later," Jason said. His eyes looked almost wild. "Ask me why Richard told me to stay with you."
I stared at him. "Okay, why did Richard tell you to stay with me?"
"This ends when you have sex with any of the lukoi."
I stared at him harder. "Come again."
"If it looks like someone else will get there first, he told me to do it."
"Do it?" I said. I walked around to the nightstand. "You mean, do me."
Jason had the grace to look down. He nodded.
I opened the drawer and took out the Firestar. I tucked it down the front of my jeans. I took the Browning out next and clicked off the safety. "Nothing personal, Jason, but I've got a different plan."
"I didn't say I liked the plan," Jason said. "I may joke about it, and I would love to be with you, but Jean-Claude is my master, too. He'd kill me."
I glanced at Asher. He gave a very small nod. "Probably."
"And if you let someone else get to me because you were squeamish?" I let it be a question.
"Richard doesn't kill easily," Jason said, "but if I let someone rape you, for that he'd make an exception."
I waggled the gun in the air, barrel pointed at the ceiling. "Lucky for you I'm armed."
Jason nodded.
Glass broke in the bathroom. "Shit!" We'd been stupid. "Stay at the doors," I said. I kicked the bathroom door in, already sighting down my arm. I had a glimpse of a man trying to squeeze a large body through the small window. I hit the wildly swinging door with one hip and fired into the mass of the man. He screamed and fell back through the opening.
I yelled, "I've got this window covered."
Sounds of fighting came from outside the cabin. Screams turned into growls. I felt the rising energy and knew that people were losing human form. I could feel them slipping away, slinking through the trees. I could almost smell the musk of their fur. The munin swam back up so suddenly and so purely that I staggered against the door that I was using to steady my aim.
I turned away from the window to stare across the room at Jason. Raina was fine with that. She didn't care who. If it caused Jean-Claude distress or cost Jason his life, that was dandy. I slid down the door slowly, eyes closed, the flat of the gun barrel pressed to my forehead.
"Someone else needs to do this window," I said. I hoped I'd spoken aloud. I was having trouble telling.
Jason must have filled them in because no one asked what was wrong. I felt Damian brush my legs as he went into the bathroom. The feel of his passing caused things low in my stomach to clench. I glanced up at him, and he was frozen in the doorway as if he'd felt my body's reaction.
He stared down at me with his cat green eyes, and I knew as surely as I knew anything that if I told him to come to me, he would have done it. What I didn't know for sure was why.
"Damian," Asher said, "the window."
Damian stayed where he was, staring down at me. "I can't."
"Order him to watch the window, Anita," Asher said.
I went to my knees, free hand sliding up Damian's pants leg. I slid my hand up his thigh and shook my head. I grabbed a handful of his green silk shirt and pulled him down to me. He stayed on the balls of his feet, knees on either side of my body. I went to my knees and kissed him.
I slid my tongue between the delicate points of his fangs. I'd perfected the art of French kissing a vampire. Practice, practice.
He tried not to kiss me back. He drew back enough to whisper, "You taste like blood, other people's blood." Then he locked his mouth to mine like he would breathe me into himself. His long, pale hands cupped my face, slid behind my head in the warmth of my hair.
I pressed my body against him. The Firestar was still in front of my pants. The gun pressed into his groin. I ground it into him until he made a small pain sound. The Browning was lost on the floor.
There was a sound at the bathroom window. I drew back from the kiss, and Damian began to run his lips down my neck. I saw the man crawling through the window as if down a long crystalline tunnel.
I tugged the Firestar from my pants and pointed it. I sighted at the center of his forehead. His eyes widened, and he suddenly spilled backwards into the night. Not so far gone that he didn't want to live. The question was, how far gone was I?
Damian's mouth hovered over the big pulse in my throat. His tongue curled over it, caressing. He was asking for permission. But it wasn't that kind of blood I wanted to donate tonight. Raina had no interest in just opening a vein.
I wrapped my free hand in his long, blood-red hair and jerked his face up to me. "Don't bleed me, f**k me."
Asher yelled, "Jean-Claude will kill him."
"I don't care." The moment I heard myself say it, I swam back up. It was like pushing aside a wet curtain that clung to my face, suffocating, trying to mold itself to my body and keep me, drown me.
I crawled away from Damian into the room. I said, "Watch the damn window, Damian, and stay away from me."
He stood in the doorway, uncertain.
Asher said, "You heard your mistress. Do as you're told."
I heard him walk into the bathroom. Heard his boots crunch on the broken glass. I stayed on all fours, my head hanging down, my breath coming in gasps. The Firestar was still gripped in one hand. I squeezed it tight until my hand ached. I ground the feel of the gun butt into my skin. This was real. This was real. Raina was dead. She was just another kind of ghost, damn it.
I heard someone crawling towards me. I raised my head to find Nathaniel staring at me with lilac eyes. I screamed and scrambled back from him. He was a victim and Raina liked victims. I held my hand out to him as if to ward off a blow.
I ended with my back against the bed, gun squeezed in both hands, rocking back and fourth.
Nathaniel crawled towards me. He crawled like he had muscles in places he shouldn't have, in a graceful roll that was almost snakelike, as if his spine had too many parts. He put his face so close to mine that when he spoke, I could feel his breath on my face. "I'm yours, Anita. You are my Nimir-ra. My queen." He was very careful not to touch me. He stayed that last fraction of an inch away, so that it was my decision. But it wasn't mine.
I tried to tell him to get away from me, but my voice wouldn't work. I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. All I could do was hold onto that last ragged edge of control and not move my mouth that last space. I fought with all I had left not to kiss Nathaniel. Because whoever I fell on next was it. The munin was wearing me down. Even my self-control wasn't limitless. I didn't want it to be Nathaniel. That helped me hold on.
There was a knock at the door. It was so unexpected that I screamed. The scream pushed Nathaniel back to his knees, a little farther out of reach, but still too close.
Asher asked, "Do you open it?"
I shook my head, not as a no, but I couldn't say. I couldn't think. I was fighting too hard to not throw my clothes off and f**k something in the room. That was taking about all my concentration.
Maybe Asher figured that out for himself, because he said, "Who is it?" Very civilized.
The answer shocked us all, I think. "It's Richard."
Jason was on his feet, opening the door, before anyone could tell him to do it. The outer surface of the door was clawed and broken. Richard stood there in the doorway. His T-shirt was in rags, still clinging to his shoulders but so ripped apart that you could see the bloody wounds in his tanned skin. He walked through the door a little unsteadily. Zane and Shang-Da came behind him.
