Micah looked amused. I don't think it bothered him, but not much bothered Micah. He was one of the most easygoing people I'd ever met. I guess he had to be to survive as my boyfriend.
"It isn't bothering me, Merle."
"That's not the point," the big man said. "It's insulting. It shows he has no respect for us."
"It's Paolo," Asher said, "he has no respect for anyone, except Belie."
"Let me guess," I said, "Paolo's pawing Nathaniel, too."
Merle gave a low, skin-crawling growl.
The curtains opened, and Bobby Lee stuck his head and shoulders in. "Unless we can just start tearing people up, you better get back in here."
We exchanged a look, sighed almost as a group, and we got back in there.
Chapter 45
45
There was a wall of our black leather-clad bodyguards--wererats, werehyenas, wereleopards--so that we couldn't see who was making a high piteous noise.
"Make a hole," I said. I was ignored.
Merle yelled, "Make a hole, people," and the bodyguards parted like a black leather ocean.
It was Stephen making the noise. He had pressed himself up against the far wall, as if he were trying to shove himself into it and out the other side. Valentina was in front of him. She wasn't doing anything to him that I could see, or even feel. But she was standing very close, one tiny hand hovering in front of him.
Gregory was pressed into a different space. Bartolome stood just in front of him, a look of near rapture on his young face. I concentrated on the vampire and I felt him feeding, feeding on Gregory's terror. I'd known a vampire or two that could cause fear in others, then feed. I hadn't known it was a power that Belle's line carried.
Stephen screamed, and the sound whipped me around to see that Valentina had laid a tiny hand on his bare stomach. She wasn't feeding on his fear. She wasn't hurting him in any way that I could see. Stephen hid his face, his long blond curls tangling across his made-up face, his naked upper body pressed into the stone, as if he thought he could make himself disappear.
Valentina slid her tiny hand down his waist, to the hips of his white leather pants, and that tore another scream from Stephen's throat. I suddenly had a clue why the twins were terrified of the children.
Bobby Lee pushed his way beside me. "Bodyguards are supposed to go first, Anita, not second."
I ignored the anger, because I knew it was frustration. We'd told the guards that we could not start violence under any circumstances, that Musette and her crew had to break truce first. As far as I was concerned this did break truce.
I started towards Stephen, and a strange vampire barred my way. I knew suddenly why our guards were simply standing there with their hands in their proverbial pockets. The vampire wasn't that tall, but he was bulky, and it wasn't just muscle. There was something to the hunch of his shoulders. The shape of his head was wrong, somehow. There was nothing specific I could put a finger on, except that he hit the radar as not human. Not human in ways different from other vampires.
He was also one of the few Black vampires I'd ever seen. Some people theorized that the same genetics that made many people of African descent immune to malaria also made them less likely to become vampires. He stood there looking at me, with his dark skin still somehow strangely pale, like chocolate ivory. His eyes were golden yellow, and the moment I looked into them, the words not humancame to mind.
Another scream tore the air. It didn't matter what the thing in front of me was, or wasn't. I didn't care.
I tried sidestepping, and the vampire moved with me, not threatening, but not letting me through either. The room was suddenly quiet, so quiet. Gregory's voice came first, unnaturally loud in the tense silence. "Don't make me do this, oh, God, don't make me do this!"
Jean-Claude was murmuring to Musette, and I heard her voice, just a word or two in French. She was basically saying they hadn't broken truce, this was only entertainment.
I felt my shoulders relax, felt the decision settle into the center of my body. I stared up at the vampire. "You are a coward, an ugly, child-abusing coward."
The vampire didn't react, he ignored me, and I didn't think it was simply bodyguard cool. I tried a