Dead as a doornail - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,105

My shields were still down, and I felt the suspicion and conjecture flowing from the brains of my companions, except, of course, from the two fairies. To Claude and Claudine, my peculiarity was a rare gift, and I was a lucky woman.

“Come here,” Quinn rumbled, and I thought about telling him to take his commands and shove them where the sun don’t shine. But that would be childish, and I had nothing to fear. (At least that’s what I told myself about seven times in rapid succession.) I made my spine stiffen, and I strode up to him and looked up into his face.

“You don’t have to stick your jaw out like that,” he said calmly. “I’m not going to hit you.”

“I never thought you were,” I said with a snap in my voice that I was proud of. I found that his round eyes were the very dark, rich, purple-brown of pansies. Wow, they were pretty! I smiled out of sheer pleasure . . . and a dollop of relief.

Unexpectedly, he smiled back. He had full lips, very even white teeth, and a sturdy column of a neck.

“How often do you have to shave?” I asked, fascinated with his smoothness.

He laughed from the belly.

“Are you scared of anything?” he asked.

“So many things,” I said regretfully.

He considered that for a moment. “Do you have an extrasensitive sense of smell?”

“Nope.”

“Do you know the blond one?”

“Never saw him before.”

“Then how did you know?”

“Sookie is a telepath,” Claude said. When he got the full weight of the big man’s stare, he looked like he was sorry he’d interrupted. “My sister is her, ah, guardian,” Claude concluded in a rush.

“Then you’re doing a terrible job,” Quinn told Claudine.

“Don’t you get onto Claudine,” I said indignantly. “Claudine’s saved my life a bunch.”

Quinn looked exasperated. “Fairies,” he muttered. “The Weres aren’t going to be happy about your piece of information,” he told me. “At least half of them are going to wish you were dead. If your safety is Claudine’s top priority, she should have held your mouth shut.”

Claudine looked crushed.

“Hey,” I said, “cut it out. I know you’ve got friends in there you’re worried about, but don’t take that out on Claudine. Or me,” I added hastily, as his eyes fixed on mine.

“I have no friends in there. And I shave every morning,” he said.

“Okay, then.” I nodded, nonplussed.

“Or if I’m going out in the evening.”

“Gotcha.”

“To do something special.”

What would Quinn consider special?

The doors opened, interrupting one of the strangest conversations I’d ever had.

“You can come back in,” said a young Were in three-inch-high fuck-me shoes. She was wearing a burgundy sheath, and when we followed her back into the big room, she gave her walk some extra sway. I wondered whom she was trying to entrance, Quinn or Claude. Or maybe Claudine?

“This is our judgment,” said Christine to Quinn. “We’ll resume the contest where it ended. According to the vote, since Patrick cheated on the second test, he is declared the loser of that test. Of the agility test, too. However, he’s allowed to stay in the running. But, to win, he has to win the last test decisively.” I wasn’t sure what “decisively” meant in this context. From Christine’s face, I was certain it didn’t bode well. For the first time, I realized that justice might not prevail.

Alcide looked very grim, when I found his face in the crowd. This judgment seemed clearly biased in favor of his father’s opponent. I hadn’t realized that there were more Weres in the Furnan camp than the Herveaux camp, and I wondered when that shift had occurred. The balance had seemed more even at the funeral.

Since I had already interfered, I felt free to interfere some more. I began wandering among the pack members, listening to their brains. Though the twisted and turned brains of all Weres and shifters are difficult to decipher, I began to pick up a clue here and there. The Furnans, I learned, had followed their plan of leaking stories about Jackson Herveaux’s gambling habits, talking up how unreliable that made Jackson as a leader.

I knew from Alcide that the stories about his father’s gambling were true. Though I didn’t admire the Furnans for playing this card, I didn’t consider it stacking the deck, either.

The two competitors were still in wolf form. If I had understood correctly, they had been scheduled to fight anyway. I was standing by Amanda. “What’s changed about the last test?” I asked. The redhead whispered that now