Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,102

move back. He shone the light on the side of Ares’ neck and just shook his head. ‘Travers has a wound like this in his chest. It’s the same infection that got Sheriff Callahan.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘The wound doesn’t seem to be closing. I thought lycanthropes healed better than this.’

‘Wounds made by other preternaturals heal slower,’ I said.

‘So, because it’s a vampire bite it’s not healing?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’

The big leopard rubbed at me. I ran my hands through his fur. ‘It’s okay, Nathaniel.’

He pushed at me again, and I turned to look into his leopard eyes, but the look in the eyes wasn’t animal. He was trying to tell me something. I dropped shields a little more, trying to ‘see’ what he wanted to share. I was suddenly overwhelmed with grayish images, the scent of the night, and the feel of my body against his, but … not the way a person thought of it, more like a … I shoved my shields back in place, holding on to his leopard form to keep from swaying. I’d caught glimpses of things, but it was like looking at a jigsaw puzzle that had been swirled around on the floor. You knew there was a picture, but it was just bright bits of color and shapes.

His energy poured over my skin, marching down my nerve endings like electric kisses. His fur flowed under my hands, and for the first time I held him as his human form pulled its way out of the fur and muscles of his leopard. The power of it shivered through my body so that I shuddered as his skin flowed smooth and fever-hot against me.

Becker exclaimed behind us, ‘Oh, my God!’

I wondered if she said it from watching him shift form or because he was now crouched naked, hidden only by the fall of his unbound hair. She hadn’t said anything when Ares changed form, so it was probably the whole nude-and-beautiful-man-who-wasn’t-wounded-and-unconscious thing. It’s just bad form to lust after the wounded, but Nathaniel wasn’t wounded. He fit into the curve of my arm and body like he always did, as if he’d been meant to be there all along. As nice as it had been to cuddle his leopard, this was better, more comforting to me.

‘I’ve never seen you change back to human this soon,’ Nicky said from the other side of Ares and Officer Perkins.

‘I’ve never tried to change back this soon,’ Nathaniel said, and his voice was a little shaky.

I hugged him close, marveling at how warm he was, how silken his skin and hair. I buried my face in his hair the way you’d take a stiff drink to calm your nerves. I found the heavy leather of his collar still around his neck, though looser.

‘You’re supposed to pass out after you shift back,’ Nicky said.

‘In case I do pass out, Anita, remember the vampire that bit me in Tennessee?’ he asked.

I’d known about rotting vampires, but the first time I knew that they could infect people with their bite was when one of them bit Nathaniel. He’d lain on a hotel bed screaming in pain and would have died if Asher and Damian hadn’t drained the sickness out of his body, risking their own lives to do it. Asher had been strong enough to be okay, but Damian had nearly rotted to death. I’d saved him by letting him feed on me, and risked dying the same way, but since I’d asked Damian to save Nathaniel, I’d had to try. This was before Nathaniel was my animal to call and before Damian was my vampire servant. It all seemed so long ago and far away now. ‘How could I forget?’ I said, and hugged him tighter. It seemed unthinkable that once I hadn’t loved him, once I had done everything I could to avoid being his lover, and now he was one of the most important people in my life.

‘Ares has only one animal form, like I did back then; he’s not going to be able to heal this any more than I could.’

I went still as we hugged. I raised my face up from his hair and met his eyes. ‘Ares has only one form?’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘He’s a big, dominant, athletic guy; I thought that translated into two beast forms.’

‘Not always.’ This from Nicky.

‘I’m not sure what you’re talking about,’ Perkins said, ‘but I’ve got patients to finish prepping for the helicopter that’s coming.’

‘What about Ares?’ I asked.

‘I’ll send him when the