boss. In the old system of vampireland, preternatural power gave you rank – vampires first, then wereanimals, then human servants. Plain humans were pretty much just food.
‘You are not the boss of me, human, and neither is Nicky!’ She took a step closer to the big man who stood so silent in front of her.
‘He’s not in charge of you,’ I said, and I let down my shields and very deliberately touched the beasts inside me. I called my own otherworldly heat and let it trickle down into hers. I took two more steps down into the heat of her rage, and my voice growled low and deep as hers. I held tiger, leopard, wolf, and lion in me; all she held was bear. It was one of the brown bears related to Kodiaks and grizzlies, but bigger. Some of the ancient wereanimal lines held the last genetic link to some extinct animal lines. There were several werebears among the Harlequin’s animals to call, and they were big fuckers, but a bear was only one beast; I carried a menagerie in me. Jean-Claude’s vampire marks kept me in human shape, or had so far, but I held the beasts inside me, including every bloodline of weretiger. ‘I am!’ I let those two words carry my power.
I was close enough to watch her eyes swim to dark reddish brown, her beast eyes in her human face. The eyes are usually the first to shift when a wereanimal begins to change. In all her displays of temper Nilda had never let her eyes change. Shit. My flashing power back should have calmed things down, because it showed I was ready to back down her threat with my own. Instead her eyes had gone. I so didn’t need this today.
‘You’re behaving like a first-moon rookie. Control yourself or go back to the Circus. We don’t need this shit.’
‘My orders are that you need six guards. I’m the sixth. I won’t disobey my orders.’
‘Fredo takes orders from me. If I say you go home, you go home.’
She lowered her head, and I could almost see her power shimmer around her like a heat haze above a summer road. She swallowed it back, and when she looked up again her eyes were just blue and human, though the rage was still there plain to see. That was fine, she could be pissed; what she couldn’t be was out of control.
‘I will not disgrace my master.’
Things were calming down, but it was too late as far as I was concerned. I didn’t have time to babysit Nilda’s issues. I felt sorry for her, even understood some of her rage, but Micah needed me and that was my priority. ‘I don’t have time to babysit your issues, Nilda. I’m sorry that your afterlife has sucked, but it’s not my problem today. Go back with the driver and the car. I’ll phone Fredo and tell him to expect you.’
She looked up at me, and there was no anger now. She was studying my face, trying to read me. That was another thing I’d noticed particularly about the Harlequin’s werebears; they didn’t seem to be good with facial expressions, as if they had trouble interpreting human faces. I still had trouble reading the faces of those nearest and dearest to me when they were in animal form, so I hadn’t asked about it, but maybe I should. Later I would, but not today.
‘I have swallowed my power back. I have done as you asked. Why are you still sending me back?’ Her voice was so reasonable, as if I were the one behaving badly.
‘Because I can’t afford to have you doing what you just did around Micah’s family. His father is a law enforcement officer, which means there will be other cops around the hospital, and if you go all otherworldly around them they might just shoot you first and ask forgiveness later. Remember, this is a western state; they can kill you in human form, and if your blood test comes back showing lycanthropy, and it will, it’s a legal kill. And if you want to come along and get yourself killed, that’s fine, though it’d be a bitch to have your master die with you because you’re being a undisciplined baby, but you’re likely to get people I care about hurt, and that I won’t allow.’
Her wide eyes went even wider, like blue pools in her face, and I realized tears were standing in them. If she