Bullet Page 0,19
of us as he parted the curtains, hitting the opening out of long habit. If it was new to you, the “door” was nearly impossible to find the first time. They went through laughing, looking at each other in a way I never thought I’d see Jason look at anyone.
We came behind them, my hand in Nathaniel’s and my arm through Micah’s. We almost ran into Jason and J.J. just inside the curtains. Something about the way they were standing made me drop the men’s hands and go for my gun. Maybe I was overreacting, but a lot of our enemies are faster than human. You don’t get a second chance to draw your gun against that kind of speed. I used Jason and J.J. to hide my hands as I tried to see around to what had made them stop, and I could see Jason’s tension level go through the roof. I knew rationally that he’d have yelled a warning if it was a gun situation, but a gun was what I had.
When I could see around them it didn’t make sense. Wicked and Truth were standing with our other black-shirted security guards, but they were all standing in the middle of the room with Jean-Claude and Asher on opposite sides of the group. It looked for the entire world as if the guards were trying to keep the two vampires apart. What the hell?
I stepped out with the gun pointed at the floor. “What’s going on?” I asked.
Some of them looked at me, but most of them looked at one of the two master vampires, waiting for them to answer me. I turned to Claudia, the only female guard we had, and the only woman I’d ever known who was over six feet tall. She came toward me, her long black hair in its tight ponytail moving as she stepped to the edge of the group.
“We thought they were going to fight.”
“Fight about what?” I asked, and put my gun up. I wasn’t going to shoot either of them, and they would know that. Unless you’re willing to use it, a gun is just a useless piece of metal. I put my useless piece in its holster.
“I’m not entirely sure,” she said.
“One of you talk to me,” I said.
“We will not come to blows,” Jean-Claude said, and he backed away from the cluster of bodyguards to sit on the big white couch on the far side of the room. He let himself fall into it in that graceful I-don’t-care way, but he ended up looking like he was waiting for some passing photographer to snap a picture of him. He was always beautiful, but this level of care and control over how he looked was usually reserved for guests, and hostile guests at that.
“What happened?” I asked.
Asher backed up to the white loveseat with its gold and silver cushions. He put his arms on the back of the loveseat, careless, but in his own way just as posed as Jean-Claude. Asher’s gold hair spilled over the scarred side of his face so that he sat there like some fallen angel, perfect and coldly beautiful.
“What is wrong with you guys? What’s happened?”
“Nothing’s happened,” Asher said, “and that is precisely the problem.”
We all stood in the white and gold room, and I had no idea what was going on. The bodyguards were huddled between the faux fireplace and the two chairs, the silver by the faux fireplace and the gold with its white cushions by us at the end of the room between the couch and loveseat. The huge glass-and-metal coffee table in the center of everything had food on it, but it was also forcing the guards to move around it, having to be careful of the food and the vampires. It seemed like you shouldn’t have to tiptoe around refreshments when you’re standing between two master vampires, but sometimes you end up between the cutlets and the cutlery, with nowhere safe to stand.
I frowned from one to the other of them and finally turned to the guards. Claudia and her fellow wererat Fredo looked at me. The two newer guards were both werehyenas, one tall and blond, the other a little shorter with skin a few shades darker than Vivian’s, hair tight and curly to his head. They were both looking at Asher. Wicked looked from one to the other of the vampires, but Truth looked at me. I said, “Truth, report.”
The dark-haired vampire stepped away from the