Dead Ice (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,79

else stupid.”

“I’m not stupid.” She snapped it, and the words seemed to hold a lifetime of maybe being told exactly that. Lita wasn’t stupid; emotionally she seemed stunted, but I thought that was environmental and she was capable of more.

Jean-Claude looked at her, and I had a moment to see a considering expression before his face was its more typical smiling, pleasant, unreadable beauty. He glided over to Kelly and Lita. They both lowered their eyes so they wouldn’t accidentally make eye contact with him. It had been so long since I couldn’t meet a vampire’s gaze safely that it almost startled me when others did it, especially when they did it around Jean-Claude.

Kelly moved back from Lita when she realized that was who he was standing in front of, as if the werelion were abandoning the wererat to her fate. Kelly looked . . . scared. It made me wonder if I’d missed something else besides Magda being a shit. I’d ask Kelly later, or maybe I’d figure it out just watching Jean-Claude with the other women.

“I assure you, ma souris, that I am very real.”

Lita stared at the floor. “I know you’re real.” She tried to sound tough, but it’s hard when you’re staring at someone’s feet.

“But you just said we are not.” His French accent was a little thicker, which usually meant he was fighting some emotion, though sometimes onstage he did it on purpose. American women really dug the accent.

She shook her head hard enough that her hair fanned around her face, but with the headband her hair couldn’t spill forward enough to hide her face completely.

He touched his fingertips to her chin and raised her face upward. She had her eyes closed as he raised her face, and she looked scared.

“Please,” she whispered, but I was close enough to hear it.

“Please, what?” he asked in that accented, teasing voice. Once he’d aimed that voice at me. I had a moment to wonder if Jean-Claude just liked women with long, curly, dark hair. I had a moment of jealousy, which I hadn’t felt in a long time. I looked at the feeling and tried to figure out where it was coming from. I’d watched him have sex with other people and not been jealous, so why did this hit that button?

“Please,” she repeated. He was still only touching the edge of her chin with the barest tips of his fingers, but she began to open her eyes as if she couldn’t help herself. I remembered when I’d wanted to see what face went with that voice but been too afraid to look.

I realized that was it; it was the first time I’d seen him interact with another woman where it reminded me so strongly of what he’d done with me years ago. I’d seen him with other sexual partners, but he treated them all differently, unique to them, and nothing like he treated me. I was special to him, as he was to me, but as Lita opened her eyes like a bird staring at a snake, I wondered if I’d ever looked at him in just that way when I was still fighting to stay free of him.

“Your talk is rough, ma souris, but you are not.”

I watched her try to fight at that, the struggle to break his gaze plain on her face, her hands that tried to rise up and then just hung in midair as if she didn’t remember that she’d moved them.

Nicky came up beside me and I reached out for his hand to hold, because I’d never seen Jean-Claude like this with one of our guards before. I didn’t like it much and Nicky had picked up on that.

Jean-Claude stepped back from her, but she stayed frozen, staring at where his face had been, her face slack and empty as if waiting for orders.

“It is as I feared,” he said in his normal voice.

“What is as you feared?” I asked.

“I did not try to bespell her, ma petite. I used no powers, and she is a type of wereanimal that I should have no special hold over, but she stands there enchanted and waiting for whatever I would do.”

“So this was a test?” I asked, and squeezed Nicky’s hand.

“Oui.”

I must have frowned, because he put his head to one side, studying me. “You are upset. I come through the door to find that you have a gun to her head and are threatening to kill her, but my bespelling her