Dead Ice (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,96

wrong moment, so that the fire poured into the mouth of his lover.

I don’t know how much the rest of the men could see, but to our eyes it was like kissing in the middle of a burning color and power. It felt wonderful and frightening, like flame dancing across our skin, but not quite burning . . . not yet.

Then Micah’s hand was on mine and the power spilled out through my skin and into him like a river seeking a new way to the sea. His leopard spilled up my arm and brought mine to life so that the calm darkness of it mixed with the tigers and suddenly the heat wasn’t frightening. I knew that together we could tame it, control it, and with that thought all my beasts came to life in one woven knot of intermingled power. Lion came to join the tigers and leopards, and then wolf, and lastly hyena. It was the newest beast I carried; less than a year ago Ares had contaminated me with it while he died. He hadn’t meant to share the disease that forced him out of the marines. He hadn’t meant me to have to use the skills he’d taught me as a sniper to kill him before the madness drove him to harm civilians. Neither of us had meant a lot of things, but I carried a piece of his beast inside me and would until I died. I didn’t need anything else to remember my friend but that hot, wild energy spilling up through my body and into the men who touched me.

“Anita smells like all her beasts at once,” Crispin said, and just that let me know he was closer to us than he had been.

I tried to turn to see how close. Dev’s big hand touched the side of my face so the energy kept flowing across our skin as we both broke from the kiss to look. Micah was only holding our hands, so he just had to turn and look. Crispin was on all fours on top of the conference table. He was sniffing the air, his hands still solidly on the wood, like a much smaller cat when it smells something interesting and wants to investigate without actually touching it first.

“Micah smells like all her beasts and more. Something more, that I don’t understand. Domino, what do you smell?”

Domino spoke from behind me, and I turned in the circle of the men’s hands, and the invisible rush of that flaming energy, to see him on all fours on the floor, leaning in toward us in an almost identical pose to Crispin.

“Their beasts, all their beasts.”

“Does Micah smell like more than leopard to you?”

Domino leaned in closer to Micah’s leg. “Yes.”

Crispin leaned further, stretching that long torso out, until he could almost have licked Dev. The golden tiger growled softly at him. Crispin backed up a fraction. “Can you smell everything on Dev, too?”

Domino crawled around my legs so he could sniff closer to Dev. It should have looked awkward to see the guard, still carrying all his weapons, crawling on all fours, but he moved as if the tigers inside him knew exactly how to move this human shape so it was graceful even without paws. He sniffed loudly, drawing in the scent, and then reached out as if to caress the energy. Dev growled louder this time.

“Easy, big gold, I’m just trying to taste the energy.” Domino raised those red and orange eyes to us. “Dev smells like all the beasts, too.”

“That’s not the way it’s supposed to work,” Crispin said.

“How is it supposed to work?” Jean-Claude asked. He was leaning against the wall closest to the three of us. His hands were behind him, so they were pinned between his body and the wall.

“Anita is a panwere, so she has other beasts, but it shouldn’t transfer to anyone else,” Crispin said.

“I think it’s just the power of them, not the true beasts,” Micah said. His voice was half breathy with that edge of growling undertone.

“What if it’s not?” Domino asked, still on all fours at our feet.

The three of us didn’t truly look at each other, but we shared what the look would have meant in an instant of emotion. The marks were open between us, not all the way, but we were already beginning to think as a unit—three people, one mind, one heart, if we weren’t careful.

“Try to change,” Domino said.

“What?” I said.

“One of you try