"Padma can't challenge me to a duel, and he can't call my beast. Touch makes the marks stronger, right?"
"Oui."
I smiled and started walking towards Richard. Jean-Claude didn't try to stop me. No one did. Richard had managed to get to his knees with the vampire still molded to his back. Richard's eyes were amber wolf eyes, and he was close to panicking. This near, I could feel his beast like a huge shape just below the surface of some dark lake. When it broke the surface, it would take him with it. Rafael seemed to have accepted his loss, but Richard wouldn't. Richard would take the defeat and beat himself with it.
"What are you doing, human?" Padma asked, staring up at me.
"I'm his lupa and his third. I'm doing my job." I held Richard's face in my hands, and that was enough. The physical touch was all it took to strengthen his control. I felt his heart slow, the pulsing of his body ease. I felt that great shape sink back into the depths. Richard drew on my mark like a drowning man with a rope, coiling it around himself.
"No," Padma said. "He is mine."
I smiled at him. "No, he's mine. Whether we like it or whether we don't, he's mine."
Richard's eyes bled back to their normal brown, and he mouthed the words, "Thank you."
Padma stood in a rush, so quick it was almost like magic. He grabbed my wrist, hard enough to bruise, and I said, "You can't challenge me, because I'm not a vampire. You can't feed off of me, because I can only play victim once tonight, and Asher was my once."
Richard lay on the floor, one arm braced so he wasn't actually lying down, but I had a flash of how bone-weary he was, so tired, so weak.
"You know our rules well, Anita," Padma said. He jerked me close to him, bodies almost touching. "You are not vampire, or food, but you are still his lupa."
"You going to try and call my beast?" I said. "You can't call what's not there."
"I felt your power with the little werewolf." He raised my hand to his face and sniffed along my skin like he was smelling some exotic perfume. "You smell of pack, Anita. There is something in you to call. Whatever it is, I will have it."
"She is not part of the bargain," Jean-Claude said.
"She interfered," Padma said. "That makes her part of this bacchanal. Do not worry. I will not hurt her. Too much."
He leaned into me and spoke low, soft. It was French, and I didn't speak enough French to follow it. I caught the word for wolf, and power, and moon, and I felt the power rise inside of me. It was too soon after Jason. The power was too close to the surface, too near. Padma called to it, and I didn't know how to stop it. The power burst over my skin in a hot wash. My knees buckled and he caught me, as I collapsed against his body.
Richard touched my leg, but it was too late. He tried to strengthen my control, as I'd done for him, but I didn't have any control yet. Padma called and the munin answered. I was channeling Raina for the second time in an hour.
The power filled my skin, and I stood, pressing my body into Padma, staring at him from inches away. The power wanted to touch someone, anyone. It didn't care. I cared, and I had enough control this time to refuse it. I said, "No." I pushed away from him, falling to the ground as I did it.
Padma followed me, touching my hair, my face, as I crawled away from him. "The power is sexual in nature, a mating urge perhaps. How very interesting."
Jean-Claude said, "Leave her alone, Master of Beasts."
He laughed. "What do you think would happen if I kept calling her beast? Do you think she would give in? Do you think she would f**k me?"
"We will not find out," Jean-Claude said.
"If you interfere with my fun, then it is challenge between us."
"That is what you have wanted all along."
Padma laughed again. "Yes, I think you should be killed for the Earthmover's death. But I cannot kill you just for that. The council has voted that down."
"But if you kill me in a duel, then no one will blame you, is that it?"
"That is it."
I huddled on the floor, hugging myself, trying to swallow the power back, but it wasn't going anywhere. Richard crawled to me, touching my bare arm. I recoiled from him as if his touch had burned, because I wanted him, wanted him in a way so raw and primitive it made my body hurt.
"Don't touch me, please."
"How did you get rid of it last time?"