Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #28) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,20
happening tonight,” he said, his voice rumbling up through his chest against my face.
“I’ve seen you before other fights, Rafael, and this is not right, you’re not right tonight. I don’t know what is wrong, but you have to delay the fight.”
“Why?” he asked, and he kissed the top of my wet hair.
“Because if you are convinced you will lose, then you will, that’s true of all fighting.”
“I will do my best for my people tonight, Anita.”
“Tell me you will win tonight. Tell me you will kick his ass. Tell me you will kill him, Rafael.”
“I will try.” But his voice made a lie of it. He would try, but he didn’t believe it would work.
I started pushing against him then. I couldn’t stay pressed to him like this; I needed to see him, I needed to move. “Don’t make me force you to let me go, Rafael.”
“Do you think you could?” he asked, and there was just a hint of amused arrogance that a lot of the big athletic guys had. Good, at least that sounded like someone who planned to win, though I didn’t really want it aimed at me.
I said, “I’d have to hurt you badly, but unless you were willing to hurt me back, yes, I can make you let me go, but I don’t want to hurt you.” Then I had an idea. “Would you being hurt postpone the fight?”
He laughed then and let go of me, stepping back as much as the shower stall would let him. His face was alight with laughter even as it faded. That was better already in so many ways.
“Do not hurt me to keep me from the fight tonight, Anita. If they thought that you were able to injure me that badly, it would be another weakness on the long list that my enemies have collected.”
“Could you say that you were injured in training?” I asked.
“Why should I lie?”
“Because this is the most confident I’ve seen you in the last few minutes, and I don’t want to send you into battle unless you know you can win.”
He looked me in the eyes, probably the best eye contact he’d ever given me when we were both naked and alone, but this moment wasn’t about sex, so the nudity truly didn’t matter.
“I did not care about the first few challengers, they were no great loss to the rodere, or the organization I have built, but now we are starting to lose the future of our people. I have had my eye on Hector for a few years now. I was thinking of bringing him here and starting to train him, groom him to take over from me someday.”
“Won’t he have to kill you to do that?” I asked. I hugged my arms, because without the hot water it was starting to get chilly.
“No, he would have to kill the challenger who just killed me.”
“I don’t understand.”
He handed me one of the towels from the hook outside the shower stall. I took it and started to dry off as he continued to talk. “I wanted to find a young wererat to train up to be my successor. Hector was on the list. In another five to ten years he could be what the rodere need, what the Coalition needs, but now he is too new, too inexperienced to lead us. It would be a disaster if he wins tonight.”
“Yeah, you’d be dead,” I said, and had to carefully towel-dry my hair without rubbing it or wrapping the towel on it, which breaks the curl. I and Micah had had the towel lecture from Jean-Claude for weeks as the wedding got closer. I’d be the bride, but Micah would be standing with us and God forbid our hair not look fabulous for the day. Even listening to Rafael now, I was careful to remember. So stupid, but it made Jean-Claude happy.
“My death would be a disaster now with no one to lead us, but someday I will lose, Anita. Someday all warriors grow old and weak, or when two people are of the same size and equally well trained it is sometimes luck that chooses the winner of a fight. In boxing or MMA, the loser lives to train harder, to learn from their mistakes and come back and win another day, but tonight will be a final loss for one of us.”
“Before you were talking as if you couldn’t win tonight. Is he really that much better than you?”