Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #28) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,21
head. “No, I don’t believe so, but I see his death as a waste of potential. I will mourn his loss to the rodere, but he will celebrate my death. I cannot afford to think like a king tonight and see a great warrior and the potential for so much more. I must be the fighter I once was not just in body, but in mind and attitude. I need the tunnel vision that Hector has, because he believes in his cause. He believes that I am selling us into slavery to the vampires through you and Jean-Claude.”
“That’s not true, you know it’s not.”
“And yet I cannot prove it to Hector or to any of my enemies. Even now I want you to feed on me tonight and take power from all of them.”
“Proximity makes vampire abilities stronger, Rafael. If Hector has never been this geographically close when I fed the ardeur on you, then it’s just going to convince him even more that I’m going to give you all to Jean-Claude as food and slaves.”
“Sex slaves,” Rafael said.
“Excuse me?”
He smiled, but not like it was entirely funny. “The rumor says that Jean-Claude’s seductive powers will turn us all into sex slaves for him and his vampires and those wereanimals closest to him and you.”
“I’ve heard that rumor that everyone who joins any group in St. Louis has to sleep with one of us, but the whole sex slave thing is new. Do they think we’re pimping people out, or how will it work?”
“I do not know and neither does Hector, but he is homophobic, so the fact that I’m supposed to be sleeping with Jean-Claude seems to threaten him and other young men in our clans. The last fight I won was someone like Hector, someone I saw as a potential next king. Even if I win tonight, Anita, I am starting to destroy the future of all I have built, for a kingdom is only as good as its leader. If the person who follows after me is a bad king, then he will destroy everything that we have worked so long and hard for, and if I keep killing the best and brightest of our young men, then I will win the battles, but eventually the war will be lost. Do you understand what I mean?”
I nodded, wrapping the towel around me, and having to fold it at the top so that I’d be able to walk later without tripping. “I think so, you’ve defeated all the would-be kings who would have been bad leaders, but now you’re starting to fight the ones that you think could rule, just not now and not yet.”
“Exactly, even if I win tonight, it is still a loss for the future of my people.”
“I don’t care if it’s a loss for future generations, Rafael. I don’t give a flying fuck if Hector would age into being a great king. He doesn’t get to kill you tonight. He doesn’t get to wear your crown a decade too early. He isn’t a fit ruler tonight, and tonight is all that matters, Rafael.”
“So fierce, would you miss me that much, or is it only as an ally and a part of your power base that you will mourn me?”
“You know I care for you as more than a friend and ally.”
“I’m attracted to crazy bitches, Anita; that means that love to me is about drama and screaming and horrible behavior. That makes me feel loved; as fucked up as that is, it is still the truth, and before you ask, I am speaking with the therapist that Micah recommended. I even know that I was raised by someone who was that kind of unstable crazy, and that is why I chase it. Knowing why doesn’t change that it makes me feel loved, or that it tears down my life and breaks my heart again and again. I am a king and I cannot afford any more unstable would-be queens, but you are so sane, Anita, so pragmatic at times that I don’t know what you feel, or what I feel.”
“Therapy takes time,” I said.
“I hope someday to be able to love a woman who doesn’t play games or burn my belongings in the driveway.”
“Or stab you,” I said.
He smiled. “Yes, that, too, but I still miss the women who go with that kind of insanity.”
“Do I say I’m sorry, or do you want me to pick some of your stuff that I don’t think