Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #28) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,27

his feelings hurt that it had bothered me to see his power in our eyes.

7

“IS THAT WHAT it would be like if Anita made me her rat to call?” Rafael asked.

“No, it’s a more complete bonding because we have Damian hooked up to us. Only the triumvirate with Jean-Claude, Richard, and I can come close to this level of . . . intermingling. It’s not like this with any of the other animals to call unless we work at it.”

“At least if Anita’s power shows, we both have brown eyes, so it will not be so obvious,” Rafael said.

“Did we miss something?” Micah asked.

Nathaniel studied my face. “I didn’t see the decision in your mind.”

“You got distracted,” I said.

He grinned. “You always distract me.” He reached for me again, and Micah stepped in the way.

“I love you both, but this is serious. If Anita is going to make Rafael her rat to call, I need to know and so do Jean-Claude and Asher.”

Nathaniel wasn’t smiling as he shook his head. “She hasn’t decided yet.”

“And you know that how?” Benito asked.

“It wasn’t in her head just now.” He said it as if it was a perfectly reasonable answer.

“Do you know everything she’s thinking?” Rafael asked.

“No, but a decision that big would have been in the front of her thoughts, and it wasn’t,” he said, again so reasonable. Nathaniel had taken the new power level between the three of us in stride a lot more than I had, or even Damian had.

“I have never seen your eyes blaze with Jean-Claude’s blue when he wakes for the day,” Rafael said.

“He has more control over it,” I said.

Nathaniel said, “It’s not just that, some of the Harlequin’s eyes change when their masters wake and they have control.”

“It’s a shorthand for them to know everything that’s happened during the day while they slept. We can just tell Jean-Claude or Damian.”

“Why does it bother you so much when it happens?” Nathaniel asked. His eyes were fading from the deep violet of happiness toward the normal lavender.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do you know everything that your moitié bêtes know?” Benito asked.

“No,” I said.

“But you could read their thoughts if you wanted to,” he said.

I thought about it and then nodded. “But it’s more sharing memories than thoughts.”

“Perhaps I have not understood all the possibilities of our king becoming your moitié bête, Anita,” Benito said.

“Unless you have a vampire who shares rat as their animal to call included in the mix, it won’t be as intimate as what Anita shares with Nathaniel and Damian,” Micah said.

“How do you know?” Rafael asked.

“I’ve talked to Jean-Claude at length about it.”

“But Damian is not a master vampire, so he has no animal to call,” Rafael said.

“One of them is the master vampire,” Micah said, motioning at Nathaniel and me.

“So, Anita,” Benito said.

“I’m not so sure,” Claudia said, and she was looking at Nathaniel as if she saw something in him she’d missed or hadn’t noticed before.

“If we take this step together, Anita, will our secrets be safe from one another?” Rafael asked.

“I won’t peek on purpose, but to say anything else is too close to a lie. The truth is, I’m not sure. What’s happening between Nathaniel and Damian and me is different than how it feels to be with Jean-Claude and Richard, so I just don’t know.”

“Richard hates being a werewolf too much to be a full third in your triumvirate,” Nathaniel said.

No one argued, and Rafael had been Richard’s friend and ally before he was mine. Rafael asked, “So you think that your comfort level with being a wereleopard is what makes the difference between the three of you?”

“Yeah, I know now that Richard’s conflicts cripple the power that Jean-Claude could have from their triumvirate, well, that and . . .” Nathaniel stopped in midsentence.

“He was about to say that Jean-Claude is too careful of Richard and me to bind us as powerfully as he could,” I said.

“You finished his thought?” Rafael asked.

“No, we’ve had the conversation before,” I said, not like I was entirely happy about it.

Rafael looked at all of us, including Micah, who was trying for a blank face. “What am I missing here?”

Surprisingly, it was Claudia who answered, “Nathaniel’s not conflicted about what he is and what he wants.”

We all looked at her. “I didn’t know you were paying that much attention to what I wanted,” Nathaniel said.

She looked uncomfortable, but said, “You almost picked a fight with Bobby Lee when you came into the