Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #28) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,45
you to wear makeup and leave your hair down?” he asked.
“Makeup, sure; we’ll negotiate on the hair. It gets in my way in a fight.”
“You’re angry with me,” he said.
“Angry, no; upset, hell yes.”
Micah raised his hand. “I’m upset with you, too. If you knew it was a possibility that she would have to fight through the crowd like I did, you should have mentioned it while we were making our plans.”
“I told you, if I had dreamed that they would vote to force Anita to fight her way to my side, I would not have suggested her coming tonight,” Rafael said, and there was just an edge of warmth like a breath of power to dance warm over my skin.
“Apologies are lovely, Rafael, but if anything happens to Anita between the moment she enters your world and sits down beside you, then we will revisit your oversight,” Jean-Claude said.
“Are you threatening me?”
“Oh yes.”
“We’re allies here,” I reminded them.
Micah said, “No, in this moment we are men engaged to marry the woman we love, and we all trusted Rafael to know his people well enough to risk you.”
“What he said,” Nathaniel added, and his energy trailed hot to meet with Rafael’s so that suddenly I could see black fur in the darkness inside me where the beasts waited. The leopard flashed yellow eyes upward, but the rat’s black eyes were like a glint of darkness within a moonless night.
The rat started to ease into the light, and the leopard followed it as if it were hunting. One great black shape hunting the smaller and then the next moment the rat was huge, as big as the leopard.
I blinked and tore my attention away from inside me to the room and found that Rafael had moved beside me. It was like being plugged into a wall socket—a jolt of energy that shot through me to the rat inside. So much power it almost hurt, and just like that the rat jumped the leopard hard enough that it staggered me. Rafael grabbed my arm to help steady me, but the rat got bigger and the beasts were tearing me up.
I jerked away from him, and Nathaniel was there, holding me. The moment he did the panther roared inside me and the rat was getting the worst of it, but they were still tearing me up inside. I knew the damage wasn’t literal, I knew they weren’t tearing up internal organs, it just felt like it.
I didn’t need to see Rafael to know he was kneeling with us and the rat grew again, sending the leopard rolling. Nathaniel rolled himself around me, and the leopard fought back, but I needed it to stop.
“Rafael, back off!” I yelled.
“What’s happening?” Micah asked.
“I can feel the rat inside her now,” Rafael said, and he didn’t sound upset about causing me pain, more like he felt wonderment as if something about it felt good.
Nathaniel said, “It’s not supposed to work this way.” His voice sounded like he hurt, too. They should have both been hurting; that was part of what a moitié bête could do, take some of your pain.
“I’m a king,” Rafael said, as if that made sense of it all.
“You’re not her king, I am,” Micah said, and he touched my face, still standing above us all. His leopard rose in a wave of warmth and power that went directly from the skin of his hand to where he touched my face. His leopard poured down into that darkness and pulled my leopard to it. He didn’t try to fight the rat, he just called my leopard like a black shadow to meet his, and there was no more room for anything else, especially not with Nathaniel beside us.
“Her eyes,” Claudia said.
Nathaniel’s skin ran warmer and he looked at me with the gray eyes of his leopard. He was the only shapeshifter I’d ever met whose natural eye color was more exotic than his beast’s.
Micah said, “Look at me.” Still on our knees, we looked up at him, and I knew that for the first time all three of us were looking at each other with leopard eyes.
13
WHEN THINGS HAD calmed down enough that my eyes weren’t the bright yellow of my leopard, I turned on Rafael. “What the fuck was that about?”
“I didn’t know your eyes could change like that,” Rafael said. He looked shaken and he had apologized, but it was too late for that, at least to me.