“—and a vampire who could turn us inside-out with her pinkie. How is it that I am the most calm and collected right now?”
“Your fate hasn’t sunk in yet,” Ashi muttered. “And you haven’t been bitten.”
“You’re griping, but I didn’t hear a peep out of you while you were getting up close and personal.”
Ashi hugged the blanket closer to himself. “I couldn’t.”
“I know you’re permanently pink right now, but you could have sucker-punched him.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I liked it.” Ashi hung his head.
Christoph’s stomach twisted up. Oh, that was not a happy thought at all. A moment later he jumped as Analie hopped on the back of the couch next to him. She jumped back, fell off the couch, and looked around.
“What? What’s wrong?” she demanded.
Christ, he felt like a low-rank again. “Uh, I didn’t hear you coming.”
Analie stared at him, then stifled a laugh. “Wow. You really are pink.” She climbed onto the couch again. She couldn’t quite see Mouse. “Christoph, this is Mouse. Mouse, Christoph. I guess we all know the loser in the corner is Ashi.”
“Bite your tongue.”
Christoph cleared his throat, trying to suppress the severe heebie-jeebies he was feeling, and said, “Thanks for the blanket.” ‘And the boob-to-face squishage.’
Thank God that hadn’t come out of his mouth.
Mouse watched Analie’s antics with relief. So, she wasn’t afraid of her after all.
When she was first turned, Mouse had enjoyed being the terror of humans everywhere, just like John. As she aged, she grew bored and, later, horrified with herself for the monstrous things she had done. Particularly after Max made it abundantly clear how cruel and frightening it was possible for a vampire to be. She’d taken pains to be useful to Alec for saving her, but was useless to him when it came to command as she often suffered panic attacks or pangs of conscience, and wasn’t always able to carry out necessary actions once a battle was won.
Oh, she had no problem with immersing herself in the moment and fighting pitched battles against enemies. It was the aftermath, once captives were taken, that blunted her usefulness to Royce. Her over-protectiveness of Christoph and acts of compassion for one who didn’t deserve it were only some of the ways in which she had been altered by Max’s attentions, and ones which she recognized in herself but seemed unable or unwilling to control.
As Analie made the introductions between her and Christoph, she finally dragged herself out of her momentary slog through the land of self-pity and forced a close-lipped smile for the Were. She held out her hand to him.
If he flinched away, it might very well break her.
John chose that moment to poke his head in the door, grinning widely enough to show his fangs. “Thad’s pissed, and Sebastian’s not happy, but they’re moving their stuff around now. Sebastian will come down in a bit to get them.”
Mouse’s expression hardened slightly, and she gave a sparse nod to let him know she’d heard.
John glanced over at Ashi, still huddled in the corner, and gave him a wave and a sly, mischievous grin. “Cheer up. I’m sure Sebastian won’t take too much more than I did once he carts you upstairs.”
Mouse looked very much like she wanted to fling herself at John but was only barely restraining herself.
Christoph didn’t give a good god damn what happened to Ashi. He didn’t care at all about the politics of a vampire pit. He wasn’t particularly disturbed that Mouse was obviously not comfortable around John. But he did care that he was very squishy and pink right now, and that Mouse looked like a Were about to go on a rampage.
“Hey, did Analie tell you about the first time she met me?” Christoph blurted to Mouse.
The vampire blinked at him.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Analie wailed. “Why do you keep bringing it up?”
“Because it’s funny. I was delivering something to Freddy’s caretaker’s house and Analie was jumping from one jungle gym to the other in the yard. She looked down at me and said, ‘Watch this!’“
Analie dropped her face into her hands, groaning.
“So she backs up a bit, takes a flying leap, and overshoots the damn jungle gym. She nearly brained herself on the swing set.”
Ashi burst out laughing. He sounded slightly hysterical, but at least he was laughing.
“So she gets up, all woozy like she just got off the tilt-a-whirl, points at me, and says, ‘Bet you can’t do that!’”