Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,151

She stood tall and certain, as if the woman who had just finished hiding behind me was someone else. It reminded me of how Edward could switch to Ted.

“What exactly does that mean?” I asked.

Pierette just looked at me with her brown eyes, made larger with the eyeliner, which she never wore at home. “I serve my queen in any way she requires.”

I turned to the one person I knew had to tell me the truth. “What the hell is going on, Nicky?”

“It wasn’t my idea. I knew you’d hate it,” he said.

“What wasn’t your idea?”

“To bring Pierette and Angel here to help you deal with Olaf.”

Then I had a thought, and he was right. I hated it. “Pierette, you were pretending to be afraid of him just now. It’s not enough that you look like his favorite type of victim. You’re playing to it.”

“I am afraid of him, my queen. I would not want to be helpless in his hands. I merely let him see the fear rather than hiding it.” She was so calm as she spoke.

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“To tempt him.”

“What?” Angel tried to put an arm around my shoulders, and I moved away from her. “And you, why are you flirting with him?”

“If you mean the clothes, I was at the concert. I didn’t wear them for anyone here.”

She sounded angry then, but I’d had my last emotional-blackmail moment from either of them. I’d already apologized once for her missing the night out with everyone. I was done with that.

“I don’t mean the clothes, and you know it. Why are you flirting with him, of all people?”

“We wanted to see if he’d respond to normal flirting,” she said as if what she’d done was a matter of course.

“Why would you want him to respond to it?”

“They’re here to try to take some of the pressure off of you,” Ethan said.

I took a deep breath and counted to ten as I let it out slowly. It didn’t really help. “If you came to protect me from Olaf, and not to help me save Bobby Marchand’s life, you can drive right back to the airport and get the hell away from me.”

“If he responds to me flirting with him, then maybe he’s datable in some weird, psychotic way,” Angel said.

“He’s not psychotic, and are you volunteering to date Olaf?”

She laughed. “I’m too tall, too blond, and too blue eyed, but if he wasn’t fixated on his victims, then he’d be totally hot.”

Whatever look was on my face made her laugh again, but this one was a nervous one. “Come on, Anita, if you just look at the physical, he’s smokin’ hot.”

“I guess his whole liking to kidnap, tie up, torture, and rape women ruins it for me.”

“I actually think the danger is part of what makes him hot.”

I looked at Angel as if I’d never seen her before. “Well, forgive me as a woman that fits his vic profile to a T if I don’t find it intriguing.”

“And that is why Pierette is here,” Angel said.

“This is ridiculous. We are not doing this. It is a stupid and dangerous plan.”

“It’s not stupid,” Nicky said, “but I knew you’d hate it.”

“It is stupid. I won’t let Pierette endanger herself. I don’t want anyone to be at Olaf’s mercy—certainly not someone I’ve had sex with and actually like.”

“I am honored that you care for me that much, my queen, but if I could end this threat to you once and for all, it would be worth the danger.”

“You do not understand what he is, or you wouldn’t say that.”

“It is he who does not know what I am,” she said. She let her face show the confidence of centuries of being one of the most feared assassins in the world. She and all the other Harlequin had been so frightening that even mentioning their name could have gotten bad little vampires executed. Now they were part of our bodyguards, and if they spied, they did it for Jean-Claude or Micah. Oh, how the mighty had fallen and all that jazz, but the arrogance naked in Pierette’s eyes showed that at least the ego hadn’t fallen that far.

“I’m not saying that you aren’t fearsome on your own, Petra, but you can’t understand what he is, or you wouldn’t be this calm about using yourself as bait.”

“I understand precisely what he is, and the fact that we’ve allowed him to continue living when he is a terrible threat to you