Page 21 of Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 28)

“What’s so funny?” I asked and felt prickly like an old reaction that I hadn’t quite outgrown.

“I did not mean to upset you.”

“Sorry, I know you didn’t mean it that way, but for a second it was like you were laughing at me; that whole smallest-kid-in-class, only-woman-in-a-man’s-profession thing, it’s put a serious chip on my shoulder.”

He touched my still-bare shoulder, very gently, almost as if he wasn’t sure I’d be okay with it. I didn’t tell him not to touch me, but I didn’t smile either. He had hit a serious issue by accident, but it was still hit.

“I would never laugh at you, Anita. I have benefited too often from that chip on your shoulder. It is what let you stand up to the Master of Beasts when he had me skinned alive. I will never forget that you risked yourself to save me. I never dreamed that we would ever be more than friends then, but if we had never been lovers, I would still owe you for that moment of bravery.”

I put my hand over his where he was touching me. I could still see the back of his body red and raw where they’d had him chained. They’d left his skin nailed to a door as a message. I could still see him bound facedown to the table with silver bands at wrist, ankles, and neck. Bands that were bolted to the table itself. He was nude, but more than his clothes were missing. The entire back of his body was one raw bloody mess. I’d found the owner of the skin on the door. Rafael’s darkly handsome face was slack, unconscious. It had been one of the worst things I’d ever seen done to another person.

“You were strong enough to withstand the torture until we could get to you, Rafael. If you’d done what they wanted and given them control of the wererats, they’d have had enough firepower to take over the city.”

“I could not give my people over to a such a monster, no matter what they did to me.”

I didn’t say out loud that most people, even strong ones, would have caved under that kind of torture. As my friend Edward says, everyone breaks eventually. Out loud I said, “I’m only sorry I didn’t get to kill the Master of Beasts before he left town.”

“You killed his only son; for a vampire as old as the Master of Beasts, that is revenge enough.”

“Yeah, his chances of ever having another child at his age is pretty slim.”

“Have any of the Harlequin found the Master of Beasts yet?”

I shook my head. “We freed him from the Mother ofAll Darkness, but after that he vanished. I think he’s afraid of what we and all his enemies might do to him when we find him.”

“All the old council members have many enemies, made over centuries,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, and stepped away from his hand. “Let’s get dressed and find a bedroom.”

“I have spoiled the mood talking about old enemies,” he said.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “A little, okay, maybe a lot, but let’s find a bedroom and see if you can get me back in the mood.” Honestly with the memory of him tortured dancing in my head, sex was the furthest thing from my mind. If he’d been an ordinary lover, I’d have just said,Let’s skip it today, but he was going to be fighting for his life later tonight. If I’d been in love with him, I’d have wanted sex just in case it was the last time, but that wasn’t what made me suggest the bedroom. If it was the last time I could feed on him, the last time I could share the energy of a country’s worth of wererats with Jean-Claude and all our people, then I needed to take it, but that wasn’t the only reason. If Rafael died tonight, I’d regret saying no. We’d been friends years longer than we’d been friends with benefits, but friendship is a type of love and I would miss him.

6

WE GOT DRESSED,put our weapons in place, and were going hand in hand down the hallway with Claudia and Benito trailing us. I tried to get them to stay and shower, but they insisted on escorting us to the bedroom. Rafael took it as business as normal, so I stopped arguing about it. He was their king, and that trumped anything I could say or do.

Rafael and I moved well together; there was none of that awkwardness you have with some people that you date where walking hand in hand is a challenge in rhythm, as if your internal music doesn’t match, and yet it didn’t feel romantic. Again, I found it jarring that I could be this physically comfortable with a lover and not be in love with them. It hurt that tiny wistful part of me that had believed most sincerely in that white-dress, one-great-love-of-your-life ideal. I’d accepted that I had more than one love of my life, but apparently part of me was still holding on to the thought that some things only came when you were in all-caps LOVE. Another illusion shattered.

Rafael swung my hand in his, which was something he did when he thought I was thinking too hard about something besides being with him. I knew that he wouldsay something now, because that was what the hand swing meant.

“Do you have a preference on which of the empty guest rooms we use?” he asked.

In my head I thought,A room I’ve never been in with anyone else, but that seemed less than diplomatic, so I said, “Two of them have showers now. I think one of those.”

“I thought you wanted us in a bed tonight,” he said, smiling down at me.

I smiled back and said, “I do, but now we can clean up afterward without having to kick anyone out of the main showers.”

He raised my hand and brushed it lightly with his lips as we walked; he did it smoothly with no broken motion. “You are always so concerned that others are not inconvenienced. You will be a queen soon, Anita, you must embrace it.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think the official title is going to change me all that much.”

“If you were my queen, I would want to dress you as befits my lady and shower you with gifts.”

I laughed then. “Jean-Claude is lucky he’s getting me into the bespoke designer wedding gown. He knows not to push his luck on dressing me fancy every day.”

“You think the wedding will change nothing?” he asked.

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