Page 65 of Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 28)

“Then I truly will be king.”

“You shouldn’t be this confident,” Claudia said.

“Perhaps Jean-Claude and all your pretty boys should be watching their backs tonight,” Hector said. He leaned in as he said it and I let him, because I was watching his eyes and not the rest of him. His eyes were a solid dark brown, no green at all, and down in the depths of that darkness was power that tried to pull at me.

I felt my eyes fill with my own power and I said, “You can’t roll me with your eyes, whoever you are.”

I felt Hector move a second before his elbow tried to connect with the side of my head. I moved my head away and my arm up to sweep his elbow away from me and let his own momentum carry him past me. I drove my foot into his leg at the same time. If he’d been human, it would have broken, but he just went to his knees and I was coming in at his back for a throat shot with a blade in eachhand as he tumbled out of reach across the floor, coming up on one knee and foot, hands up and ready for me.

We faced each other, both of us breathing a little hard not from exertion but from the emotion of it. I’d have killed him if he hadn’t moved and he knew it. “Your speed and skill of arms is much improved.”

“Improved over what? We’ve never met before,” I asked, still in a fighting stance with naked blades in hand.

He blinked and his eyes were back to the greenish brown of Hector, all the vampire powers locked away. “Over what I was told.” He held his hands out, palms toward me, in the universal gesture ofI mean no harm, or at leastI’m done for now. “I think maybe it’s too dangerous to play with you, Anita Blake.” He stood slowly, carefully with his hands up so I wouldn’t have any excuse to rush him.

I came out of the fighting crouch and backed up slowly but kept the knives out. He’d just threatened everyone I loved. If I could kill him here and now without starting a war between the wererats and vampires, I’d so do it.

“I will go back to watch the lesser fights now, and you can decide if you want to watch me fight Rafael more than you want to be at the side of the men you love most in the world while they fight for their lives.”

My heart started thudding too fast, adrenaline pumping through me like champagne shaken too hard. I whispered through my head just enough to see if Jean-Claude was listening in, and he was there like a cool line of calm. I didn’t have to get to a phone; he’d warn everyone.

“Liar,” Claudia said, “everything was true, but not that last. Jean-Claude and the others aren’t fighting for their lives, you’re bluffing on that.”

“Am I?” Hector said, and again there was that feel of another older, less cocky personality.

“We can smell the lie,” Lillian said.

Pierette moved closer to him, hands out to her sides, showing that she didn’t mean any harm, but Hector moved so that he could keep an eye on both of us. He ignored the other wererats more than the two of us; that seemed wrong. They were a fighting culture, everyone was dangerous.

“It was worth a try,” Hector said, “but now I’ll leave so you can change. I can be a gentleman when I must.” He backed toward the door, hands out, so he gave us no excuse.

Jean-Claude breathed through my mind, “Thrust power into him, now, before he leaves.”

“Why?” I whispered.

“Trust me,ma petite.”

I did, so I thrust power toward Hector. Jean-Claude hadn’t specified which power, so I went to my default—necromancy. I thrust it into that tall, handsome body, but I wasn’t looking for wererat. There it was like a cool, underground stream hidden away, vampire hiding under all that hot shapeshifter energy, and then I was thrust out so hard I staggered backward into the lockers.

Hector’s eyes burned with dark brown fire like sunlight through brown glass. “Naughty necromancer, you’ve made Rafael your rat to call, or you couldn’t have pushed past Hector like that, but it won’t matter once Rafael is dead.” He turned and went for the door with a confident swagger, Hector in charge of the body again.

One of the nurses said, “What was wrong with his eyes?”

“Vampire, he’s a vampire’s animal to call,” I said.

“You’ve met the vampire before,” Pierette said.

“Yeah, I got that feeling, too,” I muttered.

“No, I mean I know you’ve met him before.”

I looked at her and her eyes were a dark charcoal gray. Her master Pierrot’s eyes in her face. “I hoped your power would force a mistake, and it did.”

“What mistake?” I asked, looking into a face that Iwas beginning to hold dear and seeing someone else looking out of it. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to it.

“He overreacted to your necromancy and revealed too much of himself.”

“I didn’t get a sense of who it was holding Hector’s leash,” I said.

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