Page 95 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“If we could lure something the size of a house into a heavily wooded area it wouldn’t be as maneuverable as we are, so we’d have some advantage.”

“Until it set the forest on fire around us,” Edward said. “I know you think I’m careless with fire, but I have a healthy respect for it as a weapon against the supernatural.”

“I didn’t say or even think anything about you being careless with fire just now,” Richard said.

“Forest or grass fires have a lot more variables to consider: wind direction and speed, dryness, and amount of underbrush. I’ve only ever used a flamethrower outside against ghouls or zombies in cemeteries with short, well-watered grass, or caught them in the middle of paved areas, or near a water source.”

“Don’t explosives have some of the same issues?” Richard asked.

“It’s still an interesting idea that in dragon form he doesn’t fit in small spaces,” I said.

“How fast can he change from dragon to human or vice versa?” Truth asked.

“I saw him in both his forms, but never saw him change,” Jake said.

“We did,” Ru said as he came through the curtains from the hallway beyond. Rodina was at his side. Nathaniel came behind them. I thought Nathaniel had gone to find any Harlequin that knew Deimos, which was smart and helpful, then realized that couldn’t be it. There were other Harlequin as old or older than the twins, but they were the only other wereleopards here currently. Why had Nathaniel brought every wereleopard that was in the underground tonight? I’d ask him later in private. Right now, we needed to stay on target, and learning more about dragons topped leopard on the to-do list.

38

RODINA WENT DOWNon her knees in front of me. “My weakness stripped you of our strength when you needed us most. I have failed my duty.” It would have been more warrior-falling-on-their-sword if she hadn’t been dressed in the button-up top of a pair of silky pajamas. Ru dropped on his knees beside her wearing the long bottoms of the pajamas. It would never have occurred to me that siblings could split pajamas the same way a couple could. It made perfect sense, it just threw me for a second, like a lot of things about them. Of course, maybe me thinking about romantic couples had something to do with how nice Ru looked out of his shirt. I stopped the thought train right there, dead in its tracks, done, because they could hear me.

“It’s okay, Rodina, you’re allowed to grieve for your brother.”

“Grief is for the weak. We are Harlequin, nothing should distract us from serving our dark queen.” She seemed so earnest that I didn’t have the heart to correct her about calling me their dark queen.

“It was wolves I needed tonight,mes petits chatons,” Jean-Claude said, coming to stand beside me. He seemed utterly calm now. I wasn’t sure if talking about a real plan to kill Deimos had helped him feel better, or if he’d just regained control of himself. I’d ask later.

Rodina looked up at him; her face looked as open and vulnerable as I’d ever seen it. Grief and her supposed failure tonight had left her emotionally raw. I liked her better for the glimpse behind the curtain of her usual grumpy exterior. “We are better than any wolves.”

“Of course, you are,” he said, but not like he believed it or expected anyone else to either.

She didn’t take offense, just seemed more earnest as she looked at me. “We are better than wolves, because we have seen the enemy in person more than once.”

“We will tell you what we can of him,” Ru said. He didn’t look open and vulnerable, he looked worried. He glanced at his sister, and I agreed, she still wasn’t okay. Hell, neither of them was okay. They were grieving the loss of their brother, a triplet brother, and I had been so tied up in my own issues with Ireland that I hadn’t been able to allow them to grieve. I realized suddenly that I didn’t know if that was literally true. As their master, how much did my emotions and issues impact them?

“Stand up and tell us how he shapeshifted,” I said.

They stood in unison like it was part of a practiced dance. I’d seen them do it before, but it sort of creeped me out, so they tried not to do it often. “One moment he was a dragon, the next a man,” Ru said.

“A human would say a moment and mean that they’d watched one of us split open and change, which is never as quick as they think,” Jake said.

“We are not human,” Rodina said, and she gave him a look that said how much she hated him. Since he’d been one of the major people behind the plot that had ended with me killing her dark queen, she had reason.

“It is faster than any shapeshifter I have ever seen,” Ru said.

“So, no time to kill him as he changes shape?” I asked.

“You seek to use the moment in between when we are trapped bythe shifting of our bodies, helpless for just those few minutes,” Rodina said.

“That was the idea, I mean it’s got to take longer to go from man to dragon size than even a regular shapeshifter.”

“One moment he is a dragon, then a man walks out from where the dragon stood,” Ru said.

“There’s got to be a transition between the two shapes,” I said.

“There was none,” he said.

“I had hoped since he was only a demigod that he had not inherited the Greek pantheon’s ease of shape-changing,” Jake said.

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