Page 49 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“And that explains why you’re cuddling with me in public like we’re dating when we’re not, how?”

Rodina leaned into both of us, pressing herself against Ethan so that it looked like the three of us were having an intimate conversation. “Your guards wouldn’t let the fact that we are Harlequin and thus the greatest warriors and covert agents in the world sway them to follow us.”

Ethan leaned into Rodina so that his mouth was almost touching her face and thus hidden from the room as he said, “We routinely beat some of you in training, and none of you wins against us all the time. How does that make you the greatest warriors of all time?”

“The death of our dark queen has lessened many of us, but do not let that go to your head, tiger. Training is not the same as battle and if there were not referees and rules to keep us from killing you, you would not be sitting here to disparage our skills.”

“Oh, so the great Harlequin only win by killing, not by being the better fighter.”

“That is not what I said,” she almost growled, as the first warm breath of her beast eased between us all.

Ethan drew breath to speak, but I touched his cheek, which made him look at me. “I understand that the Harlequin come in with ahuge chip on their shoulders, and that hits the big chips on everyone else’s shoulders. I knew that we were having some growing pains melding our security with them, but I still don’t know why you’re sitting beside me marking territory like we’re dating.”

Rodina drew back enough to give a cold, cruel look. “You’re just food for her, nothing more.”

I felt him flinch both physically and emotionally from her remark. “Ethan is my lover, no one in my life is just food, and I still don’t know why the two of you have turned guarding me into a pissing contest.”

Ru answered from across the table, voice still low. “Some of us wanted to know who outranked whom, and to save a bloodbath that would have gutted your security, someone came up with the idea that the highest rank starts with who has the privilege of sleeping with you. Ethan does, Rodina doesn’t.”

She turned on him with a snarl and hissed, “Neither do you, brother dear.”

“That is true, but I am not trying to be top cat, and you are.”

“You’re drawing attention to us,” Ethan said.

Rodina got control of herself before she looked around so that her face was back to pleasantly amused. Most of the Harlequin were consummate actors, but then real spies are the ultimate undercover operators. People were noticing the fight, though; not everyone in the room but enough that it would probably be at least tweeted about before the end of the night. Anita Blake, or more likelyJean-Claude’s fiancée, having a lover’s tiff with two of her bodyguards before he even goes onstage.

Ru moved his chair closer and asked again, “Are you fit for duty tonight, sister?”

“I am always ready to serve our queen, whoever she may be.”

“Then control yourself.”

She stiffened the anger that she’d been trying to stuff down inside her, finally welling up in a rush of rage that felt warm like shewas a fire to hold my hands near in the middle of a cold night. It wasn’t the heat of her inner leopard spilling closer to the surface, though I felt it dancing along my skin somewhere between heat and electricity as if it was trying to take little bites out of my skin. God she was powerful, but that wasn’t the energy that made me lean closer to her. It was her rage I wanted. I was suddenly hungry, because even if you’re full, having a rich dessert set in front of you is tempting, and Rodina’s emotional pain had turned her into a double chocolate cupcake with sprinkles on top.

I leaned closer to her face while her energy bit along my skin like I was getting closer to a live wire. My inner leopard blinked at me with bright yellow eyes, and a throaty purr slipped from between my lips followed by a growl, so I wasn’t sure if I was happy and the leopard was unhappy, or vice versa. The one thing we both agreed on was Rodina had just gone from predator to prey.

Ethan put his bare wrist between us so fast I almost smacked my face into it. I got the scent of his tigers, and the leopard sank back inside me, but it wasn’t my inner leopard that wanted me to feed on the woman in front of me, it was more my inner vampire. It was emotion instead of blood, but it was still a type of vampirism. I hated that, but I was learning to accept it and starting to gain control of it.

I moved Ethan’s arm down and looked into Rodina’s eyes; they were like dark mirrors, black on black with the edge of white around them. There was a reflection in them, a shining flicker of light. I started to look around to find where it was coming from, but Ethan’s hand slid up my back underneath my hair, grabbing my neck, keeping me from looking around.

“Let me go,” I said.

“Your eyes are glowing,” he said.

I looked into Rodina’s eyes again and saw the dark light of my brown eyes filled with power as if I’d been a real vampire. If Ethan hadn’t stopped me I’d have flashed the whole club and confirmed an entirely different set of rumors. I sat there with Ethan’s hand solidagainst my neck and should have thanked him for reminding me, but I couldn’t look away from Rodina’s eyes and the shine of my power in them. Rodina leaned toward me, and I watched the reflection of my power grow in the mirrors of her eyes until just before she kissed me the reflection spilled over her eyes and for a second I saw my eyes in her face. The dark brown of them turned to cognac diamonds; then our lips met, and I drank from her lips, tasting the thick sweetness of my own lipstick along with her rage.

16

THE HAND ONmy neck squeezed tighter and Ethan’s voice was in my ear. “Anita, stop, people are watching.”

I tried to pull away from the kiss and the spicy sweetness of Rodina’s mouth, all shared lipstick and the spice of her rage, but she wrapped her arms around me, not willing to give up the kiss. I’d never had anyone that I fed rage from want to continue. It usually scared them, made them try to fight to get away, but Rodina wanted closer, and somewhere in the eagerness of her hands and mouth on mine I fell further into her mind and heart than ever before. Loneliness, she was so lonely, and lost, more lost than she’d ever been in her life, and grief, such horrible grief—her brother, her queen, the only life she’d ever known all gone. She needed something to put in its place and I hadn’t given it to her. Unlike Nicky, who’d I’d accepted into my life and my heart. I’d had enough control to keep her and Ru out of my emotions. I didn’t even let them be part of my main security. I didn’t feed on them for energy. I was their queen now, the being that was supposed to fill a hole inside them that the Mother of All Darkness had created inside all her Harlequin. A place where they drew power from, a place that made them belong to something larger than themselves. The Harlequin were like military vets trying to adjust to civilian life, except instead of a humanlifetime of service they’d had thousands of years. How do you recover from a loss that large?

I drew back and this time she let me. Her eyes were black again, my power did not fill her eyes now. Our shared lipstick was smeared across her pale face; the light gold sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks stood out like they were decoration, as if she’d put glitter across her face, but it forgot to sparkle. For that moment her face showed all the grief, the loss, everything that the magic had shown me. She was stripped bare of the toughness, the rage, the cruelty, the flirting; everything she used to shield herself and hide behind was gone. It was worse than stripping the clothes away from someone in public, this was baring their soul but only from inches away. The crowd couldn’t see it, but I could, Ethan could, and as Ru stood up to put his hands on his sister’s shoulders our eyes met and I knew that he didn’t need to see his sister’s face to know what she was feeling, because he felt the same damn way. It was there in his eyes not through magic, but just because for that moment he didn’t try and hide it from me.

Rodina looked up at her brother, and then back at me. “My queen, I am not fit for duty.”

I didn’t know whether to hug her, or sayNo shit, so I managed not to do either. Let’s hear it for maturity and not being a hugger.

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