Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(109)
If he was self-conscious about his face, that was nothing compared to how he felt about the rest of his scars. I’d never seen him expose himself like this willingly. Jean-Claude’s thoughts backed me up; centuries and he’d never done this, so what in the fuck was going on?
“If hyena is your new moitié bête we will still have something in common after you abandon me for the perfection of your wolf king.”
“I would never leave you, mon chardonneret.”
“Lies!” Asher shouted, and the energy was skin-tingling heat, but it was all coming out of Kane like he was a speaker playing Asher’s power over us. Geoff screamed as his face elongated and the ridge of his spine thrust up through his back like a small ridge of skin-covered mountains, and gray and black fur poured over the skin. Custer crab-walked away from him until he hit the wall. “Boss,
Geoff is new, not sure how forced change is going to work for him, especially if I can’t control him while he shifts.”
I yelled, “Asher, one of the werehyenas is too new, he’s dangerous when he shifts.”
“Let your wolf king protect you!”
Rodina and Ru moved between us and the werehyenas. Truth joined them; the rest of the security stayed around us.
The power changed slightly; now a different kind of energy was trickling through it like a small stream of safety in an ocean of crazy. Something stirred inside me, blinking blue eyes in the dark. The hyena glanced back but stayed sitting. There was none of the usual hostility to the other beasts, just that continued calmness in the face of Asher’s energy. The blue eyes stepped out into the light and it was my gold tiger, cream with stripes of rich yellow. She looked at the hyena, and it was like they acknowledged each other, but there was no hostility, just I see you, I see you, too, and we are not here to hurt each other today. The gold energy grew from a trickle to a fast-moving stream, but it was still trying to pour itself into the ocean. Dev took my hand in his, and I knew where the stream was coming from. Ethan came to kneel beside me; I thought he was getting between me and the hyenas struggling to hold their human form, but he touched my hand and it was as if he gave his power over to Dev, and I was just the conduit between them, and the power that flowed from him to me matched the new power that was trying to chase back what Asher and Kane were doing. I looked up and found that Ethan’s eyes had changed to hazel blue, his gold tiger looking out at me. My tigress started walking up the path; she looked back at the hyena as if waiting for her to protest, but the hyena just sat there with the almost-grin on her face. Asher had no energy she wanted; it wasn’t that he lacked power in this moment, but that she chose not to accept it. Female hyenas choose their mates always; there is no force possible for spotted hyenas, only shared pleasure. Kane would never be a pleasure and as far as she was concerned neither would Asher.
Jean-Claude said, “Ma petite,” and stroked his hand just above my skin and Ethan’s, and Dev’s.
My gold tigress rubbed up against some invisible point as if she were trying to rub up against something I couldn’t see. Then I realized she was reacting to Jean-Claude’s stroking just above our skin. Ethan started to rest his head on the vampire’s shoulder, then caught himself.
Jean-Claude curved his hand around the side of Ethan’s face and the moment he touched him there the stream of new energy got bigger. Jean-Claude helped the weretiger to lay his head on his shoulder.
Ethan took that as an invitation and rubbed his face against Jean-Claude’s like a cat scent-marking.
Richard came closer, but it was too late for wolf. Jean-Claude touched my shoulder and there was another leap in the energy. My tigress flopped on her side the way that real-world female cats do when they’re in the mood. She rolled around on the ground in invitation, but only I could see it.
I traced my hand up Jean-Claude’s chest where the blood was starting to dry; the blade hadn’t been silver and the wounds had closed. Jean-Claude reached for Dev, and the moment they touched directly, the tiger energy was stronger, the stream overrunning its banks, but the ocean of hyena energy still filled the hallway, because Kane was a full moitié bête of a master vampire and Dev was not. He was mine, but in this moment I understood why my tie to Nathaniel was stronger than any of my other
animals to call, because Damian was with us, had been with us from the beginning. To truly make this work you needed a real vampire, not the in between that I had become.
“But I’m part of a real triumvirate now,” Richard said, “why is my power less than Dev’s even before Jean-Claude marks him?”
“I’ve been trained to work energy since I was small,” Dev said.
“Dev was the best magic worker of his generation,” Jake said.
“Then why hasn’t he shown this level of power before?” Richard asked.
“Because Anita didn’t have the fourth mark from Jean-Claude before; as your master grows in power, so do you,” Jake said.
“Think what I’ll be able to do once Jean-Claude marks me himself.”
“You will be nothing!” Kane shouted.
“I am sorry that you are the one who will suffer here, Dev, but I will not lose Jean-Claude to Richard, not if I can hold him to me with shared power,” Asher said, coming closer down the hallway until he stood just behind Kane.
Dev kissed the healed wound on Jean-Claude’s chest like a promise for later, touched Ethan’s hair, and kissed me on the mouth, before he stood up and faced them. “You talk about losing Jean-Claude to Richard’s perfection, but I’m as beautiful as he is, and as unscarred. Why do you never fear losing Jean-Claude to me? Why do you never see me as a threat for Anita, or for Nathaniel? You call him your flower-eyed boy, but he is with me more than you. I sleep in Jean-Claude’s bed almost every day. I sleep on the other side of your flower-eyed boy from Anita, or beside Jean-Claude himself day after day. Richard has not been in that bed to sleep or for anything else in years, but yet you still think that Jean-Claude would leave you for him.”