Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(92)

“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 by the 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.

“Did you see one of the Greek gods change form?” I asked.

“I did, and if Deimos changes as his father could, then there will be no weakness to exploit there.”

I felt Richard want to ask details about the Greek gods and what Jake had witnessed, but he resisted.

Brownie points to him because I wanted to ask, too.

“His scent is always dragon, even in human form,” Ru said.

“It is a unique scent, and I did not smell it in the club tonight,” Jake said.

“I thought we’d already decided Deimos wasn’t physically in the club,” I said.

“We did, but since the three of us may be the only ones who know his scent, I thought I would share that with Ru and Rodina.”

“Our dark queen wanted only her most trusted Harlequin to deal with him,” Rodina said, and she looked at Jake. “How did you hide your treachery from her, from us?”

“I helped teach you how to spot a lie, what scent to search for, and like all who train warriors that may one day be sent against them, I did not teach you everything I knew, Rodina.”

“But she made your master, who made you, how did you hide from her?”

“It makes Anita uncomfortable when we confront the traitors,” Ru said.

“She says she wants us happy; well, I want to know how they deceived our dark queen, perhaps that would bring me some peace that they destroyed our entire way of existence.” She sounded almost enraged, each word thick with it.

“We do not have time for such games tonight, Rodina,” Jean-Claude said. “I am sorry for your grief, though I do not share it, but we have an enemy here and now, that must come first.”

She frowned, rubbed her forehead. “I do not feel myself tonight. I am sorry that I keep failing in my duty.”

“Neither of us is ourself tonight,” Ru said, putting his arms around her shoulders to hug her from the side.

“Next year you get your birthday off,” I said.

“Thank you,” Ru said.

Rodina said nothing, just clung to her brother’s arm where it crossed the front of her body. Her eyes were closed, and I was betting she was hiding tears. Enough, I thought. “Is there anything else the two of you can tell us that will help us defeat Deimos?” I asked.

She clung tighter to her brother, eyes clenched so tight that her forehead wrinkled, like she thought if she could just keep her eyes closed the bad thing wouldn’t get her. I’d always pictured Rodina more like me, look the monster in the eye and if all else failed, spit in it. She buried her face in Ru’s arm like she was breathing in his scent. I wouldn’t have done it with my own brother, but then he wasn’t a wereanimal and wouldn’t understand how scent and touch were just for comfort, not for sex. I was a little fuzzy on that myself, but I understood that was my human hang-up.

Nicky came up to me and leaned in against my hair to whisper, “She can hear everything you’re thinking.”

“I’m sorry, Rodina, I don’t mean to make you feel worse by what I’m thinking, you know I’m not great at controlling my thoughts sometimes.”

“You should be disappointed in me,” she said, “I am not serving you as I should.” She opened her eyes and let me see a slit of leopard yellow before I felt the warmth of her beast like a faint breeze. If I hadn’t been standing this close to her I either wouldn’t have felt it or I wouldn’t have known who it was in the room. Ru’s eyes were leopard yellow, too. God, they had so much control.

“We are Harlequin,” she said in a low voice.

“I know you are,” I said.

“She did not answer your question, ma petite.”

“Neither of them did,” Nicky said. He moved up beside us.

“They’re my Brides, it’s impossible for them to hurt me,” I said, but I admit that it was hard not to have the teeniest, tiniest bit of doubt when I said it.

Nicky moved me back from them. The Wicked Truth were doing the same for Jean-Claude.

Richard moved with him, so it was a twofer. Jake stayed close to the twins.

“We are not twins,” Rodina yelled through clenched teeth, “we are triplets! Rodrigo’s death does not change that.”