Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 14. Danse Macabre(201)

Requiem was flat on his back on the seat. I didn't remember changing places with him. The last thing I remembered, clearly, was me naked on my back, on the seat. Now, it was him lying naked. Him, looking up at me, a surprised look on his face. What had I done to put that look on Requiem's face? What had I done, while Raina was in control and I was fighting off the morphine?

I was sitting on his waist, which was an improvement over lower, I guess. I looked behind me to Nathaniel and Jason. The look on my face must have been enough, because Jason said, «You body-slammed him down on the seat.»

«Your hand is bleeding,» Nathaniel said.

I stared at my left hand as if it had just appeared at the end of my arm. There was fresh blood soaking through the gauze. The moment I saw the blood, the hand began to hurt. It wasn't as bad as before Lillian gave me the shot, but it was a persistent, grinding pain, with twinges of sharper things. The sharper pains promised worse to come.

«I believe you injured yourself throwing me down on the seat,» Requiem said. His voice was mild, almost politely empty. His face matched it, handsome, and blank. The surprise was gone as if I'd dreamed it. He was in control of himself, once more.

I felt Raina inside me. She didn't want him in control of himself, or anything else. She wanted to break him. I'd seen far enough inside his head with the ardeur to know he'd been broken centuries before, and more than once. I knew that breaking someone already broken wouldn't appeal to her as much as being the first one to do it. Jason had been right; Raina liked virgins, of every sort. She loved to be in on someone's first experience, especially if she could turn pleasure to pain, joy to terror. That just flat did it for her. Not my kink, which made it easier not to do it.

Her voice whispered through my mind, not as clear as it once had been, more a wind-in-the-trees kind of sound. Marianne had informed me that Raina had come close to truly possessing me, as in almost demonic possession. That had been a scary thought. Now I knew how to keep Raina from getting that intimate a grip on me. The wind of her voice blew through my body, smelling of forest, and fur, and perfume. «You know what I want, Anita.»

«You know what I'm willing to give you.» I said that part out loud, because talking mind-to-mind with her spirit could give it a stronger hold on you. I thought about how close Requiem and I had come to intercourse earlier today. I thought about him rolling off, unsatisfied, and unsatisfying.

«The first fucking between you,» she laughed, and my concentration wasn't pure enough to keep that laugh off my lips. Her laugh was a low, throaty, alto sound, a joyous promise of sex. I didn't own a laugh like that.

Nathaniel said, «Concentrate, Anita. You can do this.»

Raina wanted me to look behind me at him, and I fought not to do it. Not because it was a bad thing, but because I had to start fighting somewhere, and it was a place to start. It was also something that if I lost the fight, it wouldn't hurt anyone.

«Petty, Anita,» she whispered.

I ignored her, as best I could. Always hard to ignore people who are sharing your consciousness. I tried to concentrate on my breathing, but the pain in my hand kept distracting me. I tried concentrating on each heartbeat, on the pulse in my body, and that was a mistake. It was as if each beat of my heart hit my injured hand like a spike. As if the very pulse of blood made it hurt worse.

I shook my head, and that was a mistake. I was suddenly dizzy. Requiem's hands caught my arms, kept me from falling. I let myself collapse on top of him, my head resting against his shoulder. He made no sound, but his body flinched. I was lying across his wounds. Raina liked that a lot.

I kissed his shoulder. The skin was warm. Warm with the blood he'd taken from me earlier, but not as warm as it should have been. I gazed up into those brilliant blue eyes, with their hint of green around the iris. «Your body is using more energy trying to heal your wounds.»

«Yes,» he whispered.

«Do you need to feed more often when you're this badly hurt?»

«Yes, m'lady.»

I smiled at him. «Somehow m'lady doesn't work with me naked on top of you.»

He smiled, and it even reached his eyes. «You will always be m'lady to me, Anita.»

I was suddenly drowning in the scent of wolf. The beast inside me stirred, as if Raina's power were a spoon and I were some kind of soup. Stirring, looking for just the right tidbit.

Her voice sounded inside me. «Your very own wolf, Anita. What have you been doing while I've been away?»

The wolf, my wolf, appeared inside me. I could see it forming. No, I thought, no. I turned my face into Requiem's neck where his pulse should have beat, but didn't. I pressed my mouth to that chilled flesh, and chased away the warm, prickling energy. I did not run from my wolf, for if you run things will chase you, but I turned to colder things. Things that the wolf neither understood nor entirely approved of. My wolf quieted, under the brush of dead flesh and the scent of flesh unmoving. The trouble with quieting my wolf was that Raina fled, too. I rose up from Requiem's body, enough to see his face.