Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [1010]
He raised my hand and laid a gentle kiss on the knuckles. “We are here to see that you do not eat the swan king for real.” His smile widened and filled his dark eyes with happiness. Requiem and other vamps who had come from England with him said they’d never seen him this relaxed, and hadn’t even known he could smile.
I smiled back at him and nodded. “That would be bad.”
Jason peeked around the much taller man. He grinned at me, but there was a flinching around his spring-blue eyes, a hollow look that said he’d been crying. I held out my other hand to him. London moved out of the way so Jason could hug me. He practically climbed into the bed to do it. We were friends, and sometimes lovers, but his reaction surprised me. I patted the top of his short blond hair, sort of awkwardly, and it wasn’t just the IV that made it awkward, though that pulled. That was sooo going to have to come out before I fed on Donovan.
“Jason,” I said, “it’s all right.”
He shook his head against my shoulder and raised a tear-stained face. His voice was thick with tears as he said, “Liar.” He tried to smile, but didn’t quite make it.
I touched his face with my free hand. “Jason, I…” I didn’t even know what to say. This reaction was more than a friend’s reaction. Then I thought, maybe the grief wasn’t for me. His Ulfric and his master were both near death. If they died, his world would never be the same. The next Master of the City might not have a use for him as a pomme de sang.
I tried to cup his face, but the IV caught again. “Can someone get this out of me? I can’t feed the ardeur hooked up to tubes.”
Lillian threaded her way through the growing crowd and took out the needle. I carefully looked away at the crucial moment. I was better than I used to be, but I still didn’t like seeing needles go in or out of my flesh. It just creeped me.
Jason moved away enough for the doctor to work, but he kept my hand like it was a lifeline. Jason was usually so together that sometimes I forgot that he was only twenty-two. He was actually the same age as some of the werelion college students that Joseph had let me choose from. His excuse on the age had been that older lions had jobs and families. At the time I hadn’t questioned, but now, well, I’d probably be questioning everything the lions did for a while.
“I’m your wolf in case your beast decides to rise,” Jason said.
“I thought Sylvie…”
She spoke from in back of the crowd of shapeshifters. “With the ardeur raised in the room, I’m not staying. Nothing personal, Anita. I mean you’re cute, but I don’t do women, and with you this weak, and Jean-Claude out of it, I don’t want to take the chance that this thing spreads through the room.” She came to the bed and patted my shoulder, a little awkwardly. She wasn’t much better at the buddy thing than I was. “The wolves will do everything they can to get you all through this.”
“Better than the lions,” I said.
“It’s not their Rex in the next room, it’s our Ulfric,” she said, and there was a flare of her beast, like the hot breath of the monster in the dark. I shivered, and she shut the power down. “Sorry, I’m going.” With that she went for the door. As she went out, someone else came in, and I cried out, “Micah!”
He didn’t exactly run to me, but it was close. He was still wearing the dress shirt and slacks I’d last seen him in, but they were covered in dried stains. Blood dried to black and brick red. Maybe I stared at the bloodstains, because he unbuttoned it as he came and threw it on the floor. For once, seeing his chest and shoulders bare didn’t make me think of sex. All I could think of was whose blood it was, Richard’s or Jean-Claude’s. Micah said, “Don’t reach out to them with power,