Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [1055]
“I’ll have to talk to Auggie.” He was just holding my hand, not meeting my eyes again.
“I’ll talk to him if you want, or Jean-Claude can.”
“Jean-Claude probably can come up with a compromise that Auggie will listen to,” Haven said.
“Remember the two lions you almost broke when you were here last time?”
“The college kids, yeah.”
“They’ve helped me keep my beast under control. In fact, Joseph has a lot of young people in college. Let them finish their degrees, help bring in legitimate money.”
His hand squeezed around mine, not hard, but firm. “Did you sleep with them?”
I started to ask why, but there was something about the way he was standing there, some quality of stillness that made me afraid to tease. I said the truth, “No.”
“None of them,” he said.
“No, but if you’re not into sharing then you are holding the hand of the wrong girl.”
“I know how many you got on your plate, but they aren’t lions.”
“And if I had slept with any of the other lions?”
He gave me a look; there was nothing comforting in that look, hell, there was nothing very human in that look. “I won’t share with another lion.”
“I’ll need more than one of each of my beasts. You can’t be with me twenty-four-seven.”
He frowned. “No, I can’t.”
“Also, I’ve got Micah as my Nimir-Raj, then Nathaniel came as my leopard to call. It may work that way with all my animals.”
“You only have the Ulfric.”
“Not true,” Graham said. “She sees a lot of Jason.”
“He’s Jean-Claude’s pomme de sang,” I said.
“That’s why he’s around a lot, but that’s not why you do him all the time.”
“Thanks for putting it that way, Graham.” Funny how Graham reminded me often why he wasn’t getting sex from me.
“He’s also Nathaniel’s best friend.” Wicked added that.
“Can we please change the subject?” I said.
“But Jason isn’t her animal to call,” Truth said.
“Then why does she have a leopard but not a wolf to call?” Graham asked.
“We don’t know,” Wicked said.
“Guys, enough already,” I said.
“She’s right,” Haven said. He looked at Joseph. “We can’t settle this right now, so go. Go tell your pride that you failed them. Tell them that we’ll give them tonight safe.”
“What happens tomorrow?” Joseph asked.
Haven gave that unpleasant smile again. “Why, then you and I find out if you can get lucky again, or if your luck’s run out.”
“You will make him your Rex, Jean-Claude’s Rex,” Joseph said. He looked at the werelion. “Are you prepared to do what the Nimir-Raj and the Ulfric do?”
“What’s that?”
“Sleep with her master. Sleep with Jean-Claude.”
Funny how some rumors never die, no matter how many times you try to kill them. Before I could say anything, Haven answered, “Do you believe every rumor you hear?”
“They are not rumors, if they are true.”
“You thought I was sleeping with your little lions, and I wasn’t.”
“You say you weren’t.”
“Get him out of here,” Haven said.
The vampires looked at me. I nodded.
They started escorting Joseph to the door.
“You condemn me to death, Anita,” he called back over his shoulder.
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. You can’t save everybody, and we couldn’t afford to have any ally that wasn’t with us completely. It wasn’t just the sex. There’d been no lion in his pride good enough to be a bodyguard. Not a single one. You couldn’t be that weak and survive.
Wicked was saying something to Joseph, low and urgent. His grip on the man’s arm was tight enough to show at a distance. Whatever he said quieted the protests and sent him out the door.
“What did you say to him, Wicked?” I asked.
“I told him that the werelion had given him tonight to be safe, but if he kept saying mean things about our masters, I’d just do him tonight.”
“It’s my fight,” Haven said.
“I said that I’d do him, not that I’d kill him. After everything he’d just said, I figured rape would scare him enough to get him out of here.”
“You don’t like guys,” I said.
“You don’t know what I like. You’ve worked hard not to know. My pride