• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I blinked.

“Can you speak?”

“Yes.”

He nodded and touched Jean-Claude next, stroking a hand down his cheek. Jean-Claude opened his eyes at the touch. He gave a smile that seemed to mean more to Asher than to me, because it made Asher laugh. The laugh was a very masculine one, as if they’d shared some dirty joke that I didn’t understand. Asher crawled around me until he was kneeling by Richard’s head. He lifted a handful of thick hair so he could see Richard’s face clearly. Richard blinked at him, but didn’t seem to be focusing.

Asher bent low over Richard, and I heard him say, “Can you hear me, mon ami?”

Richard swallowed, coughed, and said, “Yes.”

“Bon, bon.”

It took me two tries but I had a smart-aleck comment, and I was going to make it. “Now, everyone who can stand, raise their hands.” None of us moved. I felt distant, floating, my body too heavy to move. Or maybe my mind was too overwhelmed to make it move.

“Have no fears, ma cherie, we will attend you.” Asher stood, and it was as if it were a signal. Figures moved out of the crowd. I recognized three of them. Jamil’s waist length cornrows looked right at home with his black leather outfit. He was Richard’s lead enforcer, or Sko¨ff. Shang-Da didn’t look comfortable in black leather, but the six-foot-plus Chinese never looked comfortable outside of nice dress clothes with polished wing tips. Shang-Da was the other enforcer for the pack, the Hati. Sylvie knelt beside me, looking splendid in vinyl, her short brown hair touched with burgundy highlights. Though it looked good, I knew she was conservative enough that it was probably a temporary color. She sold insurance when she wasn’t being Richard’s second in command, his Freki, and insurance salespeople didn’t have hair the color of a good red wine.

She smiled at me, wearing more makeup than I’d ever seen her in. It looked great, but it didn’t really look like Sylvie. For the first time I thought how pretty she was, and that she was almost as delicate-looking as me.

“I owed you a rescue,” she said. Once upon a time a bunch of nasty vampires had come to town to teach Jean-Claude, Richard, and me a lesson. They’d taken prisoners along the way. Sylvie had been one of them. I’d gotten her out, and I’d kept my promise to see everyone who touched her dead. She did the actual killing, but I delivered them up to her for punishment. She kept a few bones as souvenirs. Sylvie would never complain that I was too violent. Maybe she could be my new best friend.

The werewolves took up positions around us, facing outward like good bodyguards. None of them were as physically imposing as Narcissus’s bodyguards had been, but I’d seen the wolves fight, and muscles aren’t everything. Skill counts, and a certain level of ruthlessness.

Two vampires came to stand with Asher and the wolves. I didn’t recognize either of them. The woman was Asian, with shining black hair that fell barely to her shoulders. The hair was nearly the same color and brilliance as the vinyl cat suit that clung to nearly every inch of her body. The suit made sure you were aware of her high, tight breasts, her tiny waist, the swell of her shapely hips. She gave me an unfriendly look with her dark eyes, before she turned her back on me and stood, hands at her side, waiting. Waiting for what, I wasn’t sure.

The second vampire was male, not much taller than the woman, with thick brown hair that had been shaved close to his head, except for a layer left on top that came about halfway to his eyes, shining and straight. He gazed down on me with a smile, eyes the color of new pennies, as if his brown eyes held just a trace of blood in them.

He turned his attention outward, arms crossed over the black leather of his chest. They too faced outward like good bodyguards, letting the crowd know that even though we couldn’t stand up, we weren’t helpless. Comforting, I guess.

Jason crawled in between their legs, head hanging down, as if he were almost too tired to move. He raised his blue eyes to me, and the look was almost as