Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [969]
His eyes were a pale blue-gray that shifted with his moods like a summer sky that couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted to be peaceful with fluffy white clouds or rain all over your head. He was handsome in a clean-cut, preppy sort of way, as if he should have been on a college campus somewhere pledging to a frat and chugging beers. Instead he was going with us into a gathering of werewolves where he would be the only nonpredator there. That didn’t sound like a good idea to me.
“You saved my swanmanes, Ms. Blake. You nearly got yourself killed doing it. I couldn’t risk the girls coming, they are not . . .” He looked down at his folded hands, then raised those changeable eyes to me. “They are like your Nathaniel—victims.”
“Nathaniel is driving my Jeep with the rest of my people in it,” I said.
Reece nodded. “Yes, but the shape of his beast is a predator. My girls are not. If they lost control and changed during the meeting, they would be meat.”
“I agree with you, Mr. Reece, but doesn’t the same logic apply to you?”
“I am a swan king, Ms. Blake, I will not change shape unless I will it so.”
Will it so. I’d never heard anyone put it quite that way. Donovan Reece had a bad case of arrogance. I wasn’t going to talk him out of this. Rafael had been trying to before I arrived. Micah never offered. He’d been very good about letting me do all the talking. I liked that in a man.
“Can you fight?” I asked.
“I will not be a burden, Ms. Blake, don’t worry.”
I was worried, because I could smell the blood just under his skin. I could almost see it flowing under his flesh. He smelled like meat and blood, and heat. He smelled like food. I’d been around shapeshifters that were prey animals, but I’d never realized you could tell by smell what wasn’t a predator. I knew by the gentle scent of him that Reece’s beast was something soft and easily killed. Something that would struggle but not hurt me. I had to swallow hard, trying to slow my pulse, but it would not slow. I wanted to drop on my knees in front of him and sniff his skin, rub my face against his bare arms until the short sleeves of his button-up shirt stopped me. A white undershirt peeked out the top of the blue and white striped shirt. I wanted to rip the shirt open, send the buttons popping through the air, take a knife from my wrist sheath and slit the undershirt, bare his naked chest and stomach. But it wasn’t the ardeur, it wasn’t sex I was thinking about. I wanted to see his stomach bare, to feel the soft tissue under my mouth, my teeth, to bite into . . .
I covered my eyes with my hands, and shook my head. What was wrong with me?
Micah touched my arm, gently. “Anita, what’s wrong?”
I lowered my hands and looked at him. “He smells like food.”
Micah nodded. “Yes.”
I shook my head again. “You don’t understand what I’m thinking. It’s . . . frightening.” I couldn’t say it out loud. I wanted to feed on him, or at least sink my teeth into his flesh. I think I could keep from actually feeding, but the urge to mark that flawless skin was so strong that I almost didn’t trust myself.
“When you told me why you marked Nathaniel I knew it was the hunger.” Micah said the last word like it should have been in capital letters. “It usually takes a few days, or weeks, before your first full moon, to have the hunger become a problem. It’s okay to have thoughts, images in your head about feeding. It’s normal.”
“Normal.” I laughed, but it was a harsh sound. “What I’m thinking isn’t even close to normal.” Again I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.
“What do you want to do to Reece?” Rafael asked.
I looked across the seat at him. I opened my mouth to say, then glanced at Reece and stopped. “No, it’s like telling a sexual fantasy in front of the stranger you just had the fantasy about. It feels that intimate.