Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [113]
“Anita,” Jamil said, “Anita, did you hear that?”
I blinked and looked up into the solid brown of his eyes. “No, I’m sorry, but no. Can you repeat it?”
“She’s in shock.” This from the man in the robe. This from…Alex.
I studied his face, tried to “see” him, but it was as if I was only getting pieces of what I was seeing. What I saw was crystal-edged clear, but what I wasn’t seeing was fuzzed and indistinct. His eyes seemed to distract me from the rest of his face. “You had contacts, brown contacts,” I said, and even my voice sounded disconnected, flat.
He nodded. “You made me take them out.”
“I wouldn’t let you touch me until I saw your tiger eyes,” I said, voice soft. “Why?”
Crispin answered, “Your tiger acts like a true-blood queen. Most of the time they won’t mate with anyone who doesn’t have the eyes.”
“Why not?” I turned to him, and found that he was still nude. Unselfconsciously so. Strangely, I had no trouble keeping eye contact. In fact, I seemed unduly fascinated with the pale blue jewel color of his eyes.
“The eyes mark us both as natural-born, and they prove our bloodline is closer to pure,” Crispin said.
“I don’t know what that means,” I said, in that strange, unemotional voice.
“The clans have started to try to intermarry with other bloodlines in the last few years,” the other tiger said.
“Why?” I asked, but again my voice made it sound as if I didn’t really care about the answer.
“Our queens are having trouble getting pregnant, and the rate of birth defects was going up,” Alex said.
“My queen has forbidden our clan to talk about it,” Crispin said.
“I’m so high on my queen’s shit list, it doesn’t matter for me. Let me be very clear, Anita.” He smiled and shook his head, and only then could I really notice that he was handsome. It was the smile, the turn of the head, a flash of personality that helped me see his whole face and not just the eyes. “I feel like we need to be introduced before I use your first name. Seems weird when you may be…” He stopped in midsentence, suddenly looking uncomfortable.
I finished for him. “Weird when I may be pregnant with your child.” Just saying it out loud made me feel colder.
He nodded, and he looked very unhappy. “I don’t know exactly what happened here, but I am sorry about my part of it. I thought when the call went out that my clan had found me and found a queen strong enough that I couldn’t not come to her. I thought they were going to try to trap me into a pregnancy so I’d be forced back into the clan. But you look less happy about this than I am; you didn’t want this either.”
“No,” I said, voice almost too low to be out loud.
He held out his hand to me. “I’m Alex Pinn, and I don’t even know what else to say.”
I almost smiled, which I guess was a good thing. “I’m Anita Blake.” We shook hands, like civilized people.
His hand was large enough that he had to work to shake mine, but he did it. He didn’t make it awkward just because my hand was small in his. I liked that.
“I can’t do this.” It was Richard. Of course, it was Richard.
I let go of Alex’s hand and turned to find him leaning against the far wall. I’d avoided looking at him while Jason and I lied. One, it was a lie. Two, I did not want to see his face while he thought it was the truth. His face didn’t disappoint me.
He’d undone his hair and put it back in a tight ponytail that left that painfully handsome face naked for the eye. All the men in his family had the kind of cheekbones and jaw that other men went to plastic surgeons for, perfect bone structure. If you were into that utterly masculine handsome look.
He leaned against the wall, his hands pressed behind him. He was flexing his hands behind