Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [98]
Fear ran over my skin in a cold wash. What had I done? What had the ardeur done to me? Shit, shit, shit.
Weapons, then call Jean-Claude. Someone had to know what the hell was happening. Didn’t they?
I angled to the corner of the bed, where I’d touch Jason’s furred legs. I knew enough about lycanthropes to know that being in tiger form meant the red tiger would not be waking anytime soon, but I had the horror-movie image in my head of me stepping off the bed and him grabbing my ankle. I knew better, but still I couldn’t make myself step close to his clawed hands. I climbed over Jason’s unresisting legs rather than risk that imaginary grab. God, I needed Jason to shift and get closer to waking. I did not want Crispin to wake first and be the only one awake with me.
I was finally on the floor; yea! I hadn’t woken either of the weretigers; double yea! I stood there a moment in the hush of the hotel room, only the sounds of the men’s breathing deep and even competing with the air conditioning. I enjoyed simply not being on the bed with them. I felt a little less trapped.
Standing, I ached more, as if bruises and cuts had been waiting to tell me they were there. I ignored them as best I could while I scanned the floor for weapons.
The floor looked like a clothing store had put up a fight and lost. I saw the remnants of Jason’s blue shirt tangled with a man’s white dress shirt. Jeans lay beside dress slacks. A man’s suit jacket lay whole and untouched near the doors, as if when the red tiger hit the door he had immediately taken off his jacket. It had to be his, unless another man was hiding in the room somewhere.
I really wished I hadn’t thought of that. I pushed the thought away and concentrated. One problem at a time. Finally, in a tangle of my shirt and jeans I glimpsed my shoulder holster, which meant the Browning couldn’t be far behind. I walked toward it, and it hurt to walk, as in I had to fight not to limp or put a hand over my stomach as I moved. Fuck. Something was wrong with my back, too, as if some muscle or other was hurt.
Kneeling was an experience in controlled movement and not reacting to everything that hurt. I knelt on carpet that was stiff with dried fluids, and tried not to think too hard about what some of those fluids might be. I remembered now that this was where I lost most of my clothes. I checked the Browning to make sure it was still loaded as the memories washed over me. Crispin and Jason and I on the floor. There’d been no more fighting. Whatever the fight had been about, they’d shared me just fine. Oh, God.
I remembered sex with the weretiger here and on the bed. Jason had lost human form here during sex, too, but I also remembered sex on the bed with him. Dear, God, what in hell had gone wrong with the ardeur?
With the gun in my hand I felt a little better, a little more myself, but I had still woken up in a hotel room with three men, two of them strangers, and apparently we’d had sex. Lots of sex, and I could remember only bits and pieces of it. That had never happened before with the ardeur. I was supposed to be gaining control over it. I looked at the wreck of the carpet and finally back at the bed and the men there. This was so not gaining control of anything. No, this was definitely losing control.
I was digging through the clothes trying to find my cross when there was a sound from the bed. It froze me; I held my breath like an idiot. All wereanimals could hear a heartbeat, and there was no way to hold that.
The sound wasn’t repeated, so I went back to searching and found my cross. The chain had been snapped. Damn. I gripped it in my hand and that was a little better. I felt that prickling energy of lycanthropy, like a wash of electricity across my skin. I turned to the bed,