Burnt Offerings - Laurell K. Hamilton [160]
“Jean-Claude, Anita, so good of you to join us.” He made the polite words a mockery, filling them with a hissing warmth of threat.
“Your presence is the same pleasure it has always been,” Jean-Claude said. Those words were blank, utterly neutral, compliment or snide putdown. It was the listener’s choice.
Asher glided towards us, a smile curling his perfect lips. Again both sides of his mouth worked. The muscles were still whole underneath all the scars. He came to stand directly in front of me. He was about two steps closer than was comfortable, but I didn’t back up or complain. I just met his smile with one of my own. Neither smile touched our eyes.
“Do you like my outfit, Anita?”
“A little aggressive, don’t you think?”
He traced a fingertip down the lace at my waist. The fingertip slid inside the open lace, touching my bare skin. It brought a small gasp from my throat.
“You can touch me, anywhere you like,” he said.
I moved his hand. “I can’t return the offer, sorry.”
“I think you can,” the Traveler said.
I looked at him. “No,” I said. “I can’t.”
“Jean-Claude was very clear on your rules,” the Traveler said. “Asher needs to feed. It is within the rules for him to feed off of you, Anita. He would prefer to sink something else into you, but he will have to be content with fangs.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Ma petite,” Jean-Claude said softly.
I didn’t like the way he said my name. I turned, and one look was enough. “You have got to be kidding me.”
He stepped close, taking me to one side. “The guidelines you gave me said nothing against sharing blood.”
I stared up at him. “Do you really want him to feed off of me?”
He shook his head. “It is not a matter of want, ma petite. But if they cannot torture us or rape us, we leave them little else.”
“If you wish to trade back one of my wereleopards,” Padma said, “Vivian, perhaps, I would grant you safe passage for the return of my so sweet Vivian.”
Fernando entered the room as if on cue. He was bruised but walking. More’s the pity. He was wearing a jeweled vest and something like harem pants. The Arabian Nights maybe, instead of a maharaja.
“Did Fernando tell you he raped her?”
“I know what my son has done.”
“That doesn’t spoil her for you?” I asked.
Padma looked at me. “What I do with her once she is mine again is no concern of yours, human.”
“No way,” I said.
“Then you have no choice. You must feed one of us. If there is one among us who would please you more, someone…less hideous, we could arrange something. Perhaps I could take you myself. Among our own people only Yvette finds Asher attractive, but then her tastes have always run to the strange and grotesque.”
Asher’s face betrayed nothing, but I knew he’d heard. He was meant to hear. He’d spent the last two centuries being treated like a circus freak. No wonder he was cranky.
“I’d let Asher sink the whole thing into me before I’d let you touch me.”
Surprise showed for a heartbeat on Padma’s face, then arrogance. But he hadn’t liked the insult. Goody. “Perhaps before the night is over, Anita, you will get your wish.”
Not comforting, but Asher was having trouble looking at me, as if he were afraid. Not of me, exactly, but that this was some elaborate game to hurt him. He had that casual tension that victims get when they are slapped too often for too many different things.
Jean-Claude whispered, “Thank you, ma petite.” I think he was relieved. I think he’d thought I might go down in flames rather than submit. Before Padma had made his little joke, I would have put up more of a fight. I was going to do this. If I drew the line here and refused, that meant we fought them. We would lose. If donating a little blood would keep us all alive come morning, I could spare it.
A leopard screamed. It raised the hairs on my arms. Two leopards padded into the room, jeweled collars sparkling around their necks. The black one, Elizabeth I assumed, snarled at me as they went past. The leopards were just leopard-size, not as tall as a Great Dane but longer. They paced like velvet over muscle, their energy