Burnt Offerings - Laurell K. Hamilton [170]
“But if you kill me in a duel, then no one will blame you, is that it?”
“That is it.”
I huddled on the floor, hugging myself, trying to swallow the power back, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Richard crawled to me, touching my bare arm. I recoiled from him as if his touch had burned, because I wanted him, wanted him in a way so raw and primitive it made my body hurt.
“Don’t touch me, please.”
“How did you get rid of it last time?”
“Sex or violence, the munin leaves after sex or violence.” Or healing, I thought. Though that had been sex, too, in a way.
Padma’s power rode over us like a tank, a tank with a spiked tread. We both screamed, and Jean-Claude screamed with us. Blood poured from his mouth in a red rush, and I knew what Padma had done. I’d felt him try to do it to me. He’d shoved his power into Jean-Claude and opened it, burst something inside of him.
Jean-Claude fell to his knees, blood spattering the white shirt. I was on my feet without thinking, standing between Padma and Jean-Claude. The power burned along my skin. My anger fed it as if it truly were a beast.
“Get out of my way, human, or I will kill you first, and then your master.” It was like standing inside an invisible wall of fire and pain to be this close to Padma now. He’d weakened Richard, then me, done something to the marks. Without us, Jean-Claude could not win.
I stopped fighting the energy inside me. I embraced it, fed it, and it spilled out of my mouth in a laugh that raised the hairs on my arms. It wasn’t my laugh. It was a laugh I’d never thought to hear this side of hell.
Padma grabbed me, a hand on each arm, lifting me off my feet. “I am allowed to kill you if you interfere with a duel.”
I kissed him, a soft brush of lips.
He was so startled for a second, he just froze; then he kissed me back, locking his arms behind my back, still with my feet dangling off the ground. He raised his face enough to say, “Even if you fuck me here and now, it won’t save him.”
That laugh spilled from my lips, and I felt a darkness fill my eyes. That cold, white part of me where there was nothing but static and silence, the place where I killed, opened up inside my head, and Raina filled it. I remembered the feel of Nathaniel’s heart in my hands, the moment I’d realized I could kill him, that I wanted to kill him, more than I wanted to heal him. So much easier to kill.
I locked my arms around Padma’s neck and kissed his mouth. I shoved the power into him like a sword. His body stiffened, arms opening, but I was holding on now. His heart was slick and heavy. It beat against the power like a fish in a net. I crushed the power around it. He fell to his knees and screamed into my mouth. Blood flowed in a warm gush, filling my mouth with the warm salty rush of it.
Hands pulled at me, tried to tear me away from Padma. I clung to him, legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck. “Back off or I’ll shatter his heart. Back off now!”
Thomas fell to his knees beside us, blood trickling down his chin. “You’ll kill me and Gideon.”
I didn’t want to kill them. The power began to slide away, buried in regret. “No.” I said it out loud. I fed the power on my anger, my outrage. The munin swelled and filled me. I squeezed Padma’s heart—gently, slowly.
I laid my face against his cheek and whispered, “Why aren’t you fighting back, Master of Beasts? Where is that large, burning, power of yours?”
There was no answer but his labored breathing.
I squeezed a little tighter.
He gasped. “We could die together,” he said in a voice wet with his own blood.
I rubbed my cheek against his face. The blood from his lips smeared along our skin. I’d always known that blood was a turn-on for lycanthropes but I’d never fully appreciated the appeal. It wasn’t so much the feel of the blood as the smell of it. Hot, sweet, flatly metallic, and underneath, the scent of fear. He was so very afraid. I could smell it, feel it.
I raised back from him enough