Circus of the Damned - Laurell K. Hamilton [110]
I stared at the back of Richard’s head and wondered if the curls could be as soft as they looked. Instant lust; embarrassing, but not that uncommon. Alright, it was uncommon for me.
A sharp pain ran up my leg. The leg that the lamia-thing had bitten. Please, no. I leaned against the counter divider. Richard was watching me, puzzled.
I swept the robe aside. The leg was swelling and turning purplish. How had I not noticed it? “Did I mention I got bitten by a lamia today?”
“You’re joking,” he said.
I shook my head. “I think you’re going to have to take me to the hospital.”
He stood up and saw my leg. “God! Sit down.”
I was starting to sweat. It wasn’t hot in the apartment.
Richard helped me to the couch. “Anita, lamias have been extinct for two hundred years. No one’s going to have any antivenom.”
I stared at him. “I guess we’re not going to get that date.”
“No, dammit, I won’t sit here and watch you die. Lycanthropes can’t be poisoned.”
“You mean you want to rush me to Stephen and let him bite me?”
“Something like that.”
“I’d rather die.”
Something flickered through his eyes, something I couldn’t read; pain, maybe. “You mean that?”
“Yes.” A rush of nausea flowed over me like a wave. “I’m going to be sick.” I tried to get up and go for the bathroom but collapsed on the white carpet and vomited blood. Red and bright and fresh. I was bleeding to death inside.
Richard’s hand was cool on my forehead, his arm around my waist. I vomited until I was empty and exhausted. Richard lifted me to the couch. There was a narrow tunnel of light edged by darkness. The darkness was eating the light, and I couldn’t stop it. I could feel myself begin to float away. It didn’t hurt. I wasn’t even scared.
The last thing I heard was Richard’s voice. “I won’t let you die.”
It was a nice thought.
42
THE DREAM BEGAN. I was sitting in the middle of a huge canopied bed. The drapes were heavy blue velvet, the color of midnight skies. The velvet bedspread was soft under my hands. I was wearing a long white gown with lace at the collar and sleeves. I’d never owned anything like it. No one had in this century.
The walls were blue and gold wallpaper. A huge fireplace blazed, sending shadows dancing around the room. Jean-Claude stood in the corner of the room, bathed in orange and black shadows. He was wearing the same shirt I’d last seen him in, the one with the peekaboo front.
He walked towards me, fire-shadows shining in his hair, on his face, glittering in his eyes.
“Why don’t you ever dress me in anything normal in these dreams?”
He hesitated. “You don’t like the gown?”
“Hell, no.”
He gave a slight smile. “You always did have a way with words, ma petite.”
“Stop calling me that, dammit.”
“As you like, Anita.” There was something in the way he said my name that I didn’t like at all.
“What are you up to, Jean-Claude?”
He stood beside the bed and unbuttoned the first button of his shirt.
“What are you doing?”
Another button, and another, then he was pulling the shirt out of his pants and letting it slide to the floor. His bare chest was only a little less white than my gown. His nipples were pale and hard. The strand of dark hair that started low on his belly and disappeared into his pants fascinated me.
He crawled up on the bed.
I backed away, clutching the white gown to me like some heroine in a bad Victorian novel. “I don’t seduce this easy.”
“I can taste your lust on the back of my tongue, Anita. You want to know what my skin feels like next to your naked body.”
I scrambled off the bed. “Leave me the fuck alone. I mean it.”
“It’s just a dream. Can’t you even let yourself lust in a dream?”
“It’s never just a dream with you.”
He was suddenly standing in front of me. I hadn’t seen him move. His arms locked behind my back, and we were on the floor in front of the fire. Fire-shadows danced on the naked skin