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By Root 1186 0

was that Richard’s hand was still in Damian’s hair, and his hand had to stay there until I had my arm wrapped around the vampire’s neck. I needed to have one arm wrapped around Damian’s neck and the other arm holding my wrist, and I needed to be squeezing like a son of a bitch, while my face was buried against the back of his head, so he, theoretically, couldn’t reach me. Only Richard’s grip and the vampire’s desire to bite him would keep him from tearing into me during the process. So Richard had to keep his hand there, but now, suddenly, my bare breasts were going to be pressed into the back of his hand and arm. The fact that that bit of knowledge froze me for a second tells you how badly I behaved around Richard, or how screwed up about him I was. A life and death struggle and I was worried about pressing my breasts against his hand. Focus, Anita, focus. Survive first, be embarrassed later.

“Hurry,” Richard said, and there was strain in that one word. Super strong doesn’t mean you don’t get tired.

I took a deep breath, let it out, and moved into both Damian’s body and Richard’s hand. I had to move fast and firm, no hesitations, because Richard’s grip wasn’t perfect control. If Damian noticed me before my arm was under his chin, I wasn’t sure there was anything Richard could do to save me some damage. My hand touched Damian’s blood-slick skin, and I had to follow through. I had to ignore the almost electric reaction I had when my bare breasts brushed the back of Richard’s hand. One small touch and my skin ran with goosebumps. But it was more than just physical attraction. It was as if the world held its breath. Even Damian went still for that frozen moment. I felt Jean-Claude wake. Felt his eyes open, knew he woke in a welter of silk sheets in the sunless dark of the underground in Circus of the Damned. He turned in that nest of silk and darkness and touched Asher’s body, found it still cold, still hours from waking.

Jean-Claude’s voice echoed through my head. “What have you done, ma petite?”

I don’t know what I would have answered, because in that moment the world came back into focus. I could still feel Jean-Claude all those miles away, but I was back to the here and now.

Damian helped me concentrate on the here and now. He twisted in Richard’s desperate grip and lunged at me, mouth wide, fangs straining like a striking snake. I suddenly had my own grip on his hair and helped Richard hold him away from my skin by fractions of an inch. I snugged my right arm under his chin, tight against the front of his neck. And he reacted like the only danger was the arm sliding in from his right, so that he never tried to turn in against mine and Richard’s grip on the other side. There was no human thought to him in that moment. No human. No vampire. I wasn’t even sure animal was the word. I had no word for what Damian had become. In a different century it would have been demon, possessed, damned.

Jean-Claude’s voice in my head again, “He will be damned if you cannot bring him back.”

I had to shake my head, like his voice was an insect buzzing inside my skull. It distracted me. I thought very hard, stop talking. I don’t know if he heard me or figured out on his own that he was distracting me, but he stopped.

I let go of Damian’s hair and used my arms to close around his neck in what would have been a choke hold, if he’d needed to breathe. Vampires do breathe, but they don’t have to. My arm slid into place more easily because of all the blood, but the blood also made it harder to hold him still, harder to maintain my grip. I put my head down, tight against the side of his head, using all my upper body to simply control his head.

Richard let go of Damian’s hair, and the vampire sprang up off the floor. I tightened my grip around his neck, but was along for the ride. I could control his head from moving side to side, but I couldn’t choke him, and I didn’t weigh enough to slow him down.

Damian was on top of Richard, pinning the bigger man to the floor. Richard had his good arm pushing out against Damian’s chest. I got my feet