Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [204]
The glass grew thinner, as if the glass were wearing away. It was like a thin pane of spun sugar. He touched fingertips to it, and the glass moved like clear plastic, giving at his touch.
My fingertips touched his, and the thin barrier vanished. Our fingers touched, and it was startling, electric. His fingers slid over mine, entwining, our palms touching, and even that one chaste touch sent my breath racing.
I stepped back but didn’t let go of his hand, so the movement drew him out of the mirror. He stepped out of the golden frame and was suddenly standing in front of me, our hands still raised in front of us. I could feel his heart beating through his palm, feel the rise and pulse of his body through my hand as if all of him were contained in that one pale hand where it lay pressed against mine.
He leaned down towards me, as if to kiss me, and I started to pull away, afraid, but the dream shattered, and I was suddenly awake, staring up at the hospital ceiling. A nurse was in the room, checking my vitals. She’d woken me. I wasn’t sure whether I was glad or sad.
The marks had been open for less than a week, and Jean-Claude was already pushing me. Okay, okay, I needed the warning, but . . . Oh, hell. My teacher, Marianne, had told me that I couldn’t just ignore the boys, that that would be dangerous. I thought she meant ignoring the power that bound us, but maybe she meant more than that. I was Jean-Claude’s human servant, and that made things complicated when I traveled. Each vampire’s territory was like a foreign country. Sometimes you had diplomatic treaties between them. Sometimes you didn’t. Occasionally, you just had a couple of master vamps that were enemies pure and simple, so if you belonged to one, you stayed the hell out of the other one’s lands. By refusing to contact Jean-Claude, I could screw up, get myself killed or held hostage. But I’d thought I was safe as long as I was on police business or animating zombies. That was work. It had nothing to do with Jean-Claude and vampire politics. But I could always be wrong, like now.
Why, you may ask, did I believe Jean-Claude and his warning? Because it gained him nothing to lie about it. I’d also felt his fear. One of the things about the marks, you could usually tell what the other person was feeling. Sometimes that bugged me. Sometimes it was helpful.
The nurse shoved a thermometer with a little plastic sheath on it under my tongue. She took my pulse while we waited for the thermometer to beep. What really bugged me about the dream was how attracted to him I was. When I had the marks closed off, I’d have never touched him in the dream. Of course, I hadn’t let him enter my dreams when I had the marks blocked off. With the barriers up, I’d policed my dreams, kept him and Richard out. I could still keep them out, but it took more work to do it. I was out of practice. I was going to have to get back into practice, fast.
The thermometer beeped. The nurse read the little monitor on her belt, gave me an empty smile that could have meant anything, and made a note. “I hear you’re getting out of here today.”
I looked up at her. “I am? Great.”
“Doctor Cunningham will be in to see you before you leave.” She smiled again. “He seems to want to oversee your release personally.”
“I’m one of his favorite patients,” I said.
The nurse’s smile slipped just a touch. I think she knew exactly what Doctor Cunningham thought of me. “He should be in to see you soon.”
“But I am definitely getting out of here today?” I asked.
“That’s what I hear.”
“Can I call a friend to come pick me up?”
“I can call them for you.”
“If I’m getting out today, can’t I have a phone?” The good doctor had made sure there was no phone in my room because he didn’t want me trying to do work, any work, not even business phone calls. When I’d promised not to use the phone if he’d just give me one, he’d just looked at me, made some kind of note in his file, and left. I don’t think