Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [92]
The jaguar men pried her away from his body, one pale limb at a time, until they had to carry her above their heads while she struggled, and then finally went limp, laughing as they carried her back to her table.
Ramona seemed to wake up. She blinked around her as if she’d woken and wasn’t sure where she thought she should be. She stared down at her blouse clutched to the front of her and screamed. César tried to help her on with her blouse, and she slapped at him. I went to her, trying to help her, but she seemed afraid of me, too, now, as if her panic had spread to include all of us.
The jaguar men tried to help her offstage, and she fell trying to keep them from touching her. It was finally a man from her table who came and escorted her out of the lights, out of the ring of strangers.
She was crying and speaking softly in Spanish as he led her back to the table. I would have to talk to someone about her. I couldn’t leave town without knowing that the mind tricks weren’t permanent. If it had been a vampire with a one on one call like that, he could have called her any time, any night, and she would answer his call. She would have no choice.
César stood in front of me. He raised my hand, I think to kiss it, but it was the hand that I’d cut to prove I wouldn’t heal. Not that anyone had cared. César raised my hand and stared at the small wound in the tip of my finger. It was a small cut and didn’t bleed much, but it wasn’t healing either. If I’d been a lycanthrope, the small prick would have closed up and healed by now.
He looked at me over the still bleeding finger. “What are you?” he whispered.
“Long story,” I whispered back.
He kissed the wound like a mother with a child’s scrape, then his mouth slid over my finger, down to my hand. He drew it slowly back out. Fresh blood welled to the tip of my finger, bright and sparkling under the lights. His tongue flicked out, rolling the drop of blood into his mouth. He leaned close as if to kiss me, but I shook my head and moved towards the steps that would lead me off the stage and away from him.
The jaguar men were there to help me off the stage, but I looked at them, and they backed off, letting me walk down the steps by myself. Edward held my chair for me, and I let him. Food had been served while I was on stage. Edward handed me a linen napkin. I wrapped it around my finger, holding pressure to it.
Dallas actually got up from her chair and came to talk to me, hanging over the back of my chair. “What happened back there? I’ve been a volunteer before, and I’ve never seen anyone hurt.”
I looked up at her, her face close in the dimness, all serious and concern. “If you think no one gets hurt, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
She frowned, looking puzzled.
I shook my head. It was too late, and I was suddenly too tired to try and explain. “I cut myself shaving.”
She frowned harder, but also got the point that I didn’t want to talk. She sat back down, leaving me to Edward. He leaned into me, laying his mouth against my ear and whispering so low it was like he was breathing into my ear. He knew how good a shapeshifter’s hearing was, not to mention vamps. “Do they know who you are?”
I turned, putting my mouth against his ear, having to raise on one knee in my seat, putting my body in a line against his. It looked intimate, but it allowed me to whisper to him in a voice so low I wasn’t sure he would hear. “No, but they know I’m not human, not a tourist.” I put my arm across his shoulders, one hand on his shoulder, holding him because I didn’t want him to move away. I wanted the next question answered. “What are you planning?”
He turned to me, a look on his face that was far too intimate, too teasing for the conversation. He leaned into me, mouth pressed so close to my ear that it must have looked to the others like he had his tongue down it. “No plan, just thought you being you might scare the monsters from talking to us.”
It was my turn to whisper, “No plan, you promise?”
“Would I lie to you?”
I jerked back from him and