Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 27)

I looked at the two of them and thought of all the times we’d been together, usually with Dev or Nathaniel, and a couple of times with both of them. That had been fun. I gave a little shiver that went from my head to my feet, and now my breathing was faster just thinking about it.

“What did you react to just now?” Olaf asked.

“The possibilities,” I said and smiled, and realized that maybe my smile was a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too smile.

“Doesn’t it bother you that Nicky is having sex with all the other women?”

Nicky corrected him. “Angel and I have sex together. Petra and I don’t. It’s a person-by-person negotiation.”

Olaf looked back at me. “And it doesn’t bother you that Nicky is fucking another woman?”

I don’t know what made me be honest. Maybe it was the feel of Pierette’s hand in mine or the memory of being with Nicky and Angel together. “I’m there when he does it, so no.”

Olaf stared at me. “Now you are teasing me.”

“I’m telling you the absolute truth, Olaf . . . Otto,” I said, trying to get back in the habit of using the right name before we went back in to the other cops.

He looked from Nicky to me, then to each of the women, then back to me. He looked at Ethan. “Do you also negotiate individually?”

“I just have sex with Anita and my girlfriend. That’s enough for me.”

“At the same time?” Olaf asked.

Ethan gave a nervous laugh. “Not Nilda and Anita. No, just . . . no.”

We all agreed with him, since Nilda was an ancient werebear with a temper that had required therapy. I was glad that she and Ethan seemed to love each other to pieces, because she was one of the most unstable of the Harlequin. Nilda and Ethan as a couple helped keep the rest of us safer.

“Is Petra only having sex with you, Anita?” I realized that Olaf was asking questions of me and the men, but that he hadn’t spoken directly to either of the other women. It was the way he’d talked to me when we first met: sort of around me, talking more to Edward than to me.

If it had been almost anyone else, I’d have forced them to talk directly to the women, but if Olaf saw me and the other men as a gateway to the women, that worked for me. Maybe he wouldn’t talk to them without one of us present. I especially didn’t want him talking alone with Pierette.

“Not just me.”

“So, if I wished to negotiate with her for sex, you would have no objection?”

My pulse was suddenly trying to jump out the side of my neck. He hadn’t said anything wrong really. He’d been amazingly polite, so why was I scared?

“I do not wish to sleep with him, my queen. Please don’t make me,” she said.

There was fear in her voice. It surprised me enough to look at her, and the expression on her face matched the voice. She was scared of Olaf. I mean, he was scary, but she’d hunted scarier things than him for hundreds of years. Even if he scared her, she didn’t have to show it this much. What was she doing, and why? She moved behind me like I would be her shield, which seemed weird for someone who was supposed to be my bodyguard.

I knew too many of the older vampires who treated their moitiés bêtes, beast halves, like slaves, but Pierrot didn’t treat her that way, or I hadn’t thought he did. I thought they were lovers as well as master and servant. Now I was suddenly wondering if he did abuse her. In old vampire society, animals to call had no rights. Jean-Claude and I were changing that and stopping the abuse when we found out about it, but some of the animals to call had centuries of being more possessions than partners to their masters. I had thought better of Pierrot, but Pierette’s reaction let me know that better wasn’t the same thing as good.

“No one will make you have sex with anyone, Petra. We keep telling you that’s not how things work with us.” I stroked her face, my other hand still in hers. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Her shoulders were rounded; her entire posture was huddled in upon herself. Shit.

I felt the heat of lion, smelled it like grass baked under a merciless sun. I looked at Olaf. He was watching Pierette like he’d seen a wounded gazelle at a watering hole. Crap, crap, crap. Her reaction had just made her even more his perfect victim.

49

LEDUC CAME OUT of the building, moving our way like he had a purpose. That purpose was probably to yell at us. Either Edward and Newman hadn’t been wingmen enough to keep him busy, or Edward had decided Leduc interrupting us with Olaf was the lesser evil. I hoped the sheriff hadn’t seen me kiss either of the women, but of course . . .

“What the hell, Blake? Are you going to kiss all of them? If you want a booty call, then get out of my town and go home.”

Great, just great, he’d seen at least some of it.

Edward was trailing behind Leduc, and just the way he was moving told me that he’d let the sheriff out to distract Olaf, or maybe he’d been afraid of what we’d do once we were all alone with the big guy. Did he really think we’d kill Olaf and play the “We have no idea where he went” game? Or was that what Edward was beginning to debate doing himself? I’d ask him later if we were ever alone on this damn case.

I stepped away from everyone, and when Nicky tried to follow, I said, “Stay, and that goes for all of you.”