Hit List (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 20)

IT WAS COLD. Cold and hard. I was lying on something hard and cold, my cheek pressed to the rough chill of it. My hand spasmed and my hands were tied behind my back. My eyes opened wide, pulse shoved into my throat, heart thudding. I could see a darkly stained stone wall. I pulled at the ropes behind my back, but the rope was tight, biting into my wrists when I tugged on it. I moved my legs and realized my ankles were bound together, too. My boots protected my ankles, so the rope didn't bite into the skin, but they were tied just as tight. My heart was threatening to choke me, as if I needed to swallow it back down into my chest. I was so scared my skin ran cold with it, and it had nothing to do with the concrete floor.

I tried to think through the panic. Was there anyone to see me move? Had the movements been small enough that my captors hadn't noticed, or was I alone? There was nothing against the one wall I could see. The wall was water stained, which was probably one of the things that made the floor damp. I forced myself to notice things; there just wasn't a lot to notice. But just taking the time to try had slowed my pulse, helped chase back the panic. I was tied up, but I wasn't hurt as far as I could tell. I'd come to in worse places, with lots worse happening to me.

I felt movement behind me. Maybe I heard it, but it was as if the air currents stirred behind me and I just knew that someone was behind me, and that they were close. I fought not to tense more than I already had, but it's almost impossible not to tense when you're tied up and you have no idea who or what is coming up behind you. Being completely helpless makes you tense.

"If you had just come with me and my master, things would have been so much simpler." The deep growl of voice was the shapeshifter from the motel, the one that had stabbed Karlton and made her a werewolf. So at least I knew his flavor of shifter; that was something, not much, but something.

I swallowed and found my voice. "Simpler for whom?"

"Whom, you say, whom, when I have you tied up on the floor, helpless." I heard the brush of cloth now, and small noises that I couldn't have told you what they were exactly, but I'd have bet money that he was crawling on the floor toward me.

I felt the heat of him behind me, before the white mask and hood of his face peered over my shoulder. He leaned over my face so I could see that the eyes in the mask were pale green, and not human. He had wolf eyes in his human face, which might mean that the reason his voice was growly was because he'd spent too much time in animal form, either because he liked it, or because he'd been forced as punishment. The eyes usually changed first, and then the teeth, and then internal mouth and throat changes so the voice stayed deeper.

His eyes were so close to me that I could see the edges of them and knew he was frowning. "You aren't afraid, and you're thinking something. What are you thinking that has helped you let go of your fear of just a moment before?"

I decided that truth didn't hurt. "Who kept you in animal shape until your eyes stayed wolf even in human form?"

He growled at me, leaning that smooth, white mask close and closer until I couldn't focus on his green wolf eyes and all I could see was the white blur of the mask. My pulse sped up again; I couldn't help it. I was tied up and helpless, and he was looming over me. I wouldn't have wanted a human to do it, let alone a werewolf, though honestly that wasn't the part that bothered me. It was the white mask, and the speed I'd seen that first night. He was Harlequin, and being at their mercy, that bothered me.

I heard him draw in a deep breath behind the blur of mask. He pressed that smooth porcelain against my cheek and sniffed. "Now you're afraid; good."

He curled himself against the back of my body, pressing that cool, artificial face against mine. My vision was filled up with the blur of that white mask. One of his arms snaked across the front of my body, pressing us close together. He was enough taller than me that it was mostly his upper body that pressed so tight against the back of mine.

I fought to control my pulse, my heart rate. He wanted me to be afraid, and anything he wanted I didn't want to give him. My pulse quieted, heart rate going down. He growled in a low, heavy line that vibrated through his chest and neck along my body. It hit that back part of the brain that still remembers huddling around a fire with the night pressing close, and when that growl came out of the dark, you knew that something out there was going to kill you. I couldn't keep my heart from beating faster, couldn't keep it from sending my blood pumping hard and fast through my body. He growled harder, the vibration of it shivering down my spine, warning me that teeth and fangs came next after that sound.

I caught the faint musk of wolf like a half-remembered perfume, he was pressed so close. Something stirred inside me; a white shape rose in the dark of my mind. My wolf stood up inside me and shook her mostly white fur like any canine rising from a long nap.

He went very still beside me, and his voice was even deeper, so full of the growl that he'd been doing that it sounded like it would hurt for a human throat to talk like that. "What is that?"

"You have a nose," I said, in a voice that was only a little shaky. "Use it."

He drew in a deep rush of air, then let it trickle out slowly, the way some people let wine sit on their tongue. Swallowing the wine slowly, so they catch every nuance of it. My wolf sniffed the air back, as if she were catching his scent, too.

"Wolf; you can't be wolf," he growled.

"Why not?" I asked, and it was almost a whisper because his face was close enough that much more than a whisper would be shouting.

"She wouldn't want your body if you were a werewolf," he growled next to my face.

"Why not?" I asked, again.

"She can't control wolves." I felt him tense. I don't think he was supposed to share that.

"Only cats," I said.

"Yes." The growl was beginning to fade a little, and it was more of a bass whisper, as if he didn't want to be overheard. The Harlequin had bugged all our businesses in St. Louis once, so we were probably being listened to, if not watched, right this minute.

I did my best not to move my lips, and the whisper this time was more just breathing out. I didn't want them to hear us. "The mother couldn't control you?" My wolf began to trot up that long, dark path inside me. It was my visual for an impossibility. It was impossible that there were animals inside me that wanted to come out through my skin, but they were still in there, so I "saw" them as walking down a path, when there was no path, no space between me and them. In a very real way, they were me. Intellectually I knew that; to stay sane I visualized a path.

He sniffed harder, as if he would breathe me into him. He settled more of his body against the back of mine. My hands were in the way, so he couldn't spoon me completely, and he kept his face next to mine, so that the height difference put only his upper body against my hands. He had a long torso. I fought to keep my hands still where they lay pressed between the two of us. Cuddling was better than being threatened; I just had to not rush, and not do anything to make him remember he was here to scare me.

"No," he whispered, and used his arm to pull me in tighter to his body.

I breathed, "She forced you into wolf form."

"She couldn't; my master forced me."

I pressed my face into the smooth chill of the mask, letting it hide as much of my face as possible in case the camera could see my face. The scent of his wolf was stronger this way; it made my wolf trot faster up that invisible path. The light was better so that I could see her dark saddle in all that white fur, as she trotted through the light and shadow of the tall trees that lined the path. The trees, like the rest of the landscape, were no place I'd ever been.

I breathed in the scent of him, and down the long metaphysical cord, I smelled another wolf, several other wolves. I smelled my pack and they always smelled good to me, of pine trees and thick forest leaves.

He sniffed harder, hugged me tighter. "You smell of more than just your wolf. You smell like pack. How can that be?"

"I'm the lupa of my pack, the bitch queen."

He snarled behind his mask, drawing back enough that he could see my face. "Liar!"

"If you're powerful enough to shift just your claws, you're powerful enough to smell a lie. I am the lupa of our pack; I swear it."

"But you're human," he growled, and it was almost a yell.

My wolf broke into an easy lope, almost a run, as if to prove the truth of what I'd said. But there were shadows in the dark around her, not us, as if I had called the ghosts of our pack. Their scents came with me, not the sight, but then for a wolf, smell is more real than sight. It's one of the reasons that wolves aren't bothered by hauntings, unless there's a scent to go with it. You can wail and moan all damn day, but if you don't smell like something, a wolf won't care.

I felt the loneliness in the man beside me. Not a loneliness of sex, or even love, but of not having another furry body to press side to side, tail to nose, as they slept. I'd been told that the ardeur was about lust, but my version was more about your heart's desire. What is it that you want, you really want? That part of me that carried the ardeur could see all the way through you to the truth. The man holding me didn't want sex, or even human love; he wanted a pack. He wanted to run in the moonlight with others of his kind, and hunt in a pack. No cat, not even a human one, would ever understand his loneliness.

"You're the only wolf," I whispered.

"We had one other, but he left us." The regret in his voice was like weeping without the tears.

"I know where he is," I said. Jake was one of the Harlequin on our side.

"He's with you, we know that," and this time his voice was a snarl, "but he left us long before that. He betrayed us."

"He did what wolves do," I said. "He took care of the pack, not just one wolf."

"Tigers are not wolves!" He grabbed my arms, sat me up, shook me just a little; let me feel the strength in his hands.

"No," I said, "but he has wolves in St. Louis. He has our pack. He's not alone."

His fingers dug into my arms. The strength in them vibrated against my skin, as if he were fighting not to dig in farther, or maybe he was fighting not to send claws slicing through my flesh. Some people are grateful when you offer them what they want most, but some people are terrified of it. Because to gain your heart's desire you have to lose some part of your old life, your old self. To do that you have to have courage; without it, you can't make the leap. And if you don't make the leap, you have only three choices: You can hate yourself for not taking the chance, you can hate the person for whom you've sacrificed your happiness, or you can hate the one who offered you happiness, and blame them for your lack of courage, convince yourself it wasn't real. That way, you don't have to hate yourself. It's always easier to blame someone else.

I looked into his green wolf eyes and watched the fight. He growled, "They said all you offered was sex."

"They lied," I said, softly. I let it be implied that maybe they'd lied about other things, too.

He let go of me as if I'd burned him, stood up, and went for the door in a swirl of black cape. He stopped at the door, and spoke without turning around. "You have defeated me twice, Anita Blake. There is more magic to you than just being a succubus."

"I never said otherwise."

He opened the door, went out, and I heard a bolt shoot behind him. I was locked in, and still tied up, but I was sitting up, drug free, and alone. Alone wasn't bad.