Burnt Offerings (Vampire Hunter 7)

Yvette ripped the vest down his back like it was paper.

Jason gasped.

She licked along his body, then suddenly her mouth closed over his ribs. I saw the muscles in her jaw tense as Jason's body spasmed against me. He collapsed against me, hands scrambling along the floor as if he didn't know what to do with his them, or with his body.

Yvette drew back leaving neat red holes. Blood dripped from the wound. She licked her lips and smiled at me.

"Does it hurt?" I asked Jason.

"Yes," he said, "and no."

I started to raise him up.

Yvette put a hand in the middle of his back. "No, I want him on the ground. I want him below me."

I smelled the sharp musk of fur. Jason tried to look at me, but Yvette forced his head down into my lap. She used him to support her body while she peered into my face. "What are you doing?"

"I am his lupa. I call the pack to his aid."

"They cannot help him," she said.

"Yes," I said, "they can." I slid down, wriggling under Jason's body. The little black dress ended up about waist level. Everyone was getting a great view of the hose and undies. Good that everything matched. But I could see Jason's face. I could feel his body a little more than I wanted to. But it was his eyes I wanted, his face. I wanted him looking at me.

I'd never tried missionary position with a man exactly my height. The eye contact was incredibly intimate. He gave a nervous laugh. "I've had fantasies like this."

"Funny," I said. "I haven't."

"Ooh, too cruel." His spine bowed, body pressing against mine. Yvette had taken another taste. The fear was back in full force, filling his eyes with panic.

"I'm here. We're here."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He drew in the scent of leaves, and fur, and dark places full of bodies that all smelled like pack. And Yvette struck again.

Jason screamed, and I raised myself up enough to see that the vampire had pulled a strip of skin loose so it flapped. Blood poured down his skin.

Jean-Claude came to the edge of the circle. "That is torture, not feeding. It stops here."

"No," Yvette said, "I will feed."

"Then feed," Jean-Claude said, "but do it quickly before our patience is at an end."

She crawled up his body, putting her weight on top of his, grinding me into the floor. The leather stitching over his groin was ground so hard against me that it hurt. His breath came in quick pants, fast and faster. He was going to hyperventilate.

"Look at me," I said.

Yvette jerked his head back by the hair. "No, look at me. Because I will hurt you, Jason. I will haunt your dreams."

"No," I said. The power swelled inside of me, and I spit power into her pale face. Blood flew in a long, shallow cut down her cheek.

Everything froze. Yvette raised a hand to her bleeding cheek. "How did you do that?"

"If I said I wasn't really sure, would you believe me?"

"No," she said.

"Then believe this, bitch. Finish this now or I will cut you up." I believed it when I said it, even though I wasn't sure I could ever repeat the performance. Only master vampires could cause cuts like that from a distance. I'd never even seen Jean-Claude do it.

Yvette believed me. She leaned close enough that the blood from the cut dripped onto Jason's blond hair. "As you like, putain, but know this, I will not put him under. For this--" she showed the cut to me by a turn of her face--"he will suffer."

"Ain't it always the way," I said.

She frowned at me, not the response she was expecting apparently. I put a hand on either side of Jason's face, forced his eyes to meet mine. There was puzzlement under the fear now, because Jason knew I'd never done anything like what had just happened to Yvette. But we couldn't say, golly, gee whiz, how'd I do that in front of the bad guys?

Yvette shifted until her body was pressed along the length of Jason's. He moved against me. There was nothing between Jason and me but the leather of his pants and some satin. My body reacted. It was my turn to close my eyes so he wouldn't see. Maybe it was the physical reaction, but I was suddenly drowning in the scent of fur, and the warm, close knowledge of his body. The munin was here in a warm, building rush.

I lifted my face and kissed him. The moment our lips touched, the power flowed between us. It was a binding of a different sort, better than with Nathaniel, and I knew why. Nathaniel wasn't pack.

Jason didn't kiss me back at first; then he sank into my mouth, into the warm power, and the power grew until I could feel it like a small hot wind across my body, across our bodies. The power flowed over Yvette and made her cry out. She plunged fangs into Jason's neck. He screamed into my mouth, body stiffening, but the pain rode on the warm, building power and was washed away.

I could feel Yvette's mouth like a siphon, sucking the power away. I thrust it into her and sent her reeling from us, drunk on more than blood.

Freed of Yvette's body, Jason moved against me. He kissed me as if he'd climb inside and pull me around him, and I kissed him back. I'd welcomed Raina's munin, and I didn't know how to turn it off.

I felt his lower body react, felt him come, and that was enough to help me swim back into control. What a nice embarrassing moment to be driving again.

Jason collapsed on top of me, panting, but not from fear. I turned my face away so that I wouldn't catch a glimpse of anyone gathered around us. Yvette lay on her side near us, curled into a ball, blood trailing down her chin. She licked the blood, almost halfheartedly as if even that small effort were too much. She spoke French to me: "Je reve de toi." I'd heard a version of this before from Jean-Claude. She said she'd dream of us.

I heard myself say, "Why do the French always know exactly what to say at times like this?"

Jean-Claude knelt beside us. "It is genetic, ma petite."

"Ah," I said. I had trouble meeting his eyes with Jason still sprawled across my body.

"Jason," I said, tapping his bare shoulder. He said nothing, just rolled off me to lie on the floor, closer to Yvette than I'd have ever thought he'd be willing to get.

I suddenly realized that my skirt was still up around my waist. Jean-Claude helped me sit up while I wiggled the dress down.

Richard knelt with us. I expected a scathing remark. I'd certainly given him enough ammo for one. He surprised me by saying, "Raina, gone, but not forgotten."

I said, "No joke."

"I'm sorry, Anita. When you told me, I didn't realize it was an almost complete melding. I understand why you're afraid of it now. There are things you can do to keep it from happening again. I was too angry at you to believe it was this bad." A look crossed his face, part pain, part confusion. "I am sorry for that."

"If you can keep that from happening again, apology accepted."

Padma was suddenly looming over us. "You and I will dance next, Ulfric. After the show your lupa gave us, I am more eager than ever to taste you."

Richard glanced at me, then at Jason and Yvette, both still lying on the ground as if any movement was too much. "I don't think I'm that good."

"I think you underestimate yourself, wolf," Padma said. He offered Richard a hand, but he stood on his own. The two men were almost the same height. They stared at each other, and I could already feel the power flaring between them, testing each other.

I lay against Jean-Claude's chest and closed my eyes. "Get me out of here before they start. I can't stand to be near this much power so soon." He helped me to stand, and when my legs wouldn't hold me, he scooped me up in his arms, holding me effortlessly. He just stood there holding me, as if expecting me to protest.

I put my arms around his neck and said, "Just do it."

He smiled, and it was wondrous. "I have wanted to do this for a very long time." Was it romantic to be carried in his arms at last? Yes. But when Jason managed to stagger from the floor, the front of his blue leather pants was stained, and that wasn't romantic at all.

51

Padma and Richard faced each other just out of reach. Each was letting his power out like a lure at the end of a line, to see who took the bait first. Richard's power was as it always was, an electric heat. But Padma's power was similar. More than any other vamp I'd been around, his power was warm, alive, for lack of a better word. It did not have the electric shimmer of Richard's, but it had heat.