Skin Trade (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 17)

Chapter 61

I TUCKED MYSELF in against Truth's body as hard as I could without being able to hold on to him, but finally I couldn't stand it anymore. I stopped pressing on my wrist and wrapped my arms around his neck. I held on and buried my face against him. He felt warm now, warm with my blood, my energy. There was a pulse in his neck to move against my cheek as if the beat of his heart were calling to me.

The bend of his neck smelled clean, fresh, like clean sheets that had been dried outdoors in the wind and sun. It was almost like his skin held a hint of all the sunlit days that he would never see again.

I felt something change in the way Truth held me. It made me move my face so I could see. There were flashing lights and a lot of cops down below, but not too close. Truth took us down on the far side of a darkened strip mall. He had to run a little to take up momentum, but it was smoother than the last landing. Either he was getting in practice, or he just felt better.

He stepped into the thicker shadows by the darkened store and looked up the street toward all those flashing lights.

"The police barricades are just up ahead."

"You can put me down now," I said.

I got a flash of his smile in the dimness. He put me down without a word. "Are you still bleeding?"

I looked at my hand and found the blood drying. "No."

"Good."

We stood there for a moment awkwardly. There was a tension like you get on a first date, where you don't know if you should kiss or just hug. This was wrong; I'd never felt like this around him before. He leaned down toward me, and I stepped back. "I'm sorry, Truth. I don't know what's happening, but I don't think it's voluntary on either of our parts."

He stood straight, looking at me, his face still mostly in shadow. "You think I'm bespelled by you."

I shrugged.

"But it's not just me, Anita; you feel the pull, too."

I remembered something Jean-Claude had told me once. "A lot of Belle's line of vampire powers cut both ways, and it only cuts as deep as the vampire is willing to be cut."

"Then you must be willing to be cut to the heart," he said.

I didn't know what to say to that, so I hid behind work. "I have to go. You have to go." I shook my head. "Go, Truth, just go, be somewhere else."

One moment he was there in the shadows; the next he was skyward, blowing my hair across my face.

I turned toward the crowd and the police barriers. I'd have to get through all that before the uniforms would let me through to talk to SWAT. I wanted to find Edward, not for police work or practical reasons, but because I needed a friend. I needed a friend who didn't want to fuck me or fall in love with me. I needed someone who didn't want anything from me. The list was getting smaller every night.