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  “We can defend ourselves, Anita Blake.”

  “Pretty to think so, but no tiger clan has faced these guys in hundreds, if not thousands of years. They wiped out all of you guys in your homeland, all the weretigers regardless of clan color.”

  “Legend says we were unprepared. We will not be this time.”

  I listened to the certainty in his voice and knew it was a mistake, but I also knew that nothing I could say over the phone would change his mind. I even knew that it wasn’t his mind I had to change; it was Queen Cho Chun that I needed to convince. This was her certainty, her arrogance.

  “Fine, Donny, just tell me where to meet and we’ll go from there, but I really do need to see Alex sooner rather than later.”

  “You would feed on our prince as if he were the lowest prostitute on the street. We do not approve of how you treat him.”

  Again, I knew it was the queen talking, but I let it go. Donny was a good little mouthpiece, and arguing with the help never changed any boss’s mind, so I didn’t try.

  “That’s between Alex and me,” I said.

  “What affects our prince affects the clan.”

  I was beginning to see why Alex had stayed the hell away from his clan for years before I met him. He was a reporter, and a good one. He’d done an amazing piece on the war in Afghanistan that had won a Peabody, which was a very big deal if you were a journalist. He was also in deep cover pretending to be human. He wore brown contacts to hide his yellow-gold eyes with their rim of orange red, like the sun rimmed in fire. He was pure clan; his eyes and hair proved that. The hair he passed off as a funky dye job, but the eyes, he had to hide those.

  “Fine, I am the Mistress of Tigers, I am the first vampire in a thousand years to be able to use that title, and I do not argue with underlings, Donny. Tel me where to meet Alex and his mom, or I will call him to me across the city, but bear in mind that I’m not real precise when I do a roll call for tigers. I could end up with every unmated male in your clan coming to me, and then how would they pretend to be human?”

  “You cannot do that.”

  “Do you mean I can’t, or I shouldn’t?”

  He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “We felt your call when you bound our prince to you. I know you can do what you say . . . Mistress, but I would ask you not to do it.”

  “It’s not my first choice, Donny, I just want some alone time with my red tiger to call, that’s all.”

  His breath came out heavy, and then he said, “I will give you the address to meet our guards. They will escort you in to see the queen and prince.”

  “Great.” I opened my phone up so I could jot the address down as a note, and said, “I’m ready to write it down, shoot.”

  He told me. I typed it in, and then the phone call was over. Donny didn’t seem to like me. Fine with me, I wasn’t here to win any popularity contests.

  I gave Edward the address and he started heading that way. He seemed to know Seattle a lot better than a man on his first visit. I’d asked him if he was familiar with the city, but he’d just smiled that mysterious smile of his and not answered. Mr. Secret.

  “Could you do what you threatened to do? Could you call all their unmated males to you like some sort of succubus Pied Piper?”

  I thought about it, then finally said, “I’m not sure; maybe. The tigers tell me I put out a call to all the unmated males in the country when I first hit this power, and that was accidental. The clans managed to keep the men from getting on buses and planes and coming to me, but that was an accidental call. If I did it for real and really meant it, I don’t know if they could stop them. I also don’t know how bespelled they’d be when they got to me, and if they’d all expect sex.” I laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. “The red clan numbers in the hundreds. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

  “Then best not put out the welcome mat,” he said, as he turned onto a narrow side street.

  “It was a threat, Edward. I make a lot of threats I hope I don’t have to carry out.”

  “I don’t,” he said.

  “I know, you mean every threat.”

  He turned and looked at me as he waited for the light to turn green. Sunglasses hid his eyes, but I knew his face well enough to know the whole look. It was his cold stare, the I-could-kill-you-and-not-blink look.

  “Save the scary for someone else, Edward.”

  “I can’t let you go in there without me unless I trust them to keep you from getting kidnapped by Marmee Noir.”

  I sighed. “I figured you’d say that. You have to promise me that nothing you see or learn today will ever be used against them on a hunt.”

  He frowned at me. “I hate it when you do this.”

  “The light’s green,” I said, just as the car behind us honked.

  He drove forward, but said, “If I don’t promise, you’ll go in without me.”

  “Yep.”

  “Damn it,” he said, softly.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “I promise,” he said.

  I smiled at him. “I knew you would.”

  “Don’t push it,” he said, and he sounded genuinely angry. But he’d work through it, and once he promised, he’d keep his word. The red clan was safe from Edward, and I was safe because he was keeping me that way. Now, if I could just get through the interview with my would-be mother-in-law, the day would be perfect.

  12

  THERE WERE TWO guards at the door; they introduced themselves as Donny and Ethan. Donny was tall and perfectly bald, and he had eyes the color of orange fire. The red clan had the most trouble passing for human because of the eyes. They had tiger eyes that looked like tiger eyes, not just odd-colored human eyes. In public they wore sunglasses or colored contacts. The irony was that though all the clans disdained the survivors of attacks, the survivors looked more human in human form than the “pureblood” tigers. In fact, it was a mark of the purity of their bloodline that they had tiger eyes and hair the same color as their tiger form, even as babies.

  For eyes that dark you usually needed brown contacts to hide the color, but the bodyguard standing next to Donny had soft gray eyes, the color of kitten fur. His hair was a blond so pale it was almost white, and it had what looked like gray highlights in it, though saying soft gray could be highlights sounded wrong. There was one streak of dark, deep red, from his forehead to the back of his skull. His hair was short, but had enough wave to it that he was forced to style it on top, so that it looked like he was ready for a night out on the club with his choppy waved hair and his excellent dye job. He wasn’t as tall as Donny’s six-foot frame, and he didn’t have the shoulder spread either. He looked almost delicate beside Donny, but it was Ethan who had a shoulder holster with a Glock in it, extra ammo on the other side of the holster from the gun, and the muscle tone in his lower arms that comes from a little bit of weights, but mostly some kind of athletic something. Just from the way he held himself, I was betting martial arts of some kind.

  Edward touched my arm. It startled me. I’d been staring at Ethan. That made me realize that I really needed to see Alex sooner rather than later. A vampire with an animal to call is often attracted to that type of animal. Jean-Claude found it very peaceful to pet wolves, and that was his animal to call. I realized it wasn’t just the sex from home I’d missed; I was missing the touch and interaction of the shapeshifters I was drawn to, like tigers. The fact that I thought Ethan was cuter than Donny went against the way most dominant weretigresses pick mates. They tended to like the ones with the tiger eyes, but there was something . . . interesting about Ethan, or maybe I was just that hungry.

  I took a deep breath, and that didn’t help because they both smelled like tiger. But Donny smelled like red tiger, and Ethan smelled like more. It made me move toward him, sniff the air near him, try to clear my nose of Donny’s closer, warmer scent.

  “Anita,” Edward said, his voice sharp, “you need to find Mr. Pinn.”

  I nodded and forced myself to s
tep back from Ethan. “You’re right, absolutely right.” I spoke without looking at either of the weretigers. “Take me to Alex.”

  “We can’t take you before our queen armed like that.” It actually made me look at what we were wearing. Since neither of us was on an active warrant, the U.S. Marshals Windbreakers hid most of our dangerous toys. I only had my Browning BDM, my Smith & Wesson M&P9c, extra ammo, two wrist sheaths with blades, and the big knife down my spine. The shoulder holster was specially made so the spine sheath attached to it, the handle hidden under my hair as long as I wore a jacket. If I wasn’t wearing the big knife I’d started carrying the Browning at the small of my back where the M&P was now. Edward had two handguns and some blades, too.

  “We don’t have any submachine guns on us; we’re packing light,” I said.

  Donny studied my face, and then he blinked first. He also frowned. “You’re being honest.”

  “I try,” I said.

  “But the point remains, you cannot go before Queen Cho Chun armed.”

  “Great,” I said, “I don’t want to see her anyway. All I want right now is Alex.”

  “Prince Li Da,” Donny said.

  “Fine, all I want right now is Li Da.”

  “Prince Li Da,” Donny said.

  I shook my head. “Nope, I am Mistress of Tigers, so he’s not my prince. He’s Alex, or he’s Li Da, but he’s not Prince anything to me.”

  “That is arrogant,” Donny said.

  “No, it’s not, it’s just true, and I don’t technically have to stand here and dick around with you or Ethan here. I can just lay down the law and say, ‘Bring him to me.’”

  “Queen Cho Chun would have the skin off my back if I let you get away with such insolence.”

  I glanced at Ethan to see if Donny was exaggerating. Something in those soft, gray kitten eyes let me know that Donny was speaking the truth. Interesting; it didn’t work that way in Vegas with the white tigers.

  I turned back to Donny. “She’d flay your back for just following my orders?”

  “She is queen. We wait at her pleasure.”

  I shook my head. I was back to staring at Ethan. I was oddly fascinated with the shape of his mouth. His upper lip was so deeply imprinted that it was almost like a dimple above the lips instead of under them.

  “Anita,” Edward said. He moved in front of Ethan, blocking my view of the man. “You need to feed.”

  I nodded. “You are absolutely right.” I turned back to Donny. “Either Alex comes to me now, or I do what I said I’d do on the phone: I call him to me. You and Ethan are right here beside me and trust me, with vampire powers, proximity counts. I don’t like you that well, Donny, nothing personal, but I like Ethan. My tiger likes him. If I call Alex, chances are he’ll never get here before I’ve fed on Ethan, and maybe you. Is that really what your queen wanted, or did she just want you to put me in my place?”

  “It is not my place to speak for our queen. She knows what she intended; I do not.”

  “I’m going to count to ten and then I’m going to call Alex, but I’m not lying about the possible effect on you and Ethan here.”

  Donny said, “Ethan?”

  “She smells of the truth,” he said. I couldn’t see much more than a shoulder around the edge of Edward’s body. I fought the urge to move so I could see more of him. It wasn’t good that I was this fascinated with a stranger. God, didn’t I have enough lovers in my life?

  That Donny couldn’t be certain if I smelled or felt like I was telling the truth meant he wasn’t a very powerful weretiger. It also meant that he’d been guessing when he said I was telling the truth about our weapons. But now that it was important, he was willing to swallow his pride and let the more powerful weretiger answer the question. That was interesting.

  “I will go and ask our queen what she wishes me to do.”

  “Can’t you just call her?” I asked.

  “Some questions must be asked in person.” He gave a small half-bow to me. I wondered if he even realized he’d done it. He strode off down the corridor.

  I called after him. “Are you leaving Ethan here?”

  “He is a guard; he will do his duty.”

  “Even knowing that if you don’t get back in time I’ll feed on him, you’ll still leave him here?” I said.

  “He is a good guard, but he is not pure.”

  “What does the fact that he’s mixed tiger heritage have to do with anything?” I asked.

  Ethan answered, “He means I’m not worth protecting.”

  Edward turned so that we could both look at the other man. “Not worth protecting from what?” I asked.

  Ethan shrugged. “Much of anything, but in this case, you. You stole away the loyalty of some of the few remaining pure red tigers when they visited you in St. Louis; that’s why I’m guarding you, because if you bewitch me it won’t damage the clan. It won’t cost them more pure-blooded red babies.” He said it with only the slightest edge of bitterness in his voice.

  “That’s cold,” I said.

  “That’s the truth,” Ethan said.

  I looked at Donny standing there watching us. “So you leave him here to guard us or be the sacrificial lamb, and you don’t much care which.”

  Donny glanced at me, then at Ethan, and even at Edward. “I will go tell Queen Cho Chun what you have demanded.” His eyes flicked to me, then to Ethan, and I realized Donny was nervous. I think my stating so bluntly that he was leaving Ethan to be food had bothered him a little. A lot of people can do awful things as long as they don’t have to look at it too clearly. Lying to yourself doesn’t work if the truth is clear enough.

  He turned without another word and walked away. His black clothing melded into the dark corridor within a few yards. They needed more light down here.

  We were left standing in the dim corridor in a strangely thick silence. I felt my red tiger stir like a streak of fire called to life from cold wood. It made me close my eyes, take a deep breath, but that was a mistake, because I’d moved closer to Ethan without meaning to, and he didn’t just smell like red tiger. White tiger came out of the shadows where the beasts lived inside me. I knew there were no shadows inside me, or tall ancient trees, that it was just the landscape my mind created to help me cope with the beasts being inside me.

  I was standing in front of Ethan staring up into those soft, gray eyes.

  “Step back, Anita,” Edward said. I felt his hand hover over my shoulder.

  I said, “Don’t touch me right now, Edward.”

  He didn’t argue, just dropped his hand. I felt the heat of it get farther away when he stepped back. “Is the ardeur rising?”

  “It’s trying to, but it’s more . . .” I stepped in close to Ethan. A good guard would have moved back, but he didn’t. I was careful not to touch him, but my face was just above his bare arm, just above the skin; I breathed in the scent of him, deep.

  Then another scent and my blue tigress rose and began to pace with the others.

  “I thought we had the only blue tiger male alive today, but that’s where the gray curls and eyes come from. The white tiger paled you out, but you’re blue.”

  “My grandmother was blue, but you do have the only pure blue tiger male. I’m so mixed up, I’m no color.”

  “You’re not just red, or blue, or even white, you’re . . .” I didn’t say it out loud, because the Harlequin were trying to kill all the gold tigers; so far they’d missed them, but here was one that held a touch of that rich, golden power.

  “I’m what?” he asked, and just looking up into his face I was almost certain he didn’t know that he held some of that precious bloodline. Interesting.

  “How many forms do you have?” It came out as a whisper, with my mouth almost touching the skin of his arm.

  “Three,” he said, and his voice was already deepening. I couldn’t tell if it was tiger, or just male reaction.

  I wanted to ask, “Not four?” but I didn’t. The weretigers intermarried for
genetic diversity, and most of them just looked like one side of their heritage or another.

  At home I had Domino, who shifted to black and white, but physically his hair was black and white, showing the mix. If the human form showed just one, then one was what the tiger seemed to have. I’d never met another tiger who could do three colors, let alone four, but there was still that sweet scent of golden power. The gold tiger in me gave a soft, whuffing purr. I tried to think reasonably, but I didn’t feel reasonable. My skin felt heavy with need; things low in my body tightened. The reaction staggered me. Ethan reached out, took my arm, just instinct. Someone almost falls and you try to catch them. I could feel his hand through my jacket like heat and weight, as if his human shape were already only just something to hold all that power.

  “Get out, Edward,” I said in a strangled voice.

  “What?”

  “Go back, see how the hunt’s going, but you can’t be here.”

  “You’re going to lose control.”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Anita . . .”

  “Go, now, Edward, please, just go.” I was worried about my friend, but my eyes were all for the man in front of me. I stared up into those gray eyes and knew now that it was the color of his tiger. This close I could see the differences between human eyes and the tiger’s in his face. His arms had slid around me, drawing me in against his body; my arms were already around his waist.

  “You want me?” He sounded surprised.

  “Yes,” I said, and four different tigers began to trot up the long dark space inside me. I buried my face against his T-shirt and the chest underneath. He smelled like hot, red flame and the air after a lightning storm when it’s clean and fresh, and under that was candy. He smelled like cotton candy, sugary, sweet, something that would melt on your tongue. I’d found that all the gold tigers smelled like something sweet to me, under the sweet smell of candy was another sweet scent. Clover—white clover on a hot summer’s day—was what his blue tiger smelled like. Cynric at home smelled like a whole garden in high summer, so apparently blue tigers smelled like green, growing things. Four of my tigers stared up at me, their lips drawn back, to take in the scent of his skin, as deeply as we could breathe it in. They gave a chorus of growling purrs that rumbled up through my body as if my bones were a tuning fork for the beginning of some deep, bass song. It made my knees go weak. Ethan caught me, which pushed our bodies that last inch together. I could feel that his body was hard and eager already. The sensation of it drew a small noise from me. “Yes, I want you.” And the ardeur rose up in me like a wave, but this time the tigers inside me weren’t fighting it; their power mingled with the ardeur, and I realized something I hadn’t before. I had some of the same power as the old Master of Tigers, but the ardeur had turned it into something else, something warmer, kinder, more alive. That aliveness spilled up my skin and over his, so that he cried out, wordless, eyes closing, back bowing, arms tightening around me to simply keep him standing.