Flirt

There was more than one problem with the ardeur shutting down.

“It is her power,” Ellen said.

“That’s not possible,” Jacob said, and then he frowned down at the phone in his hand. “Mike isn’t answering. It went to voice mail.”

I felt a small spurt of hope. Maybe Micah had figured it out? We had our own bodyguards; maybe Jacob’s plan wasn’t going so smoothly after all.

“You’d feel if he’d gotten captured,” Nicky said, his arms still locked around me.

Jacob nodded. “I would.”

“It’s her power, my Rex,” Ellen said.

“I thought her vampire powers came through her Master of the City; when you put up the shield against that connection, her powers were supposed to be less.”

“I can only apologize; I didn’t understand that some of the powers are her own now.” She dropped to her knees beside him, holding her hand up to him. I’d seen similar gestures among other animal groups. It was a human version of acknowledging that Jacob was dominant to her, and an apology for screwing up.

Jacob stared down at her, and I knew if he didn’t take her hand that it meant he didn’t forgive her. That could be the beginning of being cast out of your group. He finally lowered his gun hand so she could lay her smaller hand on the back of his; I’d seen much more elaborate versions of this, but apparently Jacob wasn’t big on ceremony. It was his pride; he could run it the way he wanted.

“Get her up, let’s raise this zombie and finish this,” Jacob said.

Nicky simply stood up with his arms around my waist. There was a moment when he held me completely in his arms, my feet off the ground, and we looked into each other’s faces from inches away. He looked disappointed, as if he was worried the ardeur had gone, but he sat me down on the ground just the same. But the moment my feet were under me the world swam in streamers of gray and white. I waited for the headache to come back, but it didn’t. I was just suddenly so weak. I started to fall and Nicky had to catch me to keep me from falling to my knees. My vision was going in spots and swirls, and I couldn’t get my legs to work right.

Nicky changed his grip and I was suddenly being held against his body, while my legs wouldn’t support me. I sagged against his bare chest, and the grayness swallowed my vision in little white starbursts, then the world went black and then nothing. There wasn’t even time for me to wonder what was happening.

I heard voices first. A woman said, “She needs to feed, or she will die.”

“She’s human,” a man’s voice said.

“Not human enough,” the woman said.

I was lying on my back again, but this time there was something folded under me for a pillow. It took me a moment to realize it was my suit jacket. My bare arms were warm in the summer night. Nicky moved into my line of vision. “She’s awake,” he said. He was sitting beside me, again. It was like a slightly different version of the first time I woke.

Jacob and Ellen came to stand over me. They looked impossibly tall from this angle. Ellen knelt beside me, but kept her hand on whatever she wore around her neck. “You used a lot of energy healing what Silas did to you, and you’re not human, or one of us. You need to feed on energy outside yourself like a vampire.”

I licked my lips and found them dry. I felt impossibly weak, and wasn’t sure I could sit up without help. Shit. I found my voice and it sounded thready. “What is wrong with me?”

“I believe if you do not feed your vampire powers you will die. I did not understand what it would do to you for me to cut you off from all the men you are bound to metaphysically. That was my fault, and I have apologized to my Rex for the oversight, but you are so terribly unique, Anita. How was I to know what you were?”

“It’s your job to know,” Jacob said, and his unhappiness was plain in his voice.

Ellen lowered her head, long straight dark hair falling around her face. “You are right. I did not do my job adequately; I am sorry, Jacob, but if you wish her to raise the dead tonight she must feed first, and I fear it is too late for steaks and human food.”

“What are you suggesting we do?”

“She needs to feed on one of us.”

He glared down at her. “And who gets to open a vein for her?”

“It’s not blood she needs, Jacob,” Ellen said.

He stared down at us for a moment, his gaze going from her to me. “So it’s true, she really is a succubus?”

“You felt her power earlier,” Ellen said; “you know what she is, we all do.”

“Can I have some water?” I asked.

“Nicky, get her some water,” Jacob said.

“You trust me now?”

“Just do it.”

Nicky got up and went for the open door. I wondered what he’d bring the water back in, but Jacob was kneeling on the other side of me from Ellen, and I had other things to worry about.

“You’re our supernatural expert, Ellen. You fucked up, you fix it,” he said.

“What do you mean, fix it?” she asked.

“Let her feed on you.” He gave her an unfriendly look.

“If she feeds on me, then I can’t maintain the circle of power that is all that stands between her and the power of her master. If she is this dangerous on her own, imagine what she’d be like with her master’s power running through her.”

“Fine, then who do we feed to her?”

Nicky came back at that moment with his hands cupped, water dripping from them, silver in the moonlight. He knelt beside me and looked from one to the other of them. “A little help here, please.”

Jacob looked at Ellen. She said, “I’m afraid to touch her for fear what she’s done to the two of you will jump to me.”

“She hasn’t done anything to me,” Jacob said.

“I am keeping you free of her will by using my will, and my faith.” She opened her hand and flashed a pentagram, then covered it with her hand again.

“The water is leaking out, someone lift her up,” Nicky said, and his voice was impatient.

Jacob made a disgusted sound, but moved closer and put one muscled arm under my shoulders. He lifted me, gently enough, and Nicky put his hands down to me. It was messy, spilling water down my front, but the water was cool and good, and I needed it. When I’d drunk all the water, or had it spilled down me, Nicky took his empty hands and wiped them across my forehead and down my cheeks the way you’d touch someone’s face with a cool cloth if they were sick.

I think the gesture surprised Nicky, too, because he sat back from me. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“She’s rolled you,” Jacob said, and he started to lay me down on the floor and the suit jacket under my head. He moved away, and I grabbed his wrist. The moment I touched him his pulse sped against my hand and the hunger rose inside me in a wave of heat and need that pulled me up, sitting, and leaning toward him.

He angled in, as if for a kiss, and a pentagram appeared between our faces, dangling on the end of its chain. I half-expected it to glow, but it didn’t. Maybe I wasn’t quite vampire enough yet. But it let Jacob jerk free of me and go stand near the door.

I looked up at Ellen and her not-glowing pentagram. “Harm none is the rule, Ellen; bad witch, no cookie.”

She swallowed hard enough for me to hear it, and backed away from me with the pentagram still bare in her hand. I think she’d thought it would glow, too. Did the fact that it didn’t make her wonder if she’d lost some of her faith?

I started to fold back toward the floor, and Nicky caught me, lowering me to the ground. I watched the witch’s