Anita Blake 22 - Affliction (26 page)

Ares and Nicky put on their vests and dangerous toys, too. Once we were dressed and armed to the teeth, it was Nathaniel’s turn to take off his clothes, all of them. When he was gorgeously naked, standing in the chill mountain air as if it weren’t cold at all, I just stared.

Al called from the front of the SUV, ‘Blake, don’t get distracted back there, okay?’

I said, ‘When I don’t get distracted by Nathaniel nude, I’ll be dead.’

Nathaniel smiled at me and then said, ‘Unless you want your clothes ruined you’ll have to step back.’

It took me a moment to realize what he meant, which said just how distracted I was. I nodded and stepped back far enough to be out of the splash zone. With new wereanimals there was blood and clear fluid with the form change. With practice the blood stopped and the clear liquid was less, but there was always some, as if the clear fluid helped grease the works as the man became beast or the beast became man. Though it was almost always less messy to go from animal back to human than the other way around. I’d asked all my wereanimal friends why that was, and they didn’t know either. It just was.

Nicky and Ares moved out from the car, too, so they’d be outside the splash zone. Nicky stayed turned outward, watching the dark, but Ares turned around. I might have asked why, but Nathaniel chose that moment to release his beast.

It was a wash of energy so strong it hit me like heat, as if I’d opened the door to an oven I didn’t know was there. I’d never felt his beast like this, a wash of heat, energy, power that swept over me, through me, and I felt the beast inside me that matched his rise and snarl white fangs in the coal-black of its fur. My leopard’s eyes were a dark gold, like antique coins filled with life and heat. I tried to ground the energy the way I’d been taught, sending it into the pine-covered ground underneath my boots, but my leopard didn’t want that rush of energy shoved into the ground to help make the trees grow better. My leopard wanted to come out and play with that heat. I couldn’t change shape, but that didn’t mean my beasts didn’t want me to.

I was breathing hard as if I’d been running, my heart thudding in my throat, pulse pounding in my ears. I was suddenly very aware that I might never have been at this high an altitude. I felt a little light-headed, and then I heard the purr, impossibly loud, as if it thrummed along the air spilling against my skin, sinking into my body until that deep, vibrating purr played along my spine and provoked a higher-pitched echo from between my human lips. I was staring down at a black leopard the size of a large pony, three, maybe four times larger than a natural leopard. He sat there, shaking his fur, kneading the flash of white claws into the ground as if trying to ground himself into the new form. The blackness of him was almost lost to the shadows behind the truck; if he’d been still enough you might have looked right past him. He raised the graceful, rounded head upward and looked up at me with eyes that were blue and gray, an unusual color in leopards, so I’d learned. It was as if his human eyes had bled over into his beast so the eyes had begun to come closer to the lavender of his human eyes rather than have the animal eyes travel to his human face. He moved toward me and I got a gleam of muscled fur in the moonlight. He purred again, and my knees buckled. Ares had to catch me or I’d have fallen. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

Nicky turned around and asked, ‘What happened?’

‘Not sure.’ My voice sounded breathless. My leopard was snarling at me, it just happened to be inside me while it was doing it. It felt as if my body vibrated with the sound that couldn’t really be a sound. I purred sometimes, an involuntary happy sound, but I did not snarl, and yet …

‘She’s fever-hot with her beast,’ Ares said.

‘She shouldn’t be,’ Nicky said.

‘I know that,’ Ares said, his voice lowering.

It wasn’t until Al peeked around Ares’ shoulder that I realized why he’d been whispering. ‘What’s wrong?’ Al said, echoing Ares’ question. Al gave wide eyes and was a little pale when he got a good look at Nathaniel in full cat form.

‘We’re not sure what’s wrong,’ Nicky said, his voice calm, empty even.

Nathaniel padded forward, giving me worried leopard eyes. He couldn’t talk in this form, but we’d counted on me being able to feel, or hear, what was going on inside him, right? The moment his furred cheek rubbed against my hand, my knees gave completely. Ares was holding all my weight. What the fuck was going on? I’d never had a reaction like this to Nathaniel’s leopard form or anyone’s animal form.

Ares tightened his arms around my waist and stood up. He was strong enough to give the illusion that I was standing, but my feet were taking no weight. Nathaniel sat back on his haunches, looking perplexed at me. I wasn’t sure how I could tell he was perplexed; the full leopard form’s face didn’t move or express the way that even his half-man form did, but somehow I was reading his expressions better than I’d ever been able to do.

Nicky smiled at Al. ‘Can you give us a minute, Al, thanks.’ As soon as Al was out of sight, the smile vanished as if it had never been. Nicky was a sociopath; it made him the ultimate actor. He whispered, ‘Where are you in your cycle?’

I fought to focus on him, my arms wrapped around Ares, trying to hold on as if the werehyena needed my help to hold me effortlessly. ‘Cycle, what cycle?’ I asked.

‘Girl cycle, menstrual cycle?’

‘I’m not having that,’ I said.

‘I know that; what I mean is if you were doing rhythm method, would you be fertile right now?’

I frowned at him. ‘What? I’m on the pill, you know that.’

He started to touch my face, then stopped short and rubbed his hand against his pants as if trying to scrape off something he’d touched. ‘God, the energy is so thick. How can you stand to touch her like that?’

‘She doesn’t carry hyena as one of her beasts, remember?’

Nicky nodded.

‘What is happening to me?’ I asked.

‘Have you ever been this close to Nathaniel in full leopard form when you were at your most fertile?’

I was regaining some use of my body, and I used it to tighten my arms around Ares’ waist, so that I was finally helping him hold me up. ‘I don’t know, I don’t keep track of my fertility. I’m on the pill, and I use condoms with most of my lovers, so it doesn’t matter.’

‘In all the time I’ve been with you, I’ve never seen Nathaniel or Micah in anything but leopardman form. Have you ever been around them in full cat form before?’ Nicky asked.

I tried to think about it. I wanted to say,
Of course I’ve been near them in full leopard form
, but the longer I thought about it the more I couldn’t remember. Nathaniel had gained the ability to be in leopardman form after he’d become my leopard to call. He was proud of having three forms instead of just two. Had I ever seen him like this before? No. Had Micah ever done the full kitty-cat on me? No. Chimera had forced him into his leopard form so long that he’d lost his human eye color. He’d told us both that he hadn’t enjoyed being in full leopard form since that time.

‘No, I haven’t,’ I said.

‘None of you change to full animal form around her,’ Ares said. His arms were secure around my waist, but he wasn’t holding as tight, and my legs were working again.

‘Because in full animal form she won’t have sex with us, can’t have sex with most of us.’

‘It does cross that bestiality taboo thing,’ Ares said.

‘That’s not it,’ Nicky said. ‘In full cat form the wereleopards are set up to fuck a leopardess in full cat form.’

‘That means more than it sounds, doesn’t it?’ I said.

‘I thought you had the biology degree,’ he said.

Nathaniel made a low, disgruntled sound. We glanced back at him, and then back at Nicky. ‘Just tell me what you’ve figured out,’ I said.

‘If a female is at her most fertile, sometimes changing to full cat form can make her react more than half-form. Theory is that we give off more of the right pheromones in full cat form.’

Ares started to let me go, and I swayed. He went back to holding me, and I went back to holding on. ‘I can’t do my job like this.’

‘Your human mind will think its way out; just give it a few minutes,’ Nicky said.

‘How do you know all this?’ Ares asked.

‘Lions are more social than the other big cats. Anita, if you’re reacting this strongly to his full leopard form, I’d be careful later back at the hotel; don’t be tempted with sex.’

The leopard growled low and deep.

Nicky looked at Nathaniel and said, ‘Penis spines.’

I’d never seen a cat look so dismayed, but he did. I had a minute to think it through. ‘Crap, in full leopard form he’ll have penis spines like most cats.’

Nicky nodded. ‘If you’re reacting this strongly to him now, I would be careful being alone in the hotel with him. Pheromones can be like being drunk. I know you like it rough, but I’m not sure how rough it would be in this form with you in human form.’

‘I wasn’t going to,’ I said.

‘The human part of you wasn’t, but the leopard inside you likes the idea a lot, or you wouldn’t have reacted.’

I couldn’t argue, though I really wanted to. ‘Okay, no sex with anyone in full animal form, I got it.’

Nicky looked down, avoiding eye contact.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Lions don’t have full spines like the other cats.’ He looked up and he smiled, but his single eye gleamed. His eye had shifted to the rich yellow of his lion form. Something had stirred his own beast. He looked at me with his lion looking out of his eye at me and said, ‘Male lions are more ribbed for her pleasure than spiked.’

I looked at that golden-yellow eye set in that handsome face and realized that the idea excited at least part of him, maybe all of him. I didn’t know what to say to the eagerness I saw in his face, so I said nothing. We all stood there while the question was raised, and we all ignored it as hard as we could. In a few minutes I could stand on my own.

I fastened the heavy leather collar around the muscled velvet of Nathaniel’s neck. It had a flat silver plate attached to the front of the collar. There was a word carved into the metal in swirling letters.

Ares said, ‘Pussycat? Does that actually say
Pussycat
?’

‘Yes,’ I said, as I attached the heavy leather leash to the collar. It was my turn not to make eye contact.

‘Pussycat?’ he said, again.

‘It’s her nickname for him,’ Nicky said.

‘And Asher’s for him, too,’ I said.

‘Asher mind-raped me like I was nothing and made me try to hurt you guys.’ He shuddered. ‘I’ve never had anyone roll me like that.’

‘There aren’t a lot of vampires that can call hyena.’

‘Good,’ he said. Then he looked down at the shiny silver plate and grinned. ‘Pussycat. The cops are going to love it.’

I frowned at him. ‘It was supposed to be private; at best he’d wear it at a fetish event. It wasn’t supposed to be used around the police – ever.’ Nathaniel rubbed his cheek against my thigh, and I petted the thick fur. I pushed my fingers through the thickness and found his skin underneath fever-hot to touch. Most animals run hotter than human-normal 98.6–100 degrees or higher usually. I hadn’t touched that many wereanimals in full animal form. Were they all this much hotter?

I sent Nicky to bring Al around so we could finally get started hunting for Henry and Little Henry Crawford.

Ares stayed beside me, grinning ear to ear.

‘What is so damned funny?’

‘Does everyone have a cute nickname?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Aw,’ he said, ‘come on. Micah must have one, or maybe Sin?’

‘Drop this topic,’ I said.

Nicky came back with the police and it was time to introduce them to the big black pussycat at the end of my leash. I knew we’d won the day when some of them petted him, as if he were a big dog. But there were still more of them who wouldn’t approach too close, let alone touch the huge leopard. Al had a jacket and a used rag from the Crawfords’ truck so that Nathaniel could know what scent he was trying to follow. I saw Ranger Becker mouth the word
Pussycat
silently to herself as she read his collar. Her eyes flashed up to me, and she smiled, eyes shining so hard with suppressed humor that it showed in the odd light.

It was Travers who said, out loud, ‘Pussycat?’

I rolled my eyes at him, and Nathaniel scented the wind and went very purposefully toward the trees. ‘He’s got the scent.’ Nathaniel pulled against the leash hard enough that I started jogging to keep up. He moved faster, and so did I. He gave a small, eager noise, and we started running.

We ran in the dark, unfamiliar trees, with me fighting to stay with him. He was faster in this form, as if the extra legs gave him more horsepower, or more all-terrain power. My human body struggled to bend and weave through the pines. Their needles were everywhere on the thin earth, the rocks, so that the world smelled like Christmas trees and the sharp, clean smell of leopard. Just as tattoos stayed on the skin under the fur, so the shampoo and soap he’d used earlier was still there intermingled with the scent of leopard. I could smell the leather of the leash handle as my hand warmed it. The pine needles had killed almost everything on the thin, rocky earth, so that as long as I ducked under the branches I could run full out, trusting that if I turned when he turned, followed his body like a guide through the trees, I’d be fine. I kept my free hand up to guard my face from the branches that he didn’t have to worry about but my human form was tall enough to catch.

I felt Nicky to our left, but it wasn’t the human part of me that felt him; my lioness knew he was there. It was the first hint I had that he was tied to me as my Bride, and as a lion; as a Bride he sensed me more than I sensed him, but the lion part of me was more aware of him. I glimpsed Nicky like a pale shadow under the trees. I tried to sense Ares, but I had nothing for him, no metaphysical tie and no connection to his hyena. I had to use my human eyes to look to our right and find him racing through the trees to keep up with us. I knew that Nicky could feel me, but Ares was as blind metaphysically to me as I was to him. We had to look for each other; maybe he could smell my scent more than I could his, but even without a stronger connection he was there, at our side, racing on long legs through the trees.