Crimson Death
Page 241“Then grab her arms and stop talking us both to death.”
“Oh, when I do anything involving you, it won’t be talk, old friend.” I had seldom heard the phrase old friend sound so hostile.
“He just threatened you,” I said.
“He does that,” Hamish said.
“Roddy, I don’t think he’s afraid of you. Are you, Hamish?”
“I fear no one,” he said.
“Not even Roddy, or especially not him?”
“Why are we letting her talk like this?” Hamish asked.
Rodrigo frowned; he looked like a petulant middle schooler, as if he should stamp his foot and complain to his mommy. “I don’t know.”
“Hold her!” Hamish yelled.
Rodrigo got one of my wrists pinned, but I got a palm strike under his chin that rocked him. He tried to hit me back, and I somehow managed to block him with my one free arm, which pissed him off even more. “Stop squirming!”
“Squirming is one of my best things,” I said.
“This is going to happen. Stop fighting it!”
“Fuck you!”
“Only if it would cause you pain.”
“I doubt you’re that well endowed.”
He snarled at me, sending his beast’s energy playing along my skin. I breathed it in like a familiar cologne, but he shut down too fast. I couldn’t tell what scent it was; it was a level of control of his energy that was really rare, but then, he was one of the Harlequin. One of the ones who had fled across the world and the ones with us hadn’t found yet, or had given up on finding. We’d told them to stay home with us and leave the world alone. If I lived through this we’d be changing that policy.
“What did you give me?” My words were clear, but my tongue was starting to feel thick; all of me began to feel like it was getting wrapped in cotton like some breakable object to be wrapped up for shipping. Whatever the stuff was, it was fast acting.
Rodrigo leaned over me, petting my hair, and I couldn’t stop him. They still had my arms pinned, but it wouldn’t matter for much longer. My body was starting to feel heavy, thick, and distant. “It doesn’t matter what we gave you; it’s working.” He leaned his dark eyes over mine, and it was too close to the intimate eye contact that Domino and I had just shared. It helped me fight clear for a moment. I dropped every metaphysical shield I had and silently broadcast to anyone and everyone, everything, that could hear me, feel me. I needed help and I needed it now!
“What are you doing?” Rodrigo asked, leaning so close that I smelled the soap he’d showered with, and underneath that was heat and fur and . . . leopard.
“Get back, Roddy. Don’t touch her now!” I couldn’t focus on the man sitting on top of me now, couldn’t make my eyes work the way I wanted. I kept watching the blond.
“Why can you touch her and I can’t?” he asked.
“Because I’m not one of her animals to call, and you are.”
I stared into the wereleopard’s cave-dark eyes, and thought, Mine. He said, “No.”
The drugs hit a new level and my beast quieted. Everything quieted. I couldn’t move, almost didn’t want to move.
“I did that,” Rodrigo whispered near me, and then rolled my head to look at Domino, “and that, and if we get to kill you, I’ll beg to help. I am not your leopard to call. I am something you cannot tame.”
It took almost all the effort I had to make my lips move and whisper, “Harlequin.”
It startled him, as if he didn’t think I’d know what they both were, but what else could they be? Nothing else could have taken out two of my tigers, with all their training, and me this fast. He reached toward Domino and came back with his hand scarlet with fresh blood. He wiped the blood across my lips and I couldn’t stop him.
“When she is done with you, I will make you choke on your own blood.” He shoved his fingers down my throat, but I didn’t choke for him. “Swallow the blood of your tiger, Anita. Swallow him down for the very last time!”
I tried not to, but I couldn’t do anything but swallow. All blood tastes the same, like sweet copper pennies. Darkness was starting to eat my vision. My tongue was almost too thick to use, but I fought to say it, while I stared up into Rodrigo’s black eyes: “All the . . . Harlequin . . . belong . . . to me.” Then the darkness came and I wasn’t sure if it ate me, or I became it, but Rodrigo’s black eyes were the last thing I saw.