Rafael Read online

  “It is admirable that Asher has taken his therapy so seriously, Anita, but he tied himself to Kane before the therapy,” Rafael said.

  Benito said, “I do not approve of therapy or medication, but the change in Asher since he went on the meds is impressive.”

  “I’m not a big believer in finding a happy pill either,” I said, “but seeing the difference in Asher, I might have to rethink that for certain things.”

  “My understanding was that it is a biochemical imbalance,” Rafael said.

  “Yeah, which means that Asher really couldn’t help some of what he was doing.”

  “How do you feel about Jean-Claude having taken Asher back as his lover?” Rafael said, kissing the top of my head again.

  “If you’re wanting to know if Jean-Claude has asked me to take Asher back, then we’ve talked about it. Nathaniel and I have talked about it, too.”

  He turned us outside the locker rooms so he could see my face as he asked, “And how do you feel about Asher?”

  I had to look away from those big brown eyes while I tried to sort out my feelings and how much I wanted to talk about them. “I miss him in some ways, but I’m a big believer that if you can’t handle someone at their worst, then you don’t deserve them at their best, and I can’t handle him at his worst.”

  Rafael put his finger under my chin and gently raised my face so he could see my own brown eyes. His brown eyes and black hair were from his Mexican heritage just like mine. I had my German father’s pale skin, but the rest of me was my mother’s, so I was told, and so pictures showed me. She’d died when I was eight, so I didn’t remember that much of her, and what I did remember was filtered through the child I had been when she died, which meant I could never see that I looked like her without the pictures.

  Rafael was like my parents—first generation born in this country. I was second generation. We both thought of ourselves as American, and most people didn’t even realize I had Hispanic heritage. I could pass, as they say, though I’d never been pale enough for my blond stepmother, but that was a sad racist story for another time.

  I looked up into Rafael’s face, dark brown skin to match the hair and eyes. He couldn’t hide what he was, and I didn’t try to hide, I just didn’t think about it until something made me think about it. Planning the wedding with Jean-Claude had made me have to think more about my family; so far my father wasn’t going to walk me down the aisle, because I was marrying a vampire, which meant I was damning myself for all eternity in the eyes of the Catholic Church. My family were devout Catholics.

  “So many serious thoughts going through your eyes,” he said.

  I shook my head. “Nothing worth sharing.”

  He gave me the look that all my semiserious people got eventually, the one that said they didn’t believe me when I said it was nothing. “It’s okay if you love Asher. I don’t see what any of you see in him, but I don’t have to, he’s not my boo.”

  “He’s not my boo either,” I said, and wondered if I was protesting a bit too much.

  Rafael gave me a look, as if he was wondering the same thing, which pissed me off and made me draw my face back, so I wasn’t resting on his hand.

  Benito said, “If he is so unimportant to you, then why do you risk Rafael’s life because of the mess Asher has caused with the local werehyenas?”

  “Benito, it is not your place . . .” Rafael started to say.

  “If not mine, then whose, my king? It is my sworn duty to keep you safe, but I cannot fight your challenges for you. If Anita would make you her rat to call, you would gain enough power to win against any challenger.”

  “Why did you get another challenger this soon?” I asked.

  It was Rafael’s turn to look away from me, as if he wasn’t sure what I’d see in his eyes. I grabbed the tank top and used it to pull him toward me. “You just fought a duel out of town two weeks ago. You’re a good king, a great leader, why is this one challenging you again so soon?” I’d learned that any challenger for rulership among the wererats, the rodere, had to give a reason for it, and the reason had to make sense to enough of the wererats for them to vote on it. If a challenger had a bogus reason for the fight, then they could just vote that the reason wasn’t good enough to risk their king.

  “Tell her, Rafael,” Benito said.

  “I am king here, not you!” His anger brought his beast like a line of heat across my skin. I had to let go of him and step back so I could do a few deep, even breaths. I couldn’t change shape for real, but I still carried the beasts inside me, and one of those was rat.

  “You are my king, but she needs to know what is happening.”

  “One of you tell me, because it’s starting to make me nervous.”

  Rafael motioned at Benito. “You want to tell her, tell her.”

  Benito looked startled as if he hadn’t expected that, but he recovered quickly and gave me very serious eyes. Whatever he was going to say, he didn’t expect me to like it. “The reason given for this challenge is that they are afraid that once you make Rafael your rat to call, all the wererats in the United States will be slaves to the vampires through Jean-Claude’s ties to you as his human servant.”

  “The local clan here would know that’s not true,” I said.

  “But I am no longer just the king of the St. Louis clan. I am king to all the wererats in this country, so they are all voting.”

  I frowned at him. “How are all the wererats voting in time for the fight tonight?”

  “Online, we created a poll online,” he said.

  “How’s the voting going?”

  “I am losing.”

  “Jesus, I guess I can understand that if they don’t know me or Jean-Claude personally, they’d be worried. They have no idea that we’re not evil bastards.”

  “They know your reputation as a legal executioner of us, and they have seen the videos that people took in Colorado when you raised a zombie army,” Rafael said.

  “If I say the bad necromancer raised his army of the undead first and I had to stop him, does that make it any better?” I smiled, hopefully playing to the fact that I was small and if I was willing to stoop to it, I could be adorable. I’d hated it for years, but some of the women in my life had taught me that feminine wiles weren’t just about sex, cuteness was its own superpower. If only I’d known about it years ago, or been willing to stoop to use it.

  Rafael laughed, but Benito was made of sterner stuff. “Your reputation is fearsome, Anita. If you were Rafael’s mate, it would make him powerful, but you are engaged to Jean-Claude, you will be queen to the vampire king of this country. It frightens our people.”

  “I carry just as much shapeshifter magic as vampire inside me,” I said.

  “But they have seen you with your zombies online from people filming you with their phones. They have seen you on Jean-Claude’s arm in the engagement video and more and more interviews as the wedding gets closer, but you do not change form, and they have not seen you with us. They have not felt your power as leopard queen to Micah’s king. They have not felt the pull of your inner rat. They feel you feed on them through Rafael, and that scares the hell out of them.”

  “I think that’s the longest speech I’ve ever heard you make,” I said.

  “I must speak up for Rafael, for he will not.”

  “The threat has to be serious for you to push like this, Benito. Is this new guy a really good fighter or something?”

  Benito nodded.

  “How good?” I asked.

  “Good enough that I am frightened for my king and my friend.”

  That scared me because Benito didn’t talk that way.

  “Do you have so little faith in me in the fighting pit?” Rafael asked.

  “You are good, incredibly good, my king. You were fierce today in practice.”

  “But you do not think I am fierce enough to win against Hector.”

  “I think you can win, but if the vote goes against you, then all the next cha
llenger has to do is use the same excuse and they can simply challenge you time after time. No one is good enough to withstand that; eventually everyone loses. In a fight to first or even third blood it is a loss of reputation, but it is not fatal.”

  “Can fights for the crown be to just third blood, the way lesser challenges are?” I asked. I couldn’t help looking at the black crown branded into Rafael’s forearm. It was the mark of kingship among the rodere and gave the St. Louis clan its name, the Dark Crown Clan.

  Benito just shook his head.

  “Is there anything else I need to know, while we’re being chatty?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Benito said.

  “No,” Rafael said.

  “Benito,” I said.

  “Please, my king, my friend, she must know that you broke one of our most sacred rules.”

  “She does not change form, she is not a true wererat, so the rule does not apply.”

  “Someone tell me the rule, so I can decide if it applies to me or not.”

  The two men glared at each other. Claudia called from down the hallway. “Anita deserves to know.” I looked to see if Kane was with her, but she was alone. She must have seen me look for him, because she added, “Helios is taking Kane through a new weight routine. I’ve got two extra guards with them. They’ll all get their weight lifting in for the day, and Kane will have enough people to sit on him if it’s needed.”

  “If Kane is that dangerous to Anita, he must be put down,” Benito said.

  “We can’t risk killing Asher,” I said.

  “But you will risk killing Rafael,” he said.

  “Benito, enough,” Rafael said.

  “Please, Rafael, please, Anita needs to know,” Claudia said.

  Claudia didn’t plead with anyone for anything. My stomach was suddenly tight with anxiety. Then I realized that Benito and Rafael had already given me enough clues. “I know that other than a few attack survivors or freak accidents, there is only one way to become part of the rodere. You must fight for it. I didn’t think about that applying to me, because I wasn’t asking to join the rodere.”

  Claudia said, “Yes, if you were a normal human being who wanted to be one of us, you would have blades and fight one of us in half-beast form.”

  “Not fight, Claudia,” Rafael said, “simply draw blood once, before one of us can bloody them three times.”

  It was interesting that Rafael didn’t think of that as a fight, but I didn’t debate it, just said, “That’s one of the reasons you are all such bad-ass fighters, because you have to be to even get into the clan.”

  “Exactly, but our king brought you over as if he was a leopard, or a lion, or any other animal group with a lover,” Benito said.

  “It’s the only form of Therianthropy that I volunteered to take on, all the others were accidents or attacks.”

  “I hate the new politically correct vocabulary,” Rafael said.

  “The idea was that lycanthropy meant just werewolves, but Therianthropy means all forms,” I said.

  “I know what the words mean, but we all understood that lycanthrope had become the generic for all of us.”

  “Therianthropy is pretty straightforward, too,” I said.

  “Yes, but they didn’t stop there, the social justice warriors, they had to create new names for all of us. Arouraiothropy is impossible to spell, and most of us can’t even agree on a pronunciation.”

  “I agree that the new vocabulary is ridiculous, but as a marshal I have to use it, or I get written up.”

  “Did you get written up already?” Claudia asked.

  “Yes.”

  “By whom? Because it wasn’t one of us that complained,” Rafael said.

  “Another marshal,” I said.

  “If Anita would fight in the pits to just first blood with one of us, then she would have earned her place and that would slow the challenges,” Benito said.

  “As her bodyguard, I can’t agree,” Claudia said.

  “You guard her, but you are sworn to serve Rafael.”

  “If we let them bully us into making Anita fight in the pit, our enemies could maneuver us into Anita being forced to fight a true battle. Not against one of us, but against one of our kind who could take the chance offered and hurt Anita badly.”

  “Are they allowed to kill the human who’s fighting them?” I asked.

  “No,” Claudia and Benito said.

  “But the wererat is within their rights to demand that the human draw to third blood just as they must,” Rafael said.

  “What happens if I lose?” I asked.

  “Normally you would simply not be allowed to become one of us. If the next full moon doesn’t see the defeated human turn, then it is over,” Rafael said.

  “And if a defeated human turns on the full moon?” I asked.

  “They are hunted down and killed,” Benito said.

  “Because they didn’t earn it,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “That is our way,” Rafael said.

  “I don’t turn, I can’t turn, so even if I lose, I should be fine.”

  “Jean-Claude will never allow you to risk yourself on the sands of our fighting pits,” Rafael said.

  “He’s not the boss of me yet,” I said.

  Rafael smiled. “I am not certain anyone will ever be the boss of you, Anita Blake, but I would not risk the alliances we have built up between all of us on something that will not stop the duels for kingship.”

  “It would show that you still honor the ways of the rodere and that Anita respects our ways. That would calm some of the worst fears that you are abandoning our culture in favor of Micah and his leopards,” Benito said.

  “Why Micah in specific?” I asked.

  “He travels the country as head of the Coalition that is bringing unity to all the animal groups,” Benito said.

  “Yeah, Micah is the poster boy for the cause of better relations between humans and Therianthropes, and all the flavors of shapeshifter,” I said.

  “Some among my people think it should have been me in charge of the Coalition.”

  I looked at Rafael. “You travel for the Coalition almost as much as Micah does now.”

  “But I am still not the head of it, which has led to some saying I am his second-in-command. That Micah is becoming high king to all the beasts, as I became high king to all the wererats.”

  “You run the wererats. Micah stays out of rodere business unless you ask for his help.”

  “You know that and I know that, but the fearful among my people do not believe that, and my enemies actively tell the fearful that I am but a puppet for Micah and his lover Jean-Claude.”

  “They are not lovers,” I said, automatically, but not like I expected anyone to believe it. You can’t prove someone didn’t do something, especially if it’s a really good rumor.

  “Everyone standing here knows that,” Rafael said.

  “It’s not if Micah is fucking Jean-Claude that is the problem, it is that our enemies say that Rafael is fucking him,” Benito said.

  I stared up at him. “That’s a new rumor,” I said.

  The three of them shook their heads.

  “Okay, it’s new to me.”

  “It reinforces the idea that if Rafael becomes even more closely bound to you and Jean-Claude, we will all be his for the taking,” Benito said.

  “Jean-Claude isn’t into rape,” I said, and in my head I thought he’d suffered too much and too often at the hands of more powerful vampires over the centuries; it had left him with no taste for forcing himself where he wasn’t wanted, though admittedly he was around six hundred years old, so his idea of seduction was a little less than politically correct, but he did not do rape. Somewhere before the last deed was done the person had to say yes.

  “Again, we have seen how fair Jean-Claude is, but our enemies have not,” Rafael said.

  “Make Rafael your moitié bête, Anita. Give him enough power to defeat our shared enemies so decisively t
hat they will fear to challenge him to the pits,” Benito said.

  “You know why I haven’t.”

  “Because Narcissus has sworn to kill Kane if you make me your rat to call before you make him your hyena to call,” Rafael said.

  “Which risks killing Asher,” I said.

  “I say again that Rafael is more important than the vampire,” Benito said.

  “That is not your decision to make,” Rafael said.

  “Wait, if I make Rafael my rat, won’t that just invite more challengers for the same reason as tonight’s fight? I mean he really will be more closely tied to Jean-Claude afterward.”

  “They will challenge him afterward, but once they see what his new power level can do to an opponent, that will be the end of the duels,” Benito said.

  “There is no way to know that for certain, Benito,” Rafael said.

  “I am certain of it.”

  “That whole Asher problem,” I said.

  “Then make Narcissus your hyena to call and then Rafael your rat to call. You are not like most vampires, Anita, you can have as many moitié bêtes as you have beasts inside you.”

  I’d have liked to argue the whole vampire question, since I didn’t feed on blood, but I did have to feed on either anger or lust, or I stopped healing as well. I didn’t make the legal definition of vampire, but then no energy vampire met the legal criteria. “I don’t want to tie myself to Narcissus, he’s almost as crazy obsessive with Asher as Kane is, so no thanks. I don’t want that much drama llama tied to me for all eternity.”

  “Then tell Narcissus that and seal your bargain with us, Anita,” Benito said.

  “It’s not that simple, Benito.”

  “Everything is simple if you do not complicate it,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure what I would have said to that, because Rafael said, “I would take your kisses and more with me tonight. I do not want to argue away the time we might have.”

  “You’re really worried,” I said, studying his face.

  “Let me go into battle with the feel of your body like a shield. Let my challenger smell you on my skin. Let him be as intoxicated by the mere breath of you on my lips.” He touched my face, raised it up for a kiss. What could I do? I went up on tiptoe to meet him partway.