Danse Macabre   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

I looked at Micah. «I agree with the lions. I don't want Haven.»

I turned to Nathaniel. He smiled. «I agree with Micah. Though Jean-Claude, or someone, needs to help you not to bond with them completely.»

«Agreed,» I said.

I looked behind us, for Jean-Claude. «How do we do this?»

«I can help you not use the ardeur as deeply, but I do not know if I can control the lion within you.»

«I can,» and it was Auggie. He'd added a long black cloak. His shoulders were so wide that it made him look square, his head too small for all that body. The bottom of the cloak puddled on the floor, because any vampire here that the cloak could belong to was a foot taller. The cloak looked borrowed, and it was, but Octavius and Pierce were at his back, and they didn't look borrowed at all. They looked perfectly at home.

The two bodyguards at their backs looked right at home, too. Standing orders were that Pierce and Haven got four guards. I wondered if Haven, now unconscious, had two of his own? Probably.

«I want this to work, Auggie, if it can,» I said. «I need your word that you won't spoil it.»

«Tell me exactly what you want me to swear to, Anita,» he said. His face was empty, pale with concentration. His eyes looked huge and even darker, like the sky before it goes black.

I thought about what he'd asked, then looked again to Jean-Claude. «Help me to word it, okay.»

«I will second Augustine on this, ma petite . Tell me what you wish him to swear to.»

«I want to really try to bond with Noel. I don't want him to interfere with that, but I don't want to bond to Noel the way I did with Micah and Nathaniel. I want to see if it's just lions I'm hunting, or if Auggie's lions are especially tasty.»

«If my lions are more tasty, it may not be because they are my lions, but because your power seeks something more dominant than what's kneeling on the floor. I think in your Rex's zeal not to give power to a rival, he has sent you food that your inner lioness will never accept.»

«My inner lioness,» I said, though it's hard to be disdainful when you're on your knees with men still hanging on to you. But I managed it.

«Inner beast, then,» he said, voice empty. His face showed nothing. He was finally acting more like all the other really old vamps that I'd ever met. Will the real Augustine please stand up?

«Are the lions more likely to want a dominant?» I asked.

«I thought you had read up on lions,» he said.

I thought about it, then nodded.