The Killing Dance   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

"Richard doesn't want me, Anita. He thinks I'm corrupt. He wants you." She squeezed my thigh until I thought she was going to grow claws and tear out the muscle. She forced a small sound out of my throat before she stopped.

"What do you want?"

"Your pain." She smiled when she said it.

I turned my head to Cassandra. There had to be someone sane in this room. "Why are you helping them?"

"I am Sabin's wolf."

My eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

Raina crawled up on the bed, lying beside me, insinuating her body against mine, one finger tracing over my stomach. It was an idle gesture, as if she wasn't really concentrating. I didn't want to be here when she started concentrating.

"Cassandra was a plant from the very beginning, weren't you dear?"

Cassandra nodded, coming to stand beside the bed. Her hazel eyes were calm, too calm. Whatever she was feeling was there behind that pretty face, carefully controlled. The trick was, was there anything behind that face that could help me?

"Dominic, Sabin, and I are a triumvirate. We are what you and Richard and Jean-Claude could have been."

I didn't like her using the past tense. "You're the woman he gave up fresh blood for?"

"I believe in the sanctity of life. I thought I valued that above all. Watching Sabin's golden beauty rot away has convinced me otherwise. I will do anything, anything to help him recover." Something like pain crossed her eyes and she looked away. When she looked back, her face was forcibly blank, the effort trembling down her hands. She noticed and hugged her hands to her arms. She smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. "I have to make it up to him, Anita. I am sorry that you and yours have become entangled in our problems."

"How am I caught up in it?"

Raina slid her arm over my stomach, putting her face very near mine. "Dominic has a spell to cure Sabin of the rotting disease. A transfer of magical essence, you might say. All he needed was exactly the right donor." She leaned in so close that only my turning my head kept our lips from touching. She whispered against my skin, breath warm, "A perfect donor. A vampire who shares Sabin's powers exactly, a perfect match, and a servant, either alpha werewolf, or necromancer, bound to that same vampire."

I turned and looked at her. I couldn't help it. She kissed me, pressing her mouth against mine, trying to force her tongue inside. I bit her lip hard enough that I tasted blood.

She jerked back with a startled scream. She put her hand to her mouth and stared down at me.