Haven flew across the room and hit the fireplace. Richard had time to stand before the other man got to his knees, then charged him. The fight was on.

37

THE FIGHT ROLLED over the couch, and vanished from sight for a minute.

Noel shivered on top of me, and it wasn't pleasure. "Are you hurt?" I asked.

His voice was breathy from pain or fear. I didn't know him well enough to guess which. "Anita, you're about to pick an animal to call."

I patted the top of his curls, gently. "You're not thinking clearly, Noel." I started to try to sit up, but he wrapped himself around me. Not pinning me, but making it so sitting up would be an effort.

Richard was the one who staggered back from the couch, blood spatter­ing his face. Haven got to his feet like he was on springs, and they squared off. Both of them went down into fighting stances that said that Haven knew some kind of martial art, too. Not good.

"Let me up, Noel."

He raised his face, so I could see how frightened his eyes were behind his glasses. "You are about to have another animal to call."

"Nathaniel is my animal to call."

"He's your animal for Damian and you, but Richard is your animal with Jean-Claude."

Richard and Haven were circling in the bare area just in front of the far hallway. They feinted with legs and hands, but they weren't fighting. They were getting the measure of each other. Once they had it, the fight would get serious. I didn't want that.

Noel gripped my arms, turned my attention back to him. "Joseph thinks that something about the vampire marks is giving you an animal to call to match each of your beasts."

"That's not possible."

"Everything you do is impossible, Anita. My Rex thinks it is possible. He hopes that if you feed from more than one lion, your power won't bond to any one person."

Travis collapsed to his knees beside us, blocking my view of the grow-

ing fight. He was cradling his arm tight against his chest. The side of his head was bleeding into his brown-gold curls. "But if you do have to bond to a lion, Joseph would prefer that the strongest preternatural power in his territory not bond itself to a lion who would try to take over his pride."

It seemed stupid having this conversation flat on my back with a nearly perfect stranger on top of me, but I couldn't figure out how to sit up with­out getting rough with Noel, and Haven had been rough enough. "Why did Joseph send you to me?"

Travis shrugged, and winced, his shoulders hunching around his arm. "Our first task is to keep you from bonding with blue-boy over there. What­ever it takes, to stop that from happening."

I looked at them both. "You're kids. You don't want to be bound to my life, to me, forever. You don't want that, you can't want that."

"I'm only five years younger than you," Travis said. "Hell, I'm two years older than Nathaniel."

"But Nathaniel needed me. You got drafted."

Noel pushed himself up on his arms, which meant I was able to get to my gun, not that it would help, but it was still a thought. His lower body was pressed a little closer to my lower body, but for once it wasn't erotic. It wasn't anything. "Our lion group, our pride, works, Anita, it's our home. I felt blue-boy's power, just walking down a hallway. You can feel it now, com­ing off him in waves." Noel licked his lips. "Joseph is powerful, but I'm not a hundred percent certain he's more powerful than what's behind us."

"Let me sit up, Noel."

Noel glanced at Travis, and the other man gave a small nod, then hunched over his arm again. Noel moved back so I could sit up, but he stayed kneel­ing between my knees, I think so he was close enough to grab me if I tried to go to Haven, again.

Richard and Haven were fighting now. Fighting with a capital F, if you're not planning to kill each other. It was a kind of fighting that I would never be able to do. Pounding the shit out of each other, and being able to take the damage. It was guy fighting, for the sake of a point, yes. I'd asked for help to move Haven and protect the other men. Haven's fist got past Richard's arms, and Richard staggered back two steps, but hunched his body, so that the blows Haven tried to rain on him hit only shoulders and arms. Richard, on the other hand, landed two solid body blows that doubled Haven over. Richard followed with a fist to his chin, and only Haven throwing himself backward kept the next blow from hitting. Richard didn't give him time to recover. He came at him with a flurry of blinding kicks that put the other

man into a defensive crouch against the far wall. Richard was winning. I re­alized in that moment that I hadn't thought he would.

Noel touched my face, turned my gaze back to his scared face. "Anita, please don't touch him, not until you've at least tried one of us."

I checked Richard's progress one more time. Haven was against the wall, simply trying to keep the kicks from hitting him, not even trying to fight back now.

I looked at Travis and his wounds. Noel's eyes so scared. The lions' pride worked; they were one of the few wereanimal groups in town that let their people lead nearly ordinary lives. No power struggles, no hiring bodyguards. Joseph's people were people first, animals second. If Haven stayed in town, hooked up to the power that I had through Jean-Claude's marks, would the lions' world go up in flames?

"You don't think Joseph would win the fight?" I asked.

"He is not the fighter that your Ulfric is," Travis said. Travis said it like it was just true, and no big deal. That was the biggest difference between wolf and lion culture; all the big cat shapeshifters seemed to be less about com­bat, and more about what was best for the group. The wolf culture was much more about strong is right, weak is just dead. Someone had suggested that it was because the werewolf culture passed through the Vikings' culture, more than any other shapeshifter society. Maybe. Real wolves certainly weren't more vicious than lions, or leopards.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Joseph won his fight with Haven."

"Joseph got lucky," Travis said. He motioned at the fight. "He got real lucky."

Richard had the other man in a defensive ball against the wall. Haven had given up fighting back, and was just trying to keep the damage down. Richard did a very Richard thing. He backed up. The fight was over, as far as he was concerned. Since he wasn't going to kill Haven, the fight should have been over. But Haven's day job was mob enforcer; it's a dif­ferent mentality.

Richard's voice sounded tired, but not strained, "Stay down."

Haven got to his knees, shaking his head. "I can't."

"You can't win," Richard said.

"Doesn't matter," Haven said, "still have to get up."

"Stay down," Richard said.

"No," Haven said, and he used the wall to push to his feet. He fell back to his knees, one hand holding him swaying against the wall.

I said, "Stay down, Haven."

"Can't," was all he said, and he gathered himself for a rush. He came up

off the floor in a blur of speed, still dangerous, for all the damage he'd taken. Richard sidestepped him, let his own momentum send him crashing to the floor.

"This fight is over," Richard said, and he made the mistake. He offered Haven a hand up.

I had time to yell, "No!" I wasn't even sure who I was yelling it at.

Haven kicked out with everything he had left; he tried to dislocate Richard's knee. Richard had time to avoid some of it, but not all of it. His knee collapsed and he went down.

My gun was out and pointed. I got to my feet. If Haven had pushed the attack I'd have shot him, but he didn't. He lay back on the floor as if that last kick had taken all the fight out of him. "The fight is over," I said, just in case.