I thrust my power into that spot, but I should have known better. With Jean-Claude's power I might have just ripped it out of me, cast it aside, but my power was different. My power liked the dead.

I touched the mark the vampire had made in my body. I didn't understand how he'd done it, and I didn't care. I wanted it gone. But the moment my necromancy touched it, it was as if a door blew open inside my head. I caught a glimpse of stone walls and a male figure. I smelled wolf. I tried to see clearly, but it was as if darkness ate at the edges of the picture. I concentrated on that image, willed it to be clear. Willed the man to turn and show me… He turned, but there was no face. I was looking at a black mask with a huge false nose. I thought for a moment I could see his eyes, then the eyes filled with silver light, almost a soft light. Then that soft, silver light shot out of the mask and slammed into me. I came back to myself airborne, falling. I didn't even have time to be afraid.

Chapter Nineteen

I HAD A blurred image of black marble, glass. A second to realize that I was about to hit the mirrors around Jean-Claude's tub. I tried to both tense and relax for the impact. A dark blur passed me, and when I smacked into the mirrors, there was a body behind me. A body that wrapped itself around me and took the impact as we hit the glass and the wall underneath. I heard the glass break, and we slid in a heap at the edge of the tub. I lay there, stunned, breath knocked out of me. It suddenly seemed very important to hear my own heartbeat. I blinked at nothing for a moment or two. Only when the body under me groaned did I turn my head enough to see, in the mirrors that weren't cracked, who I'd landed on. Jake lay in a heap against the spiderweb cracks of the glass. He was one of the newest members of Richard's pack, though not new to being a werewolf, and had only been a bodyguard for a few weeks. His eyes were closed; blood trickled down from his short, dark curls. He wasn't moving. I gazed up, past us, and saw that some of the jagged pieces were missing. There was a huge piece that sparkled as it moved away from the wall and begin to fall toward us. I grabbed Jake and pulled with everything I had. I pulled like I didn't expect him to move, but I forgot that I was more than human strong. I pulled, and he moved, moved so hard and sudden that we ended up in the bathtub. I was suddenly underwater with his weight on top of me. Before I could panic, he startled awake, grabbing my arms, and jerked us both to the surface. We came up gasping, as the glass tinkled like sharp raindrops where we'd just been lying.

"Shit!" This from the doorway.

I blinked water out of my eyes to see Claudia in the room. There were more guards crowding in behind her. Claudia strode into the room and lifted me bodily out of the tub. Other hands lifted Jake. He fell to his knees when they got him out. It took two of them to carry him into the bedroom. I walked on my own, but Claudia kept her hand on my arm. I think she expected me to collapse, too. Other than being wet, everything seemed to be working. But I didn't bother telling her to let go of me, with the grip she had… Call it a hunch, but she wouldn't have done it anyway. I'd learned to argue carefully with Claudia; it upped my chances of winning the arguments.

Claudia half-led, half-pulled me into the bedroom. The room was nearly black with bodyguards. A handful of red shirts stood out like berries in a muffin—though "muffin" didn't quite cover the level of adrenaline-charged readiness. There was so much tension it felt as if I should have been able to walk across it. Some of them had guns out, pointed at the floor or ceiling.

I stood there dripping wet, searching the crowd for Jean-Claude. As if she understood what I was doing, Claudia said, "I sent Jean-Claude outside. He's safe, Anita, I promise."

Graham stepped out from the crowd. "We thought it might be a plot to hurt him." He looked and sounded fine now. There was no sign of the earlier panic.

"How you feeling?" I asked.

He gave me a puzzled grin. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with standing wet in the colder air. "You don't remember, do you?"

"Remember what?" he asked.

"Shit," I said.

Claudia turned me toward her. "What's going on, Anita?"

"Hang on a minute, okay?"

Her grip on my arm tightened enough that it hurt. She probably could have crushed it if she'd been this muscled and human, but combine the workout with being a wererat and she was very strong.

"Watch the grip, Claudia," I said.

She let me go and wiped her hand against her jeans to get rid of the water. "Sorry."

"It's okay," I said. A sound of ripping cloth took my attention from Graham. Jake was on his knees by the armoire. Someone had ripped his shirt down the back. The bare back was bleeding, a lot. Cisco, one of the youngest of the wererats, was picking glass out of that once-smooth skin. Jake was a werewolf, and he was this hurt. It meant that if it had been my back, I'd be going to the hospital.

"Thanks, Jake," I said.

"Just doing my job, ma'am." His voice hesitated at the end as Cisco and another guard started picking glass out of him.

"Did anyone check his scalp for glass?" Claudia asked.

No one said yes. She called out, "Juanito, check him for glass."

Juanito was another newer guard. I'd been introduced to some of them when the word went out that we needed more men, but the tall, dark, handsome man was a stranger to me. I'd nodded at him, that was about it. At least Jake had been here a few weeks. Juanito meant "little Juan," but he didn't match his name. He was six feet at least, slender but muscular. He was not a little anything, as far as I could tell.

"I'm not a medic," he said.

"I didn't ask," Claudia said.

He just stood there staring at her, clearly not happy.

"I gave you an order. Follow it," she said. I hadn't heard that tone in Claudia's voice often. If I'd been him I'd have done what she said.

He moved to the kneeling werewolf and started picking through the wet curls. He didn't do it like his heart was in it, though. Cisco and the other guard seemed to be taking their job seriously.

Graham brought a large towel from the bathroom and started picking up the bloody pieces of glass that were already on the floor. Cisco and the others started dropping the glass onto the towel. It looked like red rain and sharp little pieces of hail.

"How bad is Jake hurt?" I asked Claudia.

"Not bad, but we don't want the skin healing over the glass."

"That happen often?" I asked.

"Often enough," she said.

I looked back at the men and found that Jake's back was smoothing even as I watched. "Is it just me or is he healing fast even for a shapeshifter?"

"It's not just you," Claudia said. "He heals faster than almost anyone I've ever met."

The three guards were searching frantically along his body, trying to stay ahead of his skin as it flowed over the wounds. Juanito had gotten over his reluctance and was now searching Jake's hair with fumbling fingers, desperately searching through the curls. "I'm not going to get them all! He's healing too fast!"

"The glass you miss, you get to cut out," Claudia said.

"Shit," he said, and worked faster.

Jake made almost no sound while everyone picked at his wounds. He stayed silent and motionless under their hands. I'd have been cursing and at least flinching.

Graham had apparently picked up all the stray glass he could find, because he wiped his fingers on the towel and stood up.

"Graham, you wearing a holy item?" I hoped he'd say no.

"No," he said.

Relief flooded through me, and I shivered. I was cold from the wet clothes and the reaction to the accident. No, not accident. The Harlequin had tried to kill me. Fuck. I hadn't understood; even with everyone's warnings, I hadn't understood. I was like a kid who'd poked a kitten with a stick and found a tiger staring at me.