“See, a guy would be pissed even if he knew. You won’t let me be the guy, but in the end, you’re not the guy, either.”

“Fuck this,” I said, and moved toward the door. I didn’t turn my back on him, but I was done.

Haven suddenly moved toward me. I had enough time, or speed, to be out of most of his reach, but he grabbed my wrist. We ended with me crouched back away from him, and him with one hand on my wrist. His power trembled down my skin in a hot wash that closed off my throat and made my lioness gaze up with dark, amber eyes. She growled, and it trickled up my throat and out between my lips.

He closed his eyes and a shudder passed through him from top to bottom. He opened his eyes and they were already lion amber. “Fuck me,” he said.

I shook my head. “No.”

He tightened his hand enough to let me feel how very strong he was. “No weapons, no guards, no boyfriends, you can’t stop me.”

I waited for my pulse to speed up, to be afraid, because he was probably right. I’d fight, but in the end in a fair fight there was nothing fair about someone outweighing me by over a hundred pounds of muscle and dwarfing me by nearly a foot of height. I’d seen him fight, and one on one he’d win unless I got very, very lucky. But the lion in me growled again. She wasn’t afraid of him. Why? Then I had a thought.

I stopped pulling against his hand and just stood up. He moved back half a step as if he hadn’t expected it. “I can’t stop you doing what? You don’t want just my body, Haven. You want me. You want me to want and love you. You can’t win that by rape.”

“Why can’t I just want your body?” he asked.

I took a deep breath and let it out slow. “You’re the one who keeps pushing for more of a relationship, not me.”

I watched his lion eyes slide back to blue. “You’ve turned me into the girl.” He let go of my wrist and stepped back. “Get out, get out, Anita, before I change my mind.”

I backed up until I felt the door under my hands. I had to glance back to find the doorknob, and suddenly he was standing in front of me. He pressed his body against mine, pinning me against the door, his hand on one arm, and only my moving fast kept him from grabbing the other arm.

My pulse was in my throat, and I couldn’t hide that he’d scared me. He leaned his face in over my hair and sniffed the air. “You smell like fear and sex and food. You smell good.”

My voice was a little shaky as I said, “You smell like sweat and other people’s sex.”

He pulled me to him, pinning my arm between us. He let me keep the other arm as if it didn’t matter. “Then you should feel right at home.” His body pressed me close. My physical options were vanishing, but there were other options.

“Do you know why I haven’t rolled you the way I did Nicky?” I asked.

I felt his whole body hesitate. I’d surprised him. Good. “You like Nicky better,” he said.

“No, I like you better. I stole Nicky’s free will. He lives to please me. I think that’s kind of creepy actually. Auggie told me I should roll you, but I liked you too much to steal you away from yourself.”

“Why tell me this now?” He whispered it against my hair, and I could feel that his body wasn’t entirely unhappy to be pressed up against me.

“Don’t make what I did to Nicky my only option, Haven.”

“I’m a Rex. You couldn’t roll me like that,” he said.

“Are you sure? Are you sure enough to bet everything you are that I can’t make you into my bride?”

He went very still against me, and then he was halfway across the room in a blur of speed that was breathtaking. I leaned against the door for a heartbeat and then groped for the doorknob without looking away from him. I opened it and stepped through, still keeping my gaze on him as if that would keep him from coming for me again.

The cool air of the hallway seemed to help chase some of that hot energy back. “I’m going to clean up,” he said, and he didn’t look at me.

“You do that,” I said, and I closed the door slowly but firmly between us.

21

I WAS SEARCHING through the debris for my weapons and cell phone. I’d found a lot of guns, none of them mine. Haven barging in on me had really, really made me want my weapons back. But I wasn’t the only one who had lost weapons in the rush to strip, and I was finding a lot of dangerous toys. Nathaniel helped me look, his hair freshly washed and trailing down his body in a dark wet mass. He’d put on a pair of cutoffs that looked like they’d begun life as a pair of jeans. Micah was in the shower now. We were cleaning up in order of who woke up. The six of us in triumvirates had woken first, and then it seemed to go by dominance and power level. I wondered what order Haven had woken in, but hadn’t asked anyone. He hadn’t hurt me, so I hadn’t mentioned our encounter to anyone yet. We had to do something about Haven, but I wasn’t sure exactly what.

Jean-Claude was making phone calls to find out which Masters of the City were alive and how early they were up. Just by leaving messages this early in the day, Jean-Claude was letting them know that he had woken first. It was a subtle type of one-upmanship among vampires. The earlier you woke, the more powerful you were, as a general rule. Though today in St. Louis there were a lot of early wakeups that had nothing to do with the individual vampire’s power, but everything to do with Jean-Claude. He’d shoved some of the power to all his vampires, because the power had to go somewhere. If I’d been in charge of the power I’d have probably raised an army of zombies in the closest cemetery.

Some of the debris we were searching through was still tangled up with passed-out vampires and wereanimals. It was unnervingly like a crime scene with a lot of dead, since the vampires didn’t breathe. I’d found my Browning and the big knife, but one of the wrist sheaths and my backup gun were still nowhere. I hadn’t found my cell phone, either, but I wasn’t as worried about that. Cell phones couldn’t kill people. I wanted all the killing things back under my control. I’d check phone messages later.

I was starting to wonder if the gun and knife were hidden under someone when a hand grabbed my wrist. I jumped like I’d been slapped and don’t know what I might have done, but I had a flashback, like the one I’d had with Jean-Claude and Richard.

I remembered the feel of Noel in my mouth, the look on his face as his body released, how he’d cried out. I had all that in my head before I even saw the face that went with the hand that had touched me.

He said, “Oh my God, what was that?”

“A flashback,” I said, my own voice a little shaky. I knelt beside him. He was still holding on to me, but the memory had retreated. The flashbacks seemed to happen only for a moment and only with people that I’d fucked last night. Jean-Claude had no idea why it was happening, and if he didn’t know, I sure as hell didn’t.

Noel had lost his glasses, so his eyes looked bigger, darker. He looked younger, more unfinished without the gold frames around his eyes.

Nathaniel had moved past us, still looking for my things. I think he’d actually given us some privacy. “How are you feeling?” I asked.

“I thought I was dead. Was I dead?”

“Almost,” I said. His hand was still around my wrist, tight, tension singing up his arm as if he were afraid to let go.

“You saved me.”

“With some help, yes.”

“How?”

“How much do you remember?” I asked.

“I remember the sex, but not much else.”

“Can you sit up?” I asked.

He seemed to think about that for a minute. “I think so.” He started to sit up, and I flexed my arm to help pull him up. He sat there for a moment as if he weren’t sure sitting up was a good idea, and then he said, “I don’t hurt. Why don’t I hurt?”

“You’re a shapeshifter. You guys heal quick.”