Anita Blake 18 - Flirt by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

wasn’t certain I could go through with it. I actually thought I might lose the first half of the payment and not do this, but then I saw the pictures of your lunch with your lovers. I watched your Mr. Schuyler and your Mr. Graison flirt. My Ilsa liked to flirt; in fact, she loved it. She loved attention and she had a fascination with shapeshifters.”
    So he knew she was a fur-fucker. I just looked at him, not sure what emotion he wanted from me. I gave him a blank face and waited for him to talk. He was in that villain speech mode that only the amateurs do.
    “I watched them comfort you, and then watched you flirt with the waiter. You wouldn’t give me back my flirt, so I took yours, and if you take my Ilsa away from me again, I will take your men away from you forever.”
    I must have tensed forward, not on purpose, because Jacob put his arm across my shoulders just in case, but I’d been too intent on Bennington’s words. I’d forgotten for a second that I didn’t want him to touch my back.
    I tried to stand up, and he grabbed me, but I managed to get to my feet, but Nicky was there behind me, arms hugging me from behind, and this time he wasn’t distracted by lion hormones. “What the hell is that?”
    “Something big that you missed,” Jacob said.
    I forced myself not to struggle in Nicky’s grip, but I couldn’t not tense up, or stop the lioness from not wanting them to manhandle her, us. I had a moment of pronoun loss, and that growl trickled out from between my lipsticked lips. Heat came with it in a rush over my skin like a sudden fever. I was suddenly so hot, so hot, but I wasn’t sweating.
    “Her skin is hot to the touch,” Nicky said, and his voice sounded strangled, as if he were fighting off his own growl.
    “I can feel the energy,” Jacob said.
    Bennington stood up, got close to me, trusting Nicky to keep me from hurting him. Nicky tightened his arms around my body, pinning my arms to my sides. He held on tight enough that it was almost hard to breathe. “You wanted to know what our plan is for us to go back to our lives; well, you will use the energy of a human sacrifice to raise Ilsa from the dead. It will be enough energy to make her beautiful forever, mine forever. And once you use murder to raise the dead, you can’t tell on us without risking the death penalty yourself.”
    I found my voice. “That’s the errand that Silas is supposed to finish, isn’t it?”
    Nicky tightened his grip until it dug my empty holster into my body, and it began to truly hurt, but I didn’t mind; the pain helped me think. It helped me not give in to the snarling lion inside me. If we killed Bennington, the second half of their money was gone. And they were professionals. I didn’t think they’d kill us for free. It was a plan, and besides, we wanted him dead. It’s hard to fight the inner beast when you agree with it.
    The lioness charged out of that long metaphysical or metaphorical grass, and began to run full out up that path inside me. She was a golden blur, moving through me.
    “Fight it,” Nicky said in my ear.
    I glared at Bennington. “Why?”
    Jacob was in front of me, blocking my view of Bennington. “Because if you shift, you can’t raise the dead and you’re no good to us. Don’t make us kill you, Anita.”
    Nicky spoke through gritted teeth as if it were beginning to be an effort to hold me. “Don’t make us kill your men.”
    “Look at me, Anita!”
    But all I could see was that blur of gold, and for the first time I didn’t want to put a wall between her and me. For the first time I needed the help, and I would take it.
    Jacob grabbed my face, forced me to look at him, but he also touched bare skin to bare skin. I snarled up at him, and the golden blur slowed. Slowed and screamed through me, so that my body vibrated with the sound of her rage, her need, her hunger.
    “God, she smells good,” Nicky said.
    “Don’t you start,” Jacob said, but he was still touching my