47

MINUTES LATER I was standing staring down at our other spy. His straight hair was cut short and was a pale, nondescript color. I was betting the hair was dyed. The eyes were a pale brown, almost lion amber. I remembered the eyes of the golden weretiger who had cut me up. Her eyes had been brown in human form, too. But in tiger form she'd had yellow and orange eyes like most tigers. Did only some goldens' eyes change with their shift, like humans'? The eyes were uptilted and there was something exotic to the bone structure, but he couldn't have passed for Chinese like Jade could.

I shook my head. "You're not as old as she is."

"How do you know?" he asked, and his voice, like the rest of him, seemed delicate. He was like most of the older weretigers, not very big. Taller than me, but then most men were.

"You feel younger," I said.

He shifted in the metal bindings. They were a new type of cuff that was being tried by law enforcement for the preternaturally strong. We'd had some of our people try them and so far, they'd held. Wicked touched the weretiger's shoulder with one hand; the other hand had a gun naked in it. The weretiger had given up, just let them capture him, but he was one of the Harlequin and that was supposed to mean something.

Truth had a short sword bare in his hand. The brothers were prepared. I felt pretty safe with them holding him. I knew his name was Topaz. I knew it matched the deep, golden yellow of his tiger color. Through Jade I knew a lot of things.

"He isn't a gold tiger," a woman's voice said. I stepped back from the kneeling man, and turned so I could see who the voice belonged to. It was one of the two female red tigers. This one had red hair cut just above her shoulders, so that the end edges of the hair framed her face. Her hair was  a red so dark it was almost a kind of black. Humans didn't come with hair like that outside a dye bottle.

The woman's skin and hair were darker than any of the other tigers, including my memories of Alex's body, the first red tiger I'd met and accidently rolled. Whatever I did tonight, there'd be nothing accidental about it. Her eyebrows were black and blended with the dark red of her hair. Her eyes were the orange and yellow of fire, even at this distance. The white tigers could pass for human eyes if you didn't know what you were looking at, but nothing would make those fire eyes human.

"He is not a gold tiger," she repeated.

"Why not?" I asked.

She made a derisive sound, crossing her arms across the shining cloth of her own designer dress. I thought the dark red was an unfortunate choice for her coloring, but she hadn't asked me. "Because gold is supposed to control us all. If there were a true gold tiger in this room, we would all be bound to his will. I feel nothing. He's just a survivor with delusions."

She had a point. I didn't feel much of any energy from the kneeling weretiger. I believed Jade's memories, but I'd seen no proof beyond that. "If he's supposed to control all the tigers, are you really sure you want him flexing metaphysical muscle?" I asked.

"I enjoyed the floor show, though I thought the women were sent here for Jean-Claude, not you. I don't do women." She made it sound like doing them was somehow bad.

I caught movement and found Jade standing with Domino off to one side. She was looking away, down, her posture as if someone had struck her. Women weren't my normal cup of tea, but I couldn't regret anything I'd done with Jade. Even now I wanted to touch her, and I didn't fight the urge. I just held out my hand and thought of the smell of her skin.

She smiled at me, and that one shy, pleased smile made it worth noticing her pain. She came to my hand and tucked herself in against me. In the heels I was enough taller that she was able to cuddle in against my shoulder the way I did to some men.

The look of disgust on the red tigress's face made me smile. She didn't like that I smiled at her. "I felt your power over the other tigers, but the red clan is made of sterner stuff."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"She's Reba," Victor said, "daughter of the Red Queen."

"I expected your brother," I said.

"Alex is out of the country on some journalist assignment. He's catching a plane and disrupting all his plans because you and your master put out the call." She made it sound ridiculous.

I looked at the men with her. One of them had long red hair spilling over his shoulders. It wasn't as dark as Reba's, though there was a touch of black to its edge. Hunter, that was his name, had hair the color they tell you is red in school. Again, humans didn't have hair like that. His eyes were pure yellow and caught the candlelight as he looked at me. He raised his hand and gave a little wave and smile. I smiled back. I'd have rather had Alex, but I'd already slept with Hunter. He was one of the few in the room I could say that about.

"Don't flirt with her," Reba said, voice cutting like an angry whip across his smile. He stopped looking at me but said, "I thought that's why we were here."

"My mother made us come, but I'm the dominant red here, and that means if I say, no, it's no."

I hugged Jade and laid a soft kiss on her temple, then sent her back to Domino. I looked down at the weretiger in front of me. "I'll be right back."

I stepped out into the middle of the room, and I held my hand out. I understood now that it would have worked with everyone else I slept with in Vegas. I was ready for something a little less dramatic. "Hunter," I said, "come to me."

He smiled, and he started to do what I'd asked.

Reba told the other men to grab him. "Don't let her bewitch him, too."

My red tiger circled inside me, looking up, as if she'd have to climb to escape. She gave a low growl and sniffed the air. I echoed her and we both wanted the red tigers. We wanted people who smelled of home.

We, the tiger and I, looked at the other two men who had grabbed Hunter's arms. They both had shorter hair. One had waves that promised if he'd grow it longer it would be like the other woman with her soft waves that fell around her shoulders. She and the first man had skin that was closer to human redheads, all peaches and cream, and the red of their hair held an orange undertone to it rather than a black. Their eyes were both nearly solid yellow. Siblings maybe, or close cousins, down to the similarity of bone structure that made their faces a little long through the cheeks.  I realized that Hunter's face had that shape, too, and his eyes were strongly yellow. How intermarried was everyone in their clan?

The second man had more difference to him. His hair was the palest red of all, falling around his ears in unruly curls and waves as if he were growing it out from the shorter haircut of the first man. Curly hair was always a bitch to grow out. There was always a stage where you couldn't do anything with it. His eyes were gray with green in them if the light caught them right. Of them all I liked his face best. It was a little like trying to pick a kitten from a litter, except you aren't trying to decide which kitten you'd like to have sex with - well, not unless something's gone horribly wrong for both you and the kitten.

"You aren't our master, Anita Blake. You can't even make one of us cross this room to you. My mother sent us because all the other tigers urged her to, but she believes like I do that you are just another pretender to our throne." She pointed a finger at the white tigers. "It's your two males that are teaching our secrets to outsiders and giving her and her vampire master delusions of grandeur."

"You have not tasted her power yet," Victor said. "Taste it and then tell us that Crispin and Domino are still ours to command."

I decided not to choose. I'd call whichever one wanted to come the most. I held my hand out and felt the red tiger swelling up around me like a red mist. "Red tigers, red tigers, come to me." But it wasn't the words that called them, it was the energy. Once I'd accidentally called every color of unmated male tiger in the country when Marmee Noir had been trying to make me her perfect vessel, but I'd learned to narrow my focus. I narrowed the power down to that handful of people standing there.

Hunter pulled free of the other two men, and they didn't fight him. They just stood there, arms at their sides staring after him, at me.

"Hunter, no!" Reba yelled.

He ignored her and hurried to me. He took my hand in both of his and laid a kiss on it. He began to lay kisses up my arm, and at six feet he was tall enough that it was easier to drop to his knees to kiss his way up my lower arm than to bend over. Every kiss grew the energy between us, so that I saw a visual behind my eyes of little red sparks, as if every kiss warmed my skin. Sex didn't make tiger energy grow stronger; that was my little extra, Jean-Claude's ardeur, and my succubus.

The man with the pale red hair started across the room. Reba yelled, "Jared, come back here!"

Hunter had gotten to his feet so he could kiss up to my shoulder. He moved behind me, lifting my hair so he could kiss my neck. Jared touched my hand, and Hunter snarled at him over my shoulder, one arm around my waist drawing me in closer to his body. Jared dropped to his knees, which let me know that either Hunter was above him in the hierarchy of their clan, or Jared had already lost fights to him and didn't want to try it again.

The red tiger might have tried to choose, but I understood now that I didn't have to; we needed them all. "No fighting over me, Hunter; you know I share well."

I almost felt him pouting for a moment, body tense, and then he let it go. Even his body relaxed. The red warmth spilled down my hand and helped me draw the other weretiger closer. Jared stayed on his knees as if he didn't trust Hunter, but he kept my hand, rubbing his cheek against me, scent-marking me. The weight of Hunter at my back and Jared at my side helped spread that warm, red energy farther like a pool of water trickling closer, growing deeper.

The last man started toward me. Reba yelled, "No!" She had the other woman by the arm. She wasn't letting her last tiger get away; she'd hold this one herself.

The man stopped, obviously torn.

Hunter bent over my neck and suddenly bit me. Not hard, not to hurt, but it tipped the energy closer to sex. He set his teeth in my neck until I made small noises. A hand began to slide up my leg, tracing the edge of my hose. Somewhere in all of it I'd closed my eyes, so that when a third pair of hands started up the other leg, I had to open my eyes to see the last weretiger on his knees beside Jared. His fingers played in the hollow of my thigh, just at the edge of the cloth of the thong. Either it was a way of teasing me, or he was waiting for permission to cross that last lacy barrier.

I felt the energy spike, red tiger, hot and angry, and it wasn't us. Hunter stopped biting me to look across the room. Reba had a knife in her hand. The hem of her dress was still shifted so that I saw the thigh holster. She'd slashed the other woman's face open and was holding her by her wrist while she bled. Reba turned her tiger eyes to me and roared, "You can't have us!"

The nameless male stood up and started back toward them. "Lacey."

"She's his sister; his twin," Hunter said.

"You had to use a blade on her," I said. "You can't shift just your hands."

"She only has one form," Jared said.

I'd never seen a wereanything use a blade on another wereanimal before. Reba had just admitted that she was too weak to shapeshift fast enough to fight. She only changed into a big tiger, no half-human form for her. So weak.

She pulled the woman's arm up hard, meaning it to hurt. The woman made a small, hurt sound for her. It pissed me off, and better yet it pissed off the red tiger. She'd missed her own kind. They all smelled like home, and she didn't like them getting hurt.

"Let her go," I said, and my voice echoed as if the red mist were more solid than it looked behind my eyes.

"She's mine!"

"No," I said, "she's not!" And that last word growled out from between my lips. I could feel the rumble of it all the way down my chest. I didn't think what I'd do next, I was just moving toward them faster than I should have been able to move. It was as if I were there beside them before I'd had time to think. Reba tried to move the woman back with her, as she slashed at me. That one slash let me know that she didn't know how to fight with a knife.

I smiled; I couldn't help it.

"I will cut you."

I shook my head. "No, you won't." I moved into her, and she had the speed, but now so did I, and I had the training. She tried to keep the girl's arm in hers, like a hostage, and that put her off balance even more. I got close, and she did what I thought she would do, slashing at the air in front of her. It was more trying to keep me back than trying to cut me. I blocked her arm at the wrist, grabbed her elbow, applied pressure, and hooked my leg behind hers. I brought her to the ground with her arm and its knife still trapped in a joint lock, so that when she hit the floor I already had pressure on her elbow.

The woman that she'd cut ran toward the other red tigers. It was just Reba and me. "Drop the knife or I break the arm."

She didn't drop the knife, so I added a little more pressure to the elbow. She cried out, then sent the knife clanging to the floor. I kicked it out of reach and found Truth there to pick it up. So hard to bodyguard someone when they have to do their own fighting.

"It's against every rule for you to use a knife to discipline your people. If you aren't queen enough to shapeshift and do it right, then you aren't allowed to be queen at all," I said.

"Look who's talking, human!" She spat that last word at me.

I called out, "How bad is Lacey hurt?"

"The blade was silver," one of the men said.

"If she's scarred for life, Reba, I promise you, you will be, too."

Her eyes widened and she struggled. I leaned on the joint a little more, and it stopped her moving. I couldn't grow claws and discipline her like a real queen, but I could do something that most dominants couldn't do. It was a rarer gift, and depending on how you did it, it hurt more. I'd been gentle with the white tiger, Julia. I wouldn't be gentle with this one.

I gazed down at her, and I could almost see the red tiger over me like a hood. The energy of it called to her tiger. I whispered, "Change for me."

"I will not, and you can't make me. You are a survivor of an attack. You are not pureblood."

She was so angry, but anger was food, too. I drank her anger down through the feel of my hands on her skin and the pulse of her blood beating against my hands. There wasn't much anger; it was a thin disguise for her fear. She was so afraid, afraid of me, afraid of how weak she was, afraid that her mother had sent her here to die.

"Let go!"

I let go of the joint lock but not the arm. I rode that down so that I was straddling her waist, pinning both her arms to the floor.

Fear and anger fought in her eyes, down her skin, across the energy of the red tigress. She tried for bold, and said, "Are you going to fuck me, too? Is that all you know how to do here in St. Louis?"

I laughed, and felt my eyes go, not tiger, but vampire. My eyes if I'd been one for real. I felt the fear win out over the anger, as I moved her arm down, so that I could pin it under one knee. She could have fought me. She had the strength, but for all she tried to do she could have been human; hell, most people would have fought, but she didn't. I put my hand against the back of her neck. Her skin was warm; the small curls at the back of her neck, silky against my hand.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

"Making my point," I said, as I leaned into her. I kissed her, and she froze against me, as if she didn't know what to do. I let my tiger spill into  my mouth, and into hers. Not because I was about to change, or in danger, but because I needed her never to fight me again.

I tried to think, but the red tiger would have killed her, and distant behind that was a very practical thought, that if we did this there would be no more arguing. I looked up from the woman under me and found Jean-Claude standing by me. I knew it wasn't my thought. The problem was that I agreed with that very practical, very ruthless thought. It's hard to fight the bad thought when you agree with it.

I had a moment of choice, and then I closed my eyes and I kissed her. It wasn't just the red tiger that spilled through me, it was all the other colors, only gold held back, but the others spilled into my mouth and across my lips and into her. The energies tore her apart. I straightened up a second before a wave of clear, warm fluid and blood exploded across me. The violence of it tore screams from her, her body bucking underneath mine, until a tiger lay underneath me, shivering as if everything hurt. Her fur was so dark a red it was almost as black as her stripes. She stared up at me with the same eyes, but now they were full of pain, and very afraid.

I got up from her, a little shaky on my heels. Jean-Claude was there to take my hand, to steady me. I looked into his eyes and they were as blue and blind with power as mine were brown and black with it. I was covered in blood and fluid.

"The dress is ruined," I said.

He smiled. "We'll buy another." He led me until we stood in front of the gold tiger who was still kneeling between the guards. His eyes were a little wide, lips parted. He was afraid of us.

"Do I need to make my point again?" I asked.

"What point do you want to make?" he asked.

"That the tigers are ours. That we can be Master of Tigers. That's what you and the rest of your people came to St. Louis to find out, isn't it?"

"You read that from Jade's mind," he said.

"We did," Jean-Claude said. Jake had also told us that, but we let that slide. We were winning. Never overexplain when you're winning.

"My master knows what I know. He knows you only need gold to complete the tigers."

That was our cue, or rather Devil's and Envy's. We were keeping the other golden tigers hidden, but the two that were ours would get trotted out. The rest could stay hidden for now.

I didn't have to use a phone. I just thought of Dev, and Jean-Claude did the same for Envy. Micah had Dev by the hand and led him to me. His hand wrapped around mine and my skin was flushed and warm, like being wrapped in a blanket of comfortable power. Richard had Envy by the hand and handed her to Jean-Claude.

The other golden stared at them. "The young ones we cared for were massacred. Those of us who were hiding them never told the others, so that if one was destroyed the others would be safe. My master and I didn't know if you would have more of my kind here."

"Jade saw you with your master and was envious that you seemed to love one another," I said. "I wouldn't break a love that's survived thousands of years. That's got to be rare even among vampires."

"I did not want to give up our tie, but I did not know that we would find other golden tigers in time to help you."

"We could part you from your master," Jean-Claude said.

"If it is your will I don't think we can stop you." He seemed very calm about it.

"You really did come here to sacrifice yourself for the common good, didn't you?" I asked.

"The gold tigers have hidden for centuries. We learned from our earlier ignorance. Now there are more of us than the black or the blue clans. We want you to be Master of Tigers, Jean-Claude. We need you to be, because if we do this we break with the Darkness that made us, and if she ever gains power again she will make us long for true death long before she gives it to us."

"Why would you risk her anger to join with us?" I asked.

"She knows now what we did."

"That it was her own beloved Harlequin who put her into that long-ago sleep," Jean-Claude said.

He nodded.

"So the white tiger's myth is true," I said.

"It is," he said.

I raised eyebrows at that. Jade hadn't known that. I didn't think he read my mind, but he said, "We heard how you divided master from servant with the lion and the Master of Chicago, and the two Vegas tigers from their queen and master. We knew that there was a chance that you would divide at least one of us from our masters. It was always one of the gifts of the Mother, to break all bonds and bind only to her."

"Jade didn't know your whole plan," I said.

"No, because then her master would have known, and we considered him corrupt."

"Without Jade's energy to raise his level, you can kill him," I said.

"We could not trust him."

"You hoped we'd steal Jade from him and make him weak," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"And you wanted her free of him so that when he dies, she doesn't die with him," I said.

"She has endured enough at his hands. When we realized there was another vampire who could break her free of him, we moved to make it so."

"She thought you did not see her suffering," Jean-Claude said.

"We saw, but we could not free her from him."

"You waited for another vampire to be created who could free her," I said.

"Who could free us all," he said.

I gave him the look that deserved. "We're good, but we aren't the immortal Darkness."

"You don't have to be. You just have to be able to cut bonds between master and servant, all servants, and that you can do, you have proved that."

"What do you want of us?" Jean-Claude asked.

"So you would spare me and my master, even feeling the power you gain from each broken bond?"

"We have enough power," I said.

He studied us. "You have a great deal of power, but to do what we need, more would be better."

"We'll find more," Micah said.

He studied us all. "You would spare me and my master, because he and I love each other. You would spare us for love," he said.

I looked at Jean-Claude and my other men out of habit more than need. "What else is there?" I asked.

He smiled up at us. It was almost a beatific smile, his face shining with love close to adoration. I didn't think it was from looking at us. I thought he was more thinking of his master, his love. "That is the answer we hoped for."

"So you gambled centuries of happiness, your free will, and your very existence, on love?" I said.

He shrugged with his arms still bound behind his back, and the guards still heavy on his shoulders. "As you said, is there really anything else worth gambling everything for?"

What could I say but, "No, there isn't." And standing there holding everyone's hands, feeling the hum of the energy we'd raised between us, I believed that.

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