“Get the fuck off me!” But anger wasn’t the right thing, either, because my beasts all reacted to anger. I had a moment of those other shadow beasts moving in the dark of me, but the lioness shoved them back. I watched her pull her lips away from those sharp teeth and draw the air into her mouth, scenting over her Jacobson’s Organ, so she could literally taste his power on the air.
He had his arms pinning mine, but only above the elbows, so that I could draw one of the knives and start to turn it into his arm. I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting him off me. Another hand grabbed mine, knife and all, and more power flared from that hand, too, so that the three of us were suddenly bathed in the power as if we’d all three fallen into a warm bath all at once. Our heads were below the water and we were drowning in the power. My necromancy folded away. It was just gone. It had given me a little more control of the lion in me; now I was bare to the power, to the pull of them.
I heard Jacob say, “Jesus,” and then his power smashed into all of it and it was like a fist smashing a house of cards. It scattered the power, stripped the energy, and shut down both of them. He tried to shut down my beast, but he couldn’t. She snarled at him inside my head, and the sound trickled out my mouth.
He pulled both my blades from their sheaths and threw them on the ground, so he could tear Nicky away from me. Nicky went into a crouch, hands at his sides. He had both my guns in his hands, but he threw them to the ground in the bushes beside the knives so they faced each other bare-handed.
I thought about going for a weapon, but they’d missed the big knife that sat under my hair and down my spine; if they didn’t touch me again I wouldn’t be unarmed. And I was still too busy trying to control the animal in me to mess with their fight. The lioness’s emotions/thoughts were loud in my head. She thought they were strong, and liked it, and wanted to make them fight over us and save our family. I tried to explain to the beast that we needed them alive until they called the sniper, but it was too complex for my lion. I leaned against the truck and concentrated on controlling my breathing, quieting my pulse, and having her hunker back down into the grass. It wasn’t time to make our rush; we’d miss our prey. It was too soon; save your energy for the last big run. That she understood. Conservation of energy is a very real concept for a predator. We needed to wait for our timing to be just right.
“We are not going to fight over her, Nicky. Remember who you are. Remember what you are.”
Nicky blinked the one eye that wasn’t hidden in his skater-cut bangs; it had gone to lion amber. He growled at his friend.
“Nicky, we’re on a job.”
Nicky closed his eyes, fists at his side. He hugged himself tight. “Your eyes have changed, Jacob. Your fucking eyes shifted.”
The words made me look at the other man’s face and see him blinking pale yellow eyes. His own eyes had been a pale enough gray that it hadn’t been as obvious as Nicky’s eyes going from blue to amber. They both almost shifted. Lycanthropes as powerful as they were didn’t lose control in a public parking lot; they just didn’t.
Jacob turned those lion eyes toward me, his human face holding them like they belonged, or maybe I’d just spent too much time looking at Micah’s leopard eyes to think it was weird. “You’re in heat.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“Yeah, you do,” he said, voice getting quieter, more controlled. He bent to pick up the guns and said, “Take off the arm sheaths so we can put the blades in them. If you do what the client wants, you get it all back at the end of the night.”
I honestly didn’t know what it meant for a werelion to be in heat, but I didn’t debate with him, just started unbuckling the wrist sheaths. “Call your sniper off. It’s not my fault that we’ve been delayed.”
He nodded, shoving one of the guns into his waistband and handing the other to Nicky, who took it and tucked it out of sight under the baggy tank top. Jacob got his cell phone out and called. “Stand down for now. She’s cooperating.” Silence. “Yes, keep on him, but just observe.” He looked at me; his eyes had gone back to human gray. “I know you don’t have complete control when you’re in heat, but if you do that again in an enclosed space like a car, we won’t make our deadlines. That means that the next call that I need to make to the snipers on your men might not get made in time. Do you understand that?”
“You’re saying that you both might forget your job and we’d just fuck our way through the deadlines while my boyfriends died.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying, so it’s in everyone’s best interest if you keep a lid on it.”
“I will do my best,” I said, and meant it. I handed him one of the knife sheaths. We were both careful not to touch bare skin to bare skin as he took it from me.
“Look at me,” Nicky said.
“Don’t push at this,” Jacob said.
“Lions are weird about weaknesses; I just want her to see. Maybe if her beast knows, she won’t want me anymore and the power won’t turn into a fight between us.”
Jacob nodded. “Good idea.”
“What’s a good idea?” I asked.
Nicky lifted that long fall of blond bangs away from the right side of his face. His right eye was missing. Burn scars traced over the empty socket, caressed the edge of his cheek, and covered where his right eyebrow should have been. I looked because he seemed to want me to. I didn’t look away because I was sharing my bed with a vampire that made Nicky’s scar look like child’s play, though the whole eye destroyed was worse. Asher had all the parts he was supposed to have; just some of them were nestled in burn scars.
Nicky blinked the one big blue eye at me, then let the hair fall back into place, and just like that it was hidden. “Most women, especially women, look disgusted or scared. You don’t look either.”
I shrugged. “If you know everyone in my bed then you know scars aren’t a deal breaker for me.”
“You mean the vampire with the holy water scars,” he said.
I nodded.
He seemed to think about that for a few seconds, then nodded. “Guess you’ve seen worse.”
“It’s not about worse, Nicky; it’s about the fact that the scar is just another part of you. Not bad, not good, just you.” I held my left arm out so the flat of the arm showed. I pointed to the mound of scar tissue at the bend. “Vampire.” I touched the claw marks next. “Shapeshifted witch.” I traced the knife wound that made the cross-shaped burn scar a little crooked now. “Knife and burn were both human servants of different master vampires.” I touched the flat, slick scar on the upper part of the arm. “Bad guy’s girlfriend shot me.” If I hadn’t been afraid I’d flash the knife sheath under my tank top, I’d have showed him my collarbone scar. “I’ve got a few others, but we’d have to be better friends for me to show you those.”
He studied my face. “Most werelion females don’t want a one-eyed mate.”
“It’s an old scar,” I said. “I’m assuming you’ve compensated by now.”
He nodded. “But I’ve got a blind side in both forms; it’s a problem in a fight.”
“I fight my own battles most of the time.”
He grinned. “Which is why you don’t have a mate yet, and why your lioness is in heat. If you’d picked a mate, it wouldn’t have happened.”
I would talk to our local lions about leaving that part out, but in their defense I wouldn’t have believed them. I’d have just thought it was Haven trying to get back in my pants after the fight we had. No, I couldn’t blame this on them.
“It’s not just heat,” Jacob said, “it’s fucking powerful heat. No female has ever made me lose it like that.”