He drove forward, but said, “If I don’t promise, you’ll go in without me.”
“Yep.”
“Damn it,” he said, softly.
“Yep,” I said.
“I promise,” he said.
I smiled at him. “I knew you would.”
“Don’t push it,” he said, and he sounded genuinely angry. But he’d work through it, and once he promised, he’d keep his word. The red clan was safe from Edward, and I was safe because he was keeping me that way. Now, if I could just get through the interview with my would-be mother-in-law, the day would be perfect.
12
THERE WERE TWO guards at the door; they introduced themselves as Donny and Ethan. Donny was tall and perfectly bald, and he had eyes the color of orange fire. The red clan had the most trouble passing for human because of the eyes. They had tiger eyes that looked like tiger eyes, not just odd-colored human eyes. In public they wore sunglasses or colored contacts. The irony was that though all the clans disdained the survivors of attacks, the survivors looked more human in human form than the “pureblood” tigers. In fact, it was a mark of the purity of their bloodline that they had tiger eyes and hair the same color as their tiger form, even as babies.
For eyes that dark you usually needed brown contacts to hide the color, but the bodyguard standing next to Donny had soft gray eyes, the color of kitten fur. His hair was a blond so pale it was almost white, and it had what looked like gray highlights in it, though saying soft gray could be highlights sounded wrong. There was one streak of dark, deep red, from his forehead to the back of his skull. His hair was short, but had enough wave to it that he was forced to style it on top, so that it looked like he was ready for a night out on the club with his choppy waved hair and his excellent dye job. He wasn’t as tall as Donny’s six-foot frame, and he didn’t have the shoulder spread either. He looked almost delicate beside Donny, but it was Ethan who had a shoulder holster with a Glock in it, extra ammo on the other side of the holster from the gun, and the muscle tone in his lower arms that comes from a little bit of weights, but mostly some kind of athletic something. Just from the way he held himself, I was betting martial arts of some kind.
Edward touched my arm. It startled me. I’d been staring at Ethan. That made me realize that I really needed to see Alex sooner rather than later. A vampire with an animal to call is often attracted to that type of animal. Jean-Claude found it very peaceful to pet wolves, and that was his animal to call. I realized it wasn’t just the sex from home I’d missed; I was missing the touch and interaction of the shapeshifters I was drawn to, like tigers. The fact that I thought Ethan was cuter than Donny went against the way most dominant weretigresses pick mates. They tended to like the ones with the tiger eyes, but there was something . . . interesting about Ethan, or maybe I was just that hungry.
I took a deep breath, and that didn’t help because they both smelled like tiger. But Donny smelled like red tiger, and Ethan smelled like more. It made me move toward him, sniff the air near him, try to clear my nose of Donny’s closer, warmer scent.
“Anita,” Edward said, his voice sharp, “you need to find Mr. Pinn.”
I nodded and forced myself to step back from Ethan. “You’re right, absolutely right.” I spoke without looking at either of the weretigers. “Take me to Alex.”
“We can’t take you before our queen armed like that.” It actually made me look at what we were wearing. Since neither of us was on an active warrant, the U.S. Marshals Windbreakers hid most of our dangerous toys. I only had my Browning BDM, my Smith & Wesson M&P9c, extra ammo, two wrist sheaths with blades, and the big knife down my spine. The shoulder holster was specially made so the spine sheath attached to it, the handle hidden under my hair as long as I wore a jacket. If I wasn’t wearing the big knife I’d started carrying the Browning at the small of my back where the M&P was now. Edward had two handguns and some blades, too.
“We don’t have any submachine guns on us; we’re packing light,” I said.
Donny studied my face, and then he blinked first. He also frowned. “You’re being honest.”
“I try,” I said.
“But the point remains, you cannot go before Queen Cho Chun armed.”
“Great,” I said, “I don’t want to see her anyway. All I want right now is Alex.”
“Prince Li Da,” Donny said.
“Fine, all I want right now is Li Da.”
“Prince Li Da,” Donny said.
I shook my head. “Nope, I am Mistress of Tigers, so he’s not my prince. He’s Alex, or he’s Li Da, but he’s not Prince anything to me.”
“That is arrogant,” Donny said.
“No, it’s not, it’s just true, and I don’t technically have to stand here and dick around with you or Ethan here. I can just lay down the law and say, ‘Bring him to me.’”
“Queen Cho Chun would have the skin off my back if I let you get away with such insolence.”
I glanced at Ethan to see if Donny was exaggerating. Something in those soft, gray kitten eyes let me know that Donny was speaking the truth. Interesting; it didn’t work that way in Vegas with the white tigers.
I turned back to Donny. “She’d flay your back for just following my orders?”
“She is queen. We wait at her pleasure.”
I shook my head. I was back to staring at Ethan. I was oddly fascinated with the shape of his mouth. His upper lip was so deeply imprinted that it was almost like a dimple above the lips instead of under them.
“Anita,” Edward said. He moved in front of Ethan, blocking my view of the man. “You need to feed.”
I nodded. “You are absolutely right.” I turned back to Donny. “Either Alex comes to me now, or I do what I said I’d do on the phone: I call him to me. You and Ethan are right here beside me and trust me, with vampire powers, proximity counts. I don’t like you that well, Donny, nothing personal, but I like Ethan. My tiger likes him. If I call Alex, chances are he’ll never get here before I’ve fed on Ethan, and maybe you. Is that really what your queen wanted, or did she just want you to put me in my place?”
“It is not my place to speak for our queen. She knows what she intended; I do not.”
“I’m going to count to ten and then I’m going to call Alex, but I’m not lying about the possible effect on you and Ethan here.”
Donny said, “Ethan?”
“She smells of the truth,” he said. I couldn’t see much more than a shoulder around the edge of Edward’s body. I fought the urge to move so I could see more of him. It wasn’t good that I was this fascinated with a stranger. God, didn’t I have enough lovers in my life?
That Donny couldn’t be certain if I smelled or felt like I was telling the truth meant he wasn’t a very powerful weretiger. It also meant that he’d been guessing when he said I was telling the truth about our weapons. But now that it was important, he was willing to swallow his pride and let the more powerful weretiger answer the question. That was interesting.
“I will go and ask our queen what she wishes me to do.”
“Can’t you just call her?” I asked.
“Some questions must be asked in person.” He gave a small half-bow to me. I wondered if he even realized he’d done it. He strode off down the corridor.
I called after him. “Are you leaving Ethan here?”
“He is a guard; he will do his duty.”
“Even knowing that if you don’t get back in time I’ll feed on him, you’ll still leave him here?” I said.
“He is a good guard, but he is not pure.”
“What does the fact that he’s mixed tiger heritage have to do with anything?” I asked.
Ethan answered, “He means I’m not worth protecting.”
Edward turned so that we could both look at the other man. “Not worth protecting from what?” I asked.
Ethan shrugged. “Much of anything, but in this case, you. You stole away the loyalty of some of the few remaining pure red tigers when they visited you in St. Louis; that’s why I’m guarding you, because if you bewitch me it won’t damage the clan. It won’t cost them more pure-blooded red babies.” He said it with only the slightest edge of bitterness in his voice.