I didn't even look at him, as if I didn't know what he was talking about, but I didn't like how alert both lions were to my actions. It was going to limit my chances.
"Did your man acquire what we need for tonight?" Bennington asked, looking at Jacob.
"Silas will."
"I'm paying you a great deal of money, Mr. Leon."
I decided to go for smart-ass; when in doubt, it's always a possibility. " Leon," I said, "that is so not your real last name."
He gave me an unfriendly look out of his pale eyes.
I smiled at him, able to do it because I'd calmed myself with images of violence. It had emptied my mind enough to scout the room, and to think. It's not a technique that they teach you in business school, but it works for me.
"It's my name today."
"What's wrong with Leon as his name?" Bennington asked.
"It's based on the Latin word leo, which means 'lion.' Don't you think that's funny? Because I think it's freaking hilarious."
"I think I liked it better when you weren't talking," Jacob said.
"They come highly recommended, Ms. Blake."
"You've had them watching me and my boyfriends for a few days, before you came to my office. You hired them before I turned you down." The anger tried to flare back up, and I had to slow my breathing a little, concentrate on my pulse. I pictured him dead again, but the anger wanted him dead sooner, and that was the beast talking. Kill it now, eat it now, why wait? Animals are very into instant gratification.
"I told you, Ms. Blake, I'd researched you. Everything I had learned about you said that you would turn me down, so I had a contingency in place."
"A contingency. Is that what they're calling kidnapping and murder for hire these days?"
He flinched a little around his eyes, as if it were all too blunt for his sensibilities. "I'm truly hoping it doesn't come to that, Ms. Blake. If you raise my wife for me, then no harm comes to the men you love. You go back to your life and I go back to mine."
I looked at Jacob. "He may be an amateur, but you aren't. How are you going to make it safe for us all to go back to our lives?"
"Why don't we all sit down," he said.
Bennington stammered, "Of course, of course, how rude of me, I mean..." He trailed off as if he'd just heard himself, or didn't know how to finish the sentence.
"Always hard to know how polite to be to your victims, isn't it, Tony?"
"Sit down, Anita," Jacob said, and his tone implied that if I didn't sit down, he'd help me do it.
"She's tensed up again. She wants to fight. We can't afford to posture, Jacob," Nicky said.
It was Jacob's turn to count to ten.
"Am I missing something?" Bennington said.
"Loads," I said, smiling sweetly.
"Let's all sit down and discuss how we're going to live through this," Jacob said in a voice that was reasonable, even pleasant. I wondered what visual he used to gain control. Had he pictured injuring me, killing me?
But we all sat down in the huge great room that most modern houses have for living rooms. I don't like them, they're too open. They are absolutely indefensible and seemed designed to make a burglar's job easier. This room was particularly so, with the large stairway sweeping up one side with an open-railed hallway that cut across the entire length of the huge space. With all the talk of snipers it made me particularly not happy with the floor plan. I knew no one was up there, but it was just not a comfortable room when you knew that people really were out to get you. Of course, the people out to get me were sitting down on the white leather furniture looking at me. There was the mysterious Silas and his errand that he hadn't finished, but right now there were enough enemies in front of me; I didn't have to borrow.
"We're just going to wait here until Silas phones, and then we'll pack up and head for the cemetery," Jacob said.
Bennington added, "I had her reburied because I found that most animators needed a grave rather than a mausoleum."
"Very thoughtful," I said, and didn't try to keep the anger out of my voice.
"I am being reasonable, Ms. Blake. I could have had them kill your first boyfriend, Callahan, as an incentive for cooperation. You, unlike me, have spares."
"They're people, not extra tires in case of emergency." The anger rose another notch, and I had to control my breathing again, count again. The lioness was getting impatient in the long grass. We could kill him before they could stop us. She was probably right, and if we killed him then the money went away. That was an interesting idea.
"You've thought of something, Anita. I can see it in the set of your shoulders, the way you went still. Whatever it is, don't do it," Jacob said.
The trouble with wereanimals that were also professional bad guys was that it's very hard to surprise them. The only way to do it was to take action before you really think about it, the way you do in martial arts. You see your opening and you react, because you've already made your decision to hurt them before the fight starts. If I killed Bennington, would they be professional and just stop all this, or would they kill at least one of my lovers as an object lesson? Until I had an answer to that question, did I dare kill Bennington if the chance came?
Jacob sat down on the couch beside me, arm on the back of it, like we were a couple. I leaned just out of touching of the arm. He could think I was being unfriendly, but I didn't want him to feel the knife hilt under my shirt. Thanks to the lions being overly friendly I had one weapon left; I didn't want to lose it.
He leaned in and spoke low. "Whatever you are thinking, it won't work. We have a sniper on all three of them. They'll call in as each man goes outside for the first time today. They'll follow them and if we don't call in periodically, they'll kill them."
"I understand that," I said, but part of me filed away the fact that he'd said we. Jacob didn't have to be the one to make the phone calls to the shooters. Nicky could do it. I only needed one of them alive and on my side. I tried to breathe past the anger and that edge of fear that wanted to scream through me. I had to think, which meant neither anger nor fear was my friend. Fear will keep you alive, and anger will help you in a fight sometimes, but when it came to planning action you needed no emotions. Be empty, be still, and think.
"I am sorry, Ms. Blake, to force you, but I want the woman I love back, you understand that."
"I'll do my best, but it will still only be a zombie. No matter how lifelike she looks when you first see her, it can't last, Mr. Bennington."
"I've been told that there is one set of circumstances where the recently dead can be raised as a zombie but stay intact."
"If so, it's news to me." I was leaning forward a little, trying not to let Jacob touch me. For some reason that made him move closer to me so that our hips touched on the couch. Great, it was like one of those dates where the guy doesn't respect your personal space.
"Mr. Bennington," Jacob said, "I wouldn't overshare with Anita. She's cooperating, and once Silas does his part we'll head to the gravesite. We don't need to talk about the details."
Then Bennington gave me a look. It was hostile. "You know, I 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 face, and the look in his eyes was uncertain, as if he were listening to things I couldn't hear. His lion was talking to him, too. Would it help me to force them to change?
Jacob said, "Get out, Bennington, get out until we call you. She's not safe."
The lioness screamed again, and the sound came out of my throat. It hurt, as if the sound needed a bigger throat, a different mouth, and it rubbed raw things that should never have held the sound.
Jacob had a look on his face, a lost look. "Maybe you can bring our beasts, but if you do we'll fall on each other and either fight over you, or both fuck you. Either way we might not hear the other phone calls. We might miss calling off our shooters on your other men. They might kill them not because we want them to, but because we missed the call."
Nicky breathed against my hair, "Put your beast in the deep freeze, Anita, please." He was holding me tight enough that I knew his body was happy to be pressed against mine. He meant the please.
My skin felt so hot, but it didn't feel bad like a fever; it felt wonderful. Part of me wondered what it might be like to finally give in and shift, but not today. I couldn't afford to think that today.
Jacob's phone started ringing as if on cue. He looked at me. "I have to get this, and you have to regain your control." He kept his grip on my face, but used his other hand to get his phone out of his pocket.
He watched my face like he'd memorize it, but spoke: "Stand down, just follow and observe." He started to put the phone away, but it rang again. "Yeah, no, just observe, just follow. Stand down until further orders."
I realized that was three calls. All of them were safe unless Jacob called back and told them to shoot them. Him dead or unable to phone would fix that.
"Chill," Nicky said, "chill, damn it." His words made sense, but he was starting to nuzzle my hair. The lioness had slowed and was sniffing the air. I ground my hips into Nicky just a little bit. He made a soft wordless sound.
"Shit," Jacob said. He moved his free hand along my neck until he found the hilt of the big knife under my hair and jacket. He got a handful of my hair, moving it out of the way as he drew the knife out. Nicky moved back enough for him to do it. The size of the blade put more of a damper on their amour than anything I could have done.
Jacob held it up to the light. It gleamed, and the edge was as sharp as it looked. "This is as big as her forearm; how the fuck did you miss it?"
Nicky blinked up at the blade. "I was searching her when the lioness did its thing. My bad."
Jacob sighed, and lowered the blade. I couldn't read the look on his face. It was partly sad and partly something else. "It's okay, Nicky. You've never been around a Regina when she's in heat. A pride can tear itself apart before she picks a mate."
The lioness rolled onto her back, rolling on the ground like any cat. It made me writhe against Nicky, and he didn't exactly fight the sensation. I was going to lose control, and sex would be the least of what we might do. I tried to think.
"My first pride died that way, because the Regina wanted the strongest Rex, so she waited for the winner. I promised myself I would keep my men away from shit like that."
Nicky changed his grip, letting me have my arms, picking me up around the waist, lifting me off the ground. My hands went to his arm, holding on, but not fighting. I was out of weapons. What would help me? What would help me stop them? I mean, I was good at sex, or so the men in my life told me, but good enough to make them turn down a shitload of money and betray their other men? I wasn't that good. No one was that good. If sex wouldn't help me, I had to stop what was happening. Chill, he had said. I tried to call my necromancy, like I had in the restaurant, but the lion was too loud in my head. I could smell lion. I think it was Nicky, but it was as if the world were drowning in the thick musk of it. I couldn't breathe past it. I didn't want cold blood, I wanted hot.
Nicky collapsed onto the leather couch with me under him. The height difference meant that he wasn't lined up for anything, but his hands slipped under my skirt, and I struggled out from under him, spilling myself to the carpet. Nicky stayed on the couch, staring at me with one wide eye, his breathing labored.
I crawled backward away from him, and he let me, but I'd forgotten about the other lion. It was too careless for words, but I wasn't thinking clearly. The lioness was eating what made me me. I understood in that moment that I didn't have to shift to lose myself. I crawled into Jacob's legs and started forward, but he reached down, grabbed my arms, and pulled me to my feet. I was suddenly staring into his face from inches away as he bent that tall body down to me. He said, "Oh, God." It was more a cry for help than a sound of passion.
I felt his other arm move and went to block it without thinking. My hand traced down his arm to find my knife. "Is this really what you want to stick in me, Jacob?"
He swallowed so hard it sounded painful. "Don't do this."
"You first," I whispered.
"What?"
"Call off your cats, don't earn the second half of Bennington 's money."
He shook his head. "You aren't my queen yet."
Nicky came behind me, hands sliding over my back. Jacob growled at him, but the younger man said, "We don't have to fight. She shares just fine." He ground himself into me from behind, shoving me against Jacob. I was suddenly held between both of them, and they were both hard and ready. I couldn't help but react to it, writhing between the two of them. It was Jacob who pulled me back from the other man, and said, "I'm Rex of this pride. I don't share."
"That's what destroyed your first pride," Nicky said. "Didn't you learn anything from that?"
"I learned that if you are king, then be king." He kissed me, hard and fierce, so that I had to open my mouth, let him inside, or he'd have cut my lips on my teeth. He was all hands and mouth and need. My lioness didn't like him. She snarled inside my head. He didn't share; the pride was all about sharing. My life was all about sharing. The group mattered more than anything else. The group had to survive.
I pushed him back enough to break the kiss. I snarled into his face. "I rule myself! I don't need another king."
Something crashed into him, and I had a breath to realize it was Nicky, and then they were rolling on the ground fighting for real. I didn't stay to watch. Jacob had dropped my big blade. I picked it up and ran for the door that Bennington had gone through. If he died, the job died with him. That worked for me.
A lion roared behind me, and I didn't look back to see who it was, but I used the speed that my beasts had given me and ran. I had the speed but not all the senses, so I had a second before the door opened and I was staring at a tall, dark-haired man. He smelled like lion. The blade struck out in a blur of silver. Action was so far ahead of thought that I had sliced him from ribs to belt, and was starting to bring the knife back for a second blow, as his fist struck out at me. I was able to move back a little, but the speed was too much, and I was too committed to moving forward. His fist blurred out and hit me in the face. It was like being hit by a baseball bat: pressure, momentum, no pain, just a stop. The inside of my head just stopped like my brain had run into a wall. There wasn't even time to think, Oh, he hit me. It was just the blow and I was down. The lights went out and so did I.
The first sensation I had was of bare dirt under my hands. The ground was cool against the backs of my thighs through the hose. I could feel walls around me, that enclosed feeling, but there was a thread of wind as if there were a window open somewhere. The wind smelled of trees and grass. The dirt smelled fresh and cool. A few night insects called, sluggish in the unusually cool summer temperatures. I drew in a bigger breath, and smelled soap and af tershave, and under that the nose-tickling scent of lion. That made me open my eyes to the sloping roof of a shed. The window above me was partially broken, and there were plenty of gaps between the boards on the walls, so the wind eased through at will. I heard the wind in tall trees high above us. It was blowing harder higher up. I'd expected whatever werelion was guarding me to say something, but I had to turn my head slowly to find Nicky sitting beside me in the dark. He had his knees drawn up to his chest, hugging them, his cheek resting on them so his good eye could see me. The moon was bright enough through the broken windows to let me see him clearly. The brightness of it reminded me that it was only two days until full moon. That might have been one reason they had so much trouble with my beast. The closer to full moon, the harder it was to control your beast.
Nicky gave a small smile. "Good, you're not dead."
"Was I supposed to be?" I asked.
"When Silas hit you and you dropped like that"-he shrugged-"it was a thought."
"I didn't even have time to worry about it. He was so fast."
"You managed to move a little out of the way or he'd have snapped your neck."