Read Anita Blake 14 - Danse macabre for Free Online

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    I watched Graham think about it. Think about not moving. He was already dressed in what all the security would be wearing tonight; black slacks, black T-shirt, though the shirt should probably have been a size larger. The one he was wearing looked like it was having trouble holding on, as if one flex too many and it would shred. Micah looked fragile beside him.
    Micah let down some of his careful control. He let just a whisper of the power that lived inside him breathe through the night. My skin shivered with it. His voice came lower, deeper, an edge of growl to it. "We are Nimir-Raj and Nimir-Ra and you are not. Move."
    "I am wolf and not leopard; you have no authority over me." He actually tensed, as if he were bracing for the fight.
    I'd had enough. "But I have authority over you, Graham," I said.
    His eyes did not move from Micah, as if I weren't a threat. There were so many reasons Graham had not made the leap from bodyguard to breakfast snack for me.
    His ignoring me pissed me off, and the first thread of anger brought my own version of the beast. That warm, prickling thread of power breathed over my skin and danced around the men around me. I was not a true shapeshifter, because I couldn't shift, but I carried four different strains of lycanthropy in my bloodstream. If you catch one type of lycanthropy, it protects you from any other strain. You can't carry more than one disease at a time, but I did. A medical impossibility, but blood tests don't lie. I carried wolf, leopard, lion, and one mystery strain that the doctors couldn't identify running through my veins. That, and some metaphysical impossibilities, meant I had power to call. Power to use, up to a point.
    Nathaniel rubbed his arms and said, "Easy, Anita."
    He was right. Because I couldn't shift, it was possible to call the beast, but impossible to finish the call, so it was like having a seizure. Not pleasant, and I'd ruin the dress. But I was tired of Graham. Tired of him in so many ways. The energy had made him look at me, and for the first time I saw him remember that I was something besides a piece of ass he wanted, and hadn't had, yet.
    "I am the lupa of your pack, Graham, until Richard picks another mate." I stepped up, and Micah moved back so I could do it. I kept moving, pushing my power into that tall, muscular body, so that it was Graham who moved out of my way. "But I will always be Bolverk of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, Graham. I will always be the doer of evil deeds for your Ulfric, your wolf king. I am the executioner of bad little werewolves who don't remember their place. I think you've forgotten that."
    I'd backed him up among the boxes in the storeroom. His head actually hit the lone light that hung from the ceiling. The light swung and filled the room with shadows, and darkness.
    I could feel that part of me that had begun life as Richard's beast, but now, somehow, was mine, pacing just below the surface of my mind. It was as if my body were a cage in the zoo, and my beast paced the narrow confines of its prison. Paced, and did not like it. Trapped, so trapped, and so wanting to break free.
    I staggered. Micah and Nathaniel caught me before Graham could reach me. Micah growled, "Don't touch her!"
    Nathaniel said, "She's called wolf; if another wolf touches her right now, it will make it harder to control."
    I clung to them, my two cats. I put my face against the warmth of Micah's neck, and drew in a deep breath of his scent. But underneath the warm scent of him, the sweetness of his cologne, was the nose-wrinkling musk of leopard. It helped chase back the wolf, helped me fight free before things got out of hand.
    Graham dropped to his knees, head bowed. "Forgive me, lupa, I forgot myself."
    "Size doesn't make you dominant, Graham, power does. You are submissive to me in our pack. You are always submissive to Micah, because he is the leader of another people that has a treaty with the wolves. You will treat him accordingly or it will not