“That’s not fair,” he said, and motioned at me, as if he meant to point, but the moment he did fresh blood spilled out of his mouth, and he began to gasp, as if he couldn’t breathe.

“Your lung just collapsed,” Nicky said.

“Shapeshift,” I said.

Domino collapsed slowly to his side, his breathing so harsh it hurt to hear it. His skin was already darkening around the edges as he fought to breathe.

“Why doesn’t he change?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“He’ll pass out and then he’ll change, right?”

He shook his head. “No, if he passes out he could die.”

“What?”

“Vampires don’t need to breathe; we do.”

“Fuck!” I touched his face and the moment skin touched skin I couldn’t breathe. My chest was on fire, and there was one sharp point that just fucking hurt. I was on the ground still touching him; our eyes locked. I stared into those orange and yellow eyes and thought, We’re dying.

38

NICKY JERKED MY hand off Domino, and I could breathe again. It still hurt, but it was distant, dull, aching, as if my chest were sore from a days-old beating. Nicky pulled me into his lap and I lay there watching Domino writhe, gasping for air. He reached out to me, and Nicky grabbed my hand, kept me from touching again.

“Change form, Domino,” Nicky said.

Jean-Claude’s voice was loud in my head as he said, “Ma petite, what is happening?”

I didn’t bother talking, just let him “see” what I was seeing. “Shield from him, Anita.” He almost never used my real name. “Shield, or he will drag you down with him. I will shield as many of the others as I can.”

And he was gone, doing what he’d urged me to do, shielding hard and complete like the walls of a castle newly made, perfect and unassailable. My shields hadn’t had six hundred years of practice, and they weren’t as perfect as his; I could still feel Domino through my shields, and it was hard to ignore him while he was right in front of me dying. I could feel Nathaniel and Damian the strongest, because they were the first animal to call I’d ever found and my vampire servant. Damian was supposed to be to me what I was to Jean-Claude. I felt the others I was tied to, but Jean-Claude had done his best to shield them from me. I felt them all offering their energy down the leash that held them to me, but there was other power even closer. I looked up at Nicky while he held me. I’d accidentally drained him to death once, and I wasn’t joking about the “death” part. The doctor had to restart his heart twice, and no one had been nearly this badly hurt. If he’d been my lion to call I would have been able to feel him giving up his energy, but he was my Bride, which meant the energy flow was one way, and much more subtle. I had to fight through the aches, the fear, worries, all of it, to find a quiet place in my head where I could feel the flow from him to me.

It was there flowing from his skin to mine. I pushed myself out of his lap to fall on the grass and crawl away from his reaching hands. “NO!”

I lay there between the two men, one trying to drain my life away and the other willing to give his. I turned on my side and told Domino, “Change, damn you!”

He stared at me, eyes wide, face starting to change colors the way you do when you’re choking. I knew it hurt as much to breathe as it sounded, as he lay on the ground and gasped his life away.

I knew how to call someone’s beast. Richard had taught me, and as if thinking about him was enough I smelled forest, thick with evergreens that didn’t grow anywhere near this cemetery. I heard Richard whisper in my head, “Anita.”

“Help me bring his beast.” I said my part out loud, because it was too hard to think inside my head, in that moment. I expected him to argue with me, because we always argued, but he didn’t. I don’t know if Jean-Claude had contacted him, or if he saw what was happening, but he just reached down that long metaphysical line and poured the warmth of his energy into me. I smelled the musk of wolf, and saw him, the morning sunlight shining through his shoulder-length brown waves with lines of gold and red, all framing that permanently tanned face with its almost heartbreakingly handsome lines. The moment I met his brown eyes they changed to wolf amber and the rush of energy danced along my skin in a warm surge of power. I rolled over and pressed my hand to Domino’s shoulder. This time he didn’t drag me down into his pain; I shoved power into him, and didn’t care that it wasn’t gentle, we were out of time for gentle. I slammed it into him the way you’d hit someone’s heart with electricity and adrenaline to restart it.

Domino’s body reacted as if I’d hit him with real electricity, spine bowing, limbs straining, blood pouring out of his mouth as the ribs ripped through more of his lungs, and then his pale skin rippled like silk over water one moment, and then the next his body exploded in a wave of hot liquid that poured over me, so that I was blind until I used my other hand to wipe my eyes.

A white tiger lay on its side, black stripes crisp and clean in the light, like it had been newly made right this moment. It lay dry and somehow unreal in the middle of the wet grass. It was a white tiger twice the size of a natural one, which made it the size of a horse. I didn’t see my lovers in their pure animal form much; sometimes I forgot just how massive they were in this form.

I felt that warm pulse of energy again, and the scent of wolf and evergreen was strong. Richard thought at me, “Is Domino okay?”

I looked at that huge, furred side and waited for it to breathe. I didn’t realize that I was holding my own breath waiting for it until the tiger breathed, and I let my own out, and had to take another quick breath to sort of catch up.

Nicky took its pulse inside the leg, near the armpit, the way you do on dogs. He nodded. “He’s unconscious, but pulse is good.”

“Thank you, Richard, thank you so much.”

“I’m glad I could help. Domino is a nice guy. I’ll look forward to hearing how he got hurt tonight after the meeting.”

“What meeting?”

“Rafael and Micah called a meeting of the local leaders. I’ll be over after my last class.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Busy day,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got to run, hitting the gym before my first class.”

“Thank you again, Richard.”

He smiled and it was a good smile, if not quite the one that used to melt me into my socks and out of my clothes. “You’d have figured it out.”

“But maybe not in time.”

“This is part of what the triumvirate is supposed to be for, Anita. I’m sorry that I didn’t understand that for so long.”

I heard someone say, “Oh my God, it’s beautiful.”

“Company,” I said, “gotta go.”

“Tonight,” he said.

“Tonight,” I said, and cut the connection at the same time he did, so it was almost disorienting. It felt odd to be on the grass, covered in wereanimal goop again, and not standing in Richard’s driveway—though I was left wondering about tonight, and exactly what he might expect. We hadn’t seen each other much lately. Which probably meant he was dating someone seriously, and I had plenty to keep me busy.