Free Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

small hands running up and down the strap of her bag. “What are you doing here?”
    “You know why I’m here, Heidi,” he said. “Where’s Stephen?”
    “They aren’t going to hurt him,” she said. “I mean, his brother’s here. His own brother wouldn’t let him get hurt, would he?”
    “Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself, not us,” I said.
    Her eyes flicked to me. “You must be Anita Blake.” She glanced behind at the watchers at her back. “Please, Richard, just go.” The aura of energy around her was vibrating harder, almost a visible shimmer in the air. It prickled along my skin like ants.
    Richard reached out towards her.
    Heidi flinched but stood her ground.
    Richard smoothed his hand just above her face, not quite touching her skin. As he moved his hand, the energy around her quieted, like water calming. “It’s all right, Heidi. I know the situation Marcus has put you in. You want to join anotherpack, but he has to give permission. To get his permission, you do what he says, or you’re trapped. Whatever happens, I won’t hold it against you.”
    The anxiety seeped away. Her otherworldly energy quieted until it was barely there at all. She might have passed for human.
    “Very impressive.” A man stepped forward. He was at least six foot four, maybe an inch taller, his head bald as an egg, only his eyebrows showing dark above pale eyes. His black T-shirt strained over the muscles in his arms and chest, as if the shirt was the skin of an insect about to split and let loose the monster. Energy boiled off him like summer heat. He moved with the confident strut of a bully, and the power crawling over my skin said he might be able to back it up.
    “He’s new,” I said.
    “This is Sebastian,” Richard said. “He joined us after Alfred died.”
    “He’s Marcus’s new enforcer,” Heidi whispered. She stepped back, halfway between the two men, her back to the curtain we’d entered through.
    “I challenge you, Richard. I want to be Freki.”
    Just like that, the trap was sprung.
    “We are both alpha, Sebastian. We don’t have to do anything to prove that.”
    “I want to be Freki, and I need to beat you to do it.”
    “I’m Fenrir now, Sebastian. You can be Marcus’s Freki without fighting me.”
    “Marcus says no, says I have to go through you.”
    Richard took a step forward.
    “Don’t fight him,” I said.
    “I have to answer challenge.”
    I stared at Sebastian. Richard is not a small man, but he looked small beside Sebastian. Richard wouldn’t back down to save himself. But for someone else . . . “And if you get killed, where does that leave me?” I asked.
    He looked at me then, really looked at me. He turned back to Sebastian. “I want safe passage for Anita.”
    Sebastian grinned and shook his head. “She’s dominant. No safe passage. She takes her chances like the rest of us.”
    “She can’t accept challenge, she’s human.”
    “When you’re dead, we’ll make her one of us,” Sebastian said.
    “Raina has forbidden us to make Anita lukoi,” Heidi said.
    The glare that Sebastian gave her made her cringe against the curtain door. Her eyes were round with fear.
    “Is that true?” Richard asked.
    “It’s true,” Sebastian growled. “We can kill her, but we can’t make her pack.” He grinned, a brief flash of teeth. “So we’ll just kill her.”
    I drew the Firestar, using Richard’s body to shield the movement from the lycanthropes. We were in trouble. Even with the Uzi, I couldn’t kill them all. If Richard would kill Sebastian, we might salvage the situation, but he’d try not to kill him. The other shapeshifters watched us with patient, eager eyes. This had been the plan all along. There had to be a way out.
    I had an idea. “Are all Marcus’s enforcers assholes?”
    Sebastian turned to me. “Was that an insult?”
    “If you have to ask, then indeedy-do, it was.”
    “Anita,” Richard said, low and careful, “what are you