"Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake 10 - Narcissus Chains" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

"You don't kill easily, Ronnie, no shame in that, but I can't take you into
a gang of shapeshifters unless I know that you'll shoot to kill if you have
to." I gripped her upper arms. She stayed stiff and angry under my touch. "It
would kill a piece of me to lose you, Ronnie. It would kill a bigger piece to
know that you died because of some shit of mine. You can't hesitate with these
people. You can't treat them like they're human. If you do, you die."
She was shaking her head. "Call the police."
I stepped away from her. "No."
"Damn it, Anita, damn it!"
"Ronnie, there are rules, and one of those rules is you don't take pack or
pard business to the police." The main reason for that rule was that the
police tended to frown on fights for dominance that ended with dead bodies on
the ground, but no need to tell Ronnie that.
"It's a stupid rule," she said.
"Maybe, but it's still the way business is done with the shifters, no
matter what flavor they are."
She sat down at the small two-seater breakfast table, on its little raised
platform. "Who's going to be your backup then? Richard doesn't kill any easier
than I do."
That was half true, but I let it slide. "No, I want someone at my back
tonight who will do what needs doing, no flinching."
Her eyes were dark, dark with anger. "Jean-Claude." She made his name a
curse.
I nodded.
"Are you sure he didn't plan this to get you back into his life, excuse me,
death?"
"He knows me too well to screw with my people. He knows what I'd do if he
hurt them."
Puzzlement flowed through the anger, softening her eyes, her face. "I hate
him, but I know you love him. Could you really kill him? Could you really
stare down the barrel of a gun and pull the trigger on him?"
I just looked at her, and I knew without a mirror that my eyes had grown
distant, cold. It's hard for brown eyes to be cold, but I'd been managing it
lately.
Something very like fear slid behind her eyes. I don't know if she was
afraid for me, or of me. I preferred the first to the last. "You could do it.
Jesus, Anita. You've known Jean-Claude longer than I've known Louie. I could
never hurt Louie, no matter what he did."
I shrugged. "It would destroy me to do it, I think. It's not like I'd live
happily ever after, if I survived at all. There's a very real chance that the
vampire marks would drag me down to the grave with him."
"Another good reason not to kill him," she said.
"If he's behind the scream that Gregory gave over the phone, then he'll
need better reasons to keep breathing than love, or lust, or my possible
death."
"I don't understand that, Anita. I don't understand that at all."
"I know," I said. And I thought to myself it was one of the reasons Ronnie
and I hadn't been seeing as much of each other as we once had. I got tired of
explaining myself to her. No, of justifying myself to her.
You're my friend, my best friend, I thought. But I don't understand you