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

with him, marry him. My vote's for Richard."
"I know you don't like Jean-Claude."
"Don't like him!" Her hands gripped the passenger-side door handle,
squeezing it until I could see the tension in her shoulders. I think she was
counting to ten.
"If I killed as easily as you do, I'd have killed that son of a bitch two
years ago and your life would be a lot less complicated now."
That last was an understatement. But ... "I don't want him dead, Ronnie."
"He's a vampire, Anita. He is dead." She turned and looked at me in the
dark. Her soft gray eyes and yellow hair had turned to silver and near white
in the cold light of the stars. The shadows and bright reflected light left
her face in bold relief, like some modern painting. But the look on her face
was almost frightening. There was a fearful determination there.
If it had been me with that look on my face, I'd have warned me not to do
anything stupid, like kill Jean-Claude. But Ronnie wasn't a shooter. She'd
killed twice, both times to save my life. I owed her. But she wasn't a person
who could hunt someone down in cold blood and kill him. Not even a vampire. I
knew this about her, so I didn't have to caution her. "I used to think I knew
what dead was or wasn't, Ronnie." I shook my head. "The line isn't so
clear-cut."
 "He seduced you," she said.
I looked away from her angry face and stared at the foil-wrapped swan in my
lap. Deirdorfs and Hart, where we'd had dinner, got creative with their doggy
bags: foil-wrapped animals. I couldn't argue with Ronnie, and I was getting
tired of trying.
Finally, I said, "Every lover seduces you, Ronnie, that's the way it
works."
She slammed her hands so hard onto the dashboard it startled me and must
have hurt her. "Damn it, Anita, it's not the same."
I was starting to get angry, and I didn't want to be angry, not with
Ronnie. I had taken her out to dinner to make her feel better, not to fight.
Louis Fane, her steady boyfriend, was out of town at a conference, and she was
bummed about that, and about turning thirty. So I'd tried to make her feel
better, and she seemed determined to make me feel worse.
"Look, I haven't seen either Jean-Claude or Richard for six months. I'm not
dating either of them, so we can skip the lecture on vampire ethics."
"Now that's an oxymoron," she said.
"What is?" I asked.
"Vampire ethics," she said.
I frowned at her. "That's not fair, Ronnie."
"You are a vampire executioner, Anita. You are the one who taught me that
they aren't just people with fangs. They are monsters."
I'd had enough. I opened the car door and slid to the edge of the seat.
Ronnie grabbed my shoulder. "Anita, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please don't be
mad."
I didn't turn around. I sat there with my feet hanging out the door, the
cool air creeping into the closer warmth of the car.
"Then drop it, Ronnie. I mean drop it."
She leaned over and gave me a quick hug from behind. "I'm sorry. It's none
of my business who you sleep with."