"Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake 15 - The Harlequin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

loved that you marked me in front of the crowd. You know how much I loved it."

"Are you saying that if I hadn't gone up on stage and accidentally fed from the crowd, the ardeur would
have gotten out of control in the middle of that serial killer case?"

"Maybe."

I thought about that for a second as I drove. I thought about the ardeur going out of control in a van full
of cops, Mobile Reserve cops, our answer to SWAT. I thought about the ardeur getting out of control
while I was in a nest of vampires that had killed over ten people.

"If that's true, then why didn't Jean-Claude try to get me down to the club again?"

"He's offered."

"I've refused."

"Yeah," Nathaniel said.

"Why tell me now?"

"Because I'm mad at you," he said. He lowered his head on top of the box in his lap. "Because I'm mad
that our date is ruined. I'm mad that some metaphysical crap is going to ruin our almost-anniversary."

"I didn't plan this," I said.

"No, but your life is always like this. Do you have any idea how hard it is to have a normal date with
you?"

"If you don't like it, you don't have to stay in it." The moment I said it, I wished I hadn't, but I didn't take
it back.

"Do you mean that?" he asked, in a low, careful voice.

"No," I said, "no, I don't mean it. I'm just not used to you picking at me. That's usually Richard's job."
"Don't compare me with him. I don't deserve that."

"No, you don't." Richard Zeeman had once been my fianc├й, but it hadn't lasted. I'd broken up with him
when I saw him eat someone. He was the head of the local werewolf pack. He'd broken up with me
when he couldn't handle that I was more comfortable with the monsters than he was. At the moment, we
were lovers, and he was finally letting me feed the ardeur off him. I was his girlfriend in the preternatural
community, lupa to his Ulfric, and he wasn't shopping to replace me in that part of his life. He was
shopping for a completely human woman to replace me in the part of his life where he was a
mild-mannered junior high science teacher. He wanted kids and a life that didn't include full moons and
killer zombies. I didn't blame him completely. If I'd had an option for a normal life, I might have taken it.
Of course, Richard really didn't have the option either. There was no cure for lycanthropy. But he was
going to divide his life into pieces and try to keep all the pieces from finding out about the other parts.
Sounded hard, hell, sounded like a recipe for disaster. But it wasn't my life, and so far he was just dating
people. If he got serious about someone else, then we'd see how I felt about being the other woman.