His face was close enough that I could see the skin around his eyes crinkle upward, and knew he was smiling. "Why do I want to take off my glove and touch your hair?"
I told him the truth. "I don't know."
"The compulsion is quite strong," he said.
My leopard had stopped running, and seemed to be waiting for something, but I could feel her just below the surface of me like a diver waiting and counting the minutes before he can surface without getting the bends. You hold yourself suspended in the water, watching your bubbles rise, and waiting. The leopard had that feel to her, but there were no bubbles for her to watch, and leopards don't keep time, not like that.
"Touch me." I whispered it.
He undid a snap on his sleeve and rolled the glove backward over his hand. The glove was a part of the shirt. He touched my hair, kneading his fingers through the curl. My leopard purred, stretching against his hand as if he touched her domed head, instead of my curls. I saw her in my mind's eye pushing her head against his hand like a big house-cat, but then she slid herself down his arm, against his body. I had a moment of lying there on the table and feeling that other energy rub along the front of his body at the same time, like being in two places at one time.
His hand convulsed in my hair, his body shuddering under the brush of the leopard. It closed his eyes, bowed his neck backward, as if it felt unbelievably good.
He opened his eyes and gazed down at me. His eyes were deep gold leopard eyes. "If you do that again, we'll shoot Lisandro again."
"We'll all go deaf if you keep using the gun in this room," I said, and my voice was amazingly matter-of-fact.
"Then we will use blades," he said. He made a motion and I turned in time to see one of the silent Harlequin move in a blur of black. One minute standing still, the next a knife sticking into Lisandro's upper thigh. I had been looking right at him, and hadn't seen it all. God help me, they were fast.
Lisandro made a sharp muffled sound through his gag. His shoulders rose off the table as his body dealt with the pain of a huge-ass knife hilt-deep in his thigh.
"You said next time. I didn't do it again."
He motioned again and I turned in time to see the same Harlequin wrap his hand around the hilt. "Oh, shit," I said. And he pulled the blade free in one quick pull. Blood welled out of the cut, staining his jeans farther up and on the opposite side from the knee injury. Lisandro looked at me, eyes wide enough to show too much white around the brown. The look was clear: Stop that.
"I didn't do anything," I said, to that unsaid comment.
Harley motioned and one of the others went for the still-open door. It was like some kind of arcane sign language, or the small hand signals that special forces teams can use, but they weren't hand signals that I'd ever seen.
The remaining two Harlequin stepped up so one of them could press hands down on Lisandro's shoulders, and the other had his legs. My heart was beating too fast, too hard.
"Don't hurt him anymore."
Harley frowned down at me. He petted my hair again and ran his hand down the side of my face. "Why does it feel so good to touch you?"
"I swear to you that I don't know, other than I'm the Nimir-ra for our local wereleopards."
"You are human and vampire; you can't be Nimir-ra." But even as he said it, his hand cupped the side of my face. His hand was very warm against my skin.
"As far as we know, I'm the first human Nimir-ra in the history of the pard," I said. I snuggled my cheek against the heat of his hand. He jerked back as if I'd bitten him.
"Stay with them," he said, and turned and left the room.
The two remaining Harlequin exchanged the first look between them that I'd seen. There was someone in there. Someone that maybe didn't know why they were suddenly alone with us, with me. "What are your names?" I asked.
They glanced at me and then back at each other.
"Why did the Mother of All Darkness forbid you from telling me your names?"
They stared straight ahead, holding Lisandro in place on the table. If I were really a shapeshifter powerful enough to just shift my hands I could have gotten out of the ropes, easily, which was why Lisandro was in chains and I was in ropes. I tensed my stomach muscles and sat up on the table. The Harlequin didn't so much move as tense.
"Since you won't give me your names, I'll call you Thing One and Thing Two."
They glanced at each other again. One of them had brown eyes, the other had blue. They were both shorter than Harley or the werewolf, but beyond that the masks and hoods and gloves made them all generic.
I began to try to get the ropes over my hips; once I got them that far, I could bring them over my legs, and then I could untie my legs. The chances of my loosening the ropes enough to do it at all were small, but in the few minutes I had, almost nil. Would they stop me? Would they talk to me? We had minutes of being down to just two of them, and then I figured Harley would come back. I needed options before that happened.
I wiggled toward the edge of the table. I didn't know what I planned to do, but I knew I couldn't lie there and let them bring more of my people in here to hurt.
Thing Two appeared in front of me; I knew it was him because he had blue eyes. Thing One had brown. Thing Two shook his head.
"Do you talk?" I asked.
He nodded.
"Why won't you talk to me?"
The blue eyes just stared at me.
I got my legs over the side of the table and debated what he'd do if I tried to jump off the table. Would he catch me? Would he touch me? Touching me seemed to affect all of them. It was as if the ardeur and my beasts had combined to be something new, different. I didn't understand all of it, but I was pretty sure that if I could have physical contact with one of them for long enough I could roll their minds like any vampire victim, or that was the plan. I'd had better plans, but we were about to run out of time, so any plan was better than none. Or that was what I told myself as I pushed off the table.