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Shamaness Indeed	By : miladygrimm Category: Anita Blake > FemmeSlash Views: 1777 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Anita Blake, nor any of the characters aside from Taini Shadowhawk. All other characters are property of Laurell K. Hamilton. I do not profit from this fanfic in any way

Chapter List
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“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Taini stated still looking up at the large middle aged bodyguard.
Merle frowned at her again taking her bag from Micah and putting it in the trunk. “You didn’t.”
“Then what did I do?”
Merle didn’t answer, but Micah did, “When lycanthropes touch, especially when they are new to one another, you get a feel for them.” When Taini continued giving him a confused look he tried explaining further. “When animals great one another, they get a feel for them, usually a scent of one another. Lycanthropes touch, and we get a sense of the other one. I know you are a leopard, I could feel that when we touched. Though you’ve told me that before, but your leopard is different from one’s I’ve touched before.”
“Different? How?” She asked. A sinking feeling was beginning to settle into her stomach. This was what she had been afraid of.
“Your leopard pushed against our hands when we shook. And it wasn’t gentle, but it wasn‘t normal either. It felt charged. Others might have seen it as aggressive.”
She knew her eyes went frightful because he placed a hand on her shoulder. “It doesn’t me we are simply going to send you on your way. But I do have questions.” With that statement, they all got into the car. Merle got in on the drivers side, slipping behind the wheel as Micah and Taini got into the backseat.
“Why is she doing it?” Merle asked.
“I do not know, but I have ideas…I’ll wait till I have proof before I admit to them.”
She looked him over then. He had ideas? Like what? What could he possibly think she was? She knew, but in truth Taini was afraid of what they might think of her if she admitted it.
“Lets start with the basics. How old are you Taini?” His voice was kind, almost like how you’d talk to a child, but it didn’t feel belittling, Just comforting.
“I’m twenty-three.”
“What is your family like?”
“My father is a manager at one of the casinos on our reservation. My grandmother used to sell baskets till her hands got to sore to weave properly. She lives with us now.”
“It’s just the three of you?”
“My mother left after she had me, my father said she didn’t want to be tied down to anyone on the reservation. She wanted to be famous, be a star.” Taini could keep the bitterness from her voice. It would have been one thing if the woman had died, but it was less than that. She simply hadn’t wanted to be around her. “I don’t know if I have any half brothers or sisters, but on the reservation we weren’t really alone. Everyone knew everyone else, we were sort of one big family.”
“You miss it,” Micah said hearing the sadness in her tone.
For a moment Taini thought about lying, it wasn‘t really his business, but for some reason it felt wrong. “I do. I do miss it. I didn’t mean to, I just…well it was hard to leave. I’ve lived in the same place all my life. I worked to get into college so I could make a decent job. I wanted to help out like…” She trailed off, feeling the tears well up in her eyes. She did not want to cry. Not here, not now.
“Like your mother never did,” Micah finished for her.
Taini looked down at her folded hands. She blinked her dark eyes rapidly to push back the tears. She hadn’t meant to say so much. But somehow he brought it out of her. He laid his hand over hers softly, delicately. Merle stayed distinctly quiet.
“I always hoped she’d come back you know? But she didn’t. And now, now I can’t even help like I wanted to.”
“Taini, why didn’t you stay on the reservation?”
“Because, there is no clan….”
“Pard.”
“Huh?”
“We are not a clan, we are a Pard.”
She nodded, sniffing a little. Why is it even when you didn’t cry, you had to sniffle? Taini felt it was most childish, but she couldn’t stop it. “Pard, there isn’t a Pard anywhere nearby, my people were afraid of shape shifters.”
“A lot of people are afraid of shape shifters.”
“But the reservation still adheres to the rule of shooting them on sight. The national government allowed us this ability, part of compensation. They are not human. My people demanded that I leave or be killed. They cast me out.” There was a bitterness in that statement that made Micah’s heart ache.
Micah wrapped an arm around her shoulders, that was the second time in less than an hour he had down so. It might have been a romantic gesture, but the feelings weren’t there. There wasn’t that happy tingle, or leaping hearts, or anything of that nature. It was only comfort. Like he was a brother…no, that wasn’t right…it was more like a father. She laid her head on his chest and breathed in the scent of him. Once again the scent of home flooded her nose. He felt safe. She let out a soft breath. One that she felt she had been holding since she woke up in the windowless hellhole they called a containment cell. The leopardess inside of her stirred, it seemed to bow her head and brush against his chest, it was a submissive gesture.
Merle watched his King with the new leopard in the rear view mirror, his body tense, he wasn't liking this at all. "Seems to fit in."
"Yes, but you don't like it?" Micah said hearing something in Merle's tone that Taini wouldn't pick up.
Merle shrugged, "Just another person to watch over."
That made her sit up in her seat, pulling away from Micah, he let her. Her dark eyes flashed in such a way that she was certain Merle could feel it. She saw the graying hairs on the back of his tanned neck stand up just a bit, the muscles in his shoulder tensed. “I do not need to be ‘watched over’.” She said, spitting the phrase like it was a dirty word. She wasn’t here to be anyone’s burden, she fought for herself. The leopardess inside of her was in perfect agreement with that thought. She felt the beast sit up inside of her, proudly, like a cat inside an Egyptian temple. “I am capable of handling myself.”
“Down kitten.” Merle said easily, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Micah placed his hand over hers again, “Merle is just a protective sort.”
Taini gave Merle one long look, wishing she could see his face, but driving made it difficult for him to turn around. She hadn’t realized they had pulled into a neighborhood, were the houses were spaced further apart than she was used to seeing. She couldn’t help but notice that a few of them were empty. For Sale signs sprinkled the area, but one house seemed to catch her eye. There were more cars parked in front of it than any of the others. A jeep, a truck, a van, and one of those oddly shaped Euro cars.
“Here we are.” Micah said, but he was frowning.
“Is there something wrong?” Taini asked Micah.
“There might be, everyone is here.” Micah answered.
She blinked, looking at all the cars. Suddenly she was nervous all over again. The car pulled into the drive next to the jeep and Merle shut the engine off. “Lets go see what’s wrong now.” Merle said.
That sentence didn’t make her feel any better.
~~~
There were people inside, lots of them. She could smell them even before the door was opened. Problem was, she could catch any individual scents. Either she was too new, or it just didn’t work that way. She had her bag tucked in her hands, her eyes were just a little to wide as Micah let them all inside. She heard shouting, even before she saw people. Funny, she hadn’t heard that while they were on the front porch. The first shout was a woman, “Damnit Caleb! Why do you always manage to get us into trouble?!?”
Merle made a noise under his breath that might have been a word, but Taini could understand it. Micah lead them all towards the kitchen, which it seemed everyone had packed into. She saw the woman first. And she was certain this had to be Ms. Blake. She was short, the same height as Micah which put her a few inches below Taini, with hair almost as black as her own. But it had the rich almost purple highlights of someone who came from lands to the south of her own. She did not however have the coloring to match, she was a pale woman. Not just skin tone, though that was certainly true, but her skin looked like she didn’t go out into the sun much, maybe she had a night job.
Across from her, sitting at the table with arms crossed and no shirt on was a man who looked…surly was the first word that popped into Taini’s mind. Though maybe it didn’t fit exactly right. He looked like a teenager who was being told he had a curfew. He looked like he had been in a fight, a bad one. His eye was almost swollen shut, he had a busted lip, and every visible part of him was speckled with bruises. His arms were crossed over his chiseled chest and his hair had fallen over his eyes making him look, if anything, more childish. She assumed from the looks he was getting, and the attitude, that he was the one being yelled at. “It was only a joke,” he said. “Lighten up.” Yeah, he was definitely the one getting yelled at.
The dark haired woman slammed both hands flat on the table, leaning over it towards the churlish looking male. Despite her diminutive size, Taini had to agree she looked just a bit intimidating. “It was more than a joke, Caleb, and you know it.”
“I was there.” A voice spoke up. It was a soft, pretty voice. Taini looked to it’s owner and paused. A male stood there. She thought male because he didn’t look quite a teenager, but his face looked so soft and delicate, like a boys. He had that ageless quality of some version of youth that made her wonder about him. His hair was long, pulled up into a high ponytail, it should have been feminine, but it wasn’t. It moved like something alive with even the smallest of gestures. His outfit however…was not really there, it was this strappy thing. There were two large triangles, one covering his groin, the other his butt, and that was all. Taini could help but just….stare. He must have felt her gaze because he looked at her, she gave an audible gasp. His eyes were a striking shade of smoky violet.
The gasp brought everyone’s attention to her. Including the rather suspicious look of the raven haired woman. “Who is this?”
“Taini Shadowhawk.”
The woman blinked, as if she had heard the name and was trying to remember.
“The Leopard from the reservation.” Micah reminded Anita.
Anita nodded and then frowned deeper, how that was possible considering the frown that she had been giving Caleb, Taini wasn’t sure. However, Anita was managing just fine. “The guest room is occupied, she’ll need to find somewhere else.” She finally stated.
Taini felt like she’d been smacked in the face. She was here only an hour and she was being kicked out before she got a chance to look at everyone in the room. Micah must have sensed something because he placed a hand on her should and stepped forward into the room, making a barrier of flesh between Taini and Anita. She wondered if Anita noticed. She was betting on yes. “She is a new leopard, she’ll need a place to stay, she’s still learning control.”
“She’s been a shape shifter for what, three months? What did she do the other times she changed?”
Micah didn’t have an answer to that one. He turned his kitty eyes on Taini, she looked down at the floor and mumbled something. Merle was close enough to hear it and he winced visibly. However, Anita wouldn’t take the mumbled answer, “What was that?”
“They put me in a center.” Now it was everyone’s turn to wince. Those metal cells that made it impossible to roam, to hunt, to feast as the beast inside demanded to be feed. The cold floors with their awful smells. The windowless metal cage that still haunted her nightmares. “They thought it was best. My people do not take kindly to shape-shifters. The doctors believed if I went home they’d just kill me.”
No one wanted to keep asking questions about how she’d spent the past few months so Micah carried on. “Why can’t she stay here?”
“Because Sylvie is here.” A new voice spoke up. This one belonged to a long limbed pretty blonde who wore absolutely nothing, Her face was still red cheeked from sleep and her eyes were lined in semi-smeared liquid liner. She was pretty, her blonde hair was chopped short, and only added to the triangular face. A male in blue boxers that matched his blue tinted hair stood possessively close to her. Just their shoulders were close enough to touch, but the way they stood made Taini think of them as a pair.
“Why is Sylvie here?” Micah asked.
“Because Caleb is an idiot.”
“It was just a joke!” Caleb said. “She came into the club, I thought she was looking for a dance.”
Anita gave him a look that would wither some of the strongest people Taini knew. Caleb seemed not to notice, or not to care. “Sylvie is a lesbian.”
“Then what was she doing in the club?”
“She was looking for Gwen.”
“What was Gwen doing in the club?”
“Handling a client.”
“A client? In a strip club.” He wasn’t trying very hard to keep the amusement out of his voice.
“Believe it or not Caleb, you crossed a goddamn line! Now people are going to have to pay for it.”
“What line? She hit me first!”
“She had every right to hit you, you groped her, on stage, in front of her lover. But would you just let her walk away? No, you attacked her. You, an alpha in the Blooddrinkers had to attack the Geri of the Thronnos Rokke Clan!”
“I didn’t do whatever messed her up like that.” the guy defended.
“No, you didn’t. Her Ulfric did.” Anita countered.
That sentence made everyone pause. They exchanged looks that Taini didn’t completely understand, but worry, confusion, and fear were definitely among them. The male with blue tinted hair spoke up, “Dear god. Why?”
Anita shrugged and crossed her arms beneath her plentiful breasts. “Because, she was sent to get Gwen out of one of Jean-Claude’s establishments, and she failed him.” Taini could tell by her voice that Anita wasn’t happy with it. “He left her on my doorstep, and now we have to deal. Dr. Lillian is in there with her now. But I don’t think a brand new leopard is up to sharing the bed with a beaten, bruised, and potentially pissed off were-wolf.”
“So where is she going to stay?” Micah asked.
“I don’t know, not here. She can’t go to the Circus, she has bad memories there, hell, she doesn’t even want to be here because we are were-leopards. But you are the head of the Coalition.”
Just then Caleb stood up and said, “You guys argue about where everyone is going to sleep I’m getting the hell…” He faltered, shaking his head, his eyes were to wide. Taini could see a thick circle of white all around the color, he swayed. She knew what was going to happen an instant before it did. He teetered and began to fall. Taini rushed forward, but Nathaniel got there first. “What the hell happened?” Anita shouted.
“He’s passed out.” Nathaniel answered. The naked female knelt by him. It was fascinating to watch, not just because she was naked, but Taini would have called her shy, unsure before this moment. But her hands were professional, confident as she checked pulse and pupil dilations, and other things.
The naked blonde looked up, “I can be sure without X-rays, but I’d say he’s got a concussion.”
Anita cursed, Micah sighed, Merle grinned, and that when Taini stepped forward. “I can help.”
They all looked at her with disbelief.
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Shamaness Indeed