J'avais le premier chapitre mais comme vous l'avez déjà, je ne le remets pas. Pour ce qui est des autres extraits, ils sont chronologiques mais je ne peux vous dire à quel moment précisément ils se déroulent dans l'histoire. Euh, je ne les ai pas traduis (lire l'anglais c'est dans mes cordes mais la traduction .... ). Pour l'instant je ne vous mets que les 2 premiers extraits car ça prend pas mal de temps de tout taper, surtout que ces deux là sont vachement longs. Enfin, je trouve.

Le premier extrait nous parle de la conversation entre Anita et Edward lorsqu'elle l'appelle à la rescousse.

I sat on the edge of the bathtub, waiting for Edwrd to come to the phone. I’d insisted on privacy for the phone call, thought I’d told Jean-Claude and Micah who I was trying to call. Jean-Claude had said only, “Help would not be unwelcome.” The commend said, clearly, that he xas xorried. The more worried I realized he was, the more worried I got.

I heard noise over the phone, movement. The phone was picked up, and I heard Edward’s voice say, “Hang up the other extension, Peter”. A second later he spoke directly into the phone. “Anita, Peter said you needed help, my kind of help.” His voice was empty middle-of-nowhere accent. It was his normal voice; when he was playing Ted Forrester, good ol’ boy, he had a drawl.

“I didn’t say I needed hel,” I said.

“Then why did you call?”

“Can’t I just call to that?”

He laughed, and the laugh was strangely familiar. I realized it was an echo of Peter’s laugh earlier, or maybe Peter’s laugh was an echo of Edward’s. They weren’t genetically related, I knew that so what was with the laugh? Imitation, maybe.

“You would never call me just to chat, Anita. That’s not what we do for each other.” Helaughed again, and murmures, “Called to chat”, as if the idea was too ridiculous for words.

“I do not need you to be condescending, thanks anyway”. I was angry and had no right to be. I’d called him, and it was me I was angry at. I was wishing I hadn’t called for so many reasons.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, not taking offense. He knew me too well to let a little angry outburst bother him.

I opened my mouth, closed it, then said, “I’m trying to decide where to start.”

“Start with the dangerous part?” There, that was Edward, not “start at the beginnine”, but “start with the dangerous part”.

“I did call for backup, but I have toher backup already. It’s not you, but it’s not a bunch of amateurs either.” I was being honest. The wererats were almost completely ex-military, ex-police, or ex-criminals. Some of the werehu=yenas were the same flavor of professional. I had help. I shoudn’t have called Edward.

“You sound like you’re trying to talk yourself out os asking me for help,” he said, and his voice was curious-not warried, just curious.

“I am.”

“Why?”

“Because Peter answering the phone made me realize that it’s not all fun and games anymore. If I get you killed, then they lose another father. I don’t want to have to explain that to Peter, or Donna, oe Becca.”

“But especially Peter,” he said.

“Yeah”, I said.

“Since you can’t lie to me, just tell me, Anita.” His voice was a little softer now, a little feeling to it. Edward liked me; we were friends. He’d miss me if I was gone, ad I miss him, but there was still a litlle question about whether one day, we’d find ourselves on the opposite sides of a problem, and have to finally see wich of us was the better man. I was hopping that day never came, because there was no way for me to win the fight now; dead or alive, we’d both lose.

“Do you know what the Harlequin is?” I asked.

“A French clown?” he said, and let himself sound puzzled.

“Do you know it in any other context?”

“Twenty questions isn’t like you, Anita; just talk.”

“I just wanted to see if I was the only vampire hunter extraordinarire who was totally in the dark about this. It makes me feel a little better tht you don’t know about them either. Apparently Jean-Claude is right, they really are a big, dark secret.”

“Talk.” He said.

I talked. I told him what I knex about the Harlequin and his band. It really wasn’t that much. He was quiet so long that I said, “Edward, I can hear you breathing, but ...”

“I’m here, Anita. Just thinking.”

“Thinking what?” I asked.

“That you always let me play with the best toys.” And his voice wasn’t empty now, it was eager.

“And what if these toys finally manage to be bigger and badder than you and me?”

“Then we die.”

“Just like that?” I said. “You wouldn”t have regrets?”

“You mean Donna and the kids?”

“Yes,” I said, and I stood, starting to pace the bathroom.

“I would regret leaving them.”

“Then don’t come,” I said.

“And if you get killed, I’d always believe that I could saved you. No, Anita, I’ll come, but I will bring backup.”

“Not anyone too crazy, okay?”

He laughed, that chuckle of true delight taht I’d heard maybe six times in the entire six years I’d known him. "I can’t promise that, Anita.”

“Fine, but Edward, I’m serious, I don’t want to get yo killed on them.”

“I can’t stop being who I am just because I love Donna, Anita. I can’t stop being what I am because I’ve got the kids to think about.”

“Why not?” I asked, and I was thinking of a conversation Richard and I had had when we thought I was pregnant. He’d expected that pregnant I’d stop being a federal marshal or a vampire hunter. I’d hadn’t agreed.

Voilà la suite (c'était trop long pour tenir en un seul message)

“Anita, are you there? Anita, answer me.”

“Sorry, Edward, I didn’t hear a damn thing you said”.

“You’re a thousand miles away inside your own thoughts. That’s not a good place to be in the middle of a firefight.”

“It hasn’t come to a firefight yet,” I said.

“You know what I mean, Anita. I have to round up my backup, and arrange transport. That’ll take a day or so. I’ll be there as soon as I can, but you need to watch your bask until I get there.”

“I’ll do my best not to get killed before you get here.”

“This isn’t funny, Anita. You seem seriously distracted.”

I thought about it for a moment, tne realized what was wrong. I was happy for the first time in my life. I loved the men I was living with. I, like Edward, had a family to protect, and mine wouldn’t be tucked safely in New Mexico while we cleaned this up. “I just realized that I’ve got my own family here, and I don’t like them being on the firing line. I don’t like that a lot.”

“Who are you worried about?” he asked.

“Nathaniel, Micah, Jean-Claude, all of them.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting your new lovers.”

It took me a minute to realize. “You’ve never met Micah and Nathaniel, I’d forgotten that.”

“Jean-Claude can handle himself, Anita, as well as anyone in this situation. It sounds like the shapeshifters have you covered for ow. Micah is head of the local wereleopards. He didn’t get the job on his winning personality. He’s a survivor and a fighter, or he’d be dead laready.”

“Is this supposed to be a pep talk?” I asked.

He gave a sound that was almost a laugh. “Yeah.”

“Well, you suck at it.”

He laughed then. “Which of your lovers is cannon fodder, Anita? Who are you really the most worried about?”

I took a deep breath, let it out slow, and said, “Nathaniel”.

“Why him?”

“Because he’s not a fighter. I’ve taken him to the gun range and he fnows the basics.” I remembered a moment whan Chimera, a very bad guy, had come to town. I remembered an ambush, when Nathaniel had been with me. I’d forgotten. He’d killed someone, and I’d forgotten. I hadn’t even thought how it mighthave affected him. Some dominant leopard queen I was. Fuck.

“Anita, you still there?”

“Yeah, I just remembered something, that I guess I was tryinf to forget. Nathaniel shot someone, killed him to save me. One of the wererats had gotten killed, and he picked up the guy’s gun, and used it just like I’d taught him.” I was suddenly cold down to my toes. All the awful things taht people had made Nathaniel do over the years while he xas on the street, and it had been me taht forced him to kill. He’d done it out of love, but motive didn’t change the end product. Someone was still dead.

“He’ll do, Anita.” The was a tone to Edward’s voice. Approval, maybe.

“Listen, I need to get off the phone and start gathering backup. Gathering the men will take longer than transport or the weaponry. Let me ask you about the rumors. I’ve heard, and you tell me if they’re lies.”

“Ask,” I said, not sure I wanted him to ask at all.

“That’ Jean-Claude has become his own bloodline and broken from his old mistress.”

I was surprised, very surprised. “How the hell did that rumor get started?”

“We’re wasting time, Anita: true or false?”

“Part true. He is his own bloodline. That makes it so he doesn’t have to answer to his old mistress, but he hasn’t broken with Europe. He’s just stopped being Belle Morte’s beck-and-call boy.”

“That you’ve got a string of lovers among Jean-Claude’s vamps and the local shapeshifters.”

I really didn’t want to answer this question. Was I embarrassed? Yes. “I don’t see what my love life has to do with the Harlequin coming to town.”

“Let’s just say that the answer to this question will decide me on whether I ask something else, something I didn’t believe. Now I’m geginning to wonder.”

“Wonder what?” I asked.

“Answer the question, Anita: do you have a string of lovers?”

i sighed, and said, “Define ‘string.’”

“More than two or three, I guess.” He sounded uncertain.

“Yes, then.”

He was quiet for a second, then cntinued. “That Jean-Claude makes everyone male or female fuck him before they can join his kiss.”

“Not true.”

“That he makes the men fuck you?”

“Not true, and someone’s having a better fantasy life with my life than I am.”

He gave a small laugh, then said, “If you had told me no on the first question I wouldn’t even ask this next one, but here it is: That you’re some kind of daywalking vampire thet feeds off sex instead of blood. I don’t believe that one, but I thought you might be interested in what some of your fellow monster hunters are saying about you. I think they’re just jealous of your kill count.”

I swallowed hard and went back to sit on the edge of the tub.

“Anita,” he said, “you’re awfully quiet.”

“I know.”

“Anita, it’s not true. You’re not a daywalking vamp.

“”Not the vamire part, not exactly.”

“How ‘not exactly’?”

“Do you know the term ardeur?”

“I know the French word, but that’s not what you mean, is it?”

I explained, briefly, as coldly as I could, just the facts, what the ardeur was.

“You have to fuck people every few hours, or what?”

“I start drainig the life out of Damian and then Nathaniel.”

“What?”

“A have a vampire servant and an animal call.”

“What!” i’d never heard him sound so astonished.

I repeated myself.

“There isn’t even a rumor about this, Anita. Human servants can’t have vampire servants, it doesn’t work that way.”

“I know that,” I said.

“Nathaniel is your animal to call?”

“Apparently.”

“Does the council know this?”

“Yep”.

“Well, shit, no wonder they sicced their dogs on you. Your’re lucky they didn’t just kill you.”

“The council is divided on the appropriate action to take about Jean-Claude and us.”

“Divided how?”

“Some of them want us dead, but it’s not a majority vote. They can’t agree.”

“So the Harlequin comes to break the tie, is taht it?” he asked.

“Maybe. Honestly, I’m not sure.”

“Is there anything else you’ve done that might make them decide to kill you quicker, like before I can get there?”

I thought about the fact that I might be a panwere. I thought about a lot of things, then sighed. Then I tought of one thing we’d done that might bother the oter Masters of the City in the united States enough to cry for council help. “Maybe.”

“How ‘maybe’? Anita, can you wait for me to get backup, or do I ned to get on a plane and get my ass to St. Louis, to back you? That’s what I need to know.”

“Truth, Edward, I don’t know. Jean-Claude ant I did something back in November that was pretty powerful. It might be enough to scare the Harlequin.”

“What did you do?”

“We had a little private get-together with a couple of the Master of the City who were visiting. The two taht Jean-Claude calls friends.”

“And,” he said.

“And Belle Morte interfered from all the way in Europe. She messed with me and the Master of Ghicago.”

“Augustine,” he said, “Auggie to his friends.”

“You know him?”

“Of him,” Edward said.

“Then you know how powerful he is.”

“Yes.”

“We rolled him, Edward.”

“Rolled how?” he asked.

“Jean-Claude and I fed off him, we both fed the ardeur off him. We fed on him, and though him we fed on every person he had brought to our lands. We did this massive feed on them all. It was an amazing power rush, and all of us–vamps, beasties, anyone tied to either Jean-Claude or me by metaphysics- gained power from it.”

“I’ll contact the backup I want; they xan join me later. I’ll be on ground in –“ he paused as he checked his watch- “four hours, five at the outside. I’ll be in St. Louis before sundown.”

“You think it’s that serious?” I asked.

“If I were a vampire, and you had a vampire servant, I might kill you just for that. But if you guys rolled Augustine, one of the most powerful masters in this country, then yeah, Anita, they’ll be nervous. I’m just surprised the Harlequin didn’t hit St. Louis earlier.”

“I think they needed the excuse of Malcom and his misbehaving church. The council is truly divided about Jean-Claude and his power base. I think maybe the council wouldn’t agree to let the Harlequin mear us, but now that they’re here xhexking out the Church of Eternal Life, well, two birds with one stone.”

“Sounds reasonable,” he said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Anita.”

“Thanks, Edward.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll see you in a few hours, Anita. Watch your back like a son of bitch. If these guys are masters thay may have wereanimals and humans to do their daywalking. Just because the sun is up doesn’t make you safe.”

“I know that, Edward. I probably know that better than you do.”

“Maybe, but be careful until I get there.”

“I’ll do my best.” But I was already talking to an empty phone line. He’d hung up. I hung up, too.

Alors maintenant, une scène entre Anita et Richard. Comme vous pourrez le voir, c'était bien parti mais Ricahrd étant ce qu'il est, il casse légèrement l'ambiance (comme d'hab.)


The bathroom door closed, firmly. Richard stood there, holding me, as if it were effortless, as if I weighed nothing and he could have done it all night. Sometimes it bugged me to know how much stronger the men were than I was, but not this morning. This morning, it seemed comforting.

He carried me to the edge of the tub. The water wes very loud, rushing into the huge tub. Jean-Claude had explained to me that the swan spout that filled it was hooked up to a system that filled the tub extra fast. I had a tub almost that big at home and apparently my system was like his, a quick fill. Since I had bought the house with the tub and system en place I hadn’t eralized ther was anything special about it. High-tech tubs, who knew? Richard hugged me, and again I got a flash of that amazing strength. “I want to check the water, but I’m realyy enjoying carrying you.”

“Me, too,” I said.

He rested his face against my hair. “Really?”

“Yes,” I said, and I would have whispered it, except the water loud enough that true whispering wasn’t possible.

He stepped into the water with me in his arms. I laughed and lifted enough to see his face. “Shouldn’t you check the temperature first?”

The look on his face made the laughter leak away. Eager, amazed, just so many emotions. Lately when we’d been together the only thing I’d seen in his face had been lust. We’d both shut down our emotions, kept ourselves safe. It had had that feel of sex et the end of a relationship, when sex is all you have left, and it isn’t enough.

“The temperature’ fine,” he said, voice soft. He knelt down, still holding me. He folded all that six feet end change down into the water, and just above his waist, the water hit me. It was warm, almost hot. The water slid over my body like another set of hands, gliding, exploring. He was right, the temperature was fine.

He wispered against my hair, “How much do you hurt?”

“I ache all over”.

“We’ll get cleaned up first then, let your body soak in the water. Hot water helps.” He kissed my forehead, then lowered us both down into the water, so that he was almost loating with me held acroos his chest. He let go of me with one arm, so he could half swim, half pull us to the water faucet. My legs trailed ot into the water, but the rest of me was held tight to his chest. He sat down against the side of the tub. The water came to his upper chest, which meant it was chin deep to me. He kept me pinned to the front of his body, and I was okay with that. Touching was good.

“Enough water?” he made it a question.

“Yes,” I said.

He reached back and turned off the water, then he settled down in the water with me cuddled against the front of his body. The height difference was enough that to keep my chin above water I couldn’t cup my body against anything but his chest and stomach, with the rest of my body mostly floating. It was probably just as well; if too much of him touched me, I tended to get distracted. We were going to some of the aches and pains drift away before we got distracted. He kissed the side of my face, and I settled into his arms, and the warm, warm water.

It was relaxing, or chould have been, but there was a kermnel of me that couldn’t relax completely. What was wrong?

“What’s wrong?” Richard asked.

“Nothing.”

“You’re tense.”

I sighed. “I don’t know.”

His hand slid down the side of my body, to cup my hip. “It seems like unles we’re having sex, you get tene when we’re alone.”

“I don’t mean to,” I said.

He wraped his arms around me and forced my body lower, as he rose up, so that certain parts of his anatomy were touching me. He wasn’t as har as he got, but even partially erect he was a special treat. The feel of him pressed to the back of my butt felt wonderful. It made me writhe against him, which made his body react, growing, moving against my body. It was all involuntary, and I loved knowing that I affected him like that. He pushed against me, and it brought a small sound from his lips.

“So quick, so eager, God, I do love that about you.” He whipered it against my face.

“I wanted to make love to you months before you’d say yes.”

“I was afrais.” He nuzzled my neck, biting just a little.

That little biting make me writhe more. The aches and pains were starting to fade under the first wave of endorphins, those happy little chemicals. “Afraid of what?” I whispered.

He bit harder, and my spine bowed with it. “You.”

“Why?”

he cupped his mouth around the side of my throat, and bit down. I cried out for him; my nails clawed at his arms. I finally had to say, “Enough, enough.”

He eased back and turned me in the water, so that I was facing him. He drew me in against the front of his body, and he was hard and eager now. The feel of him against the front of my body made me cry out.

He cupped my ass, pressed me harder against the front of him. I pushed at his body, almost like I wanted to get away, but that wasn’t what I was thinking. It was just almost too much, for some reason. The feel of him so eager, so big, trapped between our bodies. It was almost too much.

He shuddered, head back, voice panting, “God, Anita, God, I love the way you react to me. I do love it!”

I wrapped my body around him, pressed the lenght of him against the most intimate part of me. It made me cry out and press myself tighter against him.

He pushed me against the side of the tub and moved his hips away enough to try to angle himself for my opening. I didn’t protest until the tip of him started inside, and my body let me know that hte combination of water, which is not a lubricant, lack of foreplay, and his size, meant this wasn’t going to work.

I half-patted, half-slapped his chest. “Too big, you’re too big.”

“The water,” he said, breathy. He leaned his hand on the sides of the tub, face down, the head of him still inside me. “If you release the ardeur, we can do it.”

“But I’ll be sore afterward, and so will you.”

He moved his hips a little, and the sensation, even tight, made me catch my breath. “Not too sore,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “trust me. I don’t want to be walking funny tomorrow.”

He raised his head enough to frown at me. “We’ve never done this before like this-how can you be so sure?”

Shit. I stared up at him with his body inside mine, and didn’t know what to say. The truth was Micah and I had done it, but that seemed impolitic to say the teast, in this moment. I tried to think of something that wouldn’t make him feel bad. But I waited too long.

He said, “Just say it, Anita, just say it.”

“I want to make love with you, richard, I don’t want to fight.”

He pulled back enough so he wasn’t inside me anymore. He stayed with his arms on either side of the tub, fraiming me. The look on his face was cautious now, almost as if he were steeling himself for bad news. It wasn’t the look i wanted on his face right now.

“Say it, Anita.” His voice sounded tired.

“I tried it with someone else.”

“Why did it hurt?”

“Don’t make me say it, Richard, please.”

“Say it,” and his voice was harsher now.

I sighed. “Fine, because he was too big for it not to hurt.”

“Who?”

“Don’t do this, Richard.”

“Who?” This time it was a demand.

I gave him angry eyes. “Who do you think?”

“I don’t know; you’ve added at least two men to your list, and I’ve never seen either of them erect.”

I dunked under his arm and half-swam to the other side of the pool. “Tell me what you want me to say, Richard.”

“Is it your two new vampires?”

“Are you wanting to know how you measure up to Requiem and London? Is that what you’re actually wanting to know?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

I crossed my arms under my breasts, the water helping, since they floated. “I cannot believe you’re asking this.”

“It’s an easy question, Anita.”

“Do you actually want to know if you’re bigger than they are?”

“I’m so jealous of them that I can’t see straight, so yeah, I want to know. I want to know that I’m still the best’endowed man in your bed.”

“You know, I don’t actually get out a ruler and measure everybody.”

“So they are big.”

“Jesus, ary and Joseph.” I covered my face with my hands. “No, no, they aren’t as well endowed as you are. Happy?” I lowered my hands, and found that it wasn’t a happy look on his face.

“Then who is?”

I’d managed for months to not have this discussion, this specifically with anyone. Of course, it would be Richard who pushed it. “Micah, okay? Micah.”

“Is that why you love him?”

“Jesus, no, Richard, you should know better than most that a really big cock is not enough to win my heart.”

“Then why him? Why are you liiving with him and not me?”

I sighed. We weren’t going to have sex. We were going to have therapy. Sweet Mary, Mother of God, I did not want to do this. “Don’t do this, not now, not today.”

“I need to understand what went wrong before I can move on, Anita. I’m sorry, but I do.”

I shook my head and tried to settle into the water, but it wasn’t soothing anymore. It was just wet. “Fine. Do remember I’m living with Nathaniel, too. You always seem to forget him, or discount him.”

“He’s not dominant, Anita. In the world of wereanimals that makes him discountable.”

“But in the world of my affections, richard, he is not discountable.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t, and I’m sorry you don’t, but it’s still the truth. I’m living with Micah and Nathaniel, not just Micah. The fact that Nathaniel isn’t a dominant doesn’t make me love him less.”

“How can you sit there like this and tell me you love someone else? Don’t you know how much that hurts me?”

“You wanted this talk, not me. I wanted to make love. I wanted to clean up, feed the ardeur, and b together, but you had to get all hung up on the size of everyone’s equipment. I know it’s a guy thing to worry about that, but this wasn’t the time to bring it up.”

“You’re right, it was stupid, but I”m stupid around you, Anita. You make me say things, do things, that I knwo are bad for the relationship.”

“I don’t make you do anything. You choose to say and do things that spoil stuff. Your choice, not mine.”

“Fine, you’re right. I choose to say and do this shit. I could heve let it go, and we’d be having sex right now, and it would be grat sex. But I really do want to know what Micah has that I don’t. What magic does he have that made you move him into your house, live with him, when you wouldn’r do it for me?”

Voilà, c'est tout pour l'instant car il faut que je continue à taper le reste.
Eh bien, j'espère que ces deux extraits vous ont plus.

En ce qui concerne la conversation entre Anita et Edward, je pense que les renforts auront la forme, l'allure et le tempérament de ... Olaf! Vous me direz ce que vous penser de ma petite théorie.

Pour ce qui est de Richard, il a enfin compris que tout ce qui l'a séparé d'Anita jusqu'à maintenant, c'est sa haine de lui-même (enfin! c'est pas trop tôt.) On peut toujours espérer qu'il va désormais s'améliorer et qu'il ne fera plus chier Anita. Je rêve tout éveiller? Peut-être.

Désolée de proposer ça que maintenant Estelle, mais vu que je l'ai moi aussi, on pourrait se partager le boulot si tu veux. J'ai pas mal de temps libre au labo en ce moment, donc bon... Enfin, c'est toi qui decide, et si c'est ok, on s'organise.

Sauf que je viens de voir que t'en as fait la plus grande partie deja.....

Thriller, Thriller*
(* : sur l'air de thriller de Mickael Jackson)

Bien sûr moi et l'anglais = 2 (voir 3)

il aura fallu attendre pas mal de tomes pour qu'il s'en rende compte, son cas n'est pas si desespéré que ça tout compte fait !