The swan and the Goldfinch

takes place after Obsidian Butterfly and Anita’s visit with Itzpapalotl, based on the offshoot that Anita after her months of sabbatical from the boys that she and Richard did get back together and Jean Claude and Anita broke up. Most characters owned by Laurell K Hamilton, however Rose is all mine.*Disclaimer: I do not own or make any money off of this story. Stuff like that.
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She's a killer!
She's a thriller!
Spookshow baby!
-Rob Zombie
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Prologue

~Anita’s Point Of View~

It had been a rough night. There had been rumors of Padma’s people being in Jean Claude’s territory without his permission or invitation. It had come as a great shock that he would risk such insult to Jean Claude considering his last visit here had almost cost him his life. General distrust of the “invasion” as it was being called and vampire politics made it much like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Where Jean Claude and many of his people could not act because of certain lines and protocol to follow, I, as Executioner could of course chose to go out and investigate. Which of course I did. They hadn’t done anything yet, but what was there to say they wouldn’t.

It hadn’t taken long, sifting through various leads and following tips from the local preternaturals. It seemed our so-called invaders hadn’t been very careful about covering their tracks. In fact they had been very sloppy about questioning the local groups of weres. There had been questions floating around about any new faces, a certain female face. They had made it known she was a were of some kind, but that was about all of the information given freely on their part. In turn, threats and or rewards were promised for any information that could be obtained about her whereabouts.

After checking in with Jean Claude it turned out Padma wanted this woman pretty badly. Padma’s people had already invaded many other Master vampire’s territories in hot pursuit of this female were. In fact there was quite the long line of pissed off Master’s, but when a council member wants something, not many are willing to stand up and deny them. I was of course, was the exception to the rule as always. Already I had been witness to what Padma considered a good time and I knew more than likely the woman had done nothing to earn being hunt down like this.

I caught a break around eight o’clock that lead me to a local warehouse. Strangely enough the same one that had been used by Raina and her cohorts to film those sex films I had brought a stop to. It didn’t take much on my part to figure out who had given them the idea to use the place, and I was already taking mental notes on how to kick my wayward leopard Elizabeth’s ass. Even as I got out from my jeep I could hear the almost ear splitting noise coming from the warehouse. It sounded as if whoever was inside was trying to force a very large and very pissed off cat into a blender, and was making very little progress, which was good news for the cat I hoped.

I had drawn my gun and was ready to go in blazing when the noises suddenly stopped. Shit, it couldn’t have been good news for that poor were… or so I thought. When I finally made it inside there wasn’t much left of the henchmen Padma had sent. It was pretty bad… bits and pieces that I wasn’t quite able to identify…and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. There were perhaps two, maybe three bodies. There had been a couple of lycanthropes and perhaps a vampire, I couldn’t tell. And in all that bloody mess was the most breathe taking of weres I had ever seen, a very battered but still beautiful white tiger. Her white, chocolate striped fur was matted down with blood and gore and her hide was ripped and almost shredded in so many places it was a wonder she was still breathing at all.

I got on my cell phone to my sweetie Richard the local Ulfric, making sure he got someone down here with Dr. Lillian and fast. Then I called Jean Claude to let him know the invasion was taken care of, quite effectively too I might add, by the tiger they had been chasing. I waited, not wanting to approach such an injured were. Who knew what she would have done. Anybody that took out Padma’s people was high in my book, but not so high that I would risk becoming furry if she thought I was one of the bad guys and take a swipe at me.