Harlequin--chapter 22

Anita and Rafael are having sex. God, shoot me now.

RAFAEL CARRIED ME out to the hallway with my legs wrapped around his waist, my arms around his shoulders, my mouth feeding at his.

That doesn't sound romantic to me. It sounds like something in a really bad romantic comedy.

Rafael apparently smells like smoked beef. Smoke and salt are repeated ad nauseum until both stop looking like words. Anita's eyes are glowing blue now, and Jean Claude makes her say cheesy, un-Anita like things because I guess you have to feel guilt for sweet talking during foreplay too? IDK. Anita's got about as much agency in this sex scene as a hamburger does in McDonalds.

There are implications that Rafael has lusted after Anita for years. Gag me.

Good God, they're not even gonna make it to the bedroom. Rafael tells her to "Climb me" while they're leaning against a wall.

The tip of him brushed along my bare skin, and I let my body slide those few inches lower, so he could guide himself to my opening.

GOD. LAURELL, USE THE WORD VAGINA. How about Labia? It's prettier than vagina. More lyrical.

Also penis. Because saying "The head of him" when you're talking about penis-in-vagina sex makes me think she's wrapping her labia around his actual head. The view must really suck.

Anita tries to feed on Rafael, but he's too well sheilded. And then this happens:

I wanted him to take me, to drive all that need, all that denial into my body. The ardeur tried to feed, but he was a king and it could not get past his shields. A tiny thought of panic from Jean-Claude, quickly swallowed, but he was urgent that we break Rafael.

One: You should not use the word "break" towards another human unless you're in a car, or you're letting them go to lunch. You do not break other people.

Two: Yes. Let's break the ONLY DECENT LEADER IN THIS SHITHOLE ORGANIZATION because HE STOOD UP TO YOU. Nice going, heroine. Great job.

Go die in a fire, Anita.

And then Rafael's sheilds break.

And you know what? I can almost cut Anita slack on one thing. She never, not once, consciously acknowledges that what she does is rape. She just views it as getting sex, and justifies it because her sex partners orgasm. It's a horrible thing, but that lack of acknowledgement makes it almost unconscious. You could almost feel sorry for her. As long as it's not open, you can almost justify her behavior as just the behavior of an addict who doesn't know any better.

As we’d fed once on Augustine and his people, now we fed on Rafael and his. I felt Claudia stagger, felt Lisandro fall to his knees, felt the wererats try to run, or fight, or keep us out, but they couldn’t. They’d given their protection over to their king; when he fell, they were ours. Ours for the taking, ours for the raping, ours for the eating.

No. No, guys. She knows. SHE FUCKING KNOWS. She's not giving crowds magical surprise sex. She is raping hundreds of people intentionally and she damn well fucking knows it.

These are not the lines of a heroine. These are the lines of a sociopathic serial killer who needs to be put down NOW.

And then Jean Claude tells her he did it because he was badly hurt and he was worried, blog-readers, worried that if he passed out he'd drain all his vampires and kill them so he had to rape all the rats. And you know how in the beginning of this book, Malcolm was going on about how blood oathing people was slavery and a bad idea? Jean Claude isn't making a good case for it.

The Harlequin stops the power they took from the rats, and Richard doesn't heal. Oh, gee, Laurel, I am so glad you remembered the plot, it was weeping over in the corner. So Anita turns to Rafael, the man she just raped hundreds of other people through, and asks for his help.

I got nothing, people.

Anita takes all the power from the rats and shoots it at the whatever that is killing Richard. Somehow striking at the whatever makes her scry the Harlequin's hotel room, where two petite female vampires are doing Something Bad. This is not established and they just look up at Anita with scared little girl faces and try to sheild each other with their bodies. Anita somehow manages to kill them and is happy about it.

So Anita gets power from something the text acknowledges as rape, and then goes and kills her enemy using imagry that is very, very rapy.