by Faith Hunter
Eli needs to hunt, Beast thought.
Yeah. He does, I thought back.
He needed me too. How very weird. To be needed.
“There was a lot of confusing stuff in the vision/experience/memory/whatever it was,” I said.
The men said nothing.
“But it was definitely not human.”
They looked at each other. Something communicated between them, something I didn’t catch. Something important. “What?” I demanded.
“That is interesting,” Bruiser said.
“Right interesting.” Eli stood and walked away.
“You’re not telling me something,” I said, my tone accusing. Because: “I’m not stupid.”
“No, you aren’t,” Bruiser said. And then he got up and left too, closing the door behind him.
“Not fair,” I shouted. Neither of them responded. “Dang it.”
I dressed and checked on Shiloh in the bathroom. The paralyzed, almost-true-dead vamp still lay in the tub, covered in dried blood, her throat a gaping wound. I needed to fix my life. I needed to find out what was going on. No. I needed to be well so they’d stop treating me like I was sick.
Jane is sick, Beast said.
“Shut up. No one asked you.”
Beast snorted.
I left the bathroom to find Bruiser back, standing at the bedroom window, staring out at the snow. I scuffed my feet to let him know I was coming and wrapped my arms around his waist from behind. I could hear his heart beating, slow and measured, and remembered the feeling I had gotten a few times recently. I debated bringing up the vision or talking about feelings. My natural inclination was to avoid feelings, so I started there. Because I’m contrary even to myself. “You’re depressed,” I said. “I hadn’t noticed and when I did notice I didn’t do anything about it.”
“You’ve been busy dying,” he said, heartache and amusement lacing his words. “Besides, my depression is more grief than true melancholy, and either way it isn’t your responsibility. It belongs to me and is mine to deal with.”
“Uh-huh. I didn’t save Leo. Leo’s in a coffin because of me.”
Bruiser didn’t reply. His heart rate didn’t alter. But his scent? Yeah. I smelled his grief.
I gave myself a chance to think it all through, and then, when I had it all in place, I said part of what I had put together. “Being Onorio doesn’t mean you no longer need vamp blood; it just means you need less. Are you in withdrawal?”
Bruiser turned, sliding through my embrace in surprise.
“What?” I said. “You forgot about drinking? You’re an idiot, you know that, right?”
“I never even thought about it. I’ve been . . . off . . . not myself, for months.” His arms went around me and his forehead creased as some other thought occurred to him, but he didn’t share.
“We have a few vamps coming. You should mix a little visiting-vamp blood with your wine tonight.”
He forehead was still furrowed. “How did you think of that? I didn’t, and I’m the blood addict.”
“Did you ever think to ask the B-twins about blood addiction in Onorios and what the symptoms of withdrawal might be?”
A frown drew his face down. “No.”
Men. They never asked for help or info. Not even my honeybunch. I figured testosterone resulted in brain damage. “Molly was addicted to vamp blood, but it was short-term, not for a hundred years, like you. Her withdrawal was probably a lot faster than yours has been, even with your Onorio physiology at work, and she went cold turkey, with nothing to offset the symptoms. I bet Evan can make some music to ease it for you like he did her. But he can’t fix grief. And now we’re back to the ‘Jane didn’t save Leo’ part of this convo. And your grief. Which you try to hide because you don’t want me to feel guilty.”
“I don’t blame you, Jane. I never did. Leo made the decisions he thought best and some of them were hard on me, on a friendship we had for most of my very long life. Onorios don’t need much Mithran blood, but he didn’t feed me for weeks prior to the Sangre Duello. So I have been in the Onorio version of fame vexatum for a long time. Months. I should have fed. I have been thoughtless and foolish.”
All that was interesting, and an insight into my lovey-dovey’s brain. Leo had mesmerized and bled and fed and used Bruiser for decades, yet he still called Leo his friend. Fame vexatum was the dietary style practiced by Mithrans—the vamps who didn’t drain and kill humans in return for physical prowess, but who starved themselves in return for mental and mesmeric abilities. But that wasn’t the important part of his words.
“Why did he stop feeding you?”
Bruiser laughed, the sound almost like pain coming through his chest, and drew me closer. “Grégoire didn’t feed Brandon or Brian either. Leo wanted us all free of blood scent. We Onorios were supposed to stay out of the fighting, were supposed to scent as outclan, in case Leo lost and you died, so that we could, possibly, working together, drain Titus unto true-death.”
A quiver of shock zinged through me. Leo had laid in contingency plans, a massive cheat, so that if he lost and I was dead, his people could still be free. And now we were facing the most powerful Son of Darkness. The last SOD was coming to Asheville, and we had one Onorio, not three.
More important, Shimon had Edmund. And one Onorio would not be enough to drain such an ancient bloodsucker.
“And there’s only one of me here,” Bruiser said, speaking my own thoughts, “which limits the Onorio manner of killing him true-dead.”
“Yeah. And with the snowstorm and the canceled flights there’s no way to get Brandon and Brian Robere—the B-twins—here.” But we had Molly. I didn’t say that. “About that grief—”
“Sometimes you have to let go of things, Jane. Let go of people, because they die. Even let go of time you no longer have.” With a long, elegant finger, he tilted up my chin and smiled down at me. “I gave up Leo and the friendship of a century. It was easier than expected because he had used me, controlled me, and worst of all, forced me to hurt you.” He inhaled deeply, a single, restorative breath. “Remembering that, more than anything, has made my grief easier. But I will not give up you, not to Leo, not to cancer. I will fight. Will you fight with me?”
I remembered all the people who needed me. Remembered the danger they were all in if I really did give up. “Dang skippy,” I said.
My lovebug laughed, the reverberation bouncing high in the ceilings and through his chest and into my arms. “Let’s see if your clan mob and the kids left us eggs and bacon.”
“And biscuits?” I shouted at Eli, whom I could smell in the hallway. “I’m pretty sure I saw Eli sliding a tray of biscuits into the oven.”
“Two. Two trays,” my partner shouted back.
One biscuit, two eggs, and another hot chocolate later, I curled into the recliner, hurting, but as happy as I could remember being. The snow continued to fall outside. The sound of children screaming with laughter echoed through the tall ceilings. The smell of bacon and coffee and family and baby were heavy on the air, a satisfying scent.
Molly walked in and dropped Cassy on my chest. “She needs burping,” Molly said. And walked out. Carefully, I sat up and adjusted the infant on my shoulder. Began patting Cassy’s back.
Kitssss, Beast thought.
“Yeah,” I murmured. And that warmth I had felt when Cassy looked at me began to spread. I was maybe, sorta, beginning to come back to life.
* * *
* * *
The blow caught me in the side. Another high on the outer thigh, safe places to hit someone if you didn’t want to maim them. But Eli shouldn’t have been able to hit me, not when he was holding back like he was. It sucked being sick. The pain was gone, thanks to the Anzu feather, but I wasn’t well. My speed and stamina hadn’t returned. I wasn’t cured. Yet, I added mentally. I wasn’t cured yet.
/> I circled my sparring partner, my toes gripping the mat. Trying to breathe deeply enough to fight without gasping or gagging.
Beast is better than puma or Jane. She sent me an image of me in half-form.
Half—I stopped and held up a hand to pause the match, trying to follow the glimmer of hope that—“My half-form may not be sick,” I whispered.
Eli danced back, his weight on the balls of his feet, his body carrying that bounce common among boxers. A little to the left, a little to the right, with each low jump. “Not many weapons you can fire with half-form fingers.” He wasn’t even breathing hard, his brain working as fast as his body.
“But I can totally do the shock-and-awe thing.” I grinned, showing teeth, a mean smile. “I’ll greet Shimon in half-form.”
Eli gave me his almost-there warrior smile, a little evil, a lot hard. “Your brother doesn’t know how to half-form. Old bloodsucker like Shimon, never been to this continent? Killed all the weres he ever saw, at first sight? Bet he’s never seen a Cherokee skinwalker in half-form. In fact . . .” He danced some more, thinking. “No one had until you figured it out. Yeah. Throw the bloodsucker off his game. So do it. Right now. Half-shift. Let’s see how fast you can make it.” He stood still and pulled his phone, started a timer. “Go.”
Beast?
My Beast moved through our shared mind. She pulled up the Gray Between, silver and gray mist like a sparkling cloud. And she ripped through it. The pain was instant and acute, as if she was slashing through my guts with her claws. I dropped to my knees. Bones cracked. Joints swelled. Fangs shoved up through my mandibles and down from my maxillas. Big honking fangs. My skull cracked like someone hit me with a handful of marbles. My shoulders shattered. My feet felt like grenades exploded inside them. I forgot how to breathe.
I came to on the sparring mat, lying facedown in a little pool of drool. “Well, that sucked,” I managed. It came out “Weeee ’at’shhhhu’ed.”
Showing no mercy, which made me delirious with delight, Eli bent over me and said, “Took too long.” His tone was casual, as if my pain was no biggie. I wanted to hit him, but I hurt too much to move just yet. “If you tried that in a fight he’d be tossing your head around like a bouncy ball.”
“Bouncy baw!” a child’s voice shouted. “I wanna pay baw!” I got my head turned to the sound and saw Little Evan standing in the doorway of the room, his fists clenched, his bare toes cute and stubby from this angle. He was the spitting image of his daddy, all bright-eyed and fiery-haired. His speech wasn’t quite perfect yet, the Ls there and gone. EJ rushed into the room as if to jump on me and came to a dead stop ten feet away, frozen at the sight of my face. His eyes went wide.
“It’s Aunt Jane,” I said, the words fang-mangled.
EJ took a slow step back. Froze again. Took another step back. He frowned mightily. Unballed his fists and pointed his fingers at me. Magic trembled in the air, a scalding/glacier tingle that shivered over my skin like—
“No the heck you don’t.” Eli swept EJ up into his arms and tossed him into the air. The magic vanished and EJ squealed in delight as Eli caught him and tossed him high again.
I rolled over and shoved my hair aside, analyzing what I’d just felt. The kid was already using magic, not something he should be able to do until he hit puberty. Raw, electric magic. To kill me? To see what I was? Or something else? I watched Eli toss the little boy again and then gather him, cradled in the crook of one elbow.
“That’s Aunt Jane in a Halloween costume,” he said. “No magic allowed.”
“But—”
“No buts. What’s your daddy say about using magic?”
EJ scrunched up his face and poked out his lower lip. “He hurting me if I use magic.”
Eli went still as a sniper and studied the toddler’s face. Quietly, he asked, “Hurting you?”
“Daddy making me cry. Fussin’ at me. Te’yow me I have a stop. Stoppin’ hurts little boweys. Right here.” EJ touched his middle, over his solar plexus.
“I see. Well. Did you know that there are ways to make that hurting go away?”
EJ scrunched up his face in thought, still pouting. “No.”
Eli waited. Patient. EJ scrunched his face up tighter. I drooled a little more.
The scrunched pout turned into curiosity. “How?” Little Evan demanded.
“It’s called martial arts. Your aunt Jane was hurting and so she was practicing martial arts.”
“In a How’oween costume?” He bent over Eli’s arm and stared hard at me. “Dat’s a reawy good costume, Ant Jane.”
“Uh-huh.” Molly was gonna kill me for ruining her kid. I shoved up to my hands and knees and stopped to catch my breath. My pants were about to fall off. I’d lost a lot of weight. Stretching out the hem of my tee, I smeared the spit off the mat. “Show EJ a few moves, Ranger man. I need to see how much stamina I have in this form.”
“Hope it’s more than you have in human form, Janie, because right now you’re dead meat.”
“Dead meat! Dead meat! Dead meat!” EJ shouted.
Eli snickered, a sound he tried to hide and somehow didn’t manage. “So,” my partner said to my godson, “let’s talk about balance . . .”
I gripped my pants at my navel and made it to my feet and out the door toward the elevator. “Being sick sucks,” I muttered.
“Sick suck! Sick suck!” EJ’s voice trailed away as I entered the elevator and the doors closed.
I fell against the elevator wall. Silent, thoughtful, I examined my body as the elevator took me upstairs. I pushed on my middle. No tumor. No pain. Holy crap. The tumor was gone. Well, gone in this form. Meet and greet the biggest, baddest vamp still alive and fight him too. Why not? It’s how I killed the emperor. I made a fist. I wondered if I could put on weight and muscle in this form. Wondered if I could reliably shift from Beast to half-form. Wondered if I’d shift to human form if I fell asleep or was knocked out while in this form or if I could hold this shape. “Yeah,” I whispered. “Stuff to learn. This might do.”
I had expected a visit from my new Cherokee Elder at dawn, but she hadn’t made it through the snow. We hadn’t heard from Shimon Bar-Judas. I had time to work on things.
CHAPTER 6
Beat Ya Butt! Beat Ya Butt!
I changed into clothes that fit my new body shape better—wider at the shoulders and more narrow at the waist and upper hips. I felt good. Better than good. You knew I’d feel okay in this form, didn’t you? I asked Beast. She didn’t answer. Any reason you didn’t tell me? Again with the no answer. Beast had wanted to come home to the mountains and live and hunt and be a mountain lion for a while. Or forever. Beast had ulterior motives. I felt her move deeper into my mind at that thought, as if seeking protection in the back of a den. That’s it, isn’t it? You kept me from thinking about this shape.
Beast chuffed, deep inside. Did not know that Jane was not sick in half-form. Was not fact. Have been thinking about fact. Fact is life. Fact is . . . ex-per-’ence. Did not know being half-Beast with no sickness was fact.
Uh-huh. But I hadn’t thought about the possibility either, which was dang stupid.
I studied myself in the mirror and liked what I saw: tall, muscular, maybe a little mean, and totally badass.
I considered pulling on the battle boots, not because I’d be fighting anyone, but because they had expandable panels at the sides to fit my paw-feet and had room for the claws that used to be toenails. But I decided to go bare-pawed. And wondered what the hard, thick nails would look like painted. Bloodred and sparkly, maybe. Or gold and sparkly to match my eyes. I held out my knobby-knuckled hands and figured it would take a whole bottle of polish to cover all twenty nails. Worth it. Totally worth it. I dug in a drawer for polish and found the sparkly red. “Oh yeah. So perfect.”
Want kits, Beast thought at me, her tone fierce. Cannot have kits if J
ane is Jane. Can only have kits if Beast is Beast.
Shaking the polish, I headed toward the kitchen and calories and protein as Beast’s truth moved through me, slow and powerful, like a mudslide. “Okay,” I said aloud, taking the stairs slowly. “You’re right. I guess . . . I’ve been selfish for a long time.”
Now Jane has mate. Jane will never let Beast have kits. Jane will stay Jane for mate.
Ummm. Not necessarily?
Beast’s mental ears perked high.
I needed to talk to Bruiser about this. Because Beast was right. I had made no plans to let her live her life until I got sick. Let’s take care of the SOD and then we can plan for you. We might have to go out west or to Canada to find you territory close to a possible mate.
Beast perked up. Kits?
Sure. Why not.
Want strong, big mate. Want fast mate. Want mate with—
Yeah. I got it.
If Bruiser was puma, would want Bruiser as mate.
I chuckled softly. It came out a lot deeper than I expected.
Eli lifted his eyes from the bar where he had a number of handguns in pieces. The place stank of lubricants and suddenly felt more like home. He glanced to one side where Little Evan was eating Cheerios, dry from the bowl, sitting beside him, watching every little movement. Eli had a fan. The former Army Ranger looked out the windows, scanning, his fingers touching the loaded weapon still holstered beneath one arm. On guard. Protecting. Always.
The little boy looked up. “Hey, Ant Jane,” EJ said. “That’s a really good costume. I learned to breafe . . . breathe . . . and to baw’ance—balance—on two feet.”
“Yeah? That’s good. Breathing is important.” I covered his head with a paw-hand, surprised when the whole thing fit into my longer fingers. Children were so small and fragile.
Kits . . . , Beast thought, the word filled with longing.
