Cherry raised up on her knees, and again it was like an echo. Their power pressed against me like a great, warm hand. Their intensity, their need, filled their eyes. And I realized for the first time that it wasn't just Nathaniel that was needy. It was all of them. They had no home, no love, no care.
"It wasn't friendship," Zane said. "The wolf is right."
"You aren't having sex with Nathaniel," Cherry said.
I stared at them, at those eager faces. "Sometimes you do things just because it's the right thing to do," I said.
"You risked Asher and Damian, then you risked yourself," Zane said. "Why? Why?"
"Why did you protect me last night?" Jason asked. "Why did you stand between me and Barnaby?"
"You're my friend," I said.
Jason smiled. "Now, I am, but that wasn't why you protected me. You'd have done the same for Zane."
I frowned at Jason. "What do you want me to say, Jason?"
"The real reason why you protected me. The same reason you risked so much for Nathaniel. Not friendship, or sex, or love."
"Then why?" I asked.
"You know the answer, Anita."
I looked from him to the two kneeling wereleopards. I hated putting it into words, but Jason was right. "Nathaniel is mine now. He's on the list of people that I'll protect. He's mine, and no one can hurt him without answering to me. Jason's mine. You're all mine, and no one hurts what's mine. It's not allowed."
It sounded so arrogant saying it out loud. It sounded medieval, but it was still true. Some things just are true; you don't have to voice them, they just are. And somewhere along the way, I'd started collecting people. My people. It used to mean friends, but lately, it meant more than that, or less. It meant people like Nathaniel. We certainly weren't friends, but he was mine, just the same.
Staring down into Zane and Cherry's faces, it was like I could see all the disappointments, the small betrayals, the selfishness, the pettiness, the cruelty. I watched it fill their eyes. They'd seen so much of it that they simply couldn't understand kindness or honor; or worse, they just didn't trust it.
"If you mean that," Zane said, "we're yours. You can have all of us."
"Have?" I made it a question.
"They mean sex," Jason said. He wasn't smiling now. I wasn't sure why. He'd been enjoying the show a moment before.
"I don't want to have sex with either of you, any of you," I added hastily. Didn't want to have any misunderstandings.
"Please," Cherry said, "please choose one of us."
I looked at them. "Why do you want me to have sex with one of you?"
"You love some of the wolves," Zane said. "You feel true friendship for them. You feel none of that for us."
"But you feel lust," Cherry said. "Nathaniel disturbs you because you find him attractive."
That cut a little too close to home. "Look, guys, I don't sleep with people just because I find them attractive."
"Why not?" Zane asked.
I sighed. "I don't do casual sex. If you don't understand that, I'm not sure I can explain it to you."
"How can we trust you if you don't want anything from us?" Cherry said.
I didn't have an answer for that one. I looked at Jason. "Can you help me out here?"
He pushed away from the wall. "I think so, but you may not like it."
"Explain," I said.
"The problem is that they've never really had a Nimir-ra, not for real. Gabriel was an alpha, and he was powerful, but he wasn't a Nimir-raj, either."
"One of the werewolves described Gabriel as a lion passant, a passive leopard, one that had power but didn't protect," I said. "The pard called me a léoparde lionne, one that protects, before they promoted me to Nimir-ra."
"We called Gabriel léopard lionne," Zane said, "because he was all we knew, but the wolves were right, he was a lion passant."
"Great," I said, "so it's settled."
"No," Cherry said. "If Gabriel taught us anything, it was that you can't trust anyone unless they want something from you. You don't have to love us, but pick one of us for a lover."
I shook my head. "No. I mean thanks for the invitation, but no thanks."
"Then how can we trust you?" Cherry asked, voice almost a whisper.
"You can trust her," Jason said. "It's Gabriel that you couldn't trust. He's the one that convinced you that sex was so damned important. Anita isn't even sleeping with our Ulfric, but Zane saw her last night. He saw what she did to protect me."
"She did it to protect her vampire. The one she cares for," Zane said.
"I don't feel for Damian the way I feel for Asher, but I risked my life for him last night," I said.
The leopards frowned up at me. "I know," Zane said, "and I don't understand that. Why didn't you let him die?"
"I'd asked him to risk his life to save Nathaniel. I try never to ask of others what I'm not willing to do myself. If Damian was willing to risk his life, then I couldn't do less."
The leopards were lost. It showed in their faces, the tension that flowed through their power, as it breathed along my skin.
"Am I yours?" Nathaniel asked. His voice sounded small and lost.
I looked past the others to him. He was still crouched, huddled in the middle of the floor. He was huddled in around himself. His long, long hair had spilled around him, across his face. His flower-petal eyes stared out at me through that curtain of hair, like he was staring out through fur. I'd seen other lycanthropes that did that, hid behind their hair, and stared. Crouched there, he was suddenly feral and vaguely unreal. He brushed the hair back from one side, revealing a line of arm and chest. His face was suddenly young, open, and raw with need.
"I won't let anyone else hurt you, Nathaniel," I said.
A single tear slid down his face. "I'm so tired of not belonging to anyone, Anita. So tired of being anyone's meat that wanted me. So tired of being scared."
"You don't have to be scared anymore, Nathaniel. If it's within my power to keep you safe, I will."
"I belong to you now?"
I didn't like the phrasing, but watching him cry, one crystalline tear at a time, I knew that now wasn't the time to quibble over semantics. I hoped I wasn't signing up for more up-close-and-personal care than I wanted, but I nodded. "Yes, Nathaniel, you belong to me." Words alone rarely impressed shapeshifters. It was like part of them didn't understand words.
I held out my hand to him. "Come, Nathaniel, come to me."
He crawled to me, not in that wild, muscular grace, but head down, crying, face hidden by his hair. He was sobbing full out by the time he reached me. He held one hand up to me blind, not looking at me.
Zane and Cherry had moved to either side, letting him come close to me.
I took Nathaniel's hand and wondered what to do with it. Shaking it wasn't enough, kissing it seemed wrong. I racked my brain for anything on leopards and just blanked. The one thing that the leopards did most often was lick each other. I couldn't think of anything else.
I raised Nathaniel's hand to my mouth, bending over to press my mouth to the back of his hand. I licked his skin, one quick movement, and the taste of him was familiar. I knew in that moment that Raina had licked this skin, ran lips, tongue, teeth, down this body.
The munin welled up inside of me, and I fought it. The munin wanted to bite his hand, to draw blood and lap it like a cat with cream. The imagery was too repulsive to me. My own horror helped me chase Raina away. I pushed her down inside me and realized that she never really left me anymore. That was why she came so quickly and so easily. I felt her hiding inside me like a cancer waiting to spread.
I stood there with the taste of Nathaniel's skin in my mouth and did what Raina had never done: I gave comfort.
I raised Nathaniel's head gently until I could cradle his face between my hands. I kissed his forehead, I kissed the salty taste of tears from his cheeks.
He fell against me with a sob, arms locked around my legs, pressed against me. There was a moment when Rai
na tried to flare to life as Nathaniel's groin pressed against my bare legs.
I reached out to Richard, drawing on the mark between us. His power came to my call like a warm brush of fur. It helped chase away that awful, stinging presence.
I offered my hands to the other leopards. They pressed their faces to my skin, chin marking me like cats, licking me as if I were a kitten. I stood there with the three wereleopards pressed to me, borrowing Richard's power to keep Raina at bay. But it was more than that. Richard's power filled me, washed through me into the leopards.
I was like the wood in the center of a fire. Richard was the flame, and the wereleopards warmed themselves against that heat. They took it into themselves, bathed in it, wrapped it around themselves like a promise.
Standing there, caught between Richard's power, the wereleopards' needs, and that awful touch of Raina, like some foul perfume, I prayed: Dear God, don't let me fail them.
24
The greeting ceremony that had been interrupted last night was back on for tonight. One thing about the monsters: You have to observe the rules. The rules said we needed a greeting ceremony, well, by golly, we'd have one. Vengeful vampires, or crooked cops, or hell freezing over, if there was a rite to be performed, or a ceremony to be had, you went ahead with it. The vampires were worse about being cultured while they tore your throat out, but the werewolves weren't far behind.
Me, I'd have ordered takeout and said, "Hell with it; let's try to solve the mystery." But I wasn't in charge. Even crispy-crittering over twenty vamps last night didn't make me top dog or top anything else, though Verne's invitation had been very, very polite. Colin wasn't the only one who was scared of me now.
Executing almost all of Colin's vamps meant that Verne's pack was in charge now. They had the personnel to keep Colin from making more vamps. Apparently, if there was no tie between vampires and wereanimals in an area, then whoever had the strength could rule over the others. Until last night, Colin had kept the wolves in line; now the shoe was on the other foot, and from the look in Verne's eyes, the shoe was going to pinch.
It was one of those hot August nights that is utterly still. The world sits in the close, hot darkness as if holding its breath, waiting for a cool breeze that never comes.
But there was movement under the trees. No wind, but movement. People crept among the trees. No, not people, werewolves. Everyone was still in human form, but you wouldn't have mistaken them for human. They eased through the trees like gliding shadows, moving through the scattered underbrush almost soundlessly. If there had been even the smallest breeze to stir the trees, they would have been soundless. But a brush of twig, a crunch of leaf, a rustle of green leaves, and you heard them. On a night like tonight, even the small sounds carried.
A twig snapped off to my left, and I jumped. Jamil touched my arm, and I jumped again.
"Damn, babe, you're jumpy tonight."
"Don't call me babe."
His smile flashed in the darkness. "Sorry."
I rubbed my hands along my arms.
"You can't be cold," he said.
"I'm not." It wasn't cold that was trailing up and dawn my skin like insects marching.
"What's wrong?" Jason asked.
I stopped in the dark woods, knee-deep in some tall, leggy weed. I shook my head, searching the darkness. Yeah, there were several dozen werewolves slinking around, but it wasn't the shapeshifters themselves that were freaking me out. It was ... it was like hearing voices in a distant room. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but I could hear them -- hear them in my head. I knew what it was; it was the munin. The munin in the lupanar. The munin called to me, whispered across my skin. They were eager for me to come, waiting for me. Shit.
Zane stared out into the dark. He was standing close enough that I heard him draw a breath and knew he was scenting the wind. They were all turned out into the night, even Nathaniel. He seemed more confident than I'd ever seen him, more comfortable in his own skin, no pun intended. Our little ceremony this afternoon had meant something to all three of the leopards. I still wasn't sure what, exactly, it meant to me.
They were all wearing old jeans, T-shirts, things you wouldn't mind shapeshifting in, because one night closer to the full moon, accidents happened. No, not accidents. I would get to watch some of them lose their human shapes tonight. I realized that I really didn't want to see it. Not really.
Asher and Damian were not here. They had gone to spy or negotiate with Colin and his remaining vamps. I'd thought this was a really bad idea, but Asher had assured me that it was expected. That he as Jean-Claude's second would carry the message that I, we, had spared Colin and his second in command, Barnaby. We had allowed his human servant to walk from the circle. We had been generous, and we didn't have to be. By their laws, Colin had overstepped his bounds. He was the lesser vampire, and we could have taken everything from him.
Of course, the truth was that Colin and Barnaby had escaped. The only person we allowed to escape was Colin's human servant. But Asher assured me that he could lie to Colin and that the Master of this City would never realize it was a lie.
There was a tightness in my gut at the thought of Damian and Asher out there alone with Colin and company. The vamps had rules for everything, but they had a tendency to bend the rules until they were just this side of breaking. Close enough to get Asher and Damian hurt. But Asher had been so confident, and tonight I was playing lupa. One monster at a time, I guess.
Another thing that was making me nervous was no guns. Knives were okay, they substituted for claws, but no guns. Marcus had been the same way. No Ulfric worth his salt would let you bring a gun into their inner sanctum. I understood it, but I didn't have to like it. After what I'd done for Verne last night, I thought the request for no guns was downright rude.
Richard had informed me that my killing of Colin's vamps inside the lupanar would be our gift, the gift that the visiting Ulfric and lupa gave to the resident pack.
The gift was usually a freshly killed animal, jewelry for the lupa, or something mystical. Death, jewelry, or magic; it sounded like Valentine's Day.
I'd put jeans on to protect my legs from the underbrush, even though it was hot enough for my knees to sweat. The only one of us wearing shorts was Jason. If his legs were getting scratched up, he didn't seem to mind. He was also the only one not wearing a shirt of some kind. I'd put on a royal blue tank top so at least the top of me would be cool. It did leave the knives sort of visible, though.
The big knife down my spine was still invisible unless you looked really hard at my back. The tank top was thin material, and you could see the sheath, though not in the dark. I had my usual wrist sheaths and silver blades on my forearms. They were very visible against my skin. I had a new knife in my pocket. It was a four-inch switchblade with a safety lock. Didn't want to sit down and stab myself. This is one of those blades that comes straight out. Yes, it is illegal. It had been a gift from a friend who didn't sweat legalities much. So why have a four-incher that is illegal to carry in most states? Because at six inches, it wasn't comfortable to sit down with it in my pocket. So nice to have friends that know your size.
I was also wearing a silver crucifix. I didn't plan on meeting any bad vamps tonight, but I didn't trust Colin not to try something. If he knew enough about the greeting ceremony to know I wouldn't be allowed a gun, now is when he would jump me.
There were soft grey shadows under the trees. The moon and stars were bright somewhere overhead. But where we stood, the trees were a solid darkness between us and the sky. I felt almost claustrophobic standing there in the dark.
"I don't smell anything but other lukoi," Jason said.
Everybody agreed. Nothing but us shapeshifters tonight. No one but me seemed to be able to feel that whispering echo. I was the only necromancer in the bunch, so the spirits of the dead liked me better.
"We need to be at the meeting place before the ceremony goes any further," Jamil said.
I looked
at him. "You mean they've started the ceremony already?"
"The call has been given," Jason said.
He said it like call should have been in capital letters. "What do you mean the call has been given?"
"They've sacrificed an animal and smeared blood on the tree, sort of what you did last night," Jason said.
I rubbed my arms. "I wonder if that's why I'm sensing the munin."
"When we smear blood on the rock throne, our spirit symbol, it doesn't make the munin come," Jason said.
I shook my head. "I've been in your lupanar, Jason; this one is different. Their magic is different from yours."
I felt something creeping through the trees. A roil of energy that made my heart skip a beat, and then beat faster, as if I'd been running. "Jesus, what was that?"
"She's feeling the call," Jason said.
"That's impossible," Jamil said. "She isn't lukoi." He stabbed a finger at Cherry, Zane, and Nathaniel. "They don't feel it. They're shapeshifters, and they don't feel the call to the lupanar."
Cherry looked at us, then shook her head. "He's right. I feel something like a vague buzz through the woods, but it's nothing big."
Nathaniel and Zane agreed with her.
My skin rushed across my body like it was going to try to crawl away under its own power. It was creepy as hell. "What is happening to me?"
"She is feeling the call," Jason said.
"That is not possible," Jamil said.
"You keep saying that about her, Jamil, and you keep being wrong," Jason said.
A low, growling snarl trickled from Jamil's mouth.
"Stop it, both of you," I said. I looked behind me farther into the trees until there was nothing but a wall of darkness shot by faint moonlight. Jason was right. I could feel the magic. It was ritual magic, and it was death magic. Lycanthropes' power comes from life. They are the most alive preternatural creatures I've ever been around, more like fairies than humans, sometimes. But this lupanar ran on death as well as life; it called to me twice. Once through Richard's marks; second through my necromancy. I wished Richard were here.
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