She gave a very small smile. "But not as much as he wants you."
The marks between Richard and I quieted. I couldn't feel him breathe or what he was thinking. He had cut me off. Afraid of what I'd see, maybe. "What happened, Verne? They were supposed to be safe in your lands," Richard said.
Cherry answered, "Jamil sent the three of us for help. He" -- she pointed to a shadowy figure on the other side of the clearing -- "wouldn't let us pass into the lupanar. He wouldn't take our request for aid to Verne."
The man stepped forward so a patch of moonlight showed him: tall, muscular, dark-haired, pale. "They are not pack. They have no right to demand passage."
Verne was just suddenly there, and the tall werewolf was on the ground. I hadn't seen him move. It was a speed that was dreamlike, impossible. But I'd almost seen it.
"I am Ulfric. I decide who is worthy and who is not, Eric. You are only Freki, third in the pack. You have one more battle before you can even challenge me."
Eric touched his hand to his face and came away with something dark and liquid. "I am not challenging you."
There was movement behind me in the leaves. Zane was crawling towards me, the wounded arm held close to his chest with a makeshift sling. "I came back to help while Cherry and Nathaniel argued with their watchwolf." I could feel an intensity to his gaze, even in the dark. "The blood's going to dry before he gets to it all." He stayed there in the leaves, just out of touching distance. His shirt had been ripped off one side of his slender chest. It hung in rags to one shoulder. He stared at me and even by scattered moonlight, I could see the need, not in his face but in his body, the way he held himself. He was asking for more than the healing of his body. If he hadn't been there, Jason would be dead now. Even a lycanthrope has a limit to the damage he can take.
Jason held the palm of my hand to his mouth, licking with long, lingering movements.
"You need the other hand?" I asked.
"It will be dried before he can use it," Lucy said.
I stared at her and hated her just a little. Hated her for having been in Richard's bed. Hated her for doing things with him that I'd never allowed myself to do.
"The wereleopard doesn't need the blood," Richard said. "He'll heal without it."
I just stared at him and held my hand out to Zane. He crawled to me on his knees and his good arm. I stared at Richard while Zane took my fingers into his mouth. He sucked on them like a hungry child licking the last bit of cake from a spoon.
"He's mine, Richard, mine as much as Jason is. I am Nimir-ra and lupa."
Richard stood. "I know what you are, Anita."
I shook my head. "You have no idea what I am." The moment I said it, I felt that warm, growing presence. Munin rising inside of me like a pool of warm water, spilling upward. Richard's mark seemed to bring it on sometimes. Or maybe it was just the way he made me feel. Lust or anger or both. I didn't fight the munin.
Marianne had said if I stopped fighting, that it would lose some of its control over me. I wasn't even sure I could fight it off completely. The best I could do was control it. I let it flow over me, down my arms into the two men.
Jason had worked his way to my wrist, tongue moving over the veins there. He'd been hesitating over the smell of fresher blood so very close to the surface. Now his good eye stared up at me, wide, a little scared.
I smiled down at him, and I knew that it wasn't just my smile. I was still here, but I wasn't exactly alone. Raina's thoughts lay over mine like a veil. I could see out, but it colored everything I saw. Her body, our body, wanted things, craved things that made me want to run screaming. But if I were careful, I could use her as she used me. It was like walking up a flight of steep, narrow stairs with a cup of scalding coffee filled to the brim. Careful, oh, so careful or it spills over the edge and you get burned.
The alternative to letting the munin have a little fun was what happened in the woods earlier. I did not want another full-blown memory with Jason and Zane hanging onto me. Not tonight, not ever. Jason couldn't handle it, and neither could I.
I looked down at Jason. "It's all right, Jason. Enjoy the blood while it lasts. I don't think you're going to get this offer twice."
He ran his tongue up my arm, working hard against the skin like a cat washing its own fur. Zane had sucked my fingers clean and had raised my hand up in front of his face, cradled in his good hand. He was licking very slowly, very thoroughly up my palm.
There was a sound behind us. I turned to see the rifleman. He was conscious and in some pain. The doctor with the round glasses was about to give him a shot.
I called, "Bring him to me."
The doctor and the werewolf with him looked across the clearing to Verne and Richard. Richard had moved across to the other Ulfric. They were discussing how everything had gone wrong. They could discuss things all night. I wanted answers.
"Don't look at them. Look at me. And bring him to me!" Raina's munin swelled outward and burst over me, over Jason, over Zane. It spilled over Lucy and brought a gasp from her throat. Everyone in the clearing got a taste, a preview if you like. It was getting harder to hold together. Harder to think.
They dragged the rifleman over to me. I knew what I looked like. I was wearing a black underwire bra that hid more than most bathing suits, but it was still a bra. I was still covered in blood. Jason and Zane were licking blood from my naked skin. It was strange and macabre and would work as a threat very nicely.
The doctor and the other werewolf threw the rifleman down in front of me. Jason and Zane ignored him, mouths on my skin. Zane slid his mouth along the edge of my skin, teeth grating ever so gently on the skin. His eyes slid to the rifleman, and I knew we would put on a show for him.
I felt Raina's munin like a warm glow. She, it, whatever, wanted to cover Zane's mouth with ours and taste Jamil's blood. Wanted to rip the bandage off his shoulder and lick the wound. With the thought came the knowledge that licking the wound would make it heal faster. Surely not.
The rifleman stared at me, his eyes showing mostly white. I could feel his breath, smell his fear. I could smell his fear like a miasma of sweat. I could taste in his scent how injured he was. I knew his skin would be cool to the touch from blood loss. All this from a smell. Shit.
"What's your name?"
The question seemed too hard for him.
"We can check your wallet. What's your name?"
He made an involuntary move to his back pocket with a hand he didn't have anymore.
"If we get him to a hospital soon," the doctor said, "they might be able to reattach the arm."
"If he answers my questions truthfully, you can take him to the hospital."
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Terry, Terry Fletcher."
"Okay, Terry. Who sent you to kill us?"
"I wanted to pay you back for making us look bad. That's all. Nobody was supposed to die."
Jason had cleaned my arm to the elbow. I could feel the passage of his tongue like a cool line running over and over my skin. Hot where he still touched me, cool where he'd just been.
"Lies won't get you to a hospital, Terry. Lies won't save your arm. Who paid you to hurt us?" I asked.
"He'll kill me."
I looked at him and laughed. The laugh was rich and thick enough to hold. It rolled out of my mouth and it wasn't my laugh. The sound raised the hairs on the back of my neck and made Jason hesitate, mouth pressed to my arm.
"Do you really think I won't kill you?"
A breeze had finally come up, hot and stale. Jason's mouth was cooler.
His mouth had healed enough to suck at my skin, but there was an edge of swelling to the side of his mouth. I wanted to kiss the wound, lick it, see if what I was being told was right. Could I really heal him?
I looked at Terry. "Tell me who paid you to hurt us. Tell me who sent you to kill us. Tell me everything I want to know, and the good doctor will take you to a hospital where they may save your arm. Lie to me, and your arm is j
ust so much meat. Lie to me, and you die tonight, here, in this clearing. You think it over, Terry. I've got all night."
I leaned over Jason, drawing his mouth away from my arm. We kissed, and I could taste Jamil's blood, my skin, the faint remnant of the perfume on my wrist, and Jason's blood. His mouth had bled, and I could taste that, too. But it wasn't bleeding now. It was healing, and I could make it heal faster. It took everything I had not to press my mouth hard against his and force that warmth into him, everything I had not to press Jason's wounded body into the leaves and ride him.
I drew away from him, eyes closed. I opened my eyes and looked at the man. Jason moved to my stomach, licking along the top of my jeans. They were soaked in blood, and wouldn't really dry while I was still wearing them. Zane curved around to my back, licking along my spine. There was no blood there, and he had to stop at the spine sheath, but it looked good for our captive audience.
"Talk to me, Terry. Once I start fucking one of them, I really don't want to be interrupted." I leaned towards him just a little, and he flinched. I drew away from Jason and Zane and crawled towards Terry. I made the movement everything it was supposed to be: fluid, dangerous, sexual. Even now, his eyes kept flicking to my breasts so white against the blackness of the lingerie. Even now, he was still a man. I felt Raina's utter disdain of men. All that sex, and it was mostly hate. How terribly odd.
She was enjoying terrorizing the man. His wide eyes, the quick breath, the pounding of his heart. I could hear it. Hell, I could almost taste his skin on my tongue. Food, he smelled like food.
"Who sent you, Terry?" I made it a whisper, intimate, for his ears only. I reached out to him, and when I trailed my finger down his cheek, he whimpered. I leaned forward and licked a quick line the length of his face. "You taste like food, Terry."
I could feel the others at our back. Verne's pack responding to Raina's call. To my call. Through Richard, I was more lupa than I wanted to be. But now, tonight, it had possibilities. They came from every side, moving like shadows. Creeping closer, nearer, drawn by my desire and the man's terror.
He stared at them, watched them coming closer with wide eyes. He turned his head to watch them moving in. I kissed his cheek while he wasn't looking, and he screamed.
"Oh, God, please don't."
Raina's laugh fell from my lips. "Names, Terry, names."
"Niley, Franklin Niley. He paid us to run you off, said the cops wouldn't be a problem. Then he said kill you. You especially. He said kill that bitch before she queers my deal."
"What deal?" I whispered. Frank Niley was the employer of the muscleman Milo Hart. I hadn't seen him since. He was here for land speculation. Was he the buyer for Greene's land?
Terry's eyes flicked around to the waiting werewolves. "I don't know, honest to God. I don't know. He paid us five hundred apiece to hurt you. He made it five thousand for Chuck and me to kill you."
"Five thousand apiece?" I asked.
He nodded.
"It wasn't enough," I said.
"We didn't know you was a werewolf. We didn't know what you were." One of the shadowy throng was sniffing his leg. Terry's voice rose a little higher with every word. His next "I didn't know" was almost a scream.
Raina's munin was like a warm pulse behind my eyes. I leaned into the man, as if I'd kiss him. He backed away but bumped into the good doctor. My mouth hovered over the man's, but it wasn't a kiss I wanted. I stayed there, hovering over his mouth, frozen, fighting not to lower my mouth to his neck. Fighting not to sink teeth into his throat and tear. Fighting not to draw first blood and let the pack feed.
I started crawling back from him, as if I were the one that was afraid. "Take him to the hospital."
"You can't let him live," Zane said.
"I promised him if he talked, we'd take him." I caressed Zane's face. We stayed kneeling in the leaves, close enough to embrace when I didn't remember moving that close. "Take him, take the arm. And Terry," I said.
The man wasn't looking at me. He was staring at the waiting wolves.
"Terry," I said again. I was still caressing Zane, one hand buried in his short, white hair.
The man looked at me, eyes flicking back and forth madly as if he were trying to keep all of us in sight at once. "What? What do you want? You said I could go to the hospital."
"If you tell Niley about tonight, about what I am and what happened, I'll kill you." I lowered Zane's face until I planted a gentle kiss on his forehead.
"I won't tell. I won't tell anyone. Niley'd kill me if he knew I gave him up. He'd fucking kill me."
"Good," I said. I cradled Zane against me. He began to lick down my neck. He passed over my shoulder, licking a small line down my collarbone. He went lower, and I pushed him away, rough enough that he fell on his wounded shoulder. The world was narrowing down. I was losing the fight with Raina.
"Get him out of here -- now!" I felt like I was going blind. I could see, but it was all different. I was fighting her and she didn't like it. She'd asked for violence, and I'd refused. She'd asked for sex, and I'd refused. Even dead, she was a hard lady to say no to.
I covered my eyes with my hands. I heard someone moving towards me. "Don't touch me."
"It's Marianne, child. Tell me what's happening."
I lowered my hands until I could see Marianne. She was still in the white dress with her long, pale hair. "You never met Raina, did you?"
"No, child."
I reached for her hand, and it was just a hand. There was no memory attached to it. No horror that the munin could share. "Help me."
She gripped my hand with both of hers. "It's too late to force the munin out. It must be made to want to leave."
I shook my head. "She won't leave."
"She's left you before."
I shook my head harder until my hair slapped my face. "You don't know what she wants. You don't understand what she wants. I can't. I won't."
Richard was there. He started to touch my shoulder, and I fell back into the leaves. One hand raised as if to ward off a blow. I did not want to know what Raina had done with him or to him. That was one image I did not need.
"What's wrong?"
"The munin will not leave until Anita does something it wants."
"You knew Raina," I said. "Tell her the kind of thing Raina enjoyed." It was rising inside me. I couldn't stop it. It rose higher and higher until the power spilled out of my mouth in a shriek.
He started to touch me and I crawled away from him. "No, no, no, no."
Marianne caught me, held me against her. She smelled like Ivory soap and lilacs. I knew I could have broken her hold, but I didn't want to. I wanted to be held. I wanted help. I needed help.
She smoothed my hair, rocking me like I was a child. "Anita, you must give in to the munin in part. You've done it before. Richard has discussed past events with me. When the munin leaves you this time, we will work together to make sure this does not happen again."
I raised up enough to see her face. "Can you really stop this?"
"I can teach you how to stop it."
I stared into her pale eyes for a space of heartbeats. I could hear the strange click of her artificial heart valve. The munin was hinting that food would do as well as sex. Not as well, but it would do.
I pushed gently away from Marianne. "You're just food to her." I crawled back from her, slowly.
Marianne just watched me, kneeling in the leaves in her white dress. She was the only one in the clearing that was more than a shadow. All that whiteness caught the moonlight and glimmered. She looked like a target.
I stood, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I could taste my heart in my throat like a ball that I could have touched and played with. I looked around the clearing, desperate for a way out. Something that Raina would be content with and I could live with.
Zane was staring at me. Raina wanted him. But what she wanted had very little to do with sex. I went to him. He knelt in the leaves, staring up at me with large eyes gone silver wi
th moonlight.
I fell to my knees in front of him and ripped the sling off his shoulder. He made a small grunt of pain, and Raina liked it. The problem with doing something to get the munin out was that the munin had to be in control enough for me to be willing to do what it wanted. Giving her more control seemed like a bad idea. But what she wanted was to plant our mouth over the wound in his shoulder, and I couldn't do it sober. There wasn't enough Raina in me yet to put my tongue in an open wound.
I crawled away from Zane and found Jason. I stared at him. He was almost a safety zone for me when the munin had me. The munin liked him, and I wasn't afraid of him.
I went to him, kneeling on all fours in the leaves, but knew if I touched him and I was still fighting the munin, we'd get another rush of horror. If I went to him, it had to be for real. I had to be willing to give in, at least a little.
His mouth was almost completely healed. The swelling in his eye was better. The blood or the munin -- it really was working. He was healing. I knew the munin could be used for healing on lycanthropes. I'd done it once before, but not like this. That was back when Raina first made an appearance, and I hadn't realized how much trouble I was in. Now I knew, and I was scared and hated it. Raina thought that was hilarious, that dead, she scared me more than she had when she was alive.
I could feel her pleasure like a line of warmth through my body. The echo of her laughter chased through my mind and made gooseflesh on my arms. Being possessed by anyone would have scared me. Being possessed by a sociopathic nymphomaniac sadomasochist that I had killed personally was too frightening and too ironic for words.
Jason lay back in the leaves. I was very careful not to touch him as I crawled over his body on all fours. I knelt there on hands and knees and stared down at him, legs and arms wide so that we didn't accidentally touch.
His voice came hoarse, rough, as if something in his throat were still hurting, "You have a plan?"
"If I don't fight the munin, Marianne says no memories, just power."
He stared up at me. "You going to kiss it and make it all better?"
I nodded, my hair sliding over his face. "All better." I leaned my face towards his in a sort of push-up motion. Our lips brushed in a trembling line, and what not an hour before had been chaste and a little uncomfortable was suddenly changed. I broke the kiss and held my body off of his with fingertips and toes, my body above his. I could feel the trembling energy of his aura underneath me, pushing against the power of my aura, the power that was munin. I stayed above him, not touching, staring into his face. When we kissed again, the power poured from my mouth into his in a warm breath that burned through our bodies.
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