Incubus Dreams ab-12

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "It's all wonderful, Anita. That's what is so..." he seemed to search for a word, and settled for, "frustrating!"

  "So, you guys are getting along great?" I made it a question.

  "I thought so, maybe I was wrong?" He paced two steps away from me, then back. "No, damn it, I wasn't wrong. It's been the best two years of my life. Nothing starts my day off better than waking up beside her. I want to start every day like that. Is that so wrong?"

  "No, Louie, that's not wrong."

  "Then why did we just have the biggest fight we've ever had?" His dark face was demanding, as if I had the answer and just wouldn't give it to him.

  "I'll call Ronnie tomorrow, if she doesn't call me first. I'll talk to her."

  "She says she doesn't want to marry anyone. She says, if she married anyone, it would be me, but she doesn't want to. She doesn't want to." The pain in his voice was so raw, it hurt to hear it.

  "I am so sorry." I started to touch his arm, thought better of it, and said, "Maybe you could just live together?"

  "I offered that. I offered to just live together until she was ready for more." He was staring off into the darkness, again, as if he didn't want me to see what was in his eyes.

  "She said no to that, too?" I asked.

  "She doesn't want to give up her independence. Her independence is one of the things I love most about her."

  "I know that," I said, and my voice was soft, because it was all I had to offer.

  He looked at me. "You know that, then can you tell her?"

  "I'll do everything I can to reassure her that you're not trying to clip her wings."

  "Is that it? Is she just afraid I'll take away her freedom?"

  "I don't know, Louie. Truthfully, if you'd asked me beforehand, I'd have said, she'd say, yes."

  "Really," he said, and he was studying my face now. Studying it as if the secrets to the universe were somehow hidden in my eyes. I preferred him staring out into the dark for his answers instead of in my face. I wasn't sure what the darkness had to offer him, but I knew I didn't have any answers.

  "Yeah, Louie, really. Last I knew she was the happiest I've ever seen her."

  "So I wasn't just fooling myself?" he asked, and he was still giving me those raw, demanding eyes.

  "No, Louie, you weren't fooling yourself."

  "Then why?" he asked. "Why?"

  I shrugged, and had to say something, because he was still staring at me. "I don't know. I'm sorry." It sounded so inadequate, sorry. But it was all I had to offer tonight.

  He nodded, a little too rapidly, as he turned away, and stared out into the dark again. I knew he wasn't really seeing the yard that bordered the church. I knew he was just staring to be staring, and not to have to meet anyone's eyes for a while, but it was sort of unnerving. Unnerving to think that whatever he was feeling was so strong that he had to hide his eyes, so I wouldn't see. It reminded me of the way Dolph had turned away at the murder scene. And, in a way, they were both hiding the same thing—pain.

  He turned away from the dark and gave me his eyes again. They were raw, and I had to fight to not turn away myself. My rule was always if someone could feel the emotion, the least I could do was not turn away.

  "It looks like your sweetheart is coming this way."

  I glanced back to find Micah walking slowly toward us. Normally, he wouldn't have interrupted, but we were on a deadline tonight. Time and the ardeur wait for no man. I would have explained that Micah wasn't being rude, that we had to go, but I wasn't sure Louie knew about the ardeur , and I hated to explain it to people who didn't know. It always sounded so... odd.

  "How long have you and Micah been living together?" he asked.

  "About four months."

  "Ronnie and you haven't been hanging out much since he moved in with you, have you?"

  I thought about it, then said, "I guess not. She didn't like that I'm still dating Jean-Claude."

  Louie watched Micah walking toward us. His face looked thoughtful. "Maybe that wasn't it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Maybe it was having someone live with you. Maybe that's what she couldn't handle."

  "She said it was me dating a vamp."

  "Ronnie said a lot of things," he said, voice softer, less angry, more puzzled. He shook himself like a dog coming out of water, and managed to give me a smile. It left his eyes sad, but it was a start. "Maybe she just couldn't stand to see you committing yourself to somebody, not that much."

  I shrugged, because I didn't think that was it, but I couldn't blame him for thinking it. "I don't know."

  He gave me that smile again, his eyes like dark hopeless pools. "You go home, Anita, and enjoy it." I caught a glitter of tears before he turned away and looked out into the dark again.

  I didn't know what to do. Was I supposed to hug him? If it had been a girlfriend, I probably would have. But it wasn't, he wasn't, and I didn't need any more complications tonight. I did the guy thing, and patted him awkwardly on the back. Whether I would have worked up to a full-blown hug, I don't know, because Micah was beside us.

  "Sorry to interrupt, but it's been nearly an hour since we hit the parking lot." It was his subtle way of reminding me that sometimes an hour was all we got from the time I squashed the ardeur down to the time it resurfaced.

  I took the hint. With Micah beside me, I felt more secure. If the ardeur had risen, he'd have been there to see that nothing disastrous happened. I slid my arm through Louie's arm and bumped my head against his shoulder. "Come on, Louie, we'll walk you to Jason's car."

  He nodded, as if he didn't trust his voice, and was careful not to look at either of us as we walked him toward the lights of the parking lot. Micah pretended that nothing was wrong. I pretended that there were no tears to see. I kept my hold on his arm all the way to where Jason waited standing beside his car.

  Jason opened the passenger side door for Louie, giving me a questioning look over Louie's shoulder.

  I started to shake my head, but Louie hugged me. Hugged me suddenly, and fiercely, so tight it took my breath away. I thought he'd say something, but he didn't. He just held on, and I wrapped my arms around his back, held him, because I couldn't not hold him. About the time I thought I was going to have to think of something to say, he stepped back. He'd been crying while he held me, but I hadn't felt a single sob, nothing, but the fierceness in his arms, his hands, and silent tears.

  He blinked and gave Micah an odd smile, that was almost a sob. "How did you talk her into moving in with you?"

  "I moved in with her," he said, voice very quiet, very even, a careful voice, reserved for frightened children, and overly emotional adults. I'd heard that voice often enough aimed at me. "And she asked me."

  "Lucky," Louie said, and that one word sounded like it meant anything but, lucky.

  "I know," Micah said, and he put an arm around my shoulders and moved me just a little back from Louie, so there was room for him to get through the open car door.

  Louie nodded again, too rapidly, and too many times. "Lucky." He slid into the car, and Jason shut the door behind him.

  Jason leaned into me. "What just happened?"

  It wasn't my secret to tell, but it felt like dirty pool sending Jason to drive Louie home without warning him. "It's his secret to tell, not mine. I'm sorry. But let's just say he's had a rough night."

  Louie knocked on the window. The sound made both Jason and me jump. Micah had either seen it coming, or had better nerves than we did. Jason moved back enough so the door could open. "Don't bother to whisper this close to the car. I can hear you."

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  "Don't be, it's not like he didn't see the fight. Tell him, so I don't have to." And Louie closed the door again. He leaned his head back against the seat, and more of those completely silent tears began to escape him.

  We all looked away, as if it were somehow shameful to watch. I think we'd have been less embarrassed if he'd been undressed. "What is up?" Jason said.

>   "He proposed to Ronnie, and she said no."

  Jason's mouth dropped open just like mine had. "You are joking me."

  I shook my head. "Wish I was."

  "But they are like one of the happiest couples I know."

  I shrugged. "I don't explain the news, I just report it."

  "Shit," Jason said. He glanced back at his car, and at Louie. "I'll get him home."

  "Thanks."

  Jason gave me a shadow of his usual grin. "Well, can't send him home with you. Wouldn't that complicate the hell out of things?"

  "What?" I asked.

  Micah kissed me on the side of the face. "The ardeur rising with Louie in the car. Speaking of which..."

  "You guys go," Jason said, "we'll be okay."

  I kissed him on the cheek, quick and sisterly. "You're a braver man than I am, Gunga Din."

  He laughed. "That's not the original quote, is it?"

  "Not exactly, but it's still true."

  He looked suddenly serious again. Very unJasonlike. "I don't know if I'm brave or not, but I'll get him tucked in."

  "We have to go," Micah said. He started leading me toward our Jeep.

  I kept looking back as Jason went around the car and got in. Louie sat motionless, head back. From a distance, you couldn't tell he was crying.

  Micah pulled me in against his body, hugging me loosely to his side. I leaned in against the solidness of him and slid my arm around his waist, so that we finished the walk touching from chest to thigh. I was glad he was with me. Glad we were driving home together. Glad that home meant both of us.

  Nathaniel was leaning against the side of the Jeep watching us walk toward him. He was leaning with his hands behind him so that his weight trapped his hands behind him, pinned between his hips and the Jeep. It wasn't just intercourse that Nathaniel hadn't been getting with me. Nathaniel had other "needs" that I was, if possible, even less comfortable with. It made him feel peaceful to be tied up. Peaceful to be abused. Peaceful. I'd asked him why he enjoyed it once, and he'd told me that it made him feel peaceful. It made him feel safe.

  How could being tied up make you feel safe? How could letting someone hurt you, even a little, make you feel good? I didn't get it. I just didn't get it. Maybe if I'd understood it better, I'd have been less afraid to go that last mile with him. What if we had intercourse and it wasn't enough? What if he just kept pushing, pushing me to do things that I found... frightening? He was supposed to be the submissive, and I was his dominant. Didn't that mean that I was in charge? Didn't that mean he did what I said? No. I'd had to learn enough to understand Nathaniel and some of the other wereleopards, because he wasn't the only one with interesting hobbies. The submissive had a safe word, and once they said that word, all the play stopped. So in the end, the dominant had an illusion of power, but really the submissive got to say how far things went, and when they stopped. I'd thought I could control Nathaniel because he was so submissive, but it was tonight that I realized the truth. I wasn't in control anymore. I didn't know what was going to happen with Nathaniel, or me, or Micah. The thought terrified me, so I thought about it, really thought about it. What if I found Nathaniel a new place to live? What if I found him a new place to be? A new life?

  I rolled it over in my mind as we walked across the pavement. I thought about sending him home with someone else, letting him weep on someone else's shoulder. But more than that, I thought about getting under the covers with only Micah on one side, and no one on the other side. Nathaniel had his side of the bed now. I hadn't realized it until that second, hadn't let myself realize it. The three of us enjoyed reading Treasure Island to each other. For Micah and me it was a revisiting of childhood favorites, for the most part, but for Nathaniel most of the books were new to him. He'd never had anyone read to him before bedtime. Never had anyone share their books with him. What kind of childhood is it without books, stories to share? I knew that he'd had an older brother, who died, and a father who died, and a mother who died. That they'd died, I knew, but not how, or when, except that he'd been young when it happened. He didn't like talking about it, and I didn't like seeing the look in his eyes when he did, so I didn't push. I didn't have a right to push if I wasn't his girlfriend. I didn't have a right to push if I wasn't his lover. I was only his Nimir-Ra, and he didn't owe me his life story.

  I thought about not having Nathaniel in the bed, not for feeding, but not having him there to hear the rest of the story. To hear what happened when Jim realizes what a soft-hearted villain Long John Silver really is. The thought of him not being there at that moment when we come to the end of the adventure was painful, a wrenching kind of pain, as if my stomach and my heart both hurt at the same time.

  He opened the door and held it for me, because this close to the ardeur , it wasn't always good that I was driving. He held the door and was as neutral as he could be, as I moved past him. I didn't know what to do, so I let him be neutral, and I was neutral, too. But as I buckled my seat belt in place and he closed the door, I realized that I would miss him. Not miss him because my life ran smoother with him than without him, but I would simply miss him. Miss the vanilla scent of him on my pillow; the warmth of his body on his side of the bed; the spill of his hair like some tangled, living blanket. If I could have stopped my list there, I'd have sent Nathaniel to his room for the night; he did still have a room where all his stuff stayed, all his stuff but him. But I couldn't stop the list there, not and be honest.

  He'd cried when Charlotte died, in Charlotte's Web. I wouldn't have missed seeing him cry over a dead spider for anything. It had been Nathaniel's idea that we could have a movie marathon of old monster flicks. You have not lived until you've sat through The Wolf Man (1941), The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), and The Werewolf (1956) with a bunch of shapeshifters. They had heckled the screen and thrown popcorn, and howled, sometimes literally, at the movie version of what they knew all too well. The wereleopards had all complained, that at least werewolves had some movies, that once you'd named, Cat People, the leopards didn't have any movies. Most of the werewolves had known about the 1980 version, but almost no one had known about the original in 1950. We had another movie night planned where we were going to watch both versions. I was sure we'd spend the night complaining, cheerfully, at how far off both films were, and get eerily silent when they hit close to home. Alright, they'd be eerily silent, and I'd watch them watching the screen.

  I was looking forward to it. I tried picturing the night without Nathaniel. No Nathaniel coming and going out of the kitchen with popcorn and soda, making people use coasters. No Nathaniel sitting on the floor, next to my legs, half the night spent with his head on my knee, and the other half playing his hand up and down my calf. It wasn't sexual, he just felt better touching me. The entire pard, and pack, felt better touching each other. It was possible to be up close and personal without it being sexual. It really was, just not usually for me.

  Which brought me back to the problem at hand. Funny how the thinking led back to it. Tonight when the ardeur finally surfaced, what was I going to do? I could exile Nathaniel to his room, legitimately, because I'd need to feed tomorrow, too. I could save him like for dessert. But we'd both know that that wasn't it. I wasn't saving him, I was saving myself. Saving myself from what, I wasn't sure, but it was definitely about saving me, and had nothing to do with saving Nathaniel.

  He didn't want to be saved. No, that wasn't true. Nathaniel already thought he had been saved. I'd saved him. I'd been treating him like a prince who needed to find his princess, but that was all wrong. Nathaniel was the princess, and he had been rescued, by me. As far as Nathaniel was concerned, I was the prince in shining armor, I just needed to come across, and then we could all live happily ever after.

  Trouble was, I was no one's prince, and no one's princess. I was just me, and I was all out of armor, shiny or otherwise. I just wasn't the fairy-tale type. And I didn't believe in happily ever after. The question was, did I believe in happily for now? If I could have a
nswered that question, then all the worry would have been ended, but I couldn't answer it. So as Micah drove us toward home in the October dark, I still didn't know what I'd do when the ardeur finally rose for the night. I didn't even know what the right thing to do was anymore. Wasn't right supposed to help people and wrong supposed to hurt people? Didn't you make the right choice because it was the right thing to do? I always felt squeamish about praying to God about sex, in any context, but I prayed as we drove, because I was out of options. I asked for guidance. I asked for a clue as to what was the best for everyone. I didn't get an answer, and I hadn't expected one. I have a lot psychic gifts, but talking directly to God is not one of them, thank goodness. Read the Old Testament if you don't think it's a scary idea. But worse than no answer, I didn't feel that peace that I usually get when I pray.

  My cell phone rang. It made me jump, and my pulse was so thick in my throat that I couldn't answer right away. A woman's voice said, "Anita, Anita are you there?"

  It was Marianne. She lived in Tennessee and was the vargamor for the Oak Tree Clan. It was a very old-fashioned title and job, basically she was the witch that helped them deal with their metaphysical problems. Most packs didn't have one anymore, too old-fashioned. Maybe the New Age stuff would bring it back into vogue.

  She was also helping me cope with my abilities. She was the only psychic I knew, and trusted. She knew the shapeshifters almost as well as I did, in some ways better, in some ways not. But she was the closest thing I had to a mentor of late, and I needed one.

  "Marianne, it's great to hear your voice. What's up?" My voice sounded breathy even to me.

  "I just got this overwhelming urge to call you. What's wrong?"

  See, she's psychic. I wanted to explain everything, but Nathaniel was behind me in the car. What was I supposed to do, make him put his fingers in his ears and hum while I talked? "It's a little awkward right now."

  "Should I guess?"

  "If you want."

  She was quiet for a few moments, and she wasn't guessing. She was using either her own gifted intuition, or she was drawing a card, a tarot card that is. "I'm looking at the Knight of Cups here, that's usually Nathaniel's card." I'd been skeptical, to say the least, when Marianne first got out a deck of cards to do a "reading," but they were eerily accurate, at least in her hands. When she'd first started, Nathaniel's card had been the Page of Cups, a child's card, or a least a very young person, but of late he'd been promoted. Knight of Cups.