The smile widened into that wondrous smile that was his mother’s. It had that same utter good humor to it. Contagious. “I don’t mean that kind of formal, Anita. I mean there are rites to observe.”
“Rites, as in what?” I asked. I sounded suspicious, even to me.
He hugged me, spontaneously, not girlfriend-boyfriend, but just a happy-to-see-you hug. “I have missed you, Anita.”
I pushed away from him. “I make a suspicious comment and you say you’ve missed me. I don’t get that, Richard.”
“I love all of you, Anita, even the suspicious parts.”
I shook my head. “Stick to business, Richard. What rites?”
The smile faded, the good humor dying from his eyes. He looked suddenly sad and I wanted to take it back, to have him smile at me again. But I didn’t. We weren’t an item anymore, and he’d been dating little Miss Schaffer, the cowgirl hooker. I didn’t understand that at all. She puzzled me even more than Lucy.
“I have to go with my mother for a while. Jamil and Shang-Da can explain what you have to do as my lupa tonight.”
I shook my head. “One of the bodyguards stays with you, Richard. I don’t care which one it is, but you don’t go out there alone.”
“Mom will not understand a chaperone that isn’t family,” Richard said.
“Don’t go all momma’s boy on me, Richard. I’ve had enough of that from Daniel for one night. Explain it any way you like, but you aren’t leaving here without backup.”
He stared down at me, and his handsome face was serious, arrogant. “I am Ulfric, Anita. Not you.”
“Yeah, you’re Ulfric, Richard. You’re in charge, fine, then do a good job of it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if the bad guys find you out alone tonight, they might not wait to find out if you’re leaving tomorrow. One of them might get a little eager and try to hurt you.”
“If it’s not silver bullets, they can’t kill me.”
“And how are you going to explain to your mother that you survived a shotgun blast to the chest?” I asked.
He glanced back at her and Daniel. “You cut right to the bone, don’t you,” he said.
“It saves time,” I said.
He turned back to me. Anger had darkened his eyes, thinned out his face. “I love you, Anita, but sometimes I don’t like you very much.”
“It’s not me you don’t like, Richard, not on this issue. You’re terrified that if Mommy Dearest finds out you’re a shapeshifter, she’ll think you’re a monster.”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But it’s still the truth. I think you’re underrating Charlotte. You’re her son, and she loves you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want her to know.”
“Fine, but choose a bodyguard. Why not tell your mom that he’s backup in case the police try to make trouble? It’s the truth.”
“As far as it goes,” Richard said.
“The best lies are always at least partially true, Richard.”
“You’re much better at lying than I am,” he said. I looked for anger in the words, but there was nothing. It was just a statement of fact that left his eyes empty and sad.
I was tired of apologizing, so I didn’t. “Do you want to take their car and I can drive the four-by-four back to the cabins?”
He nodded. “I’ll take Shang-Da with me. He doesn’t like you much.”
“I thought he might have warmed up to me since the fight this afternoon,” I said.
“He still thinks you betrayed me,” Richard said.
I didn’t even try to touch that one. “Fine, I’ll take Jason and Jamil with me. They can give me lessons in werewolf etiquette.”
“Jason won’t be much help. He’s never been part of a healthy pack.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It means that because our old lupa was such a sadistic bitch, we were all afraid of each other. A normal pack is much more touchy-feely, more casual with each other.”
“How touchy?” I asked.
He smiled, almost sadly. “Talk to Jamil. He’ll teach you and Jason, too.” He seemed to think about that.
“What about the wereleopards, and the vampires?”
“I already asked Verne. They are our guests tonight.”
“One big happy family,” I said.
Richard looked at me. It was a long, searching look. It took a lot to meet his eyes and not to flinch. “It could be, Anita, it really could be.” With that, he turned and walked to his mother and brother.
I watched him go and wasn’t sure what to make of his last comment. I used to wonder why he put up with me, but after meeting his mother, I knew. It had taken me three Sunday dinners to realize why Charlotte and I were either in perfect agreement or on opposite ends of any discussion. We were too much alike. A family, like a pack, can only have so many alphas or it tears itself apart. Only Richard’s brother, Glenn, is currently married, and his wife and Charlotte butt heads constantly. Aaron is a widower. I’m told the fights between Charlotte and Aaron’s deceased wife were legendary. They’d all gone out and married someone like mom. Glenn’s wife, though full-blooded Navajo, was still petite, and tough. The Zeeman men seemed to have a weakness for small and tough.
Beverly, as the only girl and the eldest, was wonderfully dominant. She and Charlotte had almost not survived her teenage years, according to Glenn and Aaron. Bev had settled down, gone to college, married, and was pregnant with her fifth child. She had four boys and was trying one last time for a girl.
I’d paid attention to Richard’s family because I’d thought they were going to be my in-laws. That didn’t seem likely to happen now. Oh, well. I had enough problems with my own family. Who needed a second one?
12
EVERYONE WAS IN my room getting a lesson in werewolf etiquette. I sat on the foot of the bed with Cherry perched beside me. She’d washed off the black makeup, and her face was pale and young with a dusting of golden freckles across her cheeks. I knew she was my age, twenty-five, but without makeup, she looked younger. Like her own younger more innocent sister. The new clothes added to the illusion. She’d changed into a faded pair of jeans and an oversized T-shirt. Clothes you wouldn’t mind shapechanging in. This close to the full moon, sometimes you got carried away and changed early. So I’m told. So I’ve seen.
Zane leaned against the far wall, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans with the knees worn away to holes. He’d kept the nipple ring. It looked very noticeable against his bare chest.
Jason was wearing shorts that had started life as a pair of jeans. The edges were ragged with strings like he’d picked at them. The only other thing he was wearing was an older pair of jogging shoes, no socks. He lay on his stomach, head pointed towards us, with one of my pillows bundled under his chin, knees bent, feet kicking slowly in the air while he listened to Jamil.
Jamil paced back and forth in front of us in his little smiley shirt. He’d kicked his shoes off by the door and paced on smooth, dark feet. Even just walking he gave off an energy like a low-level current. The moon was nearly full, and energy was easy to come by.
We’d tried to include Nathaniel in the lecture, but we couldn’t find him. I didn’t like that much. I’d been ready to man a full-scale search, but Zane had seen him going off with one of the female werewolves. The implication seemed to be that they’d gone off for a little one on one. So, no search, but I wasn’t happy about it. I wasn’t even sure exactly why I wasn’t happy about it, but I wasn’t.
Nathaniel needed to know some rudimentary greetings because he was mine. No one had ever met a lupa that was also Nimir-ra for a leopard pard, but Verne had decided the leopards would be included because they were mine. So they needed the little greetings lecture. I’d sent Damian and Asher out to find Nathaniel. No one in Verne’s pack expected the vampires to be part of the official greeting. In fact, it had been requested that they
not touch any of the werewolves unless offered. Strongly requested.
So it was just the four of us watching Jamil pace. He finally stopped in front of me. “Stand up.”
It sounded far too much like an order for my taste, but I stood, looking up at him.
“Richard says you have a degree in biology.”
Not the opening I was expecting, but I nodded. “Preternatural biology, yeah.”
“How much do you know about natural wolves?”
“I’ve been reading Mech,” I said.
Jamil’s eyes widened just a bit. “L. David Mech?”
“Yeah, you seem surprised. He is one of the leading authorities on wolf behavior.”
“Why have you been reading him?” Jamil asked.
I shrugged. “I’m lupa of a werewolf pack, but I’m not a werewolf. There are no good books on werewolves, so the best I could do was research real wolves.”
“What else have you read?” he asked.
“Of Wolves and Men, by Barry Holstun Lopez. A few other books, but those were the two best I’ve found.”
Jamil smiled, a quick baring of teeth. “You have just made my job a lot easier.”
I frowned up at him.
“The formal greeting is like one friendly wolf greeting another. The point is to get the nose back here,” he touched the hair behind my ear, gently.
“Do you rub the cheek along the other person’s cheek like a real wolf would do? I mean in human form, you don’t have any glands on the cheek to help you scent mark another wolf.”
He looked down at me, solemn almost, nodding. “Yes, you do rub cheeks even in human form. Then you bury your nose in the hair behind the ear.”
“How big is Verne’s pack?” I asked.
“Fifty-two wolves,” Jamil said.
I raised eyebrows at him. “Please tell me that I don’t have to rub faces with every single one of them.”
Jamil smiled, but it left his eyes serious. He was thinking something. I wanted to know what it was. “Not with all of them, just the alphas.”
“How many?”
“Nine,” he said.
“Doable, I guess.” I looked up into his thoughtful face and just asked, “What are you thinking so hard about, Jamil?”
He blinked at me. “What—”
“Don’t tell me it’s nothing. You went all solemn and thoughtful about five minutes ago. What gives?”
He stared down at me. The concentration in his dark eyes was almost touchable. “I’m impressed that you bothered to research natural wolves.”
“That’s the third time you’ve used the term natural wolves. I’ve never heard it before.”
Jason rolled off the bed to his feet. “We are real wolves part of the time. We’re just not natural.”
I looked to Jamil, and he nodded.
“So calling you guys real wolves is an insult?”
“Yes,” Jamil said.
“Anything else to watch for?” I asked.
Jamil looked at Jason. They exchanged a look that made me feel excluded. Like there was some unpleasant surprise coming and no one was telling me.
“What?” I said.
“Let’s just do the greeting,” Jamil said.
“What are you guys hiding from me?”
Jason laughed. “Just tell her.”
A low growl trickled from Jamil’s human throat. The sound alone raised the hair on my arms. “I am Sköll, and you have no name among the lukoi. Your voice is only the wind outside our cave.”
Jason took a few steps closer. “The trees themselves bow before the wind,” he said. It sounded way too formal for Jason.
“Good,” Jamil said, “you do know some lukoi phrases.”
“We were afraid to touch each other,” Jason said, “not to talk to each other.”
Zane pushed away from the wall, moving between them, standing close to me. “The moon is rising. Time is passing.”
I frowned at all of them. “I feel like you’re speaking in code and I don’t know how to crack it.”
“Apparently, we have some phrases in common,” Jamil said, “between the lukoi and the pard.”
“Great, the wolves and the leopards share some common ground. Now what?”
“Greet me,” Jamil said.
“Uh-uh,” I said, “I’m lupa. You’re just the Sköll, the muscle. I outrank you, so you offer me your face and throat first.”
“She is your lupa, and our Nimir-ra, which is an equivalent rank to your Ulfric, she has the right to ask,” Zane said.
Jamil growled at him.
Zane moved behind me, as if using me for a shield. It would have worked better if he hadn’t been nearly ten inches taller than me.
“She refuses you,” Jamil said. “You stand alone before me.”
“No way,” I said. “Zane is mine. You aren’t going to use him for some macho dominant crap.”
Jamil shook his head. “He moved into you, but you didn’t touch him.”
I frowned up at him. “So?”
Jamil sighed. “All your reading has told you nothing about us.”
“Then explain it to me,” I said.
Jason said, “When Zane moved in close to you, he was asking for your protection, but you didn’t touch him. That’s seen as a rejection of his petition for protection.”
Cherry was still sitting very still on the bed, hands clasped in her lap. “It’s one of the rules that works the same for the wolves and for us.”
I glanced behind me at them. “How do the two of you know all this?”
“With Raina and Marcus in charge, we all got to do a lot of petitioning for protection,” Jason said.
“Gabriel spent a lot of time with Raina,” Cherry said. “We, the wereleopards, got to spend a lot of time with the wolves.”
“So when Zane moved up close, what was I supposed to do?”
“Do you want to protect him against me?” Jamil said.
I stared up at that tall, muscular body. Even if he hadn’t been a lycanthrope, he’d have scared me in a fair fight. Of course, nature had made sure there would be no fair fight. Jamil outweighed me by a hundred pounds or more. His reach was twice mine. His upper body strength . . . well, enough said. There was no such thing as a fair fight between the two of us. That was why I felt perfectly comfortable using weapons.
“Yeah,” I said, “I want to protect Zane against you. If that’s what it takes.”
“Then touch him,” Jamil said.
I frowned again. “Can you be a little more specific?”
“The touch is what’s important,” Jamil said, “not where or how.”
Zane was standing at my back. I moved backwards until my back touched his body. Our bodies made a nice solid line. “Enough?” I asked.
Jamil shook his head. “For God’s sake, just touch him.” He motioned to Jason. “Ask for my protection.”
Jason came to his side with a smile. He stood very close but was careful not to touch. Jamil put an arm across his shoulders, obviously protective, almost a hug. “There, that’s it.”
“Does it have to be just like that, or can I touch him anywhere that’s noticeable?”
Jamil made a small sound between an umph and a growl. “You are making this too complicated.”
“No,” I said, “you are. Just answer the question.”
“No, it doesn’t have to be just like this, but it’s best if you get in the habit of making the offer look normal to people.”
“Why?” I asked.
“What if Zane were running from me in public? He sees you through the crowd, comes up to you. All you have to do is pretend to hug him, or even kiss him. I know you’ve given him your protection and none of the humans around us know anything is wrong.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about not being included with the other humans, but I let it go. I drew Zane out from behind me with a hand around his waist. I’d have been more comfortable if he’d been wearing a shirt, but hey, that was my hang-up, not his. I made
it my left arm, leaving my right free. I also moved back enough so that my gun wasn’t pressed up against his body. Having my arm around Zane’s waist, standing a little apart, made the gun under my arm very obvious. There were a lot of different ways to make threats. “Happy?” I asked.
Jamil nodded once very curtly.
Jason stepped away from him, closer to Zane and me. “Jamil’s just mad that Zane told you he had to do a submissive greeting.”
“And you’ve reminded her,” Jamil said.
“Ooh,” Jason said, “I’m so scared.”
A roil of power prickled through the room. I watched Jamil’s brown eyes bleed to a rich yellow. He stared at Jason with wolf eyes. “You will be.”
Cherry slid off the bed, kneeling behind me. She reached a hand up to me, and I took it. She licked a quick tongue across my hand, a greeting that only the leopards used, then one slender hand went to my leg, holding onto my pants like a small, shy child. She seemed to think something bad was about to happen.
I half expected Jason to come to me like the wereleopards had, but he didn’t. He moved farther into the room, away from Jamil, but he didn’t ask for help.
“What’s the big deal?” I asked. “Jamil just offers me his cheek first, right?”
“Oh, no,” Jason said, “much more fun than that.”
That made me frown because I knew what Jason’s idea of fun was. “Maybe I asked for something I don’t understand.”
“But you did ask,” Jamil said, “and as our lupa it is your right.”
I was beginning to suspect I’d made a faux pas. That I’d asked something of Jamil he didn’t want to give and I probably wouldn’t like receiving. “If you hadn’t been such an asshole when we first got here, Jamil, I’d probably let this go.”
“But . . .” he said.
“But I don’t back down, not to you.”
“Not to anyone,” Jason said softly.
That, too.
“If I refuse, it’s challenge between us,” Jamil said.
“Fine, but remember, you’ve had your last free pass for the weekend, Jamil.”
He nodded. “I see the gun.”
“Then we understand each other,” I said.
“We understand each other,” he said. Jamil closed the distance between us, eyes still an eerie shade of yellow.
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 96
