About wereanimals, yeah, but not vampires. Im not one of those.
You cannot use this, Alex. Peterson risked his job warning me.
What are you talking about? Richard asked.
I wanted to share with Richard, but one look at Alexs eager face and I knew that Id already overshared. I owed Peterson more than that. I cant say right now, Richard; later.
More secrets! More lies! And just like that, Richards power filled the room. My skin ran with heat, as if Id been thrown into a hot bath. It didnt hurt, but it was hard to get a full breath. So hot, so thick, so powerful; Richards power filled the room.
It called to all the wolves in the room. They could not help but answer their Ulfrics power with a little of their own. Jason was closest to me, so his power flowed along my skin first. It was like someone had turned on a second tap of hot water, to make warm water hotter. We didnt need hotter. We needed to cool down. The question was how to do that.
Shang-Das power and Jamils hit me almost at once, and I was suddenly drowning in the scent of wolf. That sweet musk and I could feel it, my wolf, inside me. Not see her, but feel her like the brush of fur against parts of me that nothing should have touched but a blade.
The sensation was so uncomfortable, so eerie, that I shivered. Richard mistook the shiver, because he said, You can protest all you want, Anita, but you enjoy the power. There are things that the wolves can do for you that the vampires cannot. You just keep fighting it.
The wolf inside me moved through my stomach, like a hand in places it should never go. Nausea rolled over me. I had to swallow hard.
She didnt shiver from pleasure, Richard, Jason said.
Now you know her better than I do, little wolf?
His power seemed to fill the room so there was no air left to breathe. My wolf didnt come running up that long tunnel inside me. No, the wolf was too close for that. I felt it move inside me, brush fur and claws against the inside of my body.
Richard, please, somethings wrong. Help me.
It was Crispin who came to me. Crispin who walked through the rising power. Still nude, still a stranger, but it was he who came to me.
Dont touch her, Richard growled.
Shang-Da, still on his knees said, Ulfric, please, you will bring her beast, and we will have yet one more problem to deal with. He looked up at Richard. Id never seen Shang-Da look so imploring.
Jamil came to the other side and went onto one knee, as well. Please, Ulfric, your power is choking us all. You will bring all our wolves.
Crispin stood in front of me now. He had stopped short of touching me, as Richard had asked. That got him an extra point. He was not making anything worse. In fact, looking up into his blue eyes, his tiger eyes, helped still that sense of fur gliding on the wrong inside-out of my skin.
Jason was closest to us, but I think he could sense my wolf so terribly close under the skin. He knew better than to add his touch to Richards power. Jason walked toward the other werewolves. He stayed out of Richards immediate reach, but he went down, not on one knee, but on all fours. He bowed his head and crawled toward the bigger man.
Id seen the gesture before, from Jason and other wolves. It was his attempt to apologize to Richard for any offense. Jason, too, was trying to make things better. Only Richard stood there filling the room with his warm, crawling power, and made it worse. Why was it always Richard, lately, who pushed things worse? Or me? Never forget me. I could screw things up too, but not tonight. I was too scared to fuck it up on purpose tonight.
Richard, I said, did you find the charm?
He turned and it was as if his power were some huge beast, as if his power turned with him and stared at me out of his wolf amber eyes. I dont know if it was the look, or the power, but it made that brush of fur whirl inside me. I stumbled, and only Crispins hand kept me from falling.
The moment he touched me, the wolf receded. I could breathe through Richards power. I clung to Crispins hand with both of my own, and it was like the world was a little more steady. I waited for the white tiger to rise inside me, but it didnt. I just felt better.
Richards power lashed out, coming with his voice, like something thick and touchable that slammed into me. I said, dont touch her!
Crispin staggered with me, as if whatever Richard had done was solid to him, too. But the weretiger kept us on our feet and drew me in against his body, shielding me from Richard. It was gallant, but if anything was guaranteed to make Richard more pissed, that was it.
He came for us, came for us in a blur of speed, and rage, and power, and I was still standing in a towel with only a gun in my hand, and a strange weretiger on my arm. If I wasnt willing to shoot Richard, I was about to run out of options.
48
C RISPIN SHOVED ME behind him and braced for impact. Alex Pinn, the other weretiger, was just suddenly beside Crispin. I didnt have time to decide whether that was good or bad. All I had time to do was decide that I wouldnt use the gun.
Then the blur of speed that was Richard met the wall that was Shang-Da and Jamil. They had used their own impossible speed to be there before him. The impact of their bodies hitting made enough force of wind and physical energy that it pushed against us like some kind of small explosion.
Shang-Da was yelling, Ulfric, remember yourself!
Jamil was simply trying to hold Richard down without hurting him, or being hurt. Richard was a serious weight lifter and had a black belt in karate. Holding him without being willing to hurt him wasnt going to work for long. Either they were going to have to hurt him, or he would most certainly hurt them.
Shang-Da tried again. Ulfric, please!
Richards anger fed his beast, fed his power. I couldnt breathe; I was being baked alive with his power. His wolf pouring into me, into my beast. Such rage. I knew the taste of this anger. I knew it like a well-worn shoe, or a favorite sweater. The one that fits just right and makes you feel warm and safe. That was how my anger had made me feel for years. It was the only emotion I had allowed myself. It had taken the place of sorrow, pleasure, and love. My anger had been nearly everything to me once. I thought my therapy had helped me deal with some of that bottomless rage, but now standing there I realized that maybe it hadnt been therapy. It had been vampire marks. I hadnt just shared my anger with Richard through Jean-Claudes marks; I had given it to him. A big portion of my rage had simply transferred to my reasonable, calm Richard.
I stared down at the fight on the floor. I stared down at three grown werewolves barely containing the struggling, snarling, yellow-eyed man, and I thought, This is my fault. Id known that what Richard got through me, through the marks, had been my anger, but I hadnt understood until just now what that meant. Id had years of practice before I grew up with that rage. Poor Richard had had it dumped into his lap with no practice. I knew the burden he carried. I knew exactly how he felt. Fuck.
I wanted to help him. I wanted to end this without bloodshed. I wanted a lot of things. Then everything got worse, because the ardeur stirred within me. Fuck, and double fuck.
I pushed away from Crispin. He let me, but was clearly puzzled. But not touching him made Richards power worse, harder to refuse. It felt like the wolf was trying to crawl up my throat, out my throat. I fell to my knees, the towel from my head falling away. My hair was cold and heavy around my shoulders, but the power was so hot I needed that cold. It was a good shock. A reminder that I wasnt truly wolf. I wasnt truly lupa. I wasa necromancer. But that wouldnt help me now. What was I? What was I? I wasa vampire. I just didnt feed on blood.
Id gone two days without solid food; that made all hungers harder to control. Kneeling there with Richards rage, my rage, and his power, throbbing around me, pushing at me, pulling at the furred thing that seemed stuck in my throatI needed to feed, but I didnt feel sex. All I could feel was rage, anger. So familiar, so safe.
I knew anger, I liked it; it did make me feel safe, safer than sex. Jean-Claude had taught me how to feed the ardeur from a distance at his clubs. I could do it now, tho
ugh it wasnt always easy, or didnt always work, but I knew how to feed on emotion. Feed on the emotion of lust, on love, and recently Id learned that friendship is love done soft and pure. It wasnt a conscious decision. One minute I was kneeling choking on fur and power, feeling the ardeur trying to rise faster than the wolf inside me. The next moment, the ardeur was upon me. My own power chased back the feel of fur in my throat. I could breathe again. I was me again, sort of.
But the rage was still there, beating against my skin, like some old familiar friend. I opened to it. I drank it down, let it soak into my skin. I stood and let the last towel fall away. I stood nude and drank the wrath in through every pore of my body, every inch of me coated with hate. Because he did hate it. Richard hated the anger. He didnt understand it. He didnt understand it, because it wasnt his. It was mine.
I took it back. I sipped it, rolled it on my tongue, enjoyed the bouquet of it, the sweet, ashy taste of it. Oh, yes, this was a vintage of wine that I had kept in the dark, at just the right temperature for a lifetime.
I drew it out of Richard like some kind of sickness, or possession. I drew it out, and felt him grow calm, under the weight of the other men. And at the end of that calmness, I felt the wall between Jean-Claude and me shatter. The anger had been mine, but the vampire marks that had given it to Richard had been Jean-Claudes. I was trying to take away some of that mark, not on purpose, but in trying to remove what was not mine, I found my love again.
Jean-Claude looked up at me with those dark, dark blue eyes, as if the twilight sky could look back at you. He whispered, Ma petite. And with those simple words the marks between him and me were just there again. I could feel him again. I was his again. His and not hers. Though we both felt that she had left her own mark. We would deal with that another night. For that moment, there was nothing but Jean-Claudes smile, and his voice, and the sense of coming home again.
49
J EAN- C LAUDE DIDNT SO much whisper, as I just knew, that he was going to have to shield from my feeding. He could not drink anger as he could lust or love. Anger was not his food. It was mine.
I stood there with my hair still cold against my shoulders, so not much time had passed, but it was one of those moments when minutes turned to hours. I drank back in my anger, but it didnt stay. It didnt go into that dark pit inside me, where my grief and rage fought and mingled. I ate the anger as I could eat lust and love and hearts desire. I swallowed the anger like food. But whereas lust confused me, and could get out of control and spread through me and to those near, angerI was master of that. Anger I could control.
I stood there with my skin tingling with the energy of it. My body thrumming with the feeding. I wasnt just full, I was well fed. If it had been the normal ardeur, Id have been forced to turn that energy into sex, but this wasnt the ardeur. This was something else. This was mine. Mine in the way that the gun in my hand was mine. Mine, not Richards, not Jean-Claudes. I had a food that my master couldnt even digest. It filled me with a fierce happiness. A happiness so sharp that it was almost anger. I was glad, so very glad, that finally I had some power, something that wasnt theirs. Jean-Claudes power was lust and love, but mine was rage. I was okay with that.
Richards voice came, clear and oddly calm. Im all right, let me up.
I saw Shang-Da and Jamil exchange a look together, and then almost in unison they moved back and let Richard sit up. Jason crawled forward, abasing himself beside him. Richard touched his shoulder, but he looked at me. I expected to see the anger in his face, the resentment, but for the first time in a very long time, Richard looked up at me. His face, his eyes, held the Richard Id fallen in love with, the one who had been too squeamish to kill the old Ulfric and take control of the pack. There was gentleness in his face that hadnt been there in so long that Id almost convinced myself it had never been.
Its okay, Jason, he said, its okay. He stood up, leaving his wolves on the floor to peer up at him, wariness plain on their faces.
Alex held a hand up, not exactly moving in his way, but not out of his way either. Youre calm now, Ulfric, but what we just saw wasnt calm.
Crispin moved closer to me, but I motioned him back. Richard was being reasonable; I didnt want another man to touch me right now, especially the only man in the room who was as naked as I was. Crispin took the hint and stayed where he was; he really did take directions well, that was nice.
Richards white T-shirt was so badly ripped it looked like something one of the dancers at Guilty Pleasures would have worn partway through their act. His hair had slipped free of the ponytail, so he came to me with all that thick hair in a tangle around his face. He looked, as he could look, like some walking wet dream, but the smile on his face was gentle and had less to do with sex and more to do with softer emotions.
He touched my face, staring down into my eyes with that gentle smile and his brown eyes full of something more tender than Id seen in months from him.
Thank you, he said.
I touched his hand where it lay against my face. It was my anger. I just took it back.
He let his hand cup the side of my face, and I let myself rest against the warmth of his hand. I thought it was mine to keep.
It may leak over again, I said, softly.
He leaned down, and I knew he meant to kiss me. I wanted that kiss, and didnt want it, all at the same time. Id cut him out of my heart, this new angry, hurtful Richard, but the look in his face now, that was the old Richard. Richard before hed been forced to make so many hard choices. Richard before he had become permanently angry with me.
He kissed me, his lips soft and full. It was a good kiss, but chaste by our standards of late. I realized as he drew back, eyes searching my face, that lately when we were together it had become nothing but sex. Harsh, fun, but harsh. He had come to me rough, because he knew I could take it, and like it, but even the sex had been more about anger than love. Makeup sex can be good, but not if its all you do.
I feel more myself than Ive felt in months, Anita. A lifetime of therapy couldnt have done what you just did.
If Id known I could have taken it back, I would have, Richard.
I know, he said. He took my hand in his as he turned back to the waiting wolves. I couldnt remember the last time hed simply held my hand. Hed even stopped doing it in church, so that the only touch we gave each other was in private and all about sex. Id actually begun to think I needed to go back to my old church, so that he and his family could keep theirs. If we broke up for good, it would be easier for me to change churches than the whole Zeeman clan. But this one moment of holding hands made me wonder what else had changed beside him feeling more himself.
I forced the thought away. Id given up on Richard and me having the white picket fence a long time ago. He was just the one man who made me wistful about not having it. Holding his hand in that moment made me wonder yet again if I had missed the boat. Had he been the one man who might have made it all work?
The moment I thought it, I knew it wasnt my emotion, or my thought. Richard wasnt the only man in my life who made me wonder if he could have been the only one, if the ardeur werent there. But holding his hand, sensing all that emotion, I did regret. The regret was mine.
We need to find the charm, Richard said.
The three werewolves looked at him, as if they didnt trust this new Richard either. Ulfric, are you well? Shang-Da asked.
Better than Ive been in a long time, he said. His thumb began to rub across my hand.
The charm isnt on the floor with the clothes, Jamil said. He looked past Richard to me. Though we did find two of Anitas knives. One of them had blood on it.
Crispin spoke from behind us. Mine.
Richard turned to look at the weretiger, my hand still in his. Why did Anita cut you?
She didnt, Crispin said. He was looking at us, but his gaze wasnt on either of our faces, or my body. He was looking at our clasped hands.
I did, Jason said.
Richard turned back to Jason, moving me
minutely with him. Why?
Can I plead the fifth on this one, Richard? Youre not mad at me anymore; Id like to keep it that way.
And you think just answering the question will make me angry with you all over again?
Jason nodded. It might.
Richard turned to me. What do you think?
I squeezed his hand and said Lets just say we all made friends eventually.
He frowned. Did the tiger attack you?
He attacked Jason, I said, and I took offense.
Richard stared down at me, searching my face. Yet you ended up in bed with him.
I frowned at him and tried to take my hand back, but he held on, and I let him hold on rather than struggle. Let it go, Richard, please.
Crispin said, She wants you to let go of her hand, Ulfric.
Its okay, Crispin, I said.
He shook his head. Youre a queen. Queens dont have to be touched if they dont want to be.
Richard drew me in against his body, never letting go of my hand. I put a hand on his chest, to keep us from cuddling as close as we could. I do not need to be fought over, by either of you.
According to our culture, you do, Alex said.
What are you talking about?
I know that the little wolf shares well, Crispin said, and so does the red tiger, but your Ulfric smells of monogamy and ownership.
Crispin, Alex said, you cant hold them to tiger law, if they dont know the rules.
Explain the rules to us, Richard said. He tried to draw me in against his body again. I kept one hand on his chest to keep us a little apart, because I had another flash of certainty. I just needed to get everyone else out of the room. I needed only Richard. We didnt need anyone but each other. What had I been thinking with all the others?
I gazed up at Richard, and he looked down at me. The moment I stared into the perfect brown of his eyes, all I could think of was getting closer to him.
The arm Id been using to keep us apart slid around his waist. He bent down toward me, and all I could think of was how much I wanted him to kiss me.
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