Danse Macabre (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #14)

Danse Macabre (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #14) Page 15

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JEAN-CLAUDE'S BEDROOM WAS bright with lights. Micah was on his knees looking down at me, petting my shoulder. "Anita, thank God, we couldn't wake you."

I had time to see Nathaniel on the other side of the bed, and Jean-Claude standing beside him. I'd been out of it long enough for Jean-Claude to die and come alive again. Hours lost to the dark. Claudia, Graham, and others were in the room. It must have been hours; the shift should have changed. I had time to see and think all that, then the wolf from my dream tried to climb out my body.

It was as though my skin were a glove, and the wolf were the hand. It filled me, impossibly long. I could feel its legs stretching out and out into my arms and legs. But its limbs and mine weren't the same shape; it didn't fit. The wolf tried to make me fit.

My fingers curved, tried to form paws, and when that didn't work, it tried for claws to come out of the human fingers. I screamed, holding my hands up, trying to get breath to explain. Then I didn't have to, because my body started to try to tear itself apart. It was as if every bone and muscle were trying to tear itself free from every other piece of me. The pain of it was indescribable. Parts of my body that were never meant to move were moving now. It was like the meat-and-bone of my body was trying to move out of the way so something else could take its place.

Micah pinned my arm and shoulder. Nathaniel had my other arm. Jean-Claude pinned one leg, and Claudia had the other. They were yelling, "She's shifting!"

"She'll lose the baby!" Claudia yelled. "Help hold her, damn it."

Graham put his weight across my waist. "I don't want to hurt her."

I heard something in my shoulder pop, a wet sound that you never want to hear from your own body. I shrieked, but my body didn't care. It wanted to tear itself apart. It wanted to remake itself. The wolf was there, just under my skin. I felt it, pushing, pushing, trying to get out. Other bodies threw themselves on the pile, and gradually the sheer weight of them held me, but still the muscles and tendons kept writhing.

Another convulsion shook my body, forced some of them to shift their grips. An arm came close to my face, and I smelled wolf. That sweet musky smell quieted my body. My wolf sniffed at that pale skin and thought, not quite in words or in images, but somewhere in between: pack, home, safe.

The arm moved away and took that calming smell with it. The wolf tried to leap after that scent, tried to follow it, but the other smells held me down. Leopard, rat, and something not furred, not warm. Nothing that would help us.

The wolf clawed at my throat like it was an opening to be dug at, enlarged, so it could crawl out. The wolf couldn't get out, couldn't get out, trapped. Trapped! I tried to scream but a scream wasn't what broke out of my throat; a low, mournful howl spilled out instead. The sound cut through the frantic voices around me, froze the pressing hands. It echoed up and up, dying in the sudden silence. Then as the last quavering echo faded another voice rose, high and sweet. A third voice joined, deeper, so that for an instant their voices entwined in glorious harmony. Then one voice fell octaves lower, breaking the harmony, but the discord had a kind of harmony of its own.

I answered them, and for a moment our voices filled the air with quavering music. The bodies pressing against me slid away. The smell of wolf pressed close. A hand touched my face and I turned in against that hand, pressed it to my face, breathed in the scent of wolf. There were other scents on that hand, a scented map of everything he had touched that day, but under it all was wolf. I tried to raise both hands to press his skin against mine, but only one of my hands would rise. Something was broken in my left shoulder, something that wouldn't let me use that hand. Fear flared through me, and I whimpered, and that warm skin pressed closer to me. I'd never realized that you could cuddle a scent around yourself as if it were an arm. But I hugged that scent around me, smelling it so intently that it spread around me like someone taking me into their arms.

I kept his hand pressed over my nose and mouth, but rolled my eyes up along his arm until I found the black shirt and finally Clay's face. His eyes were wolf eyes, and my wolf knew that I had done that. I had called to his wolf, and it had answered.

The bed moved beside us. I pulled my face away from Clay's skin so I could sniff the air as I turned to look. I saw Graham, but his scent meant more than what my eyes told me. He smelled so warm, so good. I reached my good hand for him, because if I could touch him, I'd carry some of that good, warm smell with me.

My hand touched his chest and only when my hand touched bare skin did I realize he was nude. It was like the hierarchy of reporting from my senses was backward. Smell, touch, sight: primates didn't reason that way, but canids did. Vaguely, I remembered seeing Graham's smooth, muscled body, but he smelled safe and right. Clothes didn't matter to safe and right. But my hand on the warm, bare hardness of his chest startled me, as if I hadn't expected it. I wasn't thinking straight.

I stiffened my arm, pushing against his chest, as he tried to get closer to me. Now that I was seeing him, and not just looking at him, I could see that he wasn't unhappy to be nude in front of me. That pissed me off. I ached, my muscles burning, hurt in places that I shouldn't even be able to feel, and he was excited about getting our nude bodies up close and personal. Damn him.

I found I still had a human voice. "No." My voice was hoarse and abused, but it was still clear. "No."

Claudia appeared near the head of the bed. "I told him to get undressed, Anita. You need as much skin-to-skin contact as you can get."

I tried to shake my head, found it hurt, so just said, "No."

She knelt beside the bed, pleading at me with her eyes. It was a look I'd never seen from her. "Anita, they're all the wolves we have right now, please, don't make this harder."

I swallowed and it hurt, as if I'd damaged things in my throat that wouldn't heal for a while. "No."

Jean-Claude came to stand beside her kneeling figure. "Please, ma petite, do not be stubborn, not now."

I frowned at him. What was I missing? What was I not understanding? Something. Something important, by the looks on their faces, but I just didn't want Graham to put his naked, erect body up against my naked body. I did not want to have sex with him, and once we were naked and in bed the odds of that went up. Sure, I was hurt, and I'd supposedly fed the ardeur really well, but call me paranoid, I just didn't want to risk it. But for my last shreds of moral dignity, Graham could have been in the running for daddy-to-be. That, more than anything else, kept my arm straight, and my lips saying no.

Claudia said, "You don't understand, it's not over."

"What isn't over?" I managed to say it, in that deep, not-me voice, and then I knew. The wolf had thought it was getting out, getting help, that the pack would help it escape, free it from this prison, but I'd kept the feel of other wolves at bay. I'd refused to let them slide wolf scent and skin over my body, so the wolf went back to trying to get out and join them.

My arm didn't stay stiff, nothing on me did. I writhed on the bed like a bag of snakes, muscles and tendons moving in ways that should have ripped me apart. My skin should have split, and I almost wanted it to; I wanted the wolf to get out of me. To just stop hurting me. I'd thought the wolf was me; now I thought it was trying to kill me.

The smell of wolf was everywhere, thick and nose-wrinkling, sweet musk. My body lay still on the bed while tears leaked down my face, and I whimpered, not wolf sounds, but small, hurt, human ones. I thought I'd hurt before, but I'd been wrong. If you could force someone to feel this forever, they'd tell you anything, do anything, to make it stop.

I was lying between Graham and Clay. Their naked bodies were pressed as close as they could get, without putting any of their weight on top of me, as if they knew that that would hurt. They cradled me gently between them, their hands on my head, and on my good shoulder. They touched me as if I'd break, and it felt like they were right.

Graham's eyes had bled back to brown. The look on his face was worried. What had they seen that I hadn't? What was happening to me? Clay leaned over, pressed his lips against my cheek, and kissed me, gently. He whispered, "Change, Anita, just let it happen. It won't hurt like this, if you just let it happen."

He raised his face up, and I saw that he was crying.

I heard the soft click as the door opened. I wanted to turn and look, but it had hurt the last time I did it. It didn't seem worth it. Besides, Graham's chest was blocking my view in that direction.

"How dare you order me into your presence?" Richard's voice, already angry.

"I tried to make it a request," Jean-Claude said, "but you did not respond."

"So you order me, like I'm your dog?"

"Ma petite needs your aid," and Jean-Claude's voice held that first hint of anger, as if he was as tired of Richard's moods as I was.

"From what I can see," Richard said, "it looks like Anita has plenty of help."

Clay sat up enough to show a tear-stained face. "Help her, Ulfric. We are not strong enough."

"If you want tips for satisfying her in bed, ask Micah; I'm really not that into sharing."

"Are you Ulfric to her lupa, or not?" Micah came to stand at the foot of the bed, still nude, just like we'd woken up.

"That's wolf business, kitty-cat, not yours."

"Stop it," Clay yelled, "stop being an asshole, Richard, and be our leader. Anita is hurt."

Richard finally came to the edge of the bed to peer over Graham's reclining body. His hair was sleep tousled, a thick brown-gold mass around his arrogantly handsome face. The arrogance slipped, and the guilt I'd begun to dread almost as much replaced it.

"Anita..." He made a painful sound of my name, so much pain in that one word. He crawled onto the bed, and showed that he was still wearing shorts. He'd either taken the time to dress, or slept clothed, very unlycanthrope. The other men made room for him, but they didn't leave the bed. He started to crawl over me, but the first touch tore small pain noises from me. He went up on his hands and knees above me, keeping his weight off me, but my wolf was too close to the surface. Richard putting himself above us like that meant he thought he was superior to us and my wolf didn't think he'd earned that. Neither did I.

I felt the wolf crouch to spring. Felt it gather itself as if it could spring from my body to Richard's. I had a moment to realize that it could do just that. I'd felt Richard's beast and one of mine fight once. It had hurt. I was already hurt. I did not want to do this.

"Move, Richard." My voice was an abused whisper.

"It's all right, Anita, I'm here."

I put my good arm against his chest and pushed. "Move, now."

"You're in a dominant position over her," Graham said, "I don't think she likes it."

Richard looked at him, while his body stayed over mine. "She's not a wolf, Graham, she doesn't think like that."

A low growl trickled out of my throat. I didn't mean for it to.

Richard turned his head slowly, the way you do in horror movies when you finally look behind you. He stared down at me, his hair like a thick frame around the soft astonishment of his eyes. "Anita..." he said, but my name was a question this time, as if he wasn't sure.

That soft, deep roll of growl vibrated across my lips again. I whispered in a voice deeper than any I'd ever had, "Move."

"Please, Ulfric," Clay said, "please move."

Richard went back on his knees, still straddling me, but in a position that a wolf couldn't exactly duplicate. It should have been enough, but my wolf had found another way out, a hole that it could climb through. Always before when I'd shared my beast with other lycanthropes I'd only felt fur and bone, as if some great beast were walking around inside me, but this time I saw it. I saw the wolf as I'd seen it in the dream. It wasn't truly white, but the color of cream, with dark markings like a saddle across its back and head. That dark cape was every shade of gray and black intermingled, and even the white and cream wasn't truly white or cream, but mixed like milk and buttermilk. I stroked my hand across that fur, and it was... real.

I jerked so hard it hurt, made me cry out, but I could still feel the memory of fur under my good hand, as if I'd touched something solid.

"She smells real," Graham said.

Richard had gone very still where he knelt over me. "Yes," he said in a faraway voice, "she does."

"Bring her wolf," Clay said, voice soft. "Make her change, so she'll stop hurting herself."

"She'll lose the baby," Richard said, but he was staring down at me with a look on his face that I couldn't read, or maybe didn't want to.

"She's going to lose the baby anyway," Claudia said.

He looked down at me, and his eyes were lost. "I can see the wolf inside you, Anita, just behind my eyes, I can see it. We can smell it. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to bring your beast?" His voice sounded empty, as if he were already in mourning. He didn't want to do it; that much was clear. But for once, we agreed.

"No," I said, "don't."

He didn't slump, but a tension went out of him. "You heard her. I won't do it against her will."

"Say that after you've seen the convulsions. I've never seen anyone fight like this, not for this long," Claudia said. "Once someone's this far along, they shouldn't be able to fight the change. Even her eyes are still human."

Richard gazed down at me, face solemn. "That's our girl," but he didn't sound happy when he said it. He let down his shields, not all the way, but as if he blinked metaphysically. I got a glimpse at his emotions, his thoughts, just a glimpse. If I shifted for real, he wouldn't want me. He valued my humanity, because he felt like he had none. If I shifted, I would cease to be Anita to him. He still didn't understand that being a werewolf didn't stop you being a human being.

But underneath those thoughts were others, though thoughts might be the wrong word. His beast was in there, his wolf, and it wanted me to change. It wanted me to be wolf, because then I would belong to it. Can't be lupa and Nimir-Ra if you're actually wolf for real.

The thought made me look across the bed, until I found Micah. I saw it in his eyes, the loss, as if he were already certain of it. No way. I would not lose him, not now. I turned to look around the room for my other leopard. Turned too fast, hurt the muscles in my left shoulder, muscles I'd torn.

Nathaniel came to the side of the bed as if he understood that I was looking for him.

There were tears drying on his face, as if he'd cried, and hadn't bothered to wipe them away. You could date outside your species, I knew that, but I remembered Richard saying once that dominants don't. If you were high enough up in the power hierarchy, you didn't date outside the pack. I was lupa; there was no higher-ranking female than me. I was Bolverk, which would have made me like an officer anyway. Either way you cut it, if the wolf I could touch came out for real, then I'd lose more than a surprise pregnancy.

I knew I had at least one more beast inside me. I held leopard, the way I held wolf. If I was finally going to go all the way furry, could I choose what kind of furry? Looking into Nathaniel's face, watching Micah look away so I wouldn't read his face, I knew I had to try.

I gazed up at Richard. I said it out loud: "You don't want me to change, that's why you won't help."

"You don't want to be one of us, not for real." His face was sliding back to that arrogant, angry mask.

"You're right."

His anger showed, almost a pleased anger, as if that one statement proved that I was no better than he was, no more comfortable in furry skin.

I looked at Micah and Nathaniel. Micah had moved so that he could hug Nathaniel. "Micah, Nathaniel, help me call leopard."

Micah looked startled. "It's not a choice, Anita. I can smell what you are."

I started to shake my head, but whatever I'd done to my left shoulder made it hurt too much. "I hold four different strains. Why can't I pick which way I go?"

Graham and Clay looked at Richard, as if wondering what he'd say. "I think you're out of choices," he said, "but if you want to try, I won't stop you." He was hurt, and his trying to hide it made it more painful to see. If I changed, he'd look elsewhere. I didn't think he'd find someone willing to share him with what amounted to a permanent mistress, furry or not, but hey, it wasn't my life. It was his life.

I could see the wolf in my head, like a waking dream, all subtle cream and white and black and gray. It looked at me with eyes that were an amber so dark they were almost brown. It was like looking into a piece of your soul and having it look back.

Richard slid off the bed. The wolf didn't panic; it stood there in me, patient, waiting. Graham started to follow, sliding off. The wolf paced closer to the surface again, agitated. I grabbed his arm. "Stay." He froze under my touch, half kneeling beside the bed.

Clay looked from me to Richard. "Stay until she says go," Richard said, in a voice that managed to be closed, empty, and angry all at the same time.

"Micah, Nathaniel, help me raise our beast." They didn't argue or hesitate; they simply crawled up on the bed. They crawled toward me in that graceful way that the lycanthropes had, as if they had muscles that we mere mortals didn't have, as if they could have balanced a cup on their backs.

Hurt as I was, watching them crawl toward me nude quickened my breathing, sped my pulse. It made the wolf start to pace in tight, agitated circles. I didn't have a hand to touch Clay. "Clay, touch me." He closed the small distance he'd made for Richard to straddle me. He pressed his body against the line of mine, but was careful not to touch my left shoulder. He was a quick study, and he seldom argued. It was sort of refreshing.

Micah touched my legs, but Nathaniel crawled around Clay, so he could be by my head. Micah asked, "What do you need us to do?"

I'd never tried to call one animal instead of another. We'd only learned about a month ago that I held three different kinds of lycanthropy. Wolf and leopard hadn't been all that unexpected, but lion, that had caught me off guard. Such a delicate injury, so little blood, but sometimes a nick is enough with blood-borne diseases.

"I don't know, yet." I knew how to call someone else's beast, if it matched mine. Richard had taught me the theory of that. I thought of leopard. I simply thought of it, and I felt it stir inside me. It was always the oddest sensation, as if there were some deep cave inside me, and the beast lived there until called. Now it uncurled itself, stretched, and began to rise. My body was like a dark liquid that the beast rose inside of; that was all pretty typical of being a lycanthrope. The problem was that my body lacked the switch to actually shift, and once the beast got to the surface of my body, there was no place to go. Or there hadn't been, up until now.

But somewhere during the rising liquid feel of fur curving against places that nothing should have touched, I realized that there were two shapes rising for the surface. I'd tried to call leopard, but I was about to get double for my money.

The wolf bristled, his ruff standing up, his body stiffening. I felt his fear. He knew he was about to be outnumbered, and inside my body there was no pack to call. The wolf stood his ground, making himself look as large and fierce as he could, then the cats hit the surface of my body, and the wolf fled. I could feel him running, running back the way he had come. Like he was heading home. It was the first time I realized that my body wasn't just a prison, but also a den, a place of safety.

The cats hit the surface together, and the force of it bowed my spine, threw my body upward, as if some great force had hit me from behind. I fell back to the bed, screaming with the pain of my abused body taking yet another hit tonight. I needed this to stop. We needed it to stop.

I saw the cats. The leopard looked small beside the lion. Small, sleek, and gleaming black. It had backed away from the larger cat. I didn't blame it. The lioness was huge, a great, tawny beast of a cat. Maybe it would have looked smaller if I hadn't been looking at wolf, and now leopard. The lion was staring at the leopard in a way that was patient, waiting for the leopard to decide what to do next. The lion had the confidence of several hundred pounds of extra muscle on its side.

I let go of Graham and used my good hand to reach for Nathaniel. He bent over my face so that when I touched him, his face was nearly above mine. I buried my face against the sweet warmth of his neck. He always smelled like vanilla to me, but underneath that was the scent of leopard. Sharper than the musk of wolf, less sweet, more exotic for lack of a better word. The leopard stopped being defensive, and looked up with eyes that were soft and gray, with just a hint of green in them. I didn't call Here kitty-kitty, but I called it all the same.

The leopard rose up through me, and hit the surface of my body. It filled me like a hand sliding inside a glove, so that I felt it stretch out and out, filling me. I waited for that fullness to finally split my skin and step out, but nothing happened. I could feel fur rubbing against my skin on the wrong side; I could feel it in there. I gazed down my body, and watched things roll under the skin of my stomach like the cat was rubbing against me. The sensation left me nauseous, but that was all. It wasn't as violent as the wolf had been, but I still wasn't shifting.

Graham and Clay slid off the bed so that Micah could move up beside me. "It's there, but it's not coming out--why?"

Nathaniel slid down so that the two men framed my body with their own. "I don't know," Micah said.

"Give your beast to me," Nathaniel said.

I looked up at him, and thought at the furred thing inside me. It was patient because I wasn't afraid of it. I'd embraced it, welcomed it. Now it slid inside me, waiting for release. A release that I couldn't give it.

"I've taken your beast once before," he said.

"I remember." I turned my head, just enough to see Micah's face. I looked a question at him.

"Give your leopard to him, Anita."

Nathaniel pressed his body closer to my side, so I could feel him pressed soft against my hip. He leaned over me, propping himself across my body with one arm, so he laid no weight on my upper body. He leaned in for a kiss, and I felt the leopard roll toward him like something half liquid and half solid fur. His mouth found mine, and we kissed. The last time I'd given him my beast had been almost as violent as tonight, but I'd been fighting; now I simply gave it to him, and Nathaniel didn't fight. He kissed me hard and deep, as if he were trying to taste that furred shape, and the next moment that shape spilled up through my mouth. I felt it as never before, as if truly it slipped up and out through my mouth. I had a moment of choking, and then it was in him. My leopard smashed into his body, smashed into his beast. The force of it pushed his body off the bed, like a blow, but he fought to keep on kissing me. Fought to kiss me as thick, heavy liquid ran over my body from his. So warm, hot, as if he were bleeding to death. I opened my eyes enough to see that the liquid was clear, but had to close my eyes to keep it from getting in them. His hands were on my face, trapping us in the kiss. But I wanted the kiss, I wanted this. I wanted, needed the release, and my body couldn't give it.

I wrapped my good arm across his back so I could feel his skin split, and the fur flow out like solid water, hot velvet under my hand. His mouth reformed against mine, so that the kiss had to change, because the mouth he had now couldn't kiss like his human body. Not enough lip. I licked my tongue along teeth sharp enough to eat me for real. He drew back, and I was left to wipe the heavy liquid off my face, so I could see him. The face was leopard, and human, a strangely graceful mix. Leopardman worked better than wolfman, maybe because the cat had a shorter muzzle naturally.

I raised both my arms toward him, and realized that the left arm was working now. I hadn't shifted, but something about giving him my beast had given me some of the benefits of healing that shifting would have done. Interesting.

I hugged him, and found his fur dry, though my body was covered in the clear goo that shifters "bled" when they changed. I never understood how their fur came through dry, but it always did.

I ran my hands over the unbelievable softness of his fur, felt the muscled strength of him, and felt that his body wasn't at all unhappy to be pressed against mine. We'd made love once before when he was in this form, and at that moment it didn't sound like an entirely bad idea, but there was someone else inside me, waiting.

The lion roared where it was still standing, patient. It let me know that it--she--was still there.

"Shit," I whispered.

Nathaniel snuffled next to my face. "Lion."

Micah rolled off the bed. "We need a werelion, fast, before it decides to try to tear its way out."

"We have no lions," Jean-Claude said.

I thought about it. I thought, I need a lion. I thought about the golden fur, the dark, orange-amber eyes. I put the call out, not for my lion, but for a lion. I felt an answer, like a distant voice. I felt two answering tugs, almost as if I held two leashes. One was reluctant, the other was eager.

"They're coming, or at least he is," I whispered.

"Who's coming?" Nathaniel said in that growling voice.

"Cookie," I said, because for the life of me I couldn't think of his real name. All I could think of was what I'd nicknamed him in my head because of his Cookie Monster-blue hair.

We heard raised voices before anyone knocked at the door. Men's voices, arguing just outside the door. Lisandro went to the door after Claudia nodded. He opened the door to reveal Cookie with his blue spiked hair, and the brunette werelion. Cutting--no, Pierce. His name was Pierce. Cookie was smiling as he came through the door, wearing nothing but jeans, with a gun stuck inside the waistband. As if the reason for the pants wasn't modesty, but a place to put the gun. Pierce glowered as he came through the door. He was completely dressed, though his shirt was buttoned crookedly, and his jacket tucked badly on one side to flash the shoulder holster. The gun looked like a Beretta. Not my choice for concealed carry, but then I have small hands.

I wasn't surprised to see them. I'd called them. I was surprised to see Octavius, Augustine's human servant, at their heels. He was dressed as impeccably as he'd been earlier except that he had no tie, and his cuffs were loose in the sleeves of his elegant suit jacket. If the cuffs hadn't been loose, he wouldn't even have looked like he'd rushed.

"This is outrageous," he said. "First you insult and humiliate my master, then you try to steal his lions. Did you think that since Augustine is asleep for the day you could simply take them?" He got a good look at me on the bed. He stopped, I think, because some of the people in the room had moved so he could see me on the bed. Me and Nathaniel. I don't know what he thought we'd been doing, but I suddenly saw it through an outsider's eyes. Me, nude on the bed covered in clear, sticky liquid. Nathaniel nude and excited in leopardman form cuddled in my arms. Other men in the room already nude. What would I have thought if I'd walked in on all this? Probably the same thing Octavius was thinking.

The look on Cookie's face showed that he was thinking the same thing, but he was happy about it. He started toward the bed, but Pierce grabbed his arm, held him. Cookie growled at him, and that one trickle of sound made the lion inside me tense.

"Don't let her mind-fuck you," Pierce said.

"You heard her call, too," Cookie said. "You couldn't say no, either."

"But I don't want to go to her. I don't want her to use me." He turned the other man so he was facing away from the bed. Cookie had a tattoo of Cookie Monster, as in Sesame Street, on his right shoulder. A happy little Cookie Monster eating cookies. So the hair color wasn't an accident.

"I want her to use me."

"Fight it," Pierce said.

"I don't want to fight it," Cookie said.

"If our master were awake, you would not dare do this," Octavius said. He walked around them both, walked closer to the bed. Claudia and Lisandro stepped between him and the bed. But it was when he saw Jean-Claude stepping out from the wall that his face fell apart. Fear, fear and confusion, chased over his face. He was totally shocked to see Jean-Claude there. He fought, and finally mastered his face. But the first look was enough, the first look and his remark that Augustine was asleep. For the first time I figured it out. It wasn't that we'd slept the day away and Claudia and the rest were back on duty. It was that we'd barely been asleep at all, and Jean-Claude had not died at dawn. He, like Damian, did not die at dawn if he slept touching me.

Octavius gave arrogance, but shelved the anger, as if he didn't want to start the fight. He bowed. "Jean-Claude, I did not think you would be up. I did not see you standing there. I do have better manners than this; my anger made me forget myself. Please, forgive me." His words were clear, but he said them a little too fast. I think it was his version of babbling nervously.

"There is nothing to forgive, Octavius--if you do not hinder us, that is."

Octavius faced him, and nothing could keep the discomfort out of the set of his shoulders. "Hinder you in what way?"

Jean-Claude stood before the man, still nude, but as comfortable as any of the shapeshifters. He wore his body as if it were the most costly robe in the world, or as if he were not aware he was naked. "Augustine said that these two werelions are supposed to be pomme de sang candidates for ma petite."

Octavius gave a small nod. "That is true."

"We may have been too hasty with our rejection of them earlier. I believe that there were errors of etiquette on both sides, would you not say that was true?"

"Perhaps, perhaps we were all a little hasty earlier," Octavius admitted, his voice showing that he wasn't sure where this was going, and was trying to be cautious without being insulting. I think if Jean-Claude hadn't been standing there, and his own master dead to the world, he'd have been less cautious and more angry. Hell, if it had just been me and the shapeshifters, I think he'd just have told us to go fuck ourselves, or some polite version of that.

"Ma petite would taste one of your lions now. I think in light of all that has happened it might be well to cement a stronger tie with your master. We are, after all, two of the most powerful masters in this country, and between us we are certainly the most powerful territories in the middle of this country." I followed the phrasing. It implied, but did not say, that between the two of them they could rule the middle of this country, and wouldn't it be better to be allies than enemies? Or maybe I was actually picking up a little of Jean-Claude's thoughts, just a touch. He had no intention of doing some sort of war of conquest, but to imply it gave us both the leverage of fear and greed. Fear of being our enemy, and greed to take part in the spoils if we did decide to conquer. Jean-Claude played him.

Octavius licked his lips, then stood a little straighter as if he'd realized he was slumping. "Perhaps. I know that Augustine's intent was to offer the lions as pommes de sang. Or as barter for one of your females."

"I do not barter my people. I believe ma petite made that clear to your master."

Octavius nodded. "Yes, very clear." Anger threaded through his voice, and he fought it off, so that his next words were empty and inoffensive. "I think it would please my master if you found his pomme de sang candidates worthy of attention."

Jean-Claude looked at me then. His face was empty, lovely, but it was his voice in my head, soft, the merest brush of contact, that told me what he wanted. "Call them."

I held my hand out to them, and said, "Come to me."

Cookie turned immediately, only Pierce's hand on his arm stopping him. "Don't make me fight you, Pierce."

"If he is not strong enough to resist," Octavius said, "release him to his fate."

Cookie looked at Octavius. "You don't understand; I don't want to resist her. I want her to take me."

Pierce tried to turn Cookie back to him. "Don't you see, that's wrong. She's already rolled you, man. She's already done you, and you don't even know it."

"Maybe, but if that's what's happening, I'm okay with it." The edge of smile I had seen vanished, and his voice was low and serious when he said, "Take your hands off me, Pierce. I won't ask again."

"Let him go," Octavius said. "That is an order, Pierce."

Pierce gave him an angry look, but he let the other man go. He even raised his hands in the air, as if it wasn't his fault.

There was a small part of me that wanted to see if I could force Pierce to come too, but Cookie was coming. One lion was enough, for now.

23

CLAUDIA STOPPED HIM, standing in his way, towering over him. It was probably the first time he'd met a woman tall enough and muscular enough to do that. Just seeing his reaction to it would say a lot about him.

"Call your rat off, Blake," Cookie said.

"Give up the gun and I move," she said.

"I was more armed than this when she touched me earlier."

"Then you were bodyguarding your master, now you're about to get up close and personal with one of mine." Her voice was low and matter-of-fact. I thought it was interesting that she implied I was one of her masters. News to me.

I could see one shoulder enough to know he shrugged, then he must have handed the gun over, because Claudia moved aside.

He padded toward the bed on bare feet, the first button of his jeans already undone. Had it been before, or had he caught the gun on it as he pulled? The last would be careless. Was he careless?

I was way too calm. I watched him come toward the bed with a detachment that surprised me. It was like a type of shock, almost, or... the lion was utterly dispassionate about the man walking toward us. In some ways animals are more reactive than we are; people mistake that for emotion, but it's not. There was no emotion from the cat in my head. She waited. Waited with a sort of cold, wary patience, as if she could have watched him forever, and felt nothing. It was his choice whether we got along, or chased him away. If he did something stupid, or weak, she wouldn't accept him. She'd kill him before she'd accept him, but there was no passion to the decision. It was colder than any thought I'd ever had, except when I'd decided to kill. Then there is a moment of cold clarity, a moment of something that is almost peaceful. My moment of peaceful sociopathy was stretched to an eternity in the head of that big cat.

Nathaniel moved, and that made me turn to him, but the lion in my head roared at me, swiped a claw across the inside of my body. She let me know that she needed my eyes and had no interest in leopard. The pain of her claws spasmed through me. I was partially healed from what I'd done with Nathaniel, but that one swipe showed me that I was still hurt. Hurt in places that there'd be no way to bandage. Part of me wanted to fight her, and turn to Nathaniel, but I knew if I did, she'd do worse. I fought my own stubbornness for a moment, eyes closed, concentrating. Trying to decide if I'd grown up enough to let this small loss go, or if I had to win at every damn thing. If I let the lion think it could boss me around, would that set a bad precedent for later? Then a thought came to me; the lion was me. I was fighting with myself. How terribly Freudian, or would it be Jungian? Either way, how strangely me.

The thought was so me, that it opened my eyes. Cookie was standing beside the bed. His hands were at his sides. The look on his face was eager, but wary, as if he'd finally figured out that something might be wrong. His blue hair was flattened on top as if he'd been asleep when I'd called him. His eyes were very blue as he stared down at me. I could see the tattoo on his left shoulder now: the faces of Bert and Ernie. I sensed a theme.

"Any more tattoos?"

He grinned. "Yeah, want to see?"

"I don't know," I said.

"You called me," he said, and his voice was softer, as if he wasn't sure what was happening, and was finally not sure he was happy to be here. Cautious, at last. It pleased the cat in my head. Pleased me, too, I guess.

Micah said, "She needs to give you her beast."

Cookie turned to him, frowning. "I don't understand." His nostrils flared, as he scented the air. "She smells like lion, but she smelled like leopard earlier. She smelled like wolf, too." He shook his head, as if clearing his mind from the scent. He looked down at me, frowning, speaking softly. "What are you?"

The truth would have been, I wasn't sure, but some of the people in this room weren't our friends. Octavius would be our enemy if he could. I was about to try for half-truth, when Jean-Claude stepped up beside the bed and spoke. "Ma petite seems to have the ability to acquire the animals of the vampires she comes in close contact with. I knew she gained wolf through me, as some servants do. She gained leopard through contact with another. It may be her closeness with your own master that has brought lion to her." Not a lie, but it certainly wasn't the whole truth. But hey, I had no better suggestions.

"That would make her very dangerous," Octavius said from near the door. He and Pierce were still close to the door as if for a quick getaway.

"It would make her powerful, yes," Jean-Claude said.

"Dangerous," Octavius said. "Do the other masters know that they risk seduction and the loss of their animals to you, Jean-Claude, or are we your first victims?"

Jean-Claude sighed, and the sound echoed through the room, and slid over my skin. The lioness paced, growled low and deep, and the sound slid from my lips. "Don't," I said.

"My apologies, ma petite," he said. He turned to Octavius. "Truth then between us, Octavius, before you think even worse of us. I know you of old; you will spread these rumors. So I give you truth, and I will know if you tell, because no one in this room will tell but you."

"I do not gossip."

"You have always gossiped." He motioned to me. "Anita holds different types of lycanthropy inside her."

"That is not possible."

"Nor is it possible for her to have a vampire servant, or an animal to call that is not mine, but those are true things."

"We had heard, but we thought the servant was rumor."

Jean-Claude shook his head. "Augustine is powerful enough to see truth. When he sees her with Damian, he would know the truth anyway. I tell you only a night early, oh, a day early." He said it as if he had just remembered that he was up at dawn. He had so not forgotten. "I swear to you that human doctors have drawn her blood and tested it. She carries more than one strain of lycanthropy, and yet has not shifted to any. She holds the animal but seems unable to turn. They have tried to tear their way out tonight, and still she cannot shift."

Micah added, "She's stuck at that point where the beast is trying to get out, and you don't know how to let it out."

"Ouch," Cookie said. He looked down at me, smiling. "You've had a hard morning."

"You have no idea," I said.

"Yes he does," Nathaniel growled from beside me.

The two shapeshifters looked at each other. It was a long look. "Yeah, I remember the first time, we all do."

"She fought, fought it to a standstill."

He looked at me, eyes narrowing. "You can't do that, no one can."

"Never underestimate how stubborn Anita can be," Richard said from across the room. "You'll regret it, if you do."

I looked at him. He'd taken one of the chairs near the fireplace, as far from the bed as he could get without leaving the room. He was mostly in shadow, so that I couldn't see his face well. But then again, maybe I didn't want to see his face right then.

"Don't mistake force of will for stubbornness," Micah said. "There is a difference."

"It looks the same to me," Richard said.

"It would," Micah said.

A low growl trickled from Richard, and it echoed through the room, much the way Jean-Claude's sigh had. The sound made me shiver but not with the promise of sex; it flared across my skin like heat, and the lion reacted to it. She spilled into my skin like the leopard had done, like the wolf had done. I was suddenly writhing on the bed, screaming again. I did not want to hurt again. But if I didn't want to be wolf, I sure as hell didn't want to be lion. I didn't even know the lion pride here well. Shit. If sheer force of will was keeping me in human skin, my will was getting worn down. Eventually, I'd lose this fight. I didn't want it to be now.

I reached out for Cookie. He grabbed my hand, almost by reflex. I dragged him down to me, and he didn't fight me. He could have, but he came to me. He laid his body on top of mine while the lion tried to come out. She stretched, stretched, impossibly huge, trying to thrust claws out through my fingers and toes. She couldn't come out, but those metaphysical claws cut through my skin. I screamed. I raised my hands up to hold him to me, and there was blood flowing down my fingers. Sweet Jesus, help me.

From far away I heard Cookie say, "What do I do?"

"Kiss her," someone said.

He kissed me. The moment his mouth touched mine, I let the lion go. I let it plow into him. With Nathaniel I'd tried to be a little controlled, but I was all out of control today.

It hurt for it to leave me, like someone had thrust a shovel down my throat and was digging out my internal organs in one ripping, burning line. I screamed into his mouth, and he screamed back. He kept his mouth on mine, even while his body began to writhe in pain. His hands dug into the bed on either side of me, holding on, holding on, while that line of tearing, ripping, burning power ripped him open. There was no moment of bones sliding, or reshaping. One minute he was human, the next his skin had exploded outward, raining on the room in thick wet globs. The body under my hands was dry and furred, and the cheek I touched had a fringe of thick, golden mane. I had to wipe thick goo out of my eyes to be able to see. I wiped off bits of him that were thicker than clear liquid. The power had literally blown him apart. I had a moment to wonder if his tattoos would survive; then I could see his face.

His eyes were golden, in a face that was a pale gold, with a mane around his head like a furry halo. The face was that strangely graceful mix of human and cat. His shoulders were broader than the leopards', everything more muscular. His suddenly nude body was pressed between my legs, but not happy to be there. I had a glimpse of his tail flicking behind him, then he collapsed, partially on me and partially beside me.

Where his weight hit, my body hurt. I made a small sound, and he rolled off me and lay there on the liquid-soaked sheets. He looked like some primitive golden god hunted to death. I lay where I was, covered in something I didn't even want to see. It felt too thick, too... just too. I tried not to look at it, or think about it. I lay there covered in bits of his body, and knew I'd hurt him, badly.

"I'm sorry," I said, and my voice was an abused whisper.

He rolled golden eyes up to look at me. "That fucking hurt."

Micah came to the edge of the bed. He took one of my hands in his, and looked at my fingers. "You were bleeding from under your nails. If he hadn't taken your beast when he did," he shrugged, "it might have been too late."

That scared me. It tightened my stomach, and even that hurt, as if I'd abused muscles that I didn't know I had.

"Thank you, Cookie, more than you'll know."

The lionman said, "Did you just call me Cookie?"

"Sorry, it's the hair, Cookie Monster blue, and the tat."

"Haven. My name's Haven." I think he smiled, but it was hard to tell on the lionish face, from the angle I had. "Though Cookie Monster works just fine."

"I said Cookie, not Monster."

"You haven't seen me at my best, yet" he said, and smiled for sure.

I did not understand the comment. Micah did. "He's implying he's big."

"Oh," I said, then had to smile up at Micah. "He shouldn't brag until he's seen the competition."

The lionman rolled his face to look at Micah. He wasn't looking at his face. Micah said, "You aren't seeing me at my best either."

Even through the lion's face I could see the arrogance as he looked up at me, not at Micah. "Trust me, I'll measure up. Auggie was shopping for size, not just talent."

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to say Oh, really, Oh, goody, or Oh, boy. Under normal circumstances his assumption that he was going to get to fuck me would have pissed me off. But one, I didn't have energy left to get pissy; two, he'd saved me. Saved us. Micah, Nathaniel, and me. I could ask for our local pride to give me some lions to follow me around, but this morning, right this moment, Haven had been the only rescue I had. I owed him. Also I'd ripped his body apart, and caused him massive amounts of pain. Oops didn't really cover that one.

"When you can walk," Nathaniel said, "I'll take you to the feeding area." Nathaniel's fur glistened under the lights, wetter from being so close to Haven's violent shift than from his own. He slipped off the end of the bed and padded around to join Micah, who was still holding my hand.

Micah pressed my hand to his face, and it left a wet glistening stain on his cheek. I was so going to need another bath.

"I can walk." Haven slipped off the side of the bed, and went straight to his knees. "Shit."

Nathaniel reached down to help him stand.

Haven asked, "Did you take her beast, too?"

"Yes."

"It didn't hit you this hard, did it?"

"No." Nathaniel didn't bother to explain that it hadn't been as violent, and no one else did either. I wasn't sure we were keeping Haven, but if we were then Nathaniel would need to establish some sort of dominance with the other man. That Nathaniel could take that much pain and keep on ticking would help.

Haven leaned against the bed, Nathaniel still holding his arm. Those golden lion eyes looked at me. "Don't take this personally or anything, but the fringe benefits better be fucking amazing."

"They are," Nathaniel said.

"Depends on what fringe benefits you're talking about," I said.

"Sex," he said, straightening up slowly, obviously still in pain. "You're Belle Morte's line, there is no other fringe benefit for you guys."

I couldn't argue with the last part, but I could with the first. "Don't assume you're getting sex, Haven."

He gave me a look. "All this and you don't think I've proved myself enough for sex? Damn, girl, what does a man have to do to meet your standards?"

"When you figure it out, let me know." This from Richard. He stopped near the bed, and looked at me. "You could have been my lupa for real, but you didn't want to be. You chose him, them, over me."

"If I'd been lupa for real, you wouldn't have wanted me. I saw it in your head."

He shook his head. "You could have been my lupa at the lupanar, with the pack."

"But I would have lost the baby."

He wouldn't meet my gaze.

"You can't stand the thought that this isn't your baby."

"No, I can't."

"I'm already your lupa," I said, "I'm already Bolverk. Nothing would have changed for you and me if I'd become wolf for real. My being wolf would have meant you looked harder for that human Ms. Right."

He stared down at me. "You won't even let me have the illusion of it, will you?"

I tried to sit up, and Micah had to help me. So stiff, so sore. "What illusion, Richard?"

"That we could be together as a couple, at least with the wolves."

"And what happens to my life when the moon isn't full?"

"Would it be so bad to be with me for real, without the others?"

I looked up into his face, and maybe I was tired, physically, mentally, emotionally. After everything I'd been through tonight, and this morning, all he could think of was himself, his problems, his pain. "Is everything about your pain, Richard, is that all you think about?"

"Answer me, Anita, answer me. Would it be so bad to have been with me for real? Just the two of us, would that be so bad?"

I tried one more time not to answer. "You don't want me to answer that question, Richard." I leaned in against Micah, let him hold me.

"Mon ami," Jean-Claude said, "let it go."

He shook his head again. "No, not this time. I had this idea that if he"—and he pointed at Jean-Claude--"hadn't interfered we'd be a couple, we'd have been happy. But I see you with him"--he pointed at Micah--"and him"--he pointed at Nathaniel--"and I have to know. Tell me the truth, Anita. Tell me the truth. I won't break the triumvirate. I won't run away. But tell me the truth, so I know where I stand. I need to know how hard I need to look for Ms. Right. Tell me the truth, and maybe I can move on. I know I can't stand watching you take another lover. That, I know I can't stand." He sat down on the messy edge of the bed. He gave me a solemn face. "If you'd become wolf for real, and had to live with me, give up Micah and Nathaniel, would that have been so bad?"

My throat hurt, but it wasn't from what the beasts had done. My throat was thick and tight; my eyes burned. Why did Richard always make me want to cry? "Don't make me do this," I whispered.

"Just say it, Anita, just say it."

I had to swallow twice, and the tears spilled over as I said, "Yes, it would have been bad."

"Why? Why would the two of us living together, raising our child be so bad? If it is mine I want a place in his life."

That was it, he'd brought the baby up, and suddenly in all the tears was the anger, never far behind for me. "You don't see me, Richard. You see this ideal of me, but it's not me. I don't think it was ever me."

"What does that mean, I don't see you? I see you, you're right there."

"What do you see, Richard, tell me?"

"I see you."

"I'm naked on a bed being held by a naked man, with two other naked men in the room who are also my lovers. You've just said you can't stand to watch me take another lover, when you know I'm supposed to be looking for a new pomme de sang to feed the ardeur."

"I thought you weren't really going to look, just pretend."

That should not have been said in front of our company. "I'm not sure I have a choice right now, Richard."

"The next time the wolf comes, just don't fight it, and you can be my lupa. We can be together, because you won't be able to be with anyone else."

That was it; I told him the truth. "I don't want to be just with you, Richard. I don't want to lose Micah and Nathaniel, or Jean-Claude."

"So, if I said, choose, I'd lose."

I thought, you've already lost me. Out loud, I said, "I can't be with just one person, Richard, you know that."

"Even if the ardeur cools, you're never going to choose just one of us, are you?"

We stared at each other, and the weight of his gaze was so heavy, so heavy. In his own way, he was just as stubborn as I was, and this was one of those moments when it was about to destroy us. "No, Richard, I don't think I am."

He took in a lot of air, and let it out slow. He nodded, as if to himself, stood, and said, without looking at me, "That's what I needed to hear. Not this weekend, we'll be busy, but next weekend I'll still want you to go to church with me, if you want to."

I wasn't sure what to say, so I said, "Okay."

"Family dinner afterward, like always," he said as he headed for the door. He hesitated at the door, turned with his hand touching it. "I will find someone who wants the life I want."

"I hope you do," I whispered.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you, too," I said, and meant it.

"I hate you, Anita," he said, with almost no change in his voice.

"I hate you, too, Richard," I said, and I meant it.