“But somewhere in all that mess Chimera called his mind, he was angry at me. I wouldn’t help him torture, wouldn’t help him rape. But I wouldn’t sleep with him voluntarily either, though he asked. I think he liked me, wanted me, and because his own twisted rules kept him away from me, he found other ways to amuse himself at my expense.”
He touched his face, as if searching it with his fingertips, almost as if he were surprised at what he found. As if it wasn’t the face he was expecting to find. “I can’t even remember what it was that Gina wouldn’t do. I think he wanted her to seduce an alpha of another pack that he wanted to own. She refused, and instead of taking it out on her, he took it out on me. He beat me bad enough that he broke my nose, but I healed, fast.”
“All lycanthropes heal fast,” I said.
“I seem to heal faster than most, not as fast as Chimera did, but close. He thought it had something to do with how easily we could both go from one form to another. He was probably right.”
“Makes sense,” I said. My voice was utterly calm, as if we were talking about the weather. The trick to hearing awful memories is not to be horrified. The only one allowed to have emotion is the one doing the telling. This listener has to be cool.
“The next time I refused to help him rape someone, he broke my nose again. I healed again. Then he made it a game. Every time I refused an order, he beat me worse, always in the face. One day, he finally said, ‘I’m going to ruin that pretty face. If I can’t have it, and you won’t use it on anybody else, then I’ll just ruin it.’ But I kept healing.”
He let go of his hair, and the wind whipped it around his face, but he ignored it now. He hugged himself, held himself tight. I wanted to go to him, wanted to hold him, but he’d said no. I had to respect that, had to, but damn, damn.
“He didn’t beat me the next time, he took a knife to me. He cut my face up, took the nose, ate it.” He gave a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Jesus, it hurt, and it bled. God, it bled.”
I touched his arm, tentatively, gently. He didn’t tell me to go away. I eased my arms around him and found that he was trembling, a fine tremor that went from the top of his head down his entire body. I held him in my arms and wished I knew what to say.
He whispered against my hair. “When it grew back, but not all the way back, he beat me again. New flesh is more tender than old, and when it broke enough times, it stayed broken. It didn’t heal perfectly, and once he’d messed me up, he seemed satisified. Now that Chimera isn’t here to mess me up, my nose is healing. It’s getting straighter, every time I come back from leopard form.” He leaned in against me, slowly, as if he had to fight to let the tension go. He stayed like that, relaxing by inches, while I held him and rubbed his back in useless circles.
Normal people would have told him lies, like it’s alright, I’m here, but he deserved better than lies. “He’s dead, Micah. He’s dead, and he can’t hurt you anymore. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
He gave another sound, half swallowed laugh, half sob. “No, he can’t, because you killed him. You killed him, Anita. I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t protect my people. I couldn’t protect them.” He began to collapse to his knees, and if I hadn’t caught him, he’d have fallen. But I did catch him, and I lowered us both to the edge of grass near the trees. I sat on the grass and held him, rocked him, while he cried, not for himself, but for all the people he couldn’t save.
I held him until the crying quieted, then stopped, and I held him some more in the windswept silence. I held him and let the October wind wash us both clean. Clean of sadness, clean of that horrible urge I had to tear things down. I made myself a promise sitting there in the grass, with the feel of him wrapped around my body. I promised not to poke at things anymore. I promised not to break things if they were working. I promised not to stir up shit, if it didn’t have to be stirred. I said a little prayer to help me keep those promises. Because, God knew, that the chances of me keeping any of those promises without divine intervention were slim to none.
7
BY THE TIME Nathaniel and Jason came looking for us Micah was back to normal. Normal for Micah meant that if I hadn’t seen him break down, even I wouldn’t have guessed. In fact, he was so back to normal that it made me wonder how many other breakdowns I’d missed. Or had I caused this one? Was he able to maintain absolute control as long as no one made him look at it? Of course, even if that were true, that didn’t sound very healthy. Oh, hell, maybe we all needed therapy. If I took the entire pard in, maybe we could get a group discount.
Nathaniel sat on the other side of me, putting me in the middle. He sat so that the line of his body touched mine as much as possible. There was a time when I’d have made him give me breathing space, but I understood the shapeshifter’s need for physical contact now. Besides, making Nathaniel move over an inch when he slept mostly naked in my bed nearly every night would have been silly. Jason just stood and looked down at all of us. He looked unnaturally solemn, at least for him, then suddenly he broke into a grin. Now he looked like himself.
“It’s after midnight, we thought you’d be outside feeding the ardeur.” His grin was way too wicked to match the mildish words.
“I’m able to go longer between feedings,” I said, “sometimes fourteen, or even sixteen hours.”
“Oh, pooh,” he said, and stamped his foot, pouting. It was a wonderful imitation of a childish snit, except for the devilish twinkle in his eye. “I was hoping to take another one for the team.”
I frowned at him, but couldn’t make it go all the way up to my eyes. Jason amused me, I don’t know why, but he always had. “I don’t think we’ll be needing your services tonight, thanks for offering though.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “I am never going to get to have sex with you again, am I?”
“Don’t take this wrong, Jason, but I hope not. The sex was amazing, but what put you in my bed was an emergency. If I can’t control the ardeur better than that, then I’m not safe to be out in public alone.”
“It was my fault,” Nathaniel said, voice soft.
I turned my head and was close enough to the side of his face to have kissed his cheek. I wanted to make him move, to give me more room, but I fought the urge off. I was just being grumpy. “It was my fault if it was anyone’s, Nathaniel.”
Micah’s so-calm voice came from my other shoulder. “It was Belle Morte’s fault, the wicked, sexy vampire of the west. If she hadn’t been messing with Anita, trying to use the ardeur to control her, then it wouldn’t have risen hours ahead of schedule.” Belle Morte, Beautiful Death, was the creator of Jean-Claude’s bloodline. I’d never met her in physical person, but I’d met her metaphysically, and that had been bad enough. Micah laid a hand across my shoulders, but managed to put his hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder, too. Comforting us both. “You haven’t collapsed since Anita’s been able to stretch the feedings out more.”
Nathaniel sighed so heavily that I felt the movement against my body. “I haven’t gotten stronger, she has.” He sounded so sad, so disappointed in himself.
I leaned in against his shoulder, enough that Micah was able to literally hug us both at the same time. “I’m your Nimir-Ra, I’m supposed to be stronger, right?”
He gave me a faint smile.
I laid my head on his shoulder, curving my face into the bend of his neck, and getting that whiff of vanilla. He’d always smelled like vanilla to me. I’d thought once it was shampoo, or soap, but it wasn’t. It was his scent for me. I hadn’t had the courage yet to ask Micah if Nathaniel’s skin smelled like vanilla to him, too. Because I wasn’t sure what it would mean if I was the only one who found Nathaniel’s scent so very sweet.
“You want to ask Anita something,” Jason said.
Nathaniel tensed against me, then in a small voice, he asked, “Do I still get my dance?”
It was my turn to tense. I couldn’t control it, it was involuntary. Nathaniel got very still beside me, because he’
d felt it, too. I didn’t want to dance, that was true, but I also had a very clear memory of thinking, just minutes ago with Micah, that I’d rather have been dancing. I’d messed up once tonight, I didn’t want to do it twice. “Sure, dancing sounds great.”
That made Micah and Nathaniel pull back enough to look at me. Jason was just staring down at me. “What did you say?” Nathaniel said.
“I said, dancing sounds great.” Their astonishment almost made it worthwhile.
“Where is Anita, and what have you done with her?” Jason asked, face mock serious.
I didn’t try to explain. I couldn’t figure out a slick way of saying to Micah, I’d rather have danced, and it’s my fault we missed it, without spilling his secrets in front of Nathaniel and Jason. So I just stood, and offered my hand to Nathaniel.
After a second of staring at it, and me, he took it, almost tentatively, as if he were afraid I’d take it back. I think he’d come ready for an argument about the dancing, and not getting one had thrown him.
I smiled at the surprise on his face. “Let’s go inside.”
He gave me one of his rare full-out smiles, the one that made his entire face light up. For that one smile, I’d have given him a lot more than just a dance.
8
OF COURSE, MY good intentions lasted about as long as it took to be escorted onto the dance floor. Then suddenly I was expected to dance. In front of people. In front of people that were mostly cops. Cops that I worked with on a regular basis. No one is as merciless if you give them ammunition, no pun intended, as a bunch of policemen. If I danced badly, I’d be teased. If I danced well, I’d be teased worse. If they realized I was dancing well with a stripper, the teasing would be endless. If they realized I was dancing badly with a stripper, the jokes would be, well, bad. Either way you cut it, I was so screwed.
I felt fourteen again, and awkward as hell. But it was almost impossible to be awkward with Nathaniel as your partner. Maybe it was his day job, but he knew how to bring out the best in someone on the dance floor. All I had to do was let go of my inhibitions and follow his body. Easy, maybe, but not for me. I like the few inhibitions I have left, thank you, and I’m going to cling to them as long as I can.
What I was clinging to now was Nathaniel. Not much scares me, not really, but airplane rides, and dancing in public are on that short list. My heart was in my throat, and I kept fighting the urge to stare at my feet. The men had spent an afternoon proving that I could dance, at home, with only people who were my friends watching. But suddenly, in public in front of a less than friendly audience, all my lessons seemed to have fled. I was reduced to clinging to Nathaniel’s hand and shoulder, turning in those useless circles that have nothing to do with the song, and everything to do with fear, and the inability to dance.
“Anita,” Nathaniel said.
I kept staring at my feet, and trying to not see that we were being watched from around the room.
“Anita, look at me, please.”
I raised my face, and whatever he saw in my eyes made him smile, and filled his own eyes with a sort of soft wonderment. “You really are afraid.” He said it like he hadn’t believed it before.
“Would I ever admit to being afraid, if I wasn’t?”
He smiled. “Good point.” His voice was soft. “Just look at my face, my eyes, no one else matters but the person you’re dancing with. Just don’t look at anyone else.”
“You sound like you’ve given this advice before.”
He shrugged. “A lot of women are uncomfortable on stage, at first.”
I gave him raised eyebrows.
“I used to do an act in formal wear, and I’d pick someone from the audience to dance with. Very formal, very Fred Astaire.”
Somehow, Fred Astaire was not a name that came to mind when I thought of Guilty Pleasures. I said as much.
His smile was less gentle and more his own. “If you ever came down to the club to watch one of us work instead of just giving us a ride, you’d know what we did.”
I gave him a look.
“You’re dancing,” he said.
Of course, once he pointed out that I’d been dancing, I stopped. It was like walking on water, if you thought about it, you couldn’t do it.
Nathaniel pulled gently on my hand and pushed gently on my shoulder and got us going again. I finally settled for staring at his chest, watching his body movements as if he’d been a bad guy and it was a fight. Watch the central body for the first telltale movements.
“At home you moved to the rhythm of the song, not just where I moved you.”
“That was at home,” I said, staring at his chest and letting him move me around the floor. It was damn passive for me, but I couldn’t lead, because I couldn’t dance. To lead you have to know what you’re doing.
The song stopped. I’d made it through one song in public. Yeah! I looked up and met Nathaniel’s gaze. I expected him to look pleased, or happy, or a lot of things, but that wasn’t what was on his face. In fact, I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It was serious again, but other than that . . . we stood there, staring at each other, while I tried to figure out what was happening, and I think he tried to work up to saying something. But what? What had him all serious-faced?
I had time to ask, “What, what’s wrong?” then the next song came on. It was fast, with a beat, and I was so out of there. I let go of Nathaniel, stepped back, and had turned, and actually gotten a step away, before he grabbed my hand. Grabbed my hand and pulled me in against him so hard and so fast that I stumbled. If I hadn’t caught myself with one arm around his body, I’d have fallen. I was suddenly acutely aware of the firmness of his back against my arm, the curve of his side cupped in the hollow of my hand. I was holding him so close to the front of my body that it seemed every inch of us from chest to groin pressed against one another. His face was painfully close to mine. His mouth so close it seemed a shame not to lay a kiss upon those lips.
His eyes were half-startled, as if I’d grabbed him, and I had, but I hadn’t meant to. Then he swayed to one side and took me with him. And just like that we were dancing, but it was different from any dancing I’d ever done. I didn’t follow his movements with my eyes, I followed them with my body. He moved, and I moved with him, not because I was supposed to, but for the same reason a tree bends in the wind, because it must.
I moved because he moved. I moved because I finally understood what they’d all been talking about; rhythm, beat, but it wasn’t the beat of the music I was hearing, it was the rhythm of Nathaniel’s body, pressed so close that all I could feel was him. His body, his hands, his face. His mouth was temptingly close, but I did not close that distance. I gave myself over to his body, the warm strength in his hands, but I did not take the kiss he offered. For he was offering himself in the way that Nathaniel had, no demand, just the open-ended offer of his flesh for the taking. I ignored that kiss the way I’d ignored so many others.
He leaned into me, and I had a moment, just a moment, before his lips touched mine, to say, no, stop. But I didn’t say it. I wanted that kiss. That much I could admit to myself.
His lips brushed mine, gentle, then the kiss became part of the swaying of our bodies, so that as our bodies rocked, so the kiss moved with us. He kissed me as his body moved, and I turned my face up to him and gave myself to the movement of his mouth as I’d given myself to the movement of his body. The brush of lips became a full-blown kiss, and it was his tongue that pierced my lips, that filled my mouth, his mouth that filled mine. But it was my hand that left his back and traced his face, cupped his cheek, pressed my body deeper against his, so that I felt him stretched tight and firm under his clothes. The feel of him pressed so tight against my clothes and my body brought a small sound from my mouth, and the knowledge that the ardeur had risen early. Hours early. A distant part of me thought, Fuck, the rest of me agreed, but not in the way I meant it.
I drew back from his mouth, tried to breathe, tried to think. His hand came u
p to cup the back of my head, to press my mouth back to his, so that I drowned in his kiss. Drowned in the pulse and beat of his body. Drowned on the rhythms and tide of his desire. The ardeur allowed, sometimes, a glimpse into another heart, or at least their libido. I’d learned to control that part, but tonight it was as if my fragile control had been ripped away, and I stood pressed into the curves and firmness of Nathaniel’s body with nothing to protect me from him. Always before he’d been safe. He’d never pushed an advantage, never gone over a line that I drew, not by word or deed; now suddenly, he was ignoring all my signals, all my silent walls. No, not ignoring them, smashing through them. Smashing them down with his hands on my body, his mouth on mine, his body pushing against mine. I could not fight the ardeur and Nathaniel, not at the same time.
I saw what he wanted. I felt it. Felt his frustration. Months of being good. Of behaving himself, of not pushing his advantage. I felt all those months of good behavior shatter around us and leave us stripped and suffocating in a desire that seemed to fill the world. Until that moment I hadn’t understood how very good he’d been. I hadn’t understood what I’d been turning down. I hadn’t understood what he was offering. I hadn’t understood . . . anything.
I pulled back from him, put a hand on his chest to keep him from closing that distance again.
“Please, Anita, please, please,” his voice was low and urgent, but it was as if he couldn’t bring himself to put it into words. But the ardeur didn’t need words. I suddenly felt his body again, even though we stood feet apart. He was so hard and firm and aching. Aching, because I’d denied him release. Denied him release for months. I’d never had full-blown sex with Nathaniel, because I could feed without it. It had never occurred to me what that might mean for him. But now I could feel his body, heavy, aching with a passion that had been building for months. When last I’d touched Nathaniel’s needs this completely, he’d simply wanted to belong to me. That was still there but there was a demand in him, a near screaming need. A need that I’d neglected. Hell, a need that I’d pretended didn’t exist. Now, suddenly, Nathaniel wasn’t letting me ignore that need anymore.
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