Richard turned some of that anger loose and yelled, "I can taste their fear on my tongue, down my throat, as if I've already swallowed them." He balled his good hand into the torn front of his T-shirt and pulled. He was suddenly standing over me naked from the waist up, with a look in his eyes that would have frightened me even if I'd been myself. It was a wild, fierce look, made up of hatred and lust. Hatred and lust in a man's eyes is a bad combination.
It seemed to take physical effort for him to turn away from me and look at Gregory again. "Did you feel that?"
Gregory's only answer was a low growl that made Nathaniel whimper again.
"God help me, she's afraid to see me nude, and I fucking love it. I love that she's afraid of me, and I hate myself for loving it. The ardeur will rise, but God alone knows what we'll do before it does. With this much fear, with her, I don't trust my control. And whatever happens I want clothes when it's over, because I'm going to want to get the hell out of here."
He undid his belt with one hand and squeezed the top button of his pants. The button popped open, and, still gripping the top of the pants, he made a rolling motion with his hand and the buttons snapped open in a long rolling line. The front of his pants spilled open, and he spilled out. Either he wasn't wearing any underwear, or it couldn't keep him contained.
I'd seen Richard nude enough times to lose track. The sight of him nude had excited me, made me nervous, afraid in that oh-my-god, where-am-I-going-to-put-it-all sort of way, envious when I'd lost my naked privileges, angry when he was being shitty, or trying to rub my face in the fact that I still found him handsome, but he wasn't mine anymore. All those emotions, and lust, and love, but never fear. Never that feeling that he was physically so much larger than I was, so much stronger, so much... he'd never hurt me physically, and I'd never been afraid of him physically, but I was now. I was afraid the way virgins are supposed to be afraid when white slavers snatch them away. Afraid of being ravished. Afraid of him using that body in mine. Afraid in a way that I'd never been afraid of anyone that I loved.
I put my hands over my eyes like a child. If I couldn't see him, he couldn't hurt me. Stupid, silly, but I couldn't stop the way I felt. Couldn't change the way I felt. I felt a scream growing in my throat. A scream that was waiting to be touched. I knew I was going to do it, and I couldn't stop it.
But it was as if he felt that scream waiting to come out, because he didn't touch me. I felt his face on the other side of my hands like heat, a moment before I felt his breath against the back of my hands. If he'd touched me, the fear would have spilled out my mouth, but he didn't touch me, not with his body.
His breath was hot against my skin, so hot. I felt Damian being lifted out of my lap. I wasn't sure how I knew he hadn't crawled out on his own, but I did.
"Anita, look at me." His voice was very soft, and very close, each word breathing out against my hands. "Please, Anita, please look at me."
His voice floated through the fear, eased the tightness in my throat, relaxed the muscles along my shoulders.
"Anita, look at me, please," he whispered.
I could breathe past my pulse again.
"Please," he whispered, and he touched fingertips to the back of my hand. The lightest of touches, and my hands lowered an inch, two inches, and I could see his face from between my fingers. His eyes were pure chocolate brown, and at that moment, they were gentle. There was no trace of anger, or lust, nothing but patience and gentleness. This was the part of him I'd fallen in love with once.
He touched my wrists, gently, and lowered my hands away from my face. He smiled and said, "Better?"
I started to nod, then Damian grabbed my leg, and the fear roared back, and the scream ripped out of my throat. It wasn't just Moroven's power, it was Damian's fear of that power, and the fact that I couldn't shield against it.
21
I screamed, and Richard's mouth was suddenly on mine. He kissed me, a gentle press of lips. Fear thrilled through me, all the way to my fingertips, as if terror were an electric current. I shoved him away from me.
I waited for the anger to come rushing through me, to ride over the fear and everything else, but it didn't come. In fact the fear blossomed into panic. Panic that freezes your body, numbs your mind, makes you forget everything you've ever learned about how to make your body a weapon, and all that is left is a small screaming voice inside your head that makes you a victim. If you can't think and can't move, then you are a victim. That's why panic will get you killed.
Richard knelt in front of me, only as far away as my arms had moved him. There was nothing gentle in his face now. He looked eager, anticipatory. He was on one knee, the other leg turned so that he shielded himself from my view. The body language was modest; the look on his face was not.
He leaned in toward me and sniffed, drawing the air in deep, so that his chest rose and fell with it. His eyes closed as if he'd smelled the sweetest of flowers, his head thrown back, just a little. When he opened his eyes, they weren't brown, they were amber, dark orange wolf amber. There was a moment where seeing those eyes in the tan of his face was breathtaking, then Damian's fingers dug into my leg. A fresh wave of panic poured through me, tore a scream from my throat, and Damian echoed it. I had a confused image of bodies, hands, being held down, cloth ripping, the weight of a body pinning us to the table and...
A hand wrapped around my wrist and jerked me up and away. Damian's nails ripped through my skin as he tried to hold on. Richard tore me away from Damian's hands, his horror, his memories, and his fear.
The moment Damian couldn't touch me, the panic faded, a little. I could breathe again. The fear was still there, pulsing through me, but it was diminished some. It was like the difference between drowning in the ocean and drowning in a fish pond. Better, less frightening, but just as dead.
I looked back at Damian, and he lay on the floor, his hand outstretched, and even from a distance, I reached back for him. I could feel his need.
Richard pulled on my arm, sharp, sudden. It threw me off balance, and he used that momentary stumble to swing me in against his body, my arm behind my back with his hand still on my wrist. I should have been more interested in the pain, but it was the sensation of being suddenly pressed against his naked body that overwhelmed me. It was not just being pressed against a man's body, even a lovely body, that unnerved me, it was as if my body remembered him. Remembered what it was like to be pressed against this flesh, these arms, and with the skin memory... it was as if the emotional scars tore open and spilled my heart out into my skin. You fight so hard, so long, to cut someone out of your heart, but it's not always your heart that betrays you.
But in among the emotional debris I felt Moroven pull back. We hadn't needed the ardeur to confuse her, all we'd needed was how Richard and I felt about each other. Just as Moroven didn't understand pure lust, she didn't understand love, no matter how broken. I don't know if the emotion frightened her, or if she simply couldn't understand it. She wasn't the only one.
We were touching, and the triumvirate was working just fine. We'd both thrown down our shields to help Jean-Claude raise the ardeur and save us, but shields protect you from so many things. What is love? What does it feel like in its rawest form? Lust, need, desire, and that aching want, as if the center of your body was carved out and hollow, and the only thing that can fill it is the person that you're touching.
I loved Richard. I couldn't hide how I felt, couldn't deny it. I was laid bare in his arms in every way. For a moment, I felt him feel the exact same way, then I felt something else... shame. He was ashamed, not that he loved me, but that part of him was angry that Moroven had fled. He'd wanted to drink my fear while he fucked me. That was the thought that came, not in words, but in confused images. I felt that to him my terror was almost the same as the terror of the deer he'd chased down and killed. Fear, even a little fear, made everything better—food and sex.
He let me go, stepped away so we wouldn't be touching. He clanged his shield
s tight into place and left me standing alone. I was shaking and couldn't understand why.
Richard's face got that angry look he used to hide what he was thinking. He grabbed his pants and went for the door. "You're as horrified by it as I am," he said, and was gone.
I wanted to say he was wrong, but in a way he was right. I wasn't horrified by the fact that he liked a little fear with his sex, a little rough play, most of the shapeshifters did. I think it had something to do with them being programmed to chase animals and kill them. If they didn't get off on the fear, their human sides might come to the forefront and cripple them for the kill. Or maybe, that wasn't it. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was that Raina and Gabriel had been attracted by latent talent. I don't know, but I wasn't horrified with what Richard had wanted. The fact that he thought of taking me while Moroven's fear rode me hadn't bothered me. It was mild compared to some of the things that my wereleopards liked. Just because I didn't participate didn't mean I was blind.
No, that wasn't the problem. I dropped to my knees and stayed there. I'd felt that he loved me, still, but I'd also felt that his hatred for everything he was, was stronger and more important than his feelings for me. I'd thought he loathed his beast, but it was more than that. He hated what he liked in the bedroom. We'd been lovers for months off and on, and I'd never known that he was a closet sadist. How tight he must have to hold his own leash for me not to have known.
A hand touched my shoulder, and I jumped. Nathaniel was staring at me with those lavender eyes. "Are you okay?"
My eyes felt hot, and my throat tight. God, I didn't want to cry. I shook my head, because I didn't trust what would come out if I opened my mouth. No sobbing, no screaming, no hysterics. I hadn't realized until moments ago that somewhere in the depths of my soul, I'd held out hope. Hope that Richard and I would work out, somehow. I thought I'd moved on—stupid. I hadn't moved on, I'd just hidden it away. I couldn't give myself completely to anyone, because I was still in love with Richard. How fucking stupid was that?
He did love me, but he loved his shame more. He hadn't run because I could accept his beast. He'd run because living with me, he couldn't pretend. He couldn't pretend to be normal. I'd never been much on pretending to be something I wasn't, and lately, I'd gotten even worse at it. Could you pretend to be someone else and truly be happy? I don't think so.
Nathaniel put his arms around me, slowly, as if he were afraid I'd stop him, but I didn't. I needed to be held right then. I needed to be held by someone who wanted me, wanted all of me, the good and the bad, the nice and the scary. Richard had been pressed naked against my body, and even the promise of that hadn't been enough.
Micah appeared in the doorway. "Dr. Lillian is in the kitchen looking at Richard's wound." He looked from Nathaniel to Damian, then to me. "Richard looks shaken, what happened?"
I held out my hand, and he came to me without me having to say a word. I buried my face against his shoulder, and that hot, hot tightness spilled out of my eyes, and my lips. I balled my hands into his shirt and cried.
Nathaniel was at my back rubbing his hands over and over my skin, making soothing noises.
"What happened?" Micah asked again.
It was Damian who answered, and his voice let me know that he was close before his hand patted my shoulder. "Richard hates himself more than he loves anyone else." It was only in that moment that I realized that Damian and Nathaniel had still been connected to me when Richard and I had had our moment. My first thought was, H e would hate knowing that they know his big dark secret. My second thought was, Who the fuck cares?
I clung to Micah, with Nathaniel at my back and Damian patting me awkwardly on the shoulder.
Gregory growled in his leopard voice, "What just happened? I thought you and Richard were going to fuck."
Micah saved me the trouble of saying anything. "Get out, Gregory, now before you say something even more stupid."
"I didn't mean..."
"Now!" Micah's voice held that edge of growl to it. Enough that it sparked his beast awake inside him, and I felt it curl inside his body, like brushing up against a cat in the dark. A cat that you've shared a bed with, until the feel of that fur, that small body is like your pillows, or your sheets, just a part of a safe night's sleep. Comfort, companionship, warmth, and the knowledge that there are claws in the dark in case things go wrong. His beast flared mine, and it felt so warm, so comfortable, as those two invisible bodies rubbed against each other. The feel of his neck against my face, his skin wet with my tears, our beasts resting against each other, his arms around me, and I had one of those moments, where I understood that if I let him close enough, his arms could be home.
Nathaniel kissed me, very lightly on the shoulder. "Don't be sad, Anita, please don't be sad." I turned my head enough to see his face. There were tears on his cheeks. I opened one arm so that I could wrap it around his waist and hug them both. I let myself sink in against them, let them hold me, let myself cling to them both. What is love? Sometimes it's just letting yourself be who and what you are, and letting the person you're supposed to love be who and what he is, too. Or maybe, what and who they are.
22
When I finished having hysterics and everyone had rinsed enough blood off them to be presentable, or at least not make my neighbors call the police, I got dressed. Micah had pointed out that we'd probably all be going to bed, so why bother getting dressed, but I needed clothes. Black everything from the skin out, including the shoulder holster, Browning Hi-Power, and hidden under my hair the hilt of a really big knife. It sat in a custom-made sheath along my spine that attached to the shoulder holster, though it could be worn without, but not as comfortably. Micah tried to point out that I probably didn't need that much weaponry to go into my own kitchen. I looked at him, and he stopped. No one else complained.
Have you ever tried to get dressed with three men watching you? I wanted Micah, and it seemed shitty to kick Nathaniel out, and Damian... we were all afraid what might happen if the vampire was separated from me by a room and a door. He and I had had sex, and he'd seen me very naked, and even walked behind me into the bedroom, but I still made him turn and face the wall while I dressed. Maybe the wereanimals were finally affecting my view of nudity. It just seemed, strangely, more intimate to dress in front of someone than to be naked. Or maybe my modesty had just had all the shocks it could handle for one day.
Speaking of which, if I hadn't thought it was cowardly and childish, I'd have hidden in the bedroom until Richard left, but it was cowardly, and it was childish. Damn it. Besides, Nathaniel promised he'd make coffee. I hated eating before ten o'clock, but coffee before ten was a necessity.
Damian had done one thing that made me feel better, he'd asked for a robe. His request made me realize something. None of the vampires I knew did casual nudity. They'd be naked for a good cause, but wouldn't just walk around nude like the shapeshifters did. Funny, I'd never thought about it before.
Nathaniel had fetched Damian's very own robe from the basement and had taken a side trip to put on a pair of jeans himself. He got brownie points for dressing without me having to ask.
Damian's robe looked like something straight out of Victorian England, and maybe it was. It was a dark, rich blue velvet, and heavy, almost more like a coat than a robe. There were worn places at the elbows, and the cuffs and hem were beginning to fray. But the whole robe screamed expensive. Damian wrapped it around himself like it was his favorite teddy bear. Once he belted it in place it covered him from neck to ankle, only his hands peeking out.
"That's not a robe, is it?" I asked.
He shook his head, as he pulled his hair free of the collar, so it spilled like a surprised red splash against all that blue. "It's a dressing gown," he said.
I nodded as if I understood exactly what that meant, then I offered him my hand. Not because I wanted to touch him, though that was there, but because of the lost look in his eyes and the way his hands kept rubbing the thinning velvet, as if
touching it made him feel safer. He took my hand and gave me the first smile I'd seen since she-who-made-him had reared her vicious head. The smile was shaky 'round the edges, but it firmed up when he touched my hand.
I'd been afraid that when I touched him again that it would change. That there'd be lust, or love, or something else I couldn't deal with, but that wasn't what came through the touch of his hand. What came through was a sense of safety. Relief that I'd reached out to touch him first. If I touched him first, I couldn't be that angry.
"I'm not mad," I said.
His eyes widened just a little. "You know what I'm thinking?"
"Don't you know what I'm thinking?"
"No."
"Ask him if he knows what you're feeling," Nathaniel said.
"I just asked that."
"No, you didn't."
I thought about it for a second. He was right. "Okay, what am I feeling?"
"Nothing," Damian said, "you are very carefully feeling nothing."
I thought about that, too, and just nodded. He was right. I felt numb, at most relieved that Damian's need for safety overrode other complications, but really, truly, I felt nothing. I felt like one of those shells that washed up on the sand, so pretty, so clean, so white and pink, and so empty. That place inside me where Richard had been meant to fit, to fill, was empty, but not empty like a wound. Empty like that seashell, all slick and wet and waiting. Waiting for someone else to come along and slip inside and make that emptiness into their protection, their shield, their armor, their home.
Even thinking it that clearly, I still felt almost nothing. I realized it was close to that static emptiness where I went when I had to kill, but it wasn't staticky. It was a peaceful emptiness, like gazing out to a horizon of just water and sky. Peace, quiet, but not empty, just waiting. Waiting for what?
Damian squeezed my hand. I smiled at him but knew it didn't reach my eyes. I smiled because he smiled at me, more reflex than emotion. Inside was nothing. It was a little like being in shock. Shock is nature's insulation, the thing that shuts you down so you can heal, or sometimes so you can die without hurting, or being afraid.
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