He informed me as he glided toward the basement, with his spotted tail swishing behind a very human-looking backside, “I’m supposed to be on stage tonight at Guilty Pleasures. I can’t go on like this. Jean-Claude will need to find a sub.” He gave that kitty-cat grin of bared teeth and vanished around the corner.
“What does he mean, he’s supposed to be on stage?” Clair asked.
“He’s a stripper at Guilty Pleasures,” I said.
She made a little O with her mouth. I wasn’t sure why, unless her world was so protected that just being in the car with a stripper was a big deal. For her sanity’s sake, I hoped her world was bigger than that.
“But, I don’t understand, why can’t he”—she made a waffling motion with her hands—“perform tonight?”
Richard saved me the lecture. “Remember that once in animal form you have to stay that way for six to eight hours.”
“I thought that was just because I was new.”
Richard shook his head, winced as if it hurt, and said, “No, most shapeshifters spend their lives tied to a cycle of six to eight hours in animal form, then two to four hours of being passed out once they shift back to human form.”
“Sit down,” Dr. Lillian said, and her voice indicated she expected to be obeyed.
He eased himself into the same chair he’d vacated. There were lines at his eyes and mouth, those tight pain lines you get sometimes, if something really hurts. How much damage had Damian done to him?
Clair tried to help him into the chair but seemed unsure where to grab him, since he used his good arm on the table to brace himself. She sort of hovered uncertainly by him, as if she wanted to help but wasn’t quite sure how. “But you don’t have to stay in animal form for eight hours, and you don’t pass out when you shift back.”
“He is your Ulfric,” Fredo said, “no one’s king is that weak.” His voice was deeper than his chest was wide.
Clair gave him quick eye flicks, as if he made her nervous. Maybe it was the knives. “Do you pass out when you come back into human form?” she asked in a voice that matched the nervous eyes.
“No,” he said.
“I do,” Nathaniel said. He smiled at her. “Don’t ask the rest of them, they’ll all make you feel bad, because they don’t pass out either.”
“How long have you been…” Her voice trailed off.
“A wereleopard,” he finished for her.
She nodded.
“Three years,” he said.
I did quick math in my head. “That means that Gabriel brought you over when you were seventeen.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“That’s illegal,” I said.
“It’s illegal in most states to contaminate anyone willingly with a potential fatal disease, regardless of age,” Richard said.
I shook my head. “I guess I’m starting to treat lycanthropy the way the law treats vampirism. If you’re eighteen you can choose.”
“The law doesn’t treat it the same,” he said.
I knew that, but I’d spent so much time among the shapeshifters, that I just sort of forgot. Careless of me. “I guess I forgot.”
“And you a federal marshal,” he said, but the biting comment lacked snap, because he hunched with pain at the same time.
“How hurt are you?” I asked.
“I’ll answer that,” Dr. Lillian said. She smiled, but her eyes were serious. “If he were human he’d stand a very good chance of losing the use of that arm. Maybe he’d regain 50 percent, maybe less mobility. Your vampire severed muscles and ligaments all through the shoulder and upper chest region.”
“But he’s not human,” I said, “so he’ll heal.” I let the “your vampire” comment go. I liked the doc, and I didn’t want to fight.
“He’ll heal, but it will take days, maybe weeks, if he refuses to shift.”
“I promise that I will shift to wolf form when I get home.”
She looked at him like she didn’t believe him.
“Just because I can shift back to human form almost immediately doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come with a price. I’d rather not be exhausted for the rest of the day. If I shift and stay in animal form for a couple of hours, it will be less of a drain when I go back to human form.” I think he was lecturing more for Clair’s sake than anyone else’s. She really was new. “So I’ll wait until I get home, so Clair won’t have to explain why she’s driving around with a werewolf in the car.” That last sounded a tad bitter.
“He won’t say it, so I will. I’m new enough that if one of my pack switches form, sometimes it brings on my change, too. And I’m not trustworthy when I first turn animal.” She looked down, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
Richard took her hand. “It’s alright, Clair, everyone has problems at first.”
Everyone nodded, some said “yes.” That seemed to cheer her a little. She looked younger than I’d thought at first, maybe twenty-four, twenty-five, maybe a little younger. If she hadn’t been Richard’s new girlfriend, I would have asked. But it seemed like prying and none of my business.
“Even if you shift at home, I’ve never seen you heal this much damage in forty-eight hours,” Dr. Lillian said.
“So?” he said, sounding defensive. Had I missed something?
“If you go to school on Monday with your arm useless and then by Friday it’s usable, don’t you think some of your fellow teachers might wonder about your remarkable recovery?”
“I’ll make up a less traumatic injury, something that could heal that fast.”
She shook her head. “If they find out you’re a werewolf, they won’t let you teach children.”
“I know that,” he said, voice fierce, and the first thread of his power trickled through the air like a line of heat.
Clair’s breath came out in a quiver. She looked dizzy. Micah put a chair under her, and helped Richard ease her into it.
“How long has she been a werewolf?” I asked.
“Three months,” he said.
I looked at him, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Three months, and you took her outside a safe house less than a week before the full moon?”
“Doesn’t your house qualify as a safe house?” he asked.
“You can come here to shift form, but I don’t have a reinforced room.” Most true safe houses had a room with a steel door and reinforced concrete walls. Most people put the rooms down in their basements and just told those who asked it was storage.
“We were supposed to have a picnic today,” Clair said in her small, uncertain voice.
I had to turn around so Richard wouldn’t see my face. You did not take a brand-new shifter out for a picnic, if she was having this kind of trouble.
“She was fine this morning,” he said.
I turned around when I was sure my face would be blank enough.
“She’s responding to your anger, and your beast,” Micah said.
“I know that,” Richard said, a hint of a growl in his voice.
She swayed in her chair.
“Richard,” Dr. Lillian said, “you have better control than this.”
He just nodded.
Lillian sighed. “If there was a way to heal your arm before Monday, your secret would be safe.”
“No,” Richard said.
It took me a moment to get the hint. “If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, not only no, but hell no.”
She put her hands on her hips and actually stamped her foot. “You are both being childish.”
We said no simultaneously.
“Fine, then I’ve done all I can for your arm. I will stay until we are certain that the vampire isn’t going to rise and cause more havoc.”
“His name is Damian,” I said.
She nodded. “Damian, then, but if you won’t let her help you, then I think you and Clair need to go to your house. I would suggest that you take her to the room in your basement, before you shift. She seems very swayed by your power.” She said the la
st as if she wanted to say something different, but thought better of it.
“I’ll stay until Damian is down for the day.”
“I think you’ve done your part,” Lillian said.
“They needed my help before,” he said.
I couldn’t argue that, but… “How did you happen to be Johnny-on-the-spot this morning?”
“Gregory couldn’t get anyone here to pick him up. He got worried. On his way over, his car broke down. I was next on the list at the coalition help line.”
I hadn’t actually known Richard was helping staff the emergency calls. “Why didn’t he call AAA?”
“He was more worried about why no one was answering your phone than his car.”
“I didn’t think Gregory cared that much.”
Fredo said, “All your leopards are very serious about your and Micah’s safety.”
I looked at him. “I wasn’t aware of that.”
He grinned, a brief flash of teeth in his dark face. “You don’t like being babied. They know that.” The smile faded. “You are their safe harbor; they value that.”
I don’t know what I would have said to that, but Lillian interrupted and saved me.
“You need to go home, Richard.”
“Micah is here now, and Fredo,” she said, “I think you can leave it to us.”
He started to shake his head again and stopped in mid-motion. “I’ll stay until we’re sure.”
She sighed and shrugged. “You are a very stubborn man. Fine, stay, stay and be in pain.” Then she turned to me. “Is there coffee to spare?”
I had to smile. “I think Nathaniel can fix you up.”
“I’ll just bet he can,” she said, and did a polite leer.
Nathaniel took it in stride, with a laugh.
I don’t know what the look on my face was, but it caused Lillian to say, “I’m over fifty, Anita, not dead.”
“No, it wasn’t that.” I wasn’t sure how to put it into words, but it was more like you didn’t say things like that about someone’s boyfriend, not in front of them, anyway. There was that word boyfriend again in my head, with Nathaniel attached to it.
She was looking at me, sort of narrowly. “By the look on your face, I stepped in something. Is he more than just a member of your pard?”
I said, “yes,” and Richard said, “no.” Which left the two of us looking at each other. “I don’t think you get to answer questions like that for me, Richard.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, but he’s not your lover, or your boyfriend.”
“No, he’s my pomme de sang.”
Richard shook his head and had to stop again. I don’t think he knew how often he made that motion until today. “I thought, we all thought, he was your live-in, but now I know he’s not.”
“He does live with me,” I said.
Richard started to shake his head, but actually caught himself before he’d begun the movement. “I know that, but he’s not your live-in lover.”
“And that matters, how?”
“Alright, children,” Doc Lillian said, “I made a careless remark. I didn’t understand what a pomme de sang means to its, his… owner, master.” She sighed. “I didn’t mean to offend anyone, let’s just leave it at that.”
“You didn’t offend me,” Nathaniel said, and handed her coffee in one of the colored mugs he’d purchased for Furry Coalition meetings. He’d thought it would be nice if we had enough matching mugs to serve our guests. I’d agreed, if I didn’t have to shop for them, so he shopped for them. They were all either a deep, rich blue or a dark, forest green. Nice.
He handed me my baby penguin mug with coffee nearly to the brim, just the color I liked it, pale brown. By the color alone, I knew it would be perfect. “Drink,” he said, “you’ll feel better once you’ve had some coffee.”
“I feel fine,” I said, but I sipped the coffee. Perfect.
He’d also already plugged in the coffeemaker. I was right about the French press not making enough coffee at a time to satisfy this many people. Hell, it barely made enough for my early morning needs. “We’ve got enough for one more cup, who wants it? There’ll be more in a few minutes.” He smiled at the room in general, getting more of the blue and green mugs out of the cabinet.
“He acts like it’s his kitchen,” Richard said.
“He cooks in it more than I do,” I said.
Richard made a visible effort not to shake his head, though he wanted to. “No, I mean… Jason is Jean-Claude’s pomme de sang, but he doesn’t move around the Circus of the Damned like he owns it. Nathaniel acts like this is his home.”
Nathaniel had his back to the room, but he was close enough to me that I felt his sudden stillness, as he poured coffee and tried to pretend he couldn’t hear.
“It is his home,” I said.
I was standing close enough to him to hear the slight sigh of his breath, as if he’d held it waiting to hear what I’d say. He was careful not to look at me, but he was smiling as he puttered with the coffee.
“Jason lives with Jean-Claude, but he isn’t…” Richard seemed at a loss for words.
Lillian helped him out. “Jean-Claude wouldn’t have minded me remarking how cute Jason was, you minded when I said something about Nathaniel. If they’re both pomme de sangs, then I think Richard and I are both confused about how we’re supposed to act around them. Not boyfriend, not lover, it can get a little confusing.”
Nathaniel was very carefully not looking at me, or anyone, but especially not me. I don’t know how I knew that he wasn’t just busy getting real cream out of the fridge to pour into an honest-to-God cream pitcher. The little pitcher was blue, and the sugar bowl was green, so the mugs matched everything. I knew his favorite color was purple, and had asked him why blue and green, and not purple? His reply was that blue was my favorite color, and green was Micah’s favorite color. The answer seemed to make sense to him. It didn’t really make sense to me, but I was beginning to learn that things didn’t have to make sense to me if it made the people around me happy, and the new dishes seemed to make Nathaniel very happy.
He set the creamer and pitcher on a little tray, along with little tongs for the sugar cubes. Why sugar cubes? Because Nathaniel seemed to get a kick out of asking how many lumps people wanted. He was like a kid playing house. No, that wasn’t fair. He was like a new bride that had never had a house, or a kitchen of her own, and was really enjoying the hostess stuff. But it was like he didn’t know what real people did in a house, so he was taking it from movies, books, or magazines. I mean nobody serves cream and sugar anymore on a little tray with little tongs, right?
Nathaniel was wearing one of his favorite pairs of blue jeans, so faded that they were turning white in places. They fit his lower body like they were painted on, and it was a nice paint job. His shoulders had broadened since he moved in with me. He was filling out, developing the body he’d have for the rest of his life, if he took care of it. A “late bloomer,” my grandmother would have called him. He’d looked younger than he was for years, a delicate body to match the eyes and hair. It had made him popular with a certain kind of clientele that his old Nimir-Raj had pimped him out to. Muscles moved in his arms, shoulders, and back, as he set the tray on the table and began to pass out mugs of coffee. I watched him asking, “How many lumps?” and “Do you want cream?” He moved gracefully around the table on his bare feet. He’d thrown his hair over one shoulder like a cape, so that it was out of the way. I’d have never been able to keep that much hair out of the way without help. Nathaniel made it look effortless.
I sipped coffee out of my penguin mug, and watched him play Suzy Homemaker. I waited to be irritated, but I wasn’t. In fact, I was somewhere in the middle of amused, proud, and pleased. He was so cute when he did this.
Richard tensed whenever Nathaniel got close to him, as if he’d have moved back if it hadn’t hurt. He didn’t take coffee, because he didn’t drink coffee. Nathaniel offered to fix tea, but Richard said he didn�
��t want any.
Richard looked at me. “Jason never does this for Jean-Claude.”
“Does what?” I asked.
“Play hostess.”
“Nathaniel isn’t playing,” I said. “He’s the closest thing we’ve got to a hostess. It’s not really my gig.”
Richard looked down at the floor as if looking for inspiration, or counting to ten. Since I hadn’t done anything to piss him off in the last five minutes, I wasn’t sure where all the tension was coming from. He looked at me with those solid brown eyes, and I still missed his hair. The sad remnants of curls were beginning to grace his head, but it wasn’t even close to what he’d had before he got mad at himself and butchered his own hair. “He acts like your wife.”
Nathaniel moved back to the coffeemaker, and since I was still leaning nearly in front of it, that put him beside me. He was very careful not to meet my eyes, almost as if he were afraid where the conversation would go.
“And that seems to bother you, why?”
“You’re not sleeping with him.”
“Yeah, I am, almost every damn night.”
“Fine, you want to split hairs, we can do that. You aren’t fucking him.”
I shook my head. “You always were a sweet-talker when you got pissed.”
“I’m not pissed, I’m trying to understand.”
“Understand what?” I asked.
Micah wasn’t watching Nathaniel or Richard, he was watching me. His chartreuse eyes were very serious, as if he were afraid of what I was going to do. I tried to give him a reassuring smile, that I wasn’t going to blow this, but I’m not really good at reassuring smiles. So his eyes went from serious to a little worried.
“You and Nathaniel and Micah.”
What I wanted to say was, Why do you need to understand it? But I was trying to be nice, or nicer. “What’s to understand, Richard?”
Nathaniel began to pile his hair up into a high, tight ponytail. It was a style women wore more than men, that high, bouncy ponytail that moves when you walk. But his hair was long enough that, to keep it out of the way for cooking, he had to either braid it or do the bouncy ponytail. Once he figured out that I actually thought the bouncy ponytail thing was cute, he’d started doing it more. He washed his hands and went for the fridge.
Anita Blake 12 - Incubus Dreams Page 21