23

There were three people in my bed; none of them were me. Cherry and Zane had curled up around Nathaniel like fleshy security blankets. I'd been informed that the physical closeness of your group, whatever the animal flavor, was healing both emotionally and physically. Richard had backed up this bit of werelore, so the wereleopards got the bed, because Nathaniel had hysterics at the thought of being without me.

So the wereleopards got the bed, and I got the floor. I managed to get a blanket and a pillow to go with my bit of carpet. We were in a new cabin. Verne was going to try to clean the old cabin, but the bed and carpet were probably a lost cause.

I apologized for that, but Verne seemed to think I could do no wrong. He was tickled pink, purple, and blue that I'd fried Colin's vamps. I was not so happy. Revenge can be a very scary thing. If someone had done to Jean-Claude's vamps what I did to Colin's vamps, I'd ... we'd have killed them.

The bathroom door opened and closed quietly.

I sat up, hugging the blanket around me. Jason threaded his way between the two coffins. He was wearing a pair of silk boxers. He'd put them on last night in the bathroom and come out without a word. I'd still been trying to convince the wereleopards that they couldn't all sleep naked.

Jason had wanted to sleep with them, adding his otherworldly energy to theirs, but they refused him. Not because he was wolf instead of leopard, but because Cherry didn't trust him to keep his hands to himself.

Jason paused in front of the bed, staring down at the pile of sleeping wereleopards. He ran his hands through his sleep-tousled hair. His hair was straight enough and baby fine enough that his hands could smooth the hair into place. He stayed near the foot of the bed, staring down.

I finally stood, wrapping the blanket around me. I was wearing an oversized sleeping shirt that hit me at midcalf. One size does not fit all, but it was still nightclothes, and I wanted something between me and anyone else. At heart, I am a prude. I went to stand next to Jason, covered shoulder to foot in the blanket. It wasn't Jason I didn't trust. It was everyone else who made me uncomfortable.

Cherry lay on her back, sheets tangled around her knees. She was wearing a pair of red bikini underwear stretched tight across narrow hips. Her waist was very long so that she got height from there as well as those long legs. Her breasts were small and firm. She sighed and rolled one shoulder, making the flesh of one breast move, settling closer to the bed. The nipple tightened as if something in the movement or the dream was exciting. Or maybe she was just cold.

I glanced at Jason. He was gazing at her like he was memorizing every curve, the way her breast spilled to the side. His eyes were almost soft as he looked at her. More than lust, maybe? Or the way you look at a really fine work of art, admiring it because you're not allowed to touch.

Neither of the others were giving nearly as good a show. Nathaniel was wrapped in a ball, head pressed to Cherry's waist. He was so bound in covers that all you could see was the top of his head. He whimpered in his sleep, and Cherry's hand touched the top of his head, her other arm flinging out into space, eyes still closed, still asleep. But even in her sleep, she reached for him, comforted him.

Zane lay on the other side of Nathaniel, spooning his body against the smaller man's. But the covers had been dragged off him, showing the blue bikinis he was wearing. The underwear looked suspiciously like Cherry's, as if she'd had to give him something to wear to bed.

Jason had eyes only for Cherry's slender form. I was surprised that she couldn't feel the weight of his gaze, even in her sleep.

I held the quilt in place with one hand and touched his wrist with the other. I crooked my finger at him and led the way to the far corner of the room, as far away from the bed as we could get.

I leaned against the wall to the side of the window. Jason leaned against the wall close enough that his shoulder brushed the edge of the quilt. I didn't protest because we were whispering. Besides, after awhile, complaining about everything that Jason did just got tiresome. It wasn't really personal. He pushed his luck with everyone.

"Did you sense anyone the last watch?"

He shook his head, leaning so close that I could feel his breath against my cheek. "They're afraid of you after last night."

I turned to look at him and had to move my head back a little to be able to focus on his eyes. "Afraid of me?"

His face was very serious. "Don't be coy, Anita. What you did last night was impressive, and you know it."

I hugged the blanket around my shoulders and looked at the ground. After the rush of power had faded last night, I'd been cold. I'd been cold all night. It was nearly ninety degrees outside. The air conditioner was whirring, and I was cold. Unfortunately, it wasn't the kind of cold that blankets or heat or even another warm body could chase away. I'd scared myself last night. Lately, that took a lot.

I'd seen the burning vampires in my dreams. They'd chased me with flame-covered arms. Their mouths opened in screams, fangs leaking fire like dragon's breath. The burning vamps had offered me Mira's head. The head had talked in its basket, asking, "Why?" Because I was careless didn't seem like a good enough answer. I ran from the dying vampires all night long, one dream after another, or maybe it was just one long, broken dream. Who knows? Either way, it hadn't been restful.

Richard had turned to me last night with the vampire bodies still glowing like banked fires. He'd looked at me, and I'd felt his revulsion, his horror at what I'd done, like a knife through my heart. If things had been reversed and I'd been the werewolf and he'd been the human, he'd have been just as sickened after the show with Marcus as I had been. No, more so. The only reason Richard hung around with monsters was the fact that he was one.

Richard had gone off to his cabin with Jamil and Shang-Da. Shang-Da and Jamil hadn't been horrified; they'd been impressed. Though Shang-Da had said, "They'll kill us all for this."

Asher had disagreed. "Colin is a lesser master than Jean-Claude, yet he demanded the life of Jean-Claude's second, me, and the sanity of one of his wolves, Jason. He overstepped his bounds. Anita merely reminded him of that."

Shang-Da had looked at the blackened corpses, slowly turning to piles of ash. "You think any master vampire will allow this to go unanswered?"

Asher shrugged. "It is no disgrace to lose against someone who has met the Council and survived."

"Besides," Jamil said, "he'll be scared now. He won't come against Anita face-to-face again."

Asher nodded. "Exactly; he fears her now."

"His human servant, Nikki, could have enabled the wards just like I did," I said.

"I believe," Asher said, "that if his servant had power so similar to your own, she would not have merely warned him."

"She'd have tried to keep me from setting the magic free," I said.

"Yes," Asher said.

"She lied," I said.

Asher smiled and touched my cheek. "How can you be so cynical and be surprised when people lie?"

To that, there was no answer. What I'd done was just beginning to sink in then. Now, in the light of midday, not morning -¨C we'd managed to sleep the morning away -¨C I was cold with the knowledge that what I'd done last night hadn't used power from either Richard or Jean-Claude. What I'd done last night had been all me. I'd have been able to do it without a single vampire mark or a drop of extra power.

I hated it when I did something so inhuman and couldn't blame anyone else for it. Made me feel like a freak.

Jason touched my shoulder. I looked at him. There must have been something in my face, because the grin faded from his. His eyes held that world-weary sorrow that peeked through every once in awhile.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I shook my head. "You saw what I did last night. I did it. Not Jean-Claude. Not Richard. Me. Just little old me."

He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to look at him full face. "You saved me last night, Anita. You put yourself between me and those things. I'll never forget that, ever."

I tried to look away, and he shook me gently until I looked at him. We were exactly the same height, so it wasn't like looking up at him, just at him. All the teasing was gone. What was left behind was something more serious, more grownup, less Jason. "You killed to save us last night. None of us will forget that. Verne and his wolves won't forget that."

"Colin won't forget it, either," I said. "He'll come after us."

Jason shook his head. "Asher and Jamil are right. He's scared shitless of you now. He won't come near you."

I grabbed his arms, letting the quilt slide to the floor. "But he'll hurt the rest of you. He'll try and take you, Jason. He'll give you to Barnaby. He'll break you just to hurt me."

"Or he'll kill Asher," Jason said. "I know." He smiled, and it was almost his usual grin. "Why do you think we both stayed in here with you last night? I, for one, wanted your protection."

"You know you have it," I said.

The smile softened. "I know." He touched my face gently. "What's wrong? I mean really wrong? Why do you look so ... tormented today?"

"What I did last night wasn't very human, Jason. I felt Richard's horror. I felt him think of me as a monster, and he's right."

Jason hugged me. I stiffened at first, and he started to let me go, then I relaxed against him. I let him hold me, wrapping my own arms around his back. I buried my face against his neck and had a horrible urge to cry.

There was a soft sound from behind us. I raised my head to look. The wereleopards were climbing off the bed, gliding towards us on human feet but moving as if there were muscles in their legs and hips and torsos that didn't exist in mine. Zane and Cherry writhed and glided, nearly naked, towards us. Cherry held Nathaniel's hand, leading him like a child. But he didn't look like a child as he padded towards us, naked. Undies would have hurt the upper thigh wound. Now, as he came towards us, it was clear that he wasn't completely unhappy to see me. Or maybe it was waking up next to Cherry, or maybe it was just a guy thing. Either way, I didn't like it.

I pushed away from Jason. He didn't fight it, just stepped back. He watched the wereleopards come, but I don't think he was worried about it. In fact, I could feel his energy prickle along my skin. Strong emotions like lust will make a shapeshifter's energy rise. The moment I thought it, I looked without thinking. Jason was happy to see Cherry, very happy.

I looked away, blushing. I turned my back on all of them, arms hugging my sides.

Someone touched my shoulder. I flinched.

"It's me, Anita," Jason said.

I shook my head.

He hugged me from behind, arms very carefully across my shoulders and no lower. "I'm not sorry you killed them, Anita. I'm just sorry you didn't kill Barnaby."

"Someone else is going to pay for my bravado, Jason. Like Mira last night. I do things, say things, around you guys, and it all goes wrong."

Zane moved around in front of me. I stared up at him with Jason's arms still around my shoulders like a bulky necklace. Zane's brown eyes were as serious as I'd seen them on this trip.

He reached out to touch my face, and only Jason's arms tightening ever so slightly kept me from backing away or saying, "Don't." Touching didn't mean the same thing to lycanthropes as it did to the rest of American society. I would say human, but there were a lot of countries that were more into casual touching than ours.

Zane's fingers trailed down my cheek while he studied my face, frowning. "Gabriel was our whole world. He and Elizabeth made us, chose us. As bad as you think he was, Gabriel saved most of us. I was a junkie, but he didn't allow drugs in his pard."

He leaned into me, sniffing along my skin, rubbing his cheek so that I could feel the fine stubble along his jaw. "Nathaniel was a street whore. Gabriel pimped him out but not to just anybody, not to everybody."

Cherry was on her knees. She took my hand, rubbing her face against my skin like a cat scent-marking. "I lost a leg in a hit-and-run accident. Gabriel offered me my leg back. He cut it off above the stump, and when I shifted, the leg grew back."

Zane laid a gentle kiss on my forehead. "He did care for us in his own, twisted way."

"But he never risked his life for us," Cherry said. She started licking my hand, again for all the world like a cat. She stopped licking me seconds before I told her to stop. Maybe she sensed my tension. "You risked your life to save Nathaniel. You risked the lives of your vampires for him."

Zane cradled my face in his hands, leaning back so he could see my face. "You love Asher. Why would you risk him for Nathaniel?"

I drew back gently from their hands until I was standing alone near the door. I wasn't going to make a break for it, I just needed some room.

Nathaniel crouched in the middle of the room. He was the only one who hadn't touched me.

"I don't love Asher," I said.

"We can smell your desire for him," Zane said.

Oh, great. "I didn't say I didn't think he was cute. I said I didn't love him." My eyes slid to the coffin. I knew he couldn't hear me, but ...

Jason was leaning against the wall, grinning at me, arms crossed over his chest. The look on his face was enough.

"I don't love him."

Cherry and Zane stared at me, wearing almost identical expressions, neither of which I could read. "You care for him," Cherry said.

I thought about that, then nodded. "Okay, I care for him."

"Why would you risk him for Nathaniel?" she asked. She was still on her knees. She went to all fours as she spoke. Her breasts hung down, moving as she crawled towards me. I'd never had a naked woman crawl towards me, ever. Naked men, but not naked women. It bothered me. Homophobic? Who me?

"Nathaniel is mine to protect. I'm his Nimir-ra, right?"

Cherry kept crawling towards me. Zane had dropped to all fours and was joining her. Muscles moved under the skin of their shoulders, their arms, muscles that shouldn't have been there. They moved forward in a wave of grace and muscled potential, like violence contained inside skin. Except for Nathaniel. He stayed crouched and immobile, as if waiting for some signal.

I looked past the oncoming wereleopards to Jason. "What's going on?"

"They want to understand you."

"There's nothing to understand," I said. "Colin hurt Nathaniel because he could, like you'd abuse a dog you didn't like. No one abuses my friends. It's not allowed."

Cherry had waited for Zane so that they moved in tandem towards me, a nearly matched pair. They were almost to me, almost within touching range, and I didn't want them to touch me. Something was going on, and I didn't like it.

"Nathaniel isn't your friend," Jason said. "It wasn't friendship that made you risk Asher."

I frowned at him. "Stop helping me."

Zane and Cherry looked up at me, and I think they would have touched me but weren't sure of their welcome. "Gabriel said he cared for us," Zane said, "but he risked nothing. He sacrificed nothing." He raised up on his knees, close enough that his otherworldly energy pressed like a warm wind against my bare legs. "You risked your life for one of us last night. Why?"

Cherry raised up on her knees, and again it was like an echo. Their power pressed against me like a great, warm hand. Their intensity, their need, filled their eyes. And I realized for the first time that it wasn't just Nathaniel that was needy. It was all of them. They had no home, no love, no care.

"It wasn't friendship," Zane said. "The wolf is right."

"You aren't having sex with Nathaniel," Cherry said.

I stared at them, at those eager faces. "Sometimes you do things just because it's the right thing to do," I said.

"You risked Asher and Damian, then you risked yourself," Zane said. "Why? Why?"

"Why did you protect me last night?" Jason asked. "Why did you stand between me and Barnaby?"

"You're my friend," I said.

Jason smiled. "Now, I am, but that wasn't why you protected me. You'd have done the same for Zane."

I frowned at Jason. "What do you want me to say, Jason?"

"The real reason why you protected me. The same reason you risked so much for Nathaniel. Not friendship, or sex, or love."

"Then why?" I asked.

"You know the answer, Anita."

I looked from him to the two kneeling wereleopards. I hated putting it into words, but Jason was right. "Nathaniel is mine now. He's on the list of people that I'll protect. He's mine, and no one can hurt him without answering to me. Jason's mine. You're all mine, and no one hurts what's mine. It's not allowed."

It sounded so arrogant saying it out loud. It sounded medieval, but it was still true. Some things just are true; you don't have to voice them, they just are. And somewhere along the way, I'd started collecting people. My people. It used to mean friends, but lately, it meant more than that, or less. It meant people like Nathaniel. We certainly weren't friends, but he was mine, just the same.

Staring down into Zane and Cherry's faces, it was like I could see all the disappointments, the small betrayals, the selfishness, the pettiness, the cruelty. I watched it fill their eyes. They'd seen so much of it that they simply couldn't understand kindness or honor; or worse, they just didn't trust it.

"If you mean that," Zane said, "we're yours. You can have all of us."

"Have?" I made it a question.

"They mean sex," Jason said. He wasn't smiling now. I wasn't sure why. He'd been enjoying the show a moment before.

"I don't want to have sex with either of you, any of you," I added hastily. Didn't want to have any misunderstandings.

"Please," Cherry said, "please choose one of us."

I looked at them. "Why do you want me to have sex with one of you?"

"You love some of the wolves," Zane said. "You feel true friendship for them. You feel none of that for us."

"But you feel lust," Cherry said. "Nathaniel disturbs you because you find him attractive."

That cut a little too close to home. "Look, guys, I don't sleep with people just because I find them attractive."

"Why not?" Zane asked.

I sighed. "I don't do casual sex. If you don't understand that, I'm not sure I can explain it to you."

"How can we trust you if you don't want anything from us?" Cherry said.

I didn't have an answer for that one. I looked at Jason. "Can you help me out here?"

He pushed away from the wall. "I think so, but you may not like it."

"Explain," I said.

"The problem is that they've never really had a Nimir-ra, not for real. Gabriel was an alpha, and he was powerful, but he wasn't a Nimir-raj, either."

"One of the werewolves described Gabriel as a lion passant, a passive leopard, one that had power but didn't protect," I said. "The pard called me a leoparde lionne, one that protects, before they promoted me to Nimir-ra."

"We called Gabriel leopard lionne," Zane said, "because he was all we knew, but the wolves were right, he was a lion passant."

"Great," I said, "so it's settled."

"No," Cherry said. "If Gabriel taught us anything, it was that you can't trust anyone unless they want something from you. You don't have to love us, but pick one of us for a lover."

I shook my head. "No. I mean thanks for the invitation, but no thanks."

"Then how can we trust you?" Cherry asked, voice almost a whisper.

"You can trust her," Jason said. "It's Gabriel that you couldn't trust. He's the one that convinced you that sex was so damned important. Anita isn't even sleeping with our Ulfric, but Zane saw her last night. He saw what she did to protect me."

"She did it to protect her vampire. The one she cares for," Zane said.

"I don't feel for Damian the way I feel for Asher, but I risked my life for him last night," I said.

The leopards frowned up at me. "I know," Zane said, "and I don't understand that. Why didn't you let him die?"

"I'd asked him to risk his life to save Nathaniel. I try never to ask of others what I'm not willing to do myself. If Damian was willing to risk his life, then I couldn't do less."

The leopards were lost. It showed in their faces, the tension that flowed through their power, as it breathed along my skin.

"Am I yours?" Nathaniel asked. His voice sounded small and lost.

I looked past the others to him. He was still crouched, huddled in the middle of the floor. He was huddled in around himself. His long, long hair had spilled around him, across his face. His flower-petal eyes stared out at me through that curtain of hair, like he was staring out through fur. I'd seen other lycanthropes that did that, hid behind their hair, and stared. Crouched there, he was suddenly feral and vaguely unreal. He brushed the hair back from one side, revealing a line of arm and chest. His face was suddenly young, open, and raw with need.

"I won't let anyone else hurt you, Nathaniel," I said.

A single tear slid down his face. "I'm so tired of not belonging to anyone, Anita. So tired of being anyone's meat that wanted me. So tired of being scared."

"You don't have to be scared anymore, Nathaniel. If it's within my power to keep you safe, I will."

"I belong to you now?"

I didn't like the phrasing, but watching him cry, one crystalline tear at a time, I knew that now wasn't the time to quibble over semantics. I hoped I wasn't signing up for more up-close-and-personal care than I wanted, but I nodded. "Yes, Nathaniel, you belong to me." Words alone rarely impressed shapeshifters. It was like part of them didn't understand words.

I held out my hand to him. "Come, Nathaniel, come to me."

He crawled to me, not in that wild, muscular grace, but head down, crying, face hidden by his hair. He was sobbing full out by the time he reached me. He held one hand up to me blind, not looking at me.

Zane and Cherry had moved to either side, letting him come close to me.

I took Nathaniel's hand and wondered what to do with it. Shaking it wasn't enough, kissing it seemed wrong. I racked my brain for anything on leopards and just blanked. The one thing that the leopards did most often was lick each other. I couldn't think of anything else.

I raised Nathaniel's hand to my mouth, bending over to press my mouth to the back of his hand. I licked his skin, one quick movement, and the taste of him was familiar. I knew in that moment that Raina had licked this skin, ran lips, tongue, teeth, down this body.

The munin welled up inside of me, and I fought it. The munin wanted to bite his hand, to draw blood and lap it like a cat with cream. The imagery was too repulsive to me. My own horror helped me chase Raina away. I pushed her down inside me and realized that she never really left me anymore. That was why she came so quickly and so easily. I felt her hiding inside me like a cancer waiting to spread.

I stood there with the taste of Nathaniel's skin in my mouth and did what Raina had never done: I gave comfort.

I raised Nathaniel's head gently until I could cradle his face between my hands. I kissed his forehead, I kissed the salty taste of tears from his cheeks.

He fell against me with a sob, arms locked around my legs, pressed against me. There was a moment when Raina tried to flare to life as Nathaniel's groin pressed against my bare legs.

I reached out to Richard, drawing on the mark between us. His power came to my call like a warm brush of fur. It helped chase away that awful, stinging presence.

I offered my hands to the other leopards. They pressed their faces to my skin, chin marking me like cats, licking me as if I were a kitten. I stood there with the three wereleopards pressed to me, borrowing Richard's power to keep Raina at bay. But it was more than that. Richard's power filled me, washed through me into the leopards.

I was like the wood in the center of a fire. Richard was the flame, and the wereleopards warmed themselves against that heat. They took it into themselves, bathed in it, wrapped it around themselves like a promise.

Standing there, caught between Richard's power, the wereleopards' needs, and that awful touch of Raina, like some foul perfume, I prayed: Dear God, don't let me fail them.