“Why?”
“He sexual-harassed one of the other female guards, and then he disrespected me even after I told him who I was.”
“One of your own bodyguards did this?”
I nodded.
“You had to establish dominance over him, Anita.”
“Yeah, I did, but that’s not what we’re trying to do with each other. If I fed on your anger, it would be disrespectful and more than that. I think you’re like me. I think that anger is the core emotion for you.”
“I’m not certain I understand what you mean by core emotion.”
“If I don’t know what else to feel, I’m angry. There’s this big endless pit of rage inside me that’s been there since at least my mother’s death. I think you have your own version of that rage.”
“Are you saying that I am some poor little boy angry at the world?”
“I share with you that my mother’s death has fucked me up from childhood, and you try to take an insult from it.” My own anger started to rise as it usually did.
“That is not what I meant to do,” he said.
“Then stop taking insult where I don’t mean it. I’m trying to explain to you that I think we both run on a core of wrath.”
“Perhaps,” he said, face thoughtful, like he was trying to think with me, trying to understand.
“If we both run on rage, then feeding on yours would be like feeding on your soul. I don’t want to do that.”
He studied me, and I could almost hear the gears grinding in his brain as he tried to catch up with my reasoning. “I think you complicate things, Anita.”
“I do, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“You could have kept this ability secret from me and used it if I ever attacked you for real. It would have been a good defense.”
“I thought about that, but we’re trying not to get to that point, right?”
“Right,” he said.
“I can’t always control the feeding-on-anger thing. I’ve gotten better at it, but I’ve done it by accident more than any other ability that I have, and just now your rage smelled yummy.”
“The sheriff has been angry enough. Why have you not fed on him?”
“I thought about it, but his anger didn’t appeal to me. He doesn’t appeal to me.”
“But my anger did appeal to you?”
“Yes. I just said that, right?”
He smiled. “You did. You said it smelled yummy.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Maybe a different word would have been better, but it gets the meaning across.”
“I like that you find my rage yummy, Anita.” He took another step closer to me, but it wasn’t a stiff, angry step. It was almost gentle as he reached out toward me.
I wanted to step back, but didn’t want to give ground, and he hadn’t done anything to hurt me yet. Part of me said Back up! Hell, run! But I couldn’t keep running forever. I either had to make peace with him or kill him. If there was a third option, I couldn’t think of it.
He started to touch my face and then hesitated. “May I touch your face?”
If he’d just touched me, I’d have accused him of not paying attention to the talk at breakfast, but he