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 -- we'd managed to sleep the morning away -- 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 h*ps 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 br**sts hung down, moving as she crawled towards me. I'd never had a na**d woman crawl towards me, ever. Naked men, but not na**d 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."