18

Gregory crawled to us on all fours, sniffing just above our bodies. He said in that growling voice, "Me next."

I had to look up and back over my shoulder to give him the look he deserved, but looking back with him on all fours gave me a sight line down his body, and suddenly I was more embarrassed than I had been. Shapeshifters look sort of like they do in the movies in half-man form, but there is one big difference. They have genitalia, and right at that moment Gregory was very, very happy to be here. I think what bothered me more than the erection was that he'd gotten it from watching me have sex with Damian. For some reason, unfair probably, it bothered me that Gregory had enjoyed the show.

"Back off, Gregory," I said, and my voice sounded harsh and like I meant it, even while I blushed.

He did his kitty-cat impression of a smile and backed off, literally. He put his head down, and crawled backward, abasing himself. It was a gesture closer to a real wolf than a real leopard, but wereanimals are people at heart, and some gestures just translate better to our human brains. Abasing yourself by going low is one of those gestures.

Damian was looking down at me, and the look was not one that I'd ever seen on a man's face just after finishing sex. He looked sad, and I remembered the burst of emotion at the end. Sorrow covering the pleasure like evil chocolate ruining your ice cream.

But it was more than the look on his face. I realized that I could feel his sadness. Feel it, not like it was my own, but like it was a coat that clung to my skin. I was still hooked up to him emotionally, well, not just emotionally. I could feel him plunged deep inside me, his weight still pinning my lower body. Touching made any sort of metaphysical intermingling worse. I needed to stop touching him. And not just him.

Nathaniel lay beside us, his fingers still tangled in mine. The side of his body pressed up against me, so that our bodies touched from shoulder to hip. He must have scooted closer when Damian finished. I think I would have remembered if Nathaniel's body had been touching mine during the act. Wouldn't I?

His lavender eyes were unfocused, almost sleepy. What came through his skin was contentment. Contentment like a great warm ocean that filled him, floated him, held him, rocked him. Maybe I stared at him too long, or maybe he sensed my own growing unease, because his eyes focused, sharpened, and the look in them wasn't the least bit sleepy. It was almost an anticipatory look, as if he were already thinking about next time. Since I didn't think he'd had a first time yet, it helped clear my head. Anger always did.

"Everybody off, out of the pool," I said.

Damian's sorrow was almost like rain on my skin. Nathaniel wasn't sad. He went straight to panic, afraid he'd done something wrong. "It's alright, Nathaniel, you're alright. We're all alright." I wasn't sure I actually believed that down to my toes, but the panic subsided, and everybody got off of me. Yeah. Though Damian's sadness clung to me like I'd walked through some metaphysical cobweb.

While we were getting untangled, Micah came through the splintered door. I'd been found in compromising positions by boyfriends before, but never with less embarrassment. He didn't ask stupid questions or make me feel like a slut. In fact he concentrated on the most important thing. "Wow," he said, and the wow seemed to take in the blood scattered here and there on the floor and the walls, the injuries that he could see on most of us, the broken door, all of it, but what he said out loud was, "Is everybody alright?"

I started to get up off the floor, and Damian offered me a hand up. I wouldn't have taken it normally, but we'd just had sex, and it seemed odd to slap away his hand. The moment my hand touched his, I realized it was more than that. That need to put my skin against his was still there. One moment of good sex didn't take away centuries of need. Sex was like some kind of fuel like food--you burned it up and needed more.

I got my hand out of his and took a slightly shaky step away from Nathaniel and Damian. A little distance would be helpful, I hoped. "We'll all live," I said.

"Good." He cocked his head to one side and said, "I didn't know that Damian could walk around this early in the day."

"He can't," I said.

"Do I say the obvious, 'but he is walking around during the day,' or do you want me to just stop asking questions?"

I was suddenly tired, and I probably wasn't the only one. "Have you been to bed at all?"

He shook his head, and as if I'd reminded him, he rubbed his chartreuse eyes, his sunglasses already tucked into the front of his shirt. "When I drove the guy home from the bar, he had a live-in girlfriend and a child. Girlfriend started a fight about his drinking. Anger does not help you fight the change."

"Did he shift?" I asked.

"No, but it was close, and he's so new..." Micah shook his head again. "I'd feel better if the girlfriend was a little more understanding about how dangerous he could be. She just didn't seem to understand."

"She didn't want to understand," Richard said.

Micah turned and looked at him. I realized that of all the people in the room, Richard had been the only one that Micah hadn't really looked at. "Then you've met Patrick's girlfriend."

Richard started to shake his head, stopped in mid-motion, and winced. "No, but I've seen it. The human spouse just doesn't want to understand that they're married to a monster." I think he meant it to sound matter-of-fact, but it didn't. It sounded bitter.

I'd never made Richard feel like that, that I knew of; no, he'd spent a great deal more time making me feel like a monster. So I let it go. I let it go because I didn't know what to say, or if there was anything to say. Okay, I had one thing to say. "The coalition is offering a monthly meeting for family members. I thought we'd given flyers out to the werewolves."

Richard got to his feet, cradling his arm. "This is my Patrick, Patrick Cook?"

Micah said, "Yes."

"And you've been baby-sitting him all night?"

"Yes," Micah said, again.

Richard looked down at the floor, then back up. He met Micah's gaze, but his face wasn't completely happy about it. "Thank you for looking after my wolf."

"The wolves are part of the coalition, too," Micah said, "I'd do the same for anyone's people."

"All the same, thank you."

"Don't mention it."

There was one of those awkward silences. I hated to leave everybody alone, but I really needed a shower. The shower would hurt the wound on my throat, but I'd just had sex without a condom, which meant all the mess had gone into me, but it wouldn't stay there. So I needed to clean up. Truthfully, I'd have preferred a condom, but it hadn't occurred to me until afterward. Tammy had gotten pregnant on the pill. Yeah, she had fallen afoul of the fact that antibiotics don't mix well with the pill, but still. That one percent chance suddenly seemed like it wasn't good odds. Damian was a thousand-year-old vampire; chances were he was infertile, but still... It was one thing getting pregnant by a boyfriend, but pregnant by someone who wasn't even that... well, that seemed somehow worse. "I'm taking a shower."

They all looked at me. I guess it was abrupt. "I'm sorry, but I just can't stand here like this anymore. So everybody behave themselves. I'll be as quick as I can."

"I'll call for a doctor," Micah said.

I nodded. "Good, good." I suddenly had to not be there, naked, smelling of fresh sex, with Richard and Micah in the same room. Having Damian and Nathaniel naked didn't help my comfort level. I was fairly comfortable around nudity in general now, but specific nudity, that was still a problem. For more reasons than I was comfortable with, I needed to leave the room.

"By the way, there's a woman crying in your car in the driveway," Micah said.

"My car?" I asked.

"No, Richard's, or at least I assume it's Richard's. I know Gregory's car, and that's not the one she's in."

Richard cursed under his breath, something he rarely did. "Clair, I forgot about Clair."

"Who's Clair?" I asked.

He hesitated, then said, "My girlfriend," then he was walking to the door holding his arm like it hurt to walk that fast.

His girlfriend, and I'm buck naked the first time she sees me. Great. Well, at least she hadn't seen me fuck Damian. That helped. Sure, great. Just great. I was shaking my head as I went toward the bathroom.

It was Gregory, in his growling voice, who said, "I guess it's none of my business, but should Richard really be in front of the house where cars could see him? He is covered in blood."

I turned and looked at the leopardman and said, "Shit, no." I started for the door, and Micah stopped me. "I'll go. I'm the only one that they wouldn't call the cops on right now." He squeezed my shoulder and smiled at me.

I realized that I hadn't kissed him hello, I always kissed him hello. Of course, I was still covered in blood and other bodily fluids, and none of them were his, but he might not understand that that was why I hadn't wanted to get too close. Some of my confusion must have shown on my face, because his smile widened. He turned me around by the shoulders, gave me a little push toward the bathroom, and slapped me on the ass. "Get cleaned up, I'll take care of things here."

"I can't believe you just did that," I said.

"Did what?" he said, and he was grinning at me.

I could probably count on one hand the number of times Micah had grinned at me. His eyes were sparkling with laughter as if it were all he could do not to let it out. I was happy to see him having this good a time, really I was. But I wasn't sure what was funny, and I didn't have the courage to ask. It was probably something that would be at my expense, or something I'd just done that he found cute. I was not cute. Confused, fucked-up, bruised, but not cute. Nathaniel and Damian knew better, but as I passed Gregory, I had to say, "If you touch my ass, I will rip you a new one." I said it as I moved past him, not even pausing.

"You're no fun," he growled.

I looked back just before I turned out of sight of him. "Oh, I'm a lot of fun, just not for you."

He snarled at me. "Bitch."

"Woof, woof," I said, and finally made it into the bathroom.

19

I tried not to think in the shower. Thinking bad; hot water good. I turned the shower head to as hard as the water would go and the let the water beat against my body, finding bruises I didn't know I had. Once I would have been hurt, really hurt, by the beating that Damian had given me. Thanks to Jean-Claude's vampire marks I was just a little stiff. The bite would take the longest to heal, and even that would be gone in few days, a week at the outside. The healing was great, the rest of it... well, let's just say the jury was still out.

I heard a noise over the pounding water. It took me a minute to realize that someone was knocking at the door. I tried to ignore it. The knocking stopped for a second, and I thought, oh, good, but it started again, louder, as if whoever was knocking thought I hadn't heard the first time.

I sighed, turned off the water, and called, "What?"

"Damian isn't doing well," Nathaniel said through the closed door.

I stood there a second water dripping into my eyes, and said, "What do you mean, Damian's not doing well?"

"Can't you feel it?"

I thought about it. I thought about Damian, and suddenly fear was like a crushing weight on my chest. It staggered me for a second, and I was glad there was a safety bar in the shower to grab on to. It was a shadow of what had driven him to run screaming through the house. I wasn't sure we'd all survive him doing it twice. "I'm coming."

I squeezed out my hair, wound a towel around it, and was trying to towel off enough for a robe, when the door sprang open. Gregory came first in his fur suit, one clawed hand under Damian's arm. Richard had the other arm. They half-dragged, half-carried him through the door. They carried him toward me, and his fear rode before him. I'd felt fear before, but not like this. It crushed my chest so that I couldn't breathe, closed my throat. The fear had weight enough to slam me to the floor, as if something had smashed into me. It wasn't my pulse I was choking on, it was as if the terror itself were wet silk, and I was trying to swallow it. Slick, wet, suffocating, more real than any fear I'd ever felt. Not real the way an emotion is real, but real the way a rock, a chair, or an animal is real. Fear had become something... more.

They dropped Damian into my lap, and it was as if every part of my skin ran with chills, and then every inch of my skin tried to crawl away. Tried to crawl away and leave my body to die. My skin would have saved itself if it hadn't been trapped against my body. The rest of me would have gone with it, but we were trapped under Damian's weight. Trapped in his fear, frozen in it. If I could have breathed, I would have screamed, but all I could do was drown. Drown in Damian's fear.

Someone touched my shoulder, but it was distant. As if no one's skin were as real to me as Damian's. Someone shook me, sharp and hard. My breath came in a huge gasp, as if I hadn't been breathing for a long time, when my breath came out, it was a shriek.

I was staring up into Richard's startled face. It was his hand on my shoulder. Him kneeling beside us. "Anita, Anita, can you hear me?"

I grabbed Richard's arm, my other hand clutching Damian to me, as if I were afraid if I let him go he'd be lost. As if the fear were some horrible beast that could literally eat him up, and destroy him.

Richard shook me again. "Anita, say something."

"God, it's so... awful."

Damian nodded his head against my stomach. He'd been lying almost limply against me, but now he grabbed me around the waist and hip, his hands holding on as if I were the last solid thing in the world. I felt a burst of emotion from him, and it was gratitude. He was grateful that I could share his fear. Sharing it seemed to make it less, or make it more bearable.

That thought, that sharing fear made it easier to bear, brought a memory. It wasn't my memory. It was a face that I had never seen before, but one that Damian knew as well as his own. All high angles and strong lines, a scar from his forehead to his cheek, where he'd been cut in the first raid we'd gone on. She-who-made-us said once that the scar saved his life, because without it, his hair was more blond than hers, his eyes more blue. That scar ruined his handsomeness enough for her to leave him whole. For even men who were too fair were not safe from her envy. The only name I heard in my head was Perrin, but I knew that wasn't right. That hadn't been his name, anymore than Damian had been mine, ours, his.

I smelled vanilla and felt something thick and warm glide over my skin. I blinked awake, if awake was the right word. Nathaniel was kneeling beside us. He'd undone his braid so that the vanilla scent of his hair had perfumed around me. His hair cascaded around him and spilled over the side of my body, pooling into my lap, covering Damian like a blanket, if a blanket could flow like liquid over a body. Nathaniel had covered us in his hair, but had very carefully avoided touching our skin with his. He was so close to us that not touching took effort, so close it was as if a sigh would have pressed the line of his body against mine. But he stayed that near painful inch away, letting only scent and the furred glide of hair reach us. The only thing he gave me of his skin was the warmth of it, which even from a distance I could feel. Heat trembling against my skin, as if the warmth of him breathed outward and wanted to touch me. Maybe it did.

It had been such a smart way to bring me out of Damian's memory without risking Nathaniel being dragged into it himself. So smart, but a plan is only as good as everyone in it. Damian moved in my lap, and I had a second to realize what he was going to do. I drew a breath to warn Nathaniel, but didn't have time to breath out. It was that quick.

Damian grabbed Nathaniel's arm, and that one touch was enough. It was like drowning in light. As if the world had caught fire and become heat, and heat was golden like the color yellow had spilled out and covered everything. Yellow warmth, golden heat. Our eyes were dazzled by it. We were blind in the light. There was nothing but the light and the touch of her small hands, and Perrin's hand in mine. His hand so large, firm, an anchor in the nightmare of the light. Her hands caressed, but it wasn't real. She'd dragged us into the light to drink our fear, not our sex.

She tore his hand away from mine, and her voice, which once I'd thought beautiful, sounded like an evil whine in my head, poisonous, because I could not tell her no. "One to burn, one to keep."

Perrin turned, framed for a moment in the light. His hair as yellow as the light itself, his eyes like the sky beyond the window. He was tall, his shoulders so wide that he filled most of the window. He'd always been a big man even among big men. Some of the towns we'd raided, people had run screaming, "Giant!" or their word for it.

Perrin stood, covered in the light. Covered in the light, but not burning. The words that had begun this folly came back, "Perhaps the reason they can walk out with you in the sun, Moroven, is not you sharing power with them, but that they have gained power of their own, to sun walk." A messenger from the council had said the evil words and left it as a poisonous flea in she-who-made-us's ear. For a heart's beat we thought the messenger had spoken true. We thought Perrin stood in the light on his own power. For one glorious second, we believed. But the look on his face wasn't triumphant, it was frightened. That one look was enough. Something was wrong.

The smoke began to curl off his skin, just like in the movies. The part that was still me, still Anita, thought, but that's not right. All the vampires that I'd seen die by sunlight just burst into flames. No smoke, no waiting, just instant inferno, poof. My puzzlement helped drag us back from the edge of terror. It helped us watch smoke rise from Perrin's skin, kept the horror from choking us. Flames burst along his skin, and for the blink of an eye he was haloed by rich orange and gold flames. His long yellow hair fluttered in the wind of the heat. A moment to think, how pretty, then the flames ate over him and his skin crawled with fire.

Perrin shrieked. Shrieked, for scream did not describe that sound coming from a man's mouth.

We screamed because we had to. All the horror, the sorrow, the fear had to come out our mouths, or it would have burst out of our skin and shattered our minds. We screamed because it was all that kept us from going mad.

I suddenly smelled forest, that rich green smell of the deep woods--half Christmas tree pine and half fresh-turned earth. I stared at the burning vampire, my lifelong friend, my brother, but I was calm. All I could smell was forest, not the salt of ocean, not anything, then there was something else--wolf. The sweet musk of wolf. Richard.

The thought of him made the scent of forest and fur override everything else. The memory began to fade. Literally, the images became misty, and we began to draw away from that awful room. Perrin's voice floated down all those years, his scream turned distant by the fading. He began by screaming her name, the name I'd heard used for she-who-made-them, "Moroven, Moroven," but the screams changed, became another name, "Nemhain!" I had enough left of Damian's mind in me to understand that Nemhain was her secret name, her true name. Over and over again, Perrin screamed her name, and Damian echoed it, his screams, which were louder now as the memory faded, his screams were her name, "Nemhain!"

We spilled back into the now, into the floor of my bathroom, into Richard's hand on my arm. I started to look into his face, but Damian came to his knees, as if he would run toward something I couldn't see. I wrapped my hands around his waist and chest. Nathaniel had a death grip on Damian's arm. We held him, as if he could still run to Perrin's fire and destroy himself. He was still screaming, "Nemhain, Nemhain, curse you!" He collapsed so suddenly that I'd have fallen back into the glass doors of the shower if Richard hadn't caught me with a hand across my back. Nathaniel caught Damian around one shoulder, slowing his fall. Damian was still talking in a voice that was more sob than whisper, "Curse you, Nemhain, curse you." He curled into a ball in my lap, pushing me hard into the curve of Richard's arm. Nathaniel stroked Damian's hair, over and over, the way you'd comfort a child.

He was still muttering her name, and literally cursing her, when the world suddenly drowned in fear. It was as if terror could become air and you had to breathe it in or you would die, but breathing it in was dying, too. It was all death. All fear. It roared through my head, thoughtless, formless, fear so pure that it stopped my heartbeat for a second, a hesitation, as if my heart would simply stop from fear. Dying of fright wasn't just a saying. There was a breathless moment where I waited for my heart to decide whether it would beat again, or whether silence was better, anything to escape. Anything.

The support of Richard's arm vanished, and I was left with the cold press of glass behind me, as if he'd closed the door to support me, so he wouldn't have to touch me anymore.

My breath came out in a rattle, and my heart leaped in my chest, and hurt as if it had bruised itself against my body. My chest hurt, my throat hurt, and still the air was fear made real. Every breath seemed to draw her in deeper. Because it was a her. It was Nemhain, Moroven, Damian's maker, and Perrin's. It wasn't just a superstition that you did not speak her name. Her name had conjured her power, brought us to her attention. I expected a voice to match the terror, but there was silence, a silence so loud that all I could hear was the beating of the blood in my veins. My heart thundering inside my body. Then I heard another heartbeat, faster, more frightened even than mine. How could he live so afraid?

I turned my head slowly, because I couldn't do anything else. I made myself turn through the fear and look at Nathaniel. His eyes were so wide they flashed white, and he was gulping at the air as if he was having trouble breathing it down. As if he would choke on the fear.

Damian lay like the dead in my lap. His eyes were closed, and he wasn't breathing. There was no heartbeat to hear. The thought came, She's taken what she gave him, but on the heels of that thought came another. He's mine. I make his heart beat. I make the blood move in his veins. He's mine. Not yours. Not anymore. Mine.

Nathaniel's fingers dug into my arm, and he was gasping as if some invisible hand were choking off his air. I didn't think that was really happening, but he was choking on the fear. Choking on her power. I met his terrified gaze and tried to say his name, tried to say anything, but no sound came out. I tried to call power, anything, but I couldn't think. Fear had stolen my thoughts, my logic, my power. No, no, some small part of me knew that wasn't true. She was just another vampire. Just another vampire. I was a necromancer. She could not do this to me. Part of me believed that, but most of me was fighting too hard to breathe to think at all.

If I'd had air enough, I'd have screamed. Not my fear, but my frustration. I didn't know how to fight this. She wasn't trying to mark any of us as servants, or seduce us, or control us. She simply had sent terror like some invisible wind to kill if it could, or not. She didn't care. There was no malice here, no strong emotion of any kind, except the fear, and the fear was a sending. She felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I didn't know how to fight against nothing. I didn't know what to do. We were dying, and I didn't know what to do.

20

Jean-Claude called in my mind, "Ma petite," but the fear swelled upward and covered his words. I knew he was talking in my head, but I couldn't understand what he said. The fear was drowning him out like one radio station overwhelming another. His words were like the ghost sound of a distant station, just under the sound of the terror, but all I could hear, all I could feel, was Moroven's fear.

Nathaniel collapsed against me, mouth still open, gasping as if the air were too thick to breathe. Me dying was one thing, but it wouldn't just be me. Nathaniel and Damian lay across my lap, their hair mingling like bright and dark ribbons.

Gregory knelt in front of me; I'd almost forgotten he was there. I usually had trouble reading his face when he was in half-leopard form, but this face, this face I could read. Even under spotted fur and yellow kitty-cat eyes, the hunger showed through. Not lust, hunger. He said in that growling voice, "They smell like food."

"I know." Richard's voice, and it turned me to him. I stretched my hand out toward him. He'd dragged us out of Damian's memory, maybe he could drag us out of this.

He looked... unhappy, angry. I let my hand begin to fall, but he took it, at the last minute, he took my hand in his. Instantly there was the sweet scent of forest and the musk of fur. The fear receded a little, like a wave of the ocean pulling back, but there was another wave just off shore, and you knew it was coming.

I could talk now, and what I said was, "Help me."

Jean-Claude's voice swelled inside me, pushed back the fear enough so I could hear his words. "You must raise the ardeur, ma petite, you must. She does not understand a clean lust, free of pain and terror. Use our Richard, and I will be able to join my powers to yours, and we can defeat her."

I stared up into the face of the man that Jean-Claude had so casually called "ours," and knew he wasn't. I could smell that wonderful musk, the calm of pine and leaf mold, but the look on his face was anything but calm. His brown eyes were full of a fine, shimmering anger. Touching his hand like this, I should have felt that anger dance over my skin, but I didn't. All I could feel was Moroven's power like a storm hovering over me. The only emotion left in me was terror.

"Ma petite, can you hear me?"

"Yes," I managed a whisper.

"Then what is wrong?"

I wanted to ask him, What am I supposed to do, wrestle Richard to the floor and ravage him? But all that came out was, "Can't, I can't."

"Can't what, ma petite?"

"Can't feed off Richard." It seemed silly to say that out loud while staring up into that handsome, angry face, but I couldn't concentrate enough to say it silently in my head. Talking was hard enough.

"Richard has agreed to this, ma petite."

I shook my head. "Don't believe it, he's angry."

Richard looked even angrier, but he said, out loud, "Jean-Claude's telling the truth, Anita, I agreed to feed the ardeur." His face was dark and frowning with his rage. He'd agreed, but he didn't want to do it. Come to think of it, neither did I. I did not want to go down this metaphysical path again. We'd worked so hard to separate ourselves out, and sex with Richard would bind us close again. I didn't want that, wasn't sure my heart would survive being broken again. There's only so much emotional super glue in a person's soul, after that everything just stays broken.

"I cannot hold Moroven's fear off forever, ma petite, you must act before my strength fails us all."

"Easy for you to say," and it almost sounded like my own voice, not breathy with terror, but nicely sarcastic. Good. "It's not your lily-white ass on the line."

"If I could fly to you, I would, but it is broad daylight, and I cannot. You and Richard must do this, for already I am losing against Moroven. I can feel her nightmare coming closer, and when it comes close enough, I will flee and save myself, in hopes that when darkness falls there will be something left to rescue. But if you and Richard do what I fear you will do, then darkness will come too late, too late for Damian, too late for Nathaniel, and if you do not survive the deaths of your servant and your animal, then Richard and I may never see moonrise again. Is it so horrible to feed from our Richard, ma petite, is that a fate worse than death?"

Put that way, no, but... damn it. Why did it always come down to sex? Why wasn't there ever another way to fight?

Jean-Claude answered inside my head, "Because we can only fight with the tools at our command. I am an incubus, ma petite, and seduction is both my curse and my greatest power. If I had another magic to offer you, I would, but it is what I know. It is almost all I know."

"If the only tool you've got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail," I said.

Jean-Claude started to ask something, but he was swept away. Everything was swept away by terror. My heart was in my throat like I'd swallowed a fish. I was choking on my own heart. My skin was cold with the iciness of her power. So afraid, so very afraid.

Richard jerked away from my hand, stepped back from me, and I couldn't read his face now. It wasn't anger.

Gregory knelt closer to us and stretched his upper body out, over Nathaniel and Damian, stretched out until his half-leopard face was only inches from mine. He sniffed the air in front of me. "Smells, so good, so yummy. Fear and flesh," he let out a long sigh that tickled his breath along my skin, "fear and flesh."

I wasn't afraid of Gregory, I knew that, but I was afraid, and the fear was formless, but it didn't want to be. When Gregory drew his lips back from his teeth in what was supposed to be a smile, I gasped. The fear coalesced around that flash of fangs, that hungry gleam in those eyes. I was suddenly not just afraid, I was afraid of Gregory. Afraid of the claws, the teeth. I was afraid in a way that I'd never been of him, or any of my leopards. He licked my face, one quick movement.

I yipped, a small, high-pitched, frightened sound.

Gregory growled next to my skin, "Hmm, do it again."

Richard grabbed him and pulled him away from me. "Stop playing with her."

Gregory stayed crouched on the floor, as if he were half-thinking about springing up and turning it all into a fight. But what he said was, "Alright, I won't play with her." He turned and put his face next to Nathaniel's. Gregory snapped his teeth just short of his skin, and Nathaniel screamed. Our fear had found a cause to wrap itself around. There was no logic to it. Anything fearful would have done, we just happened to have a leopardman so conveniently at hand.

Gregory laughed.

Richard jerked him back and dragged him as far away as the bathroom would allow. "I said stop playing with them."

"You said, stop playing with her. I did."

"Leave them all alone," Richard said.

Gregory stood, and in leopardman form he was as tall as Richard. "Don't tell me you don't want to play with them, too?"

"Yes, yes, I want to play, but I'm not going to."

"Why not?" Gregory asked.

"Because you don't torment your friends, Gregory," Micah said from the doorway with Richard's newest girlfriend beside him. She was about my size with dark brunette hair cut just above her shoulders. She was wearing a pale blue skirt and a white blouse with little blue flowers all over it. Sandals and carefully painted toenails completed the outfit. She was clinging to Micah's hand and arm with both her hands. You didn't usually hang on to someone like that unless they were your boyfriend. I realized there was an emotion I could feel through the fear--jealousy. What the hell was she doing hanging on to Micah?

She shivered in the doorway, and her eyes lost focus, as if she was hearing things no one else could hear. She whispered, "What is that?"

"Fear," Gregory said.

"Oh," she said in a small voice, and she pulled away from Micah and walked into the room. She stopped staring down at us, then looked away. She blushed and met Richard's eyes, and blushed harder.

Gregory came to stand beside her, his furred form towering over her. "You want to play, too, don't you?"

She looked down at us again, and this time her eyes weren't human. I'd seen that particular trick a thousand times, but this time I screamed. Screamed like a tourist, and Nathaniel pressed himself against me as if he were trying to push himself out the other side. Damian just lay in my lap, like the fear had already killed him.

"Get Clair out of here," Richard said, and his voice held that first edge of growl. "She's too new, if you bring her beast like this, she'll bleed people."

I made a small sound in my throat, a helpless sound.

Micah took Clair by the arm and started leading her toward the door. She didn't fight him, but she made him pull a little, while her animal eyes in that pretty face stared at us. She wasn't embarrassed anymore, there was nothing human enough left in her to be embarrassed about nudity.

"What's happening to them?" Micah asked.

"Damian's first master is trying to kill them," Richard said.

"How?" I wasn't sure if he were asking how she'd kill us or how it had happened.

"Scare them to death."

Micah almost had Clair to the door. "How can you stop it?"

Richard looked at Micah then. "I let Anita feed on me, and Jean-Claude comes riding to the rescue." The growl had left his voice, and all that remained was tiredness and a sort of world-weariness, as if he'd seen too much, done too much, and didn't want to do it anymore.

Micah and Richard stared at each other for a moment, then Micah gave a small nod. "Keep everybody alive," he said, and he pulled Clair through the doorway.

She grabbed the door frame. "They smell so good."

Micah threw her over his shoulders, and the movement startled her enough that she let go of the door and he carried her out of sight. Her words floated back, "No, I don't want to go."

Richard tried to get his jeans unfastened one-handed, and it wasn't working. "I need some help here Gregory."

The leopardman looked at him. "Going to fuck while you have the chance?"

Richard growled at him, and I made a small sound. Nathaniel whimpered. I knew in the front of my head that this was stupid. That Richard would not hurt me, not in that way, but the fear had a mind of its own. Nathaniel was a wereleopard, but he was terrified, too. No logic, just fear.

"If I shift, the pants will shred, and I don't have extra clothes over here anymore," Richard said.

"I thought your control was better than that, Ulfric," Gregory growled.

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.

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