Part 7 (1/2)

”In that real serial-killer sort of way,” I added.

Asher turned his head to look at me. ”I heard you killed them both while they were trying to make a rape-and-snuff film starring you and Gabriel. I thought the story had grown in the telling.”

I shook my head. ”I don't know if the details have grown, but the basics are true.” I s.h.i.+vered. Gabriel and Raina had been the couple from h.e.l.l, and it had been part luck that helped me kill them and save the others. I had some scars from Gabriel that I'd have for the rest of my life.

Asher reached out and took my hand in his. ”I am glad you killed them.”

”We all are,” Richard said.

”They are not a loss,” Jean-Claude said.

”Like I said, when I met Anita I'd just gotten away from them. They'd tried to make me into a more dominant version of Nathaniel, just another pet.”

”They never understood that you would never be that,” Jean-Claude said.

Richard nodded and said, ”I fought high enough in the pack structure to have more choices, and I beat the s.h.i.+t out of Gabriel one night. But that didn't stop Raina from trying to hurt me in other ways. She made our Ulfric, Marcus, give me to Jean-Claude. I had fought my way into dominance enough to stay out of the beds of people I didn't want to sleep with, and then they give me to a vampire whose power is all about s.e.x. Raina told me that you'd seduce me eventually and she'd get to watch us together.”

”I was Master of the City by then, Richard; I would not have let her do that to me, or to you.”

Richard sat up, drawing his knees in, his strong, summer-tanned arms hugging them to his chest, making the muscles in his arms work. ”I know that now, but she'd been my Lupa for six years. I believed her. So I looked at Jean-Claude as just one more person who was trying to corrupt me. I realize that he was just as trapped as I was, but I couldn't see that then.” His eyes looked haunted.

I sat up, still holding Asher's hand, and reached across him to touch Richard's arm. That made him smile, but he turned those serious, haunted eyes to Jean-Claude. ”You were the only one left of the three of them. Almost every time I looked at you I thought of them. Then I blamed you for stealing Anita away from me. I know now that I drove her to you. I made her watch me eat Marcus.” He sat up a little straighter as if he'd realized he was hunching. He held my hand against his arm and looked at me. ”I did everything I could to make sure the first time you saw me s.h.i.+ft to animal form that it was frightening and terrible. I am sorry about that.”

”You hate being a werewolf. You wanted me to hate it, too.”

He nodded. ”I did, I just didn't realize that's what I was doing at the time.”

”Your doctor must be very open-minded,” Jean-Claude said.

Richard looked at him. ”My therapist, yes, she is open-minded. We didn't really make a lot of progress until Anita was able to take back her anger this past summer.”

One of the things about being a triumvirate of power is that you share parts of yourself and not just power. I'd gotten the ardeur ardeur and a craving for blood from Jean-Claude. From Richard I'd gotten his beast and a taste for flesh. Jean-Claude had gotten a certain ruthlessness from me; I wasn't sure what he'd gotten from Richard, or what Richard had gotten from him, but what Richard got from me was my rage. and a craving for blood from Jean-Claude. From Richard I'd gotten his beast and a taste for flesh. Jean-Claude had gotten a certain ruthlessness from me; I wasn't sure what he'd gotten from Richard, or what Richard had gotten from him, but what Richard got from me was my rage.

I'd gained the ability to feed on anger, the way Jean-Claude could feed on l.u.s.t. I could feed on s.e.x, but found it harder to feed on the ”emotion” of l.u.s.t. Anger, though, I understood that. That had been my emotion of choice for years. Last summer I figured out how to call my rage back home from Richard. It was the one thing we'd shared with each other that one of us knew how to feed on. The other hungers were literally hungers for flesh, blood, and s.e.x. You can feed a hunger, but you can't feed on on a hunger. a hunger.

I took my hand back and Richard let me. I settled back on my side of Asher. The vampire continued to hold my hand while we watched Richard.

”I hadn't understood how much the rage kept me from forgiving anyone, or working my issues, until Anita fed off it and took it back. The anger was almost like another beast inside me, but full moon didn't bring any relief. It's a horrible way to live, Anita.”

I shrugged. ”You get used to it.”

He shook his head, sending his hair sliding across his shoulders. ”I didn't. It was killing me. I had my own problems with self-loathing, but the anger made it all worse.”

”I'm sorry about that,” I said. I almost didn't want to say anything else, but I knew now that every time we left things unsaid between us, it came back and bit us down the road. ”The anger is gone, Richard, I get that,” I said, ”but the self-loathing was all you. You hated being a werewolf. You broke up with me because I was more at home with the monsters than you were.”

”My turn to apologize again,” Richard said. His arms loosened and he sat back against the pillows. ”I can't stop being a werewolf. It's like trying to stop being human. It is what I am. I could give up being Ulfric, but I'd still have to belong to the pack, and being king is better than being a follower. I learned that the hard way. I am Jean-Claude's animal to call, and the third leg of the triumvirate of power that allows him to run the city and have enough power to keep everyone safe.” He looked at Jean-Claude now. ”You are a good Master of the City, Jean-Claude. I didn't realize that the Master of the City is like the boss of a business. If the boss is a crazy b.i.t.c.h, then she hires more crazy people, and she keeps everybody else crazy. Nikolaos was that kind of Master of the City. Anita killed her to save all of us, but it was you that took control of the city and made everything work better than it had ever worked. You had managed all the vampire businesses in town for years. You'd been the financial leader all along.”

”Thank you, mon ami mon ami.”

”No, all of the wereanimal leaders think things are a thousand times better with you in charge.”

Jean-Claude bowed just from the neck. ”I have done my best.”

”You have, you really have, and so has Anita. The only one that hasn't helped secure our base of power is me. I've spent the last few years alternating tightening my grip on the wolves like a tyrant, and letting go of so much control I was practically forcing some of my dominant wolves to challenge me for leaders.h.i.+p. I've apologized to Sylvie for that. She's my second-in-command, and she's earned it putting up with me.”

I hadn't seen him in nearly four months, and now he was sitting there saying things I'd given up on hearing. It was all too good to be true. I must have tensed, because Asher began to stroke the back of my hand with his other hand as he held me.

”I have longed for you to understand some of this, Richard,” Jean-Claude said, ”but I admit I had given up.”

”Some of the other wereanimal leaders had an intervention, I guess you could call it. They told me that I was endangering them all. That by crippling the best Master of the City they'd ever had, I was hurting everyone. I reminded Rafael that his biggest taboo for all his wererats had been that they didn't feed Nikolaos, so how could he let his rats be food for you.”

Richard looked down, not meeting anyone's eyes. ”Rafael said, 'Nikolaos demanded I give her my people. Jean-Claude never asked, I offered, because every animal group that gets close to Jean-Claude and Anita gains in power. They do not steal power away; they help everyone grow more powerful.' I thought about what he said, and it was true. You both help everyone around you be better. I tried to think if I'd helped anyone be better, or stronger, in the last few years, and you know what?”

He hesitated, so I said, ”What?”

He gave me a quick smile. ”I helped the kids I taught, but other than my job I hadn't helped anyone, not even me.”

”This is wonderful, mon ami mon ami,” Jean-Claude said, ”but I have to ask. Why are you here tonight? Why have you come?”

”Rafael told me he'd offer up his own body and blood in my place if he could help make St. Louis a safer place for his people. I know that the swan king, Donovan Reece, is already feeding Anita on a regular basis, and his swans are now doing blood donations to the vampires. Micah and his leopards are with Anita, and through her, with you. Everyone is trying to build us into a unit with you as its head, except me.”

”Grand talk, Ulfric,” Asher said, ”but talk is very cheap, so I've found.”

Richard looked at the vampire. ”I'm working my issues, Asher; you need to do the same.”

”What does that mean?” he asked.

”It means you're p.i.s.sed. You want Jean-Claude to love only you, and he doesn't. I wanted Anita to love only me and for us both to stop being part of the monsters. Neither of us is getting what we wanted. We need to make the best of what we have.”

”Mon Dieu, you sound too good to be true, Ulfric, and too boring.”

I drew my hand out of Asher's. He looked at me then. ”You wanted Richard for you to touch, but it's like you're angry that you can't be here alone with Jean-Claude, or Jean-Claude and me. You're so angry and so conflicted that you're going to pick at us all until something breaks. You do that when you're angry; you always did.”

He sat up. ”So, because I have not spent the last four months in therapy I am to be cast out of the bed. Well, while you were doing therapy I was here doing my part as his temoin temoin, his second-in-command.”

”I know that, Asher, and I'm sorry that I wasn't here to help,” Richard said.

Asher started to push himself out from between us and move for the side of the bed. Richard grabbed his arm. ”Let go of me, wolf,” Asher hissed.

”I thought you wanted me to touch you.”

That stopped the vampire and made him turn to look at the other man. He made sure his hair hid the one side of his face as they looked at each other. ”I do.”

”Then where are you going?”

Asher looked at Richard's hand where it still held his arm. He relaxed slightly, but said, ”Did your therapist put you on drugs? Is that why this new calm?”