Part 17 (1/2)
”You've never loved me, have you?”
I wasn't sure what to say to that. I waited too long to answer, because he said, ”I guess not answering is an answer.”
”Do I say I'm sorry?” I asked.
”You shouldn't have let me kill the old Rex, Anita. You never should have let me move here.”
I looked at him, all that male pride hunched in on itself, and said the only thing I had left: the truth. ”You're right. I should have said no.”
He looked up at that. He looked startled and his face looked more real that way. I realized that most of the time he wore a c.o.c.ky, nothing-bothers-me mask, but the face he turned up to me was naked of its mask. There was real pain there, and it made my chest tight to see it.
”Did you ever really want me?” he asked.
”Yes,” I said.
”But you don't want me now,” he said.
”Right this moment, no.”
”Why not?” he asked, and his eyes were so angry when he looked up at me.
I stopped moving forward. ”Nothing's changed, has it? The power last night and knowing that we have one of the scariest vampires ever hunting us doesn't make any difference to you.”
”Why should it?” he asked, and his big hands were gripped in front of him.
”Because you're one of the leaders of this city. Because you're the Rex, the king, and you're supposed to care about things that could hurt or destroy your lions.”
”I don't care about my lions. I don't care about anything but you. I tried to be a good boy for you. I tried to be the kind of man you needed, but no matter how good I am it's never enough for you. There's nothing I can do to be more important in your life.”
”Yeah, there is, but you won't do it.”
”What? Tell me. What do I have to do to be higher up on your list?”
”Share better,” I said.
He glared at me, and that hot, trembling energy rose a notch so it felt like the air was pressing on my chest. It was hard to breathe through the heat of his power.
He stood up, and the energy radiated off of him like heat from a summer road. I could see it in the air around him. ”I am Rex, and I don't share, because I don't have to share. It's my pride and I get to run it the way I want to run it, and that means I don't share my Regina with anyone.”
”Then find a nice little subservient werelion to settle down with and you can be master of your little kingdom, but I don't work that way.”
He gave a harsh laugh. ”I thought I was G.o.d's gift to women before I got to St. Louis, and you. But I can't be nearly as good as I think I am, or you wouldn't have been able to kick me out of your bed for almost a year.”
”You tried to slice up Nathaniel and Micah, Haven. What did you think I'd do?”
”I was trying to make a point.”
”And that point would be?”
”That I can kick both their a.s.ses. You do know that I could have taken all three of you, but I didn't want to hurt you.”
”I know you stopped fighting as hard when I joined the fight. I appreciate that, but you need to appreciate that I didn't get a gun and shoot you when you started cutting up the men I love.”
”They aren't men, Anita. They're wereanimals, and in our world if you can't fight your way out, you don't lead, you don't win, you don't get to f.u.c.k the queen.”
”So why do all the other wereanimal leaders listen to Micah?” I asked. I was angry now, too, or just frustrated to a point where I didn't know what else to say but the truth.
His hands were flexing into fists at his sides. ”They shouldn't.”
”But they do. Why is that, Haven?”
All the energy, all the fight seemed to go out of him at once and he sat back down on the bed. ”Because everything I was taught about what it means to be a man and a werelion doesn't work here. Rafael and his wererats could eat your wereleopards for breakfast, but he bows to Micah, and to you. Physically he could take Micah. h.e.l.l, all the other leaders fought their way to be leader, but not Micah.”
”Who told you how Micah became leader of his wereleopards?”
”Merle, the leader of their group before Micah. He's bigger than me, and he fights dirty. I wouldn't want to turn my back on Merle in a fight.” That was high praise from Haven.
”Merle's a good guy in a fight, and he's a lot happier being able to go back to a regular job than just be muscle to the new Nimir-Raj,” I said.
”Yeah, he loves working on the motorcycles.”
”Harleys. He always reminds us he's a Harley mechanic,” I said.
Haven gave a small smile. ”Yeah.” The smile vanished as he looked at me. ”Wereanimals from the group that Chimera brought to St. Louis still talk about him. I'm a bad man, Anita, and I've done bad things, but I've never heard of anyone doing some of the s.h.i.+t he did.”
”He was crazy and evil,” I said.
”And you killed him personally and saved everybody,” he said.
I shrugged. ”Someone had to do it.”
”Yeah, but most people couldn't have done it.” He looked at me as if he'd never seen me before, and I knew that wasn't true. He'd seen me a lot.
”What?” I asked.
”I was pretty p.i.s.sed at Micah, because I didn't understand why everyone followed him. It went against everything I knew about wereanimals until Merle told me the story.”
”Micah told me,” I said.
Haven kept talking as if I hadn't said anything, as if he were talking more to repeat the words to himself than to me. ”Chimera liked to force the wereanimals into their animal forms and keep them like that. He was going to force one of Merle's least powerful leopards into animal form for a long time. Sometimes the weakest of us never come back from that. They get trapped as animals. Not like the wolfman that's knocked up Gina, but full animal form. They can't speak, can't write, they're just trapped as big animals. I've seen it done twice. You can watch them go crazy. They just lose it after awhile, and you end up having to kill them to keep them from hurting people.”
”I thought only Chimera did s.h.i.+t like that,” I said.
He shook his head. ”No, not just him, but the only other leaders I know did it as punishment. Chimera didn't do it as punishment, not according to Merle. He just did it to hurt. Chimera offered that Merle could take the punishment for the other wereleopard. Chimera shamed him in front of all of them, because Merle wouldn't offer himself up in the place of that other leopard. Micah did it. Micah offered himself up for a punishment he didn't deserve.”
I knew the story. Micah had told me and Nathaniel on the same night while we held him and he relived it. But he'd also told us how afraid he'd been after awhile, and how his human mind began to slip away. There was a lot more fear in the story when Micah told it. ”I know the story,” I said softly.
Haven looked up at me. His eyes were filled with some emotion I couldn't read. ”But you don't understand what he was risking, Anita. Micah didn't know if Chimera would keep him in full leopard form so long that he'd never be human again. He risked everything for one of his weakest wereleopards.” He looked down at his clasped hands again. ”When he came back with his eyes frozen as a leopard, Merle stepped down. He just gave the leaders.h.i.+p of his pard to Micah, and everyone else with Chimera saw him as their leader after that. You divided Chimera's people up after he was dead. You sent them to their animal groups here in St. Louis. They were already following Micah, and they still do.”
”I hadn't thought about it like that, but I guess you're right. But Rafael and Reece of the swanmanes wouldn't follow him if he wasn't worth following. They weren't part of Chimera's people. Even that kind of bravery and self-sacrifice wouldn't cut it with them.”