Part 20 (2/2)

Jean-Claude sat down behind me, so he could curl his body against my back. His arms slid carefully around my shoulders so that he didn't jostle the coffee, but he could still hold me. ”You could not have known, ma pet.i.te ma pet.i.te.”

”That Haven was a bad guy? I knew that, and him beating them almost to death showed he hadn't changed.”

He laid his head against my hair. ”There are bad men among Rafael's rats, but they would never have behaved so. It is not his past that made this happen. It is not that he spent most of his life on the wrong side of the law that made this happen.”

”Then what? Why?”

”Do not ask this now, ma pet.i.te ma pet.i.te. Please, let it rest until you have had more time.”

”No,” I said, ”if you know why this happened, then tell me, because I don't understand it.”

”Take the coffee, Richard,” he said.

Richard took it and sat back on the floor, his hand finding my fresh jeans under the blanket. I had clothes to change into no matter how many times I ruined them. I had my whole d.a.m.n wardrobe here. So I could keep changing after every bloodbath. Richard rubbed my leg through the jeans. I let him.

”Jean-Claude, tell me,” I said.

He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, his face next to mine. ”I believe that he had never been in love before, perhaps not truly loved anyone ever before in his life before you, ma pet.i.te ma pet.i.te.”

I frowned, putting my hands on his arms. ”So what does that mean? If I was the first love he'd ever had, why did he try to kill one of the other people I love most?”

He held me tighter, and I knew whatever he was going to say I wouldn't like, but I needed to hear it. I needed to try to understand what the f.u.c.k had gone wrong.

”I am told he answered the question of why he had done it, ma pet.i.te ma pet.i.te.”

I nodded. ”He said, because I loved all the other men more than I loved him.”

”A certain type of man, when he loves for the first time, his love is not really love, it is possession. Possessions don't have rights or feelings; they are something to be owned and controlled. He had spent more than a year trying to do just that, and failing.”

”So when he attacked Micah and Nathaniel the last time we were all at my house, that was sort of a last-ditch effort to try to, what, own me?”

”When you fought on their side against him, he couldn't understand it,” Richard said quietly.

”He hurt people I loved. I don't let that happen.”

”But he was stronger than they were; he could have won the fight if you hadn't sided with them. I think if he'd been willing to really hurt you physically, you might not have won then.”

I nodded, holding on to Jean-Claude's arms, leaning in against the solidness of him. Richard kept rubbing my leg over and over. ”He was willing to hurt me today.”

”Maybe,” Richard said, ”but it wasn't you he wanted to b.l.o.o.d.y. Even in the fight he didn't actually b.l.o.o.d.y you, did he?”

I stared down at him. ”What do you mean?”

”He didn't want to hurt you physically, even at the end.”

”Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I asked.

”No, I mean, yes. s.h.i.+t.”

”Are you saying Haven wouldn't have hurt me? That I didn't have to kill him?” My voice was rising, almost yelling.

”No,” Richard said, ”no, he had to die. He was too dangerous.”

”Then what are you saying?”

Richard put the coffee mug carefully on the bedside table and knelt in front of me, his hands on my knees under the blanket. ”I'm saying he didn't want to hurt you physically, but he wanted to hurt you, Anita. He just wanted to hurt you the way you'd hurt him.”

”What does that mean?” I asked.

Jean-Claude spoke with his face next to mine. ”It means, ma pet.i.te ma pet.i.te, that he knew who to kill to break your heart the most.”

I turned so I could see his face. ”What?”

”You love me, I know that,” he said, ”but the thought of Nathaniel dead and gone, the thought of how close you came to losing him today, that is the thought that turns your skin cold and makes you unwilling to feel.”

I opened my mouth to tell him he was crazy, but I closed my mouth and tried to think. I shook my head. ”I don't know what to say to that. I'd feel just as bad if it were one of you wounded in the other room.”

Richard laid his head on my lap. My hand came down automatically to touch the foamy waves of his hair. ”I know you care for me, Anita, and maybe if I stop being such an a.s.s you'll love me again, but I had my own bad moments watching you fall in love with Nathaniel and Micah. Micah I got. He's Nimir-Raj. He might be too small to win a fistfight with me or one of the larger dominants, but he's a good leader, better than me, better than Haven was. We both recognized that, and respected it, but Nathaniel-it took me a long time to understand why you loved him.” He spoke with his head in my lap, his tall, bare upper body bowed so he could fit his head and some of those broad shoulders in my lap. I could only see the side of his face as he talked, and he couldn't see mine at all. Was that on purpose?

”I didn't mean to hurt you, or anyone,” I said.

”I know that,” he said, ”and sometimes I did mean to hurt you, Anita. I'm very sorry about that now, but Nathaniel offended that macho part of me. Haven had a lot more macho to live up to, partly because the lions are just that way, and partly because he'd been in the mob since he was a teenager. He just couldn't share you with someone he saw as weak.” Richard wrapped his arms around my legs, hugging me. ”He couldn't bear seeing that you loved someone who was weaker, less dominant, submissive in every way, but you loved him more.”

I thought about that. ”Is that why he was convinced I'd had s.e.x with Travis and Noel? They're weak, submissive, or Noel was, not sure about Travis. I don't think he's sure about himself yet.”

Richard nodded his head against my lap. ”I think that was part of it. He looked at the men you loved most and the ones you seemed to fall in love with easiest, and it's usually less dominant men. Micah is Nimir-Raj, but he doesn't fight you about ruling the leopards. He doesn't argue with you the way I do.”

Jean-Claude went very still against me. I looked down at the man in my lap, and finally said, ”No, he doesn't.”

He raised his head up so he could look into my face. ”I thought you killed because it didn't bother you. I didn't understand until today how much it costs you.” He swallowed, and his eyes were s.h.i.+ny. ”I've let you do my killing for me for years. I've forced you to do terrible things because I'm too squeamish. I comforted myself at one point by saying that it didn't bother you, it didn't mean anything to you, to do the wolf pack's dirty business, but that was just to make me feel better. Everything you've done to keep us safe, and make other shapes.h.i.+fters and vampires think twice before attacking St. Louis, had a price. I told myself that you didn't pay that price, that you were cold about it. Today I saw your face when you realized Noel was dead. I saw your face after you'd killed Haven. I saw the pain. I saw the price, and I am so sorry that you've had to pay that price on your own.”

I looked into those brown eyes and didn't know whether to pinch myself or him. ”What are you saying? That you'll help me kill people now?”

He shook his head. ”I'll defend the wolves with violence when it's needed, but I'll never be a shooter, Anita. I don't regret that, but I am sorry that you have to pay more of the price for our safety than I do, because I'll never be . . .” He stopped as if he didn't know what to say.

”You'll never be a killer like me?” I said.

He looked up and shook his head. ”I did not say that, I wouldn't have said that. Haven had to die. He was too dangerous, too unpredictable to be allowed to stay as Rex.”

”I didn't kill him because of that,” I said.

Richard studied my face. ”I don't understand.”

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