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“Yes, but I can handle that. I can’t—” She stopped, her throat working. And then she blurted it out. “How do you do it?”
“How do I do what?”
“Not explode!” She sat up, her face white, but her eyes bright. “I felt it, what you carry inside you—all that anger, all that rage—every time I pulled it off you. The first time, it was such a shock. That you could even function. And in the garden that night—it was amazing. Just amazing.” She shook her head.
Yeah. That was one word for it, I thought uncomfortably. She was talking about an incident a couple weeks ago, when Louis-Cesare said something that offended Dorina, and she’d almost gone ballistic, threatening not only him but everybody else we’d had over that night. Including the commune that lived across the street, and as far as I knew, were one-hundred-percent human. It had been terrifying, because I’d been fighting with everything I had, but I still couldn’t control her, and I didn’t know what she’d do if I let go.
Thankfully, Claire had been there, and even more thankfully, her human half is what is known as a null witch, someone capable of pulling magical energy off other creatures. That was how we’d met. She’d been working at an auction house after fleeing her homicidal excuse for a cousin, calming down the odd little items they had up for sale, some of which could be dangerous if a null wasn’t around to drink all that excess energy. I’d been shopping to bulk up the arsenal, and we’d started talking. And had ended up as roommates because our abilities complemented each other. I’d kept her safe from her weird-ass family, and she’d kept me . . . well, more or less sane.
Except for that night, when even she hadn’t been able to drink it all, because Dorina was pissed.
Luckily, Louis-Cesare had old-fashioned manners, and had apologized the way that one master did to another, by kneeling and offering his neck to her sword if she’d had one. It was archaic, but then, so was Dorina. And it had done what nothing else could, and sent her back to sleep.
Leaving the rest of us seriously weirded out, especially me, because I wasn’t used to being awake when she emerged. Not that she had entirely, but it had been close enough to shake me. And, apparently, it hadn’t been any better for Claire, and now I was kicking myself for not even thinking about that.
“I’m sorry—” I began.
But she was already shaking her head. “It’s okay. I just meant—you fought it, somehow.
If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had time to do anything, and who knows what would have happened? I need to know how to do that. I thought I understood, that I could handle my . . . problem . . . like I did yours. But that was something from outside of me, someone else’s emotion. It was distant, you know?”
Not really, but she was looking at me hopefully, so I nodded anyway.
“But now . . .” She bit her lip. “Dory, I almost lost it in there. When they wouldn’t let Caedmon help, when they were just going to watch that child die, I almost—” Her eyes met mine, and there was genuine fear in them. “It wasn’t distant then. I wanted to kill them, to rend them, to hurt—” She put her face in her hands.
I sat there, feeling awkward. Because I wasn’t used to having friends—the fits had always made it too dangerous—much less to comforting them. I sometimes looked around at all the people in my life now with sheer amazement, and no little fear. That I wouldn’t know what to do in any of the roles I suddenly found myself in: parent, lover, best friend. Because I’d never played them before.
But Claire had been there for me when I really needed her, and she clearly needed something from me now. But I didn’t know what. So I just hugged her, remembering how much it had helped when Louis-Cesare had done the same for me. And after a startled second, she hugged me back.
“I wanted to eat them, Dory,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I wanted it so . . . damned . . . much. And I just . . .” She hugged me harder, and it hurt, because my ribs were apparently never going to freaking heal, but I didn’t say anything.
She was hurting more.
“How do you do it?” she asked again, sounding fairly desperate. “I can’t turn into this thing. I won’t!”
I didn’t know what to say, because the truth wasn’t something she wanted to hear. The fact was, anger management had never been my specialty. I’d learned a few tricks, but it was always a crapshoot whether any would work. Mostly, I’d learned to live with it by letting my emotions out on a regular basis when I hunted, which helped to calm them the rest of the time.
And calm emotions kept the door locked on Dorina.
But Claire was a vegan nurse; she didn’t hunt.
I didn’t know what that meant for her.
But I didn’t say that, or anything else. Because the back door suddenly slammed open and a bunch of trolls spilled out. And they weren’t looking happy.
Chapter Eleven
“What now?” I said, as Claire scrambled to her feet.
“Is the little one okay?” she asked, looking worried.
But the trolls weren’t stopping to chat. They were already off the porch and halfway across the garden, leaving me and Claire looking at each other, because they were obviously heading for Caedmon. And I don’t think either of us knew what to do about that.
But the royal guards didn’t seem to have that problem. They went from relaxed and mostly supine, lounging around the fire in that boneless, catlike way the fey have, to on their feet in a row in front of Caedmon, swords out and game faces on, in about the time it took for me to blink. I sometimes wondered why the hell I spent so much time worrying about hurting people, when I was probably the weakest one around here anymore.
That didn’t change when Olga came out of the door a moment later, and then just stood there, hands on hips, looking pissed. Because she’d clearly had enough of the macho brigade for one day. She started down the steps, but Claire grabbed her arm.
“What’s going on?”
