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A woman stepped out of Richard's bedroom with an armful of towels. She was about five foot six, with short brown hair so curly it had to be natural. She wore navy slacks and a short-sleeved sweater. Open-toed sandals completed the outfit. She looked me up and down, sort of disapproving or maybe disappointed. "You must be Anita Blake."
"And you are?"
"Sylvie Barker." She offered a hand and I took it. The moment I touched her skin, I knew what she was. "Are you with the pack?" I asked.
She took her hand back and blinked at me. "How could you tell?"
"If you're trying to pass for human, don't touch someone who knows what they're looking for. Your power prickles down my skin."
"I won't waste time trying to pass then." Her power flooded over me, pouring like a blast of heat when you open an oven door.
"Impressive," I said, glad my voice was steady.
She gave a small smile. "That's quite a compliment, coming from you. Now, I've got to get these towels to the kitchen."
"What's happening?" I asked.
Sylvie and Jason exchanged glances. She shook her head. "You knew Richard was hurt?" She made it a question.
My stomach clenched tight. "He said he'd be all right."
"He will be," she said.
I felt my skin go pale. "Where is he?"
"Kitchen," Jason said.
I didn't run, it wasn't that far, but I wanted to. Richard sat at the kitchen table, shirtless, his back to me. His back was a mass of fresh claw marks. There was a bite mark in his left shoulder where a piece of flesh was missing.
Dr. Lillian was blotting blood off his back with a kitchen towel. She was a small woman in her mid-fifties with salt-and-pepper hair cut in a short, no-nonsense style. She'd treated my own wounds twice before, once when she was furry and looked like a giant man-rat.
"If you had called for medical attention last night, I wouldn't be having to do this, Richard. I do not enjoy causing my patients pain."
"Marcus was on call last night," Richard said. "Under the circumstances, I thought it best to go without."
"You could have let someone clean and bandage the wounds."
"Yes, Richard, you could have let me help you," I said.
He glanced back over his shoulder, his hair spilling around his face. There was a bandage on his forehead. "I'd had enough help for one night."
"Why? Because I'm a woman, or because you know I'm right?"
Lillian took a small silver knife to the lower half of a claw mark. She sliced the blade down the wound, reopening it. Richard took in a deep breath and let it out.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Lycanthropes heal, but sometimes without medical attention, we can scar. Most of the wounds will heal, but a few of them are deep enough that he really needs some stitching before the skin starts to close, so I'm having to reopen some of the wounds and add a few stitches."
Sylvie handed Dr. Lillian the towels.
"Thank you, Sylvie."
"What are you two lovebirds fighting about?" Sylvie asked.
"Let Richard tell you, if he wants to."
"Anita agrees with you," Richard said. "She thinks I should start killing people."
I walked over to where he could see me without straining. I leaned against the cabinet island and tried to watch his face rather than Lillian's slicing knife. "I don't want you to start killing people indiscriminately, Richard. Just back your threat up. Kill one person and the rest will back down."
He glared up at me, outraged. "You mean make an example of one of them?"
Put that way, it sounded sort of cold-blooded, but truth was truth. "Yeah, that's what I mean."
"Oh, I like her," Sylvie said.
"I knew you would," Jason said. They exchanged a glance that I didn't quite get, but it seemed to amuse the hell out of them.
"Am I missing a joke here?"
They both shook their heads.
I let it go. Richard and I were still fighting, and I was beginning to think this fight had no end. He winced as the doctor sliced open another wound. She was only adding a stitch here and there, but it was still more than I'd have wanted in my flesh. I didn't like stitches.
"No painkillers?" I asked.
"Anesthesia doesn't work well on us. We metabolize it too quickly," Lillian said. She wiped the silver knife on one of the clean towels and said, "One of the claw marks drops below your jeans. Take them off so I can see."
I glanced at Sylvie. She smiled at me. "Don't mind me. I like girls."
"That's what you two were laughing about," I said to Jason.
He nodded, smiling happily.
I shook my head.
"The others will be here soon for the meeting. I don't want my ass hanging out as everyone comes in the door." Richard stood up. "Let's finish up in the bedroom." There were a ring of puncture wounds just below his collarbone. I remembered the man-wolf lifting with its claws last night.
"You could have been killed," I said.
He glanced at me. "But I wasn't. Isn't that what you always say?"
I hated having my own words fed back to me. "You could have killed Sebastian or Jamil and the rest wouldn't have jumped you."
"You've already decided who I should kill." His voice was thick with anger.
"Yeah," I said.
"She's actually making pretty good choices," Sylvie said.
Richard turned his dark, dark eyes to her. "You stay out of this."
"If it was just a lovers' quarrel, Richard, I would," she said. She went to stand in front of him. "But Anita's not saying anything that I haven't said. That most of us haven't begged you to do. For a few months, I was willing to try it your way. I hoped you were right, but it isn't working, Richard. Either you're alpha male or you're not."
"Is that a challenge?" he asked. His voice had grown very quiet. Power flowed through the room like a warm wind.
Sylvie backed up a step. "You know it's not."
"Do I?" he said. The power in the room built, growing like a flash of electricity. The hairs on my arms stood to attention.
Sylvie stopped backing up, hands in fists at her sides. "If I thought I could defeat Marcus, I'd do it. If I could protect us all, I would. But I can't do it, Richard. You're our only chance."
Richard loomed over her. It wasn't just physical size. His power flowed over her, filled the room, until it was almost chokingly close.
"I won't kill just because you think I should, Sylvie. No one is going to force me into it. No one."
He turned his gaze on me, and it took a lot to meet his eyes. There was a force to them, a burning weight. It wasn't a vampire's drowning power, but it was something. My skin shivered with his power, his energy, and I didn't turn away.
I stared at the wounds just below his neck and knew I'd come close to losing him. That was unacceptable.
I walked closer until I could have reached out and touched him. His otherworldly energy whirled over me until it was hard to draw a good breath. "We need to talk, Richard."
"I don't have time for this right now, Anita."
"Make time," I said.
He glared down at me. "Talk to me while Lillian finishes up. I've got people coming over for a meeting in about fifteen minutes."
"What meeting?" I asked.
"To discuss the Marcus situation," Sylvie said. "He scheduled the meeting before last night's adventure."
Richard stared at her, and it wasn't a friendly look. "If I'd wanted her to know about the meeting, I'd have told her."
"What else haven't you told me Richard?"
He turned those angry eyes to me. "What haven't you told me?"
I blinked at him, genuinely puzzled. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"A shotgun fires over your head twice and you don't know what I'm talking about."
Oh that. "I did the right thing, Richard."
"You're always right, aren't you?"
I looked at the floor and shook my head. When I looked back at him, he was still angry, but I was losing my anger. A first. This was going to be thefight. The one that ended it. I wasn't wrong. No amount of talking would change that. But if we were going to break up, we'd go down in flames. "Let's finish this, Richard. You wanted to go into the bedroom."
He stood up, body stiff with an anger that was deeper than I could comprehend. It was controlled rage, and I didn't understand where it was coming from. It was a bad sign. "You sure you can stand to see me naked?" His voice was utterly bitter, and I didn't know why.
"What's wrong, Richard? What did I do?"
He shook his head too vigorously, making him wince as his shoulder caught the movement. "Nothing, nothing." He walked out of the room. Lillian looked at me, but followed him. I sighed and joined them. I wasn't looking forward to the next few minutes, but I wasn't going to chicken out. We'd say all the ugly things and make it as nasty as possible. Trouble was, I didn't have any nasty things to say. It made the fight a lot less fun for me.
Jason whispered as I walked by, very softly, "Go, Anita, go, Anita."
It made me smile.
Sylvie watched me with cool eyes. "Good luck." It didn't sound completely sincere.
"Do you have a problem?" I'd have much rather fought with her than Richard.
"If he wasn't dating you, then he might choose a mate. It would help things."
"You want the job?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "I do, but sex is integral and I'm not up for it."
"Then I'm not standing in your way," I said.
"Not in mine, no," she said. Which implied there were others, but I didn't give a shit, not today. I said, "It is too damn early in the morning for furball politics. If someone wants a piece of me, tell them to go to the back of the line."
She cocked her head to one side, like a curious dog. "Is it a long line?"
"Lately, yeah."
"I thought all your enemies were dead," Jason said.
"I keep making new ones," I said.
He smiled. "Fancy that."
I shook my head and walked towards the bedroom. I'd have rather faced Raina again than Richard. I almost hoped the assassin would jump out of the woodwork and give me something to shoot at. It would hurt less than breaking up with Richard.
