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"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.
10
Richard's bedroom was painted pale green, a vibrant rug thrown in front of the bed like a piece of stained glass. The bed was a heavy four-poster, and even hurt, he'd made the bed, pulling the solid red spread up over it. He had three solid spreads that he rotated on the bed; green, blue, and red. Each color picked up a different color in the rug and the painting over the bed. The painting was of wolves in a winter scene. The wolves were looking directly out of the picture as if you'd just come around a tree and surprised them. There was a deer bleeding on the snow, its throat torn out. It was an odd choice for a bedroom, but it fit somehow. Besides, I liked it. It had that quality that all fine paintings do, as if when you leave the room the painting will move, life suspended and captured on canvas. The green spread emphasized the evergreens, the blue spread caught the washed blue of the sky and the bluish shadows, the red caught the stain of blood on the snow.
Richard lay on his stomach across the crimson cloth. He was totally nude, his jeans thrown on the corner of the bed. His tanned skin looked dark and smooth and incredibly touchable against the red cloth. I felt heat rise up my face as my eyes followed the curve of his body, over the smooth expanse of his bu**ocks. Lillian had just finished sewing up a curve of claw that had spilled down from his bu**ocks. I looked away.
I'd seen Richard nude once when I first met him, but never since. We hadn't even been thinking about dating then. I had to look away, mainly because I wanted to look. I wanted to see him like that, and it was too embarrassing for words. I studied the contents of the built-in shelves on his bedroom wall like I'd memorize them. Bits of quartz, a small bird's nest. There was a lump of fossilized coral as big as my hand, a dark rich gold in color with streaks of white quartz. I'd found it on a camping trip and given it to him because he collected bits and pieces, and I didn't. I touched the bit of coral, and didn't want to turn around.
"You said you wanted to talk, then talk," Richard said.
I glanced back. Lillian snipped the black thread she was using to close his skin. "There," she said. "You shouldn't even have a scar."
Richard folded his arms on the bed, resting his chin on his forearms. His hair spread around his face, foaming and touchable. I knew it was as soft as it looked.
Lillian glanced from one to the other of us. "I believe I'll leave you two alone." She began putting things into her bag, which was brown leather and looked more like a fishing tackle box than anything else. She looked at Richard and back to me. "Take a piece of advice from an old lady. Don't screw up."
She left with Richard and me both staring after her.
"You can get dressed now," I said.
He glanced at his crumpled jeans, moving only his dark eyes. His eyes came back to me, and they were as angry as I'd ever seen them. "Why?"
I concentrated on meeting those angry eyes and tried not to stare at his body. It was harder than I would have admitted out loud. "Because its hard to fight with you when you're naked."
He raised up on his elbows, hair falling down into his eyes, until he stared at me through a curtain of brown gold hair. It reminded me of Gabriel, and that was unnerving as hell.
"I know you want me, Anita. I can smell it."
Oh, that made me feel better. I blushed for the second time in five minutes. "So, you're gorgeous. So what? What the hell does that have to do with anything?"
He raised up on all fours, knees, and hands. I looked away so fast it made me dizzy. "Please put on your jeans."
I heard him slide off the bed. "You can't even look at me, can you?"
There was something about the way he said it that made me want to see his face, but I couldn't turn around. I just couldn't. If this was the last fight we ever had, I didn't want the memory of his body imprinted on my mind. It would be too cruel.
I felt him standing behind me. "What do you want from me, Richard?"
