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“What,ma petite?”
“Part of true love is telling each other the truth even when we don’t want to hear it and reminding us again when we forget what we’ve already told each other.”
“Some would call that nagging,” he said.
“Then those people don’t need reminding as often as I do. Thank you, and I love you to pieces.”
He laughed then. “It is only with you that I learned that even true love needs actual truth to survive and grow,ma petite.Je t’aime pour toujours.” I knew enough French now to know it meantI love you forever. Since he was a vampire, he could really mean it.
“Then open the vampire marks between us again, Jean-Claude. It’s been like a part of me is missing ever since you cut the power between us.”
“For me as well,ma petite, and after Queenie’s misbehavior tonight I wonder if the precaution was needed.”
“Or if it was a power play on her part,” I said.
“Something like that,ma petite, something like that.” I felt the first whispers of his power trail over my skin.
“Stop teasing, Jean-Claude, just do it.”
“Ah, but I love to tease you,ma petite, you know that.”
“This isn’t happy teasing anymore, Jean-Claude. It’s been like wandering through a house after the power goes out and I can’t find the candles. Without you running through my heart the world is cold and dark.”
“Forgive me, my most beloved, I did not mean for it to be cruel.The marks run both ways; you could have reached out to me once you had showered.”
“Queenie spooked you with her cautions and you spooked me repeating them, and I had Wicked and Truth to remind me what could happen to you if she was right.”
“Then allow me to do the honors,ma petite, though perhaps sitting down would be wise.”
“I’m sitting down.”
“Promise.”
“Yes.” A few years ago he’d have been right to ask, but I’d grown up some since then, or maybe just grown wiser. His power spilled across my skin, spilled my hair back like a cold wind, and then there was an edge of warmth like a promise of spring dancing over the snow. Then spring turned to summer and all the lights came back on in my cold, dark house. Not just lights and warmth, but Christmas with the smell of fresh-baked sugar cookies, vanilla, and it was Nathaniel and Damian, then hot chocolate, but not just regular hot chocolate, my mother’s Mexican hot chocolate rich with cinnamon and something spicier, and it was Micah and all the wereleopards, my first animal to call, pine, evergreen from the tree, and it was Richard and all the wolves, Jean-Claude’s first animal to call, then honey spilled over everything so sweet, and it was Dev, Mephistopheles, and all the weretigers, blue, red, white, black, gold like Christmas lights, shiny tinsel, ribbons of garland. I could taste candy on my tongue, and then I smelled herbs in stuffing spilling out of the turkey. It was a feast of power. It felt so good, so perfect, and then it was like I was missing something. The meal wasn’t finished, but what was I missing?
Beef, we were missing beef. A big, tender, rare roast beef, and Nicky was there and all the werelions. It still wasn’t enough. Dessert, we needed dessert. Chocolate, chocolate cake, tender, just firm enough for me to thinksoftwhen I bit into it. Not cake, cupcakes, so that I could lick the rich, dark frosting off the swirl on top until Ihad just enough frosting left so that the balance between cake and frosting was just right. Rafael was there and all his wererats. I thought I was done, we were done, but it was like when you were craving something, but you couldn’t quite figure out what. What did I need? Ice cream, vanilla, with caramel sauce and hot fudge swirled through every bite, and peanuts sprinkled on top, so you get the saltiness along with the sweet. Werehyena, it was werehyenas, but I didn’t have a hyena tied to me, and neither did Jean-Claude, so the meal was complete and amazing, but we were missing a guest.
Jean-Claude’s voice in my head.“Ma petite.”
I blinked back to my body, or my consciousness, or some state of awareness that I didn’t have a word for, and said out loud, “I’m here.”
“Your hyena grows restive.”
“Restive.” In the darkness where the beasts hid inside me, a figure stepped out all golden with black spots, not leopard, but hyena. She turned her brown eyes toward me, their color with a tinge of red in them, so I wanted a new word to describe their color.
“Something is still wrong,ma petite. I have reenergized our shared marks, but we are still withheld from each other in some way I do not understand.”
There was a knock at the door; Kaazim stuck his head in and said, “Ethan and Nicky are back with food, and there are more of our security here as reinforcements. Echo is ordering them to posts around the hospital in case the hate groups decide to storm the hospitals that have floors dedicated to the supernatural.”
“Good thinking, I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of it. It’s an obvious target for these nut jobs.”
“It is why we are here for you, my queen.”
I said, “Thank you,” because I didn’t know what else to say. My hyena sniffed the air. There was something on the other side of the door that she liked.
“No thanks is needed; it is our duty to serve you.” Then he was back with the door opening wide so Ethan and Nicky could comethrough with their arms full of food. Fortune went forward to help them with the food, but my hyena didn’t care about that. The door closed and I stood up, because my hyena smelled another hyena on the other side of the door. It was weird, because I couldn’t smell it yet, but she could, like her senses were more separate from mine than was possible.
“Ma petite, you did not eat dinner tonight. You must feed.”
