Cerulean Sins (21 page)

“What was it?” I asked.

He looked at me. “Don't try to be coy, Anita, you're so bad at it.”

“Fine, Asher, what to do about Asher. I made sort of promises to them both that we'd find a way to be a ménage à trois, or would that be a ménage a
quatre
.”

“Who's your fourth?”

“Micah,” I said.

“Darn,” he said.

I frowned at him.

“Couldn't help myself, sorry.”

“If I go back on that promise we'll lose Asher.”

“What do you mean, lose?”

I explained about Asher's plans to leave.

“So if you don't come across, he's gone.”

“Yeah.”

He frowned, laughed, then shook his head. “Let me think this through. His bite is overwhelmingly orgasmic, mind-blowing pleasure. You think that if you fuck him while he takes blood that it will be even more amazing.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Why is this a problem?” Jason asked.

I hugged myself. “I'm afraid, Jason.”

He sat up beside me. “Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of being . . .” I hesitated, tried to find a the words, and finally, “I'm afraid of being consumed.”

He frowned. “Consumed, I know what the word means, but I don't understand what you mean by it.”

“Aren't you afraid of wanting one of them so badly that you'd do anything to have him with you?”

“Do you just mean vampires, or people in general?”

I rested my chin on my knees. “Vampires, of course.”

“No, you don't mean just vampires, you're afraid of wanting
anybody
completely, aren't you?”

I wouldn't look at him. “I don't know what you mean.”

He pushed my hair back behind my ear, but it was too thick to stay. “Don't lie to Uncle Jason, you didn't mean just vampires.”

I looked at him, hugging my legs to me. “Maybe not, but the point is the
same. I don't want to want anyone so much that if they aren't with me, I die.”

A look passed through his eyes that I couldn't read. “You mean you're afraid of loving anyone more than life itself?”

“Yes.”

He smiled, and it was gentle, and a little sad. “I would give one of my less favorite body parts for a woman to care for me as deeply as you do for Nathaniel.”

I started to protest that I didn't love Nathaniel.

Jason touched a finger to my lips. “Stop. I know you haven't given yourself over heart and soul to Nathaniel, but then you haven't given yourself over heart and soul to anybody, have you?”

I looked away, because watching that patient, grown-up look in his eyes was uncomfortable to say the least. “One of my goals in life is, just once to have a woman look at me the way you watch Jean-Claude. The way you and Jean-Claude watch Asher. The way you watch Nathaniel. The way Nathaniel looks at you.”

“You left Micah off the list.”

“You and he have this comfort level that you don't have with any of the others, but it's almost as if the comfort comes at the expense of something else.”

“What?” I asked.

“I don't know, I've never been in love, how should I know.”

“So, what, I'm not in love with Micah?”

“That is not my question to answer.”

“I cannot be in love with four men at once.”

“Why not?”

I looked at him.

“It's not a rule,” he said.

“It would be ridiculous,” I said.

“You fought Jean-Claude, because you were afraid of him. Then Richard came along, and I think you loved him, really loved him, and that scared you, so you backed off. I think you dated them both to keep from falling in love with either of them.”

“That's not true.”

“Isn't it?”

“Originally, Jean-Claude said he'd kill Richard if he didn't get a chance to woo me too.”

“And why didn't you just kill Jean-Claude then? You don't tolerate ultimatums, Anita, so why tolerate that one?”

I didn't have an answer for that, or at least not a good one.

“Richard grows more distant, more caught up in his own personal angst,
which leaves the field open for Jean-Claude. So suddenly you have Nathaniel bunking with you. I know, I know, he's your
pomme de sang
, your house leopard, but it was still interesting timing.”

I wanted to tell him to stop, to not say anymore, but he didn't, he kept on. I'd never thought of Jason as relentless before.

“Somewhere in all this, Asher comes up on the radar, maybe it's Jean-Claude's old memories, maybe not. But whatever caused it, you're drawn to him, but he's so full of anger that it's not a threat. He's almost as full of self-loathing as Richard is. Then suddenly Richard walks away for real this time. You're left with just Jean-Claude, and Nathaniel, but Nathaniel isn't enough of a romantic threat to keep Jean-Claude at bay, and suddenly there's Micah. Out of the blue, instant lust, instant housekeeping. You have Micah, and now Jean-Claude is back to sharing you with someone else, and you're safe again. You can't fall madly in love with Jean-Claude, or anyone else, because you've divided your world up into different parts with each of them. Because no one man has your whole world, no one man can rock your whole world.”

I got out of the bed, tugging the sheet around me like a robe. I suddenly didn't want to be naked in front of Jason anymore.

“I thought it was all accidental, and it was, and it wasn't. You're terrified of belonging to just one person, aren't you?”

I shook my head. “Not of belonging to just one person, Jason, of wanting to belong to just one person.”

“Why, why is that so frightening to you? Most people spend their lives wanting exactly that, I know I do.”

“I loved someone once with my whole heart, and he stomped on it.”

“Please, not the fiancé in college. Anita that was years ago, and he was an asshole. You can't spend the rest of your life nursing one bad experience.”

I was at the foot of the bed now, wrapped shoulders to feet in the sheet. I was cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature. “It's not only that,” I said, voice soft.

“What is it then?”

I took a deep breath in, let it out slow. “I loved my mother with my whole heart and whole soul, she was my world. She died, and it nearly destroyed me.” I thought about everything he'd said, and I couldn't argue with it, and I couldn't pretend it didn't make sense. “I never want to put my whole world in any one person's hands again, Jason. If they die, I won't die with them.”

“So you'll hold a little of yourself back from everybody.”

“No,” I said, “I'll hold back a piece of myself for myself. No one gets all of me, Jason, no one, except me.”

He shook his head. “So Jean-Claude gets sex, but no blood. Nathaniel gets intimacy, but not intercourse. Asher gets blood but not intercourse.
Micah's getting intimacy and intercourse, what are you holding back from him?”

“I don't love him yet.”

“Liar.”

“I lust after him, but I don't love him yet.”

“And Richard, what did you hold back from Richard?”

I stood there wrapped in the damned sheet, feeling the world sinking away to a small screaming thing. “Nothing,” I said, “I held back nothing, and he dumped my ass.”

Jason just sat there for a second or two, then he got off the bed. I think he meant to hold me, comfort me.

I put out a hand to stop him. “If you hug me, I'm going to cry, and Richard has gotten the last tear out of me that he's going to get.”

“I'm sorry, Anita.”

“Not your fault.”

“No, but it wasn't any of my business either. I don't have the right to psychoanalyze you.”

“You're just jealous,” I said, and I tried to make it light, joking, and failed.

“About what?” he asked.

“That I have so many people that I could be in love with, if I'd only give that one last inch.”

He sat back down on the edge of the bed. “You're right, damn it, but you're right. I am jealous, but I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't understand until the moment you said how afraid you were of being consumed. I want to be consumed, Anita. I want someone to come along and burn me up.”

“You're a romantic,” I said.

“You make that sound like a dirty word.”

“Not dirty, Jason, just useless.” I started for the door. “I'm going to get cleaned up, help yourself to the upstairs shower if you want.” Jason called to me, but I kept walking. I'd had all the pillow talk I wanted for one day.

I
LOVED THE
new shower that I'd had installed in the downstairs master bathroom. One of the bear lycanthropes in town turned out to be a plumber. I'd still paid full price, but at least I knew he wouldn't be asking stupid questions about my living arrangements. I liked a good long bath when the occasion called for it, but at heart I was a shower girl.

I set the showerhead on hard, so that the water beat against my neck, head, shoulders. I hadn't been embarrassed about having sex with Jason, and maybe that was wrong, but it hadn't felt sinful. Maybe because it was just another way for him to take care of me. But the little talk afterwards, that had bothered me. That hard emotional truths bothered me more than having intercourse with someone I wasn't in love with probably said something about how far down the well of moral decay I had fallen.

I stood in the hot, hot water, steam foaming against the glass doors of the stall, and was happy that I didn't owe my heart to anyone. It was mine damn it, and I was keeping it in one piece if I could. Richard had broken some part of me, some last bit that had been trying to hang onto a softer more romanticized view of love. He had left, dumped me because I wasn't human enough for him. My fiancé in college had dumped me because I wasn't white bread enough for his mother. My stepmother, Judith, had never let me forget that I was small and dark, and she and her children and my father, were tall and blond, and blue-eyed. People had spent my lifetime rejecting me for things I could not change about myself. So fuck them, fuck them all.

I was sitting on the bottom of the shower. I hadn't meant to. I hadn't meant to huddle in the water, hiding. Why was I always chasing after the
love of people who I could never be enough for? There were plenty of others who wanted me exactly as I was, small, dark, hard, bloody, thick with metaphysical shit. People who loved me just as I was. Unfortunately, none of them were me.

There was a knock on the door, and I realized that someone had been knocking for a while. I always locked the door when I went in, out of habit.

I turned the water down, so I could hear better. “What is it?”

“Anita, it's Jamil, I need to come in.”

“Why?” That one word held a universe of suspicion. If his reason had been something I wouldn't hate he'd have already said why he needed to come in.

I actually heard him sigh through the door. “It's Richard, he's hurt, and we need to use the big bathtub.”

“No,” I said. I turned off the water and reached for the oversized towel.

“Anita, since the pack sold Raina's house we don't have any body of water big enough to soak him and other pack members in. I found him unconscious on his bedroom floor, he's ice cold.”

I wound a smaller towel around my wet hair. “You are not bringing him in here, Jamil. There's got to be some place else to take him. Jean-Claude would let you use the tub at his place.”

“Anita, he's icy, if we don't get him warm soon, I don't know what'll happen.”

I leaned my head against the door. “Are you telling me that he's going to die?”

“I'm telling you, I don't know. I've never seen another werewolf this bad without some kind of wound to show for it. I don't know what's wrong with him.”

I did, unfortunately. Belle hadn't only fed her people off of me, she'd been feeding off of Richard, too. I'd thought about that earlier in the day, but I hadn't dreamed that he wouldn't call his pack and have some of them near him, to strengthen himself on their collected energy. I hadn't known that he would just let himself die. Because long before he got that bad he'd have known something was very wrong.

“Did he call you for help?” I asked, still leaning against the door.

“No, I needed to ask him about pack business, and I tried him at the school, but he'd called in sick. Then I called his house and got no answer. Anita, please, let us in.”

Mother fucking son of a bitch. I could not believe that I was having to do this. The man that had broken my heart, called me a monster was about to get soaked in my bathtub for God knew how long.

I unlocked the door and opened it with me behind, hiding, so I couldn't be seen, or see.

Jamil eased through the door with Richard in his arms. It wasn't weight that made it hard—Jamil could have bench-pressed the entire bathroom—it was that Richard was broad-shouldered, and Jamil wasn't small himself.

I tried not to look at either of them, getting only a brief glimpse of Jamil's cornrowed hair, bright red beads intertwined. His shirt was a red to match the beads, his suit jacket black. I didn't take the time to see if his pants matched the jacket. I just started for the door, towels clutched to me.

“Can you turn on the water for me, Anita?” Jamil asked.

“No,” I said, and I fled.

I
GOT DRESSED.
I couldn't remember if I'd gotten around to using shampoo on my hair, or only gotten it wet, and I didn't care. I had an image of Richard's face burned in my mind. Eyes closed, that perfectly square jaw with its dimple. But there had been no spill of that glorious hair around his shoulders. That wonderful hair that was brown shot with gold and copper, so that it almost glowed in the sunlight. He'd cut his hair. He'd cut his hair.

I remembered the feel of it in my hands, the silken slide of it over my body, the spill of it around his face when he rose over me. Richard lying underneath my body, his hair like a rich cloud on the pillow, as his eyes lost focus and his body thrust into mine.

I was sitting on the bed, crying, when there was a knock at the door. I had jeans on, but had only gotten to my bra. “Just a minute.” My voice was only a little thick.

I slipped the red T-shirt on over the black jeans. I started to say
come in
, then realized it could be Richard. Unlikely since he was unconscious minutes ago, but I couldn't take the chance. “Who is it?”

“Nathaniel.”

“Come in.” I scrubbed at my eyes and had my back to the door, while I looked at my shoulder holster and tried to figure out what I'd done with my belt. I needed the belt to slide through the shoulder holster. Where the hell was my belt?

“The police are on the phone,” he said, voice quiet.

I just shook my head. “I can't find my belt.”

“I'll find it for you,” he said. I knew from his voice that he was farther
into the room now. I hadn't heard him move. It was like I wasn't hearing everything, like I was losing pieces of things.

“What's wrong with me?” I hadn't actually meant to say it out loud.

“Richard's here,” Nathaniel said, as if that explained it all.

I kept shaking my head, trying to run my hands through my wet hair. It was tangled. I hadn't used shampoo, let alone conditioner. It was going to be a mess when it dried. “Fuck!”

He touched my shoulder, and I jerked away. “No, no, don't be nice to me. If you're nice I'll cry.”

“Do you want me to be cruel, would that make you feel better?”

It was such an odd question that it made me look at him. He was still wearing the jogging shorts he'd left the room in, but he'd unbraided his hair and brushed it into a shining auburn curtain. A stray bit of sunlight gleamed in his hair. I knew what all that hair felt like rushing over my body. It was so thick, so heavy, that it made a sound like dry water when it cascaded around me. I'd always denied myself everything that Nathaniel could offer. I'd always backed off from enjoying every part of him. Jason's words came back to haunt me. That I hadn't really given myself completely to anyone. That I held back something from everyone. I'd held back huge chunks of myself from Nathaniel. More than any of the other men in my life, he was the one that I'd held back from the most, because I didn't believe I was keeping him. Once I had the
ardeur
under control I wouldn't need a
pomme de sang
every day. Once I could feed the
ardeur
from a distance like Jean-Claude could, I'd stop using a
pomme de sang
. Wouldn't I?

He looked worried. “What's wrong, Anita?”

I shook my head.

He took a step towards me, and that small movement sent his hair swirling over one shoulder. He gave a negligible flip of his head, sending it sliding back behind him.

I had to close my eyes, and breathe, in and out, concentrate on just breathing. I would not cry. I would not fucking cry again. Every time I thought Richard had gotten the last tears he'd ever get from me, I always seemed to be wrong. Every time I thought there was no other way he could tear me up, he found a new way. Nothing turns to hate so bitter as what once was love.

I opened my eyes and found Nathaniel close enough to touch. I stared into those compassionate lilac eyes, that soft, caring face, and I hated him. I don't know why. But I hated him just a little. I hated him for not being someone else. I hated him for the hair that fell to his knees. I hated him because I didn't love him. Or maybe I hated him because I did. But it wasn't what I felt for Richard. I hated him, and I hated me. In that one instant I hated everyone in my life, everyone and everything, and me most of all.

“We are out of here,” I said.

He frowned. “What?”

“You, me, Jason, we're out of here. I need to take Jason back to the Circus before Jean-Claude wakes up anyway. We'll pack a bag, and we'll give the house over to Richard.”

Nathaniel widened his eyes. “You mean to leave this house until Richard is gone?”

I nodded, maybe a little too fast, maybe a little too often, but I had a plan, and I was sticking to it.

“What will Micah say?”

I shook my head. “He can join us at the Circus.”

Nathaniel looked at me for a second, then he shrugged. “How long will we be there?”

“I don't know,” I said, and looked away from him. He hadn't protested, hadn't accused me of cowardice. He just stuck to the facts. We were going. How long would we be gone?

“I'll pack for a couple of days, if we need other things, I'll come back for them.”

“You do that,” I said.

He moved towards the door, leaving me to stare around the room. “Your belt is at the foot of the bed.”

That made me look at him. There was something in his eyes, something older than he was, something that made me want to squirm and look away, but I was already running from Richard, I couldn't run away from anything else. One act of extreme cowardice per day was about all my ego could handle.

“Thanks,” I said, and my voice sounded too soft, too hoarse, too something.

“Do you want me to pack a bag for you, too?” His face had fallen back into neutral lines, as if he'd realized the look in his eyes was too raw for me, right now.

“I can pack,” I said.

“I can pack for both of us, Anita, it's not a problem.”

I started to argue, then stopped. I'd spent the last twenty minutes trying to find a belt that I'd probably walked over twice. If I packed in the state I was in, I'd probably forget to bring underwear. “Fine.”

“What do you want me to tell Sergeant Zerbrowski?” he asked.

“I'll talk to him while you pack.”

Nathaniel nodded. “Okay.”

I took the time to tuck my shirt in, put my belt on, and thread my shoulder holster. I checked that the clip in my gun was full, automatically. I started to say something to Nathaniel and those old eyes in that young
face, but I didn't have anything worth saying. We were fleeing the house until Richard was gone. With that decision, I didn't know what to say.

I left Nathaniel and went into the kitchen to get the phone, wondering if Zerbrowski would still be on the other end, or if his patience would have faded before my confusion had.