I stared at him. The local Ulfric stood off to one side, tall and straight and slender, letting his medical personnel do their jobs. I started to ask him where the hell he had been while we got cut up, but Zane made a sound.
Zane seemed to be healing just fine from a rifle blast that would have cost a human his arm. But it hurt, and he made small pain sounds while the doctor worked on him.
"The blood will help them heal," Verne said. "Especially blood from someone as powerful as you are. Marianne feeds the pack sometimes."
Lucy said, "It really will help him." Her face was neutral as she said it.
I looked down at Jason. His face was a mask of blood. One eye was swollen completely shut. He tried to smile at me, but his lips were so badly swollen that the smile didn't work. It was like part of his face just didn't work right now.
I touched those wounded lips with my fingertips, brushed the fresh blood across his lower lip. He rolled his lip under, tasting the blood. But the movement made him wince. It hurt.
I laid two fingers against his lips and slid them gently into his mouth. He tried to suck them, but his mouth wouldn't work right. He licked the blood, swallowing almost convulsively. I drew the fingers out, and his hand came up to grab my wrist. I let him guide two new fingers into his mouth.
Richard spilled into the clearing, going to his knees in the leaves. Shang-Da was at his back like a good bodyguard. Richard's gaze met mine, and just the glance opened me up to him a little more. Without Jean-Claude to act as a buffer, the marks between Richard and I were stronger. He knelt there, his breathing coming in near-painful gasps. I could feel his chest rising and falling, almost as if I were breathing for him. I felt him look at the woman beside me. I saw Lucy for a second as he saw her. I saw the rise of her breasts swelling under the halter top.
The line of her cheek half in shadow, half in moonlight. She raised her face to meet my eyes like she could feel me looking.
"He still wants you," I said.
She gave a very small smile. "But not as much as he wants you."
The marks between Richard and I quieted. I couldn't feel him breathe or what he was thinking. He had cut me off. Afraid of what I'd see, maybe. "What happened, Verne? They were supposed to be safe in your lands," Richard said.
Cherry answered, "Jamil sent the three of us for help. He" -- she pointed to a shadowy figure on the other side of the clearing -- "wouldn't let us pass into the lupanar. He wouldn't take our request for aid to Verne."
The man stepped forward so a patch of moonlight showed him: tall, muscular, dark-haired, pale. "They are not pack. They have no right to demand passage."
Verne was just suddenly there, and the tall werewolf was on the ground. I hadn't seen him move. It was a speed that was dreamlike, impossible. But I'd almost seen it.
"I am Ulfric. I decide who is worthy and who is not, Eric. You are only Freki, third in the pack. You have one more battle before you can even challenge me."
Eric touched his hand to his face and came away with something dark and liquid. "I am not challenging you."
There was movement behind me in the leaves. Zane was crawling towards me, the wounded arm held close to his chest with a makeshift sling. "I came back to help while Cherry and Nathaniel argued with their watchwolf." I could feel an intensity to his gaze, even in the dark. "The blood's going to dry before he gets to it all." He stayed there in the leaves, just out of touching distance. His shirt had been ripped off one side of his slender chest. It hung in rags to one shoulder. He stared at me and even by scattered moonlight, I could see the need, not in his face but in his body, the way he held himself. He was asking for more than the healing of his body. If he hadn't been there, Jason would be dead now. Even a lycanthrope has a limit to the damage he can take.
Jason held the palm of my hand to his mouth, licking with long, lingering movements.
"You need the other hand?" I asked.
"It will be dried before he can use it," Lucy said.
I stared at her and hated her just a little. Hated her for having been in Richard's bed. Hated her for doing things with him that I'd never allowed myself to do.
"The wereleopard doesn't need the blood," Richard said. "He'll heal without it."
I just stared at him and held my hand out to Zane. He crawled to me on his knees and his good arm. I stared at Richard while Zane took my fingers into his mouth. He sucked on them like a hungry child licking the last bit of cake from a spoon.
"He's mine, Richard, mine as much as Jason is. I am Nimir-ra and lupa."
Richard stood. "I know what you are, Anita."
I shook my head. "You have no idea what I am." The moment I said it, I felt that warm, growing presence. Munin rising inside of me like a pool of warm water, spilling upward. Richard's mark seemed to bring it on sometimes. Or maybe it was just the way he made me feel. Lust or anger or both. I didn't fight the munin.
Marianne had said if I stopped fighting, that it would lose some of its control over me. I wasn't even sure I could fight it off completely. The best I could do was control it. I let it flow over me, down my arms into the two men.
Jason had worked his way to my wrist, tongue moving over the veins there. He'd been hesitating over the smell of fresher blood so very close to the surface. Now his good eye stared up at me, wide, a little scared.
I smiled down at him, and I knew that it wasn't just my smile. I was still here, but I wasn't exactly alone. Raina's thoughts lay over mine like a veil. I could see out, but it colored everything I saw. Her body, our body, wanted things, craved things that made me want to run screaming. But if I were careful, I could use her as she used me. It was like walking up a flight of steep, narrow stairs with a cup of scalding coffee filled to the brim. Careful, oh, so careful or it spills over the edge and you get burned.
The alternative to letting the munin have a little fun was what happened in the woods earlier. I did not want another full-blown memory with Jason and Zane hanging onto me. Not tonight, not ever. Jason couldn't handle it, and neither could I.
I looked down at Jason. "It's all right, Jason. Enjoy the blood while it lasts. I don't think you're going to get this offer twice."
He ran his tongue up my arm, working hard against the skin like a cat washing its own fur. Zane had sucked my fingers clean and had raised my hand up in front of his face, cradled in his good hand. He was licking very slowly, very thoroughly up my palm.
There was a sound behind us. I turned to see the rifleman. He was conscious and in some pain. The doctor with the round glasses was about to give him a shot.
I called, "Bring him to me."
The doctor and the werewolf with him looked across the clearing to Verne and Richard. Richard had moved across to the other Ulfric. They were discussing how everything had gone wrong. They could discuss things all night. I wanted answers.
"Don't look at them. Look at me. And bring him to me!" Raina's munin swelled outward and burst over me, over Jason, over Zane. It spilled over Lucy and brought a gasp from her throat. Everyone in the clearing got a taste, a preview if you like. It was getting harder to hold together. Harder to think.
They dragged the rifleman over to me. I knew what I looked like. I was wearing a black underwire bra that hid more than most bathing suits, but it was still a bra. I was still covered in blood. Jason and Zane were licking blood from my naked skin. It was strange and macabre and would work as a threat very nicely.
The doctor and the other werewolf threw the rifleman down in front of me. Jason and Zane ignored him, mouths on my skin. Zane slid his mouth along the edge of my skin, teeth grating ever so gently on the skin. His eyes slid to the rifleman, and I knew we would put on a show for him.