Jean-Claude sighed. «Asher, if you would take her back to Bartolome.»
Asher pushed himself up from the chair where he'd gone nearly motionless during all the hoopla. But Nathaniel said, «I'll take her.»
We all looked at him.
He smiled. «You need to talk vampire business with Samuel. Asher will be more useful for that than I will.» He walked toward us to say good night, and Micah moved out of the way, so he could lean in toward me. Richard's arm was still holding me close to his body. He tensed, and moved as if he'd take me out of Nathaniel's reach.
Nathaniel touched his arm, and Richard froze. His power lashed out like lightning scoring along my skin.
«Ouch, Richard, that fucking hurt.»
Nathaniel shivered. «That really did hurt.» But his voice didn't sound like a complaint.
«Back up,» Richard said, his voice holding an edge of growl. He was controlling his power enough so it didn't actively hurt me, but it was like cuddling next to a stove that you just knew was going to get too hot to touch soon.
Nathaniel smiled and pushed in against us both, pressing his chest against Richard's arm. Richard moved away, but he tried to take me with him, and frankly, I just didn't want to be in the middle of it. So I stopped moving, but Nathaniel was so close I couldn't step forward either. Richard had choices: pick me up, or hurt me to move me, or let me go, or move away without me, or stay where he was, with Nathaniel touching him.
Richard tried to move back, while I tried not to move, and Nathaniel just watched us, from an inch away. Richard wasn't willing to move without me, or leave me alone with Nathaniel. The symbolism was too raw for words.
Nathaniel spoke low and soft, his lavender eyes raised to the taller man's face, his chest almost pinning Richard's arm between us. «You're like a dog marking your territory. Maybe you should piss on her, so we'll all know she's yours.»
I froze between them, because this was going to be bad.
Richard growled low and deep, the sound of it vibrating over my skin, and into Nathaniel's body. We both shivered, but I don't think it was for the same reasons.
«Stop it, both of you,» I said.
«She's not a bone, that only one of us can have,» Nathaniel said.
Richard growled again and this time Richard's power rippled along my skin like little slaps of electricity. Nathaniel and I spoke at the same time. I said, «That hurts»; Nathaniel said, «Yummy.»
«You are such a freak,» Richard said, almost a yell.
«Maybe, but this freak is willing to do for the woman he loves and his baby what you won't do.»
Richard jerked away so suddenly, it made me stumble. Nathaniel caught me. But Richard backed up. Nathaniel backed him down not with power, but with truth.
Nathaniel held me, and I let him, because if I'd pulled away now, the whole show would have been wasted. I'd hung around the lycanthropes long enough to understand what was happening. Nathaniel, my submissive Nathaniel, was stepping up to bat. He was showing the most dominant person in my bed that he was a force to be reckoned with. Why tonight? Why did Nathaniel have to draw his line in the sand tonight? The baby, of course, the baby. Something about the whole baby question had made Nathaniel feel like he had to be more dominant. Or maybe he, like me, was just tired of watching Richard say he was the dominant sweetie in my life, but acting like he was my fuck buddy. Nothing wrong with a fuck buddy, but you can't be the love of someone's life and a fuck buddy. They are mutually exclusive.
Nathaniel held me, and I wrapped my arms around him, hiding my face against his chest, because I wasn't sure what expression was on my face. Nathaniel had stood up to Richard and won. What else was going to change just because of the possibility of a baby?
«I'll take Valentina. You guys stay and talk business.»
«You're part of the business,» Micah said from behind us.
«But you can fill me in later, and I'm not really going to have an opinion on the vampire stuff.» He grinned. «I'm also the least likely to object to anyone Anita is willing to take as a pomme, or a lover.» He kissed me on the forehead, and whispered, «Besides, Valentina doesn't bother me.»
I looked up at him. «And that bothers me a little, that you're not creeped.»
The grin softened to a smile. «I know.» He kissed me on the mouth, soft, gentle. He pulled away, and I let him go, still not sure what had changed in him.
Valentina came to him, and he took her hand. He began to lead her toward the far hallway. She looked back and stuck her tongue out at us.
Claudia sent Lisandro to accompany them. Aloud, she said, «Make sure Bartolome isn't doing anything he shouldn't.» But I was pretty sure after Valentina's show with Sampson, she just didn't trust any of the non-vamps alone with her. Me, either.
17
«HOW CAN YOU love him?» Richard asked.
I turned to look at him. He stood, shoulders hunched, rubbing his hands up and down his arms, as if he were cold. But I knew he wasn't cold, or at least not the kind of cold that blankets and skin warmth could fix. It was a coldness of the heart, or the soul, or the mind. That cold that eats a hole through the middle of who you are, and leaves something dark and awful behind.
I looked at him, and wondered how to answer his question. How to answer without making the pain in his body worse. I sighed, and finally realized that the only thing I could give him was the truth. Whatever we were to each other, whatever else we might someday be to each other, truth, at least truth, was between us.
«I asked you a question,» he said, and his power warmed the room like opening an oven to peek inside. The heat dissipated almost as soon as I'd felt it He was trying to control himself.
«Why do I love Nathaniel?» I asked.
«That's what I asked,» he said, in that angry voice.
«Because he never makes me feel like a freak.»
«Because he is a freak,» Richard snarled. «Anyone looks sane beside him.»
I felt my face shutting down. Felt that flatness that I used when I was really pissed and trying to control it.
«Perhaps this is not the time for this conversation,» Jean-Claude said in a careful voice.
We both ignored him.
«First,» I said in a very tight, careful voice, «Nathaniel is not a freak. Second, he's willing to disrupt his entire life if he got me pregnant, and you're not. So I'd be careful before you throw stones at his character.»
«If you're pregnant, I'll marry you.»
The room was suddenly full of one of those silences so thick you should have been able to walk across it. I stared at him for a second, or two, then said, «Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Richard, is that all you think it takes to fix this? Marry me so the baby won't be a bastard, and it's all better?»
«I don't see anyone else offering marriage,» he said.
«It's because they know I'll say no. Every other man in my life understands that this isn't about marriage. It's about the fact that we may have created a little person. And we need to do whatever is best for that person. How will marrying anyone make this work better?»
He looked at me, and there was such pain in his face, such struggle, as if I'd said something incomprehensible. «If you get a woman pregnant, you marry her, Anita. It's called taking responsibility for your actions.»
«And if it's not your baby? Could you really raise someone else's baby? Could you really stay married to me, and play Daddy, as you watched the baby grow to look like someone else?»
He covered his face with his hands, and he screamed, «No!» He showed me a face ravaged by rage. The room was suddenly hot again, as if his power were raising the actual temperature. «No, I'd go crazy. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is it?»
«No,» I said, «but you needed to hear it.»
He frowned at me. «What?»
«I appreciate the offer, Richard. Really, I do, but if I was going to marry anyone, it would have to be someone who would be okay no matter who turned out to be the father.»
«So, you'll marry Nathaniel, or Micah?» The heat bit along my skin.
«I am not going to marry anyone, don't you get that?»
«You just said» — I cut him off. «No, that isn't what I said, or what I meant. It's what you heard.»
«You're pregnant, Anita.»
«Maybe I'm pregnant,» I said.
«Don't you want a father for your baby?»
I stared at him, wondering what could I say that he'd actually hear and understand.
Jean-Claude stepped close to us, not between us, but as if the three of us were a shallow triangle. «I believe what ma petite is saying, Richard, is that marriage is not part of her plans, and that having a baby will not change that.» His voice was his pleasantly neutral one, the one that he used when he was trying to persuade, or calm, and not make things worse.