“Beauty isn’t always easy,” she said. “Take Paganini for instance.”
“That’s music.”
“You know what I mean.”
He didn’t fall into easy, agreeable conversation, and she liked the way he considered what she’d said instead of just letting her run with it.
“I’ve seen her without her glamour,” he told her finally. “Maybe it blinded me to more subtle things. When we became lovers, I did it because I found her interesting.” He was watching her reaction.
That morning she would have told him exactly how hearing him describe a former lover made her feel. But since then she’d had that little glimpse of him, raw and bare-although she’d done her best not to look. No one should stand completely naked before another person. But she’d noticed something… unexpected. She knew who she was-and she knew who he was. It wasn’t that she didn’t value herself; she did. But Charles was… a force of nature.
And he worried that she might not ever be able to see who he was and love him-because he looked in the mirror and saw only the killer. It was the reason he kept the bond between them tightened down. He loved her beyond all reason and didn’t expect her to love him back. He was just waiting for her to wise up.
She felt terrified-as if she had been given a delicate and valuable glass ornament, and any wrong move would break it. She felt as though it should have been given to stronger, more capable hands so it would not be harmed. Not that she hadn’t staked out her claim in front of Dana quickly enough.
When Anna didn’t say anything, he continued. “She took me as her lover because, once she knew her ability to make anyone lust after her didn’t work on me, she was curious what sex would be like without bespelling her partner.”
Anna snorted. “I’m sure the packaging didn’t bother her much either.”
Charles sighed. “I did this wrong, didn’t I? I owe you an apology.”
She glanced at him.
“I didn’t mean to bog this down in ancient history-but I didn’t stop her doing so soon enough either. And then… words are not always my best means of communication. Let me make things clear: there was nothing between us except mutual appreciation-and that a century ago or more.”
“It’s all right,” she told him. “I understand.” Humor, she thought, it has to be just right. Dry humor. “You’ve had a very long time to acquire former lovers I can blame you for.”
A warm hand closed over her knee, and a warm, wordless voice curled around her even as Charles said, “I liked it today, when you claimed me in front of her.” He hesitated. “I think it hurt my feelings that you were able to talk about her without being jealous.”
She took her right hand off the wheel and ran her hand down his arm. “You need to check your nose, Kemo Sabe.” If he could be honest, so could she. “I don’t like you talking about her. I wanted to rip her face off when she kissed you. And when Brother Wolf pushed me out-”
“He didn’t mean it that way.” Charles’s free hand tapped on the door frame. “He’s not… not capable of subterfuge, not even to make things easier. He’s very straightforward.”
The boys in the Ferrari were still on her tail, and she tapped her brakes once in warning.
“Well,” she said. Straightforward. “I suppose that explains it all.” But it didn’t bother her anymore. It wasn’t Charles’s explanation that soothed her, it was the way she’d felt Brother Wolf’s straightforward agreement with Charles’s pleasure in the way she’d faced up to Dana and claimed him at the fae’s boat. She couldn’t read everything. Not much from Charles at all now-but Brother Wolf, it seemed, was willing to be more forthcoming.
“You two have a great deal more in common than sharing the same body,” she said.
Charles started to laugh and slid down in his seat. “I suppose we do, for good or for ill, eh? He doesn’t like the fae, not even Dana. And he… we are still adjusting to having you. We protect our pack, that’s what our job has always been. Especially the submissives who are our heart.”
“And he… you feel me as an über-submissive,” she said. What she was, was Omega, not submissive at all. But she served somewhat the same purpose in the pack. The dominant wolves could… relax around her because they knew that she would never challenge them-not because she couldn’t, but because she wouldn’t. Omegas didn’t care about pack position, they just cared about the pack.
“You are ours,” he said unequivocally, humor gone. “Brother Wolf’s and mine. Ours to be kept safe. Dana is many things, but safe isn’t one of them. You were distracting us-and if we’d talked to you too long, she’d have sensed it and been offended. It is not difficult to offend most fae, and Dana is not an exception.”
“Her reaction to the painting Bran sent her was odd,” Anna said.
“Powerful,” agreed Charles. “But it would not have done to give her a gift that was less than the gifts others will bring her during this conference. Staying on the right side of the fae is an interesting dance, and I’ll leave it to my father to know exactly how to step.”
“The Vermeer… Why did she copy it instead of painting something of her own?”
“Her own paintings… are worse. Do you remember the sad clown paintings? Or are you too young? They were everywhere for a while. Bright-colored and flat-feeling. Empty.”
Anna shivered. “My dentist had them all over his office.”
“Like that,” Charles said.
“Maybe she should paint scenery,” Anna suggested.
“The background of the Vermeer was very well done.”
“I suggested that once, but she wasn’t interested. She wants to paint the kinds of subjects she likes to view-lovers and dreamers.”
“Do you think the pack has good auto insurance?” Anna asked, looking in the rearview mirror again.
Charles glanced behind them and narrowed his eyes.
The Ferrari suddenly dropped back.
“Jeez,” Anna said. “You are handy to have around.”
“Thank you.”
Anna thought of Dana as she weaved her way through the traffic, her opinion more charitable than she’d been able to manage earlier.
What would it feel like to love music as she did and not be able to sing or play? Or worse, to be proficient but never cross the line between a collection of notes and pitch and rhythm to real music? To know that you were missing it by just a hair but have no idea how to take it from metronome correctness to power and true beauty.
She’d known a few people like that in school. Some of them had made the transition, some of them hadn’t.
At Northwestern, before her Change had forced her to drop out, she’d been a music major. Her primary instrument had been the cello.
The first violin in the quartet she’d played in at school had been a precise master of technique who was so good he fooled the professors into thinking he was playing music. A regular wunderkind.
She’d thought he was oblivious to it until one night, after a performance, when they’d all gone out to a local bar and toasted the concert in beer and ale. The others were dancing, but she’d stayed at the table with him, worried about the serious way he was attempting to drink the pub dry when it had been his more usual habit to declare himself the designated driver and stick to ice tea or coffee.
“Anna,” he’d said, staring into the amber liquid in his cup as if it held the wisdom of the age, “I don’t fool you, do I? Those others”-he waved a vague hand to indicate their missing comrades-“they think I’m all that-but you know better, don’t you.”
“Know what?” she’d asked.
He leaned forward, smelling of beer and cigarettes. “You know I’m a fraud. I can feel the beast inside me, screaming to get out. And if I loose it, it will pull me up to greatness despite myself.”