He looked at me, uncomprehending. «Were you really thinking all that as they put you under?»
I thought about it. «Not exactly, but I've been hurt a lot, Peter. I've lost count of the number of times I've lost consciousness and woken up in a hospital, or somewhere worse.»
I thought his eyes were on my chest again, but he said, «The scar on your collarbone, what did that?»
Another interesting sideline of wearing this much of my chest in full view was that some of my scars were on display. I'd been more worried about my modesty than about the scars. «Vampire.»
«I thought it was a shapeshifter bite.»
«Nope, vampire.» I showed him my arms with all their scars. «Most of these are from vampires.» I touched one on my left arm: claw marks. «This one was a shapeshifted witch, which means her shapeshifting was a spell and not a disease.»
«I didn't know there was a difference.»
«Well, the spell isn't contagious, and it's not tied to the full moon at all. In fact, strong emotions don't cause you to shift, or any of that. You don't shift until you put on the item, usually a fur belt or something.»
«Do you have any scars from shapeshifters?»
«Yes.»
«Can I see?»
Truthfully, the most permanent scars were claw marks on my ass. They were almost delicate marks. Gabriel, the wereleopard who had done it, had considered it foreplay before he tried to rape me on film. He'd been the first person I'd ever killed with the big knife in its spine sheath. I was going to have to figure out a different way to wear the knife until I could get the shoulder rig remade. But I had new scars now, ones I was willing to show Peter.
It took a little work to get the T-shirt out of the pants, but somehow I didn't want to unbuckle or unzip anything. I got the shirt up and raised it over my belly, exposing the new wounds.
Peter made a surprised sound. «That can't be real.» He whispered it. He reached out as if he'd try to touch, then drew his hand back, as if he wasn't sure what I'd say.
I stepped closer to the bed. He took it as the invitation it was, and ran his fingertips across the new pink scars. «The scars may disappear altogether, or they may stay. I won't know for a few days, or weeks,» I said.
He drew his fingers back, then put his whole hand across the biggest wound. The one where it looked as if she had tried to take a chunk of flesh. His hand was big enough to cover the mark and leave his fingers splayed out beyond the scars. «You can't have healed this in less than, what… twelve hours. Are you one of them?»
«You mean a shapeshifter?» I asked.
«Yes.» He whispered it as if it were a secret. He slid his hand along my stomach, tracing the ragged marks of claws.
«No.»
He ran his hand over my skin until he came to the edge of the scars where they dribbled away just past my belly button. «They just changed my dressing. I look like shit. You're healed.» He curved his hand around to the side of my waist that wasn't scarred. His hand cupped my waist, and his hand was big enough to do it. That one gesture caught me off guard. The only man I was dating whose hand was big enough to do that was Richard. It seemed wrong that Peter's hand was that big. It made me move back from him and let my shirt drop over my stomach. Which embarrassed him, which wasn't my intent. I just suddenly realized I probably shouldn't let him touch me that much. It hadn't moved me or made me uncomfortable until that moment.
He took his hand back, and again wasted blood that he didn't have in blushing. «Sorry,» he mumbled, and wouldn't look at me as he said it.
«It's okay, Peter. No harm, no foul.»
He gave me a quick upward glance of his brown eyes. «If you're not a shapeshifter, how could you have healed like that?»
Truthfully, it was probably because I was Jean-Claude's human servant, but since Dolph was wanting to know that, I just didn't want to share it with people who didn't know. «I'm carrying four different kinds of lycanthropy. So far I don't turn furry, but I'm carrying.»
«The doctors told me you can't get more than one kind of lycanthropy. That's the point of the shot. The two different kinds of lycanthropy cancel each other out.» He stopped at the end of the speech and took a deeper-than-normal breath, as if talking too much hurt.
I patted his shoulder. «Don't talk if it hurts, Peter.»
«Everything hurts.» He seemed to try to settle into the bed, then stopped as if that had hurt, too. He looked up at me, and the angry, defiant face was like an echo of almost two years ago. The kid I'd met was still in there, he'd just grown up. It made my heart hurt. Would I ever get to see Peter when he wasn't getting hurt? I guess I could just go visit Edward sometime, but that was just weird. We did not just visit each other. We weren't that kind of friends.
«I know it hurts, Peter. I didn't always heal this fast.»
«Micah and Nathaniel have been talking to me about weretigers and being a lycanthrope.»
I nodded, because I didn't know what else to say. «They'd know.»
«Do they all heal as fast as you do?»
«Some, no. Some faster.»
«Faster,» he said. «Really?»
I nodded.
His eyes filled with something I couldn't decipher. «Cisco didn't heal.»
Ah. «No, he didn't.»
«If he hadn't thrown himself between me and the… weretiger, I'd be dead now.»
«You couldn't have taken the damage that Cisco took, that's true.»
«You're not going to argue about it. Tell me it wasn't my fault.»
«It wasn't your fault,» I said.
«But he did it to save me.»
«He did it to keep both my guards alive longer. He did it to give us time for other guards to come and help us. He did his job.»
«But…»
«I was there, Peter. Cisco did his job. He didn't sacrifice himself to save you.» I wasn't entirely sure that was true, but I kept talking. «I don't think he meant to sacrifice himself at all. Shapeshifters don't usually die that easily.»
«Easily? He had his throat ripped out.»
«I've seen both vampires and wereanimals heal from wounds like that.»
He gave me a disbelieving face.
I crossed my heart and gave the Boy Scout salute.
That made him smile. «You were never a Boy Scout.»
«I wasn't even a Girl Scout, but I'm still telling the truth.» I smiled, hoping to encourage him to keep doing it.
«Healing like that would be cool.»
I nodded. «It is cool, but it's not all cool. There are some serious downsides to being a wereanimal.»
«Micah told me some of it. He and Nathaniel have answered a lot of questions.»
«They're good at that.»
He glanced past me at the door. I glanced where he looked. Micah and Nathaniel had given us as much privacy as they could without leaving the room. They were talking softly together. Cherry had actually left the room. I hadn't heard her go.
«The doctors want me to get the shot,» Peter said.
I looked at him. «They would.»
«What would you do?» he asked.
I shook my head. «If you're old enough to have saved my life, then you're old enough to decide this on your own.»
His face crumbled around the edges, not like he was going to cry, but as if the child was peeking out. Did all teenagers do that? One minute grown-up, the next so fragile like a dream of their younger selves? «I'm just asking your opinion.»
I shook my head. «I'd say call your mom, but Edward doesn't want to. He says Donna will vote for the shot.»
«She would.» He sounded resentful, face sullen. He'd been pretty moody at fourteen; apparently that hadn't changed completely. I wondered how Donna was coping with this new, more grown-up son.
«I'll tell you what I told Edward; I won't give an opinion on this one.»
«Micah says that I might not get the tiger lycanthropy even if I don't get the shot.»
«He's right.»
«He said fifty-five percent of the people who get the shot don't get lycanthropy, but that forty-five percent get lycanthropy. They get what's in the shot, Anita. If I get the shot and catch what's in there, it means if I'd just left it alone I wouldn't have gotten anything.»
«I didn't know the stats broke down that nicely, but Micah would know.»