10
I leaned against the door of my cabin, eyes closed, breathing in the cool air. I'd turned the air-conditioning on for my two guests. The coffins sat in the middle of the floor between the desk and the bed. Under the Circus of the Damned, deep underground, neither Damian nor Asher slept until full dark. I hadn't been sure if they would aboveground or not. So the air. Though, actually, it had been partly selfish. Vampires in a closed, hot space tended to smell, well, like vampires. They didn't smell like dead bodies. It was like the smell of snakes, and yet that wasn't it, either. It was a neck-ruffling smell. Thick, musky, more reptile than mammal. The smell of vampires.
How could I be sleeping with one of them? I opened my eyes. It was dark in the cabin, but there was still a faint push of illumination through the two windows. A faint touch of light against the gleaming feet of the coffins. Had that small touch of natural light been enough to keep both vampires comatose, dead in their coffins, waiting for true dark? Something had, because I knew that they were still and waiting inside the coffins. A small amount of concentration, and I knew they were still dead to the world.
I strode between the coffins into the bathroom, closed and locked the door. The darkness seemed too solid. I turned on the light. It was white and harsh after the darkness. I was left blinking in the brightness.
Getting a good look at myself in the mirror was almost startling. I hadn't really seen the bruises yet. The corner of my left eye was a wonderful shade of purple black, swollen, puffy. Seeing it made it hurt worse, like seeing blood from a cut that doesn't sting until you notice it.
My left cheek was a wonderful shade of greenish brown. It was that sickly green that usually takes days to accomplish. My lower lip was puffy. You could still see the edge of darkened skin where it had bled. I ran my tongue inside my mouth and could feel the ridge where my cheek had been forced against my teeth, but it was healed. I stared into the mirror and realized as sore and awful as it looked, it wasn't as bad as it should have been.
It took me a few moments of staring to figure it out. When I did finally realize what was happening, a rush of fear ran through my body from my toes to the top of my head. I felt almost faint.
I was healing. I was healing days worth of injury in only hours. At this rate, the bruises would be almost gone by tomorrow. I should have been wearing the fight marks for days, a week at least. What the hell was happening to me?
I felt Damian wake in his coffin. I felt it like a stab through my body. It staggered me against the sink. I knew he was hungry, and I knew that he sensed me near at hand. I was Jean-Claude's human servant, bound by marks that only death would break. But Damian was mine. I'd raised him and another vampire, Willie McCoy, more than once. I'd called them from their coffins during daylight hours, safely underground, but the sun had been burning bright when I did it. One necromancer had said it made perfect sense. We could only raise zombies after the souls had fled the bodies, so I could only raise vamps when their souls had fled for the day.
I wasn't even going to debate the vampires and soul issue. My life was complicated enough without religious discussions. I know, I know, I was just delaying the inevitable. If I stayed with Jean-Claude, I was going to have to face the whole issue. No hiding. But not tonight.
Raising Damian had forged some kind of link between us. I didn't understand it and didn't have anyone to ask advice of. I was the first necromancer in several hundred years that could raise vampires like zombies. It scared me. It scared Damian more. Frankly, I didn't blame him.
Was Asher awake, too? I concentrated on him, sent that power, magic, whatever the hell it was, outward. It brushed him, and he felt me. He was awake and aware of me.
Asher was a master vampire. Not as powerful as Jean-Claude, but a master, nonetheless. That gave him certain abilities that Damian, who was by far the elder of the two, would never have. Without the link between us, Damian wouldn't have sensed me searching for him.
I wanted a few minutes to be alone and think, and I wasn't going to get it. I didn't make them call for me. I opened the door and stood framed in the light, blinking out into the thick darkness.
The vampires stood like pale shadows in the gloom. I hit the overhead light. Asher threw his hand up to protect his eyes from the light, but Damian just blinked at me. I wanted them to cower back from the light. I wanted them to look monstrous, but they didn't.
Damian was a green-eyed redhead, but that didn't really cover it. His hair fell like a red curtain around his upper body, the hair so red it looked like spilled blood against the green silk of his shirt. The shirt was a paler green than his eyes. They were like liquid fire, if fire could burn green. It wasn't vampire powers that made his eyes gleam. It was natural color, as if his mother had fooled around with a cat.
Asher was a blue-eyed blond, but again, that description didn't do him justice. The waves of his shoulder-length hair were golden. I don't mean blond, I mean gold. His hair was almost metallic in its glittering brilliance. His eyes were a blue so pale, they were almost white, like the eyes of a husky.
He was wearing a white dress shirt, untucked over chocolate brown dress pants. Leather loafers, no socks, completed his clothes. I'd spent too much time around Jean-Claude to call it an outfit.
If you could stop staring at the eyes and hair long enough to see their faces, Asher was the handsomer of the two. Damian was handsome, but there was a length of jaw, a less perfect slope to the nose -¨C small imperfections that might go unnoticed if you hadn't had Asher for comparison. Asher was beautifully handsome like a medieval cherub. Half of him, anyway.
Half of Asher's face was the beauty that drew a master vampire to him centuries ago. The other half was covered in scars. Holy water scars. The scars started about an inch from the midline of his face so his eyes, nose, and those full, perfect lips remained untouched, but the rest was like melted wax. His neck was pale and perfect, but I knew that the scars continued at his shoulders. His upper body was worse than the face, the scars rough and pitted. But like the face, only half of his body was scarred. The other half was still lovely.
I knew that the scars touched his upper thigh, but I had never seen him completely nude. I had to take his word that the scars covered the space between. It had been implied though never stated that he was still capable of sex but was scarred. I didn't know for sure, and I didn't want to know.
"Where are your bodyguards?" Asher asked.
"My bodyguards? You mean Jason and the Furballs?"
Asher nodded. His golden hair fell forward over the scarred side of his face. It was an old habit. The hair hid the scars -¨C or almost hid the scars. He could use the shadows the same way. He always seemed to know just where the light would hit him. Centuries of practice.
"I don't know where they are," I said. "I just finished talking to Richard. I guess they thought we needed privacy."
"Did you need the privacy?" Asher asked. He looked straight at me, using the scars and beauty for a double effect. He didn't look happy for some reason.
"It's none of your damn business," I said.
Damian sat at the foot of the carefully made bed. He smoothed pale, long-fingered hands across the blue coverlet. "Not in this bed, you didn't," he said.
I came to stand beside the bed and stare down at him. "If one more vampire or were-anything tells me they can smell sex, I am going to scream."
Damian didn't smile. He'd never been a real happy camper, but lately was even more serious than usual. He just sat there, looking up at me. Jean-Claude or even Asher would have smiled, teased. Damian just looked at me with eyes that held sorrow the way others' held laughter.
I reached out to touch his shoulder and had to sweep back a lock of his hair to reach it. He jerked back from my touch as if it had hurt. He pushed to his feet and went to stand near the door.
I was left with my hand out, puzzled. "What's wrong with you, Damian?"
Asher came to stand beside me. He rested his hands lightly on my shoulders. "You are quite right, Anita. What you do with Monsieur Zeeman is none of my business."
I slid my hands over his, sliding my fingers to intertwine with his. I remembered the feel of his cool skin against mine. I leaned my back against him, pulling his arms around me, and I wasn't tall enough. It wasn't my memory. It was Jean-Claude's. Asher and he had been companions for over twenty years, once upon a time.
I sighed and started to pull away.
Asher leaned his chin on the top of my head. "You need someone's arms that you don't feel threatened by."
I leaned against him, eyes closed, and for just a moment let him hold me. "The only reason this feels so good is that I'm remembering someone else's pleasure."
Asher gently kissed the top of my head. "Because you see me through the nostalgia of Jean-Claude's memories, you are the only woman in over two hundred years who doesn't treat me like a circus freak."
I leaned my face against the bend of his arm. "You are devastatingly handsome, Asher."
He smoothed the hair from my bruised cheek. "To you, perhaps." He leaned over me and laid the softest of kisses on my cheek.
I pulled away from him, gently, almost reluctantly. What I remembered of Asher was simpler than anything I was trying to pull off in this lifetime.
Asher didn't try to hold me. "If you were not already in love with two other men, the way you look at me might be enough."
I sighed. "I'm sorry, Asher I shouldn't touch you like that. It's just ... " I didn't know how to put it into words.
"You treat me like an old lover," Asher said. "You forget and touch me as if you'd touched me before when it is always the first time. Do not apologize for that, Anita. I enjoy it. No one else will touch me so freely."
"Jean-Claude will," I said. "These are his memories."
Asher smiled and it was almost sorrowful. "He is loyal to you and to Monsieur Zeeman."
"He's turned you down?" I asked and wished I hadn't.
Asher smile brightened, then dimmed. "If you would not share him with another woman, would you truly share him with another man?"
I thought about that for a second or two. "Well, no." I frowned up at him. "Why do I feel like apologizing for that?"
"Because you share with Jean-Claude and myself the memories of Julianna and the two of us. We were a very happy menage a trois for almost longer than you have been alive."
Julianna had been Asher's human servant. She'd ended up burned as a witch by the same people that had scarred Asher. Jean-Claude couldn't save them both. I wasn't sure that either of them had truly forgiven Jean-Claude for this oversight.
Damian said, "If I'm not interrupting, I need to feed." He was standing by the door, hugging himself as if he were cold.
"You want me to open the door and yell dinner?" I asked.
"I want permission to go feed," he said.
I frowned at the phrasing but said, "Go find one of our walking donors and help yourself. Just our people, though. We can't hunt here."
Damian nodded, standing up straighter as if he'd been hunched in upon himself. I could feel that he was hungry, but it wasn't hunger that made him huddle. "I will not hunt."
"Good," I said.
He hesitated, with his hand on the doorknob. His back was to me, but his voice came low, "May I go and feed?"
I glanced at Asher. "Is he talking to you?"
Asher shook his head. "I think not."
"Sure, help yourself."
Damian opened the door and slipped outside. He left the door slightly ajar.
"What is his problem lately?" I asked.
"I think he must answer that question," Asher said.
I turned and looked at him. "Does that mean you can't answer the question or won't answer it?"
Asher smiled and his face moved freely, even the scarred skin. He was having consultations with a plastic surgeon in Saint Louis. No one had ever tried to repair holy water damage on vamps, so they didn't know if it would work, but the doctors were hopeful. Hopeful but cautious. The first operation was still months away.
"It means, Anita, that some fears are very personal."
"Are you saying Damian's afraid of me?" I didn't try to keep the astonishment out of my voice.
"I am saying that you must speak to him directly if you want answers."
I sighed. "Great, just what I need. Another complicated male in my life."
Asher laughed, and it slid along my bare arms like a touch, raising gooseflesh. The only other vampire that could do that to me was Jean-Claude.
"Stop that," I said.
He gave a low, sweeping bow. "My most sincere apologies."
"Bullshit," I said. "Go get dinner. I think the werewolves are planning some sort of party or ceremony."
"You need one of us with you at all times, Anita."
"I heard Jean-Claude's ultimatum." I looked at him and couldn't keep the surprise off my face. "You think he'd really kill you if something happened to me?"
Asher just looked at me with his pale, pale eyes. "Your life means more to him than mine does, Anita. If it did not, he would be in my bed and not yours."
He had a point, but ... "It would kill something inside of him to kill you personally."
"But he would do it," Asher said.
"Why? Because he said he'd do it?"
"No, because he would always wonder if I allowed you to die as revenge for his failure to protect Julianna."
Oh. I opened my mouth to say more, and the phone rang. Daniel's voice came low and panicked, backed by country music.
"Anita, we're out at the Happy Cowboy on the main highway. Can you come down?"
"What's wrong, Daniel?"
"Mom's tracked down the woman who accused Richard. She's determined to make her stop lying."
"Are they fighting yet?" I asked.
"Yelling."
"You outweigh her by over a hundred pounds, Daniel. Just toss her over your shoulder and get her out of there. She'll only make things worse."
"She's my mother. I can't do that."
"Shit," I said.
Asher asked, "What has happened?"
I shook my head. "I'll be there, Daniel, but you're being a wimp."
"I'd rather take on every guy in the bar than my mother," he said.
"If she makes a big enough scene, you may get your chance." I hung up. "I cannot believe this."
"What?" Asher asked again.
I explained as quickly as I could. Daniel and Mrs. Zeeman were staying at a nearby motel. Richard hadn't wanted them at the cabins with so many shapeshifters running around. Now I wished we'd kept them closer to home.
It would have been nice to have changed out of the blood-splattered blouse, but we were out of time. No rest for the wicked.
The real trick was what to do with Richard. He'd want to come along, and I didn't want him anywhere near Miss Betty Schaffer.
Legally, he could enter the bar and sit down beside her. There was no court order to stay away. But if the sheriff realized we weren't getting out of town, he'd look for any excuse to get Richard back behind bars. I didn't think Richard would have nearly as pleasant a second visit as he had a first. Their ambush today had backfired. They'd be frustrated and scared. They'd hurt Richard this time. Hell, they might hurt his mother. Charlotte Zeeman and I were going to have to have a little talk. Come to think of it, I was with Daniel. I'd have rather faced a full-blown bar fight than have a talk with his mother. At least she'd never be my mother-in-law. If I was going to have to punch her out tonight, that was almost comforting.
11
Richard and I compromised. He came along and swore to stay in the car. I brought along Shang-Da, Jamil, and Jason to make sure he stayed in the car, though if push came to shove, I wasn't sure they'd listen to me over Richard, not even if it was for his own good. It was the best I could do. Some nights that has to be enough, because that's all you've got.
The Happy Cowboy, which was one of the worst names for a bar I'd ever heard, was on the main highway. It was a two-story building that was supposed to look like a log cabin and managed not to. Maybe it was the neon horse with its cowboy rider on the sign. The lights gave the illusion that the horse was going up and down, along with the cowboy's arm and hat. He didn't look particularly happy riding the neon horse, but then maybe that was just me. I certainly wasn't happy to be here.
Richard had driven his four-by-four. He'd finally gotten around to blow-drying his hair. It was a thick, wavy foam around his face and shoulders. It looked so soft, you wanted to plunge your hands into it. Or again, maybe that was just me. He'd added a plain green T-shirt, tucked into his jeans, and white jogging shoes.
Jamil and Shang-Da were riding shotgun in the middle seat. Jamil was still wearing his cut-off smiley T-shirt, but Shang-Da had changed. He was all in black from his soft leather loafers to his belted dress slacks, to the silk T-shirt and tailor cut jacket. His short back hair was gelled into a crop of spikes on top of his head. He looked relaxed and at home in the clothes and the hair. He would also look utterly out of place at the Happy Cowboy. Of course, being over six feet tall and Chinese put him behind the game when it came to blending in here. Maybe he, like Jamil, was tired of trying to pass.
That was why Jason, still in his grown-up blue suit, was with us. Nathaniel had wanted to come, but he wasn't old enough to go into a bar. I didn't know how good Zane was in a stress situation yet, and Cherry always made me feel vaguely protective, so Jason it was.
"If you're not out in fifteen minutes, we're coming in," Richard said.
"Thirty minutes," I said. I did not want Richard near Ms. Betty Schaffer.
"Fifteen," he said, voice very quiet, very low, very serious. I knew that tone of voice. I'd gotten all the compromise I was going to get.
"Fine, but remember that if you go to jail tonight, your mom may go with you."
His eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"
"What would Charlotte do if she saw her little boy being dragged away to jail?"
He thought about that for a second, then bowed his head. He laid his forehead on the steering wheel. "She'd put up a fight for me."
"Exactly," I said.
He raised his face and looked at me. "I'll behave for her sake."
I smiled. "I knew it wasn't for mine." I got out of the car before he could answer that one.
Jason settled into step beside me. He'd straightened his tie and buttoned the first button on the jacket. He'd also tried to slick back his baby-fine hair, but it escaped all efforts in tiny wisps. His hair was very straight and very fine, and it would have looked better either much shorter or much longer. But hey, it wasn't my hair.
We were both carded at the door by a muscular guy in a dark blue T-shirt. The crowd was divided almost down the middle. There was the tight jeans, cowboy boots crowd, and the short skirts, business jackets crowd. There was some intermingling. Some of the women in cowboy boots had short skirts. Some of the business jackets were wearing jeans. It was the only alcohol for a twenty-mile radius, and it served food. Where else were you going to go on a Friday night? I'd have rather gone for a moonlit walk, but I didn't drink. Come to think of it, I didn't dance, either, though Jean-Claude was working on both. Corruption at every turn.
There was a live band playing country music so loudly it might as well have been hard rock. A haze of cigarette smoke floated over everything like a late-night fog. The entrance was on a little raised platform so you could look around before plunging into the sea of bodies. Charlotte is actually an inch or two shorter than I am, so I didn't bother scanning for her. I looked for Daniel. How many six-foot-tall, tanned guys with wavy, shoulder-length hair could there be? More than you'd think.
I finally spotted him near the bar because he was waving to me. He'd also tied his long hair back in a very tight ponytail, which was why scanning for the hair hadn't worked. His hair was nearly identical to Richard's except it was a more solid brown, a rich chestnut. His skin was the same tanned shade as his brother's. The same high, sculpted cheekbones, solid brown eyes, even the dimple in the chin. Richard was a little broader through the shoulders and chest, just physically more imposing, but other than that, the family resemblance was almost scary. All the brothers looked like that. The two oldest had cut their hair, one of them was almost a blond, and the father was going a little grey, but the five Zeeman men in one room was a testosterone treat.
And the matriarch of this pile of masculine pulchritude was standing about six feet from her son. Charlotte Zeeman had short blond hair that framed a face that looked at least ten years younger than I knew she was. She was wearing a butter yellow suit jacket over dress slacks. She was also poking her finger into the chest of a tall blond woman.
The second woman had a mane of curled blond hair, but I was betting that neither the color nor the curl were real. It had to be Betty Schaffer, and the name didn't suit her. She looked like someone named Farrah or Tiffany.
I waded into the crowd with Jason behind me. The crowd was thick enough that I stopped saying excuse me about halfway across the room and just started pushing.
A tall man in a plaid work shirt stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. "Can I buy you a drink, little lady?"
I reached back and got Jason's hand. I raised it where it was visible. "Taken. Sorry." There was more than one reason I'd wanted to bring Jason with me to a bar on a Friday night.
He stared down at Jason, way down, making a show of how very tall he was. "Don't you want something a little bigger?"
"I like them small," I said, my face very serious. "It makes oral sex easier."
We left him speechless. Jason was laughing so hard, he could barely keep his feet. I pulled him through the crowd by the hand. Holding his hand seemed to be hint enough for the rest of the cruising males.
The crowd was clearing around the bar. People had moved back to form a semicircle around Charlotte, Betty, and Daniel. He had stepped up behind his mother, laying a hand on either shoulder trying to pull her back. She shrugged him off rather violently and ignored him. He let her do it.
Charlotte got up in the woman's face. I was close enough to catch a word or two above the band, "Liar ... whore ... my son ... rapist ... " To hear even that much, Charlotte was screaming at the woman.
Betty was tall, but the spike-heeled boots put her at six feet. The jeans were painted on, the blouse was midriff, and there was no bra. She had small enough breasts that she could get away with it, but it was still noticeable and meant to be. She looked like a cowboy hooker. Richard had dated her. It made me think worse of him.
Two large guys wearing T-shirts that matched the guy who had carded us at the door were at the edge of the crowd. I think they were sort of puzzled by Charlotte. She was tiny and female and hadn't hit anyone yet. She also looked older than the general crowd, though not really like anyone's mother.
Betty had finally had enough. She was screaming back words like, "He did, rapist, bastard."
I let go of Jason's hand and stepped up beside them. They both looked at me. Charlotte was the most startled. Her large, honey-brown eyes went wide. She said, "Anita," as if no one had told her I was in town.
I smiled. "Hi, Charlotte. Can we talk outside?" I had to put my face nearly next to hers to be heard.
She shook her head. "This is the whore that's lied about Richard."
I nodded. "I know. Let's take it outside, though."
Charlotte shook her head again. "I am not leaving until she tells the truth. Richard did not rape her."
We were yelling, with our faces almost touching, to be heard. "Of course, he didn't," I said. "Water is wet, the sky is blue, and Richard isn't a rapist."
Charlotte stared at me. "You believe him."
I nodded. "I got him out on bail. He's waiting to see you outside."
Her eyes went even wider, then she smiled, and it was beautiful. It was one of those smiles that made you feel warm down to your toes. Charlotte was like that. When she was happy, everyone around her was happy. When she wasn't happy ... well, that spilled over, too.
She yelled in my ear, "Let's go see Richard."
I turned to go through the crowd and heard a gasp. I turned to see Betty Schaffer wearing the dripping remnants of a beer. Betty slapped Charlotte. Charlotte returned the favor but with a closed fist.
Betty was suddenly on her butt in the floor, blinking up at us.
The bouncers moved in, as Charlotte moved in to finish the job. I threw Charlotte over my shoulder. She weighed more than she looked like she did, and she was struggling. Unlike most women, she was good at struggling. I didn't want to hurt Charlotte, but she wasn't returning the favor. She kicked me in the knee and I dumped her onto the floor hard.
She lay there for a second, breath knocked out of her, staring up at me. Daniel moved forward to help her up, and I stopped him with a hand on his chest. "No."
The band had fallen silent with a last twangy guitar string. Into the sudden silence, my voice sounded loud, "You can walk out of here on your own, or you can be carried out unconscious, Charlotte. Your choice, but you are leaving."
I went down on one knee, carefully, because Charlotte didn't fight like a girl. I lowered my voice for her ears alone. "Richard will come in here in just a few minutes to see what's wrong. If he gets near her again, the local cops will revoke his bail and lock him up again." It was only partially true. Legally, he had every right to enter the bar, but I was betting that Charlotte didn't know that. Most law-abiding citizens wouldn't have.
Charlotte looked at me for a second longer, then offered me a hand. I helped her stand, still cautious. She had a hell of a temper once it got started. Admittedly, it took a lot to get her this mad, but once she reached it, it was every man for himself.
She let me help her to her feet without trying to slug me. An improvement. We made our way through the crowd with Daniel and Jason trailing behind us. No one crowded us as we went for the door. They stared, but didn't crowd.
The bouncer at the door said, "She doesn't come back in here."
Charlotte opened her mouth to say something, and I gripped her shoulder. "Don't worry. She won't."
He looked at Charlotte but nodded.
I let her get about three good steps ahead of me as we reached the parking lot. Call it an instinct. She whirled, and I think would have hit me, but I was out of reach. She stared at me with those big honey-brown eyes, made somehow paler by the halogen lamps. "Don't you ever lay hands on me again," she said.
"Behave like Richard's mother and not his outraged girlfriend, and I won't."
"How dare you!" she said. She moved closer. I moved away. I didn't really want to have a fistfight in the parking lot of a bar with Richard's mother.
"If anyone should be trying to beat the shit out of Ms. Peroxide Blond, it should be me."
That stopped her cold. She stood straight and looked at me. I could almost see her sanity returning. "But you aren't dating him anymore. Why should you care?"
"That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn't it?" I said.
Charlotte smiled suddenly. "I knew you couldn't resist my boy. No one could."
"If he keeps dating everything in sight, I might."
She frowned. "I can't believe he ever dated that thing," she said.
We both turned and watched Richard walk towards us. There were nearly identical looks on our faces. We disapproved of Ms. Schaffer -¨C a lot.
Her first words were, "I cannot believe you dated that woman. She is a whore."
Richard looked embarrassed, more than I'd gotten from him. "I know what she is."
"Did you have sex with her?"
"Mother!"
"Don't you motherme, Richard Alaric Zeeman."
"Alaric," I said.
Richard spared me a frown, then turned back to his mother. "No, I never slept with Betty."
He was saying he'd never had intercourse with her. Charlotte would take it to mean that no sex at all had happened, just like I had. I remembered what Jamil had said about alternatives, but I kept quiet. I didn't want to upset Charlotte, and I didn't want to know.
"Well, at least that shows better sense," Charlotte said. She walked up to him and smoothed the front of his T-shirt, then bowed her head, and I realized she was crying.
I couldn't have been more surprised if she'd bitten him, maybe less.
Richard's entire face crumpled into helpless lines. He looked at me as if for help, and I backed up. I shook my head. I was no better around crying women than he was, maybe less.
He hugged her to him. I heard her murmur, "I was so worried about you in that awful jail."
I backed up out of earshot, and Daniel joined me. He didn't seem eager to join them, either. Of course, Charlotte didn't have to cry to unman Daniel.
"Thanks, Anita," he said.
I looked up at him. He was wearing a red tank top that was almost a twin of one Richard had. For all I knew, it was the same one. He looked tanned and handsome and very grown-up. "You're assertive around everyone but your parents. Why is that?"
He shrugged. "Isn't everyone like that?"
I shook my head. "No."
Jason moved up beside us. He echoed me: "No." Then he laughed. "Of course, my mother would never have gotten into a fight in a bar, no matter what I did. She's much too ... decorous."
"Decorous," I said.
"My last roommate had a word-a-day calendar," Jason said.
"You've been reading again," I said.
He hung his head, looking abashed, then gave me rolled eyes and a grin. It was such a mix of shame and utter cuteness that I laughed. "I can't donate blood and have sex twenty-four hours a day. There's no television at the Circus of the Damned."
"If there was?" I asked.
"I'd still read, but don't tell anyone."
I put an arm around his shoulders. "Your secret is safe with me."
Daniel put his arm around Jason from the other side and said, "Won't breathe a word of it."
We walked towards the four-by-four, arm in arm. "If Anita was in the middle, this would be perfect," Jason said.
Daniel just stopped in his tracks, staring at Jason. I pulled away from both of them. "You just don't know when to stop, do you, Jason?"
He shook his head. "No."
Richard walked over to us. He sent Daniel to their mother, and Daniel didn't argue with the order. He sent Jason on to the car, and Jason didn't argue. I stood looking up at his suddenly serious face, wondered what my orders were going to be, and bet I would argue with them.
"What's up?" I asked.
"I'll have to go with Daniel and my mother to calm her."
"I hear a butcoming," I said.
He smiled. "Butthere's a ceremony to meet my lupa tonight. It's customary before two packs share a full moon that they be formally introduced."
"How formally?" I asked. "I didn't pack for formal."
The smile widened into that wondrous smile that was his mother's. It had that same utter good humor to it. Contagious. "I don't mean that kind of formal, Anita. I mean there are rites to observe."
"Rites, as in what?" I asked. I sounded suspicious, even to me.
He hugged me, spontaneously, not girlfriend-boyfriend, but just a happy-to-see-you hug. "I have missed you, Anita."
I pushed away from him. "I make a suspicious comment and you say you've missed me. I don't get that, Richard."
"I love all of you, Anita, even the suspicious parts."
I shook my head. "Stick to business, Richard. What rites?"
The smile faded, the good humor dying from his eyes. He looked suddenly sad and I wanted to take it back, to have him smile at me again. But I didn't. We weren't an item anymore, and he'd been dating little Miss Schaffer, the cowgirl hooker. I didn't understand that at all. She puzzled me even more than Lucy.
"I have to go with my mother for a while. Jamil and Shang-Da can explain what you have to do as my lupa tonight."
I shook my head. "One of the bodyguards stays with you, Richard. I don't care which one it is, but you don't go out there alone."
"Mom will not understand a chaperone that isn't family," Richard said.
"Don't go all momma's boy on me, Richard. I've had enough of that from Daniel for one night. Explain it any way you like, but you aren't leaving here without backup."
He stared down at me, and his handsome face was serious, arrogant. "I am Ulfric, Anita. Not you."
"Yeah, you're Ulfric, Richard. You're in charge, fine, then do a good job of it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that if the bad guys find you out alone tonight, they might not wait to find out if you're leaving tomorrow. One of them might get a little eager and try to hurt you."
"If it's not silver bullets, they can't kill me."
"And how are you going to explain to your mother that you survived a shotgun blast to the chest?" I asked.
He glanced back at her and Daniel. "You cut right to the bone, don't you," he said.
"It saves time," I said.
He turned back to me. Anger had darkened his eyes, thinned out his face. "I love you, Anita, but sometimes I don't like you very much."
"It's not me you don't like, Richard, not on this issue. You're terrified that if Mommy Dearest finds out you're a shapeshifter, she'll think you're a monster."
"Don't call her that."
"Sorry," I said. "But it's still the truth. I think you're underrating Charlotte. You're her son, and she loves you."
He shook his head. "I don't want her to know."
"Fine, but choose a bodyguard. Why not tell your mom that he's backup in case the police try to make trouble? It's the truth."
"As far as it goes," Richard said.
"The best lies are always at least partially true, Richard."
"You're much better at lying than I am," he said. I looked for anger in the words, but there was nothing. It was just a statement of fact that left his eyes empty and sad.
I was tired of apologizing, so I didn't. "Do you want to take their car and I can drive the four-by-four back to the cabins?"
He nodded. "I'll take Shang-Da with me. He doesn't like you much."
"I thought he might have warmed up to me since the fight this afternoon," I said.
"He still thinks you betrayed me," Richard said.
I didn't even try to touch that one. "Fine, I'll take Jason and Jamil with me. They can give me lessons in werewolf etiquette."
"Jason won't be much help. He's never been part of a healthy pack."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"It means that because our old lupa was such a sadistic bitch, we were all afraid of each other. A normal pack is much more touchy-feely, more casual with each other."
"How touchy?" I asked.
He smiled, almost sadly. "Talk to Jamil. He'll teach you and Jason, too." He seemed to think about that.
"What about the wereleopards, and the vampires?"
"I already asked Verne. They are our guests tonight."
"One big happy family," I said.
Richard looked at me. It was a long, searching look. It took a lot to meet his eyes and not to flinch. "It could be, Anita, it really could be." With that, he turned and walked to his mother and brother.
I watched him go and wasn't sure what to make of his last comment. I used to wonder why he put up with me, but after meeting his mother, I knew. It had taken me three Sunday dinners to realize why Charlotte and I were either in perfect agreement or on opposite ends of any discussion. We were too much alike. A family, like a pack, can only have so many alphas or it tears itself apart. Only Richard's brother, Glenn, is currently married, and his wife and Charlotte butt heads constantly. Aaron is a widower. I'm told the fights between Charlotte and Aaron's deceased wife were legendary. They'd all gone out and married someone like mom. Glenn's wife, though full-blooded Navajo, was still petite, and tough. The Zeeman men seemed to have a weakness for small and tough.
Beverly, as the only girl and the eldest, was wonderfully dominant. She and Charlotte had almost not survived her teenage years, according to Glenn and Aaron. Bev had settled down, gone to college, married, and was pregnant with her fifth child. She had four boys and was trying one last time for a girl.
I'd paid attention to Richard's family because I'd thought they were going to be my in-laws. That didn't seem likely to happen now. Oh, well. I had enough problems with my own family. Who needed a second one?