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“All lycanthropes heal fast,” I said.

“I seem to heal faster than most, not as fast as Chimera did, but close. He thought it had something to do with how easily we could both go from one form to another. He was probably right.”

“Makes sense,” I said. My voice was utterly calm, as if we were talking about the weather. The trick to hearing awful memories is not to be horrified. The only one allowed to have emotion is the one doing the telling. This listener has to be cool.

“The next time I refused to help him rape someone, he broke my nose again. I healed again. Then he made it a game. Every time I refused an order, he beat me worse, always in the face. One day, he finally said, ‘I’m going to ruin that pretty face. If I can’t have it, and you won’t use it on anybody else, then I’ll just ruin it.’ But I kept healing.”

He let go of his hair, and the wind whipped it around his face, but he ignored it now. He hugged himself, held himself tight. I wanted to go to him, wanted to hold him, but he’d said no. I had to respect that, had to, but damn, damn.

“He didn’t beat me the next time, he took a knife to me. He cut my face up, took the nose, ate it.” He gave a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Jesus, it hurt, and it bled. God, it bled.”

I touched his arm, tentatively, gently. He didn’t tell me to go away. I eased my arms around him and found that he was trembling, a fine tremor that went from the top of his head down his entire body. I held him in my arms and wished I knew what to say.

He whispered against my hair. “When it grew back, but not all the way back, he beat me again. New flesh is more tender than old, and when it broke enough times, it stayed broken. It didn’t heal perfectly, and once he’d messed me up, he seemed satisified. Now that Chimera isn’t here to mess me up, my nose is healing. It’s getting straighter, every time I come back from leopard form.” He leaned in against me, slowly, as if he had to fight to let the tension go. He stayed like that, relaxing by inches, while I held him and rubbed his back in useless circles.

Normal people would have told him lies, like it’s alright, I’m here, but he deserved better than lies. “He’s dead, Micah. He’s dead, and he can’t hurt you anymore. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

He gave another sound, half swallowed laugh, half sob. “No, he can’t, because you killed him. You killed him, Anita. I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t protect my people. I couldn’t protect them.” He began to collapse to his knees, and if I hadn’t caught him, he’d have fallen. But I did catch him, and I lowered us both to the edge of grass near the trees. I sat on the grass and held him, rocked him, while he cried, not for himself, but for all the people he couldn’t save.

I held him until the crying quieted, then stopped, and I held him some more in the windswept silence. I held him and let the October wind wash us both clean. Clean of sadness, clean of that horrible urge I had to tear things down. I made myself a promise sitting there in the grass, with the feel of him wrapped around my body. I promised not to poke at things anymore. I promised not to break things if they were working. I promised not to stir up shit, if it didn’t have to be stirred. I said a little prayer to help me keep those promises. Because, God knew, that the chances of me keeping any of those promises without divine intervention were slim to none.

7

BY THE TIME Nathaniel and Jason came looking for us Micah was back to normal. Normal for Micah meant that if I hadn’t seen him break down, even I wouldn’t have guessed. In fact, he was so back to normal that it made me wonder how many other breakdowns I’d missed. Or had I caused this one? Was he able to maintain absolute control as long as no one made him look at it? Of course, even if that were true, that didn’t sound very healthy. Oh, hell, maybe we all needed therapy. If I took the entire pard in, maybe we could get a group discount.

Nathaniel sat on the other side