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“Anita…” He made a painful sound of my name, so much pain in that one word. He crawled onto the bed, and showed that he was still wearing shorts. He’d either taken the time to dress, or slept clothed, very unlycanthrope. The other men made room for him, but they didn’t leave the bed. He started to crawl over me, but the first touch tore small pain noises from me. He went up on his hands and knees above me, keeping his weight off me, but my wolf was too close to the surface. Richard putting himself above us like that meant he thought he was superior to us and my wolf didn’t think he’d earned that. Neither did I.

I felt the wolf crouch to spring. Felt it gather itself as if it could spring from my body to Richard’s. I had a moment to realize that it could do just that. I’d felt Richard’s beast and one of mine fight once. It had hurt. I was already hurt. I did not want to do this.

“Move, Richard.” My voice was an abused whisper.

“It’s all right, Anita, I’m here.”

I put my good arm against his chest and pushed. “Move, now.”

“You’re in a dominant position over her,” Graham said, “I don’t think she likes it.”

Richard looked at him, while his body stayed over mine. “She’s not a wolf, Graham, she doesn’t think like that.”

A low growl trickled out of my throat. I didn’t mean for it to.

Richard turned his head slowly, the way you do in horror movies when you finally look behind you. He stared down at me, his hair like a thick frame around the soft astonishment of his eyes. “Anita…,” he said, but my name was a question this time, as if he wasn’t sure.

That soft, deep roll of growl vibrated across my lips again. I whispered in a voice deeper than any I’d ever had, “Move.”

“Please, Ulfric,” Clay said, “please move.”

Richard went back on his knees, still straddling me, but in a postion that a wolf couldn’t exactly duplicate. It should have been enough, but my wolf had found another way out, a hole that it could climb through. Always before when I’d shared my beast with other lycanthropes I’d only felt fur and bone, as if some great beast were walking around inside me, but this time I saw it. I saw the wolf as I’d seen it in the dream. It wasn’t truly white, but the color of cream, with dark markings like a saddle across its back and head. That dark cape was every shade of gray and black intermingled, and even the white and cream wasn’t truly white or cream, but mixed like milk and buttermilk. I stroked my hand across that fur, and it was…real.

I jerked so hard it hurt, made me cry out, but I could still feel the memory of fur under my good hand, as if I’d touched something solid.

“She smells real,” Graham said.

Richard had gone very still where he knelt over me. “Yes,” he said in a faraway voice, “she does.”

“Bring her wolf,” Clay said, voice soft. “Make her change, so she’ll stop hurting herself.”

“She’ll lose the baby,” Richard said, but he was staring down at me with a look on his face that I couldn’t read, or maybe didn’t want to.

“She’s going to lose the baby anyway,” Claudia said.

He looked down at me, and his eyes were lost. “I can see the wolf inside you, Anita, just behind my eyes, I can see it. We can smell it. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to bring your beast?” His voice sounded empty, as if he were already in mourning. He didn’t want to do it; that much was clear. But for once, we agreed.

“No,” I said, “don’t.”

He didn’t slump, but a tension went out of him. “You heard her. I won’t do it against her will.”

“Say that after you’ve seen the convulsions. I’ve never seen anyone fight like this, not for this long,” Claudia said. “Once someone’s this far along, they shouldn’t be able to fight the change. Even her eyes are still human.”

Richard gazed down at me, face solemn. “That’s our girl,” but he didn’t sound happy when he said it. He let down his shields, not all the way, but as if he blinked metaphysically. I got a glimpse at his emotions, his thoughts, just a glimpse. If I shifted for real, he wouldn’t want