Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [745]
But underneath those thoughts were others, though thoughts might be the wrong word. His beast was in there, his wolf, and it wanted me to change. It wanted me to be wolf, because then I would belong to it. Can’t be lupa and Nimir-Ra if you’re actually wolf for real.
The thought made me look across the bed, until I found Micah. I saw it in his eyes, the loss, as if he were already certain of it. No way. I would not lose him, not now. I turned to look around the room for my other leopard. Turned too fast, hurt the muscles in my left shoulder, muscles I’d torn. Nathaniel came to the side of the bed as if he understood that I was looking for him.
There were tears drying on his face, as if he’d cried, and hadn’t bothered to wipe them away. You could date outside your species, I knew that, but I remembered Richard saying once that dominants don’t. If you were high enough up in the power hierarchy, you didn’t date outside the pack. I was lupa; there was no higher-ranking female than me. I was Bolverk, which would have made me like an officer anyway. Either way you cut it, if the wolf I could touch came out for real, then I’d lose more than a surprise pregnancy.
I knew I had at least one more beast inside me. I held leopard, the way I held wolf. If I was finally going to go all the way furry, could I choose what kind of furry? Looking into Nathaniel’s face, watching Micah look away so I wouldn’t read his face, I knew I had to try.
I gazed up at Richard. I said it out loud: “You don’t want me to change, that’s why you won’t help.”
“You don’t want to be one of us, not for real.” His face was sliding back to that arrogant, angry mask.
“You’re right.”
His anger showed, almost a pleased anger, as if that one statement proved that I was no better than he was, no more comfortable in furry skin.
I looked at Micah and Nathaniel. Micah had moved so that he could hug Nathaniel. “Micah, Nathaniel, help me call leopard.”
Micah looked startled. “It’s not a choice, Anita. I can smell what you are.”
I started to shake my head, but whatever I’d done to my left shoulder made it hurt too much. “I hold four different strains. Why can’t I pick which way I go?”
Graham and Clay looked at Richard, as if wondering what he’d say. “I think you’re out of choices,” he said, “but if you want to try, I won’t stop you.” He was hurt, and his trying to hide it made it more painful to see. If I changed, he’d look elsewhere. I didn’t think he’d find someone willing to share him with what amounted to a permanent mistress, furry or not, but hey, it wasn’t my life. It was his life.
I could see the wolf in my head, like a waking dream, all subtle cream and white and black and gray. It looked at me with eyes that were an amber so dark they were almost brown. It was like looking into a piece of your soul and having it look back.
Richard slid off the bed. The wolf didn’t panic; it stood there in me, patient, waiting. Graham started to follow, sliding off. The wolf paced closer to the surface again, agitated. I grabbed his arm. “Stay.” He froze under my touch, half kneeling beside the bed.
Clay looked from me to Richard. “Stay until she says go,” Richard said, in a voice that managed to be closed, empty, and angry all at the same time.
“Micah, Nathaniel, help me raise our beast.” They didn’t argue or hesitate; they simply crawled up on the bed. They crawled toward me in that graceful way that the lycanthropes had, as if they had muscles that we mere mortals didn’t have, as if they could have balanced a cup on their backs.
Hurt as I was, watching them crawl toward me nude quickened my breathing, sped my pulse. It made the wolf start to pace in tight, agitated circles. I didn’t have a hand to touch Clay. “Clay, touch me.” He closed the small distance he’d made for Richard to straddle me. He pressed his body against the line of mine, but was careful not to touch my left