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I shrugged and let it go. “Be pessimistic on your own time, Merle, we need a little hope here, not negativity.”

“I’ll just shut up then,” he said, which implied that if he couldn’t be negative he had nothing to say. Fine by me.

I turned back to Gregory and his wide, frightened eyes. I touched his face, gently, trying to ease some of that fear, but he flinched ever so slightly when I touched him. You get enough abuse in your life, and you begin to think that every offered hand is a blow waiting to strike.

“It’ll be alright, Gregory,” I said. Since he couldn’t hear me, I must have been saying it to reassure myself. It didn’t seem to do a damn thing for Gregory.

I tried to see Gregory as a lust object, and I failed. I ran my hands over the smooth skin of his back, I grabbed a handful of those yellow curls, looked into those lovely eyes, but all I could feel was pity. All I could feel was protective towards him and how much I wanted to keep him safe. He was totally nude, sitting in front of me, and he was lovely. There was nothing wrong with the way he looked, except that I didn’t see Gregory in that way. Trust me to find a way to make virtue a problem.

I turned to Stephen, who was still kneeling beside us. “I’m sorry, he’s beautiful, but I want to hold him, keep him safe, not have sex with him, and protective intincts are not going to get Raina to come out.”

Cherry said, “You simply called Raina at the lupanar. Why is this different?”

I looked up at her, standing nude and comfortable against the deck railing. Zane was next to her, clothed, and just as comfortable.

“I can call Raina, but I can’t guarantee she’ll help me heal Gregory. The healing usually comes with lust, not without.”

“Call her,” Stephen said. “Once she’s here maybe the rest will come.”

“You mean call her munin, then get her in the mood, not me.”

He looked very solemn, but he nodded.

“You know what her idea of sex is, Stephen.”

He nodded again. “Trust me,” he said.

Strangely, I did. He wasn’t dominant, in fact was very often a victim, but Stephen did what he said he’d do, at almost any cost. There was a desperate stubbornness in him, no matter how often you knocked him down.

“I’ll call the munin.”

“And I’ll make sure that Raina sees Gregory the way she needs to see him.”

We looked at each other and had one of those moments of near perfect understanding. Stephen would do anything to save his brother, and I would do almost anything to help him do that.

30

I SAT BACK on my heels in front of Gregory, and I opened myself to the munin, dropped that barrier that kept Raina out, and she spilled up through me like warm water filling a pipe, up, up, riding on a wave of eagerness that she hadn’t had at the lupanar. A thrill of fear went through me. I knew it was a bad sign, but I didn’t fight her. I let her come, let her fill me up, let her laugh bubble from my throat.

When she looked at Gregory, she had no trouble seeing him as a sexual object, but then Raina saw almost everyone as a sexual object, so no big surprise.

I touched his face, caressed the line of his jaw. Gregory’s eyes widened. I realized in that moment that he might not know what the hell we were doing, or what had changed. I could call Raina and think rationally. I’d fought long and hard to be able to do that. I could be distant while my hand glided down Gregory’s bare chest. I could stop my hand—our hand—at his slender waist, and Raina couldn’t force me lower. She snarled in my head, giving me a visual of her in wolf shape, snapping at me. But it was just a visual, like a dream; it couldn’t hurt me, or anyone.

Raina spoke in my head. “This wolf still has teeth, Anita.”

“You know the rules,” I said.

“What?” Stephen asked.

I shook my head. “I’m talking to Raina.”

“That is just creepy,” Zane said.

I agreed with him, wholeheartedly, but Raina was already talking in my head, and I couldn’t answer him. “I know the rules, Anita, do you?”

“Yeah.”

“I do whatever I please . . .”

“And I try to stop