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Richard nodded. “I’d planned on giving you the chance to just leave.”

“I tried to have your mate killed. You can’t leave me alive now.” He undid the cuffs of his shirt.

“No, I can’t.” Richard undid the cloak’s tie, letting it fall to the floor. He pulled his shirt out of his pants and slid it over his head in one quick movement. The moonlight made shadows on the muscles of his arms and chest. I suddenly didn’t want him to do it. I could shoot Marcus, and it would all be done. Richard would never forgive me, but he’d be alive. They wouldn’t kill each other with power. They’d use claws and teeth for the killing. All Richard’s trembling, eager power wouldn’t keep him from getting his throat ripped out.

37

* * *

RICHARD turned to me, wearing only the leather pants and the boots. Marcus had asked that they not strip down, said something about saving an old man’s dignity. Bullshit. There was something in the air that I didn’t like, as if Marcus had known what was coming and he was ready.

“As acknowledged Ulfric, Marcus gets to choose the form we fight in,” Richard said.

“What form did he choose?”

Richard raised his hand in front of my face. “Touch my hand.”

He made it sound so serious for such a small request. I touched the back of his hand lightly.

“Grip my palm, Anita.”

I wrapped my fingers around the lower part of his hand. Before I could look to his face or ask a question, I felt it. Energy welled up his hand like oil up the wick of a lamp. His skin flowed under my hand. I felt the bones lengthening. I felt his body give as if the boundaries that confined him to skin and bone and flesh had dissolved. It felt almost like he would scatter himself outward like I’d done earlier, but it wasn’t his essence that was reaching outward. It was his body.

He held up his other hand, and I took it. I locked my fingers in his and felt his bones grow across my skin, watched claws form as his flesh flowed like clay. Distant as a scream, I knew I should have been scared or sickened. The power flowed down his shifting hands to my hands, flowing between us like cool fire.

He stopped when his hands were human claws with talons that could have ripped me apart. The power didn’t stop abruptly; it wasn’t like turning off a switch. It was like turning off a faucet, slowing the flow down to a trickle, a drop, then nothing.

I was on my knees and hadn’t remembered getting there. Richard knelt in front of me, hands still clasped in mine. It took me two tries to be able to talk. “How can you stop like that?”

He drew his newly formed hands carefully out of my hands. I shivered as the tips of his claws trailed over my skin.

“Controlling the change is what separates the sheep from the wolves,” he said.

It took me a second to realize he’d made a joke. He leaned into me and whispered, “If I lose control in the fight, or if I’m losing, I’ll shift completely. I want you to come touch me, if I ask you.”

“Why?”

His breath was warm against my cheek. He wrapped his arms around me, held me in the circle of his body, claws playing along the leather straps of the outfit. “I want you to feel the rush of power. I want you to know what it can be like between us.” His arms tightened. “If I’m losing, you can ride the power and use it to get my wolves out of here. The others will kill anyone they think is disloyal.”

I pushed away enough to see his face. “How can I use the power to do that?”

“You’ll know.” He kissed my forehead ever so gently. “Save them, Anita. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

He stood, my hands slipping over his body as he got to his feet. I caught one of his hands. My hand slid down the long, curved claw. It was as hard and solid and unreal as it looked. I’d felt his body shift, and yet, staring up at Richard’s handsome face and those monstrous hands, it was jarring. Still, I held on. I didn’t want to let him go.

“Careful of the claws, Anita. I’m not in human form anymore.”

He meant that a scratch might make me furry, might not. Hard to tell. But it was enough to make me let go. No matter how good Richard felt,