Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [118]
I’d seen the gesture before, from Jason and other wolves. It was his attempt to apologize to Richard for any offense. Jason, too, was trying to make things better. Only Richard stood there filling the room with his warm, crawling power, and made it worse. Why was it always Richard, lately, who pushed things worse? Or me? Never forget me. I could screw things up too, but not tonight. I was too scared to fuck it up on purpose tonight.
“Richard,” I said, “did you find the charm?”
He turned and it was as if his power were some huge beast, as if his power turned with him and stared at me out of his wolf amber eyes. I don’t know if it was the look, or the power, but it made that brush of fur whirl inside me. I stumbled, and only Crispin’s hand kept me from falling.
The moment he touched me, the wolf receded. I could breathe through Richard’s power. I clung to Crispin’s hand with both of my own, and it was like the world was a little more steady. I waited for the white tiger to rise inside me, but it didn’t. I just felt better.
Richard’s power lashed out, coming with his voice, like something thick and touchable that slammed into me. “I said, don’t touch her!”
Crispin staggered with me, as if whatever Richard had done was solid to him, too. But the weretiger kept us on our feet and drew me in against his body, shielding me from Richard. It was gallant, but if anything was guaranteed to make Richard more pissed, that was it.
He came for us, came for us in a blur of speed, and rage, and power, and I was still standing in a towel with only a gun in my hand, and a strange weretiger on my arm. If I wasn’t willing to shoot Richard, I was about to run out of options.
48
CRISPIN SHOVED ME behind him and braced for impact. Alex Pinn, the other weretiger, was just suddenly beside Crispin. I didn’t have time to decide whether that was good or bad. All I had time to do was decide that I wouldn’t use the gun.
Then the blur of speed that was Richard met the wall that was Shang-Da and Jamil. They had used their own impossible speed to be there before him. The impact of their bodies hitting made enough force of wind and physical energy that it pushed against us like some kind of small explosion.
Shang-Da was yelling, “Ulfric, remember yourself!”
Jamil was simply trying to hold Richard down without hurting him, or being hurt. Richard was a serious weight lifter and had a black belt in karate. Holding him without being willing to hurt him wasn’t going to work for long. Either they were going to have to hurt him, or he would most certainly hurt them.
Shang-Da tried again. “Ulfric, please!”
Richard’s anger fed his beast, fed his power. I couldn’t breathe; I was being baked alive with his power. His wolf pouring into me, into my beast. Such rage. I knew the taste of this anger. I knew it like a well-worn shoe, or a favorite sweater. The one that fits just right and makes you feel warm and safe. That was how my anger had made me feel for years. It was the only emotion I had allowed myself. It had taken the place of sorrow, pleasure, and love. My anger had been nearly everything to me once. I thought my therapy had helped me deal with some of that bottomless rage, but now standing there I realized that maybe it hadn’t been therapy. It had been vampire marks. I hadn’t just shared my anger with Richard through Jean-Claude’s marks; I had given it to him. A big portion of my rage had simply transferred to my reasonable, calm Richard.
I stared down at the fight on the floor. I stared down at three grown werewolves barely containing the struggling, snarling, yellow-eyed man, and I thought, This is my fault. I’d known that what Richard got through me, through the marks, had been my anger, but I hadn’t understood until just now what that meant. I’d had years of practice before I grew up with that rage. Poor Richard had had it dumped into his lap with no practice. I knew the burden he carried. I knew