Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [16]
I thought about that for a second. “You and Merle are the only men in your pard that have long hair.”
He nodded. “I think Caleb enjoyed it, and Noah, well,” he shrugged. “We all did things that we didn’t like, just to stay alive. To stay whole.”
I couldn’t think much less of Caleb, but it made me think less of Noah. I didn’t know what to say out loud. But Micah didn’t need me to talk anymore. The story was started, and he would tell it now, whether I wanted to hear it or not. It was my own damn fault, so I listened and gave him the only thing I could at this point—my attention. Not horror, not pity, just my attention. Horror was redundant, and pity—no one likes pity.
“You talked to Chimera, to more than one of his faces. You know how conflicted he was.”
I nodded, then said, “Yes.”
“Part of him was the ultimate male bully, and that part raped women. Part of him was gay, and the two parts hated each other.”
Chimera had given the idea of split personality a whole new meaning, because each personality had had a different physical form. Until I’d met him, seen it for myself, I’d have said it was impossible.
“I remember that part of him wanted me to be his mate, and part of him didn’t seem much interested in girls.”
Micah nodded. “Exactly.”
I was almost afraid of where this was going, but I’d started it. If he could tell the story, I could hear it, all of it.
“He didn’t just rape women,” Micah said, “but strangely, he would only rape a man if he were already gay. It was as if he only wanted the sex the person enjoyed to be used against them.” He shrugged, but it turned into a shiver. “I didn’t understand it. I was just grateful to not be on his list of victims.” He shivered again.
“Do you want my jacket?” I asked.
He gave a small smile. “I don’t think it’s that kind of cold.”
I reached out to touch him, and he stepped back, out of reach. “No, Anita, let me finish. If you touch me, I’ll get distracted.”
I wanted to say, let me touch you, let me distract you, but I didn’t. I did what he asked. No one to blame but myself. If I’d kept my mouth shut, we’d be inside dancing, instead . . . when was I going to learn to leave well enough alone? Probably never.
“But somewhere in all that mess Chimera called his mind, he was angry at me. I wouldn’t help him torture, wouldn’t help him rape. But I wouldn’t sleep with him voluntarily either, though he asked. I think he liked me, wanted me, and because his own twisted rules kept him away from me, he found other ways to amuse himself at my expense.”
He touched his face, as if searching it with his fingertips, almost as if he were surprised at what he found. As if it wasn’t the face he was expecting to find. “I can’t even remember what it was that Gina wouldn’t do. I think he wanted her to seduce an alpha of another pack that he wanted to own. She refused, and instead of taking it out on her, he took it out on me. He beat me bad enough that he broke my nose, but I healed, fast.”
“All lycanthropes heal fast,” I said.
“I seem to heal faster than most, not as fast as Chimera did, but close. He thought it had something to do with how easily we could both go from one form to another. He was probably right.”
“Makes sense,” I said. My voice was utterly calm, as if we were talking about the weather. The trick to hearing awful memories is not to be horrified. The only one allowed to have emotion is the one doing the telling. This listener has to be cool.
“The next time I refused to help him rape someone, he broke my nose again. I healed again. Then he made it a game. Every time I refused an order, he beat me worse, always in the face. One day, he finally said, ‘I’m going to ruin that pretty face. If I can’t have it, and you won’t use it on anybody else, then I’ll just ruin it.’ But I kept healing.”
He let go of his hair, and the wind whipped it around his face, but he ignored it now. He hugged