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We all froze, waiting for him to do or say something. At least a full minute passed, and he hadn’t moved. Claudia looked across the room at me. I shrugged. I’d been engaged to him once, and I’d been his lover, but I had no clue what to do. That was one of the problems with Richard and me, we so often didn’t know what to do with each other.

I started to walk around the bed, but Jason grabbed my wrist. “Close enough.”

I didn’t argue. I just stopped and looked down at him. He was still staring at his scraped-up hands. “Richard, Richard, are you in there?”

He laughed then, but it wasn’t a good laugh. It was one of those laughs that held more bitterness than humor. Everyone in the room, except me, jumped when he laughed, as if they’d expected anything but that. I’d learned not to try to guess what he’d do.

“I want to lick the blood off my hands,” he said in a strangled voice.

“Then do it,” I said.

He looked up at me. “What?”

“It’s your blood. It’s your hands. If you want to lick your own wounds, then do it.”

“Won’t you be disgusted?”

I sighed. “Richard, it doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what you think.”

“You’d think it was disgusting,” he said.

I sighed, again. “No, Richard, actually, no. The licking will make the scrapes feel better, and you’ll enjoy the taste of blood.”

He frowned up at me. “You wouldn’t have said that a year ago.” It was almost a whisper.

“I might not have said it six months ago, but I’m saying it now. Lick your wounds, Richard, just don’t live in them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, and his anger flared, like a small hot whip against my skin.

“Don’t get pissy, Richard. I’m trying to live the life I’ve got, not some dream of a life that I’m never going to have.”

“And you think I am.”

“You’re Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, and you’re afraid to lick your bloody hands because someone else might think it’s not very human. So, yeah, I think you’re still pretending that you’re going get another shot at a life. This is it, Richard. This is who and what we are. This is it. You need to embrace that.”

He shook his head, and his eyes glittered in the lights, as if there might be tears in those perfectly brown eyes. His voice when it came was even, no hint of those glittering eyes. “I tried.”

I was shielding as hard as I could. I didn’t want anymore peeks into his and Clair’s love life, but I could guess. “With Clair?”

He looked up, and the anger was winning over the tears. I’d never seen him this out of control of his emotions. I’d seen him angry, bitter, sad, but never this see-saw. It was like angry and sad were the only emotions he had left. “You saw it, then.”

“I’m shielding like a son of a bitch right now. I saw that you had a fight, a bad one. But that’s about all I saw.”

He opened his mouth, then glanced behind him. “I won’t hurt anyone, but this isn’t a conversation for a crowd.”

The wererats looked at me. I sighed and wondered if I was being stupid. Maybe, but I was going to do it anyway. “You guys can go.”

Claudia gave me a look. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Anita.”

“Neither do I,” I said, “but do it anyway.”

She shook her head but motioned the two men through the door. She turned with the door halfway closed. She looked at me, and said, “We’ll be right outside. You yell, if you need us.”

I nodded. “I will, I promise.”

She gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me, but she went and closed the door behind her.

“Get out, Jason,” Richard said.

“It’s his room, Richard,” I said.

“He doesn’t get to hear this,” Richard said.

Jason got off the bed, slowly, like he still hurt. “If I leave and you hurt her, neither you nor I will ever forgive you.”

Richard stared up at the tall wolfman. They had a moment of simply staring at each other, and whatever they saw in each other’s faces seemed to satisfy them both. Richard said, “You’re right. I won’t hurt her.”

“What about Nathaniel?”

Richard looked past him to the tall, dark form of Nathaniel. “He needs to