Cool Hand (47 page)

A crowd was gathering around us.

Through it came my House.

Not mine any more. Not mine. I shook with anger. Naryn’s House.

Safe. Better that way.

Mine!

A warning growl from Alex calmed me in time for Jen’s arrival.

Alex tried to stop her, but she knelt beside me and hugged me to her.

The snarling died in my throat and became a whine. Alex was pushing between us to get Jen away from me. I snapped at him.

Ricky pulled on Jen’s shoulder. “Jen, she doesn’t know what she’s doing. It’s too dangerous.”

“She won’t hurt me.” Jen buried her face in my fur and refused to let go.

Kin. Mine.

“Come back to me, honey,” she whispered.

I whined. It hurt to not shift.

My kin’s desires are sacred to me.

No. It’s safer to stay wolf, let Alex keep me under control.

My lips drew back in a silent snarl again.

She kissed me on the head, rubbed her face against my jaw and hugged me tighter.

She was smothering my senses in her. Her scent, her touch, her sound, her taste. Her eyes held mine.

Kin. Love.

“Come back,” she whispered again.

I shook, but she wouldn’t let go.

“You can’t stay wolf. You need to be both. Wolf and Athanate. You need to balance them.”

Pia tugged at Jen. “You can’t do this. If she turns back she’ll want Blood.”

“And she can have it. She knows she can.”

“Just wait for Diana.”

“And when Diana isn’t here?
We
have to fix this. You told me I have rights as Amber’s kin, Pia. I’m exercising them.”

Danger,
I whined.

Alex shifted to human.

“I agree with you,” he said to Jen. “We do it, but it should be me. I can take more damage. She won’t know what she’s doing.”

“No.” Jen wasn’t having any of it. “That’s the wrong way. She needs to know she can control herself, even with me, at the worst time for her. That’s what we need to prove. After that, everything gets easier.”

With Alex in human form, his dominance began to slip away.

I felt the pull from Jen. From Alex.

I changed and fell over.

“Too dangerous,” I croaked.

“Yes, honey,” Jen said and lay down beside me.

Someone was wrapping me in a survival blanket, but the trembling wasn’t because I was cold. It was because I felt the need. My jaw ached. I squeezed my eyes shut.

I tried to talk, but nothing came out.

David was stroking my head.

He’d found the necklace that I’d dropped when I changed.

Olivia, back in human form, wrapped in a blanket herself. She put the necklace back on me, a look of worship on her face.

I tried to tell her to stop it, but the words came out mangled.

Jen, her body so warm against mine, pulled my head down so my lips rested against her neck.

“Can’t,” I stuttered. “Dangerous.” The words were muffled against Jen’s sweet, rich skin.

Her pulse beat an excited thump against my lips.

She was murmuring lines I recognized from Pia’s writings: an Athanate oath, more of a love song from a kin.

I am your pass through the mountains,

And your track through the wilderness.

I make this gift with love that we both may live.

Time slowed. My jaws felt as if they were melting, but the groan that escaped me was all pleasure. The Athanate fangs and the blood channels, the
taryma
as Athanate called them, manifested, followed by an entire network of Athanate organs in the throat and chest dedicated to one thing: taking Blood.

“I love you,” she said.

My fangs throbbed in time with her heartbeat. Her flesh just seemed to dissolve beneath their pressure. We both gasped. My fangs slid into her neck, doing what they were superbly designed to do—find her Blood.

I took my first taste. It wasn’t like swallowing. The taryma rippled all the way down in my chest. It felt more like inhaling.

Blood.
Joy.

It was exquisite. Pleasure exploded in my fangs and cascaded down the taryma into my chest. It was so powerful, my back arched and my fangs slipped free of Jen’s neck. I moaned. The air was too cold against my fangs. I needed Blood, more Blood, warm Blood, more than anything.
Now.
The need blotted out everything else. I gripped her and strained blindly upwards with my mouth gaping, frantic.

“Gently, gently, gently,” Alex was whispering. I could feel him pressing down on me. Body and eukori both.

Kin!

I loved them. Both of them. Alex. Jen. Gentle.

Our eukori mingled.

They could feel what I felt—the need, the urgent need.

“I love you,” Jen breathed, pulling me back to her neck. “Oh, yes,” she groaned as my fangs slid into her neck again.

Gently.

I could take this step. I could choose this way.

Like the pack, I will be the sum of all the things I have ever done.

Vasana.
I will do this in love.

I sipped, so carefully. The rush came again, like a wave breaking over me, crashing into me. Only this time Alex and Jen were with me and it broke over them too.

No more.

I wanted it. I wanted to feed on Blood until I was sated. Jen wanted me to feed.

I will choose my path.

I tilted my head back and my fangs came clear of Jen’s neck. They still ached for more.

I had to heal her neck. My duty as an Athanate to my kin.

But Bian was already there, and Pia.

Jen, limp and giggly between them, while they licked her neck. I could smell the aniatropics being slathered on her.

“See,” she said. She still held onto me, refused to let go.

Then Alex. My alpha wolf.

He kissed me and rubbed his face against mine, wolf-style.

I could sense his Blood, thundering through his body.

I twisted and pulled him closer.

“I love you,” he said as I bit him.

Oh, my God. Pleasure.

He tasted different. He tasted of wolf. Male, strong, alpha.

I could feel the shock of his Blood all the way down into the Athanate organs in my throat and chest. I didn’t care what the Athanate told me, I could live on this Blood.

I
pulled
again, pulling his Blood into me and feeling the delicious shock detonate through all three of us.

And stop now.

Beautiful.

My kin are pressed against me, and I’m never going to get up again.

They’re worried.

The necklace burned against my skin.

I will choose my path.

I will master my way.

I will…

The words were unfamiliar. Not in any language I knew. Joy. Existence. Something joining them all together.

“Okay?” Jen wiped my face with her shirt sleeve, peering into my eyes.

My mouth moved, but no sound came out.

Complete. Enough for now. Peaceful. So wonderful.

Both kin worrying. Alex’s wolf wants to come out. Nuzzle me.

Go ahead. No reason to worry. Everything is good.

Warm. Wonderful.

The third truth is floating to the surface. Stop reaching for it. It will come.

Slowly. Unfamiliar words, not in English. They mean…

I will exult in my being.

Tears ran.

Someone was cleaning my face. All the blood and dirt. I needed a bath, not a wipe.

I will exult in my being.

I didn’t need to fear my wolf and my Athanate. The two parts of me had learned to work together, not each driving the other side to rogue. They’d flexed their dominance and found the good in each outweighed the bad. They had found a balance.

But that wasn’t enough. The insanity in my head was something else entirely. The part Chatima had said:
patterns others have written on you
.

I withdrew from sharing with my kin. I wound my eukori tightly around all the madness that was leaking from me.

I can’t let anyone else feel this.

More and more people gathering. Athanate. Were. Adepts. Noisy. Joy and sorrow blended together.

My House were worried. They formed a ring around me.

Felix’s sister, Martha, has somehow found her way to my side. Silas stands behind her like one of the Lyssae statues in the basement at Denver, impossibly perfect, his face unreadable in the starlight. They are holding hands. There are more behind them. So many more. A silent part of the crowd.

Martha bends down and kisses my forehead.

Cold lips.

Fingers trace my cheek.

She’s so cold.

Silas bends over me. I can’t hear him. I can read his lips. Good hunting, he says.

Martha’s head is tilted up as if she hears something, far away.

Her lips move. Listen, she says. Listen to the song.

The look on her face. Joy breaking like dawn in her eyes.

I try to say her name. Martha.

I chose a path. For everything, there is a cost.

They were bound by me on a wheel that turned.

Death and sorrow and pain and loss.

I can see their wolves more clearly than I can see their faces. Listening. Listening. Then running. So many of them. Running out into the depthless night. Following the song.

“Is she all right?” Jen said, her voice sharp with anxiety. “She’s not talking.”

“She’s…fine.” Diana said. “She’s gone into Blood rapture. Not the most surprising thing that’s happened tonight.”

So that’s what this is. Blood rapture. Floating, in a sea of sorrows.

Martha? Silas?

Nothing.

I blinked.

“She’ll come out of it slowly,” Diana went on, sounding exhausted. “You have to stay with her.”

Diana’s hands on my head. Real hands.

Fingers, spirit fingers, sinking into my head.

Not good. Darkness. Make my eukori tighter. So tight nothing can get out.

Words. Arguments. Fear. Darkness in my head.

Wrap my eukori tighter and tighter. I can’t let anyone see this.

“I can’t do anything now,” Diana said. “I will try as soon as I can. But we’ve had an order from Skylur. I can’t refuse. Neither can Amber. We have to join Skylur in Los Angeles
now
.”

“She’s in no state to travel.”

“We’re in no state to disobey.”

Helicopter. A sensation so familiar I couldn’t tell where reality stopped and flashback started.

Faces bent over me. They didn’t fit.

“Tell Top I’m sorry,” I said. “I lost them. I lost them all. I’m sorry, Top.”

“You’re not making sense, honey.” Jen, worried. Face pale.

Had I been talking aloud? Where were we? Not in South America.

I should ask.

I kissed her instead. Lost myself in the sensation. Alex and Jen were crushing me between them. Their hearts beat in time with mine. It didn’t matter where I went in my head. The thumping of their hearts was like a beacon in the vastness of the night. I’d always find my way home.

Hold this moment. Hold it. Precious.

The thudding of the helicopter blades faded beneath the whine of the turbines running down.

Angry voices. Urgency. Smell of aviation gas.

I turned my head and breathed in Alex’s scent. Wolf. Pack. Calm.

A looming shape. A jet.

They tried to strap me in.

No! No! No! I’m screaming. I’ll never get out of here.

I slammed the door closed on my eukori again.

I ended up on the floor, squeezed between my kin, trembling violently.

Never let it out.

Doors close. Pressure changes. Engines spool up.

The lights dimmed.

The plane smelled of new leather and air fresheners.

I couldn’t shut my eyes. I couldn’t. There were nightmares waiting. Nightmares. It
did
matter where I went in my head, because there were places I couldn’t return from.

“Rest,” Jen whispered.

We’re flying.

Floating…

Floating down the river of night toward the city of dreams.