Jamil nodded.
"You've made your point," I said.
"The greeting I am trying to teach you is like our version of a handshake. You both offer your faces at the same time. It's more like a kiss."
"Show me," I said.
He leaned into me again, but this time he didn't try to touch my mouth. He rubbed his cheek along mine, rubbing his face across my ear until his face was buried in the hair behind my ear. His movement had put my face against his hair. His hair was in cornrows, and the texture was rough and soft at the same time.
Jamil spoke with his mouth still against my hair, "You have to bury your face in the hair and smell the skin."
He burrowed his face into my hair until he had to be touching skin. I heard him breathing in air. His breath was almost hot against my skin.
I tried to return the favor, but had to raise on tiptoe, one hand against his chest for balance. Zane slid away from me, and I used my other hand on his shoulder. The cornrows made it easier to put my face next to the skin of his scalp. The braids moved around my face like small thin ropes.
I could smell his hair straightener, his cologne, and under all that was him. The moment his scent hit me, I felt a rush of power, and it wasn't his. I suddenly knew that Richard was sitting on a bed, holding his mother. I felt him look up as if he'd see me standing at the foot of the bed. But I was miles away, standing at the foot of a different bed. We drew in the rich warm smell of Jamil's skin, and Richard's power broke over me in a march of goose bumps.
Jamil drew back from me, hands still on my shoulders. His nostrils flared while he drew in scent. "Richard -- I smell our Ulfric. How?"
Zane pressed against my back, rubbing his face against my hair. Cherry had curled herself around my leg like a fetus. "She is your lupa. Bound to your Ulfric."
Jamil stepped back from me, something very close to fear on his face. "She cannot be bound to Richard. She is not lukoi."
I moved towards him, and Zane went to his knees behind me. Cherry let me go, hands sliding away reluctantly. They huddled together, holding each other.
I spared them a glance and asked, "You guys all right?"
Zane nodded. "I saw you call the power of the marks once before, but I've never been touching you when you called the Ulfric's power. It's a rush."
Cherry just stared at me, eyes gone large in a pale face.
"Don't I know it," Jason said. He was still across the room, hugging his na**d chest, hands rubbing up and down his bare arms as if he were cold. He wasn't cold.
I turned back to Jamil. "I am bound to Richard. It isn't the same kind of bonding that he'd have with another lycanthrope, but it is a bond."
"You are Jean-Claude's human servant," Jamil said.
I hated the term, but it was accurate, technically anyway. "Yes, I am, just as Richard is Jean-Claude's wolf to call."
"He cannot call our Ulfric like a dog. Richard does not answer to the vampire's whims."
"Me, either," I said. "Sometimes I think Jean-Claude may have bitten off more than he can drink with the two of us."
The door to the cabin opened, no knock, no preliminaries. Asher stepped through with Nathaniel in his arms. He was bundled into Asher's suit jacket. What I could see of his legs were pale and bare.
I ran forward. "What happened?"
Asher laid Nathaniel on the bed on his back, trapping the jacket under his body. He was nude except for the jacket. Nathaniel tried to curl up onto his side into a ball, but Asher stopped him, trying to smooth his legs down, to make him lie still. "Lie still, Nathaniel."
"It hurts!" His voice was strangled, twisted tight with pain.
I knelt by the bed, touching his face. He looked at me, eyes so wide they flashed white. His mouth opened and a small moan escaped him. His hand clawed at the bedspread as if he needed to hold something, anything. I gave him my hand and his grip was so tight I had to remind him not to crush my hand.
He muttered, "Sorry," then his spine bowed, body twisting. Normally, seeing Nathaniel completely nude would have embarrassed me. Now I was too scared to be embarrassed. There were bleeding cuts on his chest, but they looked shallow. Nothing seemed wrong enough for this kind of pain.
Cherry disappeared into the bathroom. I didn't think you were that squeamish if you were a nurse.
"Who did this?" I asked.
"He is our message from the local vampires," Asher said.
"What message?"
Nathaniel twisted on the bed, his other hand grabbing at my arm. Two slow tears trailed down his cheeks. "They kept asking me why we'd come here." He threw his head back and forth, and I caught a glimpse of something on his neck. I got one hand free and moved all that long, auburn hair so I could see his neck. A vampire bite showed in the smooth flesh of his neck. The bite was clean, neat, but the skin was slightly darker than it should have been.
"Did one of you do this?" I asked.
"I took blood from the bend of his arm," Asher said. "That is Colin's doing."
Nathaniel's body eased against the bed, the spasm or whatever passing. "I told them we were here to rescue Richard. I told them the truth, over and over." His hand convulsed around mine, eyes closing as if he were riding a wave of pain. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes, his hand easing around mine. "They wouldn't believe me."
Cherry came out of the bathroom. She tried to push me gently but firmly out of the way, but Nathaniel clutched at my hand. Cherry settled for making me kneel by the head of the bed. He could still hold my hand, but I was out of the way. She began to explore the wounds on his chest. She was very submissive, almost untrustworthily so, but let someone be injured and it was like a different Cherry rose to the occasion. She became Nurse Cherry, as if the leather-slut-from-hell was her secret identity.
"Do you have a first aid kit in this cabin?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"I've got one in my suitcase in the other cabin," Cherry said.
"I'll get it," Jason offered. He started for the door.
"Wait," I said. "Jamil, go with him. I don't want anyone else taken tonight."
No one argued with me. It was a first. The two werewolves just went for the door. Damian had to move out of the way for them to leave. He shut the door behind them and leaned against it. His eyes had gone a drowning, solid green, like emerald fire. His pale skin was taking on that translucent, almost glowing quality that the vamps get when their humanity begins to fold away. Strong emotions will do that to the lesser vamps: fear, lust, anger.
I looked at Asher. He was ... normal. He stood just back from the bed, that handsome, tragic, face blank and empty. It was so like the expression Jean-Claude used when he was hiding something.
"I thought Colin was either supposed to attack us directly or leave us alone," I said. "No one said anything about this kind of shit."
"It was ... unexpected," Asher said.
"Well, explain it to me."
Damian pushed away from the door, stalking into the room, every movement tight with anger. "They tortured him because they enjoyed it. They're vampires, but they fed off more than just blood."
"What are you saying, Damian?"
"They fed off his fear."
I looked from his glowing face to Asher, then back to Damian. "You mean literally, don't you?"
Damian nodded. "The one who brought me over was like that. She could feed off of fear as if it were blood. She'd go for days feeding off of terror, then suddenly she'd take blood. But she didn't just feed, she slaughtered. She'd come back to the chamber covered in blood, slick with it. Then she'd make me ... " His voice trailed off. He looked at me, his eyes were beginning to look like na**d green flame, as if his power were eating the bones of his eye sockets. "I felt it when we met Colin. I smelled it. He's like her. He's a night hag, a mora."
"What the hell is a night hag or a mora? And what do you mean, you met Colin? I thought you rescued Nathaniel."
"No, they gave him back to us," Asher said. "If we did not see him, the message would not be complete."
Cherry interrupted us. "His pulse is thready, his skin is clammy. He's going into shock. The cuts on his chest are shallow. Even two vampire bites in one night shouldn't put him into shock. We heal better than this."
"There is a third bite," Asher said. Through it all, his voice had been utterly calm, as if nothing touched him.