"I don't mean dead, Anita. I mean arrested."
"I knew what you meant, Dolph."
He was quiet for a second. "I know you knew what I meant, but I thought I should say it, anyway. Don't kill anyone."
"Would I do something so illegal?"
"Don't start, Anita."
"Sorry. Thanks for all the info. It's more than I'd hoped for. After meeting him, I'm not exactly surprised by any of it. He is a very creepy guy."
"Creepy -- Anita, he's a hell of a lot more than creepy."
"You sound worried, Dolph."
"You're down there without a safety net, Anita. The cops are not your friends."
"That's an understatement," I said. "But the state cops are down here on the murder now."
"I can't come down there," Dolph said.
"I would never ask you to."
He was quiet so long that I said, "Dolph, you still there?"
"I'm here." He didn't sound happy. "You know how I told you not to kill anyone?"
"Yeah," I said.
"I'll deny this in court, but don't hesitate, Anita. If it comes down to him or you, make the right choice."
My mouth was hanging open. "Dolph, are you telling me to murder him if I get the chance?"
Dolph was quiet again. Finally, he said, "No, not murder, but I am saying don't let him get the drop on you. You do not want to be at this man's mercy, Anita. Some of the bodies they've found have been tortured. He's real creative about it."
"What's in that file that you haven't told me about, Dolph?"
"They found one man's head floating in his pool. There were no marks of a weapon, like the head had been pulled off. They never found the body. It all reads like that, Anita. Not just violent but weird shit."
"You going to post bail if I nail him and get caught?"
"You get caught, we never had this conversation."
"Mum's the word," I said.
"Watch your back, Anita. Niley doesn't have any limits. That's what all this paperwork means. He's a total f**king sociopath, Anita, and Beck and Hart are the same thing."
"I'll be careful, Dolph. I promise."
"Don't be careful, be ruthless. I don't want to be identifying what's left of your body after he gets through with it."
"You trying to scare me, Dolph?"
"Yeah," he said, then he hung up.
I hung the phone up and sat on the bed in the hot, hot room, and I was afraid. I was suddenly more afraid than I had been since we got here. Dolph didn't spook easily. I'd never heard him like that, not about anything or anybody.
Nathaniel touched my leg. "What's wrong?"
I shook my head. I couldn't shake the bad feeling. Dolph, Mr. Law and Order, had encouraged me to kill someone. Unprecedented. The police were telling me to break the law. Too weird. But underneath the wonderment of it was the fear, a fine, trembling sense of unease. Demons. I didn't like demons. They didn't give a shit about silver bullets or much of anything else. Richard felt strong in his faith. I envied him that. Iwas having a crisis of faith right now. I mean, I was sleeping with the undead and had cheated on one lover with another. I also had a few more kills to my credit than the last time I'd been touched by the demonic. I wasn't feeling particularly pure and holy right now. You needed that against demons. You needed surety.
Nathaniel laid his head on my thigh. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
I stared down at the na**d man with his head in my lap. No, if I ran up against a demon now, my house was made of glass, and nothing throws stones like the demonic. They know just where to hit so that the whole damn thing comes crashing down around your ears. I was really not in the mood to find out how far from grace I'd actually fallen.
38
Cherry came into the room. She'd slipped into a pair of jean shorts, and a white midriff tank top. Her small br**sts were pressed against the thin material. I was a little too well-endowed to ever dream of going without a bra, but small or not, in that top she needed a bra. I was a prude.
Her short yellow hair was still damp. She stalked into the room on those long legs, managing to look both slutty casual and unnaturally graceful.
Just watching her walk into the room made me want to move Nathaniel's head out of my lap. Force of will alone kept me from scooting away from him. We weren't doing anything wrong. But it bothered me.
"Your turn," Cherry said. "I'll wait with Nathaniel."
"Is Zane out yet?"
I caught movement in the hall, and it was Zane. He was wearing jean shorts, too, and nothing else. The ever-present nipple ring was the only thing on his pale, thin chest.
"Don't you ever take that thing out of your chest?" I asked.
He smiled. "If I take the ring out, the hole will close up and I'll have to get it pierced all over again. I might get the other nipple pierced, but I don't want to have to redo the first one."
"I thought you liked pain," I said.
He shrugged. "In some situations with na**d women, yeah." He touched the ring, pulling on it until the nipple stretched just a little. "The actual piercing hurt like a son of a bitch."
I looked at the slender, too-thin chest, especially the part right next to his right arm. There was a dark area where the shoulder attached to the chest, but that was all.
"Is that all that's left of the bullet wound?" I asked.
Zane nodded and sat down at the foot of the bed, crawling onto the covers so he was beside Nathaniel and far too close to me. "You can touch the wound if you want."
I frowned. "No, thanks." I started to back off the bed on all fours, spilling Nathaniel's head gently to the covers. I stopped myself. Marianne said that Raina fed on my embarrassment, my prudishness, that if I could be more comfortable around small stuff, Raina would lose some of her power over me. Was it true?
I wasn't attracted to Zane. That moment last night had been pure Raina. She seemed to have been attracted to anything that had a pulse and some things that didn't. I gritted my teeth and reached out towards Zane.
He went very still, face suddenly serious, as if he had some clue how much it cost me to reach out to him. I ran my fingertips over the wound. The skin was smooth, shiny like a scar but softer and more pliable. I found myself running my hand over the wound, exploring it. It felt strangely plastic, and at the same time soft, like baby's skin.
"This feels ... cool."
Zane grinned. It reminded me of Jason and that one thought relaxed a tension in my shoulders that I hadn't even known was there.
Cherry came up behind him to slide her hands over his shoulders, massaging them. "I never get over being amazed at how we heal."
I wanted to take my hand back, just because Cherry had touched him, too. I forced myself to keep my hand on the wound, but I'd stopped exploring it, just touching it was all I could manage.
"The muscles can get tight when it's healing," Cherry said. "You get spasms around it, like the body heals too fast for the muscles to keep up."
I took my hand away slowly. I sat on the bed watching Cherry massage Zane's shoulders. Nathaniel nuzzled my leg, rolling his eyes up to me. I didn't move away from him, and he seemed to take that as permission to roll his head onto my thigh. He nestled against me with a contented sigh.
Zane rolled onto his back on the other side of me, not touching me, but watching me. His eyes were very careful.
Cherry stayed kneeling on the foot of the bed, watching my face. They all watched me like I was the center of their world. I'd seen dogs in obedience trials watch their owners that way. In dogs it was a good thing. In people it was unnerving. I didn't have a dog because I didn't feel responsible enough to take care of one. Now I suddenly had three wereleopards, and I knew I wasn't responsible enough for them.
I laid my hand on Nathaniel's warm hair. Zane stretched his full six-foot frame, fingers and toes straining, spine bowing like a big cat.
I laughed. "What am I supposed to do, rub your tummy?"
Everyone laughed, even Nathaniel. I realized with a shock that it was the first time I'd ever heard him laugh. The laughter was young, high-schoolish. Lying na**d in my lap with claw marks on his butt, and he was laughing, a full-throated, happy sound.
I was happy to hear it, and nervous. They were trying to make me their home. Because that was what an Ulfric was supposed to be, and a Nimir-ra, or Nimir-raj, for a guy, was the equivalent. Strangely, there didn't seem to be a werewolf equivalent of a queen wolf. Sexism? Or some arcane shit I didn't understand yet? I'd ask Richard later.