We spilled into the great clearing and Richard's power filled it, flowed over the lycanthropes like a fire springing from one dry branch to another. It filled them and made them turn to him. Only Marcus, Raina, Jamil, Sebastian, and Cassandra were untouched. Only they kept him out by force of will. He swept everyone else before him, and I knew that part of what let him do that was me. Distant as a dream or a half-remembered nightmare, was Jean-Claude, down that twisting power that was almost buried under Richard's shining light.
I felt every movement. It was like the world was suddenly crystalline, almost like the effect from an adrenaline rush, or shock, where everything seems carved and hard-edged and terribly, frightfully clear. It was like being dipped in reality, as if anything else would forever be a dream. It was almost painful.
Marcus sat in a chair that had been carved from rock so long ago the edges were rounded with weather and hands and bodies. I knew that this clearing had been the meeting place for the lukoi for a very long time.
Marcus wore a brown satin-lapeled tux. The shirt was of gold cloth, not gold lame, but the real deal, as if they'd melted down jewelry and beaten him out a shirt. Raina curled on the edge of the stone chair. Her long auburn hair was done in an elaborate swirl of soft curls on top of her head, down along her face. A gold chain cut across her forehead with a diamond the size of my thumb in it. More diamonds burned like white fire at her throat. She was absolutely na**d except for a sprinkling of gold body glitter, done thick enough on her ni**les to make them seem metallic. A diamond anklet glittered on her right ankle. Three gold chains rode low on her hips, and that was it.
And I'd complained about my outfit.
"Welcome, Richard, Anita," Marcus said. "Welcome to our happy family." His voice was deep and thick. It flowed with its own edge of power, but it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Richard could have worn his jeans and T-shirt, and still he would have won them over. There are things beyond clothing that make a king.
"Marcus, Raina." Richard released my hand slowly, and as he pulled away, the tie remained. It was a shadow of the way I'd bound Richard and Jean-Claude's auras to me, but more. He took a few steps away to stand a little in front of me. I could feel him like a large, shimmering thing.His energy was amazing. The closest thing I'd ever felt was the power of a Daoine Sidhe, a fairie of the highest court.
"You naughty boy," Raina said. "You've made her one of us."
"No," Richard said, "she is what she always has been: herself."
"Then how can you ride her power? How can she ride yours?" Raina pushed away from the chair, stalking along the ground in front of it, pacing like a caged animal.
"What have you done, Richard?" Marcus asked.
"She is my mate."
"Raina, test it," Marcus said.
Raina smiled, most unpleasant, and stalked over the open ground. She swayed, transforming walking into a seductive dance. I felt her power tonight. Her sex rode the air like the threat of lightning, prickling along the skin, drying out the mouth. I felt every male watch her, even Richard. I didn't resent it. Hell, I watched her. She was magnificent in her sheer, na**d lust. It was like sex for Raina was power, literally.
I slipped off the long, black coat and let it fall to the ground. There was a collective gasp from the human throats. I traced my hands over the bare skin of my waist, trailing down my leather-clad thighs. I laughed. A loud, joyous bark of noise. It was Raina. I was riding her power, dancing along the edge of her energy.
I stalked towards her, not waiting, but meeting her in the middle of the circle. We moved around each other, and I could match her dance. I pulled her aura of sex and violence into me, pulled it like a hand reaching inward and stealing bits of her. Fear widened her eyes, brought her breath faster.
She knew how to protect herself against another werewolf, but my brand of power was just different enough that she didn't know what to do with me. I'd never done anything like this before, didn't understand exactly what I was doing, until Raina backed off. She didn't run back to Marcus, but the shine was gone. She slunk back with her tail between her legs, and I could taste her inside my mind like I'd licked her skin.
I turned back to Richard and stalked towards him in the high-heeled boots. I felt every man watching. I knew it. I wrapped it around me and threw it all back into Richard. He stood almost frozen, his dark eyes filled with a heat that was part sex, part energy, part something else. And for the first time, I understood that something else. I heard that music, felt it dance inside my body.
I grabbed the leather cloak and pulled him down to me. We kissed and it burned, as if more than flesh was mingling. I released him abruptly, and my eyes didn't go to his face but fell lower. Without touching him, I knew he was hard and ready. I could still feel the pack, distant, but touchable. Jason's great wolf head brushed my thigh. I dug my fingers into that thick fur and knew that if Richard and I made love, the pack would know it. Here tonight, they'd be along for the ride. It wouldn't just be sex. It would be magic. And it didn't seem shameful or pagan or wrong.
"You can't let them do this," Raina said.
Marcus pushed himself to his feet. He seemed tired. "No, I don't suppose I can." He looked at Raina, naked, beautiful, fearful. "But it is not your blood that will be spilled tonight, is it, my love?" The irony was thick enough to walk on, and for the first time, I realized that Marcus knew what Raina was, maybe had always known.
Raina went to her knees in front of him, hands clutching at his legs. She rubbed her cheek along his thigh, one hand smoothing perilously close to his groin. Even now, it was what she knew best. Sex and pain.
He touched her hair gently. He stared down at her, and the na**d tenderness on his face made me want to look away. It was a terribly intimate look, more intimate than sex, more powerful. The fool loved her.
If he hadn't been paying to kill me, I'd have felt sorry for him.
Marcus stepped away from Raina. He began walking across the clearing. His power opened like a door, flowing like electric water across the wolves, across me. He undid his tie, opened the first few buttons of his shirt. "No more preliminaries, Richard. Let us do this."
"I know you tried to have Anita killed," Richard said.
Marcus stopped in midmotion. His small, sure fingers hesitated. Surprise chased across his face, then changed into a smile. "You have surprised me twice tonight, Richard. Let's see if you can make it three."
"I will kill you tonight, Marcus; you know that."
Marcus shrugged out of his jacket. "You can try."
Richard nodded. "I'd planned on giving you the chance to just leave."
"I tried to have your mate killed. You can't leave me alive now." He undid the cuffs of his shirt.
"No, I can't." Richard undid the cloak's tie, letting it fall to the floor. He pulled his shirt out of his pants and slid it over his head in one quick movement. The moonlight made shadows on the muscles of his arms and chest. I suddenly didn't want him to do it. I could shoot Marcus, and it would all be done. Richard would never forgive me, but he'd be alive. They wouldn't kill each other with power. They'd use claws and teeth for the killing. All Richard's trembling, eager power wouldn't keep him from getting his throat ripped out.
37
Richard turned to me, wearing only the leather pants and the boots. Marcus had asked that they not strip down, said something about saving an old man's dignity. Bullshit. There was something in the air that I didn't like, as if Marcus had known what was coming and he was ready.
"As acknowledged Ulfric, Marcus gets to choose the form we fight in," Richard said.
"What form did he choose?"
Richard raised his hand in front of my face. "Touch my hand."
He made it sound so serious for such a small request. I touched the back of his hand lightly.
"Grip my palm, Anita."
I wrapped my fingers around the lower part of his hand. Before I could look to his face or ask a question, I felt it. Energy welled up his hand like oil up the wick of a lamp. His skin flowed under my hand. I felt the bones lengthening. I felt his body give as if the boundaries that confined him to skin and bone and flesh had dissolved. It felt almost like he would scatter himself outward like I'd done earlier, but it wasn't his essence that was reaching outward. It was his body.
He held up his other hand, and I took it. I locked my fingers in his and felt his bones grow across my skin, watched claws form as his flesh flowed like clay. Distant as a scream, I knew I should have been scared or sickened. The power flowed down his shifting hands to my hands, flowing between us like cool fire.