Bullet

20

HIS ENERGY HAD calmed some by the time I came out of the bathroom. He was sitting on the edge of the bed closest to the door. He’d finger-combed his blue-spiked hair, but without more gel, it had just taken the spikes out and showed me that his hair actually had a natural part to one side. It was really too long on top to part well, but it was there. His shoulders were rounded as if he were hunching in on himself. But it was only as he sat up straighter that I saw he had found his gun in its holster, because it was there on the bed beside him. Not good. But honestly he didn’t need the gun to hurt me.

“You’re never going to forgive me for what I did to your two pet lions, are you?” he said.

“You mean almost beating them to death?”

“Yeah, that.” He sounded tired.

“You told me once that you think, What would Anita think of me if I did this or that? That you worried that if when you did bad things I’d think less of you. How the hell did you think I’d react to what you did to Noel and Travis?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Did you think I’d be happy?”

“I was pissed. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I just wanted to hurt you, Anita. I wanted you to hurt the way I’ve been hurting, so I hurt someone you cared about.”

“Oh, that makes it all better then,” I said, and the first heat of anger was there. I took a deep breath and let it out slow. I had a right to be angry, but I wasn’t sure what it would do to my lioness to get angry with him. I didn’t have any other animals in the room to help distract my lion. I sure as hell did not want to turn into a werelion for real now.

“You make me crazy, Anita.”

“I don’t make you anything, Haven. You choose to lash out at people. You decide that you want to hurt me so you hurt Noel. Lashing out at people is what muscle does, not a leader. Kings don’t let anger control them.”

“You felt the power between us last night, Anita. You know I’m the most powerful lion in this city.”

“It’s not always about who’s the most powerful, Haven.”

“Then what is it about?” he asked.

“Control,” I said.

“What, like your bleeding-heart Ulfric?”

“Richard stepped up tonight.”

“And just like that you forgive him everything? All the shit he’s done just wiped out because he finally tried.”

“I give points for trying,” I said.

“You forgive him because you love him,” Haven said. He looked at the floor as he said it.

“I don’t know if I love Richard, but I did love him once.”

“You’ve never loved me, have you?”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I waited too long to answer, because he said, “I guess not answering is an answer.”

“Do I say I’m sorry?” I asked.

“You shouldn’t have let me kill the old Rex, Anita. You never should have let me move here.”

I looked at him, all that male pride hunched in on itself, and said the only thing I had left: the truth. “You’re right. I should have said no.”

He looked up at that. He looked startled and his face looked more real that way. I realized that most of the time he wore a cocky, nothing-bothers-me mask, but the face he turned up to me was naked of its mask. There was real pain there, and it made my chest tight to see it.

“Did you ever really want me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“But you don’t want me now,” he said.

“Right this moment, no.”

“Why not?” he asked, and his eyes were so angry when he looked up at me.

I stopped moving forward. “Nothing’s changed, has it? The power last night and knowing that we have one of the scariest vampires ever hunting us doesn’t make any difference to you.”

“Why should it?” he asked, and his big hands were gripped in front of him.

“Because you’re one of the leaders of this city. Because you’re the Rex, the king, and you’re supposed to care about things that could hurt or destroy your lions.”

“I don’t care about my lions. I don’t care about anything but you. I tried to be a good boy for you. I tried to be the kind of man you needed, but no matter how good I am it’s never enough for you. There’s nothing I can do to be more important in your life.”

“Yeah, there is, but you won’t do it.”

“What? Tell me. What do I have to do to be higher up on your list?”

“Share better,” I said.

He glared at me, and that hot, trembling energy rose a notch so it felt like the air was pressing on my chest. It was hard to breathe through the heat of his power.

He stood up, and the energy radiated off of him like heat from a summer road. I could see it in the air around him. “I am Rex, and I don’t share, because I don’t have to share. It’s my pride and I get to run it the way I want to run it, and that means I don’t share my Regina with anyone.”

“Then find a nice little subservient werelion to settle down with and you can be master of your little kingdom, but I don’t work that way.”

He gave a harsh laugh. “I thought I was God’s gift to women before I got to St. Louis, and you. But I can’t be nearly as good as I think I am, or you wouldn’t have been able to kick me out of your bed for almost a year.”

“You tried to slice up Nathaniel and Micah, Haven. What did you think I’d do?”

“I was trying to make a point.”

“And that point would be?”

“That I can kick both their asses. You do know that I could have taken all three of you, but I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I know you stopped fighting as hard when I joined the fight. I appreciate that, but you need to appreciate that I didn’t get a gun and shoot you when you started cutting up the men I love.”

“They aren’t men, Anita. They’re wereanimals, and in our world if you can’t fight your way out, you don’t lead, you don’t win, you don’t get to fuck the queen.”

“So why do all the other wereanimal leaders listen to Micah?” I asked. I was angry now, too, or just frustrated to a point where I didn’t know what else to say but the truth.

His hands were flexing into fists at his sides. “They shouldn’t.”

“But they do. Why is that, Haven?”

All the energy, all the fight seemed to go out of him at once and he sat back down on the bed. “Because everything I was taught about what it means to be a man and a werelion doesn’t work here. Rafael and his wererats could eat your wereleopards for breakfast, but he bows to Micah, and to you. Physically he could take Micah. Hell, all the other leaders fought their way to be leader, but not Micah.”

“Who told you how Micah became leader of his wereleopards?”

“Merle, the leader of their group before Micah. He’s bigger than me, and he fights dirty. I wouldn’t want to turn my back on Merle in a fight.” That was high praise from Haven.

“Merle’s a good guy in a fight, and he’s a lot happier being able to go back to a regular job than just be muscle to the new Nimir-Raj,” I said.

“Yeah, he loves working on the motorcycles.”

“Harleys. He always reminds us he’s a Harley mechanic,” I said.

Haven gave a small smile. “Yeah.” The smile vanished as he looked at me. “Wereanimals from the group that Chimera brought to St. Louis still talk about him. I’m a bad man, Anita, and I’ve done bad things, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing some of the shit he did.”

“He was crazy and evil,” I said.

“And you killed him personally and saved everybody,” he said.

I shrugged. “Someone had to do it.”

“Yeah, but most people couldn’t have done it.” He looked at me as if he’d never seen me before, and I knew that wasn’t true. He’d seen me a lot.

“What?” I asked.

“I was pretty pissed at Micah, because I didn’t understand why everyone followed him. It went against everything I knew about wereanimals until Merle told me the story.”

“Micah told me,” I said.

Haven kept talking as if I hadn’t said anything, as if he were talking more to repeat the words to himself than to me. “Chimera liked to force the wereanimals into their animal forms and keep them like that. He was going to force one of Merle’s least powerful leopards into animal form for a long time. Sometimes the weakest of us never come back from that. They get trapped as animals. Not like the wolfman that’s knocked up Gina, but full animal form. They can’t speak, can’t write, they’re just trapped as big animals. I’ve seen it done twice. You can watch them go crazy. They just lose it after awhile, and you end up having to kill them to keep them from hurting people.”

“I thought only Chimera did shit like that,” I said.

He shook his head. “No, not just him, but the only other leaders I know did it as punishment. Chimera didn’t do it as punishment, not according to Merle. He just did it to hurt. Chimera offered that Merle could take the punishment for the other wereleopard. Chimera shamed him in front of all of them, because Merle wouldn’t offer himself up in the place of that other leopard. Micah did it. Micah offered himself up for a punishment he didn’t deserve.”

I knew the story. Micah had told me and Nathaniel on the same night while we held him and he relived it. But he’d also told us how afraid he’d been after awhile, and how his human mind began to slip away. There was a lot more fear in the story when Micah told it. “I know the story,” I said softly.

Haven looked up at me. His eyes were filled with some emotion I couldn’t read. “But you don’t understand what he was risking, Anita. Micah didn’t know if Chimera would keep him in full leopard form so long that he’d never be human again. He risked everything for one of his weakest wereleopards.” He looked down at his clasped hands again. “When he came back with his eyes frozen as a leopard, Merle stepped down. He just gave the leadership of his pard to Micah, and everyone else with Chimera saw him as their leader after that. You divided Chimera’s people up after he was dead. You sent them to their animal groups here in St. Louis. They were already following Micah, and they still do.”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that, but I guess you’re right. But Rafael and Reece of the swanmanes wouldn’t follow him if he wasn’t worth following. They weren’t part of Chimera’s people. Even that kind of bravery and self-sacrifice wouldn’t cut it with them.”

“No, Micah’s a good leader in a mainstream kind of way. He makes good decisions and he’s good at human politics.”

He was being so reasonable. It made me hopeful. “He is.”

“I’m not a good man, Anita, not like that.”

“Most people aren’t that good,” I said.

“Is he as good in bed as he is as a person?”

“What?” I asked.

“Is he better in bed than I am, is that it?”

I just blinked at him. “Don’t do this.”

“Is he?”

“Haven, don’t . . .”

He yelled, “Is he?”

I so didn’t want to do this, but . . . “Yes.”

“Because he’s bigger.”

“No, it’s not size. He’s not that much bigger than you are. It’s that he listens in bed. You act like anytime I ask for you to change something, it’s a criticism. It’s not, it’s just that some nights I want it gentle, some nights I want rougher. I don’t want the same thing every time I make love.”

“I’ve never been with a woman who wants so many different things in bed.”

I shrugged. “Sex is my only hobby, or so friends tell me.”

“It’s not your hobby, Anita, it’s your passion. You like sex, really like sex, more than any woman I’ve ever been with. I think back now and wonder how many of the strippers and other women were faking it in bed with me just like they do on stage. They all wanted something from me. Pay their rent, buy them clothes, jewelry, but you don’t want anything from me. There’s nothing I can buy you that you can’t buy yourself.”

“It’s not about buying me things, Haven.”

“Jean-Claude gives you roses every week.”

“I buy him presents, too,” I said.

“You’ve given most of the men flowers, jewelry. You date like a guy, Anita.”

I thought about that, shrugged again. “I guess so, I don’t know. I’ve never understood why all the presents are supposed to be just one way.”

“You don’t let a guy be a guy, Anita. You take that away from us.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” I said, and I didn’t.

“I could live with the other men, but not the other lions, Anita. Do you understand how weak that makes me look to the other males? I could even live with you fucking Payne, or Jesse, but Noel and Travis?” He stood up and his power spilled through the room as if someone had turned the thermostat to broil.

“Last night was the first time with Noel, Haven, I swear.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You should be able to tell truth from lie, Haven.”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell anymore. It’s like my own anger is blinding me.”

“The only lion besides you that I’m sleeping with is Nicky.”

“Why won’t you let us fight? Are you afraid I’ll kill him?”

“I’m afraid one of you will kill the other and it will be my fault.”

“We’re lions, Anita, not people. You need to let us be lions.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means a pride only has one Rex and one Regina. You can’t keep Nick and me. You can’t fuck the weakest lions in my pride and not fuck me at all.”

I gave up trying to explain that I hadn’t touched Noel and Travis before last night. I’d learned a long time ago that it’s almost impossible to prove you didn’t do something, especially if someone is determined that you did it. Innocent until proven guilty only works in court, and even then every jury has its prejudices. We all judge.

“What would it take to get me back in your bed?”

The change in topic was too fast for me. “I thought we were fighting.”

“Yeah, but you don’t do makeup sex. If you’re mad at someone you stay mad. Everything I thought I knew about women and dating them doesn’t work with you. So tell me what does work. Tell me how to win this one.”

I took in a lot of air and let it out slow. “It’s not about winning, Haven. I’m not a prize to be won. I’m not the princess that needs rescuing from the dragon. I’m the prince and I kill my own monsters. You need to be okay with that.”

“I got that the day you fought beside the other men against me. I got that last night when you cut me with a silver blade. If you and Jean-Claude hadn’t put so much energy out I’d still be hurt.” He studied my face, and something about the seriousness of that look made me want to look away, but I didn’t. I could look at it if he could feel it. “Would you really have killed me last night to keep Noel alive?”

“We’re supposed to protect those weaker than us,” I said.

“Is that a yes, you would have killed me to save Noel?”

“Fine, yes,” I said.

“Is he better in bed than I am?”

“I’ll say this one more time. I don’t know. I didn’t have intercourse with him last night so I still don’t know. I doubt if he’d be as good; he’s too soft. I prefer my men with more life experience.”

“I hear Nathaniel had plenty of experience.”

“Are you going to throw Nathaniel’s past in my face?”

“If you were a guy, I’d tell you the love of your life was a whore.”

“I know what he was and how he earned his money when I met him,” I said.

“See, a guy would be pissed even if he knew. You won’t let me be the guy, but in the end, you’re not the guy, either.”

“Fuck this,” I said, and moved toward the door. I didn’t turn my back on him, but I was done.

Haven suddenly moved toward me. I had enough time, or speed, to be out of most of his reach, but he grabbed my wrist. We ended with me crouched back away from him, and him with one hand on my wrist. His power trembled down my skin in a hot wash that closed off my throat and made my lioness gaze up with dark, amber eyes. She growled, and it trickled up my throat and out between my lips.

He closed his eyes and a shudder passed through him from top to bottom. He opened his eyes and they were already lion amber. “Fuck me,” he said.

I shook my head. “No.”

He tightened his hand enough to let me feel how very strong he was. “No weapons, no guards, no boyfriends, you can’t stop me.”

I waited for my pulse to speed up, to be afraid, because he was probably right. I’d fight, but in the end in a fair fight there was nothing fair about someone outweighing me by over a hundred pounds of muscle and dwarfing me by nearly a foot of height. I’d seen him fight, and one on one he’d win unless I got very, very lucky. But the lion in me growled again. She wasn’t afraid of him. Why? Then I had a thought.

I stopped pulling against his hand and just stood up. He moved back half a step as if he hadn’t expected it. “I can’t stop you doing what? You don’t want just my body, Haven. You want me. You want me to want and love you. You can’t win that by rape.”

“Why can’t I just want your body?” he asked.

I took a deep breath and let it out slow. “You’re the one who keeps pushing for more of a relationship, not me.”

I watched his lion eyes slide back to blue. “You’ve turned me into the girl.” He let go of my wrist and stepped back. “Get out, get out, Anita, before I change my mind.”

I backed up until I felt the door under my hands. I had to glance back to find the doorknob, and suddenly he was standing in front of me. He pressed his body against mine, pinning me against the door, his hand on one arm, and only my moving fast kept him from grabbing the other arm.

My pulse was in my throat, and I couldn’t hide that he’d scared me. He leaned his face in over my hair and sniffed the air. “You smell like fear and sex and food. You smell good.”

My voice was a little shaky as I said, “You smell like sweat and other people’s sex.”

He pulled me to him, pinning my arm between us. He let me keep the other arm as if it didn’t matter. “Then you should feel right at home.” His body pressed me close. My physical options were vanishing, but there were other options.

“Do you know why I haven’t rolled you the way I did Nicky?” I asked.

I felt his whole body hesitate. I’d surprised him. Good. “You like Nicky better,” he said.

“No, I like you better. I stole Nicky’s free will. He lives to please me. I think that’s kind of creepy actually. Auggie told me I should roll you, but I liked you too much to steal you away from yourself.”

“Why tell me this now?” He whispered it against my hair, and I could feel that his body wasn’t entirely unhappy to be pressed up against me.

“Don’t make what I did to Nicky my only option, Haven.”

“I’m a Rex. You couldn’t roll me like that,” he said.

“Are you sure? Are you sure enough to bet everything you are that I can’t make you into my bride?”

He went very still against me, and then he was halfway across the room in a blur of speed that was breathtaking. I leaned against the door for a heartbeat and then groped for the doorknob without looking away from him. I opened it and stepped through, still keeping my gaze on him as if that would keep him from coming for me again.

The cool air of the hallway seemed to help chase some of that hot energy back. “I’m going to clean up,” he said, and he didn’t look at me.

“You do that,” I said, and I closed the door slowly but firmly between us.