Blue Moon

"Did you sense anyone the last watch?"

He shook his head, leaning so close that I could feel his breath against my cheek. "They're afraid of you after last night."

I turned to look at him and had to move my head back a little to be able to focus on his eyes. "Afraid of me?"

His face was very serious. "Don't be coy, Anita. What you did last night was impressive, and you know it."

I hugged the blanket around my shoulders and looked at the ground. After the rush of power had faded last night, I'd been cold. I'd been cold all night. It was nearly ninety degrees outside. The air conditioner was whirring, and I was cold. Unfortunately, it wasn't the kind of cold that blankets or heat or even another warm body could chase away. I'd scared myself last night. Lately, that took a lot.

I'd seen the burning vampires in my dreams. They'd chased me with flame-covered arms. Their mouths opened in screams, fangs leaking fire like dragon's breath. The burning vamps had offered me Mira's head. The head had talked in its basket, asking, "Why?" Because I was careless didn't seem like a good enough answer. I ran from the dying vampires all night long, one dream after another, or maybe it was just one long, broken dream. Who knows? Either way, it hadn't been restful.

Richard had turned to me last night with the vampire bodies still glowing like banked fires. He'd looked at me, and I'd felt his revulsion, his horror at what I'd done, like a knife through my heart. If things had been reversed and I'd been the werewolf and he'd been the human, he'd have been just as sickened after the show with Marcus as I had been. No, more so. The only reason Richard hung around with monsters was the fact that he was one.

Richard had gone off to his cabin with Jamil and Shang-Da. Shang-Da and Jamil hadn't been horrified; they'd been impressed. Though Shang-Da had said, "They'll kill us all for this."

Asher had disagreed. "Colin is a lesser master than Jean-Claude, yet he demanded the life of Jean-Claude's second, me, and the sanity of one of his wolves, Jason. He overstepped his bounds. Anita merely reminded him of that."

Shang-Da had looked at the blackened corpses, slowly turning to piles of ash. "You think any master vampire will allow this to go unanswered?"

Asher shrugged. "It is no disgrace to lose against someone who has met the Council and survived."

"Besides," Jamil said, "he'll be scared now. He won't come against Anita face-to-face again."

Asher nodded. "Exactly; he fears her now."

"His human servant, Nikki, could have enabled the wards just like I did," I said.

"I believe," Asher said, "that if his servant had power so similar to your own, she would not have merely warned him."

"She'd have tried to keep me from setting the magic free," I said.

"Yes," Asher said.

"She lied," I said.

Asher smiled and touched my cheek. "How can you be so cynical and be surprised when people lie?"

To that, there was no answer. What I'd done was just begi

I hated it when I did something so inhuman and couldn't blame anyone else for it. Made me feel like a freak.

Jason touched my shoulder. I looked at him. There must have been something in my face, because the grin faded from his. His eyes held that world-weary sorrow that peeked through every once in awhile.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I shook my head. "You saw what I did last night. I did it. Not Jean-Claude. Not Richard. Me. Just little old me."

He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to look at him full face. "You saved me last night, Anita. You put yourself between me and those things. I'll never forget that, ever."

I tried to look away, and he shook me gently until I looked at him. We were exactly the same height, so it wasn't like looking up at him, just at him. All the teasing was gone. What was left behind was something more serious, more grownup, less Jason. "You killed to save us last night. None of us will forget that. Verne and his wolves won't forget that."

"Colin won't forget it, either," I said. "He'll come after us."

Jason shook his head. "Asher and Jamil are right. He's scared shitless of you now. He won't come near you."

I grabbed his arms, letting the quilt slide to the floor. "But he'll hurt the rest of you. He'll try and take you, Jason. He'll give you to Barnaby. He'll break you just to hurt me."

"Or he'll kill Asher," Jason said. "I know." He smiled, and it was almost his usual grin. "Why do you think we both stayed in here with you last night? I, for one, wanted your protection."

"You know you have it," I said.

The smile softened. "I know." He touched my face gently. "What's wrong? I mean really wrong? Why do you look so ... tormented today?"

"What I did last night wasn't very human, Jason. I felt Richard's horror. I felt him think of me as a monster, and he's right."

Jason hugged me. I stiffened at first, and he started to let me go, then I relaxed against him. I let him hold me, wrapping my own arms around his back. I buried my face against his neck and had a horrible urge to cry.

There was a soft sound from behind us. I raised my head to look. The wereleopards were climbing off the bed, gliding towards us on human feet but moving as if there were muscles in their legs and hips and torsos that didn't exist in mine. Zane and Cherry writhed and glided, nearly naked, towards us. Cherry held Nathaniel's hand, leading him like a child. But he didn't look like a child as he padded towards us, naked. Undies would have hurt the upper thigh wound. Now, as he came towards us, it was clear that he wasn't completely unhappy to see me. Or maybe it was waking up next to Cherry, or maybe it was just a guy thing. Either way, I didn't like it.

I pushed away from Jason. He didn't fight it, just stepped back. He watched the wereleopards come, but I don't think he was worried about it. In fact, I could feel his energy prickle along my skin. Strong emotions like lust will make a shapeshifter's energy rise. The moment I thought it, I looked without thinking. Jason was happy to see Cherry, very happy.

I looked away, blushing. I turned my back on all of them, arms hugging my sides.

Someone touched my shoulder. I flinched.

"It's me, Anita," Jason said.

I shook my head.

He hugged me from behind, arms very carefully across my shoulders and no lower. "I'm not sorry you killed them, Anita. I'm just sorry you didn't kill Barnaby."

"Someone else is going to pay for my bravado, Jason. Like Mira last night. I do things, say things, around you guys, and it all goes wrong."

Zane moved around in front of me. I stared up at him with Jason's arms still around my shoulders like a bulky necklace. Zane's brown eyes were as serious as I'd seen them on this trip.

He reached out to touch my face, and only Jason's arms tightening ever so slightly kept me from backing away or saying, "Don't." Touching didn't mean the same thing to lycanthropes as it did to the rest of American society. I would say human, but there were a lot of countries that were more into casual touching than ours.

Zane's fingers trailed down my cheek while he studied my face, frowning. "Gabriel was our whole world. He and Elizabeth made us, chose us. As bad as you think he was, Gabriel saved most of us. I was a junkie, but he didn't allow drugs in his pard."

He leaned into me, sniffing along my skin, rubbing his cheek so that I could feel the fine stubble along his jaw. "Nathaniel was a street whore. Gabriel pimped him out but not to just anybody, not to everybody."