Cerulean Sins

I knew that lycanthropes want fresh meat when they first change shape. New lycanthropes are deadly, but Jason wasn't new anymore, and he could control himself. I knew that, but I still didn't like the way he was looking at Caleb, and I liked even less that he was projecting his need onto me.

"What do you want me to do about the Jeep?" Nathaniel asked.

I jerked my attention back to Nathaniel and away from the hunger. It was an effort to think past it, but if the Jeep was full of bad guys, then I needed to be concentrating on them, not some metaphysical craving.

"Hell, I don't know. I don't get followed that much. Usually people just try and kill me."

"I have to either pull out onto the highway, or turn the other way. Just sitting here, they're going to know we saw them."

He had a point, a good one. "Highway."

He moved us forward, angling for the ramp. "Once we're on it, where are we going?"

"The Circus, I think."

"Do we want to lead the bad guys there?" Nathaniel asked.

"Jason said it earlier, most people know where the Master of the City bunks during the day. Besides, the wererats are still there, and most of them are ex-mercenaries, or something in that ballpark. I think I'm going to call ahead and ask Bobby Lee's opinion."

"Opinion about what?" Caleb asked, from the backseat. His eyes were still too wide, and he still smelled of fear, but he wasn't looking at the wolf on the seat beside him. Whatever he was afraid of wasn't something that close.

"About whether we catch them, or turn around and try to follow them."

"Catch them?" Caleb said, "Catch them how?"

"Not sure, but I know that I know a lot more about catching bad guys than about following people to see where they lead me. I'm not a detective, Caleb, not really. I can spot a clue if it bites me on the ass, and give an opinion about monster-related crime, but at heart I'm in a more direct line of work than detective."

He looked puzzled.

"I'm an executioner, Caleb, I kill things."

"Sometimes you have to track things in order to kill them," Nathaniel said.

I looked at him, that serious profile, his eyes searching the traffic, his hands on the wheel at exactly two and ten. He hadn't had his license a year, yet. If I hadn't insisted, I'm not sure he'd have ever had one.

"True, but I don't want to kill them, I want to question them. I want to know why they're following us."

"I don't think they are," Nathaniel said.

"What?" I asked.

"The blue Jeep didn't follow us onto the highway."

"Knew we spotted them, maybe."

"Or like everyone else knows where the Master sleeps. So it's not hard to find his girlfriend," Nathaniel said, voice quiet, eyes on the road. But he knew I hated being the Master's girlfriend, or at least being called that. Truthfully, he had a point. If you knew who someone was dating and where they lived, eventually, you could locate them again. I hated being predictable.

Jason's great shaggy head came around my seat and rubbed against my shoulder, the ruff of his face tickling along my cheek. I reached up and petted that great head without thinking, the way I would have done if he'd been a dog. The moment I touched him, the hunger thrilled through me from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. The hair on my body stood to attention, and it felt like something was trying to crawl up the back of my skull, because the nape of my neck was prickling so badly.

The wolf and I turned as one to stare at Caleb. If my eyes could have bled to wolf, they'd have done it then.

Caleb looked terrified. I think if he'd just stayed still we'd have been okay, but he didn't. He unfolded his arms from his nearly bare chest and eased across the seat.

Jason growled, and I was out of my seat, on the floorboards in the back, before I had a chance to think, unseatbelted in a speeding car, bad idea. I think that would have put me back in my own head space, but Caleb ran. He spilled over the backseat, and Jason and I spilled after him. It was like being water, following the natural course.

We didn't pin Caleb, so much as kneel and sit around him. Caleb was pressed tight in the corner of the cargo area, his hands tight against his chest. He tried to take up as little space as possible. I think Caleb knew that touching either of us would be bad. Jason sat on his haunches, flashing fangs and letting the trickle of growl slide out. You didn't need words to know what it meant, don't move, don't fucking move. Caleb didn't move.

I was on my knees in front of Caleb, and all I could see was the pulse in his neck, thudding, thudding, against the skin, trying to break free. I wanted to help it.

I could suddenly smell forest, trees, and the scent of wolf fur that wasn't Jason. Richard breathed through my mind like a sweet-scented cloud. I saw him in my bathtub all those miles away. An arm darker than the tan Richard carried most of the year was across his chest, propping him up in the water, holding him. Jamil being a good Hati, making sure his Ulfric didn't drown. It was what Jason had done for me earlier, minus the sex. Richard was a little homophobic. He didn't like men who reminded him they liked men, especially if that man was himself. I couldn't throw stones on that one; I was pretty much the same way around women. No matter how sophisticated I was supposed to be, I kept forgetting that another woman could find me attractive. Always caught me by surprise.

Jamil's face hovered on the edge of Richard's, but it was as if in this dream vision all that was truly clear was Richard. I caught glimpses of his body through the water and the faint candlelight. Lycanthropes sometimes had light sensitivity problems, so there were no bright overheads, but the candles made the water dark, and hid more of Richard from view than I wanted. I felt like a metaphysical Peeping Tom. But the hunger was so easily turned to a different kind of hunger, it always had been.

Richard looked up at me, and the sight of his face, shorn of hair, caught at my throat. I wanted to ask, why? but he spoke first. It was the first time we'd spoken mind-to-mind like this, and it startled me. I'd known Jean-Claude and I could do it, but not Richard and me.

"The hunger's mine, Anita, I'm sorry. Something that creature did to me stripped most of my control." For a second I thought he meant the Mother of All Darkness, then realized he meant Belle.

I gazed down at Caleb's frightened eyes, and my eyes were drawn again to his neck, then down the line of his chest to his stomach. He was breathing hard enough, scared enough that there was a pulse low in his belly, vibrating through that line of hair that led down into his pants. The stomach was soft and tender, lots of flesh there.

"Anita," Richard said, "Anita, hear me."

I had to blink the image of Caleb's quivering flesh away, and I was suddenly seeing Richard's image more clearly than what actually lay in front of me. "What?" I knew that one word wasn't said out loud, only in my head.

"You can turn the hunger to sex, Anita."

I shook my head. "I think I'd rather eat Caleb than fuck him."

"You've never eaten anyone, or you wouldn't say that," Richard said.

I couldn't really argue with that. "Are you seriously saying you'd be okay with me fucking Caleb?"

He hesitated, the water flickering in the flame light, as his body moved restlessly. I caught a glimpse of knee, and thigh. "If it's a choice between eating him, or screwing him, yes."

"You didn't even like sharing me with Jean-Claude."

"We're not dating, Anita."

Ouch. "Sorry, forgot that for a moment," I said. The momentary flare of pain like a half-healed wound helped me think a little more clearly. "Jason is in wolf form Richard. I don't do furry."

"That I can do something about." I saw his beast like some golden shadow leap out of him and into me. It was like being on the receiving end of a metaphysical knife, until that power stabbed through me and into Jason, and I was suddenly in the middle of all that power, all that pain, all that rage. The beast feeds on pain and rage, sort of the ultimate id. I was left kneeling, gasping, too breathless to scream.