"You sent Nathaniel back to us dying. Asher said it was a compliment of sorts, that you truly thought we could cure him."
"And you did, didn't you?" Colin said.
"Yeah," I said. "Well, let me pay you the same compliment. I think if I shoot Barnaby point-blank, he'll survive it. I've shot rotting vamps before, and their clothes took more damage than they did."
"You can taste the truth in her words," Asher said. "She believes he'll live, which means it is not a breach of truce."
"She believes it, but she hopes for his death," Colin said.
"Breaking the mind of one of our entourage," Asher said, "will break the truce, as well."
"I do not agree," Colin said.
"Then we've got a stalemate," I said.
"I think not," Colin said. He turned to Verne. "Verne, earn your keep. Strip the young one of his protectors."
Verne stood and his wolves flowed around him. They moved into the clearing on a roil of energy that made the nape of my neck dance and my hand go for a gun.
Richard said, "Verne."
But Verne wasn't looking at Richard. He was looking at me. He was carrying a small covered basket in his hands. I didn't wait to find out what he had in the basket. I pointed the gun at his chest.
19
"Ease down, girl," Verne said. "It's a present."
I kept the gun nice and steady on the center of his body. "Yeah, right."
"When you see what it is, you'll know that we aren't on his side."
"Don't pick the wrong side, puppy dog," Colin said. "Or I will make you very, very sorry."
Verne looked at the vampire. I watched his eyes bleed from human to wolf while he held that basket out to me. But he kept those angry, frightening eyes on Colin.
"You have no animal to call," Verne said, in a voice gone rough and growling low. "You dare to stand in our place of power and threaten us. You are less than the wind outside our cave. You are nothing here."
"She is not one of you, either," Colin said.
"She is lupa of the Thronnus Roke Clan."
"She is human."
"She stands between you and a werewolf. That's lupa enough for me."
Barnaby had backed off. I don't know if he thought I'd jump the gun and shoot him or if Colin had whispered a new plan in his rotting skull. I wasn't sure I even cared. There was a glob of something heavy and wet sliding down into the bra. It was like feeling a tear slide down your cheek but worse, so much worse. I'd resisted the urge to wipe it away with Barnaby staring me down. As soon as he crept back to Colin, I used my left hand to scoop the leftover part out and fling it on the ground.
"What's the matter, Anita? Too up close and personal for you?"
I wiped my hand on the leather skirt and smiled. "Fuck you, Colin."
Verne stepped into the center of the triangle alone. His wolves stayed huddled in front of the far bench. He came to stand a couple of yards in front of our bench with that basket in his hands.
I glanced at Asher. He shrugged. Richard nodded like I was supposed to go meet him. A present, Verne had called it.
I went to meet him. He knelt, setting the basket on the ground between us. He stayed kneeling. I knelt, too, because he seemed to expect it. He just kept looking at me with those wolfish eyes. He still looked like an aging Hell's Angel, but those eyes ... I wondered if I would ever get used to seeing wolf eyes in a human face. Probably not.
I raised the hinged lid of the small basket. A face, a head, looked up at me. I scrambled to my feet. The Browning just appeared in my hand. I pointed it at Verne, then the ground, then pressed the flat of the barrel to my forehead.
I found my voice, finally. "What is that?"
"You said you wanted Mira's head in a basket. That if we gave you that, it would make it right between our two clans."
I took a sharp breath and blew it out. I looked down into the basket, still standing, still holding the gun like the comfort object it was. The mouth was open in a soundless scream, the eyes half closed as if they'd caught her napping, but I knew they hadn't. Someone had simply closed the eyes after they took her head. Even dead, like this, the bones of the face were delicate, and you knew at least the face had been pretty.
I forced myself to put up the gun. It couldn't help me now. I dropped back to my knees, staring at it. I finally looked up at Verne. I was shaking my head over and over. I looked into his face and tried to read something in it that I could yell at or talk to. But the expression was alien, and it wasn't just the eyes.
You'd think after all this time, I would stop forgetting that they weren't human. But I had. I'd been pissed, and I'd spoken as if I was talking to another human being, but I hadn't been. I'd been speaking to werewolves, and I'd forgotten that.
I heard someone whispering, and it was me. I was whispering, "This is my fault. This is my fault." I started to put my left hand in front of my face, and I caught a whiff of Barnaby's rotted flesh. It was enough.
I crawled to one side and vomited. I knelt on all fours, waiting for it to pass. When I could speak, I said, "Don't any of you people understand the term? It's just a f**king expression!"
Richard was there, kneeling by me. He touched my back gently. "You told him what you wanted, Anita. She had betrayed the pack's honor. It can carry a death penalty. All you helped them choose was the method of execution."
I glanced sideways at him. I had a horrible urge to cry. "I didn't mean it," I whispered.
He nodded. "I know." There was a look in his eyes of such sorrow, of a shared knowledge of how many times you never really meant what you said, but the monsters were listening, and they always took you at your word.
20
"I thought you were tough, Miss Blake."
Richard helped me stand and I let him. I leaned against him for a second, my forehead against the smooth skin of his arm. I pushed away from him and stood on my own. I met Colin's eyes. They were definitely grey, not blue.
"I know we're supposed to go through all the protocol and waltz for a while, Colin. But the last of my patience is sitting in that basket. So state your grievance and let's all get the f**k out of here."
He smiled. "So tenderhearted, maybe your reputation is just talk after all."
I smiled then and shook my head. "Maybe it is, but since we're not supposed to kill each other tonight, Colin, it doesn't matter."
Colin walked away from me. He went to stand closer to his own people but faced Asher. I had been dismissed as his own human servant had been dismissed.
"I will not be replaced, Asher."
"I have not come to replace you," Asher said, voice empty, neutral.
"Why would Jean-Claude send a master almost exactly my age into my lands against my express orders?"
"I could have hidden what I was," Asher said. "But Jean-Claude thought you would misinterpret that. I came in hiding nothing."
"But still you came," Colin said.
"I cannot change what has happened," Asher said. "What would satisfy us all?"
"Your death," Colin said.
Everybody went very still, as if we'd all caught our collective breaths. I started to say something and Richard touched my shoulder. I closed my mouth and let Asher talk, but it was hard.
Asher laughed that wonderful touchable laugh. "Breaking the truce, aren't you, Colin?"
"Not if I kill a rival sent to supplant me. Then I am merely protecting myself and making an example for other ambitious vampires."
"You know I have not come to supplant you," Asher said.
"I know nothing of the kind."
"I am content where I am."
"Why?" Colin asked. "You could be the master of a city somewhere far from their triumvirate. Why would you be content with less?"
Asher gave a very small smile. "I prefer gentler persuasions over power."
Colin shook his head. "I have been told you are in love with her, and with Jean-Claude himself. I have been told that you are bedding them both and that is why the Ulfric seeks a new lupa."
"If he would only cooperate, it could be a happy foursome," Asher said.
Richard, startled beside me, stiffened. It was my turn to touch his arm and keep him from saying what he was thinking.
"I have been told many things," Colin said. "My people have watched you from afar. We believe you are enamored of the girl and of Jean-Claude. We are aware of your history together. We even believe that a lover of men like yourself would do their Ulfric if he would let you. What we do not believe is that you are bedding any of them. We believe that this is a pathetic story to save yourself."