Richard set my suitcase and both bags inside the door. He went out and came back with his small overnight bag.
He stood there, just inside the door, staring at me. I stared back. Blood still trickled down his throat from where I'd cut him. Neither of us seemed to know what to say. The silence grew until it was so thick it began to have weight.
"I'm sorry I hurt you," he said. "I've never lost control like that before." He took a step into the room. "But seeing you with him..." He held out his hands, then let them fall to his sides, helplessly.
"It was only a kiss, Richard. That's all."
"It's never only a kiss with Jean-Claude."
I couldn't argue that.
"I wanted to kill him," Richard said.
"I noticed."
"You're sure you're all right?"
"How's your neck?" I asked.
He touched the wound and came away with fresh blood. "Silver blade, it won't heal immediately." He came to stand in front of me, looking down, so close that the legs of his jeans nearly brushed my knees. It was almost too close. The lingering brush of Jean-Claude's power made my skin ache. Richard's nearness made it worse.
If I stood up, our bodies would touch, he was that close. I stayed sitting, trying to swallow the last bits of Jean-Claude's kiss. I wasn't sure what would happen if I touched Richard now. It felt almost like whatever Jean-Claude had done reacted to Richard's body. Or maybe it was me. Maybe I was becoming that needy. Maybe my body was tired of saying no.
"Would you really have killed me?" Richard asked. "Could you have plunged that blade home?"
I stared up at him and wanted to lie to the sincerity in his eyes, but I didn't. Whatever we were doing with each other, whatever we meant to each other, it couldn't be based on lies. "Yes."
"Just like that," he said.
I nodded. "Just like that."
"I saw it in your eyes. Cold, dispassionate, like someone else was looking out. If I was sure I could kill coldly, it wouldn't scare me so much."
"I wish I could promise you that you wouldn't enjoy it, but I can't."
"I know that." He stared at me. "I couldn't kill you. Not for any reason."
"It would destroy something in me to lose you, Richard, but my first reaction is to protect myself at all costs. So, if we ever have another misunderstanding like we did tonight, don't help me up, don't come close to me, until I'm sure you're not going to eat me. Okay?"
He nodded. "Okay."
The energy rush that Jean-Claude had given me was fading, calming. I stood up, and Richard's body touched mine. I felt an instant rush of warm energy that had nothing to do with the vampire. Richard's aura enveloped me like a breath of warm air. His arms slid behind my back. I slid my hands around his waist and laid my cheek against his chest. I listened to the deep throbbing of his heart, running my hands over the softness of the flannel shirt. There was a measure of comfort in Richard's arms that simply wasn't there when Jean-Claude held me.
He ran his hands through my hair, putting one on either side of my face. He pulled me back until he could see my face. He bent towards me, lips parted. I stretched on tiptoe to meet him.
A voice said, "Master."
Richard turned with me still in his arms, so we could see the door. Jason crawled across the white carpet, dripping crimson drops as he moved.
"My God, what happened to you?" I asked.
"I happened to him," Richard said. He walked over to the crawling man.
"What do you mean, you happened to him?"
Jason abased himself at Richard's feet, face pressed to the carpet. "I'm sorry."
Richard knelt and raised Jason to a sitting position. Blood ran down his face from a cut above his eyes. It was deep and would need stitches.
"You threw him into a wall?" I asked.
"He tried to stop me from reaching you."
"I can't believe you did this."
Richard looked up at me. "You want me to be pack leader. You want me to be alpha. Well, this is what it takes." He shook his head. "You should see your face. You look so damned outraged. How can you want me to kill another human being and be upset by a little rough and tumble?"
I didn't know what to say. "Jean-Claude said that killing Marcus wouldn't be enough. That you'd have to be willing to terrorize the pack to rule it."
"He's right." Richard wiped the blood off Jason's face. The cut was already beginning to close. He put his bloody fingers into his mouth and licked them clean.
I stood there, frozen, staring, like an unwilling witness to a car crash.
Richard bent close to Jason's face. I thought I knew what he was going to do, but I had to see it to believe it. He licked the wound. He ran his tongue over the open wound like a dog will do.
I turned away. This couldn't be my Richard, my safe, comforting Richard.
"You can't stand to watch, can you?" he asked. "Did you think that killing was the only thing I had refused to do?"
His voice made me turn back.
There was a smudge of blood on his chin. "Watch it all, Anita. I want you to see what it takes to be alphic. Then you tell me if it's all worth it. If you can't stomach it, don't ever ask me to do it again." The look in his eyes made it a challenge.
I understood challenges. I sat on the edge of the bed. "Go to it. I'm all yours."
Richard brushed the hair on one side, exposing the wound on his neck. "I am alpha and I feed the pack. I spilled your blood, and now I give it back to you." The warm rush of his power spilled through the room.
Jason stared up at him, his eyes rolled almost to white. "Marcus doesn't do this."
"Because he can't," Richard said. "I can. Feed on my blood, on my apology, my power, and never stand against me again." The air was so thick with power it was hard to breathe.
Jason rose on his knees and put his mouth over the wound, tentatively at first, as if afraid he'd be turned away or hurt. When Richard didn't say anything, Jason pressed his mouth to the open wound and drank. His jaw muscles worked, his throat swallowed. One hand slipped behind Richard's back, one hand on his shoulder.
I walked around them until I could see Richard's face. His eyes were closed, his face peaceful. He must have felt me watching him, because he opened his eyes. There was anger there, anger at me, partly. It wasn't only about killing Marcus, it was about giving up pieces of his humanity. I hadn't understood that, not until now.
He touched Jason's shoulders. "Enough." Jason pressed himself harder against the wound, like a nursing puppy. Richard pulled him forcibly off of his neck. A hicky had already spread around the wound.
Jason lay back, half-cradled in Richard's arms. He licked the edges of his mouth, getting the last drops of blood. He giggled and rolled away from Richard, to kneel on the floor. He rubbed his face along Richard's leg. "I've never felt anything like that. Marcus can't share power like that. Does anybody else in the pack know you can share blood?"
"Tell them," Richard said. "Tell them all."
"You really are going to kill Marcus, aren't you?" Jason asked.
"If he gives me no other choice, yes. Now, go, Jason, your other master is waiting."
Jason stood, and almost fell. He righted himself, rubbing his hands down his legs and arms as if he was bathing in something I couldn't see. Maybe it was the warm, ruffling power that he tried to tie around himself. He laughed again. "If you'll feed me, you can hit me into a wall anytime."
"Get out," Richard said.
Jason got out.
Richard was still kneeling on the floor. He looked up at me. "Do you understand now why I didn't want to do this?"
"Yes," I said.
"Maybe if Marcus knows I can share blood, my power, he'll back down."
"You're still hoping not to kill him," I said.
"It's not only the killing, Anita. It's everything that goes with it. It's what I just did with Jason. A hundred things, none of them very human." He looked at me, and there was a sorrow in his brown eyes that I had never seen before.
I understood suddenly. "It isn't the killing exactly, is it? Once you take over the pack by blood and brute force, you have to keep the pack with blood and brute force."
"Exactly. If I could force Marcus out somehow, if I could make him back down, then I'd have room to do things differently." He came to stand in front of me, his face eager. "I've brought nearly half the pack either to my side or at least to be neutral. They aren't backing Marcus anymore. No one's ever divided a pack like this without deaths."