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I HAD TIME for coffee, which is usually a good thing, but it turned into a trap, as if the coffee were the goat the hunter had staked out to lure the leopard into firing range I stood in my kitchen with the fresh cup of perfect coffee in , and was so not happy Cynric had made the coffee, and it was perfect, but it was a trap I knew the feel of "the talk" in the air, and I didn&039;t want to have it Whatever it was, I didn&039;t want to do it, or talk about it, or deal with it I especially didn&039;t want to deal with it when Brice and SWAT could be outside in just moments I&039;d even said that, and his reply had been, "There&039;s never a good time to talk about us, Anita You&039;re always ass-deep in alligators" It was hard to argue with that, so I didn&039;t try Arguing when so so very true just ht not to be sullen about it, and to be a reasonable grown-up In that rown-up in the rooainst the cabinet, leaning back onCynric stood in front of e he&039;d been with us, so that now it touched his shoulders He usually brushed it out when it et and tied it back tight in a ponytail His hair ed to be thick and luxurious rather than just soft I think he had the thickest straight hair I&039;d ever touched He had it back in a ponytail, not quite tight enough to hide the fact that there was a lotnice, triangular cheekbones coh no one called it that now He was leaner froym in a serious way Nathaniel worked out because he was a stripper, and when you take your clothes off for custoht bad guys The bodyguards who stayed at the house with us, and at the Circus with Jean-Claude, worked out to stay in shape to protect our asses Richard was Ulfric, wolf king, and occasionally you had to fight to keep the title, so he worked out to make sure he could do that Micah worked out because I, his leopard queen, did, and because occasionally the leopard king had to fight for the right to keep his title, too, though it was a lot rarer a the leopards than the wolves Wereleopards were eneral rule Micah didn&039;t work out as much as I did, but then neither did Nathaniel I was the one ular basis It was a serious incentive to exercise

I&039;d insisted that Cynric take fight practice with uards, because I preferred my people to be able to defend themselves I couldn&039;t be with everyone all the daotten his ass kicked at the hand-to-hand and non - gun weapons practice, so he&039;d started lifting weights and running with us, so he&039;d be in better shape for practice It had probably helped give hiht and widen his shoulders, fill out his upper body, and just put muscle on what had been a slender, softer frame Noas lean and had more muscle He didn&039;t bulk up as much as some of the other men; Nathaniel had broader shoulders and put on muscle easier Cynric ht for every ounce of it, al out of his clothes, lean, , and so very ht, it was harder to see the workout Cynric had some of the sah school football league, he was quarterback He didn&039;t have the bulk to be -quick reflexes, and dead-cal down on him He also could run like a son of a bitch and would haveback or wide receiver if he hadn&039;t been so good at quarterback Considering he&039;d never played organized sports in his life, it was pretty impressive His couch bemoaned all those years of lost opportunity

He was also running track again, in a preternatural league, and there he excelled at anything that required speed and agility He was a sprinter, not a distance runner, but within his distances he was al around, because there was talk of a college preternatural league, and there were already aues across the country, with so up, at least in football

There weren&039;t enough preternaturals between one school and another to have ht now Which meant the St Louis tea well in football, and a lot of that was due to the guy standing in front of ames and meets, and they introduced the situation of having a few parents at the ga with Nathaniel and his younger brother I didn&039;t really care what strangers thought about me, but Cynric bothered me, personally, and always had

Cynric earing jogging shorts and no shirt, so he&039;d either worked out already or been about to when he hearddressed to run, and just stopped in the middle to come out to me The shorts left his upper body bare in the last of the late-day sun, so that the dying gold of the light painted histhe the bottoms; a lot of the wereanih Cynric had come with his own share of modesty and rarely went around buck naked, come to think of it

"Would you just stand there and say nothing if I didn&039;t start?" he asked

"Yeah" I sipped the coffee; it was hot, and Nathaniel had taught Cynric exactly the way I liked it, but today, even good coffee couldn&039;t cheer me up

"Why?" he asked

"You&039;re the one who made everyone else leave the rooet to talk"

"God, you are so ed and sippedit, I&039;d enjoy it eventually It was a shaood coffee on such a bad h his hair, but in the ponytail he couldn&039;t finish the gesture, so he pulled out the tie and let the thick, straight hair fall loose It fell around his face like a dark blue curtain,of pale blue in his eyes richer, closer to cornflower blue, and the darker ring of ht blue, almost as dark as Jean-Claude&039;s eyes, look richer,less deep

He ran his hands through his hair, now that he could, and started pacing a short, tense circle in the largest piece of unobstructed floor in the kitchen That just happened to put hi cats in the zoo that forever paces, o mad His thick hair spilled forward around his face, so that as he turned it fell in disarray around his face The ht had ht, thicker, holding shades of gold so deep, it was like fire as it fades, so that some of his hair was rich, deep blue, but sohts of his hair were heart-stopping

He stopped in front ofas if he&039;d been running The pulse in the side of his neck pounded against his skin, already darkening fro practices He tanned, did our Cynric He stared at ular face, hair in that artful disarray

I had the urge to push it back froainst the cabinets I would lose ground if I round if I touched his hair If ere going to fight, I didn&039;t want to do it withthe warm silk of his hair

"I&039;m worried about you," he said, at last

"I&039;ain, but realized I didn&039;t want it I set it on the cabinet beside me

"Sorry about what?" he asked

I shrugged "Sorry uess" For Micah, or Nathaniel, I would have taken this, owned it, reed, but Cynric hadn&039;t earned this yet; he wasn&039;t the boss of er, Anita; I can smell your emotions and you&039;re not upset"

"Now you&039;re telling me what I feel," I said

"You want this to be a fight I don&039;t want to fight"

I crossed ain "I don&039;t want to fight either, Cynric"

"Please, at least, call hed "Sin; fine, I don&039;t want to fight either, Sin You know I hate the nickname"

"I know you do, but then you hate a lot of things about me"

"That&039;s not fair," I said

"Maybe not, but it&039;s true" He took two more steps toward me, so that if I&039;d unfolded my arms I could have touched his chest easily "I can&039;t help being this young, Anita It&039;s not pered my arms around myself, because I wanted to touch hi one of the aniood to touch the type of aniood to cuddle your very own animal to call, and Cynric was one of mine The fact that I had a record number of animals to call didn&039;t seem to make any difference; I wanted to touch theht when you wanted to wrap your arms around someone so you could breathe in the scent of their skin

"I&039;ll get older, too," I said

"Older in years, but as Jean-Claude&039;s hue"

"I haven&039;t taken the fourth mark from him"

"But you and Damian shared it, and he&039;s a vampire, too"

"He&039;s e the dynamics"

"I know that there&039;s a chance you shared yourhis ireat I think you just don&039;t want to accept that it&039;s not an age thing"

"I&039;h schooler"

"I graduate this year, Anita; then ill your excuse be?"

"I don&039;t knohat you ht, because I was afraid that Cynric - Sin - was about to say sos that I didn&039;t want to hear

"Nathaniel was only nineteen when you met him; Jason, too That&039;s just a year older than e, Anita"

I looked into those eyes, those almost frantic blue-on-blue eyes, and couldn&039;t stand it I couldn&039;t stand the thought of hi that I didn&039;t love him I couldn&039;t bear to hear him say it out loud, and yet part of o back to Vegas and I&039;d have one less person to take care of into do with police work, and everything to do with the fact that no one person could date this many people You could fuck them, but you couldn&039;t have a relationship with them Maybe I&039;d been ready to jettison Cynric out of my bed and life, not because of him, really, but because I had to find a way to thin down the people inhe was seemed a reasonable excuse to thin the herd Wasoverwhelmed with all my lovers? I collected the home, except I could afford to feed and take care of all of the low on emotional resources, or so I told myself

Was I really ready to send a whole person away, just so I could date the leftoversto do Hell, it didn&039;t sound good to call theto get rid of Cynric and risk Nathaniel losing yet another brother, I needed a better reason than being emotionally tired; didn&039;t I?

I reached out, touched his hair, and smoothed it back from his face His hair was so soft, softer than Nathaniel&039;s, but not quite as thick; alh I wanted to say, It&039;s not you, it&039;scliche Maybe the reason it&039;s a cliche is that it&039;s true, so much ood person, wonderful lover, great friend, and it can still not work Fuck, fuck, fuck

He put one hand over ainst his face His eyes closed, and he leaned his face intome as his, like cats will do Was I his? Was he mine? Fuck, I didn&039;t kno could I not know after more than a year? How could I not know the answer to this? What the fuck rong withwith me? With hi withesture, one that marked territory if other men were present This is mine, not yours;me into him I just didn&039;t think it was true

I stared up at hi that would help

He drew hter to his body, and I put my hands on his waist, just at the top of his hips, not holding hi that last fraction of a distance between his body andshorts I knehat he had to offer, and I knew h clothes It wasn&039;t just love that made me react to the men in my life, and somehow if I reacted to Cynric the sa I wasn&039;t sure what, but so I didn&039;t want it to mean

He tried to pull me closer, but I stiffened ht o and stepped back a few inches, so eren&039;t touching at all

I reached out to him, but the look on his face er that I&039;d earned, but the disappointment in his eyes, the pain; I hadn&039;t wanted to see that It ht, and there was a lump in my throat that I couldn&039;t see more solid than words

"I&039;m not jealous," he said, "but after what I heard and s with Micah and Nathaniel, and you won&039;t even leta little push-away gesture with his hands He turned and went to stand by the sliding glass door, as far fro the room

I didn&039;t knohat to do If Nathaniel hadn&039;t adopted him as a brother, if Jean-Claude didn&039;t seem to take such pride in his accomplish that was asked of him, if hoould I feel if I never saw Cynric here in the kitchen again? What if I never saw hiain? He was beautiful standing there with the light th hair rich blues and blacks, as if someone had painted him with the color of dark ocean water, but but I could live without him I&039;dhi him It felt toosomeone, kiss hi with him, and have it be okay? I didn&039;t think so

I decided to try for honesty I wasn&039;t sure it would help my chest and throat loosen up, but it was all I had I went closer, but not close enough to touch him "I&039;m sorry"

He didn&039;t look at me as he said, "Sorry for what?"

"That there&039;s not enough of me for everyone"

He turned to look at"What does that even mean?"

I opened my mouth, closed it I wasn&039;t sure how to put it into words

"See, it&039;s not a real reason, Anita You just want an excuse to say no"

I shook my head "It&039;s not that, da his arms over his bare chest "Then explain it" He threw the words down like a gauntlet It was e, or leave it lying there, sad and cowardly

"I don&039;t kno to send you off to high school, hug you good-bye, attend parent-teacher conferences, and be having sex with you It feels wrong, like I&039; No one else inimmoral"

The froas replaced by a puzzled look, and then a half-smile "You&039;re serious, aren&039;t you?"

"Absolutely," I said

"I really aer than Nathaniel and Jason when you met them"

"But I didn&039;t sleep with theer, too"

"I&039;er than Nathaniel," he said

I fought a serious urge to put o La-la-la-la I hadn&039;t really thought of it that way

He gave a short, harsh laugh "You hadn&039;t done the math, had you?"

I tried not to squirht how close in age you two are, so no"

"Does everything only work for you because you don&039;t think about it too hard?"

I didn&039;t knohat to say to that, and said so "I don&039;t know"

"You&039;re seven years older than Nathaniel, right?"

I nodded, and shrugged I fought to not look away, because honestly, that had bothered e difference really does bother you, even just the seven years?"

I nodded "Yeah, it did, and I was taking care of hiht it was a conflict of interest trying to get him to stand on his oo feet, and sleep with him at the same time"

"He was a pet when you met him, not just submissive but someone who had no ability to protect hi therapy and being ht killer to co and finish the job"

I couldn&039;t keep the surprise off my face as I said, "He said that, really?"

Cynric nodded

"I think if I hadn&039;t lost control of the ardeur around him, I&039;d have kept my distance, Cynric"

"Sin" He said it auto-this in his voice