Tarnished (24 page)

“Later,” Susan said, giving John a lopsided smile. “Apparently we have a little time.”

A laugh drifted through the door, anchoring her even more closely in the here and now. “For now, fuck it,” she told the trees. Fuck the age difference, fuck the fact she was a killer, fuck all of it for tonight. Andrew and Silver had the right idea.

She put her hands on John’s cheeks to turn his head and kissed him. She hadn’t meant to push quite so hard so quickly, but it had been a long time. Once she started, she couldn’t stop the hunger from pressing her against him.

He didn’t try to pull away from the kiss, but he didn’t return it with the same fire. “Edmond,” he protested weakly when she came up for air.

“He’s sleeping right now. We can make Tom babysit, go to the car. Or the hall. Everyone’s back at their cabins by now, aren’t they?” Even as she made the suggestions, Susan could read in John’s tense muscles that it was a lost cause. He’d probably find an excuse if they had the cabin to themselves, a babysitter for Edmond, and an engraved invitation.

“Susan—” John scooted away to the far end of the step so they were no longer touching. “Not here.”

“Where?” Susan was too horny to sit still so she pushed herself up to pace, crunching on the gravel. “You said you loved me, John, but you won’t touch me when there’s anyone who might hear it or smell it. And given werewolf senses…” Susan wanted so badly to kick him in the balls at the moment. Was this how it was going to be? After all she’d done to try to join him in his life, that’s all he could give her?

Her next breath caught on the way in. What if she was too dominant now? She didn’t understand Were power dynamics at all. They’d never done any BDSM stuff in the bedroom, but Susan had no idea if that was what he wanted. She swallowed. He’d said he loved her after she’d killed Sacramento, but that didn’t mean he was still attracted to her.

“Is it because of what I did?”

“No!” John pushed to his feet. “It’s just—with everyone and their omega here, you know? It will be different when we get back home.”

Susan scrubbed at her eyes before tears could surface. Sure it would. But it made as good a self-delusion as any of the others she was using to get herself through this. Maybe she could ask Silver for advice about Were sex. She trusted Silver to answer her honestly.

“All right,” she said. John shoved his hands awkwardly into his pockets, lingered for a moment, and then strode off up the gravel road. Susan stayed and stared out at the night for a while, rather than go inside and listen too closely.

25

Dare woke when Silver slipped out of bed, but she told him to go back to sleep, he had plenty of time yet. After a moment, he did. She figured he was tired from exertions, first emotional, then physical. She ached a little herself, but in a pleasanter way than she had for days.

She sat out in front of the den and watched the sun rise. The scents on the wind were quiet, the background of a world not yet awake. Few others were stirring in their dens. The colors weren’t quiet. They burst pink and orange over the trees and left saturated blue behind. They reminded her why, once upon a time at the beginning of all stories, the Lady and Death had chosen to walk this world and experience its heartache rather than live in the safety of her chill white and his cold black.

Boston came, to add the richness of his brown to the riot of the sky. He waited politely at a little distance until Silver moved to make room for him. They watched the sky together, companionable. “That was a kind thing you did for Dare,” he said at length.

Silver sighed and brought her hair forward to finger-comb it. Time to order herself and face the day, looking neat and confident even if she wasn’t sure she was. She smiled and laughed with the warmth remaining from the time they’d ignored the world last night. “I enjoyed it plenty too, I assure you.”

Boston chuckled, rich as his skin. “I wasn’t talking about that, puppy.” He let his smile fade into a sigh of his own. “You knew that would happen if you got into a dominance contest, didn’t you?”

Silver looked down at her toes. She wiggled them. At least all of those worked, even if her arm didn’t. “I suspected it would.” She’d expected someone would figure that out, if not Dare himself. Better Dare didn’t, if she could manage it. He’d be angry she’d do that to herself, for him, but it had been her gift to give and she didn’t regret it. She’d done it to give him the chance with his daughter Boston had promised. Dare’s daughter meant so much to him; that was worth most anything.

“So it was a kind thing you did.” Boston placed his hands on his thighs. “You know, I feel responsible for him sometimes. It’s not logical, of course, but he met his wife at a party of mine, soon after he joined my pack. I’d thought it was a good idea then too, to try to form ties with the Europeans.” He smiled, small. “I saw Dare’s face when he first caught sight and scent of her. I knew he was done for even then.”

Death prowled in from the trees, light dust speckling his fur here and there until he shook himself and was unbroken in his blackness once more. “He didn’t know when first he saw you. Are you jealous,
chica
?” He’d used that woman’s voice before, warm and accented, and Silver already knew which of Dare’s ghosts it was. Her stomach flipped. What Death said was true. Her courtship with Dare had been very different. She was very different from the passionate woman the voice sounded like.

But then she thought back to last night. Here, Dare’s past had come as close as it could, and it had been only the two of them together, neither of their ghosts between them.

“I don’t fear the ghost of a voice,” she murmured. “Dare holds that time too close sometimes, but not for his wife. For his daughter.” Her lips thinned. “I can’t have cubs of my own. My blood will always carry too much taint.” She wanted to look at the scars, but her arm was held against her to save her shoulder, so she left it. She hugged herself with her good arm. “I don’t understand why it hurts him so much, missing his daughter, but to see him in so much
pain,
and I can’t do anything about it—I’d do anything to ease it for him, but I just don’t know how—I hurt just watching him, and she’s not even my daughter, I can’t even have a child.”

Boston switched his hand from his knee to hers and squeezed in wordless sympathy. “Thank you,” he said at length.

“For what? Hurting too? It doesn’t do him much good.” Silver watched Death stalk a lizard’s shadow through the grass. Her eyes stung, but if she didn’t blink, maybe the tears wouldn’t fall.

“Bringing him all the way back. This is a setback, but you know how far he’s come with you. I brought him as far as I could, after she died, but he was a stubborn cat’s bastard and dug in his feet.”

Death’s jaws closed with a chomp on his shadowy prey. “He would have decided to come back on his own eventually, I’m sure,” Silver said. “You remember the story of how Death refused to collect voices as the Lady needed him to, at first?”

Boston pressed his thumb to his forehead. “I do. But I’ve heard you’ve a talent for telling stories. Perhaps some evening, you could tell it for all of us.” He blew out a sigh and pushed to his feet. “Come. We should eat before the meeting.”

Susan and Silver’s cousin joined them when they smelled the food, and the large gathering brought Dare out of bed soon after. “It’s getting late. I thought you said we had plenty of time,” he said, eyeing Silver as he brushed out hair damp from washing. The white streaks grew more distinct as he untangled them from the rest.

Silver’s heart picked up speed as she doled out his food, but she refused to let her worries show in her face. He wouldn’t like this, but that was his problem. “You have plenty of time because you’re not coming this morning.”

Dare sputtered something, but cut himself off. He stood tall and glowered at her instead, not speaking until he had control of himself again. “Why not?”

“Because you told me they get the trivial matters out of the way first. Today will be full of them, and it will only wear you down. I can sit and nod during border disputes without you. My cousin can give me advice on how to stand.” She nodded to her cousin and he dipped his head respectfully in return.

Silver looked around and located the young man next. She knew his name, really she did— “Tom. You can guide me through any complicated things of this world I can’t see.” Better for her status if she used a low-ranked Were like an assistant rather than appearing to lean too heavily on her beta’s strength.

Tom bounced to his feet and bowed extravagantly, hair falling into his eyes. As she’d suspected, he radiated delight at getting to participate. Dare growled and Tom subsided, pushing his excitement below the surface.

Dare came up beside her and put a hand on the back of her neck. His hand was shaking again. She’d made the right decision, then. Good. She’d worried about making him feel vulnerable in front of the others to no purpose, but she’d never let him try to sit still and listen to people whine all day when he was like this.

“You shouldn’t have to deal with Seattle business on your own, Silver.”

“I’ll be fine.” Silver took his hand away and kissed the inside of his wrist. “We’re equal partners, aren’t we? Either of us can handle business. Besides.” She nodded to Boston. “This way your daughter will notice your absence, and start to get interested.”

“Mm.” Dare gathered up his food and stalked away to their room. Silver bit her lip. Had that been agreement, or had that been “Fine, once you leave I’ll do whatever I want”? She had done that a few times herself.

“Susan.” Silver went over to where the woman sat and petted her son’s head. Susan looked up at her, and Silver considered her approach. As the woman’s alpha she could order her, but that didn’t seem right. She crouched to put herself at a more companionable height as she asked the favor. “Can you stay with him? So he doesn’t have to be alone. And so he doesn’t run out to find his daughter the minute we leave.”

Something heavy thudded against a wall back where Dare had holed up. Silver winced. She’d been right.

Susan bounced her knee until Edmond laughed. “How am I supposed to stop him if he decides to leave? He’s hardly going to listen to me.”

“But he won’t hurt you. Block his way so he can’t move you without hurting you.”

Susan’s expression turned dubious, but she examined Silver’s, probably to judge her honesty. She nodded at whatever she found there. “All right. I’ll try.”

Silver pressed fingertips to her temple. What else did she need to do before the meeting? That was the best she could think of to help Dare while she wasn’t here. If there were things she should do to anticipate actions from their opponents, she couldn’t think of any now.

“Silver,” Boston said with a hint of a dry laugh in his tone. “You need to eat something.”

Silver laughed in return. After everything else, she should follow her own frequent advice to Dare. She sat, and let her cousin heap food in front of her. She’d done what she could. With luck and the Lady’s favor, today would be quiet, giving Dare time to recover. Silver didn’t really believe it.

*   *   *

Susan settled on the dusty old couch to nurse Edmond and let him fall asleep against her. Andrew was still back in his room. Unless he knocked an Andrew-shaped hole in the back wall,
Looney Tunes
fashion, he wasn’t going anywhere for the moment. She heard him pacing in a pattern of creaking boards as her arm grew tired from holding up her book around Edmond.

After about three-quarters of an hour, he came out and banged around the kitchen at length. He ended up with only a mug of coffee, which he sipped while staring out the kitchen window into the trees behind the cabin. Maybe there were rabbits or something out there to draw a Were’s attention.

He finally turned one of the battered kitchen chairs to face her and flopped into it, resting his mug on one knee. “How’d you sleep?” His tone turned the simple question into almost an accusation. Susan stared at him. What was that supposed to mean? What business was it of his, anyway?

When he got her annoyed stare instead of an answer, Andrew sighed. “I’m sorry. Small talk’s beyond me at this point, but I can’t just sit here in silence. Isn’t there something you could ask about? Were … baby naming traditions, or whatever the hell you want. Something to keep my mind off what Silver has to be dealing with.” He drew in a careful breath. “Please.”

“Okay,” Susan said. That was fair enough. She cast her mind about, but now that she was looking, the many questions that had occurred to her lately had fled. Murphy’s Law. There was only … but that hardly seemed polite. Then again, Andrew wanted to be distracted.

She hesitated another second or two, then launched into it. “Well. I was going to ask Silver because—you’ll see. And I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing it’s rude to ask.” Andrew still looked amused, so she pushed onward before he became annoyed with the delay. “BDSM.”

Andrew choked and had to cough a mouthful of coffee out of his lungs. As the spasm faded, Susan realized he was laughing. “I presume you know the definition of the term. What about it?” His lips curved with suppressed amusement.

“Is that what you guys want? You talk, and it’s all about dominance and submission everywhere else. I mean, obviously you can do vanilla, but—” Susan held her breath. He wouldn’t think she was hitting on him, would he? But if werewolves could smell half the stuff they seemed to be able to, he should know she was overwhelmingly embarrassed.

Andrew slumped back into a more comfortable sprawl and chanced another drink of coffee. “Forbidden stuff is the most titillating, right? In general. That kind of clear hierarchy, complete control and obedience, that’s usually forbidden in most humans’ daily lives. You hide it, try to pretend it’s not there. Us, it’s not hidden. It’s not as interesting to play it out in the bedroom too. If anything, healthy relationships have to be more about equality.”

“So do couples have to be the same rank?” Susan leaned forward, intent.

Andrew grimaced. “It helps. But it’s more—you figure out how you relate to each other, in private, separate from how you relate to the rest of the pack. It’s not always the same. That’s what Silver was getting at back when she told you to think before you raised your issue with John in front of his pack. Some things need to stay in private.”