Marcus, the old Ulfric, had always insisted on dressing up, so at a glance you'd know he was king. Richard stood there with no clothes to distinguish him, yet you knew he was king. Power makes you a monarch, and all the fancy robes in the world won't do the job without it.
We stared at each other across the clearing. Underneath that new veneer of comfortable power, the look on his face made my chest so tight it hurt. If I could have thought of anything to say that would have made things less painful, I'd have said it, but I couldn't think of any words that would help.
Jamil and Shang-Da came up on either side of him, and there was a look of anger on Shang-Da's face. Anger at me, I think. Jamil looked at Richard, as if he wished there was some way for him to guard Richard from this, as well as from bullets and claws. But with some things, even a really good bodyguard can't take the hit for you. This was one of those things.
Richard's voice came deep, loud, clear, untouched by the look on his face. "Welcome rat king of the Dark Crown Clan. Welcome Nimir-Ra and Nimir-Raj of the Blooddrinkers Clan. Welcome to the lands of the Thronnos Rokke Clan. The leopards have shown us this night what it truly means to be a clan, be they pard, lukoi, or rodere. They show us what we all strive for--a true melding of all our parts into a whole." Bitterness crept in at the last, but on the whole, it was a lovely speech, and more heartfelt than pleasant.
"Now join us at our lupanar, and we will see if you can win back your lost cat." There was anger in his voice, and I wondered if Gregory was about to pay the price for Richard's anger with me.
Richard turned and melted into the trees with Shang-Da at his side. Jamil spared a glance back at me, then followed.
Micah leaned close and whispered, "I owe you several apologies. I'm sorry your Ulfric had to see us this way."
"Me, too," I said.
"I said your cats were a mess, and I was wrong. You have made a home for your cats, and mine have nowhere to hide."
"What is wrong with all of you?" It wasn't perhaps the most diplomatic question, but it covered things.
"That is a very long story."
Merle leaned over us. He spoke so low that I almost couldn't hear him. "Be very careful for all our sakes."
They had some very serious eye contact. I said, "What is going on?"
Micah raised my hand and laid a brief kiss on the knuckles. "Let's save your Gregory. That has to be priority tonight, right?"
He smiled and tried to charm his way out of the stare I was giving him. I stared at him until the smile faded from his face and he dropped my hand. "Yeah, saving Gregory is priority for tonight, but I want to know what's going on."
"One problem at a time," Micah said.
I was getting the very distinct feeling that if they all could have lied to me forever, they would have. It wasn't lying, as much as hiding things from me. Things that had to do with blood and pain, and no matter how powerful they all were, Micah's pard wasn't a family, wasn't whole. Strangely, as messed up as me and my leopards were, we were a family. More so than Richard and his wolves, even. Richard was so busy fighting his moral battles and his power structure problems that there wasn't time for mending other things.
"Give me the Reader's Digest condensed version, Micah" I said.
"Gregory is waiting for you to rescue him."
"So give me a couple of sentences, but make it the truth, Micah."
"Micah," Merle said softly, but with force to his voice. It was a warning.
I looked at the big man. "What are you guys hiding, Merle?"
Micah touched my arm, brought my attention back to his face. "I told you that once we were taken over by a very bad man, who still wants us. I'm searching for someplace strong enough to keep us safe."
"Are you saying this guy will come looking for you here in St. Louis?"
"Yes," he said.
"Most alphas can take a hint," I said.
Micah shook his head. "This one won't. He will never give us up." He gripped my arm. "If you take us on, you'll have to deal with him eventually."
"Is he bulletproof?" I asked.
The question seemed to confuse him, because he frowned. "No, I mean, no, I guess not."
I shrugged. "Not a problem then."
He looked at me. "What do you mean? That you'll just kill him?"
It was my turn to look at him. "Is there any reason I shouldn't?"
He almost smiled, stopped, then frowned again. "Just kill him, just like that." It was almost as if he were thinking it over, as if it had never occurred to him.
Merle said, "He's a hard man to kill."
"Unless he's faster than a silver bullet, Merle, nobody's that hard to kill."
Rafael came slowly through the leopards, Claudia and Igor trailing him. "We've all been thinking of your leopards as lesser than us. What I just saw makes me envious."
"I know how the wolves work," I said. "And I know that they don't have a sense of home. First Raina and Marcus made them afraid of each other, now Richard's morals have him struggling to be safe. But you and yours seem pretty secure. How different is what I've done with my leopards from what everyone else is doing?"
"I've benefited from your loyalty, your sheer stubbornness. What I didn't realize until tonight is that you didn't save me just because I was your friend, or just because it was the right thing to do. You didn't risk yourself and your people to save me from torture because of the kind of moral rightness that Richard is fond of. You saved me because you could not bear the thought leaving me behind." He touched my face, very gently. "Not from a sense of right and wrong, but because you are just that tenderhearted."
I looked at him. "I've been called a lot of things, but never that."
He chucked me under the chin like you would a child. "Don't make light of one of your better qualities. You love your people like a mother is supposed to love her children. You want what's best for them, even if that makes you uncomfortable, even if you don't like their choices."
I had to look away from the wonderment on his face, like he was looking at somebody else that couldn't be me. "You have never been their leopard queen in body, but you shamed us all tonight. It's not seeing your closeness to Micah that will torment Richard, though that will burn. It's that you gave us a glimpse of what we are all striving for, for our clans. Richard believes his moral rightness will get him where your leopards already are."
I looked up at him. "My pard is not a democracy, and I have a hell of a lot more than just presidential veto when it comes to decisions."
"Richard knows that, better probably than anyone, and that will gall him, Anita. It will make him doubt himself."
I shook my head. "Richard always doubts himself when it comes to the lukoi. He'll never have surety about them until he has surety about who and what he is."
"First I have to accept the fact that you're kindhearted, now I have to accept the fact that you're insightful as well. I knew you were powerful, ruthless, and pretty, but that you have a mind and a heart besides is going to take some getting used to."
"Does everyone pretty much think I'm just a sociopath who happens to have magical abilities?"
"It's all you let people see," he said, "until now." He gazed out towards the circle of faces still turned to us. I saw a kind of hunger in their faces, and I knew that they had felt what I'd felt, a sense of true belonging, of being home within the circle--not of bricks or mortar--but of flesh, of hands to grasp, arms to hold, smiles to share. So simple, so rare.
All these months I'd been worried I'd fail the wereleopards. I thought failure meant them dying, or getting hurt. What I realized suddenly was that the true failure would have been if I hadn't given a damn. You can bandage a wound, set a broken bone, but not caring ... you can't cure that, and you can't recover from it.