Silent Cravings (15 page)

The expressions on their faces varied from intrigued to welcoming to outright pissed off. Sebastian didn’t stop to answer any of the questions some were calling out as he went to the end of the hall.

“Who is this guy?”

“Where’d he come from?”

“What’s with the collar?”

The whispered comments and speculations were left behind as Sebastian gestured for Ashi to enter an apartment that was laid out exactly as Mouse’s. The difference was in the decorating; there were movie posters and pin-ups from
Playboy
plastered on the walls, an entertainment center with a huge TV, and enough action movies and video game consoles to bring tears of joy to the eyes.

There was a guy in the kitchen pulling a beer out of the fridge and holding it to his sweat-plastered forehead. Aside from numerous tattoos and slightly longer hair, he looked exactly
like Sebastian. He was human
.

“Welcome to your new home. Your room’s on the left. Mine and Thad’s is on the right. Stay the hell out of it.” Sebastian said, stalking off to said room and slamming the door behind him.

“Oh, uh, it’s generally a good idea to let a sleeping Were lie, especially when it’s a Goliath,” Analie said quickly, backing away. “We’ve got these psycho self-preservation insti—”

Christoph jerked, then sat bolt upright and clenched both hands into fists. Analie wasn’t sure how strong a human was, so she set her tea down, slopping a bit of it on the floor, and jumped on Christoph, putting him in a tight headlock. Mouse quickly got up and took a step back, dismayed.

As Analie expected, he struggled and made snorting noises that would have likely been snarls had he actually had that capability. Other than that, he couldn’t do a damn thing while Analie was clinging to him. It both weirded her out and amused her to no end.

“
Jesus fucking Christ!
” Christoph screamed. His voice was almost shrill.

“Calm down, you fucktard!” Analie yelled right back.

“
Fucking hell! Holy fucking hell!
”

“Shut up! You’re okay! Jesus!”

“
What the fuck?
”

Analie rolled her eyes. It was greatly frowned upon to falsely use the alpha’s name to establish order, but Mouse was making very worried gestures. Analie liked her quite a bit and didn’t want this to drag out for hours, as it very well could. She’d seen Christoph in a mood.

“
Alpha
in the
house
!” Analie bellowed.

Christoph went rigid and tried to cough respectfully. It was thin and garbled, but recognizable. Analie still kept him in a lock.

“Are you going to stop thrashing?” she demanded.

“Sure,” Christoph mumbled, realizing there was no alpha in the house.

“Are you going to sit still and not cause a commotion?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you totally lying to me to get me to let go of you?” Analie asked.

Christoph started thrashing again and managed to throw himself off the couch, dragging Analie with him. She managed to get one knee between his shoulders and twist his arms behind his back.

“Calm down! You haven’t been bitten, you got bashed around
less
than a high-rank would have done, and you’re not dead! Be thankful, you idiot!”

“Fuck this shit,” Christoph rasped, trying to throw Analie off. “
Fuck
this. I am going back to California and I am—”

“No, you’re
not
. They will tear you apart. Can you imagine what Gavin would do to you?” Analie found herself newly surprised at how weak Christoph was and eased off with her knee a little. It was very strange to her, physically having the upper hand against him. “And you are
not
bringing a fight back. What the hell do you think we’d do if that happened?”

“This is insane. This is fucked up,” Christoph snapped.

“No shit! You broke cub-hide, burst into Royce’s room, and then went crazy! No wonder it’s fucked up!
You
fucked it up!” Analie glared at the back of his head. “Frankly, I think you deserve this after the great switcheroo you pulled.”

Christoph sagged slightly.

“Can I let you go now, or are you gonna be an idiot still?” Analie asked.

“Lemme up.”

“If you’re lying I am going to body-check you through that wall, squishy be damned.”

Analie stood up and took a step back. Christoph slowly sat up and dragged himself onto the couch.

“I swear to God, sometimes I think you need a babysitter,” Analie grumbled, going to the kitchen to find something to mop up the spilled tea.

While Christoph was being put in his place by a Were ten years younger than him, Ashi shuffled into his new room. He didn’t notice much about the surroundings, only located the closet, stepped inside, shut the door, and curled up into a ball on the floor.

With luck they’d forget about him and he could eventually sneak away. Right now, though, he just wanted to sleep.

Thad had watched him with curious, seawater eyes—the same unusual color as his older brother. He’d muttered something under his breath, watched Ashi disappear into his new room, but didn’t say a thing. Obviously, something was wrong. After moving all of his own crap around and being tossed out of his own room, Thad couldn’t say he was sorry to see Ashi retreat into the bedroom like a kicked dog.

With a shrug, he cracked his beer open and settled down for a bit of explosive summer blockbuster action on the couch.

Mouse was gesturing frantically, tempted to step in to keep Analie from hurting Christoph too badly, but afraid she might make it worse. Some of the faces she made would have been quite comical under other circumstances. Unlike Analie, she was used to having to temper her strength to deal with humans, and she wasn’t sure Analie had realized that what amounted to a casual gesture to her could easily snap Christoph’s neck now, completely unintentionally.

When Christoph started dragging himself back on the couch, Mouse moved in to help, offering a supporting hand. She wasn’t intending to scare him into a fit all over again, but no doubt as soon as he recalled she wasn’t just “the chick with the boobs,” but a vampire, he’d plaster himself to the ceiling.

Once he was sitting up, she pressed one of the steaming cups of tea into his hands and urged him to drink it. It had been heavily sweetened with honey, but it couldn’t hide the undertone of bitter herbs. A natural means of soothing nerves frayed to the breaking point to help ease him out of shock. Once she was sure he had a grip on the mug and wouldn’t slosh the contents all over himself and the couch, she took her own cup in one hand, sipping it while she scrawled him a note with the other.

You’re safe here. No one will hurt you. Drink the tea and please try to relax.

Analie watched as Christoph took the cup and sipped. His eyes had a hollow, staring quality. When Mouse showed him the note, he looked at it. Analie wasn’t sure if he even read it.

She wiped up the spill and took a sip of her own tea. She liked the honey, but the underlying bitterness made her hair fluff. She set the cup down.

Analie wondered about that one statement Mouse had made:
He’s mine
. She couldn’t imagine Christoph belonging to anyone. Maybe Mouse thought Christoph would get as close to her as he would to a packmate. It wasn’t uncommon for a Were to say “he’s mine,” meaning part of that Were’s group or beta pack.

Maybe she should tell Mouse about the Rattlesnake Talk.

“Hey, Mouse?” When the shifting shadows seemed to focus on her, Analie managed not to have a fluff attack. “I think there’s something I should tell you. About Goliaths.”

If shadows could look interested, Mouse’s certainly did.

“As soon as we’re old enough, or as soon as you join the pack, we get the Rattlesnake Talk. It’s what to do when we encounter a vampire.” Analie paused. She was trying to think of the least offensive way to put it. “This is like, really rude to vampires, maybe. So bear with me.”

Mouse motioned for her to continue.

“Basically, if we see a vampire when we’re walking down the street, you don’t look at them or sniff at them or anything. You keep your head down and go right past. If you find one standing around, not going anywhere, you find a different way around. You just get out of the area.”

Analie thought for a minute. “If you get into a—uh—‘bad situation’ with a vampire, you’re supposed to kick and punch and try to get away. You’re not supposed to go on the attack. If it gets really bad, you go for the throat.”

Mouse nodded slowly.

“With Ashi and Christoph, it’s not so bad,” Analie said, glancing up at the silent vampire. “They joined—they weren’t born into the pack, like me. But we’re also told lots of stories about yo—about vampires. Like Lev, a Russian vampire who—”

“—gutted the prettiest boys and girls he could find and hung the carcasses on the eaves of their parents’ houses,” Christoph finished.

Analie winced. She was glad she couldn’t see Mouse’s expression. If she was horrified, Analie would feel bad. If she was calm, Analie didn’t know what she’d think.

“Y—yeah,” Analie said. “Lev is sort of like our bogeyman. There are other stories, ones I’m technically not supposed to know about until I’m older.”

“Gil?” Christoph asked.

Analie couldn’t hold back a shiver. “Yeah. Gil, um, did... bad... things.”

“He snapped every bone in a woman’s body and then r—”

Analie put a hand over his mouth. “My point is, we’re an ancient pack and we have over a thousand years of horror stories and constant warnings to make us hate vampires. All things considered, I think the three of us are handling this really well. Some better than others.”

Christoph moved her hand and sipped his tea.

“This—” Analie tugged Christoph’s collar and her whole arm lit up in pins and needles. “—is our worst nightmare. Try to understand. Anyone can get used to anything, but Christoph is going to need some time before he sees that you’re not Lev or Gil or Rosa or Ryuji.”

If it was possible for a vampire to look ill, Mouse did.

She didn’t move or react for quite a long time. Eventually, she reached out for the pad of paper, and started to write.

I wasn’t always without voice. Max Carlyle told me that I would be a better singer and actress if I had centuries, not just a few short years, to perfect my art. He made me what I am.

Even though I did everything he ever asked, it was not enough. He was displeased with my rate of progress. Said I embarrassed him in front of his friends.

He took other things, but first he destroyed my ability to be heard. I’m not sure, but Alec says based on the times between his visits to Max when he stopped seeing me in Max’s company, he thinks it might have taken about twenty to twenty-five years for the damage to set in enough to be permanent. Once he realized what Max had done, it was too late. Alec still saved me, but I wasn’t
me
anymore.

You have every reason to be afraid of us. I’m sorry for that. I’ll leave you alone.

It took her a while to write it all down. Not necessarily because she had so much to say, but because of how hard it was to express what had happened to her. She wrote in fits and starts, then hesitated about giving it to them when she was done.

After she worked up the courage to tear the page off and hand it over, Mouse didn’t wait for them to read the note. Instead, she rose silently to her feet, passing the paper to Analie before shuffling off to her bedroom.

Analie read the note and when she had finished, she handed it to Christoph. He took it, but didn’t read it until Analie grabbed the back of his head and forced his line of sight to the paper. When he reached the bottom, he sat back.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“I didn’t know they did that to their own,” Analie said quietly. “I thought they were just mean to humans. I mean, not all of them, but you know what I mean.”

Christoph frowned. “Look at Ashi’s behavior.”

“Even breaking bones isn’t like this,” Analie said, gesturing to the note. “This is something else. Something horrible.”

Christoph set the note aside. “I get the feeling maybe those Rattlesnake Talks left out some stuff.”

“This sort of thing probably isn’t broadly known.” Analie looked over to Mouse’s door. “I know what to do for a Were that’s feeling down, but I don’t think it applies to vampires.”

Christoph let out a small laugh. “Oh, God. Are you talking about puppy piling?”

“It’s perfectly natural to want to smoosh in with a bunch of your friends,” Analie said defensively. “You weren’t born into Goliath. You don’t understand puppy piling.”

Christoph shook his head. “I swear, sometimes you’re more wolf than human.”

“That’s generally the idea.”

“That’s
freaky
.”

“That’s
Goliath
.” She hugged her knees up to her chest. “Our pack name doesn’t come from David and Goliath. It comes from the old Goliath language. It’s supposed to be
Garar a’ath
.”

Christoph tried and failed to pronounce the choppy phrase. “Christ, what does that mean?”

“Eaters of all.”