Silent Cravings (38 page)

Ashi, with his ice bag wrapped in a towel and pressed to his head, went downstairs to see if Analie could find him a map of New York and the surrounding states. He knocked on Mouse’s apartment door. No answer. After hesitating a moment, he let himself in.

Analie was nowhere to be seen, though there were a few schoolbooks on the table in the living room, a neat stack of loose-leaf next to them, and a giant, lopsided tiger made out of fun foam. He scented but couldn’t track anything while he was human. The kitchen was empty as well, though he noticed a plate of cookies on the counter.

Ashi moved to the bedroom. He knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Analie called.

Ashi walked in and was greeted with a snarl. Entirely unimpressed, he glowered at Analie until she shrank back.

“I need a map of New York,” he told her.

“Tough.”

“The next couple of days would be fine.”

“I don’t think you heard me. I said ‘tough.’ As in, ‘tough luck, you’re not getting a map of New York from me.’”

“It needs to show streets, railroads, that sort of thing.”

“Uh, hello? I’m not getting you a map.”

Ashi stared at her. “Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“Listen to me, you little brat—”

Analie was out of her chair and on him in a second. Her eyes were completely gold and her nails were sharp and hard. Ashi suffered three brutal swipes through his shirt before he could throw her off and beat a hasty retreat. That hadn’t gone well at all. His powers of intimidation had obviously dimin—

Oh
shit,
she was chasing him!

Long after Tim had nodded off, Mouse got to her feet, carefully easing him back down and tucking the covers around him. Deeply troubled, she eased out of the apartment, shutting the door quietly behind her and heading slowly back downstairs, carefully not looking at Christoph on the way.

When she got to the first floor, Ashi was in the midst of running away from something. Again. Probably John.

Not terribly pleased, she waited a moment to see who was after him this time. When Analie rocketed out the door behind him, she blinked in shock, wondering what the hell he did to set her off. With an unheard sigh, she rushed forward to interpose herself and keep Analie from tearing Ashi to bits.

Analie stopped short when the shadow blocked her path. The outline and paper-cutout shadows had a hazy filling, like an out-of-focus picture. Analie sucked in a lungful of air and snarled warningly.

Christoph blinked as Ashi, bleeding, bolted past him. Christoph turned to Jessica’s door and knocked a little more urgently.

Jessica surged to her feet, threw her pencil down, and opened the door. She wasn’t expecting company so she was only wearing an old T-shirt and some loose jeans, her hair unkempt, and making no effort to hide the fresh, tiny bite marks on her neck. She slumped against the door and offered a tired, but nonetheless welcoming, smile.

“Hi, Christoph. What’s up? What was all that noise a little while ago?”

“I broke a door. Can I come in? Right now?” Christoph asked quickly.

Jessica’s eyes widened. “Yeah. Sure. Just don’t break any of my stuff please.”

She stepped aside so Christoph could come in, then moved to the kitchen, gesturing for him to follow. She nudged a chair out for him, and wearily settled into her own.

“Thanks,” Christoph said, sitting down. He eyed her neck. “Are you okay?”

Jessica dragged the textbook she’d been working on closer, shoving some papers in to save her page and shutting it with a thump. She smiled at Christoph, a lazy, pleased grin that said more than words that she was still feeling the afterglow.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little wiped. I’ll be okay in an hour or so.”

She eyed him thoughtfully, arching a brow at the bruises and splinters. “What’s up? Did you need help with something?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how to properly apologize to Mouse and I was wondering if you could help me figure something out.”

Mouse waved frantically at Analie to calm down. When she tried to slip past to give chase to Ashi, Mouse matched her movements, blocking her path. She didn’t want to get caught up in more fighting, but she would knock Analie on her ass if she didn’t stop. She was
not
in the mood.

Analie finally realized she wasn’t going to get past—Mouse. Oh, crap. The last person she needed to freak out and make feel bad was Mouse. She backed off, her claws shrinking and fangs retreating, the gold dissipating in her eyes.

“Sorry,” she muttered, brushing her hands through her hair to get it to lay flat. “Ashi tried to pull some dominance crap with me and I sorta flipped.” She hung her head, embarrassed.

Mouse relaxed and reached out to give Analie a light pat on the shoulder to show there were no hard feelings. She even managed to dredge up a smile. Gesturing for Analie to go back into the apartment, she went inside and headed straight to the kitchen to make tea. Not for Analie, who she’d figured out didn’t like the stuff, but for herself.

Analie went to the bathroom to wash Ashi’s blood from under her fingernails, then to the kitchen to grab a cookie. They were Chinese almond cookies, and she was quite pleased with how they turned out.

“I wish you could meet the rest of the pack. Ashi is a bad example of a Goliath. Hell, he barely has Were instincts. He doesn’t care if he sleeps out in the open on
top
of a bed, he doesn’t scent for stuff, he doesn’t like getting close to people—it’s ridiculous. He’ll kill you if you try to scratch his head or anything.” Analie brightened. “Hey, that reminds me—if you rub the back of Christoph’s head—like under the hair—he practically goes comatose. Try it sometime, he’ll totally do anything for it.”

Mouse leaned against the counter, waiting for the water to come to a boil on the stove. She watched, eyes heavily lidded, feeling warm and sated, as Analie moved around. Her interest was piqued by that tidbit about Christoph, too. Not that she thought he’d be interested in her touching him, which sent a brief pang of regret through her. She dragged a pad and pencil over, scrawling out a few words. She didn’t feel terribly bad writing them; it was more a fact of life.

I don’t think your pack would be too happy to meet me. We’re not very popular with your kind.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Analie sighed. “But you guys are so different from California vampires. Like the Weres here are different from California Weres. Like, way different. Anyway, try the head scritches on Christoph. Don’t freak out if he crams against you. We all do that. You should see UFC nights. We can get eight people on a loveseat.”

Mouse nodded, a smile tugging at her lips. She wrote a bit more, gave the page to Analie, then poured her tea. Her expression had turned very neutral, and she gave no sign of how much writing those last few words hurt.

Very different.

I don’t think Christoph will want me to touch him after what happened yesterday.

His apology notwithstanding, she’d seen the horror on his face when she’d tried to make sure he was okay.

Jessica gave a rather unladylike snort of laughter at Christoph’s request.

“Sure. Question for you, though. You may not like it.”

At his wary nod, her smile faded, some of the amusement dying out of her eyes. She leaned forward so she could watch his reaction very carefully.

“Honestly, really, do you like Mouse? Enough to ever let her bite you? I’m not talking about this minute, but at some point in the future. Think hard on it before you answer me, because this is important.”

Analie laughed. “Jeez, Mouse! He’s gonna get over it, totally! I’m sorry I laughed, but you haven’t seen two Goliaths go at it. Like, go at it for real. One challenges the other and the next thing you know, there’s blood and fur and chunks of each other going flying every which way, with a
ton
of property damage to boot. Anyone who gets in the way is
obliterated
. Even
cubs
. Everyone gets the hell outta Dodge when two Goliaths start fighting.”

She hopped up and grabbed another cookie. “Christoph’s just learning to deal. Pretty soon he’s going to look at it like a dominance battle. A really tiny one, at that. Seriously, Mouse. We’re tough, that’s pretty much the
point
of our pack. The only thing that really scares us is being alone. Just be friendly with him and you’ll see how cool he is with you.”

Christoph
did
think on it, long and hard. He was silent for a good ten minutes, staring at the kitchen table. Jessica didn’t interrupt.

“Honestly,” he said slowly, “I don’t know Mouse. I mean, she’s very nice. And she saved my ass. But hell, I’ve been here for what, a week? I don’t really know her.”

He paused before continuing. “As for the biting, I’m not going to lie, the idea scares me. But out of everyone in the house, I’d be most okay with Mouse biting me.” He shuddered involuntarily. “Sorry. I’m still getting used to this. This is a
huge
mind-fuck. I’m trying to deal. It’s hard without my pack.”