Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

“If you mean set you up to be killed by someone you want to be the next rat king, you can just forget that. I’m not a big believer in suicide.”

He grabbed my wrist. “Anita, don’t you understand? I am the king not of just the local rodere, but all the rats across the country. The group here, alone, is large enough to challenge almost every other shapeshifter group.”

I looked into his almost desperate eyes and said the only thing I could. “I understand that, but I won’t let you sacrifice yourself until we’ve exhausted all the other options, Rafael.”

He knelt straighter, rotating his back so he could look at me more straight on, and the movement made him double up in pain, almost taking us both to the floor with his grip on my wrist.

“I need more light. There’s something wrong with this wound.”

“Do what you must,” he said. He’d let go of my wrist and was just on all fours, letting his head hang down like an exhausted horse. I got his arm across my shoulders, my other arm around his body, being careful not to touch the wound, and helped him to his feet. He usually stood so straight, so strong, but now he stumbled and I held most of his weight for a second; then he fought his feet back under him and helped me get him out into the better lighting of the main shower area.

I debated on whether to make him walk to the benches in the locker room or just let him slide to the floor here, because standing wasn’t happening unaided, and he wanted as few people as possible to see how badly he was hurt. I finally put him near a wall so he could lean on it, but he was back on his knees where he started. He was kneeling in a bright pool of light, though, and that was what I needed.

I could see the initial thrust of the weapon in the outer part of the wound. The edges had started to heal, but it was silver and there was only so much even Rafael’s body could do. That wasn’t the part of the wound that looked odd to me. It was deeper into the meat of his body.

“As deep as this is, it should still be bleeding, but it’s not.”

“Have I healed it, then?”

“The outer edges of the wound, yes, I think so, or your body is trying to, but deeper in the wound track it’s like the flesh is burned. I’m not even sure that’s exactly the right word, but burned is the best I have to describe what I’m seeing. We need a doctor.”

“No.” His voice was very final as he said it. I’d been in enough meetings with the leaders of the lycanthrope community to know that when Rafael said no like that, it was a decision, not a suggestion.

“Fine, but can I bring Micah down here to give a second opinion?”

He leaned his forehead against the tile as if just staying on his knees was effort. “Yes, I trust him as I trust you.”

I had to go to the locker room to get my phone and call Micah.

His greeting was, “Nathaniel says dinner is getting cold.”

“I need you down in the group showers. One of the shapeshifters is hurt and the wound looks wrong.”

“We have a doctor on call for that. Anita, what aren’t you telling me?”

“It’s Rafael and he doesn’t want the doctor to see. He says he trusts you, me, Jean-Claude, Richard, and the other kings and allies, but no one else.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said, and the earlier slight domestic chiding was gone. He was all business. One of the things I’d always valued about him was how he let all the small stuff fall away and just concentrated on the important things.

I stayed by Rafael. He started holding my hand, squeezing occasionally from the pain, and reminding me just how freakishly strong he was. “If I hurt you, you must say something.”

“Trust me, I will.”

He shuddered again, his upper body arching toward the floor. His head touched my thigh, and I stroked his wet hair. “Stay down, it’s okay.”

“You mean lay my head in your lap and you will pet me?”

“If that will help, yeah.”

He let his forehead rest a little more solidly on my thigh, hesitated for another moment, and then eased onto his side, his head cradled on my thigh, one hand in mine. When he’d settled as much as he could, I touched his hair and stroked it back from his face again. When he didn’t protest, I kept running my fingers through his damp hair while he lay in my lap, huddled around his pain, his hand squeezing periodically against mine, as the pain spiked.

“Thank you,” he said, softly.

“For what?”

“I trust Micah, Jean-Claude, and even Richard, but I can’t allow myself to be this weak with them.”

I tried to make light of it. “Oh, I don’t know, I think Jean-Claude would let you put your head in his lap.”

“Don’t do that,” he said.

“Do what?”

He moved his head enough so he could look up at me. “Discount something that is important.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and fought not to squirm. “You’re my friend,” I said, finally. It seemed the wrong word.

“Do you let all your friends put their heads in your lap when you’re nude?”

I hadn’t felt naked until he remarked on it. I fought off the automatic embarrassment and said, “It’s against the shapeshifter code to remark on nudity if it’s not meant sexually.”

“That is true, but though we are not in love with each other, nor dating, what we have is more than just friendship, Anita.”

I looked away from the demand in his eyes but forced myself to look back when I realized how much I didn’t want to meet his eyes. No cowardice in anything, large or small, because if you start flinching in small things, it can spread to larger ones. I needed to be brave for my job, and just for myself.

I studied the face of this strong, brave, honorable man and laid my hand against the side of that face. “Yes, more than friends.”

He smiled, and that alone made it worth saying.

I knew Micah was near before he came into the shower rooms, though I wasn’t sure if I’d smelled him, sensed him, or heard him; I just knew before he walked in the room that it would be him.

He hurried toward us, still dressed, which seemed odd enough in the showers that I wanted either him to strip down, or us to magically have clothes. He knelt down beside Rafael, hand going to the side of the wound in his back. It was big enough that he didn’t have to ask where, or what.

Micah made a small hissing sound under his breath like a cat when it’s startled. “Tell me what happened, Rafael.”

He did, with me helping to expand the bare-bones story he told. “The wound looks burned or something—I mean it’s deep and not healing, but it’s not bleeding either. It should be bleeding, right?”

“Did their healer pack the wound?”

“Initially to stop the bleeding, but you know we can’t leave it full of bandages.”

“Yes, our bodies can heal the dressing inside us,” Micah said.

“Why isn’t this healing?” I asked.

A shudder ran through Rafael that made him squeeze so hard on my hand it stole my breath away. “That was a bad one,” I said.

“I did not mean to hurt you,” he said.

“It’s just the pain seems to be growing worse, and it should be getting better, right?” I looked up at Micah for reassurance, or an explanation.

“Yes, it should be,” he said. He put his hands on either side of the wound and peered down at it like I had earlier. “Maybe the healer left silver in you. I would like to search the wound, but it’s going to hurt.”

“Do whatever is necessary,” Rafael said. He took a firmer grip on my hand and closed his eyes. I kept stroking his hair as if that would make everything better, but sometimes it’s not about logic, just comfort. What comforts you is like emotions; they may not make any sense at all, but they’re still true.