I realized that I hadn't kissed him hello, I always kissed him hello. Of course, I was still covered in blood and other bodily fluids, and none of them were his, but he might not understand that that was why I hadn't wanted to get too close. Some of my confusion must have shown on my face, because his smile widened. He turned me around by the shoulders, gave me a little push toward the bathroom, and slapped me on the ass. "Get cleaned up, I'll take care of things here."

"I can't believe you just did that," I said.

"Did what?" he said, and he was grinning at me.

I could probably count on one hand the number of times Micah had grinned at me. His eyes were sparkling with laughter as if it were all he could do not to let it out. I was happy to see him having this good a time, really I was. But I wasn't sure what was funny, and I didn't have the courage to ask. It was probably something that would be at my expense, or something I'd just done that he found cute. I was not cute. Confused, fucked-up, bruised, but not cute. Nathaniel and Damian knew better, but as I passed Gregory, I had to say, "If you touch my ass, I will rip you a new one." I said it as I moved past him, not even pausing.

"You're no fun," he growled.

I looked back just before I turned out of sight of him. "Oh, I'm a lot of fun, just not for you."

He snarled at me. "Bitch."

"Woof, woof," I said, and finally made it into the bathroom.

19

I tried not to think in the shower. Thinking bad; hot water good. I turned the shower head to as hard as the water would go and the let the water beat against my body, finding bruises I didn't know I had. Once I would have been hurt, really hurt, by the beating that Damian had given me. Thanks to Jean-Claude's vampire marks I was just a little stiff. The bite would take the longest to heal, and even that would be gone in few days, a week at the outside. The healing was great, the rest of it... well, let's just say the jury was still out.

I heard a noise over the pounding water. It took me a minute to realize that someone was knocking at the door. I tried to ignore it. The knocking stopped for a second, and I thought, oh, good, but it started again, louder, as if whoever was knocking thought I hadn't heard the first time.

I sighed, turned off the water, and called, "What?"

"Damian isn't doing well," Nathaniel said through the closed door.

I stood there a second water dripping into my eyes, and said, "What do you mean, Damian's not doing well?"

"Can't you feel it?"

I thought about it. I thought about Damian, and suddenly fear was like a crushing weight on my chest. It staggered me for a second, and I was glad there was a safety bar in the shower to grab on to. It was a shadow of what had driven him to run screaming through the house. I wasn't sure we'd all survive him doing it twice. "I'm coming."

I squeezed out my hair, wound a towel around it, and was trying to towel off enough for a robe, when the door sprang open. Gregory came first in his fur suit, one clawed hand under Damian's arm. Richard had the other arm. They half-dragged, half-carried him through the door. They carried him toward me, and his fear rode before him. I'd felt fear before, but not like this. It crushed my chest so that I couldn't breathe, closed my throat. The fear had weight enough to slam me to the floor, as if something had smashed into me. It wasn't my pulse I was choking on, it was as if the terror itself were wet silk, and I was trying to swallow it. Slick, wet, suffocating, more real than any fear I'd ever felt. Not real the way an emotion is real, but real the way a rock, a chair, or an animal is real. Fear had become something... more.

They dropped Damian into my lap, and it was as if every part of my skin ran with chills, and then every inch of my skin tried to crawl away. Tried to crawl away and leave my body to die. My skin would have saved itself if it hadn't been trapped against my body. The rest of me would have gone with it, but we were trapped under Damian's weight. Trapped in his fear, frozen in it. If I could have breathed, I would have screamed, but all I could do was drown. Drown in Damian's fear.

Someone touched my shoulder, but it was distant. As if no one's skin were as real to me as Damian's. Someone shook me, sharp and hard. My breath came in a huge gasp, as if I hadn't been breathing for a long time, when my breath came out, it was a shriek.

I was staring up into Richard's startled face. It was his hand on my shoulder. Him kneeling beside us. "Anita, Anita, can you hear me?"

I grabbed Richard's arm, my other hand clutching Damian to me, as if I were afraid if I let him go he'd be lost. As if the fear were some horrible beast that could literally eat him up, and destroy him.

Richard shook me again. "Anita, say something." ;.

"God, it's so... awful."

Damian nodded his head against my stomach. He'd been lying almost limply against me, but now he grabbed me around the waist and hip, his hands holding on as if I were the last solid thing in the world. I felt a burst of emotion from him, and it was gratitude. He was grateful that I could share his fear. Sharing it seemed to make it less, or make it more bearable.

That thought, that sharing fear made it easier to bear, brought a memory. It wasn't my memory. It was a face that I had never seen before, but one that Damian knew as well as his own. All high angles and strong lines, a scar from his forehead to his cheek, where he'd been cut in the first raid we'd gone on. She-who-made-us said once that the scar saved his life, because without it, his hair was more blond than hers, his eyes more blue. That scar ruined his handsomeness enough for her to leave him whole. For even men who were too fair were not safe from her envy. The only name I heard in my head was Perrin, but I knew that wasn't right. That hadn't been his name, anymore than Damian had been mine, ours, his.

I smelled vanilla and felt something thick and warm glide over my skin. I blinked awake, if awake was the right word. Nathaniel was kneeling beside us. He'd undone his braid so that the vanilla scent of his hair had perfumed around me. His hair cascaded around him and spilled over the side of my body, pooling into my lap, covering Damian like a blanket, if a blanket could flow like liquid over a body. Nathaniel had covered us in his hair, but had very carefully avoided touching our skin with his. He was so close to us that not touching took effort, so close it was as if a sigh would have pressed the line of his body against mine. But he stayed that near painful inch away, letting only scent and the furred glide of hair reach us. The only thing he gave me of his skin was the warmth of it, which even from a distance I could feel. Heat trembling against my skin, as if the warmth of him breathed outward and wanted to touch me. Maybe it did.

It had been such a smart way to bring me out of Damian's memory without risking Nathaniel being dragged into it himself. So smart, but a plan is only as good as everyone in it. Damian moved in my lap, and I had a second to realize what he was going to do. I drew a breath to warn Nathaniel, but didn't have time to breath out. It was that quick.

Damian grabbed Nathaniel's arm, and that one touch was enough. It was like drowning in light. As if the world had caught fire and become heat, and heat was golden like the color yellow had spilled out and covered everything. Yellow warmth, golden heat. Our eyes were dazzled by it. We were blind in the light. There was nothing but the light and the touch of her small hands, and Perrin's hand in mine. His hand so large, firm, an anchor in the nightmare of the light. Her hands caressed, but it wasn't real. She'd dragged us into the light to drink our fear, not our sex.