Defiance

Nathalie was standing on the bath mat. There wasn’t room for anything else.

And they looked different, too. Like I was seeing them for the first time, every hair and tiny line, even the weave of Nat’s T-shirt and the fine thin threads of gold in Dibs’s hair. I could’ve counted all the hairs on his head, given enough time.

Ash’s mad, dark gaze locked on me. He was so white he was almost transparent. It was corpse pallor, and it did nothing for him. His hair hung down in greasy strings, and if not for the scarring running up the left side of his jaw, he probably would have been handsome in a raffish sort of way.

Now that he was human again, you could see just where the bullet’s silver grain had plowed into his flesh. Looked like I’d hit him off-center, but at least the skin wasn’t weeping a raw clear fluid anymore. There were just pockmarks and white stars of scarring, which probably meant the silver had been pushed free and the allergic reaction had stopped. Unless there was still silver buried in his jawbone. That was a real possibility.

It must’ve hurt like hell. I felt bad about it, even if he’d just bit Graves and would have killed us both at the time. Because he’d been under Sergej’s control.

But he wasn’t now. Or at least, I was betting he wasn’t. Hoping he wasn’t.

Dibs blew out a frustrated breath. “I don’t think he understands.” He gave me what passed for a Significant Glance in his book, which meant he looked at my face for a whole half second before dropping his gaze. He didn’t blush, though. “We need to get him cleaned up and dressed. And feed him. The change takes energy, and if he has another session he could relapse.”

“Okay.” I could almost feel my tired, cotton-fogged brain click over to working. Everything else could wait while there were immediate problems in front of me. Maybe in a little while I could lay back down and go to sleep. That sounded awesomely good. “Nat, you think you could scare up some food? I’ll get Benjamin to find him some clothes. Or wait . . . some of Graves’s stuff is around. Dibs, just relax. Ash?”

He cocked his head, still watching me. Something about him reminded me of a feral cat, trapped and just waiting to see how everything would go down. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. The streak in his hair glowed, sun through the skylights drenching the entire white-tiled bathroom. Maybe it was the light making everything look so hyper-real.

“On it.” Nat squeezed past Dibs—who would have folded in on himself to make himself smaller if he could— and slipped past me.

“Be careful.” Benjamin now, fussing from behind me. “He’s dangerous, Milady.”

I snorted. Laid the ice pack down on the old-fashioned sink’s rim. “If he didn’t hurt me then, I don’t think he’s likely to now. See if you can find some of Graves’s clothes, or anything that’ll fit him, huh? Please, Benjamin.” I didn’t have to work to sound weary. The torn place inside me was beginning to hurt, like the novocaine on a tooth wearing off. “Let’s just take this one step at a time.”

“You should really keep icing that—” Dibs piped up.

“It’s iced enough.” I eased into the bathroom. Ash stared at me. “Hey. Bet you’re pretty weirded out. It must feel strange to be smaller now, and not so furry.” The edges of the words slurred. My mouth wouldn’t work quite right.

“Dru.” Benjamin sounded queerly breathless, and he was suddenly at the bathroom door. “Milady—”

The bone-rattling growl that came out of Ash surprised everyone. Dibs squeaked, flattening himself against the tiled wall and a towel rack. Ash’s lip lifted, showing white teeth. A tinge of orange ran through his dark irises.

“Now stop that.” I tried to sound firm, but I only sounded tired enough to lay down and pass out. “He just wants to help. Cut it out.”

The growl cut off midway. The orange died in his eyes. Ash cocked his head. His lips moved soundlessly, as if he was trying to speak. The scarring made one half of his mouth a grotesque smile.

“It’ll help if you sit down.” I slid past Dibs, who tried flattening himself even further. I was close enough now to reach up and touch the blanket around Ash, wrapping it more securely. He was bareass underneath it, and I didn’t want to look. I’d be embarrassed, if I wasn’t so goddamn exhausted. My head was really starting to pound now, too, and that empty torn place was sending little daggers of sharp bright white through me. Especially my joints. I felt like I had what Gran always called “the rheumatiz.” “Look, we’re trying to help you. It’s all going to be okay.”

His lips moved again. I waited. His shoulders came up, and a hiss of air escaped him. It mutated into a word, one I knew.

“Sssssssvedosha.” His chin dipped. He nodded at me, his greasy hair falling over his face.

“That’s me. Your friendly neighborhood girl djamphir.” It felt odd to say it out loud. I made sure the blanket was wrapped nice and tight, and guided him down to sit on the toilet. Wished I could sit instead, told myself not to be such a wuss. “I’m Dru. You’re Ash, right? Can you say that? Can you say your name?”

“Shhhhh.” Frustration turned his mouth into a downward curve. “Osh. Osh.”

My heart squeezed painfully down on itself, adding to all the other pain. But I put on a bright face. “Yep. Ash. Now look, Dibs has to take your blood pressure. I don’t know why, but he’s got a good reason.” I pulled the blanket aside, making sure it was bunched up securely at his waist but loosening it at his shoulder. “All right? Give me your arm.”

He did. He kept staring at me while Dibs messed around with the stethoscope and the blood-pressure cuff. Ash’s mouth worked silently, but at least we knew he could talk now. The light was starting to get glaring, and the inside of my head felt scoured clean. I swayed a little bit, but made my knees stiffen up each time.

“I don’t think he’ll regress,” Dibs finally said. He glanced at me, stopped, looked again. “Dru?”

“So he’s okay? He’s going to be okay?” I couldn’t believe it. For months I’d been looking forward to this. Now he was crouched on the toilet, thin and white and blinking furiously like a newborn. It had actually happened. Score one for the good guys, and all that. “Really okay?”

“He’s shifted back. That’s all I can say.” Dibs was looking at me now, steady and worried. “You don’t look so good. Let’s sit you down.”

It was a great plan, except for the most obvious flaw in it. My mouth felt funny, loose and awkward like it wasn’t really part of me. “There’s no place to sit.”

That was all I remember saying, because the white glare took over inside my head and I keeled right over. I’d’ve hit my head on the sink if Dibs hadn’t caught me, and the next few minutes are kind of confused. I could hear myself from a very long way away, saying I’m okay, I’m okay, over and over again, in a breathless funny little whisper. Benjamin, almost screaming. Ash growling. Dibs, his voice breaking as he cried out, miserably.

I came to about a minute later with my head in Dibs’s lap, lying over the bathroom threshold. He looked scared to death, his eyes wide and his mouth wetly open like a little kid’s during a horror movie. My teeth were chattering, and for a moment I couldn’t figure out why.

Then it occurred to me: I was cold. So cold. My body was leaden; I couldn’t even lift my arms. The torn-open spot inside me was getting bigger, and I suddenly understood it was a mouth, and it was going to swallow me whole. What the—

“Do you smell that?” Dibs whispered, and for a mad second I was thinking I’d puked or something when I passed out. But the taste in my mouth was blood, not acid bile. The copper in it whispered to me, and a shiver went through the center of my bones. I caught a breath of spice, but it wasn’t Christophe and it wasn’t Anna. It was the heavy aroma of cinnamon buns boiled down to its essence, and it was bubbling up from my skin in waves.

“I think I pulled something,” I whispered. Everything slurred inside my mouth, and the reality of what I’d done caught up with me.

Ash was human again. He was going to be okay. Great. Except something inside me was torn up now.

“No shit.” Dibs clicked over into “bandage it up” mode. “You need food and rest. I don’t—”

“He’s going to kill me,” Benjamin muttered darkly. “Just kill me.”

And right on cue, someone hammered at the door.