Wicked Circle

“And I allowed you to tend my wound once. Please be so kind as to allow me to return the favor?”

Long ago—well, it seemed like a long time ago—Samson D. Kline had nearly staked Menessos; I’d cleaned the gash, put antibiotics on it and bandaged him up. Of course, he’d promptly quoted poetry and come on to me, too. Sighing, I sidestepped to let him close.

We were silent for a long minute as the warm water ran and ran. The static sound of its flowing became musical as he continuously rubbed my skin with gentle, diligent strokes. His every rhythmical movement was made with such tender purpose that I was spellbound by it all. His thumbs slid over the grooves in my flesh, and the sensation was exhilarating—it took my breath away but it wasn’t pain, no, it was rapturous and left me gasping. Though I detected a stinging ache, it seemed far away from my body and inconsequential . . . so long as he did not stop.

“Do you remember when we met?” Menessos asked as he sat beside me.

I blinked as if just waking from a dream. I recalled him patting my hands dry and wrapping gauze loosely around the backs of my hands, and I remembered eating three meat-and-cheese-topped crackers, but I did not have a recollection of planting myself in the very corner of the black leather sectional couch. Yet, here I was.

“Do you?” he repeated.

“Yeah. What does that have to do with your plan?” I drained the last of the wine from the glass.

“Everything.”

As the effects of the wine loosened the tension and soreness in my shoulders, I twisted and propped my feet on the end of the sectional away from Menessos. Candlelight and wine. I could guess what he wanted. But what I wanted was a nice, hot bath with enough bubbles to make me forget what had just happened on the rooftop of the wærewolves’ den. However, I was betting that the bubbles the wine produced in my brain had a better shot at achieving that.

“Do you recall the stake that was on your property?” Menessos asked.

“I do.” His former and estranged E.V. had made and enchanted a stake to keep Menessos away from her. She’d used a little of the home earth in his dirt-bag mixed with her own blood—which was bound to him—and Blessed Water to create it. He had not even been able to be in the presence of the stake. I’d destroyed it.

“Once I’d marked you, it hurt you to be near it, though more subtly than it hurt me. And when I was near it, I could convey some of the pain it caused me onto you.”

“Yeah, so you could threaten Johnny.” He’d let me bear all the pain. Damn near killed me, but also enabled me—and Hecate—to flip the mark back onto him, though neither of us had known it at the time.

“Exactly. It was . . . self-preservation.”

“Something you lacked on the beach.” I leaned forward and put the empty wineglass on the floor. When I sat up, Menessos scooted closer.

“The beach was different.”

His whisper was imbued with such sweet resolve that I couldn’t argue. I could only stare and relive the moment I’d staked him, then rewind and relive kissing him.

Would I be better off in his arms instead of Johnny’s? Would I be safer?

I held my breath.

How can I even think this? Am I so tired I’ve gone fickle?

My gaze dropped to my twice-wrapped palms.

I knew exactly how I could be thinking what I was thinking. But it hurt so damn much. Like the shabbubitum, I’d done this to myself. I’d given Johnny what he needed to be Domn Lup: his wolf unbound. But I’d also created a situation that undermined the love that had prompted my actions.

There’s that stupid L word again.

Menessos slowly lowered his lips to my wrist, giving me plenty of seconds to protest. I didn’t. When his fangs pierced me, I barely felt it. He didn’t go deep, but he didn’t need to.

With his teeth just under my skin, he kindled my flesh, raising heat throughout my body. Gooseflesh followed. The hair at the nape of my neck prickled and a deep sigh drifted from my lips. My sternum burned within me. My nipples hardened and I yearned to be touched.

But he held only my wrist and sipped of my blood.

So I touched him.

The fingers of my free hand stroked his head, combed slightly through his walnut-colored curls. His hair was so soft. When I caressed his earlobe, he shuddered, and I felt the needle-tips of his fangs leave my flesh. He kept his head lowered as the kindling died slowly away, but I could hear his breathing had accelerated.

He sat up slowly and released my wrist. “There, my master. That should be better.” He freed one of the bandages.

He’d pushed some healing into me. A week or so ago, after the Omori had hit me with a baseball bat, Menessos had fed and the goose egg on my cranium had disappeared. Now, the cuts on my palms were more like scrapes, and the sore puffiness was gone. I wasn’t as tired, either. “Much,” I whispered.

He relaxed into the couch and stroked my cheek, then his hand fell to his lap.

Zhan could have told him that my afternoon was spent with the wæres. From that, and my weepy arrival, he could infer a lot.

Menessos is the master manipulator. If he’s sitting here being so gentle and sweet, he has a reason. Maybe Zhan even told him how Johnny was acting, what she overheard.

“How does the stake connect to our dilemma now?” My voice was still husky with desire.

“I can still transfer my pain.”

Aha. “To your master.”

“Yes, but you are here and expected to be seen. If you fell into agony, it would give away what I was doing.”

This wasn’t going where I thought it would.

“But if I move it via my soul . . .”

I blinked. “You mean you’d send it to Johnny. Through the sorsanimus.” Was he testing me, to see if I felt vindictive? “Why not just spread it out over your people? The whole haven will be here.”

“I can and will . . . they will be expecting that. But since Johnny could endure a lot of pain, I would give him a large chunk of it, and meanwhile, as I pretend to be in pain, I’m actually still able to function secretly.”

“Is this what you and Creepy worked out? Torturing an innocent in your stead?”

“Johnny is hardly innocent.”

I tilted my head forward expectantly. “Elaborate.”

“Your hands have been torn open, and his fur—I could smell him—was stuck in your dried blood. Follow that with your tears and I don’t need you to tell me what happened, sweet Persephone, because I can guess.”

I swallowed hard. I expected him to ballyhoo about Johnny being dangerous and to boast how he was fully able to control himself. But he didn’t crow about his merits at all.

“I have to keep some of the pain.” He shook his head side to side, as if his body were trying to refute the notion. “The shabbubitum are skilled mistresses of torture. They would know if I was completely faking. So our new ally taught me to think through the pain. I know what they will be asked to find, and I will make that easy for them. But I suspect they will dig deeper for information, information they want personally that has nothing to do with the request being made of them and everything to do with how to hurt me most. It is that which I cannot give them . . . so I must give them a lie.”

“But they will know.”

“As they increase the misery to find what they seek, I will defer more pain to Johnny and maintain my own ability to think. I will guide them to the knowledge they think they want. All I need is for you to call dear John and tell him what to expect. Receiving the news from you will be less irritating to him, despite whatever has happened, than if I delivered it myself.”

The mere idea of calling Johnny inspired an Olympian amount of grumpy anti-enthusiasm, and some angry little part of me did think the idea of Johnny getting a whopping dose of out-of-nowhere pain was something he had earned. Shut up, little angry part. That is not the person I want to be. “Won’t the shabbubitum know you’re deferring the pain?”