Bullet Page 0,17
Domino have to be with her every full moon, but someone had to be able to run to her side if she called for help. It wasn’t just a full moon that could make your beast rise; strong emotion, pain, lots of things could trigger that response.
I was one of the people trying to learn how to do what Crispin and Domino did so effortlessly. I wasn’t making much progress, maybe because my beasts were trapped in my human body and I couldn’t give them animal shape. Micah was learning, though, and he was good at it. Crispin thought he’d have it down cold in a few more days. All of us who were learning how to calm Gina’s beast were on speed dial for her, so that if she felt herself starting to lose control we could come running. The two tigers were really hoping some of the other dominants of the animal groups learned the skill soon, so they’d have more backup.
The shaking got worse as Vivian clung to me. “If Gina has her baby, I want one, too.”
I laid my cheek against her hair. “Then you can be next.”
She shook her head. “Stephen doesn’t want to.”
“What?” I asked.
She raised her face from my shoulder. Her lipstick and eye shadow were smeared across that perfect skin. “He says with his background he doesn’t want children. He’s afraid he’ll be like his father.”
“Stephen could never be like his father,” I said. Stephen and his twin, Gregory, had been sexually abused by their father for most of their lives until they left home. The father kept trying to apologize to them as part of his twelve-step program. They wanted nothing to do with him, and his insistence on trying to make amends for their nightmare childhood just seemed to me to be another way of putting his need for the apology above their need to be left the fuck alone.
“I told him that, but he’s afraid. He worked with Matthew some on his dance and it brought back horrible memories. Stephen’s been having the worst nightmares. His therapist says its a good sign, that things get worse so they can get better.”
It sounded like something a therapist would say, but out loud I tried to be more helpful. “Stephen is not his father.”
“That’s what his therapist says, but he’s scared.” She swallowed hard enough for me to hear it. It sounded painful, as if she were trying to swallow something that hurt. “I want children, Anita. I want them, and if Stephen doesn’t then I’d have to lose him to have children. I don’t want to lose him. I love him, and I know he loves me.”
I didn’t know what to say, but luckily Micah did. He came and crouched in front of her, putting a hand on her knee. “We’ve got six more months before Gina has her baby. That’s a long time in therapy. Six months can change everything if Stephen works on his issues.”
“But what if he doesn’t work it out?”
Micah gave her that patient it-will-be-all-right look. I put my face back against her hair as she looked at him. I had no comforting face to give her, so I’d just cuddle.
“It’ll work out,” he said, patting her knee in a sort of fatherly way. As Nimir-Raj he was supposed to be a combination of father figure, big brother, and boyfriend, but without the sex.
“How can you be so sure?” But I heard the note in her voice; she wanted to believe his surety, his face, his touch.
Micah smiled at her and there was that certainty in him that I’d seen almost from the beginning. He projected utter confidence that what he said, would be. “I know Stephen, and I know you, and I know you love each other. You’ve gone through a lot together; you’ll make it through this, too.”
“You sound so certain.” Her voice was still breathy, but hopeful now, too.
He smiled wider. “I am.”
I could not have said that, because I was always willing to believe someone would screw up. And because I couldn’t add my certainty to his, I kissed the top of her head where she’d cuddled into the bend of my shoulder.
Monica was suddenly in front of us. I looked up and my face was already set to warn her off, and Micah stood up I think ready for the same thing, but the look on her face wasn’t mean. I’d never seen her look kind before.
She called to J.J. “Can