The Killing Dance - By Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,12

parked the car and turned off the engine. We sat there in the dark, the only illumination the distant glow of a street light.

"I don't know what to say, Richard." I stared out through the windshield, concentrating on the side of the building, too cowardly to look at him while I talked. "I wouldn't blame you for just saying to hell with it. I wouldn't put up with this kind of indecision from you, and I wouldn't share you with another woman." I finally looked at him. He was staring straight ahead, not looking at me.

My heart sped up. If I was truly as brave as I thought I was, I'd have let him go. But I loved him, and I wasn't that brave. The best I could do was not sleep with him. Not take the relationship that next step forward. That was hard enough. Even my self-control wasn't limitless. If we'd been planning a wedding, I could have waited. With an end in sight, my self-control would have appeared endless, but there was no end in sight. Chastity works better if you don't keep testing it quite so often.

I unbuckled the seat belt, unlocked and opened the door. Richard touched my shoulder before I could get out. "Aren't you going to invite me up?"

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and turned back to him. "Do you want to be invited up?"

He nodded.

"I don't know why you put up with me," I said.

He smiled. He leaned into me, a light brush of lips. "Sometimes I'm not sure, myself."

We got out. Richard held his hand out to me, and I took it.

A car pulled in behind us, beside my own Jeep. It was my neighbor, Mrs. Pringle. She had a huge television box tied into her trunk.

We walked to the sidewalk and waited for her to get out. She was a tall woman, stretched almost painfully thin with age. Her snow white hair was done in a bun at the back of her head. Custard, her Pomeranian, jumped out of the car and stood yapping at us. He looked like a golden powder puff with little cat feet. He bounced forward on stiff legs. He sniffed Richard's foot and looked up at him with a small growl.

Mrs. Pringle tugged on his leash. "Custard, behave yourself."

The dog quieted, but I think it was more Richard's steady glare than Mrs. Pringle's admonishments. She smiled at us. She had the same light in her eyes that Catherine had had. She liked Richard and made no bones about it.

"Well, now, this is advantageous. I need some strong young arms to carry that monstrous television up the stairs for me."

Richard smiled at her. "Happy to oblige." He walked around to the trunk and started trying to undo the knots.

"What'd you do with Custard while you shopped?" I asked.

"I carried him with me. I've spent a great deal of money at that store before. The salesmen fairly salivate when I come through the doors, so they indulge me."

I had to smile. There was a sharp twang as the ropes broke. "I'll help Richard." I walked back to the trunk. The rope was an inch thick and flopped, broken, onto the pavement. I raised eyebrows at him and whispered, "My, my, Grandma, what strong hands you have."

"I could carry the television up alone, but it might arouse suspicions."

It was a thirty-inch wide screen. "You could really carry it up the stairs by yourself?"

"Easily," he said.

I shook my head. "But you're not going to because you are a mild-mannered science teacher, not an alpha werewolf."

"Which is why you get to help me," he said.

"Are you having trouble undoing the rope?" Mrs. Pringle asked. She'd walked back to us with Custard in tow.

"No," I said, giving Richard a look. "We've got the rope." If people found out Richard was a lycanthrope, he'd lose his job. It was illegal to discriminate, but it happened all the time. Richard taught children. He'd be branded a monster, and most people didn't let monsters near their children.

Mrs. Pringle and Custard led the way. I went up backwards, sort of steadying the box, but Richard took all the weight. He walked up the stairs like the box weighed nothing, pushing with his legs, waiting for me to go up another step. He made a face at me, soundlessly humming under his breath as if he was bored. Lycanthropes are stronger than your run-of-the-mill human being. I knew that, but