"Life is just full of little ironies," I said. I didn't try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
"You have a chance to make her munin, her essence, into something positive. In a way, you might help her spirit work through some of its karma."
I frowned at her.
She waved her hands. "My apologies. I'll keep the philosophy to a minimum. I believe I can help you call and tame the munin. I believe that together we can begin to harness all the different kinds of power you are being offered now. I can teach you to ride not just the munin but this master vampire of yours, and even your Ulfric. You are their key to each other, Anita. Their bridge. Their feelings for you are part of the binding that has been wrought between the three. I can make you the rider and not the horse."
There was a fierceness in her face, a force that made my skin react. She meant what she said; she believed it. And strangely, so did I.
"I want to control it, Marianne, all of it. I want that more than almost anything right now. If I can't stop it, I want to control it."
She smiled, and it made her eyes sparkle. "Good; then let's begin with our first lesson."
I frowned at her. "What lesson?"
"Come into the house, Anita. The first lesson is waiting for you if your heart and mind are open to it." She went back inside without waiting for me.
I stood there for a moment in the summer heat. If my heart and mind were open to it. What the hell did that mean? Well, as the cliche goes, only one way to find out. I opened the screen door and walked inside. Lesson number one was waiting for me.
37
Marianne led me to the room where she'd settled Nathaniel. It was a large bedroom downstairs. Hours earlier, the room would have been filled with morning light, but now, at nearly three o'clock in the afternoon, the room was dim, almost dark. The window was open, and a breeze had finally found us, spilling the white lacy curtains into the room. A small oscillating fan sat on a kitchen chair so the fan could cool the bed. The wallpaper was off-white with a fine line of pink flowers. There was a large brown water stain in the corner of the ceiling like a giant Rorschach ink blot.
The bed was a brass four-poster that had been painted white. The bedspread was quilted and looked homemade with a lot of purple- and pink-flowered fabric. Marianne had folded the bedspread and placed it on top of a large cedar chest that was under the window. "Too hot for quilts," she'd said.
Nathaniel lay na**d on the pink sheets. Marianne tucked the sheets to the tops of his thighs, patting his shoulder in a motherly sort of way. I would have protested his state of undress, but I could see the wounds clearly for the first time.
Something with claws had swiped him wide and deep, starting about the middle of his back and slashing downward across the right side of his bu**ocks. The wound was deep and ragged on his back, growing more shallow as it worked down his body. It must have hurt to have clothes over it, hurt a lot.
I was surprised that Nathaniel hadn't flashed me his wounds earlier. He usually went to great lengths to show me his body. What had changed?
Marianne pointed to the phone beside the bed. "In case your police friend calls you. I've got a cordless phone for normal calls, but I use the bedside phone for pack business."
"So no one can accidentally monitor the cordless phone," I said.
Marianne nodded. She walked to the vanity, which had a heavy oval mirror and marble knobs on the drawers. "When I was a little girl and I was hurt or lonely, especially when it was so hot, my mother would unbraid my hair and brush it. She'd brush it until it lay like silk down my back." She turned with a brush in her hands. "Even now, when I am low, one of my greatest pleasures is for some friend to brush my hair."
I looked at her. "Are you suggesting I brush your hair?"
She smiled, and it was bright and charming, and I didn't trust it. "No, I am suggesting you brush Nathaniel's hair."
I kept staring at her. "Come again?"
She walked towards me, offering me the brush, that too-cheery smile on her face. "Part of what makes you vulnerable to Raina is your own squeamishness."
"I'm not squeamish."
"Prudishness, then," she said.
I frowned at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that every time one of the lycanthropes disrobes, you get embarrassed. Every time one of them touches you, you take it sexually. That isn't always what they mean. A healthy pack or pard is built up of a thousand gentle touches. A million small comforts. It's like building a relationship with a boyfriend. Every touch builds and strengthens it."
My frown deepened. "I thought you said it wasn't sexual."
It was her turn to frown. "A different metaphor then. It is like building your relationship with a newborn baby. Every touch, every time you feed him when he's hungry, change him when he's wet, comfort him when he's frightened -- the everyday intimacies forge a bond between you. True parenthood is built over years of interdependency. The bond between the pack is built much the same way."
I glanced back at the bed. Nathaniel was still lying there na**d except for the sheets on his legs. I turned back to Marianne. "If he was a newborn baby, I'd be fine with him being naked. I might be afraid I'd drop him, but I wouldn't be embarrassed."