"She hates that you're a better alpha as a human than she is as a wereleopard. You make her feel weak."
"She is weak," I said.
He smiled, and it had humor in it this time. "Yes, she is."
"Where's Gregory?"
"Are you going to punish him for contaminating you?" Micah asked.
I glanced back at the other three waiting in the door, silent. I realized suddenly what the group dynamics meant. They were treating Micah as their Nimir-Raj, letting him deal with me, like calling in the husband when the wife had one too many drinks. I didn't like that much. But if I concentrated just on the moment, the question at hand, no speculation, no looking for the future, maybe I'd survive.
"If Gregory hadn't interfered I'd be dead right now. They would have clawed out my heart. It was an accident that he fell into me during the fight." I was watching Micah's face, but I felt the relief sweep through the others, felt it from yards away. I glanced up at them, and it showed in the lines of their bodies.
"So where is he? Where's Gregory?"
The three of them did that hot-potato eye-flick game again. "Did he refuse to come help save me like Elizabeth?"
"No, of course not," Cherry said. But she didn't explain, didn't add to it.
I looked at Nathaniel. He met my gaze, no flinching, but I didn't like what I saw in his eyes. There was more bad news to come, you could smell it in the air.
I turned to Micah. "Fine, you tell me."
"When your Ulfric found out that Gregory had made you their Nimir-Ra in truth, he ..." Micah spread his hands.
"He freaked." Zane said it.
I glanced at all of them. "What do you mean, he freaked?"
"He took Gregory," Cherry said.
"What do you mean, he took Gregory?"
"He treated Gregory as an enemy of the pack," Micah said.
I looked at him. "Go on."
"If you had been their lupa in truth, if someone injured you it is within the Ulfric's rights to declare them an enemy of the pack, a criminal."
I kept staring into those yellow green eyes. "What exactly does that mean?"
"It means that the wolves have your leopard, and they will pass judgment on him for injuring you."
'No way, I mean, even if I am turning into a wereleopard, which I'm not. It doesn't hurt me. I mean, I'm just going to be a shapeshifter like them now."
"Not like them," Micah said, "like us."
I tried to read his face, but I just didn't know him well enough yet. "You have a point, make it."
"You can't be the wolves' lupa and the leopard's Nimir-Ra."
"I've been both for a long time."
We shook his head, and again he winced as if his neck hurt. "No, you were a human dating the Ulfric, who declared you lupa. You were a human that was taking care of the wereleopards until you could find a true alpha leopard to take over the job. Now, you're truly Nimir-Ra, and the pack won't accept you as one of them."
"Are you saying Richard dumped me because I'm going to be a wereleopard?"
"No, I'm saying that the pack won't accept you as his lupa." Micah glanced down, then up. I could see him trying to put his thoughts into words. "My understanding of what's been happening with your local wolves is that Ulfric has taken them from a monarchy where his word was law, to a democracy where the majority rules. He gets a decisive vote, but not the last word."