"He's right." Richard wiped the blood off Jason's face. The cut was already beginning to close. He put his bloody fingers into his mouth and licked them clean.
I stood there, frozen, staring, like an unwilling witness to a car crash.
Richard bent close to Jason's face. I thought I knew what he was going to do, but I had to see it to believe it. He licked the wound. He ran his tongue over the open wound like a dog will do.
I turned away. This couldn't be my Richard, my safe, comforting Richard.
"You can't stand to watch, can you?" he asked. "Did you think that killing was the only thing I had refused to do?"
His voice made me turn back.
There was a smudge of blood on his chin. "Watch it all, Anita. I want you to see what it takes to be alphic. Then you tell me if it's all worth it. If you can't stomach it, don't ever ask me to do it again." The look in his eyes made it a challenge.
I understood challenges. I sat on the edge of the bed. "Go to it. I'm all yours."
Richard brushed the hair on one side, exposing the wound on his neck. "I am alpha and I feed the pack. I spilled your blood, and now I give it back to you." The warm rush of his power spilled through the room.
Jason stared up at him, his eyes rolled almost to white. "Marcus doesn't do this."
"Because he can't," Richard said. "I can. Feed on my blood, on my apology, my power, and never stand against me again." The air was so thick with power it was hard to breathe.
Jason rose on his knees and put his mouth over the wound, tentatively at first, as if afraid he'd be turned away or hurt. When Richard didn't say anything, Jason pressed his mouth to the open wound and drank. His jaw muscles worked, his throat swallowed. One hand slipped behind Richard's back, one hand on his shoulder.
I walked around them until I could see Richard's face. His eyes were closed, his face peaceful. He must have felt me watching him, because he opened his eyes. There was anger there, anger at me, partly. It wasn't only about killing Marcus, it was about giving up pieces of his humanity. I hadn't understood that, not until now.
He touched Jason's shoulders. "Enough." Jason pressed himself harder against the wound, like a nursing puppy. Richard pulled him forcibly off of his neck. A hicky had already spread around the wound.
Jason lay back, half-cradled in Richard's arms. He licked the edges of his mouth, getting the last drops of blood. He giggled and rolled away from Richard, to kneel on the floor. He rubbed his face along Richard's leg. "I've never felt anything like that. Marcus can't share power like that. Does anybody else in the pack know you can share blood?"
"Tell them," Richard said. "Tell them all."
"You really are going to kill Marcus, aren't you?" Jason asked.
"If he gives me no other choice, yes. Now, go, Jason, your other master is waiting."
Jason stood, and almost fell. He righted himself, rubbing his hands down his legs and arms as if he was bathing in something I couldn't see. Maybe it was the warm, ruffling power that he tried to tie around himself. He laughed again. "If you'll feed me, you can hit me into a wall anytime."
"Get out," Richard said.
Jason got out.
Richard was still kneeling on the floor. He looked up at me. "Do you understand now why I didn't want to do this?"
"Yes," I said.
"Maybe if Marcus knows I can share blood, my power, he'll back down."
"You're still hoping not to kill him," I said.
"It's not only the killing, Anita. It's everything that goes with it. It's what I just did with Jason. A hundred things, none of them very human." He looked at me, and there was a sorrow in his brown eyes that I had never seen before.
I understood suddenly. "It isn't the killing exactly, is it? Once you take over the pack by blood and brute force, you have to keep the pack with blood and brute force."
"Exactly. If I could force Marcus out somehow, if I could make him back down, then I'd have room to do things differently." He came to stand in front of me, his face eager. "I've brought nearly half the pack either to my side or at least to be neutral. They aren't backing Marcus anymore. No one's ever divided a pack like this without deaths."
"Why can't you split into two packs?"
He shook his head. "Marcus would never allow it. The pack leader gets a tithe from every member. It would cut not just his power but his money."