She felt little pity for the Were shivering in the corner, but John had no reason to be such a heartless jerk in front of their young guest. She also worried that Christoph might now be afraid she would be as cruel and thoughtless to him. She had every intention of feeding on him eventually, but not like that. Not like that at all.
Damn John and his hedonism. If he tried to lay a hand on Christoph, she’d tear it off.
Analie wrapped herself up in a blanket cocoon and squished herself into the corner of her den-bed and clutched the teddy bear tight to her chest, tucked under her chin. She wanted to tell Freddy about Christoph and Ashi showing up, but she couldn’t think of a way to do it without mentioning the Ashi/John incident.
“That is messed up,” she muttered to Mr. Bear.
It certainly drove home how good she had it here.
Christoph, for his part, was woozy and tired. He looked at Ashi, still in the corner, and tried to think of something to say.
‘That’s what you get for popping off my kneecap.
‘Sucks to be you.
‘Boldly going where no Goliath has gone before.
‘Was it good for you, too?’
In the end he settled for, “And on top of that, you left your wallet back at the motel.”
Ashi looked up at him and bared his little teeth. He tried to snarl, but ended up wheeze-snorting. Christoph laughed at him, but noticed that the usual growly quality to it was gone.
“Laugh while you can,” Ashi spat. “You’ll get the same.”
Christoph gave Ashi the bird, but he carefully avoided looking at Mouse. Ashi had been dodging around like a monkey, quite agile despite his collar. Christoph, on a good day while he was Were, had all the grace of a semi truck. He was good at zipping around obstacles, but nothing like Ashi had been doing. And with his injured knee, he didn’t have any chance of avoiding an attack like John’s.
“Hey, I have a question,” Christoph said. He stole a glance at Mouse. So far, she was not what he expected a vampire to be like—at all.
“What?” Ashi muttered.
“Is that what it was like being a stray?”
Ashi blinked, then thought about that. “Yeah. Kind of like that. Only I escaped every time.” He glared at Christoph. “Why?”
Christoph’s head lolled back. “I dunno. I had this really good joke about a dog catcher that was very demeaning toward you, but my head’s feeling too fuzzy to remember the details.”
“Oh, screw you.”
“Nay, I shall not come between you and your new paramour.”
“Fuck you!”
Mouse sighed at their banter. At least Ashi wasn’t too traumatized to talk. She wished she still had her voice so she could find the words to explain to Christoph that she had no intention of treating him like John had Ashi. She didn’t think it would come off very well on paper, so forewent any attempt at soothing Christoph’s fears.
Ashi looked so vulnerable curled up on the floor in the corner like that. It teased at her predatory instincts, but also messed with that broken part of her mind that remembered exactly what it was like to be in the position he was in right now. She was torn between thinking he deserved exactly what he got, and feeling unreasonably sorry for him because John was such a callous prick – just like Max.
Spurred more by that thought than actual sympathy, she launched herself from the couch and found a blanket, shaking it out and striding over to Ashi, perhaps a bit faster and jerkier than she needed to be. She did not miss that he shrank away from her, and felt a twinge at seeing it, but did little more than drape the cloth over him and retreat back to the couch. She didn’t sit very close to Christoph, tucking her feet under herself and looking away. She was sure he must be afraid of her now, and felt too much like she held the threat of power over them—even though she had no intention to hurt them—to relax. The thought that either of them might feel that she bore any resemblance to Max Carlyle made her stomach lurch.
Then the most horrifying thought of all crossed her mind. What if Analie thought of her that way now?
Christoph looked at Ashi, then Mouse, then back toward Analie’s door.
“Okay, we have three Weres, one of which is hiding, another who has a concussion, and a third who is trying not to break