Cravings by Laurell K. Hamilton, Eileen Wilks, REBECCA YORK, MaryJanice Davidson Read Free Book Online Page A

close to the ardeur, it
wasn't always good that I was driving. He held the door and was as neutral as he
could be, as I moved past him. I didn't know what to do, so I let him be neutral
and I was neutral, too. But as I buckled my seat belt in place and he closed the
door, I realized that I would miss him. Not miss him because my life ran
smoother with him than without him, but I would simply miss him. Miss the
vanilla scent of him on my pillow; the warmth of his body on his side of the
bed; the spill of his hair like some tangled, living blanket. If I could have
stopped my list there, I'd have sent Nathaniel to his room for the night; he did
still have a room where all his stuff stayed, all his stuff but him. But I
couldn't stop the list there, not and be honest.
    He'd cried when Charlotte died in
Charlotte's Web
. I wouldn't have
missed seeing him cry over that for anything. It had been Nathaniel's idea that
we could have a movie marathon of old monster movies. You have not lived until
you've sat through
The Wolfman, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, Curse of the
Werewolf
, and
Face of the Screaming Werewolf
with a bunch of
shapeshifters. They had heckled the screen and thrown popcorn, and howled,
sometimes literally, at the movie version of what they knew all too well. The
wereleopards had all complained that at least werewolves had some movies, that
once you'd named
Cat People
, the leopards didn't have any movies. Most
of the werewolves had known about the 1980 version, but almost no one had known
about the original in 1950. We had another movie night planned where we were
going to watch both versions. I was sure we'd spend the night complaining,
cheerfully, at how far off both films were, and get eerily silent when it hit
close to home. Alright, they'd be eerily silent and I'd watch them watching the
screen.
    I was looking forward to it. I tried picturing the night without Nathaniel.
No Nathaniel coming and going out of the kitchen with popcorn and soda making
people use coasters. No Nathaniel sitting on the floor, next to my legs, half
the night spent with his head on my knee, and the other half playing his hand up
and down my calf. It wasn't sexual, he just felt better touching me. The entire
pard, and pack, felt better touching each other. It was possible to be up close
and personal without it being sexual. It really was, just not usually for me.
    Which brought me back to the problem at hand. Funny how the thinking led back
to it. Tonight when the ardeur finally surfaced, what was I going to do? I could
exile Nathaniel to his room, legitimately, because I'd need to feed tomorrow,
too. I could save him like for dessert. But we'd both know that that wasn't it.
I wasn't saving him, I was saving myself. Saving myself from what, I wasn't
sure, but it was definitely about saving me, and had nothing to do with saving
Nathaniel.
    He didn't want to be saved. No, that wasn't true. Nathaniel already thought
he had been saved. I'd saved him. I'd been treating him like a prince who needed
to find his princess, but that was all wrong. Nathaniel was the princess and he
had been rescued, by me. As far as Nathaniel was concerned, I was the prince in
shining armor, I just needed to come across, and then we could all live happily
ever after.
    Trouble was, I was no one's prince, and no one's princess. I was just me, and
I was all out of armor, shiny or otherwise. I just wasn't the fairy-tale type.
And I didn't believe in happily ever after. The question was, did I believe in
happily for now? If I could have answered that question, then all the worry
would have been ended, but I couldn't answer it. So as Micah drove us towards
home in the October dark, I still didn't know what I'd do when the ardeur
finally rose for the night. I didn't even know what the right thing to do was
anymore. Wasn't right supposed to help people, and wrong supposed to hurt
people? Didn't you make the right choice