Death bumped the back of her legs, and didn’t answer. She allowed him to channel her in the right direction.
She found Dare just placing his feet on the floor, wiggling his toes. His wild self pressed close to his legs as if frightened. He looked hurt, coarser white fur coming in as a stark bar across his back, but it was clear he had no thought of leaving Dare.
Silver let another memory in, Dare dragging himself to her using only his arms. Her heart squeezed. “You’re not supposed to be walking yet,” she said, crossing to playfully shove him back onto the bed. Dare yielded under the push but sat right back up again.
“I can almost walk. Even if I can’t shift.” He said it like he wasn’t paying attention to her, too caught up in his need to push himself until he proved he was strong enough.
“I think you need to wait to walk.” Silver knelt so she pressed against his lower legs, holding them against the bed. “And I don’t know why you feel your wild self doesn’t come when you call, but I think it’s most likely you’re so afraid of failing you call too softly.”
Dare’s face twisted and he put a hand to her hair. “I know you want to give me hope—but I can’t feel it. It’s been weeks. I’m nearly fully healed. And I should be able to feel the shift right there now we’ve gotten so close to the full again, and I can’t.”
“My wild self is dead,” Silver said, needing to hear it out loud as much as he did. It hurt, but not as much as yesterday. And she knew tomorrow would be better still. “And I know that because she’s gone. Your wild self is right here.” She ruffled the wild self’s ears and Dare shivered like maybe he felt it. “Don’t worry so hard. He’s waiting for you.”
Silver scooted away and turned her back as he pulled off his pants, to give him a little privacy for the moments of transition from tame to wild self. She shrugged off her jacket and then slung her arm over Death’s flank and scritched along his side, burying her nose in his fur.
Dare was silent for a long time. His next grunt of effort still came from a tame throat. Silver growled. “Don’t try so hard! Just fall,” she said without turning.
Her next breath, she smelled the change in scent from bare skin to musky tang of fur and she sighed in relief. The wild self sprawled on the bed like his back legs didn’t work right in that form either, but he panted open-mouthed in satisfaction.
The bandages no longer fit, so Silver ran her fingers along Dare’s belly and back to pull them away. The white fur stuck up awkwardly as she brushed her fingers along it. Dare growled. His tame form’s smooth skin took gradual shape under her fingers.
“You should leave those on,” he said, twisting to frown at her. His joy at finding his wild self robbed the expression of any heat, but that joy quickly flickered out. “Oh. Silver. I’m so sorry. Here I am celebrating, when you…”
She tossed away the bandages. “You’re healed enough,” she said. The rest of his worries she just ignored. Later, she could better explain to him why she was finally at peace with Death to walk in the place of her wild self.
His tame self’s skin wasn’t so smooth after all, there along his back. It had the same white ridges as her snake skins, only his were a landscape of mountains and valleys where hers were barely raised. She explored them with her fingers until he shivered, and then she kissed them instead.
She heard his enjoyment in the deep, warm quality of his huff of surprise. She saw it in the way his wild self opened his mouth in a panting grin. But then he twisted over and away from her, covering his lap as he sat up. “We shouldn’t—”
Silver’s heart squeezed. Lady. Had she been wrong? But she’d heard his attraction in his voice, seen it in his body. She could smell it. He wanted her. Death laughed, and his words popped into her memory without him having to repeat them.
So hold him down.
Well, then. She’d try that. She brushed her hair from her face and climbed to kneel over him, straddling him. “Why not?”
He looked up into her face. Resistance slipped away from his expression and she could smell his attraction come ascendant once more. Then he smiled, and Silver’s heart soared.
He cupped the back of her neck in his hand, tilted her head to the side, and nipped the skin he exposed. She made a small noise and ground herself against him. She planted her hand on his shoulder and shoved him back. She laughed at his mock exclamation of surprise and leaned over him. She started a kiss but broke it off soon enough to nip hard at his earlobes and the side of his neck.
Balancing on one arm grew harder, and Silver finally fell against his chest. She tried to hold in her growl, so frustrated with herself. Why couldn’t she do this one thing without showing how crippled she was? Rather than let her get up, he curved his arm around her tight and reassuring and rolled them.
Silver put a hand on his chest, and grinned up at him. This would work as well. She rather liked it in fact, though not for always, of course. Mustn’t let him think he would always be on top, or in control. “Don’t start taking this position for granted.”
Dare chuckled. “Never.”
* * *
Afterward, Andrew watched Silver as she fell into a doze. Since she was on her stomach, Andrew caressed her back’s smooth expanse with his gaze. Wounds made with silver scarred like they would on normal humans, so his back would never be smooth again. Neither would the ridges on wrists and jaw ever entirely fade.
He drew his fingers along the dip over Silver’s spine. Her back was flawless and beautiful. He still wasn’t sure why he’d believed her when she assured him his other shape was still with him, but he had, and that had made all the difference somehow. Tipped it over.
Footsteps thumped up the stairs. Andrew registered them only peripherally until they stopped at the door. “What the hell?” John said as he yanked open the door. He was still in business slacks and shirt, ID badge from a company Andrew vaguely recognized as a software firm hooked at his belt. He must have just arrived home from work.
Andrew rolled to raise an eyebrow at him. “A little privacy?” No one had true privacy in a pack house, not when everyone could hear and smell what everyone else was doing, but society functioned based on everyone pretending they couldn’t.
“You’re disgusting.” John crossed to the bed in two strides, hands fisted at his sides. “Get up.”
Andrew sat up properly and frowned at him, realization coming slowly. “She’s a grown woman—” He dug into the covers to find his pajama pants.
John loomed over him. “Get up,” he said between gritted teeth. Looking into his eyes, Andrew had no doubt that John thought Andrew couldn’t.
Damned if he was going to give the man the satisfaction. Andrew took a deep breath after pulling on his pants and pushed off the bed. His shift back and forth must have done something, because his legs held. He leaned most of his weight against the bed and they started shaking almost immediately, but they held.
Silver brushed past him as she slid off the bed. “Aren’t you going to ask me? Because there are only two people whose consent matters here, and you’re not one of them.”
John ignored her. “You—you!—were the one telling me that after killing Stefan she lost what lucidity she’d gained. And now you turn around and—”
“Stop it,” Silver said. She tried to interpose herself between them but John strong-armed her away without even looking at her.
“This isn’t your business.” Andrew tried to say it with conviction, but the shaking in his legs was getting worse and worse. “Don’t make this into something it isn’t.”
Silver growled and stomped, smelling like rage, to rummage in her leather jacket dumped beside the bed. Andrew could only watch her in his peripheral vision. He wasn’t going to show weakness by taking his eyes off John.
“You were the one talking about thinking with your dick.” John brought up his hand as if to grab Andrew’s shirt to choke him, but was foiled by his bare chest. “How could you—?”
“Seattle.” Silver’s voice was peremptory.
John paid no more attention than before, but Andrew knew Silver and names, and he’d never heard her use that one before. He broke the stare with John to look at her. She had a thin chain bunched up in her hand with a section held taut across her fingers like an imitation of brass knuckles. The metal rested on her skin without burning. Andrew’s first sickened thought was of Stefan, the madman practically caressing his weapons. But no, he’d seen Silver touch it before too, at the house. He rubbed his wrist. It wasn’t what the injection had made either of them that mattered, it was what they had chosen to be. Silver had touched it to save him from pain.
This was the same chain, he realized—she must have cleaned his blood from it—but John didn’t seem as sensitized to the metal’s smell and ignored her. “Seattle,” she said again. “Look at me when you’re pretending to defend me.”
John started to turn, and she punched him in the stomach. He folded over it, taking it like he would in a play fight. Then he felt the sting of silver through his shirt’s fabric and his eyes grew wide. Andrew’s muscles clenched in memory of the metal’s touch, but he just fisted his hands. The big baby. He had no idea what a real burn felt like.
Silver drew her arm back, threatening another blow. “Are you listening to me now?”
“You’re touching it. Bare skin. How are you touching—?” John’s question came out breathless.
Silver brought up her fist so the length of chain was millimeters from the underside of his chin, forcing his head up. “Do not challenge one who walks with Death. She has stood before more power than you could ever hope to wield.”
She paused a beat, waiting for an answer, but John’s attention was too tangled up in fear of the metal. She looked so beautiful in that moment. Her scarred arm hung dead, her white hair stood out stark, but none of it mattered when her inner strength and power shone from every movement and confidence filled her scent.
Silver smiled, expression sharp enough to cut. “Now. Do we need to have the conversation again about how I am an adult and entitled to make my own decisions? I may no longer be able to see all of your world, but neither can you see mine, and that does not mean that I have no mind.” She dropped her hand a little so he had room to nod. “Right?”
“Right.” John swallowed, and backed away from her. “Lady above, Dare. You sure you have any idea what you’re getting into?”
Andrew collapsed into a sitting position on the bed as his legs gave out. “Yes,” he said. Oh, yes. He could hardly believe that John could see that strength and not want to strive to be with it, strive to match it himself. John gave Andrew a hunted look and then escaped, shutting the bedroom door behind him.
Silver let out a long breath when he was gone. She opened her hand to let the chain dangle. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to break in on your fight. He just pissed me off so much.” She pooled the chain in her jacket’s open pocket and then came back to climb onto his lap.
“I thought I’d misremembered you touching that chain bare-fingered after the fight. You’re immune to silver burns?” Andrew said, resting his cheek against hers.
“He was. I suppose I am too.” Silver shivered at the mention of her attacker, but otherwise passed through the moment fairly easily. “It’s not really worth it, I assure you.” She laughed, a sickly sound at first, but getting stronger. “You’re coming in white.” She smoothed back the hair at his temple, fingers lingering along the roots. “Not all over, though, I don’t think.”
“I think my self-image can survive it,” Andrew said, and pressed her tight against him.
27
It felt good to stand tall again. Andrew had made short trips around the house for several days, but today was the first time he’d dressed properly and collected his things. Time to leave. He could feel the quivering tension every time he was in the room with John, and he was sure it was grating on his nerves just as much as on Andrew’s.
He relished the accomplishment of walking confidently across the house even if he did have to rely on a cane. The length of smooth, dark wood had been a gift from one of the pack. His pride stung each time he had to reach for it, but all he had to do was look at Silver and the sting faded. She bore her injuries with a grace he could only hope to achieve someday.
Perhaps he looked like an aging statesman, more wise in the ways of the world than most of his colleagues. As Silver had predicted, his hair was growing in white in two streaks over his temples. He’d considered dyeing it, but Silver had made her white hair part of herself. He wasn’t going to do anything less.
Besides, it suited him to wear the mark of his ordeal so prominently. To remind the others of what could happen if packs looked only to themselves.
He picked a spot in the entranceway and stood braced, both hands resting on his cane. “Call the pack together, would you, John?” He raised his voice to carry throughout the house, and people trickled in on their own. They could undoubtedly guess what was happening, but no one spoke as the whole pack pressed into the hall and the stairs and rooms beyond. Andrew felt the heavy weight of their attention like humidity. He might have been able to distinguish the different flavors to their relief—were they thinking good riddance to him, or just grateful to get back to the familiar?—but he chose not to.
He searched among them for Silver, but though he could smell her somewhere in the house, she didn’t join the pack. A message to them that her allegiance was with Andrew and she wouldn’t be rejoining her former pack, he suspected. That and her own dominance might confuse the situation. Silver was good with such subtle communication.
John nudged people aside to stand in front of Andrew. He stood with his hands clasped at his back with a martial sort of stillness. “This pack is yours,” Andrew said, bowing his head to John. “I only borrowed it. I regret that circumstances made it necessary, and I’m grateful to all of you”—he lifted his head to look at the others—“for the obedience you gifted me with.”
Now was the hard part. His legs were sound enough to walk, but ease of getting up and down still eluded him. Humiliation buzzed at the back of Andrew’s mind, but he squashed it. He was returning power to John. Only right he should look a little vulnerable. He leaned all his weight on his cane and bent his knees to go down to one.