Silent Cravings (17 page)

Ashi jumped, slamming the back of his head against the wall. When the stars cleared somewhat, he exited the closet in a low crouch.

After screwing up one possible alliance, he wasn’t too keen on alienating everyone. On the other hand, he was
terrified
of these people. Of course, a human wouldn’t be so tough to handle, and what would one want with him anyway? Thad wasn’t about to suck his blood.

It also did away with the whole now-I-have-to-introduce-myself thing.

He retreated to the far wall, still in a crouch. He needed allies here. Not even his own packmates wanted to have anything to do with him.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, still unsettled at the lack of substance to his voice. Sure. Come in.”

“Holy
shit!
” Analie exclaimed. “He’s been around since forever!”

“Because the world started 2,300 years ago,” Christoph said dryly.

“Shut up, you know what I mean. Jeez.” She shook her head, eyes wide. “I had no idea. No
wonder
he’s alpha.”

“No wonder he’s
what?
” Chrisoph asked, looking sharply at her.

“Alpha of Sh—of his pack. This pack.” Analie gestured around. “I don’t know what you call a vampire alpha! Come on, Gavin says even humans have alphas, even if they don’t call ʼem that.”

Christoph ignored her. “Alexander’s army. Damn. He saw the shaping of Western civilization.”

“That is
wicked cool
,” Analie said, grinning.

If I had known, I would have never come here, copious amounts of Miller be damned.
Christoph shook his head
.

Mouse took back the pad and pen again, smiling wryly at Analie’s reaction. She wasn’t sure what to make of Christoph, but was pretty sure from his expression he was regretting having tangled with Royce.

He is unusually sympathetic to humans for someone so old. He also values humanity in his people. I know sometimes he does cruel things, but it’s always for a reason, and never more than he thinks is absolutely necessary for our continued survival.

John is not a sterling example. He was not turned by Alec, and sometimes he acts poorly toward people, but he has good sense and helps run the businesses so Alec can focus on other things.

Very sorry for scaring you earlier. Please don’t lump me or Alec in with John/Max.

Thad opened the door and paused, nonplussed seeing Ashi smashed in the corner. Now that Thad had mellowed after all the hard work and was not quite so angry from being shuffled around, he could see that the Asian guy was pretty ragged. No shirt, no shoes, ratty sweatpants that had obviously seen better days, and a look of fresh terror gleaming in his eyes was enough to make Thad wonder what the hell John did to him and where they found him.

“I brought you some water and vitamins. I heard John bit you and figured you’ve probably already had a shitty enough day without adding weakness or headache from blood loss on top of it,” he said, holding out the glass and a small handful of mixed vitamins. “Do you need to borrow some clothes or something? I didn’t see any luggage.”

Ashi slowly moved out of the corner, standing to his full height to see how he measured up to Thad. Disappointingly, he was a few inches shorter. Back home that wouldn’t have made any difference at all. Being conscious of his height only added more discomfort to his current situation.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the water and the vitamins. He downed them in a few gulps and found his sense of taste had also been dulled. “I think I can get my clothes back. Just have to convince the cub downstairs to get them. If she’ll agree to that.” He frowned. He’d only brought two changes of clothes.

He should probably say something about the room. “I’m sorry about the room. I wasn’t expecting to stay for any length of time. At all.”

Analie shook her head. “No,
duh
. I haven’t been around John much, but you two seem different. I could say the same thing about Ashi—he’s a piss-poor example of what a Goliath should be.”

“If you’d have met Barry,” Christoph put in, “or Manny or Damien or Amelia—”

“You would have gotten along with Amelia
so good
,” Analie laughed. “She’s awesome.”

“Gavin’s a good example,” Christoph added.

Analie nodded, her enthusiasm fading. “Yeah. Gavin’s a good example of a real Goliath. Oh, hey, gimme a sec.”

She hurried to her bedroom, got Gavin’s old jacket, fished around in the inside pocket, and went back to the couch. She showed Mouse the photograph.

It was a picture of Gavin just before a watermelon fight. He wore a white T-shirt with “Go Go Goliath” on it in red and black sharpie. His straw-colored hair was tied back, and the picture had been taken when his beard had just started to get unmanageable again. His teeth were slightly pointed, and even though his eyes were squinted against the sun, a glimmer of gold was still captured by the camera.

“This is Gavin. He’s pretty much the best person in the whole world.”

Mouse looked at the picture, and the smile froze on her face. It took a very long moment for her to manage to start moving again, and she took great care not to give away her thoughts as she scratched out another note.

He looks nice.

She wrote nothing else. No point in mentioning that she’d barely escaped a raid he’d been a part of when she was newly turned. Max had been visiting another vampire, and she’d been part of his small delegation to negotiate some treaty or another.

The vampire who ran the town they’d been visiting had mentioned they’d been having some problems with Weres. She couldn’t even remember the dead vampire’s name, it had been so long since she’d seen him, but she could still recall the screams, the terror, the sick feeling as the Weres fed on the bodies, and most of all, the faces of the Weres when they shifted back to human as she and Max watched from their hiding spot. The Were in that picture had been there. He’d rinsed off some of the gore from a nearby barrel of water, and his chiseled, handsome features were unmistakable.

If she hadn’t been warned by Max about the Goliaths and their gruesome habit of feeding on vampire flesh to extend their lives, she would never have thought it possible or thought she’d ever see a familiar face from that pack again.

Swallowing back her fearful reactions, the brittle smile relaxed into something more natural as she reminded herself that she was older now, more capable, and had Royce’s protection to turn to if Gavin should ever show his face here.

Thad took the glass back when Ashi was done with it.

“Hey, no worries, man. Sorry if me and Sebastian were being unsociable tonight. We weren’t expecting to have to move all our stuff around. He’ll probably mellow out by tomorrow.”

Thad leaned against the door frame, looking around the sparsely furnished room. He’d taken all his posters and a bit of the furniture, leaving it emptier and less inviting than usual. No doubt Alec would send someone to help Ashi fix it up within the next couple days.

“What’s your name? Where’d you come from?” he asked, curious. Was he calling Analie a cub? Why? To Thad, he looked human enough, so he couldn’t quite understand why he’d refer to Analie that way. Unless there was another person Thad didn’t know about here, too. “Are you any relation to that girl downstairs with Mouse, or are you talking about someone else?”

Analie smiled at Mouse. “Gavin’s my caretaker. He’s like my adoptive father, kinda sorta. He raised me from a baby, so he’s my dad, I guess. He’s the nicest person in the whole world. He’s like a big papa bear.”

Analie started feeling a funny sort of lump in her throat. She coughed and frowned at herself. “Oh, hey, in the background, if you squint really hard, you can see my friend Kimmy. The one with the pigtails. This isn’t a recent picture, she doesn’t have pigtails anymore. She’s a Walker. They have the coolest parties in the world, and they’re all really nice.”

“They’re all drink-the-Kool-Aid nice,” Christoph grumbled.

“Shut up,” Analie snapped. To Mouse she said, “They’re nice because they like helping people. They’re big on community service and charities and stuff. Maybe when this cub-hide is over, I can get Freddy to lend me his photo album. Then I can show you a better picture of Kimmy and some more of Gavin.”

Ashi realized he was rubbing his neck again. He dropped his hand. “Huh? Oh, uh, no problem, having a stranger move into your territory is always unpleasant. And yeah, Analie and I are both Goliaths. There was a—a thing... and....” Ashi shook his head, clenching his jaw. “It was stupid. She got herself into this. Shouldn’t have risked my neck for a weak low-rank like her.”

Thad wasn’t sure what a Goliath was, but he could guess. As a matter of course, he wasn’t supposed to fool around or mingle with the young Were downstairs, and neither was Sebastian. Royce’s orders. So why was a different Were being moved right into his old room?