Under His Skin (30 page)

She dropped her hand to the floor, sliding it back and forth until her fingers closed around the handle of the bone knife. Brec snarled and threw his skin behind him, out of harm’s way, as he tensed in preparation for Ana’s attack.

“You manipulated me,” he growled.

“I trusted you!”
Ana screamed.

She charged forward with a wail that would have shamed a banshee. The knife arced through the air, and Brec reached out to grab her arm and halt her strike. Ana jerked the blade at the last moment and he hissed in pain as the blade bit into his hand. Wetness trickled over his skin as his blood flowed from the wound. The scent of copper filled the room, infiltrating Brec’s senses. Adrenaline burned like acid through his veins and he roared.

Before Ana could bring the knife down for a second strike, he grabbed her arm, twisting it until she shrieked in pain. The bone knife clattered to the floor and he kicked it away.

“You don’t care about me,” Ana wailed, her eyes bright with angry tears. “You pretended to care about me so you could destroy my skin. You only wanted to punish me.”

“And what do you care about, Ana?” Brec ground out. “You stole my skin to replace your own. You held other skins prisoner while you tried to find your cure. Who matters to you more than you? Who else matters to you
at all
?”

Brec pulled her arm farther back, dragging another scream from Ana’s mouth. She didn’t care about him. She’d never cared about him. She cared only about her fur and she would destroy anyone for even the slim hope of getting it back.

Erupting in a flurry of movement, Ana attacked him. She bit, hit, scratched, and screamed. Brec roared as her nails dragged angry red paths down his chest, her teeth biting into the flesh of his arm. Throughout it all she shrieked and sobbed, filling the air with her despair and fury.

Brec’s head swam on a hot ocean of blood. Every burn from Ana’s nails and teeth seemed to feed his need to make her pay. He’d cared about her, had started to love her, and now he could see the truth. She cared only for her skin.
Never for him.

Throwing his weight forward, Brec tackled Ana to the floor. He grabbed her other wrist and pinned them both to the floor, using his weight to hold her body down. Her body thrust against his as she tried to throw him off, the softness of her naked curves a sharp contrast to the furious line etched into her face. The feel of her body against him sparked desire in his belly and he gritted his teeth. The fact that he still wanted her, even after all of this, only fed his anger.

With a roar that came from the depths of his belly, Brec released her wrists and sat up. Before Ana could resume her attack, he wrapped his hands around her throat and began to squeeze.

At first, Ana tried to scratch him, her head thrashing from side to side as tears continued to roll down her cheeks. A strange calm came over Brec as he increased the pressure on her throat, feeling her pulse throbbing against his hands. He had to be careful not to break her hyoid bone. He didn’t want to kill her, not really. She deserved to suffer, he wanted her to suffer, but he would not live the rest of his long life with her blood on his hands.

Blood on your hands.

An image of Morrigan leapt into Brec’s mind just as Ana’s eyelids fluttered, her eyes rolling back into her head as she lost consciousness. He could practically hear the goddess
laughing,
see the smug look on her face. Morrigan had gotten the fight she wanted.

The emotion left Brec’s body in gut-wrenching rush, leaving an eerie calm in its wake. He released her throat and straightened his spine. Red imprints from his fingers decorated her neck, taunting him with what he’d just done. The sound of heavy breathing assaulted his ears, and he realized it was coming from him.

The numbness clutched his brain, making it hard to think. He didn’t fight it, didn’t even try. He wanted to be numb right now.

Brec slowly rose up from Ana’s body and then stepped back to stare at what he’d done. Her face was red and swollen from crying. Tears dried on her cheeks, some still dripping from her chin. The anger that had vibrated off of her only moments ago had faded with her loss of consciousness. Without it, she looked . . . frail.

“Brec?”

Nu’s voice drew Brec’s gaze to the ground by Ana’s head. The little pixie was checking her pulse.

“She didn’t ask me what I was doing.”

The pixie frowned, pulling away from Ana and fixing his stare on Brec. Apparently he’d satisfied himself that Ana was still breathing.

“What?”

“She stole my skin to replace her own. She was willing to trade my life for hers.” He shook his head, frowning as his sluggish brain tried to think the situation through. A hint of pain threatened to follow on the heels of his anger.

“So you decided to hang around for a day or so, have sex with her, and
then
punish her?” the pixie snarled. “What kind of--”

“She attacked me. After all we’ve been through, everything we’d started to . . . everything
I’d
started to feel. None of it meant anything when she saw her fur. She didn’t even ask.”

“You say that as if you would have reacted any differently if it had been you to walk in on someone slicing up your skin.”

The pixie wasn’t wrong. Brec’s nerves hitched as an image of his own skin, cut to ribbons, danced before his eyes. Yes, he probably would have reacted just the way Ana did. He closed his eyes and shook his head. But that didn’t change anything.

Pain slid its claws around Brec’s heart and squeezed. He’d finally gotten what he wanted: a woman who wanted a healer, not a warrior. Now he realized what he needed: a woman who wanted
him
.

He bent down and scooped Ana’s limp body into his arms.

“What are you doing?” Nu demanded. He flew up to Ana’s shoulder.
“Brec, stop.
What’s wrong with you? What happened? Why did you cut up her fur?”

Brec ignored the pixie, too tired to offer an explanation. Moving with a mechanical numbness, he carried Ana upstairs and tucked her into bed. His fingers danced over her throat with a healer’s tenderness as he used Alaunus’ gift to heal the bruising and make sure there were no serious injuries. Finally, he stepped back. With one last look, he left the room.

“Brec, where are you going?”

“I’m going to return the skins she stole,” Brec answered calmly. “Just as I said I would.”

“What about Ana?”

Brec glanced at Nu as the pixie landed on his shoulder. “I’ve done all I can for Ana. When she wakes up, give her the scrap of her fur that has the herbal ointment on it. Tell her to put it around her waist like a belt. It should give her everything she wants,” he added bitterly.

“She wants you,” Nu insisted.

Not bothering to argue, Brec continued to make his way to the basement. He retrieved the skins, carrying them out of the dark hole they’d been in for so long. On his way back through the living room, he picked up his own skin.

“Brec,” Nu wailed. “You can’t leave!”

“No,” Brec corrected him quietly. “I can’t stay.”

As he closed the door behind him, the cawing of a crow drew his attention to the railing around Ana’s porch. Brec glared at the bird, fresh anger heating his blood.

“I hope you’re satisfied, Morrigan. I hope you’re bloody satisfied.”

The crow tilted its head and flapped its wings. It stood there, silently staring at Brec.
Waiting.

“Fly away, Morrigan. I’ve got enough blood on my hands without your help.”

The crow cawed again and flew away. Brec shook his head and strode off the porch, down the dock to the water. He didn’t even look back at the crow. He’d had a taste of both lives now. He glanced down at his hand, still bleeding from the cut Ana had inflicted.

Blood on my hands.

“No. No, no, no, no, no.”

Ana put a hand to her head, struggling to stay standing as the room spun around her. After regaining consciousness to find
herself
back in bed, she’d raced from her room and practically thrown herself down the stairs in a mad dash to assure herself it had all been a dream. Emotions rose so thick inside her she couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. Now she stood there, staring down at the macabre pile of shredded skin on the floor. It hadn’t been a dream.

“How could he do this to me?” she sobbed, falling to the floor. Her knees screamed in pain, but it was nothing compared to the sound her spirit made. It wailed and sobbed, broken by the sight of her fur--shredded by the man she’d opened her heart to. Hot tears streamed down her face as she gathered the scraps in her arms. The singed edges crumbled as they brushed against one another and she whimpered. “Oh, Brec, how could you?”

Something thick and gooey pressed against her palm and she frowned. She stared down at the pile of scraps in her grasp, noticing that one of them appeared to be a perfect strip of white fur.

“It’s a belt. Put it on.”

The little voice came from just in front of her. Ana raised her gaze to see Nu sitting on a planter. The pixie stared at her, his tiny features tight and unreadable.
 

“Why did he do it?” she whispered, clutching the fur to her chest. “I told him where the other furs were, why would he do this to me?”

Numbness crept from her mind down her body, blocking out the world. She felt herself sliding, falling into a black pit of despair. She had nothing left.

I thought he cared.

Something hit her between the eyes. Her head snapped back and she grunted in pain, momentarily ripped out of her self-pity.

“What the—”

“Dammit, are you listening to me? I said put it on!”

Nu hovered in front of her eyes, his little face twisted into a mask of fury. Ana frowned in confusion, unable to comprehend why the little fey would be so angry with her. Had he, like Brec, abandoned all pretense of caring about her? Was he going to leave her now too? She sniffed, tears falling down her face. Why did she care?

“Why are you so pissed off at me?” The weakness in her tone hurt her pride, but she ignored the pain. Just one more drop of water in the ocean.

“Because you don’t know what’s really important and by the time you figure it out, it might be too late,” the pixie snapped.

Ana stared at the strip of skin in her hands.
“I am too late. My skin is destroyed.”

“
Tatania
help me, I think I’m going to explode,” the pixie gasped. “Just. Put.
The.
Belt.
On.”

Ana frowned, holding up the strip of skin the pixie was pointing at.
A belt?

A tiny spark of hope flickered in Ana’s heart, shocking her with its intensity. Brec had cut it up. She raised the skin to her nose and sniffed. It smelled like herbs. Could he have . .
.

She raised the skin in front of her, slowly rising to her feet. “You mean
,
if I put this belt on . . . it’ll make me a fox?”

The tears thickened her voice, making the belt in her hand shine and blur in front of her. It was too much to hope for. It wasn’t possible.

“Ana.” The pixie’s voice was gentle now and she clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle a cry as he flew up to look into her eyes. “Try it,” he said softly.

Moving as if in a dream, Ana lowered the strip of fur.
With shaking hands, she looped it around her naked waist. She hesitated for just a moment before tying the ends in a knot.

The effect was instantaneous. Energy sizzled along her waist where it touched the belt, a magnificent feeling of power spreading up and down her body. It tore a gasp from her throat as it infused her muscles with
a glorious
warmth.

She stared down at her skin, overwhelmed with shock as white fur sprouted from her flesh. Muscles, tendons, and bones moved inside her body, lowering her upper half to the floor until she lost her balance. She fell to her knees only to find her legs were shorter, thinner. She lowered her head, and felt her nose brush the floor. A short white snout tipped in a black nose met her eyes and she whirled around to find a thick furry tail winding along her side. The almost forgotten sound of claws against hard wood tickled her ears and she looked down to find small black claws protruding from four delicate white paws.