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to look away. It was a terribly intimate look, more intimate than sex, more powerful. The fool loved her.
If he hadn't been paying to kill me, I'd have felt sorry for him.
Marcus stepped away from Raina. He began walking across the clearing. His power opened like a
door, flowing like electric water across the wolves, across me. He undid his tie, opened the first few
buttons of his shirt. "No more preliminaries, Richard. Let us do this."
"I know you tried to have Anita killed," Richard said.
Marcus stopped in midmotion. His small, sure fingers hesitated. Surprise chased across his face, then
changed into a smile. "You have surprised me twice tonight, Richard. Let's see if you can make it three."
"I will kill you tonight, Marcus; you know that."
Marcus shrugged out of his jacket. "You can try."
Richard nodded. "I'd planned on giving you the chance to just leave."
"I tried to have your mate killed. You can't leave me alive now." He undid the cuffs of his shirt.
"No, I can't." Richard undid the cloak's tie, letting it fall to the floor. He pulled his shirt out of his pants
and slid it over his head in one quick movement. The moonlight made shadows on the muscles of his
arms and chest. I suddenly didn't want him to do it. I could shoot Marcus, and it would all be done.
Richard would never forgive me, but he'd be alive. They wouldn't kill each other with power. They'd use
claws and teeth for the killing. All Richard's trembling, eager power wouldn't keep him from getting his
throat ripped out.
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37
Richard turned to me, wearing only the leather pants and the boots. Marcus had asked that they not strip
down, said something about saving an old man's dignity. Bullshit. There was something in the air that I
didn't like, as if Marcus had known what was coming and he was ready.
"As acknowledged Ulfric, Marcus gets to choose the form we fight in," Richard said.
"What form did he choose?"
Richard raised his hand in front of my face. "Touch my hand."
He made it sound so serious for such a small request. I touched the back of his hand lightly.
"Grip my palm, Anita."
I wrapped my fingers around the lower part of his hand. Before I could look to his face or ask a
question, I felt it. Energy welled up his hand like oil up the wick of a lamp. His skin flowed under my
hand. I felt the bones lengthening. I felt his body give as if the boundaries that confined him to skin and
bone and flesh had dissolved. It felt almost like he would scatter himself outward like I'd done earlier, but
it wasn't his essence that was reaching outward. It was his body.
He held up his other hand, and I took it. I locked my fingers in his and felt his bones grow across my
skin, watched claws form as his flesh flowed like clay. Distant as a scream, I knew I should have been
scared or sickened. The power flowed down his shifting hands to my hands, flowing between us like cool
fire.
He stopped when his hands were human claws with talons that could have ripped me apart. The power
didn't stop abruptly; it wasn't like turning off a switch. It was like turning off a faucet, slowing the flow
down to a trickle, a drop, then nothing.
I was on my knees and hadn't remembered getting there. Richard knelt in front of me, hands still clasped
in mine. It took me two tries to be able to talk. "How can you stop like that?"
He drew his newly formed hands carefully out of my hands. I shivered as the tips of his claws trailed
over my skin.
"Controlling the change is what separates the sheep from the wolves," he said.
It took me a second to realize he'd made a joke. He leaned into me and whispered, "If I lose control in
the fight, or if I'm losing, I'll shift completely. I want you to come touch me, if I ask you."
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"Why?"
His breath was warm against my cheek. He wrapped his arms around me, held me in the circle of his
body, claws playing along the leather straps of the outfit. "I want you to feel the rush of power. I want
you to know what it can be like between us." His arms tightened. "If I'm losing, you can ride the power
and use it to get my wolves out of here. The others will kill anyone they think is disloyal."
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| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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