“I want time with you, Anita. I’m not in the mood for a quickie,” he said, raising his voice a little over the sound of the water.
“Okay,” I said, “probably better not to hog the showers from everybody anyway.” I tried to make it a joke, but his face stayed solemn and the weight of emotions in his eyes was almost too heavy to lift.
“Unless you need to go to one of your other lovers?” He smiled at the end, but the only thing that lifted was the edges of his lips; his eyes and expression stayed heavy and closed down. Not in a hiding-his-thoughts-from-me way, but as if his thoughts were too dark to hide from me.
“I already answered this question, Rafael. No, no one else is expecting me. We’re all supposed to be working out or have plans with other people.”
“If you need to exercise more . . .”
I touched his lips with my fingers. He looked at me with eyes that looked like wounds, so full of defeat. What the hell was going on? Why was this fight different from all the others?
“I’m here for you, Rafael.”
He wrapped his arms around me, holding me so that our nude bodies were as close as they could be without having sex, but it wasn’t erotic. His body was still against mine. The earlier heat was just gone as if the shower had washed it away along with the sweat of the workout. I put the side of my face against his chest, using his body and my own head to direct the water away from my face so I could breathe if I was careful. If you took in a big gasping breath with water on either side of your face in a shower, you could inhale water, but I knew better.
He murmured into my wet hair, “Will you come watch me fight tonight, Anita?”
“I thought it was wererats only,” I said.
“Usually, but I am allowed a mate who is outside the power structure.”
“What does that mean, outside the power structure?”
“I am not the only king in our history who had problems dating within his clan. I am allowed a girlfriend, even a spouse who is not a wererat.”
I rubbed the side of my face against his chest, carefully, so that I didn’t end up with a face full of water. “If it won’t cause more problems for you and the rest of us, then sure, I’ll come and cheer you on tonight.”
“I want you to see what a challenge is like, and I want you to see Hector before the fighting starts.”
“Why do you want me to see him before the fight?” I asked.
He held me tighter, closer, and I wrapped my own arms around his waist and held him harder as if just that would make things better. It didn’t, but it didn’t make them worse either.
“You should see him clean and strong before I hurt him.”
“You’re going to kill him, Rafael, what does it matter what he looks like alive and healthy?” I asked. I wanted to see his face, but we were holding each other too tightly; if I raised my face up, I’d drown.
“If I win, yes, but if he wins, then you need to seduce him, Anita. You need to do everything you can to protect those closest to both of us in my clan.”
“That’s it,” I said, and tried to pull away from him, but he held me in place. I raised my face to try to see him and got a face full of high-pressure water. At least I hadn’t breathed in, I thought as I tucked my face back against his chest. “Rafael, why are you talking like this?”
“It is always a possibility that I will lose, Anita, you know that.”
“Damn it,” I said, and fumbled behind him for the shower controls. I turned the wrong one and we were suddenly covered in icy water. I cursed and found the correct knob. The water stopped and it was suddenly quiet. He held me close, putting one hand against my head so I couldn’t move enough to even see his face. I could have struggled and maybe made him let me go, or maybe he would have let me go just because I struggled, but in that moment I felt the strength of his arm around my body like iron made flesh and coated in a smooth, wonderful brown skin. His hand was like steel holding me in place, my face pressed against his chest. I could hear his heartbeat now, thick and sure of itself.
I let him hold me but didn’t hold him back. I rested my hands on his hips; under other circumstances it would have been sexy, but not now. “What is going on, Rafael?” I felt ridiculous talking like this, all pressed to his chest, but I wanted him to answer my question more than I wanted to fight him over where I was standing.
“I have told you what is happening tonight,” he said, his voice rumbling up through his chest against my face.
“I’ve seen you before other fights, Rafael, and this is not right, you’re not right tonight. I don’t know what is wrong, but you have to delay the fight.”
“Why?” he asked, and he kissed the top of my wet hair.
“Because if you are convinced you will lose, then you will, that’s true of all fighting.”
“I will do my best for my people tonight, Anita.”
“Tell me you will win tonight. Tell me you will kick his ass. Tell me you will kill him, Rafael.”
“I will try.” But his voice made a lie of it. He would try, but he didn’t believe it would work.
I started pushing against him then. I couldn’t stay pressed to him like this; I needed to see him, I needed to move. “Don’t make me force you to let me go, Rafael.”
“Do you think you could?” he asked, and there was just a hint of amused arrogance that a lot of the big athletic guys had. Good, at least that sounded like someone who planned to win, though I didn’t really want it aimed at me.
I said, “I’d have to hurt you badly, but unless you were willing to hurt me back, yes, I can make you let me go, but I don’t want to hurt you.” Then I had an idea. “Would you being hurt postpone the fight?”
He laughed then and let go of me, stepping back as much as the shower stall would let him. His face was alight with laughter even as it faded. That was better already in so many ways.
“Do not hurt me to keep me from the fight tonight, Anita. If they thought that you were able to injure me that badly, it would be another weakness on the long list that my enemies have collected.”
“Could you say that you were injured in training?” I asked.
“Why should I lie?”
“Because this is the most confident I’ve seen you in the last few minutes, and I don’t want to send you into battle unless you know you can win.”
He looked me in the eyes, probably the best eye contact he’d ever given me when we were both naked and alone, but this moment wasn’t about sex, so the nudity truly didn’t matter.
“I did not care about the first few challengers, they were no great loss to the rodere, or the organization I have built, but now we are starting to lose the future of our people. I have had my eye on Hector for a few years now. I was thinking of bringing him here and starting to train him, groom him to take over from me someday.”