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Cutting Shards	By : RogueFemme Category: Anita Blake > Crossovers Views: 1583 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Anita or her world, I just play in it. I make no money from this story

Chapter List
- 1-Cutting Shards
- 2-"Say it again..."
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- 2
Section 3: "Cutting Shards"

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five months later...

I crawled unsteadily into my bed just after dawn. I badly needed a shower, but I just didn't have the strength. My mind was replaying the events of the last twelve hours over and over again. Twelve hours. One night. Just half a day in which everything good and decent in my world was shattered into razor-sharp, cutting shards. Half a day in which I learned that no one could truly protect me. Time in which I learned that for all I had preached about the ugliness of life, I hadn’t known shit about it. I shut my eyes, trying to banish the vision of Caden's last, pained look at me.

I got up and slowly walked to the bathroom, discarding my clothes as I went. I turned on the shower and stood in the spray, then sat down and just let the water run over me.

I did not think I would ever feel clean again. Can you ever clean contamination from your soul?

I can't stay in my room forever, though the prospect is tempting. I put on some old clothes and head for the workout room, hoping not to meet anyone on the way. It's after dark and normally Caden is frequently in the workout room, but in the weeks since the incident, I haven't had self-defense lessons with him and he isn't there as often. Maybe he is avoiding me like I'm avoiding him. I'm not in the mood for lessons anyway.

I ignore everyone I pass, not wanting to see their pitying looks. For a miracle, the workout room is empty, and I head straight to the back. I don't even bother putting on boxing gloves, I just start pounding the living hell out of the punching bag, waling on it with fists and feet until I'm too tired to stand anymore and I sink to the mat. Maybe it's not the healthiest pastime, but it works for me. It works off the anger, at least for a while.

A sound behind me, and I turn to see Caden near the door. I turn away, not wanting to see the look on his face when he sees me or feel my own response to him. I hear him leave and experience a moment of guilt. He does not deserve what I'm doing. I should call him back, I know it. But I don't. Right now I am too tired and wrung out to care much about anyone, even one as deserving of it as Caden.

Gwen tells me I will be better able to handle things once I've cleared the air with him. Easy for her to say.

Finally I'm rested enough to get up and I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My clothes are old, loose, and sweat-stained and my hair hangs lankly around my face, which is fading from workout ruddiness to the paler-than-normal shade it has been lately. My dark blue eyes have a new, ominous shine of magic. My hands are scraped and bruised. I look like hell, like death, and I can't summon the energy to care.

"What is wrong with you, Mara? Don't tell me nothing, because I haven't seen you for nearly a month. You don't answer your calls. You're acting totally different, like you hate everybody, including yourself. Look at you, you're a mess!"

"So sorry I don't live up to your fashion-plate standards," I snarl.

"That's not what I mean, and you know it."

I tried to brush past her, already regretting coming to Cameron's house. Even the break from the Circus doesn't seem worth this questioning. "It's pointless discussing this. You are human, you would never understand."

She stepped in front of me, blocking my way, as pissed off as I'd ever seen her. "Oh no you don't! We've been best friends for over ten years and you have never given me that 'You're human, you wouldn't understand' crap. Do not think I'm going to take it from you now. Something happened to you, Mara, something bad. I want to help you but you're shutting me out."

I closed my eyes, shook my head and brushed past her into the kitchen. My hair swung into my face and I shoved an impatient hand through it, not even noticing how badly it needed washing. Lately even the shower seems like too much trouble. Cameron's mom sat at the table, sipping coffee. She looked up as I came in, not even trying to pretend she had not heard our argument.

Cameron came up behind me and reached for my shoulder, but I jerked away. "Don't touch me!"

She let her hand fall, watching me with wide eyes. I glared at her and stalked toward the door, forgetting why I'd even come into the kitchen.

"Have you gone to the police?" Ms. MacNamera's voice asked softly. I stopped and turned my angry regard on her.

"What?"

"You'll feel better when he's caught."

Normally I was unfailingly polite to Cameron's mom, but tonight I had no patience. "What are you talking about?"

She looked up into my eyes, her face sad and serious. "The man who raped you," she said softly. "I know what the symptoms look like, Mara."

I heard Cameron's horrified gasp, but I could only stare at the human woman at the table who was watching me with motherly concern. I opened my mouth to tell her that wasn't it, but I couldn't say anything because while what happened to me was not the physical act of rape, I wasn't sure she was entirely wrong either. A memory of cold vampire eyes flitted into my mind, and I shuddered.

"I don't think there's a law that covers the ardeur." Cameron, still standing at the counter, muffled a sob.

Ms. MacNamera's brown, very human eyes met mine and I looked away from the honesty in their depths. "What happened?"

What the hell. Everybody else knew. "A visiting vampire master. He was an old enemy of my father's and we knew he was powerful and probably spoiling for a fight, but my father's vampires were there, and the guards... He was under guest rights so we couldn't throw him out, but we figured we could handle anything he tried." I closed my eyes. "We didn't know what he could do. No one my father had ever heard of could cause the ardeur without touch, not without having it themselves. We never even guessed it could be done."

"Until he tried to demand me as his... companion for the night. My father has never ordered anyone into another's bed, least of all me. It was a deliberate insult. I was disgusted, but I thought he couldn't do anything. I just remember he looked me in the eyes, and suddenly I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, I felt like I was burning up from the inside. I didn't understand what was happening to me. Before than I'd felt repelled by his behavior, but the ardeur came over me and he told me then he would give me what I need and I..." my throat closed up and I swallowed hard.

"...I'd have done anything he wanted. I wanted to. I didn't care about all the people watching. I didn't care about what I'd feel later. I didn't care about anything but touching him and fulfilling the terrible," I paused, searching for a word, "need. I ran to him and he took me into his arms and started kissing me and it was the best thing I'd ever felt, like water when I was dying of thirst."

I breathed out, slowly. "I don't know how, I was so close, but my mother got a clear shot and killed him. Even with his blood and brains all over me, all I cared about was that now he couldn't do what I needed. I felt crazed, like a wild animal surrounded by enemies. The ardeur didn't die with him. I still needed. I still needed sex. Not like humans need sex, but like you need air when you can't breathe. Like I'd die without it. And I would have, I would have died or gone mad from the need."

Cameron's face was buried in her hands and her shoulders were shaking, but her mother's eyes were clear, watching me sadly.

It wasn't going to get easier to tell by waiting. I drove on. "My parents tried to magically draw it out of me, but it didn't work. I was surrounded by people who wanted to help, but there was nothing any of them could do. They couldn't even touch me or the ardeur would spread to them. Nobody could protect me from it. There's only one way to deal with the ardeur: feed the hunger."

"I was so afraid, so out of my mind, I couldn't even think. In that moment that I fell back from the master's body, I looked around and I didn't recognize anybody until I saw Caden nearby. I've always trusted him, and... I had no right to ask it, but I couldn't think, I just begged him to help me. I didn't even really understand what I was asking for."

"But he did. He got me out of the room without touching me, got me alone, and... as soon as we touched, the madness spread to him. He did what he had to, to save me, and now I can't even look at him because of what happened, and everyone knows, and I'm constantly reminded. And the worst part is that it wasn't just me. Caden saved me, because he cares for me and wanted to help me, and I know I'm hurting him now but I just can't help it." My voice broke on the last few words, and I swallowed, looking away.

I stared off into the distance, not seeing the room I was in but the memory of Caden kneeling at the edge of the circle of people around me, holding out his hand to me. His eyes had been so sad. "Later that night, I was still in his room, in his bed, and I felt him crying. Crying because of what we'd done. And I knew that what that vampire master had done to me... I'd done to Caden. I didn't mean to, but I did, and I hate myself for it."

"And now... I was never into guys as much as most girls my age, but I was also a virgin because I knew that once I had..." I shook my head, trying to figure out how to explain. "My father is descended from a line of incubi, succubae, vampires whose powers are sexual. I knew that once I became sexually active, I might develop some of those powers, those needs. And I did. Not the ardeur, thank gods, but still... now that I've had sex once, I need it." I slumped over the table. "It's not just that I'm not a virgin anymore. Now I'm truly part succubus, and I can't go back. It was amazing at the time, but now I don't even want to think about it and I feel so sick for wanting to do it again, but I'm weakening without it. I've been fighting the need, but it's so hard. And it's just another reminder." I covered my face, unable to look at anyone.

Ms. MacNamera's arms slid around me, and I almost pulled away, but I started shaking, and her motherly embrace made my defenses crumble. I wept into her shoulder while she stroked my hair and whispered comfortingly to me. I felt Cameron take my hand and as the crying abated, I thought that perhaps the human world was not entirely lost to me after all.

Once I had calmed down, I sat holding a drink while I talked with Cameron and her mom.

"You can't blame yourself," Ms. MacNamera told me. "That's what you have to remember. You didn't do anything to deserve what happened."

"What that master vampire did to me, I don't, not really. But what I did to Caden..." I shook my head.

"You said Caden got you out of the room before he touched you, right?" she asked.

"Yes, but..."

"And you didn't spread this ardeur to him until you touched. He got you alone together first. That sounds like he'd already made his decision." She leaned forward, taking my hand. "Maybe he only did it to save you, I don't know. But it was his decision. You didn't take that from him. It was an ugly situation, and he did what he thought was best. Circumstances may have forced him, but that's not your fault."

I looked away. "I wonder if he looks at it that way."

"Honey, Caden is five hundred years old. I think he knows how to take care of himself," Cameron added.

I looked at her miserably. "That doesn't mean he can't be hurt."

"Have you talked to him about it?" Ms. MacNamera asked.

"I know I should, but I just haven't been able to face him yet. Gwen- my therapist- says I should too. I asked her to talk to him but I don't think he listened to her." I closed my eyes in pain. "This morning Nathaniel told me he'd heard Caden tell my father he was looking for another kiss to join. I've got to do something."

"Oh God." Cameron was staring at me with pained understanding in her eyes. "This is why you sent us away from the Circus, isn't it? This why we had to move away. You knew something like this could happen."

I looked at her wearily. "Not this in particular, but something like it, yeah. You think you know vampires because you grew up around my father's kiss, but they're different from most vampires. My father is different, because he was a slave of the Council for centuries and he won't treat others the way he was treated." I rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands. "Don't believe the Church of Eternal Life. Vampires aren't just people with fangs. Some are okay, but some vampires are cruel, and powerful, and they'll destroy your life just because they can. The safest thing you can ever do is just not be on their radar."
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Cutting Shards