Arrant Nonsense

"At least when you roast someone it's fast and clean." Her ruff flattened. "Also tastier, but that may be impolitic for me to say."

"No, no, go right ahead, why should you be any different from anyone else around here?" I slumped to the floor. "At least you say what you mean instead of pussyfooting around issues until I'm ready to scream."

"Don't judge all dragons by me. Some of them talk so much they'll make your head spin right off your shoulders with frustration."

"They want me to get married now! How am I going to get married with all this going on?" I lashed my tail. "How can I court a girl when I'm randomly leaving my body and switching consciousness with a bloody--excuse me, no offense--dragon?"

"Don't you like girls?"

"Oh, of course I like girls, they're very nice, but this is going to turn into politics again, because it won't do for me to marry just any girl, oh no. Not only must she be of royal blood, but the alliance must strengthen our ties to some other kingdom without sending the others into a tizzy because they were rejected."

"Dragon matings are much less complicated," she said sympathetically.

"Most human matings are as well. It's just when you get into royalty that it gets muddied up. Just once I'd like to dance with a girl at a ball and not worry that I'm making some sort of statement by doing it." I was venting to a dragon and should probably stop.

"I take it your discussion didn't go very well." She gestured at his bleeding wrist.

"Your wolf is very resourceful and a deceptively fast and sneaky little bastard. But." Marco blew a breath out. "He's also controlling himself very very tightly. He could've hurt me. And he wanted to. But he didn't do it."

"You're bleeding."

"No, Angel, he could've hurt me."

Oh, god. "And?"

Marco shrugged. "I actually do feel better now. He cares about you."

"I could've told you that without you restraining him in a bloody cage." She put her hands on her hips. "Is he all right?"

"You should probably go to him. But, Angel? Be careful, okay?" He looked at her earnestly. "Because I don't see how he can keep this up for much longer."

Neither did she. But at least Marco's fears had been mostly laid to rest, she thought as she abandoned him in the hallway and rushed back into her apartment. She found Ben huddled in the back of the cage with one fist clenched against his sternum and the other arm over his head. The cuffs had been thrown into the corner. She fumbled with the lock and yanked the door open, dropping to her knees next to him. "Puppy?" She could hear his heart hammering, hard.

He moved so his head rested on her leg. "Is he pissed?"

"Not now." She moved the arm aside and petted his hair.

"That's something. I think I might have been less than diplomatic when I called him on his bullshit."

Before I could complete the thought, I found myself in my own body once more. I staggered against the wall and slid down it until I was seated on the floor with my head between my knees. "I'd like very much for that to stop. Now would be ideal," I wheezed. But at least I wasn't bruised like before, and my shoulder, blessedly, was still in its socket. "What happened while I was gone?"

"Your two dragons," said Malcolm, his tone long-suffering, "had a fearful bloody row. The lady dragon here nearly roasted your body where it stood before I reminded her that she'd be cooking the wrong person."

Ange stroked Ben's shoulder, trying to settle him.

It wasn't working too well. He realized with a start that sometime, when he wasn't looking, she'd become Pack to him. More than Pack, actually--not quite Mate, but way more than just Pack. And this guy was threatening her. He bared fangs at West, who sneered back at him. "You're dead, little wolf. And then I'll have Angeline the way I nearly had you."

That wouldn't stand. Rafe snarled and Ben lunged to his feet, and only Angeline's hand on the leash halted him before he did something everyone would regret. "Back, puppy," her quiet voice said as she stood up. "He's trying to get you riled, he is. Don't do what he wants."

"If you touch her, I'll fucking kill you," Ben promised.

"Oh, I'm touching you first. And then you'll die. Screaming, while she watches."

"Bring it, you overconfident, overblown, overwrought eunuch."

Angeline's grip on the leash tightened. "Now, Ben, it's not fair to flaunt your superior education in front of a drunken fool. You'd better get him out of here," she told West's friend. "Before something happens that no one will like."

Robes swirling, Malcolm swept into the corridor in front of my cell with all the officiousness his station permitted him. He crashed to a stop, crossed his arms, and fixed me with a glare. "This is a fine mess," he said as Tiana and Armand backed warily away from him.

"It's good to see you too, Malcolm," I answered. "Do you have a solution, or have you just come to shout at me? Because I'm really not in the mood."

"Do you know what your rashness has cost us?"

Right, he'd come to shout at me. My legs decided that now would be a fine time to give way, and I dropped heavily to the floor with my face in my hands. "Yes, Malcolm. I'm not stupid, no matter what you may think of me at this particular moment. Armand, Tiana, you're dismissed. If Malcolm's going to give me a telling-off, I'd rather you two not witness it."

They bowed and retreated, leaving me to Malcolm's tender mercies. "What am I going to do with you?" he sighed, deflating.

I closed my eyes. "I saw Kev cut down. I lost my temper."

"And turned what was a simple loss on the battlefield into an absolute bloody disaster." Only Malcolm could get away with addressing royalty this bluntly. His power and station, not to mention the fact that he could turn us all into toads, made him an excellent advisor who didn't sugarcoat his opinion.

Angeline sat on the couch with Ben's feet in her lap. Both of them were reading, but Ben set his book down with a pained sigh. He rolled over onto his side with his back to the room, and her heart twisted. She tightened her hand on his calf. "Puppy?"

"Mmph."

"Bloody hell," she muttered, and he cringed. "Och, I'm not mad at you, Benji," she hastened to say. "More frustrated with the whole situation. I wish there was something I could do to make this easier." Her confession the day before had just made everything awkward, although he'd tried to mitigate it. She wished now that she hadn't said anything.

"You've stuck your neck out for me way more than you ought to already, Ange," he said from under his arm. "I just suck at adjusting. Probably ought to get your next wolf someplace besides Basket Cases R Us."

Ben twitched awake with his head and upper body pillowed across Janni's thighs. He buried his nose into the spot just above her knees and inhaled deeply. "Oh, god, you smell good, honey," he said.

"Hey, sweetie." Her hand caressed his hair, and he basked in her presence. "How are you?"

"Still not dead. Doesn't hurt as much." Rafe stirred in the background. "Guess they just don't make bad guys they way they used to. Is there water?"

"Here." He rolled to his back. She held a bottle to his lips. "I'm glad to see your sarcasm circuits are still firing away," she said as he swallowed a few mouthfuls.

"They can have my sarcasm when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Which, apparently, won't be today." He pressed into her, and she squeezed him. "It's good to see you, honey." The shakes hit, then, and he reminded himself to breathe.

"We never stopped looking. Never."

He closed his eyes. "Glad one of us never gave up."

"Do you remember waking up before?" she asked.

"Maybe?" Something vague nibbled at the back of his mind--a nightmare wherein he'd died and gone to Hell, and a demon in Janni's form taunted him that he'd never see her or touch her again, because she'd never forgive him for what he'd done with--

"That redhead called you 'puppy.'" Janni's fingers traced a wolfsbane welt on his chest.

"Ange." Of course she had, in front of Janni. He'd have laughed, if he had anything to laugh with. "Yes. Yes, she did."

Perez chose that moment to walk into the room again. His brows lowered thunderously when he saw where Ben was and he opened his mouth to say something. Before he could, Ben forestalled him. "If you wake her up, Perez, so help me god I will tear off your leg and choke you to death with it." His voice was utterly calm.

"I don't breathe."

"Trust me, I'll manage anyway." Ben bared a tooth.

"What's he doing off the table?" Perez asked Jensen tightly. "Bad enough to unstrap him…"

"He asked politely and she outranks me." Jensen shrugged. "He'll go back on before moonrise."

"Did you see what he did to Henderson?"

"He can't wolf and he's weak from wolfsbane and blood loss anyway. I think I can handle him, but thanks for your confidence in my abilities, I appreciate it."

"And thanks for talking about me like I'm not right here, again," Ben said. "You know how much I love that." Ange made a noise and shifted, and he tightened his arm around her. "Go away, Perez. You don't have to worry about me tearing shit up, and Ange needs her rest."

Perez exposed his fangs. "I can have you killed out of hand, you know."

"If it would shut you up, I wish you would." Ben closed his eyes. "God, you're annoying."

Ben was as peaceful as she'd ever seen, and it looked good on him. Angeline hoped the Nightmare Fairy would skip him for once, and she kissed his stubble before softly rising to grab a bottle of cow out of the fridge. Pulling a chair over to the bed, she shook the blood up and sipped from it cold, not wanting to awaken him with the noise from the microwave.

He'd been right about his blood. The hangover had left her. Her mouth twisted, and she wondered when he'd got so smart. The fact that he'd offered himself like that, so casually, so trusting--

Her heart lurched, and she set the bottle down quickly before she dropped it. She'd twisted him into new and different shapes just so he'd survive...but what if West had won their wager? What would have become of her puppy then? Bile rose in her throat at the thought. Assuming he lived through the first night off the table and then after, that biting sarcasm she enjoyed so much would have devolved into pessimistic cynicism. The tiny flame of hope he held of seeing Janni ever again would have died a violent and ugly death, and he would probably have goaded West into killing him by now. West was eminently goadable, and Ben was first-rate at pushing buttons.

The notion was excruciating, and something caught in her chest. A realization struck her. "Oh. Oh, good god, no."

When the hell had she fallen in love with the little wolf sleeping in front of her?

"Shh. You're safe now. Really."

"Cage. Demon. Syringe. Pain."

She could do something about the needle, and she got up and grabbed it. "Ben. Watch." Janni threw it outside the cell, hard, when he looked up. "Okay? I'm not going to inject you with anything. Everyone was worried about you, that was just a precaution. We've got you in here because you jumped out a window into the ocean the first time you woke up."

"That's because this isn't...fuck, obviously it's real, for a certain value of real. I just--I can't. I was supposed to die. It was supposed to be over. And now--"

"It is over. You're out, and you're safe, and you're coming home with me to Los Angeles." She went back to stroking her fingers up and down his arm, scooting closer to him, and he didn't cringe away. "Come here, sweetie. Come on." He slid down the wall onto his side, until his head rested on her leg, and she said, "Smell me, Ben. Your eyes might lie to you, but your nose never has."

"Nose is broken. Friggin' wolfsbane. I'm so tired." He wasn't tired enough to relax; although he'd closed his eyes, he was still stiff as a board, and shaking. "I miss Ange. Always knew exactly where I stood with her." He sighed. "I know I'm not going to get to see Janni ever again, because I so don't deserve that, and she wouldn't want me back anyway. But if I'm really good, could you send me back to Ange? Would that be too much?"