“I told you,” I replied petulantly.

“No, you’re talking about what you want, but you haven’t said anything about how you really feel. That’s what worries me.”

I kept staring straight ahead at the flat-screen TV across from me, refusing to meet Anyan’s eyes. But I could feel the soft pant of his breath swirling the hair hanging about my face.

I knew he wasn’t going to stop, not until he’d gotten whatever it was he wanted from me.

“I just feel… like I’m past feeling,” was what I finally came up with.

“Hmm,” was the barghest’s only response.

“ ‘Hmm’ what?” I demanded, when I realized that was all I was getting.

“I don’t like the idea of you not feeling.”

“Well, it makes sense to me, Anyan. Since all I get to feel recently seems to be bad things. So I’d rather just work. Be active. Stop thinking and do stuff.”

Anyan took his time thinking through what I’d said.

“Is it working?” he asked finally.

“Is what working?”

“Not feeling.”

“Yes. I think so. I don’t know. I feel numb. Numb is good.”

“But numb’s a feeling. You’ve had a lot of shocks recently, Jane. You can’t expect yourself to recover quickly…”

“This isn’t about me, Anyan. It’s about my mother, and Iris. I tried grieving, and I tried getting angry, but nothing works. They’re still dead, and whoever killed them is still out there. My hurting is just… weak. And I need to be strong.”

“Is feeling hurt weak?”

“Of course it is, Anyan. I don’t see you running around crying. And people fear you; do what you tell them to do.”

“And is that what you want? People to fear you?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know!” At this point, I was nearly shouting, I was so frustrated. Why couldn’t he just understand me, and leave me be?

“The Jane True I knew wouldn’t want people to fear her,” was all Anyan said, calm in the face of my frustration.

“Well, I let grief get the best of me before. When my mom left, and again when Jason died. And look what it got me. That Jane gets stomped on. A lot. It’s not much fun being that Jane.”

“So what would the new Jane be like?”

“She wouldn’t take shit. She’d strike first. She’d have the strength to do what needed to be done, and her friends wouldn’t die because of her.”

“That sounds like quite an extreme Jane.”

“Stop mocking me, Anyan.”

“I’m not mocking you. I just want you to hear yourself; hear what you’re saying.”

“What’s wrong with it? It’s true.”

“It’s a version of the truth, yes. But it’s not the whole truth, or the only truth. You’re forgetting that there are all types of strengths, and when we embrace new ways of being, we have to let other ways of being go.”

“Well, I really want to embrace some strength, Anyan. I’m tired of being powerless.”

“Who says you’re powerless?”

“Jarl. Nyx. Phaedra. Graeme…”

“So, the bad guys think you’re powerless.”

“Exactly.”

“But how do they define power?”

“I know what you’re doing, Anyan. Stop trying to Dr. Phil me.”

“I’m not, Jane. Like I said, I want you to think through what you’re saying. Tell me what Jarl defines as power.”

“Ruthlessness. Cunning. Strength of magic…”

“And you want to become all these things?”

“Yes, Anyan! I do! Jesus, what do you want from me? Do you want me to be somebody who keeps getting her ass kicked, and her friends killed?”

“Is that all that’s happened in these past months?”

“I swear to the gods that if you answer one more of my questions with a question, I am going to go all Tyson and bite your damned ear off…”

Frustration was welling up inside as the pinpricks of angry tears stung the corners of my eyes.

“What would your father have to say to your becoming ruthless, and cunning, and—”

My head whipped around toward Anyan as I felt the tears overflow my eyes. “Don’t you dare bring up my father, you bastard!” I choked, as hot rivulets ran down my cheeks.

Anyan’s only response was to lean forward and gently lap the tears from my face. And, just as he knew it would, his gentle touch broke me. After all, I always fucking cried on dog-Anyan, as the manipulative little shit knew full well.

Within seconds I found myself sobbing, almost hysterically, as all the pent-up anger and sadness and frustration came pouring out of me. Anyan dragged himself forward a bit, the leg hanging off the bed following him like a dead thing, so that I could bury my head in his ruff.

“That’s it,” his gruff dog-voice murmured. “Let it out.”

I buried my face deeper into his wiry fur, beginning to shake as an overwhelming sense of loneliness crashed over me.

Your mother is dead and your father is sick, came an insidious whisper through my head. Soon you will be all alone… more alone than you ever thought possible.

Suddenly and overwhelmingly terrified, I began to shake, as the faces of every loved one I could lose began to flash before me.

“Jane? Honey?” Anyan asked, his voice gentle but also betraying a whisper of worry. I don’t think he’d intended for me to let go quite so much.

“They’re all going to leave,” I said through my sobs, although I was so snotty and incoherent it came out sounding like, “Der ah gonna leab,” and Anyan shook his doggie-head.

“Sorry?” he asked. My shaking increased, alarming even to myself, and I asked for the one thing I knew would comfort me, not worrying about the fact this was Anyan. I just needed to know I wasn’t alone.

Hold me, I thought.

“Hoad be,” is what I asked.

But this time the barghest was able to translate my Boogerian. Before I could repeat myself, the air around me shimmered with Anyan’s power until strong arms encircled me. Then my tears were wetting the crinkly chest hair of Anyan-the-Man, rather than dog-Anyan’s coarse ruff.

Shock ran through my system as Anyan pulled me closer. I’d wanted to feel comforted, wanted a hug, but my body surprised me by reacting with a whole passel of other sensations above and beyond comfort. As if I’d depressed a button my crying stopped, but Anyan wasn’t going to let up on me. I felt his large hand wrap itself around my hair, again knotting it roughly at the nape of my neck. He tugged my head back to meet my black eyes with his iron-gray gaze.

“I know it hurts, honey. I know you want to bury everything. But you have to keep feeling, Jane. This is important. You have to keep feeling.”

I stared into his strong face, trembling not only at the closeness and the heat of his body but at the depth of emotion I saw swirling in his eyes.

I thought of his long life, and the terrible things I knew he’d seen, and done.

“Do you still feel?” I managed to choke out finally around the knot that had developed in my throat.

Anyan’s hand in my hair tightened—not enough to hurt, but enough to emphasize his next words, which rumbled through his chest into my own. It would be years later that I fully understand everything he was telling me. But, at that moment, I understood enough.

“Of course, Jane. It’s the only thing that keeps us human.”

I thought of the inhuman calm of the Alfar, and the cold viciousness of Jarl and Phaedra, and tears welled anew in my eyes.

Anyan pulled me against his chest again gently, and I relaxed in his hold, letting the tears flow. I cried for Iris, and for my mother. I cried for my father, and I cried for myself. And I cried because I could—because to do other than feel under such circumstances would mean I’d become something other than Jane True.

The grieving hurt, yes. But it was real, and it was right, and I knew Anyan would keep me safe while I let myself go.

Which is exactly what he did until, finally, my pain subsided and those other feelings again surfaced. For Anyan’s skin was hot against my cheek, and I knew there was a lot of skin to be had.

All together now: “Clothes don’t shift with the shape,” my virtue commented drily. You really need to start remembering that fact.

I remembered, my libido purred, willing me to look downward.

Feeling myself blush, I finally pulled away from Anyan while carefully avoiding looking anywhere but into his eyes.

“Um…” I started, unsure of how to thank him. Or how to extricate myself from him without seeing his junk.

“Ice cream?” he interrupted before I could continue.

“Sorry?”

“Do you wanna go for ice cream? I would take you to White Castle, but there isn’t one in Rhode Island.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Um, I think I’d take ice cream over onion-burps anyway.”

Anyan grinned as the very tip of his nose twitched. “Philistine.”