2

THAT ONE WORD fell into the room like a thunderbolt, except that afterward the room was quiet. So quiet that I could hear the blood pounding in my head. Nathaniel's body was so still against mine that if I hadn't felt his pulse against my hand, it would have been like he wasn't there. I was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. It was like a moment before a gunfight, when you know it's going to happen, that anything, any movement, will set it off, and you don't want to be the one that makes that happen.

Nathaniel looked down at me, and the look was enough. It broke the unnatural silence, and sound spilled around us. Micah said, "Did Ronnie say baby?"

"Yeah, I said baby." Her voice was ugly with anger.

Nathaniel let me slide to the floor, his hands going to my shoulders. His eyes were so serious that I had to fight to keep meeting them. I did it, though my eyes flinched as if the force of his questions were a light too bright to meet.

"Are you pregnant?" he asked, voice soft.

"I'm not sure," I said, and I gave Ronnie the glare she deserved. "I was going to wait until I was sure before I told any of you guys. But I had to tell someone. I thought, hey, I'll tell my best friend, but I guess I was wrong."

"The kiss with Micah may not have been for my benefit," Ronnie said in that ugly voice that I didn't recognize as hers, "but your pet stripper and you, that was for my benefit."

I turned so that I was facing her, Nathaniel at my back. "You're jealous of the men in my life, yeah, I get that now."

She opened her mouth, closed it, and said, "I guess that's fair. I tell your secret, you tell mine."

I shook my head. "Me telling Nathaniel and Micah that you are jealous of how many men are in my bed, that isn't the same as you telling them that I may be pregnant." I had a mean idea, so I said it. "But it might be close if I told Louie that you were jealous of my boyfriends. Does he know that you can number your old lovers in triple digits?" Yeah, it was mean, but she'd earned it. Only family can fight as dirty as best friends.

She paled a little, and that was enough to answer the question. "He doesn't know," I said, and made it a statement.

"I think he deserves to know," Nathaniel said, and again there was that tone in his anger that said it was more personal than it should have been between them.

"I'd planned on telling him," she said.

"When?" he asked, and he moved around me, so that he was facing her.

I glanced at Micah, and he shook his head, as if he didn't know what was going on either. Good to know we were both confused.

"When you'd moved in together, married him, or never?"

"We're not getting married," she said in a voice that was just a little desperate, as if her fear was washing her anger away. She rallied then. "You did that little show with Anita to rub my face in the fact that I'm about to become monogamous. You're always doing shit like that."

"And how many times have you said, 'Oh, it's Anita's little stripper,' or 'pet stripper,' or 'how's tricks,' or my personal favorite, 'you're damned cute for a walking, talking, beefsteak,' or is that 'beefcake'?"

"Jesus, Nathaniel." I looked at Ronnie. "Did you say all that to him?"

The anger faded around the edges as she finally looked uncomfortable. "Maybe, but not like he makes it sound."

"Then why didn't you say it in front of me?" I asked. "If there was nothing wrong with saying it, why not in front of me?"

"Or me," Micah said, "I would have told you if she'd been saying things like that to Nathaniel."

"Why didn't you tell me, Nathaniel?" I asked.

He gave me his angry eyes. "I told you she didn't see me as real, as a person."

"But you didn't tell me what she'd said; I needed to know."

He shrugged. "She's your best friend, and you'd just made up after a big fight. I didn't want to start another one."

"I was just kidding around," Ronnie said, but the tone in her voice said she didn't believe it either.

I looked at her. "How would you feel if I said stuff like that to Louie?"

"You can't call him a stripper, or an ex-prostitute, because he's not." The moment she said it, her face showed me she knew she shouldn't have. "I didn't mean..." she began, but it wasn't me that put her in her place, it was Nathaniel.

"I know why you call me names," he said, and he moved in closer, not touching, but invading the hell out of her personal space. "I see the way you watch me. You want me, but not like Anita does. You just want me for a night, or a weekend, or a month, then you'd be done like you're always done with everybody. I know why you don't want to commit to Louie." I'd never seen him like this, relentless. I actually made a small move, as if I'd stop him, but Micah caught my eye, and shook his head. His face was serious, almost grim. I guess he was right. Nathaniel had earned this, and Ronnie had, too. But it wasn't going to end anywhere I wanted to be.

He said again, "I know why you don't want to commit to Louie."

She said in a small, weak voice, "Why?"

"Because it torments you to know that you will never know how I am in bed."

"Oh," she said in a voice that was almost her own, "so I'm not wanting Louie because you're such a stud?"

"Not me, Ronnie, but the next me. The next guy you get obsessed about. Not love obsessed, but I-wonder-what-he'd-be-like-in-bed obsessed. And you've always been beautiful enough, hot enough, to get anyone you've ever wanted, right?"

She stared at him as if he were something horrible. He prompted her, "Right?"

She nodded, and whispered, "Yes."

"You knew Anita wasn't fucking me, so you thought if she didn't want me maybe it would be okay, but I didn't pick up on any of it. I ignored the hints, so you started to get mean about it. Maybe you didn't even know why you were doing it." He leaned in so close that she moved back until her butt hit the cabinet, and she had nowhere else to go. "You kept belittling me in front of Anita, and worse behind her back, as if you'd convince her she didn't want to keep me. That I wasn't good enough to keep. Real enough to keep. Have you ever set your sights on anyone and not fucked them, at least once?"

She gave a little trembling shake of her head. She was biting her lower lip, and tears gleamed unshed in her eyes.

"Then suddenly, Anita is going to keep me, and you don't poach your friends' guys. That is a rule. You thought I was just food, and you could have me, at least once. Suddenly I'm a boyfriend, and it's against your rules to try for me, but you still wanted me. Just once. Just once to feel me inside you..."

I called it then. "Enough, Nathaniel, enough." My voice was shaky. This had gotten so ugly, so fast. How had I missed it?

Nathaniel moved back from her slowly, and said, "I used to believe in women like you, Ronnie. I used to think that anyone who wanted me that badly must love me, at least a little." He shook his head. "But people like you don't love anyone, not even themselves."

"Nathaniel," Micah said, as if he'd been shocked by that one, too.

Nathaniel ignored him. "You need to find out what you're running from, Ronnie, before it ruins the best thing you've ever found."

She spoke in a harsh whisper, "You mean Louie."

He nodded. "Yeah, I mean Louie. He loves you. He really, truly loves you, not just for a night, or a month, but for years. Part of you wants that or you wouldn't still be with him."

She swallowed hard enough that it sounded like it hurt. "I'm scared."

He nodded, again. "What if you love him? What if you give him your whole heart and then he dumps you the way you dumped so many others?"

She gave that trembling nod of hers again. "Yes."

"You need help, Ronnie, professional help. I can recommend someone."

I knew Nathaniel saw a therapist, but I'd never heard him talk about it with anyone before, not like this.

"I've been with her for a few years. She's good. She's helped me a lot." His face was gentler than it had been.

Ronnie looked at him as if he were the snake and she were the helpless little bird.

He went to the corkboard above the phone. There were business cards pinned to it; important numbers, notes. He took one of the cards down. He walked back over to Ronnie and held it out to her. "If she can't take you, she'll know someone good who can."

Ronnie took the card carefully, just by the corner as if she were afraid it would bite. She gave him wide, frightened eyes, but she put the card in her jeans pocket. She let out a deep breath, and turned to me. "I'm sorry, Anita. I'm sorry about everything." She looked at Nathaniel, then back at me. "And now I'm going to leave the mess behind and let you guys clean it up like I've always done. I am sorry." And she walked out. We all waited until we heard the door close behind her.

The three of us stood for a few seconds in silence, waiting for the shock waves to settle. But of course there were other problems than just Ronnie's issues.

Micah turned to me, and said, "Are we in a mess?"

"I'm not sure yet," I said.

"But you think you're pregnant?" he said.

I nodded. "I missed last month. I'd planned on finding out for sure before I told anyone." I sighed and crossed my arms under my breasts. "I haven't bought a pregnancy test, because I wasn't sure how to take it without one of you finding out."

Nathaniel came to stand beside me, but to one side so he wouldn't block my view of Micah. "Anita, you shouldn't have to go through this alone. At least one of us should be holding your hand while you wait for the little strip to turn colors."

I looked up at him. "You sound like you've done this before."

"Once; she wasn't sure it was mine, but I was the only friend she had to hold her hand."

"I thought I was your first girlfriend."

"She found out I'd never been with a girl, so she took care of it." His voice made it seem utterly matter-of-fact. "I wasn't very good at it, but she came up pregnant. It was probably one of her customers, but it could have been mine."

"Customers?" Micah made it a question.

"She was in the game, like I was then."

I knew "the game" meant she'd been a prostitute, but "the game" usually meant when he was on the street. He'd been off the street by sixteen. "How old were you?" I asked.

"Thirteen," he said.

The look on my face made him laugh. "Anita, I'd never been with a girl, but I'd seen a lot of men. She thought I should know what it's like to be with a girl. She was my friend, protected me sometimes, when she could."

"How old was she?" Micah asked.

"Fifteen."

"Jesus," I said.

He smiled, that gentle, almost condescending smile that always let me know what a sheltered life I'd led.

"And she got pregnant," Micah said, softly.

Nathaniel nodded. "The odds were that it wasn't mine. We had sex twice. Once so I could see if I liked it. The second time so I could get better at it." His face softened in a way I'd never seen before.

"You loved her," I said, voice as gentle as I could make it.

He nodded. "My first crush."

"What was her name?" Micah asked.

"Jeanie, her name was Jeanie."

I almost didn't ask, but it was the most he'd ever talked about that part of his life, so I asked. "What happened?"

"I held her hand while the test turned positive. Her pimp paid for an abortion. I went with her. Me, and another girl." He shrugged, and the soft light faded in his eyes. "She couldn't have kept it. I knew that. We all knew it." He looked suddenly sad, lost.

I wanted to take that lost look out of his eyes, so I hugged him, and he let me, and he hugged me back.

"What happened to Jeanie?" Micah asked.

He stiffened in my arms, and I knew then it would not be a good answer. "She died. She got into the wrong car one night, and the date killed her."

I hugged him tighter. "I am so sorry, Nathaniel."

He hugged me, one fierce, tight hug, then he moved back enough to see my face. "I was thirteen and she was fifteen. We were street hookers. We were both drug addicts. There wasn't going to be a baby." His eyes were so serious. "I'm twenty, and you're twenty-seven. We both have good jobs, money, a house. I've been clean for three, almost four years."

I pulled back from him. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying we have choices, Anita. Choices that I didn't have the last time."

My pulse was in my throat, threatening to choke me. "Even if I am--" and it took me two tries to say--"pregnant, I'm not sure I'm keeping it. You understand that, right?" My chest was so tight I could barely breathe.

"It's your body," he said. "I respect that. I'm just saying that we have more than one way to go here, that's all. It has to be mostly your choice."

"Yes," Micah said, "you're the woman, and like it or not, the final choice has to be yours."

"Your body, your choice," Nathaniel said, "but we need a pregnancy test. We need to know."

"We're running late now," I said. "You guys need to shower and we have to go to Jean-Claude's place."

"Can you really just go to the cocktail party with this hanging over us?" Nathaniel asked.

"I have to."

He shook his head. "It's fashionable to be late, and once he knows why, Jean-Claude won't mind."

"But..." I said.

"He's right," Micah said, "or am I the only one that thinks I would go crazy smiling and nodding tonight, and not knowing?"

I hugged myself tighter. "But what if it's positive, what if..." I couldn't even finish it.

"Then we'll deal with it," Micah said.

"Whatever happens, Anita, it will be okay. I promise," Nathaniel said.

It was my turn to look into his face and realize how young he was. We were only seven years apart in age, but they could be an important seven years. He promised it would be all right, but some promises you can't keep no matter how hard you try.

That tight feeling climbed up my throat and spilled out my eyes. I started to cry, and couldn't stop it. Nathaniel wrapped his arms around me, held me against his body, and a moment later Micah moved in behind me. They both held me, while I cried my fear and confusion and anger at myself. Self-loathing didn't even begin to cover it.

When the crying slowed, and I could breathe without hiccuping, Nathaniel said, "I'll go out and get the test. Micah can shower while I'm gone. I should be back in time to clean up and we'll only be a little late."

I pushed myself away, enough to see his face. "But what if it's a yes, I mean how can I go to the party if it's a yes?"

Micah leaned over my shoulder, putting his face next to mine. "You don't want to know," he said, "because you'll find it easier to pretend tonight, if you don't know."

I nodded, my cheek sliding against his.

"I'll get the test," Nathaniel said, "and we'll use it later tonight, after the party. But we are getting one, or two, to take with us." For someone who was supposed to be a submissive his voice held no compromise. It was simple fact.

"What if someone finds it in our stuff?" I asked.

"Anita, you're going to have to tell Jean-Claude and Asher sometime," Nathaniel said.

"Only if it's positive," I said.

He gave me a look, but nodded. "Okay, only if it's positive."

Positive. It seemed like such the wrong word. If I was pregnant it was definitely a negative. A really big, scary negative.

3

AN HOUR AND a half later we were parked in the employee lot behind the Circus of the Damned. Nathaniel had helped me with my eye shadow. He could blend about a dozen different colors and make it look like I wasn't wearing anything, yet make my eyes look amazing. He did his own eyes for the stage, so he had the practice. My dress was actually a skirt outfit. Black, stiff material, so that the gun in its holster at the small of my back didn't show through the dark cloth. Nor did the knife in its spine sheath. My hair hid the hilt. I'd left my cross in the glove compartment, because the chances of no one "accidentally" using vamp powers on me tonight were between zero and nothing. Yeah, they were our "friends" but they were still Masters of the City, and I was the Executioner. Someone wouldn't be able to resist trying me out, just a little. Like someone who shakes your hand too hard. But this "handshake" could make the cross burn against my skin. I did not want another cross-shaped burn scar.

Both the men were in Italian-cut suits, tailored to their bodies. Nathaniel was in black with a lavender shirt shades paler than his eyes. His tie was rich, purple silk. He'd braided his hair, so that it gave the illusion that his hair was short, until you saw the braid waving around his ankles. His black leather shoes gleamed, the cuffed pants long enough to hide the fact that he wore no socks. Micah was in charcoal gray with a thin black pinstripe. His shirt was a green with yellow undertones, almost the same shade as his eyes. Depending on how the light hit the shirt it brought out either the green or the yellow of his eyes, so that the color of his eyes changed with almost every breath. It was a nice effect.

I was wearing jogging shoes, but there was a pair of four-inch black heels in the overnight bag. Four-inch spikes, with open heels, and laces that wrapped around my ankles. When Jean-Claude couldn't persuade me into a skimpier outfit for the night, we'd compromised with the totally impractical shoes. Though strangely, they weren't uncomfortable. They looked like they should have been, but they weren't. Either that, or I was getting better at walking in high heels. Jean-Claude's fault. I'd put the shoes on when we reached the bottom of the stairs, before we saw our guests.

I had a key to the new back door of the Circus of the Damned. No more waiting around for someone to let us inside. Yea!

I'd actually turned the key and felt the lock click over, when the door started opening inward. Security was pretty good at the Circus of late, since we'd made a deal with the local wererats. But it wasn't a wererat that opened the door; it was a werewolf.

Graham was tall enough and muscular enough to make it impossible to move through the door without brushing him. He stood for a moment looking down at me, at us, I guess, though it felt more personal than that. His perfectly straight black hair managed to fall decoratively over his brown eyes, and still be very, very short on the bottom, so the strong line of his neck was left bare and strangely tempting. His eyes tilted up at the edges, and I now knew that he had his Japanese mother's eyes and hair, but the rest of him seemed to have been copied from his ex-navy and very Nordic-looking father.

Graham was the only one of the lycanthropes I'd ever known to have his parents visit his place of work. Since his usual job was security at Guilty Pleasures, a vampire and furry strip club, that had been an interesting night.

I thought for a moment Graham would stay in the doorway and make me push past him. I think for a moment, so did he. I was almost sure he would have moved, given us room, but Micah stepped up, just a little in front of me. "Give us some room, Graham." He didn't say it mean, or even call any of that otherworldly energy. He even made it a little bit of a request, but Graham's face darkened just the same.

I watched Graham think about it. Think about not moving. He was already dressed in what all the security would be wearing tonight; black slacks, black T-shirt, though the shirt should probably have been a size larger. The one he was wearing looked like it was having trouble holding on, as if one flex too many and it would shred. Micah looked fragile beside him.

Micah let down some of his careful control. He let just a whisper of the power that lived inside him breathe through the night. My skin shivered with it. His voice came lower, deeper, an edge of growl to it. "We are Nimir-Raj and Nimir-Ra and you are not. Move."

"I am wolf and not leopard; you have no authority over me." He actually tensed, as if he were bracing for the fight.

I'd had enough. "But I have authority over you, Graham," I said.

His eyes did not move from Micah, as if I weren't a threat. There were so many reasons Graham had not made the leap from bodyguard to breakfast snack for me.

His ignoring me pissed me off, and the first thread of anger brought my own version of the beast. That warm, prickling thread of power breathed over my skin and danced around the men around me. I was not a true shapeshifter, because I couldn't shift, but I carried four different strains of lycanthropy in my bloodstream. If you catch one type of lycanthropy, it protects you from any other strain. You can't carry more than one disease at a time, but I did. A medical impossibility, but blood tests don't lie. I carried wolf, leopard, lion, and one mystery strain that the doctors couldn't identify running through my veins. That, and some metaphysical impossibilities, meant I had power to call. Power to use, up to a point.

Nathaniel rubbed his arms and said, "Easy, Anita."

He was right. Because I couldn't shift, it was possible to call the beast, but impossible to finish the call, so it was like having a seizure. Not pleasant, and I'd ruin the dress. But I was tired of Graham. Tired of him in so many ways. The energy had made him look at me, and for the first time I saw him remember that I was something besides a piece of ass he wanted, and hadn't had, yet.

"I am the lupa of your pack, Graham, until Richard picks another mate." I stepped up, and Micah moved back so I could do it. I kept moving, pushing my power into that tall, muscular body, so that it was Graham who moved out of my way. "But I will always be Bolverk of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, Graham. I will always be the doer of evil deeds for your Ulfric, your wolf king. I am the executioner of bad little werewolves who don't remember their place. I think you've forgotten that."

I'd backed him up among the boxes in the storeroom. His head actually hit the lone light that hung from the ceiling. The light swung and filled the room with shadows, and darkness.

I could feel that part of me that had begun life as Richard's beast, but now, somehow, was mine, pacing just below the surface of my mind. It was as if my body were a cage in the zoo, and my beast paced the narrow confines of its prison. Paced, and did not like it. Trapped, so trapped, and so wanting to break free.

I staggered. Micah and Nathaniel caught me before Graham could reach me. Micah growled, "Don't touch her!"

Nathaniel said, "She's called wolf; if another wolf touches her right now, it will make it harder to control."

I clung to them, my two cats. I put my face against the warmth of Micah's neck, and drew in a deep breath of his scent. But underneath the warm scent of him, the sweetness of his cologne, was the nose-wrinkling musk of leopard. It helped chase back the wolf, helped me fight free before things got out of hand.

Graham dropped to his knees, head bowed. "Forgive me, lupa, I forgot myself."

"Size doesn't make you dominant, Graham, power does. You are submissive to me in our pack. You are always submissive to Micah, because he is the leader of another people that has a treaty with the wolves. You will treat him accordingly or it will not be as lupa that I talk to you next, but as Bolverk."

He looked up, startled, as if he hadn't expected me to say that last. He'd been playing, and I'd upped the stakes so high he didn't like the game anymore. Maybe if I hadn't been so tense about the maybe-baby I wouldn't have invoked Bolverk, or maybe I was just tired of Graham.

Once Nathaniel moved from pomme de sang to my animal to call, then I'd needed a new pomme de sang. As my animal to call he was bound metaphysically too close to be just food. Jean-Claude and some of the other vamps had put their heads together and finally realized that there was a reason that an animal to call, human servant, and pomme de sang are three separate jobs. The first two are so closely bound to you metaphysically that though they can feed you, it's a little like eating your own arm. You can do it, but it has a price. It fills your belly, but it also takes energy from other places. It was actually Elinore, one of the vamps we invited in from England to join our vampire kiss, who figured out why I was having to feed so often from all my men. Because almost all the men I was feeding the ardeur from were bound to me metaphysically--Jean-Claude as my master, Richard as my Ulfric and Jean-Claude's animal to call. We were a triumvirate of power, but we needed fuel from outside that triumvirate sometimes. I'd accidentally made another triumvirate of power with Nathaniel as my animal to call, and Damian as my vampire servant (another impossibility), and again they weren't a complete meal. So no matter how much I "fed" off any of them, I just didn't stay filled up. Asher, Jean-Claude's second-in-command, and our sweetie, was a full meal. Requiem would probably have been a full meal if I'd allowed myself to have full-blown intercourse with him. Byron had been emergency food, and frankly just wasn't enough my type to be a permanent part of my bedroom. He enjoyed sex with me, but he liked boys better. I don't mind not being someone's main squeeze, but being the wrong sex, that just made my head hurt.

Jason, Jean-Claude's pomme de sang, was great, but he couldn't feed both me and Jean-Claude every day. I needed to find someone else to fill the spot, or maybe a couple of someones, until I got more control of the ardeur.

Graham had been one of the local men that Jean-Claude had encouraged me to "interview" as my new pomme de sang. Jean-Claude thought that if I'd "interview" them a little more intimately, I'd have a new pomme by now. He'd called me stubborn. Asher had called me foolish, to refuse to sample such bounty. Maybe it was foolish. I hadn't told Ronnie that all the men in my life had given me a short list of other men to try out. She'd have freaked even worse than she already had, because if Louie had been that generous with her, she'd have been a happy camper. But Ronnie wasn't me, and what might have made her happy just seemed to confuse me.

Of all the men who had come to my bed, to sleep and cuddle, Graham had been the most pushy. He'd made it clear he wanted more from me than I wanted to give. Of course, if I hadn't been so stubborn, he'd be in the running for would-be daddy. The thought made me cold down to my toes. Let's hear it for not fucking everyone who bunks over.

"I beg forgiveness, lupa." His face still showed the shock of hearing me invoke Bolverk, but the words were not begging words. Not really. To beg forgiveness among the wolves meant only one thing--something closer and more intimate than I wanted from Graham--but if I refused the gesture, then it would be a breach between us, one that could grow and eventually harm Richard's pack. Shit.

"Then beg, Graham." My words didn't come out uncomfortable, they came out angry. Anger was always my shield. I was trying to learn other things to hide behind, but anger was still my tried and true, and for that moment, it worked.

He stood, and standing he towered over me. So broad, so muscled, so big, but there was fear in his face. Finally, he believed that I might, if he pissed me off enough, hurt him. That I might have the right to hurt him. It was not a bad thing to see fear on his face. He was overdue for it. We'd tried being nice, Micah, Nathaniel, and me, but some people won't take nice treatment. If a person won't take nice, there are always alternatives.

He could have used the submissive gesture to take me in his arms, but he did it the way it had been shown to me. He touched my face lightly with his fingers, just enough to steady himself. If we'd been in public he would have laid a very light kiss against my lips, but we weren't in public so it got to be more interesting. He leaned over me, and the prelude was too like a kiss for my comfort.

It made me want to back up, but I was dominant to him. A dominant does not back away from a submissive, no matter how much bigger he is. It's not about size and strength. It's about who's tougher, and no matter how big he was, Graham was not the toughest person in the room. Not even close.

He bent down, and down, his mouth hovering over mine so that I could feel his breath warm against my lips. I think even at the last second he thought about stealing the kiss I'd never allowed him, but he thought better of it. He did what he was supposed to do, though frankly the kiss would have been less embarrassing. In some ways, at least.

He was supposed to lick across my lower lip. It was a version of the gesture a submissive wolf uses toward a dominant. It's based on the food-begging behavior of wolf pups. But saying all that didn't change the fact that his fingers were gentle against my face, and his breath was warm against my mouth. The tip of his tongue touched my lip, and slid across it. Wet, gliding, sensual, wetter than the first real kiss should be. Wet, as if I'd taken a drink of wine and spilled just a little across my lower lip. Just enough so that I had to lick across my lip in an echo of what he had just done to me. As if I were drinking down the touch of his mouth.

He shivered, his breath trembling on the air. "That was nice."

"It was supposed to be you begging the forgiveness of your pack's lupa," I said, but my voice was a little shaky, and not nearly firm enough.

He gave a quick smile, the one that ruined the hip-tough-guy image, and made him look his age. Graham had yet to see twenty-five. "I do ask forgiveness, but it's still the most you've ever let me touch you."

I shook my head and pushed past him. Micah and Nathaniel followed me. Nathaniel was carrying the overnight bag that held, among other things, the pregnancy tests. I knew when he came out of the store with them why I'd put off buying them. It made the whole problem more real. Stupid, but it did.

"You've slept in the same bed with me, Graham," I called back over my shoulder as I headed for the big door that led underground.

"Sleeping's not what I want," he said.

I stopped at the door, and just turned and stared at him. The other men moved to either side to let me see him better.

Graham looked at me, his eyes peeking through the silky fringe of his overly long bangs. It always made me think of an animal peering at me through the grass. The upper layer hadn't been this long when I met him.

"I do not need your shit tonight, Graham."

"Why are you always mad at me?"

"I am not always mad at you, Graham."

"If you're not mad at me, then why don't you like me better?"

"I don't dislike you, Graham, I just don't want to fuck you. I'm allowed not to fuck you, even though you want to fuck me."

"Don't fuck me then, just feed the ardeur off me. Feed it the way you fed off Nathaniel for months without intercourse."

I shook my head. "I don't want to introduce the passion of the ardeur to someone I'm not keeping. It's cruel."

"The ardeur is the greatest orgasmic experience that any of the vampire lines can give to a mortal." Graham's face was full of such eagerness, his hands reaching out to the air as if he could draw the ardeur out of it, and hug it to him. "I just want to know what it feels like. The real deal, not the little tastes I've had by accident. Why is that wrong, Anita? Why is it wrong to want that?"

"She's afraid you'll become addicted," Micah said, voice soft.

Graham shook his head. "I've never been addicted to anything in my life."

"Lucky you," Nathaniel said.

"Please, Anita, don't go to strangers to feed the ardeur. Don't go to strangers when there are people right here who would do almost anything to feed your need."

I made an exasperated sound, almost a scream of frustration, and went for the door. I opened it and we headed down the stone steps that led down, down, to the actual home of the Master of the City.

The steps were too wide, too something, as if they'd been carved for something that didn't walk on two feet. The stairs were always awkward, which was why I was still in jogging shoes. Micah took my hand anyway, and I let him. If it looked to Graham like I was needing help down the stairs, fuck him, or rather don't. I needed the comfort of touch tonight. Nathaniel stayed on my other side, but didn't try to take my right hand in his. I'd need that hand for the gun or the blade. Yeah, these vamps were supposed to be Jean-Claude's friends. But they weren't my friends, not yet.

We were at the landing just before the stairs took a turn. It was a blind turn, but if you hugged the far wall, you didn't stay blind for long.

"Wait," Graham said, "please, wait. I should go first."

We all turned and watched him walk the few steps down to us. He gave a smile that was almost nervous. "I am the bodyguard, remember?"

I looked him up and down, and said, "Are you carrying?"

He sighed. "No. Richard says we're dangerous enough without guns."

I shook my head. "Not if everyone else has them, Graham. Silver bullets don't let you get close."

He shrugged those massive shoulders. "Richard is Ulfric; if you want to change policy, take it up with him. I'm just doing what I'm told."

I sighed. I loved Richard, really I did, but we had some serious differences of opinion.

Graham eased past us, but stopped on the step below the landing. He looked up, but not like he was happy. "I was hoping that Jean-Claude would have joined us by now."

I gave him a look. "What do you mean, joined us? Jean-Claude is waiting downstairs with our guests, right?"

He shook his head. "There was an emergency upstairs."

"Asher is managing the Circus; he should be able to take care of any emergencies."

Graham licked his lips. "I don't know the details, because I was left down here to wait for you, but Meng Die did something. Something that made Asher call for Jean-Claude to help him."

Meng Die was a petite Chinese doll, or that's what she looked like. But she, like me, didn't really match the packaging. She'd been the second-in-command in San Francisco, before Jean-Claude called in all the vamps he'd made in this country to help bolster his defenses. Her master had been happy to let her go, because she'd been nights away from a palace revolt that would have left him dead and her in charge. In fact, he wouldn't take her back, though Jean-Claude had offered.

Meng Die wanted to be Jean-Claude's second-in-command, but that was Asher's job. Then all the vamps had come from London after their master went crazy and had to be killed. Suddenly Meng Die was just another master vampire in a kiss that was lousy with master vamps. She was powerful enough to be third, or maybe even second, but temperamentally, she wasn't suited to be that close to any throne. Too dangerous. Too ambitious.

"What the hell did she do now?" I asked.

Graham shrugged. "I don't know."

"I thought you were almost her pomme de sang" Nathaniel said.

"I was," he said.

"You don't seem too worried about her."

He shrugged those big shoulders. "She keeps promising to make me, or Clay, her pomme de sang, but she never makes the decision. She was still fucking Requiem, too, until he started turning her down."

"Requiem isn't sharing Meng Die's bed anymore?" I asked.

"No."

I frowned. "Did he find a new girlfriend?"

Graham licked his lips again. "Sort of."

"I know that look, Graham, that's your I-have-more-bad-news-and-I-don't-want-to-tell-it look. Spill it, all of it."

He sighed again. "Damn it, if you're not my girlfriend you shouldn't be able to read me that easily."

It was my turn to shrug. "Just tell me."

"Requiem thinks that the reason you've turned him down as your new pomme de sang is because he was fucking Meng Die. He said you're not a woman who shares your men."

I didn't know whether to scream, or curse, or laugh. "Did he tell Meng Die that?" I asked.

"I don't know. He told me. He told Clay."

"Did you tell Meng Die?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I am not that stupid. She takes bad news a hell of a lot worse than you do."

"Is Clay that stupid?" I asked.

"Requiem told her," Micah said, voice soft.

We all looked at him. "You know that?" I asked.

He shook his head. "But it would be something he would do, not to cause trouble, but to be honest with her."

I thought about it, then had to agree. "Damn, he would. I wonder if he told her recently?"

"Did you turn her down?" Nathaniel asked Graham.

He gave the quick grin again. "No. She may not hold the ardeur, but the sex is still amazing. I've done vamps before, but never Belle Morte's bloodline. If Meng Die is an example of what they have to offer in bed, then my new goal in life is to be one of their pommes de sang."

"I thought you wanted to be Anita's pomme," Nathaniel said.

Graham looked a little startled, as if he'd said more than he'd meant to say. "If Anita would feed the ardeur off me, just once, I might never look at another woman, but until she does..." He let the sentence fade, but it summed up why Graham was not a strong contender for me. He didn't really want me, he wanted the ardeur. If any of the other female vamps from London had held the ardeur, he'd have chased them instead of me, or as well as me. Not very flattering--to him, or to me.

"Until I do, you're keeping your options open," I said.

He shrugged. "I gave all my options up for Meng Die, and she kept Clay and Requiem on her string. I shared her with Clay in a way I've never shared anyone." He looked sad for a moment, then it passed. I wasn't sure if it passed because his sorrow was that shallow, or he had pushed it away. "Anita isn't going to give up all of you guys for me. Why should I give up everyone else just for a chance to be in her bed? I mean, just for a chance, not even the certainty of it."

"I didn't ask Requiem to sacrifice his libido to me."

"You never ask anyone to give up other people for you, but if they don't, you don't sleep with them," Graham said.

And that was a little closer to the truth than I wanted to hear. I hadn't asked Requiem to give up Meng Die, but the fact that he was fucking her had been a point against him. Why? One, because I simply did not like her. Two, Graham was right, I didn't share my men. Not with other women. The fact that I then expected them to share me with about half a dozen other men, well... Not fair. Not fair at all.