I just gaped at him. I couldn't even think of anything to say.

Nathaniel touched my chin and closed my mouth, gently. He kissed my cheek, and said, "It's okay, Anita."

I swallowed and stared into that peaceful face. He smiled gently at me. I shook my head. "Why would he ask this? Rafael doesn't do any thing without a reason."

Claudia cleared her throat sharply. We all turned to her. She looked as embarra.s.sed as I'd ever seen her. "He's afraid that Asher's ties to the werehyenas will make them have closer ties to Jean-Claude and you than we do, the rats."

"He's my friend," Richard said. "I am not friends with the werehyenas' leader."

"But Rafael isn't friends with Jean-Claude, or Anita. It's just a business arrangement with them. Asher is their lover, and his animal to call is the hyena now, so that makes the hyenas more essential to your plans than us."

"The rats are our allies and friends," I said, "and nothing personal to the hyenas, but I trust the rats a heck of a lot more one-on-one as guards than most of the hyenas."

Claudia nodded. "With a few exceptions the hyenas are amateur muscle, and Rafael doesn't recruit amateurs."

"You guys are important to us, Claudia. Where the h.e.l.l did Rafael get the idea that we'd dump him for Narcissus?" I asked.

She shrugged those wonderfully muscled shoulders as much as the muscles would allow. "He wants a closer tie to Jean-Claude, that's all I know."

I looked at Jean-Claude and Richard. "I don't have to do this, right?"

"No, ma pet.i.te, you do not, but we must hear his case for it. I agree with not doing it. I think the other wereanimals would take it badly if you made someone's king your new pomme de sang"

"The other wereanimals are already jealous of Anita's ties to the wereleopards and the wolves," Sampson said. He'd walked around us to help himself to food and to take one of the chairs by the fireplace. I'd sort of forgotten he was there. He had that ability to blend into the woodwork when he wanted to. Not magic, just tact.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Those are our animals to call. We're supposed to have a tighter bind to them."

"True, but you, Anita, carry the strain for lion and at least one other lycanthrope strain. There are those among the community who believe they know why the doctors can't identify that fourth strain in your body." He took a bite of croissant, and I was suddenly hungry. With all that was happening, my stomach rolled and let me know there were other hungers besides the ardeur.

"What's their theory?" I asked. I went to the table and started put ting food on one of the white china plates. We had take-out food every morning, but by G.o.d we ate off real plates with real silverware. Though the silverware was actually gold-plated, so that there was no problem with everyone using the utensils. Real silver can burn the skin of a lycanthrope. Not burn as in blister, but burn as in itch and hurt.

"Chimera attacked you in lion form, which explains the lion lycanthropy, but he was also a panwere. You've discussed that you may be able to add new types of lycanthropy until you shapeshift for the first time, haven't you?" Sampson asked.

"Yeah, we've discussed it, as a theory," I said.

"Some in the shapeshifter community would like you to try to take on as many of their beasts as you can before you shift, so that they'll have a tighter alliance with Jean-Claude."

I looked at Claudia. "Is that true? Have people been suggesting that?"

"There has been talk."

"Is that really what Rafael wants?" I asked. "I mean, he knows that Richard and I don't want to put him in my bed, but is that just a ruse? He offers s.e.x, I say no, and then he does a counterproposal of what. .. trying to give me rat-based lycanthropy?"

"Fin not sure what he plans to say," she said.

I looked at Sampson. "How do you know all this?"

"I was raised in what amounts to a royal court, Anita. You live and die on your intelligence information." "I've noticed that Sampson has an almost uncanny ability to elicit confidences," Jean-Claude said.

"You rolling them with mermaid tricks?" I asked.

He shrugged and took another bite of croissant.

"Using mind tricks on people without their permission is punish able by law," I said.

"The law actually states that it's illegal to use vampire tricks, telepathy, or witchcraft to elicit information without permission. I'm not using any of the three."

"I could make a court case that mermaid power is a form of telepathy."

"But I'm not reading their minds; they're volunteering information to me. That's not telepathy at all. Besides, this isn't a court case, this is about how to swim through the rocks in your path."

"And you have a suggestion," I said, and let it sound as suspicious as I wanted it to.

He laughed and wiped his hands on the white napkin in his lap. "You can avoid the s.e.x question by saying that I'm the next candidate, which is true. I can simply not give up my place as next in your bed. Their king knows I am the eldest son of another Master of the City, and I have prior claim to your affections."

"And it will get you in her bed sooner," Richard said; he sounded suspicious, too.

Sampson gave him a patient look with just an edge of impatience. "I have been here for months and not pushed my claim. Partly be cause, until Anita tries to bring me into my siren abilities, my mother will leave my brothers alone. I'm not at all convinced that the ardeur is similar enough to my mother's powers that Anita can awaken me to that other power. If I sleep with Anita and it doesn't work, then my family is back to the same problem."

"Your mother promised that if I couldn't bring you into your siren-hood, she'd accept that she was the last siren, and she'd leave you and your brothers alone."

He laughed and shook his head. "She's not human, Anita, or a vampire; her word doesn't mean what you think it means. She wants us to be sirens, and I don't believe she'll accept your failure gracefully. But as long as I'm here trying, then she'll wait."

"And she'll leave your little brothers alone," I said.

He nodded. "But my mother won't wait forever, Anita. One of the reasons she traded Perdita to you as a blood donor was so Perdy could keep an eye on me."

"She's a spy?" I made it a question.

"I know she's enjoying dating your Jason, b.u.t.tes, she's a spy. My father will accept and encourage that I've been a gentleman about every thing, but my mother will lose patience with it."

"We can send Perdita back when you go," Richard said.

"She's spying on me, not on you."

"Your mom doesn't trust you not to fudge on this," I said.

"No, she doesn't. She knows how much I want to avoid her doing anything that will force my father to kill her. He adores her, but if she forces s.e.x on me or my brothers he will do what he vowed. He will slay the woman he loves above all others. It would destroy him, and our family."

"You have been most patient," Jean-Claude said.

I wanted to argue, but couldn't. I nodded. "You have been."

"So just like that he gets to f.u.c.k you," Richard said.

I sighed. "You've done so well today, Richard. Don't spoil it."

"And how would you feel if I picked one of the women here in the underground to have s.e.x with while you f.u.c.k Sampson?" I looked at him. I thought of several things to say, none of them helpful.

"You wouldn't like it, would you?" he said.

"No," I said, not sure what else to say.

"Then don't expect me to enjoy sharing you."

"I don't expect you to like it, Richard. I don't think Jean-Claude likes it either, or Micah." I looked at Nathaniel. I both frowned and smiled.

"I like sharing," he said, with a smile.

"Good for you," Richard said. "I don't."

"You're having s.e.x with the human women you're dating," I said.

"Some of them, yes I am."

"You're doing that by choice; I'm doing this because I have to."

"You'll still enjoy it," he said.

"Would it make you happier if the s.e.x were bad?"

"Yes." He stood up, and let me finally see that he was wearing nice jeans and a red T-shirt. He'd probably refused fetish wear, and I didn't think he had any dress clothes here. "Yes, it would make me feel better if I didn't know you'd enjoy it."

"I don't know what to say to that, Richard, I really don't."

"I'm not having s.e.x with anyone but Anita, and I don't have a problem with this," Micah said.

"No, of course you don't, because you're perfect," Richard said.

Micah looked at me, as if asking how much fight to have.

"Don't fight," I said. "Let's eat, then we'll talk about what to say to Rafael." "And just because she says 'don't fight,' you won't fight, will you?" Richard asked.

"Usually, no," Micah said.

"Sometimes, Micah, I hate you," Richard said.

"Right back at you," Micah said with a smile.

Richard's power slapped along my skin like tiny bites of heat. But Micah was closer, and when his power flared, too, it was like standing too close to an open oven. "Stop it, both of you."

"Mon chat, mon ami, we do not have time for this."

"I am not your friend," Richard said. "I am your wolf to call, but that does not make us friends."

Jean-Claude took a deep breath, let it out, and went very still. Still in that way that the old ones could go, so that you felt if you looked away they'd vanish, even though they were standing right there. His voice when it came was neutral, pleasant, in an empty, impersonal way. "As you like, Richard. Mon chat, and mon lupe, we do not have time for this."

Richard turned toward him, his power filling up the room like hot bathwater that had gotten out of hand. You thought you were having a nice relaxing bath, and suddenly you were drowning. My pulse sped up, and the wolf inside me stirred.

I closed my eyes and started breathing, deep and even, breathing from the soles of my feet to the top of my chest. Deep cleansing breaths, to still that movement deep inside me. To isolate me from what Richard was doing. It was his power, not mine. I did not have to respond to it. Part of me believed that, but part of me knew better. His power and mine had married too tightly.

"Don't call me that," Richard said.

"If you are only my wolf to call and you are not my friend, then what else can I call you?" Jean-Claude's voice was very flat when he said it. I realized suddenly that he was angry, too. Angry at Rafael? Angry at the Harlequin? Angry at everything?

"Not that, not just wolf." "You take insult where none is intended, but if you will find insult where none is meant, then perhaps I should try harder to insult on purpose."

The sound of the heavy outer door banged loud in the charged silence. It made me jump. "Rafael is here," Claudia said. Her voice man aged to sound relieved and worried all at the same time, as if she was happy to cut the fight short, but worried what her king would do.

Richard was glaring at Jean-Claude, and the vampire was finally let ting his anger show on his face when Rafael walked through the far drapes. Rafael was tall, dark, and handsome. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the six-foot, darkly Hispanic man in his nicely cut business suit. He'd left the tie off, so that the white dress shirt framed the hollow of his neck like an invitation. That last thought didn't sound like my own. I glanced at Jean-Claude, wondering if it was his. He'd fed on someone's blood today, I could tell that much, but I knew that sometimes he l.u.s.ted after powerful blood the way that other men l.u.s.ted after pretty women. What I hadn't known until that moment was that he l.u.s.ted after Rafael as food.

Another surprise was behind him. Louie Fane, Dr. Louis Fane, teacher of biology at Washington University, and live-in boyfriend of one of my best friends. Ronnie, Veronica, Sims would probably have told me boyfriend sounded too junior high school. She'd have probably preferred the term lover, but it was my interior dialogue so I could use the words I wanted. Besides, Ronnie's continuing campaign to make her and Louie's relationship about s.e.x and not emotion was her problem, not mine. Though sometimes she made it mine.

Louie was five foot six, slender, but not weak looking. Today his arms were covered, but when they were bare fine muscles played in his forearms. His hair was straight and dark, and cut short, freshly so, be cause I'd seen him only last week and it had been past his ears; now it wasn't. His face was softly squared, almost the only hint that his mother had been from Ecuador. That and the black eyes, darker even than my own.

I was surprised to see Louie. Don't know why; he was Rafael's second-in-command. How did a mild-mannered college prof get to be second banana in an animal group made up mostly of meres and ex-criminals? By being smart, and not nearly as soft as he looked.

"Rafael, King of the Rodere of St. Louis, welcome," Jean-Claude said. The formality of the greeting set the tone.

"Jean-Claude, Master of the City of St. Louis, I am honored that you have invited me into your home." His gaze went to Richard. "Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, friend and ally, thank you for seeing me so early in the day."

I was close enough to hear the sharp intake of breath, and I thought Richard would say something that went with that almost violent breath, but he let the air out slowly. It shuddered a little on its way-out, and he spoke almost normally. "Rafael, King of Rats, friend and ally, there's plenty of food, help yourself."

"Thank you," Rafael said, and some tension I hadn't realized was there went out of his broad shoulders, as if he'd worried about Richard's reaction, too.

Louie went to Richard, and they did that guy handshake/hug, where you grip forearms and sort of b.u.mp shoulders. I heard him say, "Sorry about this."

If Richard said anything, I didn't hear it because Micah was talking to Rafael. "Are the leopards so unimportant that you do not even greet their king or queen?"

Of all the people in the room, I hadn't expected problems from Micah. From the look on Rafael's face, him either. "I meant no disrespect, Nimir-Raj."

"Yes, you did," Micah said.

"Micah . . .," I said.

He shook his head at me. "No, Anita, we can't let an insult like this go. We can't." Richard said, "You finally find something worth fighting for, Micah?" He gave Richard a cold look. "What would you do if Rafael had ignored you and greeted every other leader in the room?"

Anger flashed over Richard's face, then smoothed out. "I wouldn't like it."

"Jean-Claude, you need to teach your cats better manners," Rafael said.

That got my attention, and not in a good way. I moved to stand by Micah. Nathaniel moved up with us, though a little behind us. We were king and queen; you didn't stand in front of the royalty, even if you were living with them.

"We aren't pets," I said.

"You are Jean-Claude's human servant, and the leopards have no connection to the Master of the City except through you, Anita. They are not linked directly to the vampires of this city."

I felt movement around us as the bodyguards shifted nervously.