Micah and I moved forward hand in hand to find Nathaniel. Vivian was just suddenly behind us as if nervous to be in the crowd by herself. I offered her my other hand and she took it with a grateful little smile. Vivian was usually pretty nervous, but I hadn"t realized she didn"t like crowds. Had she never liked crowds, or was it new? She was one of our wereleopards. I should know these things.
Wicked was suddenly with us. "You shouldn"t make us split the security, Anita."
I glanced back but was too short to see Truth with Jean-Claude and Asher. "Sorry," I said.
Micah held a hand up and I knew he"d seen Nathaniel, or Stephen. Wicked helped us get through the crowd and there they were. Stephen came off the stage to hug and kiss Vivian. He was as downright happy as I"d ever seen him. Then Nathaniel was there and it was my turn to be hugged. He lifted me off my feet and spun me. It made me laugh out loud. He was just so full of himself, and he should have been.
He kissed me while he was still holding me above him, so that I slid down his body still locked in the kiss, held in his arms. He got me to my feet, breathless from his attentions.
Micah clapped him on the shoulder and was suddenly getting a full-body hug. There was a moment when Micah hesitated and then he just went with it. You saw hugs like it on every sports field in the world, but when the hug broke Nathaniel kissed him, and that you didn"t see so much in sports. In private, they had kissed, but never in public. There was a moment when Nathaniel looked startled, and I think he was going to apologize, but Micah shook his head and put a hand on the back of the other man"s neck and leaned in and kissed him back, softly and thoroughly. Micah pulled back smiling and Nathaniel looked a little dazed, and then that smile came back, the one he"d leapt off the stage with, so happy that it just beamed off him.
I put my arms around them both and held them. Something behind me made me turn. I found Jean-Claude and Asher standing with Truth beside them. Jean-Claude"s face was beautiful and unreadable, the face he used when he was hiding what he was thinking, but Asher"s face made up for it. Anger, no, rage. Something had made Asher absolutely furious.
I went back to hugging my men and enjoying this moment, but I knew now the moment would pa.s.s and I"d have to deal with that look on Asher"s face. Some moments are perfect, and then someone comes along and f.u.c.ks it up. Ain"t it always the way.
CHAPTER 4
JEAN-CLAUDE AND ASHER took the limo with Wicked and Truth and went ahead to Circus of the d.a.m.ned. Why didn"t we keep security? One, our car wouldn"t hold that many people. Two, I was armed and had three wereanimals with me. I felt pretty secure.
Jean-Claude said he"d have a light repast prepared. He actually said that. He only talked like that when he was trying to hide emotions, thoughts, whatever. Was it cowardly to let him drive away with Asher, knowing they"d be fighting all the way home? Maybe, but I was hoping it wasn"t my fight. One of the serious downsides to sleeping with this many men was the emotional upkeep.
J.J., Micah, Vivian, and I waited for the men to change. Stephen could have gone home in his outfit, but Nathaniel and Jason weren"t really street safe. We"d gotten away with a guy-on-guy kiss and not gotten any negative reactions, but I think we all felt that wearing nothing but tights home would be pushing it in the buckle of the Bible Belt.
All three of them went to find the showers, and the rest of us wandered into the lobby to wait for them. We found the only bench and there was only room for three of us, and none of us were large people. Small bench. Micah insisted on standing, and I let him since I was still in three-inch heels from work. When he wore heels I"d let him sit.
J.J. and Vivian looked even more delicate and lovely in their gauzy dresses. J.J."s looked almost like she could have worn it onstage in some of the numbers we"d seen tonight. Vivian"s was a little heavier with the shiny beading on it, but they both looked like the fair maidens ready to greet their knights who had fought the good fight. I looked like what I was, someone who had hurried out of work to make the event.
Micah leaned against the wall beside me. I took his hand in mine, and just that made me feel better. He was in his work clothes, too, after all, and I thought he looked great.
J.J. didn"t sit long before she had to get up and begin to pace. It wasn"t really pacing, it was more like she was humming in her head, but her idea of humming needed physical movement. She almost danced as she moved, tracing some shape with her flat slippers and her pink dress. She wasn"t that much taller than me, but she seemed much taller, longer, leaner, all graceful lines, like someone should have been painting her.
Vivian moved a little closer to me on the bench. She was a wereanimal, and our leopard, and when wereanimals feel low they like touch. It"s comforting. I took the hint and held my other hand out to her. She accepted my hand with a little smile and took it as an invitation to sidle close enough for our hips to touch. There was a time when that would have weirded me out, but I knew Vivian didn"t mean to encroach on my personal s.p.a.ce. She just needed touch.
I raised my arm and let her cuddle under it so that my arm was across her slender shoulders. Sitting down I was taller through the torso than she was, so I could actually keep my arm around her and have her tucked underneath. I felt very guy all of a sudden, but the fact that she cuddled in against me in public meant that for Vivian, something was wrong.
Micah"s hand squeezed mine and I looked up to meet his gaze. I knew that look. I sighed and hugged Vivian, putting my cheek against her hair. "What"s wrong, Vivian?"
She straightened up and started to pull away. I tightened my arm around her and made it another hug. "Its okay, Vivian, just talk to us."
Micah said, "We are your Nimir-Raj and your Nimir-Ra, and your friends. Tell us."
She took a breath that made her shoulders shake. She huddled around herself, and I just drew her in against me. Her arms slid around my waist, hesitating at the feeling of the gun holster, but she finished the gesture and laid her head in the hollow of my shoulder. Whatever it was had to be bad for this level of public display, because Vivian was a very private person.
"The weretigers got Gina through three full moons without her shifting. She"s still pregnant."
I frowned and looked up at Micah. He raised eyebrows as if to say he didn"t understand, either.
"Yes, Crispin and Domino are helping Gina control her beast so she doesn"t shapeshift and lose the baby," I said.
Vivian clung tighter to me. Her body started to tremble, just a fine shaking. I let go of Micah"s hand and put both arms around her. Her voice was small and squeezed tight as she said, "Shapeshifters can get pregnant, but we can"t keep a baby to term. The shift is too violent and we miscarry."
"That"s why the weretigers are trying to teach some of us how to do what they"ve done for centuries, so we can help the women in our animal groups have children." When Crispin and Domino had come to live in St. Louis, we thought we"d just gained some new willing blood donors, a new dancer for Guilty Pleasures in Crispin, and a new security person in Domino, but the tigers had spilled one of their clan"s big secrets. The weretigers were the only animal group that could breed true. They had what they called purebloods, who were born with hair and eyes the color they would be when they took tiger shape, but they didn"t shapeshift until they hit p.u.b.erty. These purebloods themselves didn"t shift into a normal orange and black tiger, but their victims did, usually. I hadn"t even known that the tigers bred true until I had to go meet with them in Vegas, but no one outside the tigers had known that they could calm a woman"s beast. The men were trained from childhood to work with their mates and help them get through an entire pregnancy without shapeshifting, so they didn"t miscarry. Crispin had quieted Gina"s beast the first time without realizing that it was a big surprise to the rest of us. We were now at three months and counting; if we made one more month it would be longer than any lycanthrope female on record outside of the weretigers. The tigers were freaked out that their psychic ability worked on any other wereanimal. One of the reasons a group of them was visiting us tomorrow was to discuss the implications of Gina"s pregnancy and what her potential breeding success could do to the entire weretiger culture.
Vivian buried her head tighter against me, so her voice was m.u.f.fled. "I"d accepted that Stephen and I would never have children, that we couldn"t, that I couldn"t have children."
"We are going to get Gina through this with her baby," Micah said, and he sounded so sure. I wasn"t that sure, because not only did Crispin or Domino have to be with her every full moon, but someone had to be able to run to her side if she called for help. It wasn"t just a full moon that could make your beast rise; strong emotion, pain, lots of things could trigger that response.
I was one of the people trying to learn how to do what Crispin and Domino did so effortlessly. I wasn"t making much progress, maybe because my beasts were trapped in my human body and I couldn"t give them animal shape. Micah was learning, though, and he was good at it. Crispin thought he"d have it down cold in a few more days. All of us who were learning how to calm Gina"s beast were on speed dial for her, so that if she felt herself starting to lose control we could come running. The two tigers were really hoping some of the other dominants of the animal groups learned the skill soon, so they"d have more backup.
The shaking got worse as Vivian clung to me. "If Gina has her baby, I want one, too."
I laid my cheek against her hair. "Then you can be next."
She shook her head. "Stephen doesn"t want to."
"What?" I asked.
She raised her face from my shoulder. Her lipstick and eye shadow were smeared across that perfect skin. "He says with his background he doesn"t want children. He"s afraid he"ll be like his father."
"Stephen could never be like his father," I said. Stephen and his twin, Gregory, had been s.e.xually abused by their father for most of their lives until they left home. The father kept trying to apologize to them as part of his twelve-step program. They wanted nothing to do with him, and his insistence on trying to make amends for their nightmare childhood just seemed to me to be another way of putting his need for the apology above their need to be left the f.u.c.k alone.
"I told him that, but he"s afraid. He worked with Matthew some on his dance and it brought back horrible memories. Stephen"s been having the worst nightmares. His therapist says its a good sign, that things get worse so they can get better."
It sounded like something a therapist would say, but out loud I tried to be more helpful. "Stephen is not his father."
"That"s what his therapist says, but he"s scared." She swallowed hard enough for me to hear it. It sounded painful, as if she were trying to swallow something that hurt. "I want children, Anita. I want them, and if Stephen doesn"t then I"d have to lose him to have children. I don"t want to lose him. I love him, and I know he loves me."
I didn"t know what to say, but luckily Micah did. He came and crouched in front of her, putting a hand on her knee. "We"ve got six more months before Gina has her baby. That"s a long time in therapy. Six months can change everything if Stephen works on his issues."
"But what if he doesn"t work it out?"
Micah gave her that patient it-will-be-all-right look. I put my face back against her hair as she looked at him. I had no comforting face to give her, so I"d just cuddle.
"It"ll work out," he said, patting her knee in a sort of fatherly way. As Nimir-Raj he was supposed to be a combination of father figure, big brother, and boyfriend, but without the s.e.x.
"How can you be so sure?" But I heard the note in her voice; she wanted to believe his surety, his face, his touch.
Micah smiled at her and there was that certainty in him that I"d seen almost from the beginning. He projected utter confidence that what he said, would be. "I know Stephen, and I know you, and I know you love each other. You"ve gone through a lot together; you"ll make it through this, too."
"You sound so certain." Her voice was still breathy, but hopeful now, too.
He smiled wider. "I am."
I could not have said that, because I was always willing to believe someone would screw up. And because I couldn"t add my certainty to his, I kissed the top of her head where she"d cuddled into the bend of my shoulder.
Monica was suddenly in front of us. I looked up and my face was already set to warn her off, and Micah stood up I think ready for the same thing, but the look on her face wasn"t mean. I"d never seen her look kind before.
She called to J.J. "Can you keep Matthew occupied for a few minutes?"
J.J. glided over to us and got the little boy chasing her. I must have looked surprised, because Monica said, "I was married to a century-old vampire. I know what it"s like to want a baby and believe you"ll never have one. You know how rare it is for one of the older vampires to father a child."
I did know. I could only nod.
Micah moved out of the way as Monica took his place kneeling in front of Vivian. "Let me take you to the ladies" room so we can fix your makeup before Stephen gets back."
Vivian blinked at her and then nodded wordlessly. "I don"t want Stephen to know I told anyone."
"I won"t tell him," she said, and she held out her hand. Vivian looked at Micah, who nodded, then at me, and I nodded, too. She went with Monica, and we trusted Monica not to f.u.c.k this up. It was a little like sending your daughter off with the mean girl from school and trusting her not to be mean, but strangely, I did.
Micah sat down beside me, and his hand found mine. We sat there and watched J.J. dart around the lobby while Matthew chased her. He was squealing and happy about it, but something about the game reminded me of Jason and his ballerina"s last number. Was I looking for similarities, or was the little boy really imitating Uncle Jason?
As he often did, Micah spoke as if he"d read my mind. "When I was Matthew"s age I begged for a little holster and gun set with plastic badge."
"Because your dad was a sheriff ?"
He nodded. "He wasn"t sheriff when I was three, but he was in law enforcement and I wanted to be just like him."
"It"s not just me, then; Matthew is trying to imitate some of the dancing he saw tonight."
Micah watched the toddler chase the lithe, graceful dancer. "He"s started trying to figure out what it means to be a boy. He"s imitating the men he sees."
I told him what Matthew had said about how all the big boys kissed me. Micah hugged me, and I realized it was the same way I"d hugged Vivian. It made me sit up straighter and even pull away a little.
"What"s wrong?" he asked.
"I"m just wondering what Matthew"s learning and how it will affect him later."
"But why did you pull away?"
I took in a deep breath and said, "Because I won"t let myself huddle like Vivian."
He smiled and drew me in so he could kiss me on the forehead. "You will never huddle like Vivian, Anita."
I hugged him, pulled him close, and wasn"t so sure. I wanted to ask him, did he want children. He"d had a vasectomy years ago so that a very evil shapeshifter couldn"t use him to get the women of their animal group pregnant. The bad guy had liked them pregnant and liked the pain and sorrow of the miscarriages. He had been one of the most twisted people I"d ever met, and I never regretted killing him.
I couldn"t have Micah"s biological child, but we"d been sharing a bed and a home with Nathaniel for two years. Did they want children? If I"d really been as brave as everyone thought I was, I would have asked, but I didn"t ask, because I didn"t want to know. I was afraid I already knew the answer.
CHAPTER 5
AN HOUR LATER five of us were walking through the big dungeon door at the bottom of the long stairs leading from the upper parts of Circus of the d.a.m.ned, where there was a permanent carnival midway and circus ring, plus a freak show that held mostly mythological creatures, to the quiet underground that was the lair of the Master of the City of St. Louis. The first time I"d come through that big, scary door, Jean-Claude had only been one of the master"s minions. I"d killed her to save my life and others, but I"d opened the way for Jean-Claude to be the new master. Talk about your unintended consequences.
We closed and locked the door behind us and were in an open s.p.a.ce bordered by huge gauzy curtains that ran from the floor to vanish into the darkness of the ceiling. When I called this the underground I wasn"t joking. It had been carved out of existing caverns under the city, and to add a homey touch the curtains were the walls of the living room.
Jason and J.J. were hand in hand ahead of us as he parted the curtains, hitting the opening out of long habit. If it was new to you, the "door" was nearly impossible to find the first time. They went through laughing, looking at each other in a way I never thought I"d see Jason look at anyone.
We came behind them, my hand in Nathaniel"s and my arm through Micah"s. We almost ran into Jason and J.J. just inside the curtains. Something about the way they were standing made me drop the men"s hands and go for my gun. Maybe I was overreacting, but a lot of our enemies are faster than human. You don"t get a second chance to draw your gun against that kind of speed. I used Jason and J.J. to hide my hands as I tried to see around to what had made them stop, and I could see Jason"s tension level go through the roof. I knew rationally that he"d have yelled a warning if it was a gun situation, but a gun was what I had.
When I could see around them it didn"t make sense. Wicked and Truth were standing with our other black-shirted security guards, but they were all standing in the middle of the room with Jean-Claude and Asher on opposite sides of the group. It looked for the entire world as if the guards were trying to keep the two vampires apart. What the h.e.l.l?
I stepped out with the gun pointed at the floor. "What"s going on?" I asked.
Some of them looked at me, but most of them looked at one of the two master vampires, waiting for them to answer me. I turned to Claudia, the only female guard we had, and the only woman I"d ever known who was over six feet tall. She came toward me, her long black hair in its tight ponytail moving as she stepped to the edge of the group.
"We thought they were going to fight."
"Fight about what?" I asked, and put my gun up. I wasn"t going to shoot either of them, and they would know that. Unless you"re willing to use it, a gun is just a useless piece of metal. I put my useless piece in its holster.
"I"m not entirely sure," she said.
"One of you talk to me," I said.
"We will not come to blows," Jean-Claude said, and he backed away from the cl.u.s.ter of bodyguards to sit on the big white couch on the far side of the room. He let himself fall into it in that graceful I-don"t-care way, but he ended up looking like he was waiting for some pa.s.sing photographer to snap a picture of him. He was always beautiful, but this level of care and control over how he looked was usually reserved for guests, and hostile guests at that.
"What happened?" I asked.
Asher backed up to the white loveseat with its gold and silver cushions. He put his arms on the back of the loveseat, careless, but in his own way just as posed as Jean-Claude. Asher"s gold hair spilled over the scarred side of his face so that he sat there like some fallen angel, perfect and coldly beautiful.
"What is wrong with you guys? What"s happened?"
"Nothing"s happened," Asher said, "and that is precisely the problem."
We all stood in the white and gold room, and I had no idea what was going on. The bodyguards were huddled between the faux fireplace and the two chairs, the silver by the faux fireplace and the gold with its white cushions by us at the end of the room between the couch and loveseat. The huge gla.s.s-and-metal coffee table in the center of everything had food on it, but it was also forcing the guards to move around it, having to be careful of the food and the vampires. It seemed like you shouldn"t have to tiptoe around refreshments when you"re standing between two master vampires, but sometimes you end up between the cutlets and the cutlery, with nowhere safe to stand.
I frowned from one to the other of them and finally turned to the guards. Claudia and her fellow wererat Fredo looked at me. The two newer guards were both werehyenas, one tall and blond, the other a little shorter with skin a few shades darker than Vivian"s, hair tight and curly to his head. They were both looking at Asher. Wicked looked from one to the other of the vampires, but Truth looked at me. I said, "Truth, report."
The dark-haired vampire stepped away from the T-shirted security and faced me. "Asher is threatening to take his werehyenas and find another city."
I looked at Asher. "What? Why?"
Micah moved up beside me. "Narcissus"s werehyenas are the third most powerful animal group in this city. He wouldn"t leave and start over."
"He would, for me," Asher said.