"You mean the hierarchy of the werelions?"

She shook her head. "Anita, if you add this guy to your men, then some­one had to beat the shit out of him, at least once, so he'd know who was boss."

"I'm boss," I said.

She smiled at me. "I like you, Anita. I respect you. I take orders from you. But a guy like Haven is going to see you as a girl, a piece of ass. Unless you can personally beat him to a pulp, he's not going to behave for you. He'll tell you to your face what you want to hear, but you've got Nathaniel, Micah, Damian. I mean you have a lot of non-coms around you. You don't want to bring home a lion to play with your kittens unless you have a big dog to bal­ance it out."

I frowned at her. "Are you saying that Richard is my big dog?"

"Maybe it's a bad example, but it's the best I've got."

"You don't think he would respect me—Haven, I mean?"

She shook her head. "He's got trouble written all over him, Anita."

"You think I should throw him back?"

Her dark eyes widened, surprised. "Does my opinion count?"

"I trust your judgment, and you're the only girl here."

"Why do you need a girl opinion?" she asked.

"Because I'm tired of all the damn testosterone."

She grinned at me. "I'm not sure I'll say anything that the men won't say on this one, Anita. Estrogen doesn't make me stupid, and you'd have to be stupid to want to keep Cookie Monster over there. I mean he could be a bodyguard, if we made the rules clear, but to take home as a lover, no way."

I nodded. "I agree."

"Then why ask?"

I hugged myself. "Because, knowing all of it, I still want to touch him."

She shrugged all that muscled upper body. "Then you're fucked."

Richard's voice came strained. "You can't want to keep him, not now, not after this."

I knelt beside him. He grabbed my hand, so hard and sudden it startled me. "I don't want to keep him."

I watched him try to think past the pain. "But," he said.

"But it's not always about what I want."

His hand convulsed around mine, until I had to fight not to cry out. "Shift, Richard, you can heal this if you shift."

He shook his head. "If I shift I'll have to spend at least four hours in ani­mal form. Can't go to the ballet as a wolf."

"You're not going to enjoy the evening like this."

His grip on my hand loosened, just holding me for a moment. He stared into my face like he was trying to memorize it. "Do you want me not to go?"

I frowned at him. "Why would you ask that? Of course, I want you to go."

He almost smiled, but winced instead. "You've got a lot of men to juggle, maybe one less would make tonight easier."

I drew his hand against my breasts, and touched his face. "You didn't just assume I needed help to handle Haven. You asked me first, and waited for me to answer. I know you wanted to wade in and pull him off us. Thank you for asking, for waiting."

He grimaced, and tried to make it a smile. "I'm glad you're happy about it, but my waiting cost Travis a broken arm. Joseph's not going to want us to borrow his lions, if we keep breaking them."

That made me smile. "Good point, but the lioness in me is looking for someone strong." I looked at the wall, because I could feel that beast mov­ing around inside me, as if it were pacing the cage of my body. I did not want another round of almost-shifting. I raised Richard's hand to my face. I sniffed it, and it didn't help. Yes, it was Richard, but he'd touched Haven, and the smell of lion was on his skin, along with wolf. The prickling warmth started to swell inside me.

I let go of his hand, and stood up.

"What's wrong?" Claudia asked.

"Her beast is trying to rise again," Richard said from the floor.

I nodded, and stepped farther away from Richard, and kept moving. I wanted distance between me and Haven. This didn't feel like the way I'd bonded to Nathaniel. This instant attraction to Haven felt like ... I turned and found Micah standing there, closer dian I'd realized. He hadn't wanted to interfere with me and Richard. I could feel my eyes widening. I reached out to him, and the wolf and lion quieted. Leopard stirred, and the movement almost doubled me over. Micah caught me, helped me stand up straight. But the leopard liked him too much, and I had to push him away from me. I stumbled, and Jean-Claude was there to catch me. I clung to him, burying my face against his chest, drawing in the scent of clean silk and him. I actu­ally ripped his shirt open, so I could put my face directly against his skin. I drew in the sweet, clean, scent of him, as if he were air, and I'd been suffo­cating. His cologne was sweet, and always smelled as expensive as it was, but it was the scent of his skin underneath it, mixing with the cologne, that I needed. It helped clear my head, helped me ease the beasts back to sleep.

I rubbed my face along the smooth outline of his cross-shaped burn scar. Jean-Claude didn't see the scar as an imperfection, and neither did I. It was something extra to play with when I kissed his chest.

His arms held me tight, and he whispered, "I felt your fear flare to life, ma petite. What has happened?"

I spoke with my face still buried against his chest. "I'm trying not to make Haven my animal to call."

Jean-Claude stroked my hair, trying to soothe me, like a child who's woken from a bad dream, but this bad dream wasn't going to end with me waking up. It wasn't going to be all right.

"You are drawn to Haven, and he to you, ma petite. You have broken his link to Augustine."

I nodded my forehead against his chest. "Yeah, but he's not Auggie's ani­mal to call, he's just one of his lions."

I felt Jean-Claude look behind him.

"That's right," and that was Auggie. He'd come to stand near us. "He's bound to me, but not as an animal to call."

I nodded again, my face still buried against Jean-Claude. I didn't want to see Auggie's naked chest. I didn't want to be distracted by yet another meta­physical problem; one at a time was plenty. "What did I do with the leopards before I got an animal to call, Jean-Claude?"

"I do not understand, ma petite, what..." Then he went very still. He was

still holding me. I was still clinging to him, breathing in the scent of his skin, but his heart had stopped beating, his breathing stilled. He was doing that be very still that the old vampires could do, but this time I was pressed against him while he did it. I'd never been this close to him when he went this still. Until it stopped, I hadn't even been aware his heart was beating. It made me look up at him. Made me meet that beautiful, flawless face, and see it look unreal, masklike, as he stared, not at me, but behind me.

I turned and looked where he was looking. Micah stood there, staring at us. The look on his face was enough; he'd had the same awful thought I'd had.

I licked my lips and whispered, "Do the lions have a name for their queen?"

He said it out loud. "I felt it, when you saw him coming down the hall­way. He won't be your animal to call. He'll be Rex to your Regina."