I gave him as good an eye contact as he'd let me. "What apology do you owe me, Remus?"

He blushed, and it filled some pieces of his face with bright color, but lines in between paled, so that you could see where all the pieces of his face didn't quite match up. "I thought you were just a..." He stopped, seemed to think about it, and finally said, "Well, you know what I was thinking."

I could have been mean, and said nope, I didn't know, and tried to force him to say it all out loud. But truthfully, I didn't want to hear him call me a slut. Thinking it had been enough.

"It's okay, Remus, I might think the same thing if I were on the outside of it looking in."

He gave a small smile. "If it really is life and death for you and your peo­ple, then you need to talk to Narcissus about guards and food." He almost laughed. "Maybe give them a different color of shirt." He shook his head, and just stopped talking. He turned on his heel and left, as if whatever he'd been about to say, he wanted to stop before he said it, and leaving was the only solution. When the door closed behind him, and we were totally guard-free, Micah spoke for most of us, I think. "He's an odd one."

I just nodded. Odd one about covered Remus. I'd thought my not under­standing him was because I didn't know him that well, but I was beginning to think that months from now, I'd have no more clue to why he did or didn't do things. Some people are mysteries, and knowing them well doesn't make them less mysterious. Less confusing sometimes, but not less mysterious.

Asher leaned against the post of the bed, near us. He had a look on his face that I used to think meant teasing, but now I knew meant worse and darker things. "Richard," he said, so pleasantly, "did you truly leave us be­cause you worried for Damian's safety?"

Richard gave him narrow eyes. "Yes."

"Really?" Asher managed to put in that one word a world of doubt.

Richard shifted, uncomfortably, as if he didn't know what to do with his hands. "I didn't want to see Anita feed on Requiem. Does that make you happy, to know that?" he asked of Asher.

Asher leaned his cheek against the carved wood, and nodded. "Actually, yes, it does."

"Why? Why does my discomfort please you?"

Asher wrapped his hands around the post, using it like a prop, as if the scene were staged. Most of the vampires had a certain flair for the dramatic.

Belle's vamps had more than their share sometimes. He didn't answer Richard's question, but made a statement. "You could have stayed, Richard, because she didn't feed on Requiem."

"Stop it, Asher," I said.

"Stop what?" he asked, and the glint in his eyes let me know he knew ex­actly -what and that he was angry about something. Angry with Richard, maybe, or maybe angry about something else entirely. Mysterious and con­fusing didn't apply only to Remus.

"If you're mad about something, say so. If you're not, then stop the whole angry teasing routine."

Damian's grip on my hand tightened. Maybe he was just feeling stronger, or maybe he was trying to remind me not to get angry. One of his jobs as my vampire servant was to help me fight off those angry impulses. His own iron self-control had been forged by she-who-made-him. Any strong emotion was eventually punished, horribly punished. I'd shared enough of Damian's memories to know that his creator made Belle Morte seem the heart of kind­ness by comparison. Damian had learned to control all his emotions, his urges, because to do otherwise had been disaster.

He gripped my hand, not as tight as normal. He wasn't well, by any means, but I felt calm flow from him to me. That calm not of gentle medi­tation and the modern ideal of peace of mind, but of the older ideal, when control was carved from pain and hardship, and painted in scars across your flesh.

"Is Damian whispering peaceful things in your head, Anita?" Asher asked. His tone was still teasing and light, but underneath was a razor's edge of spite.

"You know how wanting total honesty is just another way for me to be a pain in the ass," I said.

Asher looked at me, his eyes like winter sky. "Yes."

"What you're doing now is your way of being angry without being angry. Teasing with a bite to it."

He wrapped his arms around the post, letting his hair slide forward to hide the scarred side of his face. It was an old trick, one he rarely did when it was just Jean-Claude and me. He gazed at the room with the perfection of his profile framed by his glittering froth of hair.

"Am I angry?" He made the question winsome.

"Yes," I said, and it was a statement. "Question is, what are you angry about?"

"I have not admitted to being angry." But he kept that perfect profile, that shine of hair, so that he showed himself to what he considered his best ad-

vantage. He was breathtaking, but I'd begun to value the full-face view, im­perfections and all, more than this angry coyness. This show meant he was uncomfortable, or trying to persuade us to do something. Asher seldom flirted without an agenda. Sometimes it was foreplay, or just to make us smile, but other times... well, I did not trust his mood.

"Asher wants me to know who you fed on, and you don't want me to know." Richard had summed it up nicely.

I hung my head. Damian laid his lips against my knuckles, not quite a kiss. I only had to open my eyes to stare down into his face, where he lay on the bed. He gazed up at me, and his eyes held not sympathy, but strength, con­trol. You can do this, his eyes seemed to say, you can do this, because you must. He was right.

I looked up at Richard. I thought about raising the sheet and hiding my breasts, but everyone left in the room had seen them before. Modesty wouldn't get me out of Richard's reaction to my newest conquest.

"Who was it?" he asked.

I turned to Asher, and said, "You told me earlier today that you were sorry, that you were putting your hurt feelings ahead of my disaster. You apologized, and tried to make amends. Is that all your apology is worth, Asher? An hour of remorse, and you go back to being a bastard?"

His eyes flashed with anger, and his power trailed over my body like a cold wind. Then he swallowed it, the power, the anger. He turned a mild, if empty, face to me. "I can only apologize once more, ma cherie, you are ab­solutely right. I am throwing a fit." He stepped away from the bed, and did a low, sweeping bow that trailed the edge of his hair on the floor. He rose up with a flourish, as if he were moving a cape with one hand.

"Why are you throwing a fit?" I asked.

"Truth?" He made it a question.

I nodded, not truly certain I wanted this particular truth.

"Because he will never be my lover. He will be your lover, but never ours together."

For a moment I wasn't sure which he he was talking about it. The confu­sion must have shown on my face, because he said, "You see, ma cherie, that is it, that is it, exactement. My statement could refer to so many of your men that you do not even know to whom I refer."

Damian's hand squeezed mine again. I wasn't certain whether it was to comfort me, or to comfort him. Damian was a touch homophobic, and Asher was not a comforting presence if that was your particuliar phobia.

"Are you saying you're pissed because I keep picking men who aren't bi­sexual?"

Asher seemed to think about it for a moment, then nodded. "I believe I am. I don't think I knew until you asked so point-blank, but yes, I believe that is why I am angry." He looked past me to Jean-Claude. "As he will not turn to me for fear you would leave him, so I do not turn to others for fear that he will use it as an excuse to pull even further away from me."

"We agreed that we would have this discussion at a later time," Jean-Claude said, in a voice that was as empty as any I'd ever heard from him.