Asher nodded. "I thought I could wait, but I am choking on things unsaid, Jean-Claude." He pointed to Richard. "But we must be careful in front of him, too. It would not do to frighten him away. We wouldn't want him to know that we find him beautiful, would we?"

"Asher," I started to say, but Micah finished it for me. "After the visiting masters leave town, and we know what we're doing about the baby, then we'll all sit down and talk about your... grievances."

"No, we will not," Asher said, "for there will be another crisis, another reason to put it off."

"I give you my word that Nathaniel, Anita, and I will sit down and talk to you about it. I can't promise for anyone else."

Asher turned that winter-blue gaze on me. "Does he speak for you?"

I nodded. "He does."

Asher turned to Jean-Claude. "And you, master?" There was a lot of sar­casm to the master.

"I will not be bound by Micah's word in all things, but on this, I will agree. We will discuss it in detail, if you but leave it alone for a little longer."

"Your word," Asher said.

Jean-Claude nodded. "You have it."

Some tension went out of Asher, almost like an energy release. The room felt lighter, the air easier to breathe. "I will behave myself." He looked at Micah. "I thank you, Micah."

"Don't thank me, Asher, you're part of Anita's life. If we're going to make this work, then we have to talk to each other."

"Always perfect, aren't you?" Richard said, and his own anger raised the heat in the room.

"No," I said, "no, no more fights. Until after I've seen the doctor this af­ternoon, I want every one of you to behave like a fucking adult, okay?"

Richard had the grace to look embarrassed. He nodded. "I'll try. Inherit­ing your temper makes it so hard not to be pissed all the time." He gave a small laugh. "If this is just a shadow of how angry you feel all the time, I'm amazed you don't just start killing things. God, such rage." He looked at me, his brown eyes full of so many emotions. "You told me once that your rage

was like my beast, and I belittled you. I told you that your anger couldn't compare to my beast, that you didn't know what you were talking about. I was wrong. God, Anita, God, you are so full of rage."

"Everyone needs a hobby," I said.

He smiled and shook his head. "You have to learn to control the rage, Anita. If you're really going to shift, you have to get a handle on the rage first." His face sobered, and he stepped close enough that he could touch my face. The moment he did, our energy jumped to him, both offering energy, and asking for it. Richard and I jerked back at the same time, because it had almost hurt, a slap of electricity.

He rubbed his hand. "Jesus, Anita."

I used my free hand to touch my face. The skin tingled where he'd touched. "I've got the shields wide open between the three of us here."

"Could you piggyback the energy of Anita's two triumvirates?" Micah asked.

"Piggyback?" Jean-Claude made it a question.

"Double the energy," I said.

"Since no one has ever before forged two triumvirates at the same time, I have no answer. The energy did respond to Richard's touch."

I rubbed my cheek. "You could say that again."

"Are you hurt?" Richard asked.

I shook my head. "Just tingling."

He nodded. "Yeah." He rubbed his hand along the side of his jeans, as if he were trying to rub off the lingering sensation.

The bathroom door opened. London walked out, fully clothed now, ad­justing his black-on-black tie. Except that his eyes were still drowning black with power, he looked like he always did. He stopped and looked at us all, because we were looking at him. His face was arrogant, his version of blank. I stared at him, and it didn't seem quite real that we'd had sex. He'd never really been on my guy radar, and now he was food. Funny damn world.

"Where is everyone?" His voice was coldly arrogant, and didn't match the words at all.

"The guards asked to leave," I said, "and truthfully, I don't remember when everyone else left."

London walked along the edge of the bed without looking at me. He was back to his cold, isolated self, as if the sex had never happened. He almost made it around the bed, but his foot tangled in the covers on the floor, and down he went. His arm caught at the bed, and he brought himself up to his knees. He peered at us over the bed, like a cat that's just fallen off something, and is trying to pretend it meant to do that.

He got to his feet, leaning on the bed. He jerked the fallen coverlet to one side, then kicked at it repeatedly, hands on the bed to steady himself. He kicked at the coverlet as if it were some kind of enemy that he had to van­quish. When the floor was clear enough for him, he smoothed his clothes again, then started walking carefully around the bed. His shoulder clipped the bedpost, and he fell into the bed again. This time he managed to sit on it, and not end up on the floor, but he didn't try to get up again either. He sat there on the bed, his black-suited back very straight. He kept looking at the far wall.

"You're drunk," I said.

He nodded without turning around. "Not precisely, but drunk will do as a description."

Jean-Claude walked around the bed until he was standing in front of the other man. He stared down at him, and I couldn't tell if London met his gaze, or not. "How do you feel?" he asked him at last.

Someone giggled, a high, almost hysterical sound. It was a moment be­fore I realized it was London. He fell back on the bed with his arms wide, and his legs hanging off the edge. He lay there all black and stark against the pale sheets, giggling. The giggling turned into laughter. He gave himself to the laughter, as he'd given himself to the ardeur. The laughter was a good clean laugh, a good sound, but none of us joined him, because London did not laugh. This was not the Dark Knight with his love of shadows and dis­like of everything else. This laughing, pleasant man on the bed was someone we'd never seen before.

Tears trailed from his eyes, faintly pink with blood like all vampire tears. He rolled his head back so he could see me. "I wanted to hide it from you, but I never could hide it."

"Hide what?" I asked, and my voice sounded almost afraid.

"How good the ardeur feels. Belle said once that she'd never known any­one who fed the ardeur as well as I did, or addicted to it as quickly." The laughter faded from his eyes, leaving them desolate. From such joy, to such loss, in a blink of his eyes.

"Are you addicted once more, mon ami?" Jean-Claude asked.

He turned his head to look at Jean-Claude. "I do not know for certain, but most likely, oui, I am." He sounded neither happy nor sad about it. He was almost matter-of-fact.

"God, London, I'm sorry," I said.

Damian tried to sit up, but Nathaniel and I had to help him, so that he was propped up between us. "I'm sorry, as well."

London curled himself on the bed so he was lying on his side, and could

see us. "Don't be sorry, I feel better than I've felt in centuries." He closed his eyes, and drew a shivering breath. "I feel so warm, so... alive."

I remembered when the ardeur was searching for food, how he'd hit the radar. So powerful, but more than that. "The ardeur recognized you as the tasty power in the room. Is it because you were addicted to it once?"

"Requiem was addicted once," London said. "Did he seem tasty, too?"

"Not as yummy as you, no."

"Belle said that my power is to feed the ardeur. To use a modernism, I am a battery for it."

"If you are such a good feed, then why doesn't Damian feel better?" Nathaniel asked.

"I did not mean to, but I think I drank a great deal of the energy myself. It was like being lost in the desert for years, and suddenly seeing a river, run­ning cool and deep. My skin soaked it up, I couldn't stop it. I kept most of the energy, and I'm sorry for that."