I looked past him to Jean-Claude, who had laid back against the mound of pillows so that the crimson of the sheets framed his black curls perfectly.

"Oh, stop being so damned picturesque. You're messing with his mind."

"Not really."

"What does 'not really' mean?"

"I mean that I did not mean to do it. I am still adapting to this new power level, too, ma petite. I was worried for you earlier today. I was afraid what would happen with Nathaniel and Damian. I thought, I wish she was not so afraid of Nathaniel and what he wants from her. I swear to you that is all I thought, nothing more, but today I find that you have crossed several lines with him that you swore never to cross."

"Are you saying you made me do it?"

" Non, ma petite. I am saying I wished you to be less afraid of what you wanted, and you were. I did not realize that it could possibly have had an effect upon you, until just moments ago, when I simply thought, I wish Richard was not so afraid of what he wants, and now he is not."

"Did you hear all that, Richard? He's using vamp powers on you."

Richard gave me a lazy smile. "I feel calmer, less afraid, less conflicted. I hadn't realized how bad I was still feeling until now."

"Fine, I'm afraid enough for both of us, if you really did mess with me earlier today, then why am I about to walk out of this room?"

"I thought merely that I wished you would be less afraid of what you wanted from Nathaniel, and what Nathaniel wanted from you. I was not so specific with our Richard."

"You wondered if it worked the first time, so you tried it again, and voilà, you have your empirical evidence, because it worked twice."

"Perhaps, or perhaps it is merely coincidence. It will take us weeks, or months, to decipher what is true power and what is simply all of us coming to terms with ourselves."

I didn't like the sound of that, at all. "I can't do this."

"Why ever not?" Jean-Claude asked.

"Because, once I would have given nearly anything to have you both like this. I need to know what this means."

Richard sat up enough to prop himself on his elbows. "You said it yourself, Anita, you're already dating Jean-Claude and Asher, and living with Micah and Nathaniel. You said that the thought of a man on either side of you 'just flat does it' for you. What's one more pair?"

I glared at Jean-Claude. "Do you have like some metaphysical fist up his ass, like he's some kind of ventriloquist dummy, because that doesn't sound like him. That sounds like you."

"Don't talk to him, when you want to talk to me," Richard said. He sat up, and the sleepy smile was gone. "Does it bother me that you're with Micah and Nathaniel and Jean-Claude and Asher? Hell, yes. Does it bother you that I'm with Clair and half a dozen women in my pack?" He looked at me when he said it. I looked back. He finally said, "That was a question, Anita, can I have an answer?"

"Yeah, it bothered me to see Clair, and to meet your girlfriend for the first time, while I was nude. Yes, that was a special treat. I try to know as little about your personal life with the ladies of your pack as possible, so the rest, I didn't know about."

"I felt how much you wanted me earlier at your house, and you know how I felt about you. So let's not pretend anymore about that."

I hadn't known we were pretending, but I didn't say it out loud. "I don't know what you mean by that, Richard."

"It means we both want to be able to touch each other again. You fucked Byron for God's sake. Why are you okay with doing him, and not about this—us?" He motioned as if taking in the whole bed. I didn't think the "us" meant him and me. For the first time from Richard, I was pretty sure that he was talking about him and Jean-Claude.

I clutched the cold towel and tried to say out loud something that made sense. "I'm not"—change that—"Byron was emergency food. Once upon a time, I thought you and I were going to be it for each other. When you dumped me, it broke me up. Touching you is still not like touching other people for me."

"I feel the same way. You know I do," he said.

"I know you want me, but I also know that you'll be ashamed later. When Jean-Claude isn't there to calm your fears, you'll start to drown in them again." I laughed. "God, for the first time I understand what Asher was saying about me and the ardeur. I don't want this to be a good time now, then we go back to cutting each other up. I couldn't bear it." There, that was the truth. I had a glimmer for the first time why some people do casual sex with people they don't care about. If you don't care, and it goes horribly wrong, it's not that important.

"I don't want us to keep cutting each other up, either, Anita. I really don't." He rolled to the edge of the bed and stood up. The dozen or more candles painted his upper body in shadow and light. I missed the thick fall of his hair around his shoulders, but it was still Richard. Still the man who had come closest to making me try for the picket fence, and the two-point-five kids. "You still need at least one more daytime feed."

The topic change was too quick for me. I pressed myself against the door, so that the doorknob was in reach. If I had to run for it, I wanted to hit the door, not the wall. "Yes, though I found out that I can feed on human form, then feed again on the animal form, and it's like two different feeds."

Jean-Claude crawled closer to the end of the bed, the robe more framing his body like lingerie than hiding anything. "So in effect, you now have four daytime feeds, yes?"

"Sort of, right now Nathaniel and I are estimating I need to feed the ardeur about every six hours, or I start draining Damian's life energy. Since I can't feed on the same person every day, that still leaves me short."

"It may leave us, as you say, short, at night even. You'd fought to push your feedings to every twelve hours."

"I don't know, Jean-Claude, but I seem to need to feed more often."

"You are the energy for your new triumvirate. It takes energy to maintain it."

Richard turned and looked at the other man. "Are you saying that Anita and I drain energy from you?" He turned back to me before he got his answer, and the look on his face said he wasn't happy with the show Jean-Claude was putting on.

"Not precisely, but in a way, oui. All power comes with a price, Richard, and that price can be high."

"I think until I understand how to distribute the power among the three of us, that it's every six hours. I hadn't thought about the fact that only you and Asher feed me at night. Shit." I said the last with feeling.

"You have Damian now," Richard said. "Won't three be enough?"

I looked at him, tried to see jealousy, or anger, but he seemed to have offered it as simply a fact. "I don't know, maybe."

"I trust ma petite to control what she can," Jean-Claude said, nearly from the end of the bed, the robe sliding over his upper body until almost everything above the still-tied sash was naked to light. There was something about the way his body caught the flames, shining and pale, almost unreal, as if he were some kind of living work of art, that you would touch and he would fade, too beautiful to be real.