“Anita and Jean-Claude love you; that gives you an edge. But you love them, too, so that balances out. I don’t even like you, and you don’t like me.”

“So it is a stalemate,” Asher said.

“No, because we have one thing you don’t.”

“And that would be what?”

“You want me.”

“Oh, that is arrogant,” Asher said.

“You don’t want me because you like me. You want me because I belong to Jean-Claude and because part of you believes that I’m a greater threat to his affections for you than Anita is. She’s just a girl, and what really scares you is that he’ll find another man to love. You worried about Micah and Nathaniel, but you’ve been in the bed with them and him and Anita. I’m the only one you haven’t seen with him. Until you see us together you’ll never be sure.”

“I have never said that.”

“Not in words, but you’re more jealous of me, because I won’t share him with you the way Micah, Nathaniel, and Jason do. Tonight I’m offering to share, and you want that.”

It was a challenge, and Richard knew his audience. Asher did want what was on the table, and he wouldn’t want to back down from the challenge, especially since it was Richard throwing the gauntlet down. It was a trap, not one we’d spring on purpose, but could Asher really sink fang into Richard for the first time and resist trying his vampire wiles on him? It would almost be too tempting to resist.

“Come home with us, Asher. Let us go back to Narcissus,” Perses said.

“This is a one-night-only offer, Asher,” Richard said.

Asher licked his lips and said, “This could wait until after the weretigers arrive and go again to Las Vegas.”

“No,” Richard said, “tonight, now, or never.” Richard met Asher’s gaze full on; with me and Jean-Claude touching him he was proof against the master vampire’s gaze.

“Don’t do it,” the other hyena said.

“Let go of everyone but the three of you,” Asher said.

Jean-Claude thought at us. Micah squeezed my hand tight, and then he let me pull away. Jason let his hands fall and he stepped back. It was just Richard and us now, but the power was still amazing, a warm rush of magic just waiting for us to decide what to do with it.

“Don’t,” the werehyena said.

“I am master, not you,” Asher said, and he pulled away from them. He stood there, alone, and again I knew why he was not master of his own city. Not because he wouldn’t be powerful enough, but because he let his heart, or his desire, overrule his common sense. You can look out of control and even be crazy as hell—I’d met a few Masters of the City that were—but in the end they were all about survival. But Asher came to us. He stopped a few feet away as if he’d gotten to the edge of something. I think it was the edge of our power.

“I want this,” he said, and his voice was already hoarse with the beginnings of need.

“If we are with you tonight, you must give your word that you will not take the werehyenas to another city until we have enough other guards to replace them,” Jean-Claude said.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you can go to Narcissus for tonight and the three of us will go to my bedroom without you.” He drew me in against his body and ran a hand through the waves of Richard’s hair, but it was Asher he looked at; we were just props for the game.

Asher’s breath went out in a long shudder, and then he simply walked past us toward the far curtains. He parted them, then hesitated in the opening with the stone hallway framed behind him.

“Are you coming, or has your nerve broken already, Ulfric?”

Richard squeezed my hand, then let go of it, and of Jean-Claude’s. The link was immediately not as great. It was like being suddenly less warm, as if a cloud had crossed the sun. Richard went to Micah and Nathaniel, leaned close, and whispered something to them. Micah nodded, and then Richard offered first Micah and then Nathaniel his hand. They shook hands, and Richard came back to us. His face was strangely peaceful, but his pulse couldn’t lie. It was jumping in the side of his neck. For all his brave talk, he was afraid of Asher.

Jean-Claude offered his hand to him, and Richard took it. He started to reach out to me, then hesitated and looked back at the other man. It made Jean-Claude smile and then reach his hand out to me. I went to him, and he led us by the hands to Asher at the curtains.

Jamil said, “What do you want us to do, Ulfric?”

“Have guards outside the door, and if we call for help, do your jobs.”

Wicked said, “Anita, Jean-Claude, this is a bad idea.”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“Why do it then?” Truth asked.

I couldn’t explain and I couldn’t share the mind-to-mind with them, so all I could say was, “It’ll be all right.”

“Don’t lie to a liar, Anita,” Wicked said.

Jean-Claude said, “Enough. If we’re doing this, I want enough hours between now and dawn to enjoy it.”

It was Claudia who said, “We have to tell Rafael.”

“Do that,” Jean-Claude said.

“He knows I’m here,” Richard said. “I went to your king for advice.”

“Rafael did not tell you to come here and bugger him,” Fredo said, pointing a thumb at Asher.

Richard smiled and said, “He knows why I’m here and what I’m planning to do, I promise you.”

The wererats exchanged looks, but the promise got them. “Mysterious shit bugs me,” Fredo said.

Jason gave a small salute as we moved through the drapes and followed Asher down the hallway. Was it wrong to think that Asher’s ass looked really good in his leather pants as he walked ahead of us up the hallway, or was it just true?

7

THE BED WAS done in red and black tonight. Jean-Claude changed all the bedding including the bed curtains between different color combinations. I’d never seen it being changed. I’d just come into the room and it would be blue, or red, or black, or even gold and silver, and various combinations of all the above. It was like magic: always fresh, clean sheets, always impeccably made.

Asher had stopped halfway between the door and the bed. He turned back, staring at us, his ice-blue eyes framed by all that golden hair. The look on his face was eager, but there was that edge of cruelty that I hated in him. I knew that whatever he was about to say, or do, would be unpleasant. He’d said he wanted this, but he was about to do something to wreck it.

“I want to see you nude,” he said, and his voice held an echo of what Jean-Claude’s could, as if the last word caressed down the body in a shivering line.

I waited for Jean-Claude to say something, do something, help. But it was Richard who said, “You’re angry, Asher. You say you want me, all of us, but now you’re angry and you’re going to sabotage it.”

I could feel a sort of sadness from Richard, not upset, just a deep, almost calm sadness.

I felt Jean-Claude’s hand in mine, but he started to shield, to cut down the connection between us. I think he was afraid of what was going to happen. We were standing in the bedroom with the two men in our lives most likely to fuck up a good thing.

“What do you know about what I will do, Ulfric?” Asher asked, and his voice already held that edge of derision that he could do so well.

“It’s what I would have done a few months ago.”

“I am not you, wolf.”

“I came here to make things better, not worse, Asher. So I’ll tell you all a story.”

“Is it a long story?” Asher said, voice thick with scorn.

“A little,” Richard said.

“Then we should all sit down.” Asher went to the bed and laid himself down in the middle of all the black and red pillows. His hair spilled out like a gilt-edged frame of foaming gold. His scarred cheek was pressed against the pillows so that he was once again that perfect face that had helped Belle Morte nearly rule Europe centuries ago. The blue of his shirt gleamed, the sapphire-and-diamond pin at his throat catching the light as he patted the bed beside him and said, “Come, Ulfric, sit beside me. I won’t bite . . . yet.” He smiled at Richard and made it everything a heterosexual man never wants to see on another man’s face.