She brushed past me with a hurried, “Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re not late,” Micah said.

I added, “You’re just on time.” That earned me a small smile. Nothing could really make Vivian less than beautiful, but there was tightness around her eyes and mouth, worry lines on that beautiful skin. Her skin was that shade of coffee with enough cream to make it almost white. She was technically African American, but it was by way of Ireland, and that showed a lot from the thick, nearly straight hair to the pale gray-blue eyes. She was one of the wereleopards in our pard. I’d had to rescue her from a very bad man once. He had done terrible things to her. I’d killed him in the end, but revenge only makes things all better in the movies. In real life, once the villain is dead the trauma lives on inside the victims.

She was here to watch her live-in boyfriend, Stephen, onstage. She spoke to J.J. as she sat down on the other side of Monica. Vivian slipped her coat off, and the moment I saw the dress I knew why she was running late. She’d gone home from her job as administrative assistant at an insurance agency to change. The dress was a little slip of nothing, black with a beading of bronze and gold beads so that it shimmered as she moved. Seeing J.J. and Vivian in their party dresses made me half wish I’d changed for the show, but I’d have been truly late. I could have taken something to work to change into, but in all honesty it hadn’t occurred to me until just that moment. Oh, well.

Micah leaned in and whispered, “You look great.”

I whispered back, “Was it that obvious?”

“To me,” he said, and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back and we shared that smile that was mainly just for us. Nathaniel was the only one who got to share that smile sometimes, and he wasn’t here because he was going to be onstage.

Jean-Claude’s hand touched the edge of mine, and I took the hint, leaning my head against his shoulder and taking his hand. He had been a ladies’ man for centuries and he swore that I was the first woman to make him feel a bit insecure. I tended to be hard on the egos of a certain kind of men. The ones who normally swept women off their feet had never moved me much, because I’d always felt that if they swept me off my feet they’d practiced on a lot of women before me, and would practice more with women after me. I’d rarely been wrong on that. Besides, the normal sweep-you-off-your-feet tricks often left me puzzled. I still wasn’t sure if I should apologize to Jean-Claude for throwing his game off this badly, or take a certain pride in it.

There was a part of me that still believed if I’d fallen into his arms easily he’d have wooed me, won me, and left me for other game by now. Was that unfair, my own insecurities talking, or just truth?

His hand was warm in mine. That meant he’d fed on someone. It had been a willing blood donor. Women, especially, lined up to feed him. In fact, one of the reasons I’d spent the last few weeks going through a stack of photographs and DVDs with some help from the other men had been that we needed more regular food. Other vampire and wereanimal groups across the country had sent in applications for some of their people to join us. The DVDs had been everything from flat-out porn to strangely awkward dating tapes. It was like the old idea of an arranged marriage, though this was more an arranged mistress, sort of. The groups hoped it would give them a stronger tie to our power base, and it might.

They’d been sending candidates to Jean-Claude for a while, and he had politely turned them all down. This last batch came addressed to me, personally. They seemed to feel that Jean-Claude had turned everyone down for fear of pissing me off, and there might be something to that, so I’d sat down and watched. I’d had Nathaniel and Micah help some, and Jason, but none of the vampires. I hadn’t done that on purpose, but . . .

Who had Jean-Claude fed on? For a second I wanted to ask, and then I let it go. I didn’t really want to know. Taking blood was entirely too close to foreplay for the vampires of his bloodline. Of course, he shared me with a lot of other men, so my being jealous of him taking blood from some other woman seemed childish and unfair. But just because it’s childish and unfair doesn’t mean it isn’t the way I felt. Stupid, but true.

The lights went down and I was saved from having to think too hard as the curtain rose. I got to sit in the dark holding the hands of two of the men I loved most. It wasn’t a bad way to start the weekend. I noticed Monica watching us. Was it envy on her face, or anger? I turned back to the stage and left Monica to get her face back to its usual polite I-like-you expression. Usually I liked the truth from everyone around me, but I’d make an exception for her. I knew not to trust her, so she could pretend to like me, and I’d pretend to like her. It wasn’t friendship, but it was an understanding.

The music came up; I hugged Micah and Jean-Claude to me, and watched Asher holding Jean-Claude’s other hand. Even in the Bible Belt, when the lights dimmed you could still hold hands.

3

THE FIRST GROUP out was the two-year-old class. Five little girls in pink tights with sparkly itty-bitty tutus walked onstage holding hands in a line. The audience did a group “Awww.” They were almost illegally cute. The dance teacher was at the front of the stage, visible to the audience and the wide-eyed little girls.

The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker filled the air. It was one of the few classical pieces I knew well enough to name. The teacher began to move her arms. Most of the tiny girls followed her, but one of them just stared off at the audience with huge, fear-filled eyes. Were the toddlers good? No. But at that age it’s not about being a prodigy, it’s about showing up and being too cute for words. I wasn’t much for babies, older was definitely better, but even I couldn’t deny they were nearly painfully adorable.

Micah began to rub his thumb over my hand. Jean-Claude was still against my other hand. The tots trooped off, holding hands again, to rousing applause, and then it was Matthew’s turn. I heard Monica tell J.J., “Usually they have to combine the two- and three-year-olds, but they had enough this year to have two classes.” Interesting, but my hearing it meant Monica was talking too loud. She had a certain desire to be noticed.

The little girls I’d seen earlier in their clown tutus came trooping out, with Matthew in the middle in his boy costume. They were holding hands just like the last group, and the dance instructor was at the bottom of the stage visible to the children and the audience. I wondered how old you’d have to be for the teacher to hide.

The music was still from the Nutcracker, but it was one of the songs for the dolls that danced in the first act. I couldn’t remember which dance this was, just vaguely where it came from in the ballet. Little arms went up in near unison, and then they danced. Not all the girls danced, they moved, but Matthew and two of the little girls danced. It wasn’t smooth, or perfect, but it was real. They did what the teacher did with smiling faces, but as they continued Matthew lost his smile, his concentration visible on his small face. I watched him do some of the moves I’d seen him practice at our house, with Nathaniel and Jason working on his moves with him.

I leaned into Micah and whispered, “Is it stupid to say he’s good?”

Jean-Claude leaned into us and whispered, “Non, ma petite, he has a certain flair, does Matthew.”

The music stopped, and the children took hands and bowed. The applause was a little more heartfelt this time, or so it seemed to me. It’s not every day you see someone that young display the beginnings of true talent. When they were offstage Asher leaned over all of us to speak to Monica. “He is good, your boy.”