Ares said, “Pay up,” in a triumphant voice.

“I’m not quitting,” I said. “I just want the pads off my legs.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I need it,” I said.

Nicky helped me unfasten the leg protection without a word, or a question. Without the padding, every blow of my leg on the bag jolted more, scraped more. I tucked my arms in close to my body and kicked, first one leg and then the other, over and over. I picked one leg and kicked over and over until the bag moved for me and my leg felt bruised, and then I changed legs. When my legs started to hurt through all the endorphins, I moved in and used my hands and the gloves. I punched, hit, threw elbows and every other part of me into the bag. I forgot about Ares, I forgot about the bet, I forgot about everything but the bag in front of me and hitting the shit out of it.

The world started graying out, my vision going in starbursts. Exhaustion miasma ate the edges of the world. I grabbed the bag with both arms and leaned so I didn’t fall down. All I could hear was my blood thundering in my head. I blinked, trying to clear my vision. I blinked and through the stars and gray I saw that the other bag was empty. Ares was sitting against the wall. I’d won.

I let myself slide down the bag to my knees and put my head down. The world was still gray with white starbursts. I needed water, or something with more electrolytes. Or maybe I just needed to pass out. I put my head between my legs to see if I could keep that from happening.

I felt a hand on my back and knew it was Nathaniel before I heard him say, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I heard myself say, and it was mostly true. I got to all fours, my head still down. Nathaniel started to take my arm and I just looked at him.

He sat back on his knees and said, “No one here would think less of you if I helped you stand.”

“I would,” I said.

He sighed but didn’t try to help me as I debated on whether I could stand.

“You won’t be in the practice ring with me today. You won’t be able to lift your arms enough to use a knife.”

I turned slowly to find Fredo in the doorway. I had to fight to focus on him through the gray and white. “Rain check,” I said.

He smiled. “You’re on.”

I heard Lisandro say, “See, negra gatita.”

Ares said, “I get it. Cats eat rats, and you’re calling her a cat.”

“We’re calling her our cat,” Lisandro said.

I crawled to the wall and put my back against it while I waited for my vision to clear and fought not to throw up. People with nifty nicknames like negra gatita didn’t puke from exhaustion and dehydration, or we tried not to.

38

FRESHLY SHOWERED, FRESHLY dressed, with guns and knives back in place, I was ready to meet the gold weretigers. Or as ready as I was going to be, because honestly, I still didn’t want to. I had enough men in my life. I didn’t want more. I wasn’t monogamous, that was okay, but there’s not being monogamous and there’s having so many men in your life that you can’t possibly do justice to any of them. I was either at that point, or perilously close, and now we were going to add more. It just sounded like a bad idea to me.

Nathaniel had made me drink a Powerade from the cooler near the locker rooms, but he’d also insisted on stopping at the kitchen so he could make me a protein shake. They were designed to replace things a hard workout would take out of you, and the interesting thing was if you didn’t need the shake, it tasted bad, but if your body needed it, chocolate tasted like chocolate. It tasted very good today.

I sat at the small kitchen table while Nathaniel and Nicky made shakes for all of us, including Stephen and Gregory. Dino had dressed and come with us, leaving Fredo to do knife practice with the other guards. He was our teacher for short-blade work. For sword work it was Wicked and Truth. The sword training wasn’t mandatory for the wereanimal guards, but it was for the vampires, because it was still possible to be called out in an old-fashioned duel. Besides, Fredo was right, most people were afraid of knives, and a sword is just a damned big knife. Truth had told me once that the only thing people fear more than a sword is an axe. He’d actually offered to teach the guards axe work, but there weren’t enough takers for a regular class.

I sat and sipped my shake and thought nothing. It was like a roaring emptiness in my head. It reminded me almost of the place my head went when I killed. It told me better than anything else that whatever was wrong with me wasn’t fixed. I was warm and showered and stretched and even achy from the heavy bag, but I wasn’t all right. I was better, but that’s not the same thing as being all right. I thought the thought, and then I let it go. I used to hold on to thoughts like that, like hiding dirty clothes under the bed, but now I just let the thought go. I didn’t judge it or worry at it; I just thought it and let it drift away.

My phone was ringing. I knew it was my phone because it was vibrating in my back pocket, but it was playing “Cat Scratch Fever” by Ted Nugent. When I slid the phone open it turned out to be Micah’s ring tone.

“Hey, Micah,” I said.

“Are you feeling any better?”

That was an easy answer. “Better, yes.”

“Nathaniel let us know that you were done with your workout. I’m sorry I missed it.”

“You were busy shopping for weretigers,” I said, and my voice was oddly uninflected, so that what I’d meant to be humorous wasn’t.

“We’ve narrowed it down,” he said.

“How narrow?” I asked, and still I didn’t really care.

“Three.”

“The girl is one of them,” I said.

“Yes, do you mind?”

I shrugged, realized he couldn’t see it, and said, “It’s fair, and God knows we have enough men.”

“Okay, we’re in the living room when you can get here.”

“We’re getting a protein shake in the kitchen, then we’ll be there.”

“You don’t seem to care, Anita.”

“I don’t.”

“You should feel something about this. We are shopping to keep one or more of them.”

“We’re keeping them all here at the Circus for their own safety. You’re just picking which ones we’re going to try to sleep with,” I said.

“Usually, you get angry about this, or embarrassed, but I’m not sensing anything from you.”

“There isn’t much to sense right now,” I said.

“Have the Atlanta police called back?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“We’ll be waiting for you.”

“We’ll be there.”

“You and Nathaniel?”

“And Dino and Nicky,” I said.

“Anita, I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I said, but even that didn’t have much feeling to it. I felt like something had died inside me, something that let me feel was just gone.

We hung up, but a few minutes later Nathaniel’s phone rang with the same song, and since he had put the ring tone on my phone I was pretty sure Micah was calling him to check up on me. Once upon a time it would have annoyed me, but I was being difficult. Maybe in a different way from my normal difficult, but this attitude wouldn’t exactly win over the weretigers. But honestly, I was all out of wanting to impress anyone.

Nathaniel went to the edge of the kitchen and spoke low, and again, I just didn’t care.

The chocolate shake thingie was down to the slurpy dregs. I went to the sink, unscrewed the top, and started rinsing it out. We’d discovered that if you left the drink in the screw-top cups that helped stir them up, you never really got the cups clean. The remains of the protein powder solidified in the cracks and crevices, and you just had to throw out the cup. I cleaned it, then put it on the draining board beside the sink. The movements felt automatic. It let me know that my arms were still a little shaky from trying to beat the heavy bag into submission. I should have felt good about outlasting Ares on the bag. I should have been excited about the run and my all-time personal best on the track, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t unhappy with it, but I wasn’t happy, either.