'We can't take her with us,' Nathaniel said.

We both turned around and looked at him. He was the most submissive of us, so gentle most of the time, and then he'd get a look in his eyes, and you could see the steel inside him. He didn't want to be in charge; that didn't mean he wasn't strong.

'You sound sure,' I said.

'I am.' His face relaxed a little, softening his expression, but he shook his head. 'She feels safer than she's been in years. Sometimes when that happens after a lot of abuse you just fall apart, because you can. You've finally got people to catch you when you fall, but if she's about to uncover centuries of abuse, she can't do it on this trip.'

I looked into his serious, handsome face and realized that he understood her pain better than most, and he was still not going to let her pain manipulate him. It was a type of strength that I was only now learning. I was a dominant personality; my instinct was to take care of people, but Nathaniel was right. Hard, but right.

'I was Chimera's special whipping boy for years; I sympathize with Nilda. When we get back I will help you do anything necessary to keep her from being abused by her master, but right now she is not my priority,' Micah said.

I studied the faces of my two men. 'Am I wanting to help her more than you do because I'm a girl?'

'No,' Nathaniel said, 'because you haven't had as much therapy as I have. It's all about boundaries, Anita, personal boundaries. You've only known Nilda for a few months. You don't love her. You aren't even friends. She tries to cut down all the other shapeshifters, and the humans are just beneath notice, except for you, because she can't ignore you, but she doesn't like you. Don't mistake her cry for mercy for anything but self-serving. It's all about her and her pain. We're all like that, but we have lovers who love us and we love back in that almost-married way; we have our support in place, and she doesn't.'

'I don't think she had a chance,' I said.

'We didn't abuse her, Anita,' Micah said.

'I know that.'

'If we don't take care of ourselves first,' Nathaniel said, 'we can't take care of anyone else.'

It was logical. He was right, so why did it feel so bad?

'Anita,' Micah said, and he put his hands on my arms and made me face him directly. 'Even this delay could be the difference between me seeing my father one more time and him dying before I get there. I don't owe Nilda that.'

I nodded; put that way, he was right. 'I'll call Jean-Claude and Fredo from the plane so we don't delay anymore.'

'Call Jake, too,' Nathaniel said, naming one of the other wereanimals who were Harlequin.

'Why?' I asked.

'Jake will explain to the other Harlequin that you'll be unhappy if Nilda or any of the other animals to call are harmed, until you get a chance to discuss it with everybody.'

'The Harlequin respect Jean-Claude more than me,' I said.

'Some do, but I trust Jake to explain one important difference between you and Jean-Claude.'

'What?' I asked.

'Jean-Claude wants the clout of having the Mother of All Darkness's assassins and bodyguards work for him, so he'll hesitate to kill them; you won't.'

'I'm human, Nathaniel; I can't afford to fight any of the Harlequin. All I can do is kill them.'

'Exactly,' he said.

I frowned. 'I don't want to kill them.'

'But you will,' he said.

'Let's get the other guards on board and get in the air. No more delays,' Micah said, and that was that though Ethan stayed behind to help the driver keep Nilda in the car. The driver was human and we didn't trust her not to go berserk and tear him up. Strong emotions can bring on the change; grief works almost as well as anger. Which made me worry about Micah as the plane left the ground. I'm usually most afraid on takeoff and landing, but as I held my love's hand, I was too worried about him to worry much about me. Easiest takeoff I'd ever had.

CHAPTER 7

It was dark when we landed in Colorado, so all I can say is Denver looks like every other city from the air, all lights like electric stars scattered across the ground. We got off the plane to two black SUVs that came with matching vampires and a white SUV that had a very human woman leaning against it. She was built small and delicate like Micah, with curly red hair trailing around her shoulders. I couldn't see the color of her eyes from where I was standing, but I knew the shape of them, because I'd spent too much time looking into Micah's eyes and face. There was a lot of similar bone structure, though the red hair and freckles were a surprise. I'd pictured his family as darker like him. She smiled, pushing away from the truck, in her blue jeans, blue polo shirt, and cowboy boots, which looked too beat-up and used to be a fashion statement.

Micah went to her with a huge smile on his face. He said, 'Juliet.'

She said, 'Mike.'

They hugged like they meant it, though with that below-the-waist distance that you learn with relatives. Thanks to the nearly four-hour flight, we knew that Juliet was Uncle Steve's daughter, and that Cousin Richie had been Steve's son, but both of them had died in the attack that had turned Micah into a wereleopard. Micah and Richie had both been only eighteen, Richie back from basic and about to ship out to an active-duty post and Micah back from college. They'd come home to have one last deer hunt with their dads, but while they'd been hunting the doe they bagged, something else had been hunting them. Micah's dad had been called away for a suspicious death or he'd have been on the hunt with them.

Nathaniel took my hand. I could feel the tension thrumming down his arm. I turned and looked at him. His face looked neutral but it was a nervous neutral. I fought the urge to lower the mental shields that kept us from getting a direct feed into each other's emotions. We did not need to be drowning in Micah's emotions right now, and once the shields came down, sometimes it was hard to filter strong emotions from anyone I was connected to. It was going to be hard enough to support Micah through the family reunion without actually feeling the emotions with him. So I moved closer to Nathaniel and whispered, 'You don't have to be nervous.'

'Tell me nothing will change between the three of us,' he whispered back.

'Nothing will change between us,' I said, and squeezed his hand. I would have done more comforting, but one of the vampires from the black SUVs walked toward us. Would I have said glided, once? Maybe, but he didn't glide, he walked. For graceful movement I had Jean-Claude, Damian, Wicked and Truth, or Requiem, or hell, lots of vampires in St Louis who made the one moving toward us seem rough in comparison. He was dressed in a black suit and white shirt; even the tie was black. It was Jean-Claude's signature black and white, but somehow it didn't work as well for this guy. Maybe it was the cut of the suit being less tailored or the fact that it was a standard suit that anyone could have worn. Jean-Claude always made sure his clothes were his very personal style. This vampire, with his short black hair and run-of-the-mill clothes, looked like someone had looked down a cast list and said, one generic vampire needed. It was boring compared to what I was used to, but I put a smile on my face. I knew how to smile at clients even when I didn't want to, and this vampire was from the local Master of the City. I could play nice.

I glanced at Nathaniel and found him smiling brilliantly at the vampire. He had his charming game face on. Whatever he was feeling, he put it off his face and down where it didn't show.

'Ms Blake, I presume,' said the vampire, in a voice as bland and unimpressive as his clothes.

I fought the urge to say, Well, I'm not Dr Livingston, but managed to keep the smart-aleck remark to myself. 'Yes, and Mr Graison.'

The vampire looked surprised. 'I'm sorry, our usual protocols don't demand that I acknowledge a pomme de sang or an animal to call.'

Pomme de sang was a term for the person a vampire took blood with regularly, but it was more than that, almost a mistress, though often the relationship was only about sharing blood and not about sex. Nathaniel had started out as that for me, but that had been a few years ago. He was my leopard to call, but ... 'He's our third; that means he's more than just food, or a pet.'

'I'm not familiar with the term third, Ms Blake.'

'The third part of our couple,' I said.

'But we are given to understand that there are a great deal more than just three parts to your romantic life, Ms Blake.'

I wasn't sure what to say to that, except, 'Just because I'm not monogamous doesn't mean those closest to me aren't important to me. Think of Nathaniel and Micah as my spouses.'

He gave a little bow from the neck. 'My apologies, I did not realize you took your lovers so seriously, except for your master, of course.'

'It would be a mistake to assume my priorities by normal vampire protocol,' I said.

'I've angered you,' he said.

'It's okay, Anita,' Nathaniel said.