'Is this the first sleep you've had in what, twenty-four hours?' I asked.

'Yes,' he said, and wrapped his arms around me, trying to drag me under the covers.

I moved so he couldn't do it, and he lay back against the bed, pouting at me. His hair in its thick braid curled around him like an auburn-haired Rapunzel. He kept my hand. 'Come to bed.'

'I have to get dressed and go be a cop,' I said. 'We only came back to shower and change.'

Nicky was already rummaging in his own luggage, getting clothes.

'You can both come take a nap,' he said.

'No, we have to catch bad guys,' I said.

'I have to follow her around and pretend I'm not the bad guy,' Nicky said.

'Then you have to eat solid food, before you go back to work,' Nathaniel said.

'There's no time for food,' I said.

He sat up enough so that the covers pooled into his lap. 'Make time, Anita; the reason I had to leave Micah at the hospital is that you're draining energy from me. Dev started getting tired, too. You can't ignore your physical body without affecting all of your animals to call, and Damian your vampire servant.'

'I'm sorry, you're right. How is Micah holding up?'

'He won't let himself cry. He's just holding it inside. He holds my hand, lets me hold him, but he's trying to be strong for his family and me. Sometimes it's hard to take care of the two of you.'

'I'm sorry we're difficult,' I said, 'and doubly sorry I'm a pain in the ass.'

'Want me to order room service?' Nicky asked.

'Go tell Edward we're getting food and see if he wants anything.'

'Have one of the other guards order the food and have it delivered to the conference room on this floor,' Nathaniel said.

'Conference room?' I said.

'Yeah, it's got this huge oval table almost big enough for all of us to eat at once.'

'How did you have time to see the conference room?' I asked.

'I knew you hadn't eaten, so I asked where we could have food set out.'

'Why didn't Micah come back with you?' I asked.

'He won't leave the hospital.'

I held Nathaniel's hand. 'I'm so sorry I had to leave you and Micah to deal with it all.'

'You saved Henry; that's what Micah wanted you to do.'

I nodded.

Nicky pulled on jeans. 'What do you want for food?'

'Get protein,' Nathaniel said.

'I always get protein,' I said.

He smiled. 'That's true. I'm the salad eater.'

'You take your clothes off for a living, you have to watch your girlish figure,' I said, and kissed him again.

'Food order,' Nicky said.

I ordered a burger, fries, and a Coke. Nathaniel surprised the hell out of me by ordering the same thing, except for the Coke. 'I don't have to watch my figure for a day or two, and I need the protein,' he said.

'I drain that much energy from you?' I asked, and now I was worried. He almost never ate a burger; lean steaks, but not hamburger.

'Not yet, but you should feed the ardeur before you go back to work.'

'If I'm already draining energy from you, I think feeding the ardeur would be bad.'

'Feed on Nicky, have sex with both of us.'

'I like the way he thinks,' Nicky said from the door.

'I thought you would,' Nathaniel said with a grin.

'It's a fancy hotel and we have the whole floor; they'll be fast on the food service. Thirty minutes tops,' Nicky said.

'Then you should write down what we all want for food, hand it to someone, and get into bed,' Nathaniel said.

Nicky grinned at him, then got the bedside pad of paper and wrote down our orders and his. Then he strode to the door with the AR still on his shoulder. He left the door slightly ajar. I heard him knock on Edward's door. There was a murmur of voices, and then Nicky was back in our room, closing the door firmly behind him.

'Who's ordering the food?' I asked.

'Edward is,' he said, and walked around to the far side of the bed, the one closest to the window. He laid the AR on the floor.

'That was really quick. What did you tell him?' I asked.

'That we were going to have sex and to text you when the food arrives.' He unfastened his jeans and started peeling them down his hips, a little more carefully around the front, because his body was already partially erect, anticipating the sex.

I wanted to say, You did not just tell Edward that, but I knew Nicky had. It was Nicky; he didn't see anything wrong with being honest. Nothing much embarrassed him so he didn't always understand it might embarrass someone else, or maybe he didn't care.

Nathaniel put my hand with the gun still in it on the bedside table. 'We're not that dangerous. I don't think you need to be armed.'

I laid the gun on the table.

'I am that dangerous, just not to you,' Nicky said, as he pulled the covers out from the tangle Nathaniel had made of them.