'Can you not be a monster just by deciding not to be one?' I asked, and he knew me well enough to know that it wasn't his impending monsterhood I was worried about.

'You are not a monster, ma petite, and if we are both conscious of the possibility I believe we can avoid becoming such.'

'So, what do we need to do before Micah, Nathaniel, and I show up at the hospital?'

'Are you intending just the three of you to go?'

'Well, us and the pilot, yes.'

'You must have bodyguards with you, ma petite.'

'If we take guards, won't the locals be even more sure we've come to take them over?'

'Some, perhaps, but if our enemies were to realize that my human servant, her leopard to call, and her King of Beasts were all alone and unguarded, I fear the temptation would be too great to see what would happen to the rest of us if the three of you died.'

'Kill enough of our power structure and the rest die with us; yeah, I remember the theory.'

'It is more than theory, ma petite. You have seen Nathaniel and Damian almost die when you drained them of energy. You have felt the loss when Richard and I were injured. Let us not test the theory of what would happen if three of us were injured simultaneously.'

'Agreed, but it has to be minimal guards, Jean-Claude. We're going to be seeing Micah's family for the first time. Let's not scare them too much.'

'You feel confident that you can protect yourself and them with minimal guards?'

'With the right ones, yeah, I do.'

'So confident, ma petite. It is both admirable and a little frightening to me.'

'Why frightening?' I asked.

'Just because you are dangerous, even deadly, and kill easily and well, does not make you bulletproof, ma petite.'

'Or bombproof,' I said. 'I'm not Superman. I know I can be hurt, and I'll have Nathaniel and Micah with me. Regardless of the metaphysical fallout, if they got hurt I don't know what I'd do.'

'And if it were I that were hurt?'

And there it was: This beautiful, amazing man could still feel insecure, still wonder if I loved him, or at least how much. Since we could all feel each others' emotions when we weren't shielding like sons of bitches, it was interesting that we could all still be insecure sometimes. In Jean-Claude, whom I'd once thought the ultimate ladies' man, it was endearing and made me love him more.

'I love you, Jean-Claude; I wouldn't know what to do without you in my life, my bed, my heart.'

'Very poetic for you, ma petite.'

'I've been hanging out too much with Requiem, I guess.'

'When this crisis is taken care of, we will need to decide if he should return to Philadelphia permanently.'

'And become Evangeline's second banana for good,' I said.

'Yes,' he said.

'You know, my dad used to breed beagles when I was little. I never wanted to give up any of the puppies, and when I got old enough I always worried the new owners wouldn't take care of them the way we did.'

'I did not know that,' he said.

'We're giving away a hell of a lot more than puppies, Jean-Claude. These are our people, our lovers, our friends, and we're sending them away. I don't mind the ones who are going to rule their own territories as new masters, but the ones we're giving over to other masters as second-in-command, that sort of bugs me.'

'That is why we have a trial visit, or three, to make certain it is a good fit and that our people are being well treated.'

'Requiem doesn't love Evangeline,' I said.

'No, he loves you.'

I sighed. 'I didn't mean for him to fall in love with me.'

'And I did not mean for you to acquire the power of my ardeur, my fire of lust, and become a living succubus to my incubus, but the damage is done. We are what we are, and now you know the power that you possess during sex when you feed the ardeur.'

'Requiem is a master vampire, Jean-Claude, and he broke the initial unintentional binding.'

'I believe he loves you, ma petite, not because of the ardeur, but because of you, and him. Love is never about the object of our love, but always says more about us than them.'

'What does that even mean?' I asked.

'It means that Requiem needs to love someone. He has always been a hopeless romantic, and what is more hopeless than being in love with someone who is in love with others?'

'You make it sound like he needs therapy.'

'It would not hurt,' he said.

I sighed. 'You think he'd see a therapist?'

'If we ordered him to do it, he would.'

'We can order him to make appointments and talk to someone, but we can't force him to actually do the work. You've got to be willing to work on your issues. You've got to be willing to face hard truths and fight to get better. That takes courage and force of will.'

'He has courage, but I do not believe he wishes to recover from this sickness of love.'

'I can't help that he cares for me more than I care for him.'

'No, you cannot.'

'Back to the crisis at hand,' I said.

'You've had enough of this topic, I take it.'

'Yeah,' I said. I'd actually had more than enough of it, but ... 'One crisis per day, okay?'

'As you like,' he said.

'This isn't what I like, Jean-Claude. I didn't know if I'd ever meet Micah's family, but I didn't want to meet them this way.'