"Anita." She said my name the way my stepmother had said it when I was about fifteen.

"Don't you want me to use the power if I could get it? Isn't that the point?"

"Yes, but I'm not just trusting you with the power, Anita. I trust that once you've used it to defeat the Dark, you won't turn all that light and power against us. I'm trusting in your sense of honor and morality as much as I'm trusting in your psychic abilities."

"You've only met me once. That's a lot of trust."

"I put my son, and Cynric, the only known blue tiger in existence, and some of our most powerful weretigers on a plane this morning. If I didn't have faith in you, would I send you such precious things?"

I didn't know what to say to that. Arguing that she was wrong seemed ungrateful; thank you thank you seemed inadequate. What do you say when someone trusts you like that? seemed inadequate. What do you say when someone trusts you like that?

"I'll do my best not to hurt anyone."

"See, Anita, not that you will do your best, but that you will do your best not to hurt anyone. You believe your moral compa.s.s is broken because of the s.e.x, but I believe if you can get past the idea of it being a sin, your moral compa.s.s points true north."

"Don't put all your faith in me, Bibiana."

"Where else can I put it?"

And to that, there really wasn't anything else to say. It wasn't that I minded so much trying to save the world, but the idea that if I failed there was no backup plan . . . We needed a backup plan.

CHAPTER 14

I'D BARELY GOTTEN off the phone from Vegas before my cell phone started playing the theme song to The Sopranos The Sopranos. I looked at Nathaniel. He said, "Augustine, Master of Chicago."

"Because he's a mob boss," I said.

Nathaniel nodded.

I answered my phone. I was actually getting chilled sitting here with the congealing shapeshifter goo on me, and tried to draw some of the now-ruined silk around me. The men responded by wrapping themselves closer around me, even Asher spilling more across my lap, so I was forced to put an arm around him to keep him from falling. I answered, "Hey, Auggie."

"I was visited by someone you a.s.sured me was dead." He wasn't his usual teasing self. He usually played it very casual. This was a much more serious voice, and word choice. It was the voice he used when he didn't care that I knew he'd seen Rome at its height.

"It was a surprise to us, too," I said, my voice a little less happy, too. The wet silk was not warm enough to cuddle in, so I stopped trying.

Damian, Nathaniel, and Asher held me closer. Nicky, in his soft, lionman fur, came to wrap himself around us all as if he were trying to be everyone's fur coat. I half-expected one of the other men to protest, but they didn't. Jean-Claude, Micah, and Richard were still by the door talking. Domino was still inside the door like the guard he was, but Crispin had gone to clean up.

"If Jean-Claude is supposed to be our de facto leader in the U.S., it shouldn't have come as a surprise," Auggie said.

"She was blown up, Auggie; that should be dead." Nicky hugged us all a little tighter, and I forced myself to relax in everyone's arms so Nicky would relax, too. My relaxing seemed to release some tension in him, because he sighed and rubbed his face against my hair and Nathaniel's cheek. Like most wereanimals Nicky liked to cuddle, and it wasn't about s.e.x any more than a pile of kittens sleeping together was about s.e.x.

"Well, I guess it wasn't," and Auggie sounded angry.

I realized he was doing one of my tricks, hiding his fear with anger; thinking that helped me not be angry. "Look, Auggie, we all got a shock tonight. Tell me what legend or dream or whatever you saw, what she did, or tried to do to you."

"She pretended to be Belle Morte, but she is not her." There was regret in that last word. Auggie, like all the vampires who were once part of her inner circle, always regretted her loss, even as she terrified them. "She tried to enter me. She tried to take me over, Anita. But she needed permission. I got the impression that if I'd said yes to the seduction by the false Belle, it would have given her the permission she needed to take me over. Then she was ripped away from me. I felt anger, fear, and that she needs a vampire who has big cats as their animal to call. She is weaker than she was, or she wouldn't need permission, she'd just rape her way inside one of us."

"It took Mommie Dearest a year to do this to the council. I think she's been hanging around like a shadow or ghost of herself until she was strong enough to strike at them. The bombing hurt her, Auggie."

"But not enough," he said.

"Agreed," I said.

"What did she do to keep herself alive and how did she grow stronger? If we could figure that out, then we might be able to keep her from getting any stronger than she is at this moment. Just keeping her from growing stronger would be something."

"She has a toehold in Belle Morte and Padma. That's strong enough to give us some major problems," I said.

A phone rang, and this time it was just a nice, normal buzz; of course it wasn't my phone since I was still talking to Auggie. Domino took his cell phone out of his pocket.

I "felt" lion, and it wasn't Nicky. I sensed energy as if I were standing in the middle of the sun-burnt gra.s.s with that hot light beating down on me, and over all the scent of cat and fur; lions.

Domino spoke to Jean-Claude, who motioned him toward me. He came around the bed to stand in front of us. "Haven is here with most of his lions, the muscle anyway. He's demanding to be let inside. The guards at the door won't let him in with that much muscle."

"I can feel them." I shivered and Nicky held us tighter, growling in my ear, "If you would let me fight him I'd be your new Rex and he'd be dead."

Auggie was talking again. I put the phone closer so I could hear. "I feel the lions, Anita. You and Haven need to work things out."

"Tell that to him," I said.

"I did," he said.

"What the h.e.l.l did you tell him to do?" I said.

"I didn't tell him to come with all his men and challenge you."

"What did you tell him?"

"That anything that undermines Jean-Claude's power base right now is a bad thing. That he had to find a peace between you and him and the new lion, Nick. But you have to tame Haven, Anita. You have to make sure the lions are under your control as their master vampire."

"I'm not a real vampire, Auggie, and I don't have all the mad skills that I need."

"You have them; you're just too human to want to use them."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you feel sorry for people. It means you let your heart get in the way of business."

"And you don't?" I said.

"I don't," he said.

"I'll remember that the next time you visit us," I said softly.

"Jean-Claude helped you roll me, Anita. Without him I would have rolled you, and our power structure would be reversed. You need him to help you control the cats."

"I think Haven would kill us both if we tried for shared s.e.x with him."

"Have Jean-Claude try the new females that Haven's recruiting for his pride. They're not like the bimbo that he brought down there for his Regina; I think you and Jean-Claude will like them both better."

"Did you help shop for them?"

"Yes."

"And you were going to tell us when?"

I heard him take in a deep breath and then let it out, and I had that moment to sense how much hotter his energy could be than most vampires'. His energy could hold a warmer edge of his animal to call than any other master I'd ever met. "I feel her outside your door; just let her in. I helped shop for women I thought you might actually get along with, and women that Jean-Claude might actually like."

"You mean like-like?" I asked.

"Jean-Claude is more Belle's child than I am, Anita. Her power over her animals all came through s.e.x. Let him try some of the cats and see if he gains the ability to call them. It would make him much more powerful, and it would mean he could help you control all the cat-based animal groups."

"Did you talk to him about this?"

"My word of honor that it will be as big a surprise to Jean-Claude as it is to you."

"Don't go all Machiavelli on me, Auggie, I don't like it."

"This isn't Machiavelli, more Cupid. Put Jean-Claude on and go tame your kittens before someone gets hurt."

"How do I tame him?" I asked.

"Let me fight him," Nicky growled.

Auggie said, "If you could win the fight it would tame Haven, but he's good in a fight."

"I can do it," Nicky said, rubbing his face against my hair.

"How else?" I asked.

"s.e.x would be a temporary solution. It would smooth things over tonight."

"So I reward his bad behavior," I said.

"What's your goal for tonight, Anita?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"What do you want to happen with the lions right this moment?"

"I want everyone to survive the night. No one dead." I thought about it. "I'd like to make us all into a cohesive whole. We need to get our s.h.i.t in order here, especially after what just happened with Mommie Dearest."

"Then offer him s.e.x if he sends most of the lions home. He's Rex, so he's ent.i.tled to keep a couple of bodyguards."

"You really think s.e.x with me will make him send them home?"

"Remember who're you're talking to, Anita. It was all I could do after s.e.x with you and Jean-Claude not to stay in St. Louis like some sort of pet. Trust me, he'll say yes."

"That was Jean-Claude in charge of the metaphysical head games, Auggie. Haven won't go for that."

"Ask Jean-Claude what he could do to help the head games with hands off Haven. Besides, you completely rolled the other werelion. He's a f.u.c.king Bride of Anita, or I guess Groom, but whatever, you can do this if you get out of your own way."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you feel bad about what you did to the other werelion."

"I took his free will, Auggie; no one has that right."

"I won't argue right and wrong with you, kiddo, but I will point out that if Haven was as enthralled with you as this Nick is, then you wouldn't have a horde of angry werelions about to storm your battlements."

I didn't know what to say to that as Nicky hugged us all tighter.

"h.e.l.l, Anita, if you had just taken him as your Rex the way you did your Nimir-Raj, he'd be more manageable. I wouldn't have sent him to you if I thought you were going to hesitate. He's too dangerous to keep waffling. You need to either keep him or kill him, Anita."

"Could I send him back home to you?"

"No, he's been a Rex; if you send him back my Rex will kill him." I heard cloth move on the phone as he shifted position. "Now if you want to send him here so we kill him for you, I can get behind that."

"No."

"It would be easier on that conscience of yours," he said.

"If you think that's true, then you don't understand my conscience at all, Auggie."

"It's been so many centuries since I had one of my own that I don't quite understand them in anyone."

"It would not make me feel better to send him home to certain death."

"Then what will you do?" he asked.

"I do my own killing."

"Then do it, Anita. Do it before he tears your house apart."

"I don't want to kill him."

"Kill him, f.u.c.k him, make him your Rex the way you did Micah, make him your animal to call like Nathaniel, make him your Groom like Nick, but you are going to have to do something."

Domino's phone rang again. He turned around to take it, but the set of his shoulders let me know that the news hadn't improved.

"Thanks for the pep talk, Auggie."