I wanted to ask if their mother hadn't liked them, but resisted. I turned to Micah. I gave him a look that I hoped said clearly, These are the best of the five? These are the best of the five?

"One of the other gold tigers is named Envy," Micah said, face as empty as he could make it.

I wanted to ask if he was joking, but knew he wasn't. "Elementary school must have been interesting," I said, finally.

"We were homeschooled," Pride said.

"I'll just bet you were," I said.

Jean-Claude breathed through my mind, "Do you sense it?"

I sensed they were arrogant and way too full of themselves, but suspected that part of it was bravado. Bravado always hides fear, or at least uncertainty.

"Sense what?" I asked him.

"Something," he said.

Out loud I said, "You were homeschooled."

"I just said so," Pride said.

"Okeydoke, have you ever been this far from home?"

They looked at each other, and Mephistopheles glanced back at Jake and then quickly back at me. "No," Pride said.

"Why does that matter?" Mephistopheles said, and his arrogance went up a notch to almost angry. He was hiding it well, but he wasn't comfortable.

"Just trying to get a feel for things," I said.

"Your Nimir-Raj picked us for you," Pride said.

"And I'm going to be talking to him about that later," I said.

Micah leaned in and whispered a bare brush of air against my ear. "The others were more scared, or angrier."

I put my hand on his thigh through the jeans. I wanted both to comfort him and be comforted, and touch did that. I didn't like these men. I sure as h.e.l.l didn't want to keep them permanently.

Nathaniel leaned back against both our legs, letting his hand begin to play over my calf inside the knee-high boots he'd chosen for me. He didn't like them, either.

Asher moved to stand behind Jean-Claude, putting his hand on the other man's shoulder. I knew why Asher wasn't happy with them, and why Richard wasn't, either. None of us were happy with them. Jake and I would soooo be having words later.

"Do you guys want to stay with us?" I asked.

They looked at each other again, and Mephistopheles caught himself before he could look at Jake again. Pride said, "We were told we don't have a choice."

"I'm a big believer in choices," I said.

"If we leave here, they'll kill us," Mephistopheles said.

"If you want to stay here until it's safe to leave, that's one thing. But what I want to know is, do the two of you want to stay here with us and be our tigers?"

"What will you do if we say we don't?" Pride asked.

"I really don't like to force people to do anything."

They looked at each other again. "That's not what we heard," Mephistopheles said.

"What did you hear?" I asked, and that first thread of anger trickled into the words.

"Didn't you make him your Bride?" Pride asked. He nodded toward Nicky.

"Yes."

"That's force," he said.

I couldn't argue with that, and I didn't know them well enough to explain that I'd done it to save the two men sitting next to me, that Nicky had kidnapped me and I'd used the weapons I had at hand. I couldn't explain myself to them, so what could I say?

"Yes, it is."

"But you don't want to force us?" he asked.

"Let's say I'm not wanting to add to my list of sins today."

They frowned at me. "Sins?" Mephistopheles said. "What does that mean?"

"It means that taking someone's free will away forever seems sort of evil to me. I'd rather not do it again."

"What would cause you to do it again?" Pride asked.

"Self-preservation, or protecting the people I love."

He looked past me to Nicky. "Did you threaten Anita and her people?"

"Yes," Nicky said.

"How?"

"Can I tell them?" he asked.

I thought about it and then said, "Sure."

"I helped kidnap Anita, and we threatened to kill Micah and Nathaniel and Jason, who's Anita's wolf to call. We took her weapons, we used magic to make sure she couldn't call for help, and we injured her. She used the powers she had left to make me willing to do anything to protect her and the men she loved."

"You don't blame her?" Mephistopheles asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't think I can."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I don't think I can blame Anita for anything. I just want to please her."

Pride looked back at me. "So he really is a Bride in the full sense of the term."

I shrugged. "Apparently."

"But you don't like it. It bothers you that he has no free will," he said.

"Yes."

"Why?" he asked.

"Wouldn't it bother you?" I asked.

He just shook his head, and his brother did the same. Though maybe I was jumping the gun on that one. "Are you brothers?"

"Cousins," Pride said.

"There's a strong family resemblance," I said.

"Not as strong as with Wicked and Truth," he said.

"True," I said. I looked at Jake. "They don't want to be charming and neither do I, so how do we do this?"

"Ask us?" Pride said.

I turned back to him. "Fine, you don't like me and I don't like you, apparently, but I'm supposed to find out how my inner tiger feels about yours, so how do you want to do this?"

"Jake said you were blunt."

"This isn't blunt, Pride, not yet."

He looked at me and there was something in his eyes now, interest maybe. "I look forward to seeing blunt, then."

I smiled, couldn't help it. "You say that now."

Voices sounded from farther down the hallway. Damian and Cardinal came in with her on his arm, very much the happy couple. She was talking excitedly with another woman who could only be the other weretiger. The family resemblance was too great for anything else. She had long yellow and white curls that spilled around her shoulders. Her eyes were the same blue and gold of Mephistopheles' eyes. She was tall and curvy, and gave off a roll of energy when she saw me sitting there. There was emotion to it; it was fear. Why was she afraid of me?

"The rooms are nice," she said, but even her voice held a thread of nervousness.

Jean-Claude said, "We're glad you like them. Anita, this is Envy."

"Envy?" I made it a question.

"Yes," he said.

"Pride and Envy, two of the deadly sins," I said.

"Yes," Pride said.

"Is she your sister?"

"Cousin."

"The seven deadly sins and Mephistopheles. What's the theme for your clan names, selling your soul to the devil?"

"Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe," Pride said. "We're all named after characters in the play." by Christopher Marlowe," Pride said. "We're all named after characters in the play."

"Someone must be a serious Marlowe fan," I said.

"Jake's master is," Pride said.

I glanced at Jake. "It couldn't be Shakespeare?"

"He prefers Marlowe," Jake said.

"Are you making fun of our names?" Mephistopheles asked, with that arrogant pout to his lower lip.

"Trying hard not to, actually."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"Fine, what do your girlfriends call you? I mean they can't call out Mephistopheles in the heat of pa.s.sion, it's too long. You've got to have a nickname."

He actually blushed.

I had an awful idea. I looked at Jake. "Please tell me that they aren't virgins."

"That's a question for them, Anita."

I took a deep breath, let it out, and turned to the men. "Well?"

"We're not," Pride said.

I looked at Mephistopheles, who didn't seem to want to make eye contact. "He seems awfully uncomfortable."

Mephistopheles stood up, and his power flowed through the room like someone had just turned on a hot bath. "We're trained to meet the needs of every bloodline, and that includes Belle Morte."

I had to think about it for a moment, then said, "So, trained in s.e.x for Belle Morte. Combat for the Dragon. What did you train in for the Master of Beasts, and the Lover of Death?"

"The Lover of Death is combat, and the Master of Beasts is weak," Pride said. "We knew no one in his line would ever come for us. The Earthmover never made enough vampires to be a bloodline that would come for us. The Traveller's line is all but dead. He can't make more of his own bloodline unless he uses his original body, and he won't do that. He won't risk it being destroyed."

"What about the Mother of All Darkness?" I asked.

"She's not a bloodline," Pride said. "She's the enemy."