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"What aren't you wearing behind that cushion?"
He threw the cushion behind him with a flourish and a grin. He was wearing a G-string that matched the boots, and that was it. I'd seen the outfit before, but never this early in the morning. "Not that I don't appreciate the view, because I do, but isn't it a little early for fetish wear?"
"All my dress shirts here are silk. My hair's so wet it would stain them." He pressed himself into my arms, and my hands curved under all that heavy hair and found it was still very wet, so wet that the skin of his naked back was cool and slightly damp to the touch. He was right, silk would have been ruined. My hands curved lower until I found the round, tight bareness of his buttocks. He flexed under my hands and I had to close my eyes and take a breath before I could say, "Why are you wearing this for a meeting with Rafael?"
Micah answered, "We thought it might remind Rafael what exactly being close to us means. Rumor has it, he's vanilla."
I stepped back from Nathaniel, because I had trouble thinking when I was touching any of my men naked. "Say that again."
Richard's voice, so unhappy that I knew the news was bad. "Rafael wants you, too?"
"I'm lost," I said.
"Rafael has put himself forward as a candidate to be your new pomme de sang," Jean-Claude said, his voice as bland and emptily pleasant as he could make it.
I just gaped at him. I couldn't even think of anything to say.
Nathaniel touched my chin and closed my mouth, gently. He kissed my cheek, and said, "It's okay, Anita."
I swallowed and stared into that peaceful face. He smiled gently at me. I shook my head. "Why would he ask this? Rafael doesn't do anything without a reason."
Claudia cleared her throat sharply. We all turned to her. She looked as embarrassed as I'd ever seen her. "He's afraid that Asher's ties to the werehyenas will make them have closer ties to Jean-Claude and you than we do, the rats."
"He's my friend," Richard said. "I am not friends with the werehyenas' leader."
"But Rafael isn't friends with Jean-Claude, or Anita. It's just a business arrangement with them. Asher is their lover, and his animal to call is the hyena now, so that makes the hyenas more essential to your plans than us."
"The rats are our allies and friends," I said, "and nothing personal to the hyenas, but I trust the rats a heck of a lot more one-on-one as guards than most of the hyenas."
Claudia nodded. "With a few exceptions the hyenas are amateur muscle, and Rafael doesn't recruit amateurs."
"You guys are important to us, Claudia. Where the hell did Rafael get the idea that we'd dump him for Narcissus?" I asked.
She shrugged those wonderfully muscled shoulders as much as the muscles would allow. "He wants a closer tie to Jean-Claude, that's all I know."
I looked at Jean-Claude and Richard. "I don't have to do this, right?"
"No, ma petite, you do not, but we must hear his case for it. I agree with not doing it. I think the other wereanimals would take it badly if you made someone's king your new pomme de sang."
"The other wereanimals are already jealous of Anita's ties to the wereleopards and the wolves," Sampson said. He'd walked around us to help himself to food and to take one of the chairs by the fireplace. I'd sort of forgotten he was there. He had that ability to blend into the woodwork when he wanted to. Not magic, just tact.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Those are our animals to call. We're supposed to have a tighter bind to them."
"True, but you, Anita, carry the strain for lion and at least one other lycanthrope strain. There are those among the community who believe they know why the doctors can't identify that fourth strain in your body." He took a bite of croissant, and I was suddenly hungry. With all that was happening, my stomach rolled and let me know there were other hungers besides the ardeur.
"What's their theory?" I asked. I went to the table and started putting food on one of the white china plates. We had take-out food every morning, but by God we ate off real plates with real silverware. Though the silverware was actually gold-plated, so that there was no problem with everyone using the utensils. Real silver can burn the skin of a lycanthrope. Not burn as in blister, but burn as in itch and hurt.
"Chimera attacked you in lion form, which explains the lion lycanthropy, but he was also a panwere. You've discussed that you may be able to add new types of lycanthropy until you shapeshift for the first time, haven't you?" Sampson asked.
"Yeah, we've discussed it, as a theory," I said.
"Some in the shapeshifter community would like you to try to take on as many of their beasts as you can before you shift, so that they'll have a tighter alliance with Jean-Claude."
I looked at Claudia. "Is that true? Have people been suggesting that?"
"There has been talk."
"Is that really what Rafael wants?" I asked. "I mean, he knows that Richard and I don't want to put him in my bed, but is that just a ruse? He offers sex, I say no, and then he does a counterproposal of what... trying to give me rat-based lycanthropy?"
"I'm not sure what he plans to say," she said.
I looked at Sampson. "How do you know all this?"
"I was raised in what amounts to a royal court, Anita. You live and die on your intelligence information."
"I've noticed that Sampson has an almost uncanny ability to elicit confidences," Jean-Claude said.
"You rolling them with mermaid tricks?" I asked.
He shrugged and took another bite of croissant.
"Using mind tricks on people without their permission is punishable by law," I said.
"The law actually states that it's illegal to use vampire tricks, telepathy, or witchcraft to elicit information without permission. I'm not using any of the three."
"I could make a court case that mermaid power is a form of telepathy."
"But I'm not reading their minds; they're volunteering information to me. That's not telepathy at all. Besides, this isn't a court case, this is about how to swim through the rocks in your path."
"And you have a suggestion," I said, and let it sound as suspicious as I wanted it to.
He laughed and wiped his hands on the white napkin in his lap. "You can avoid the sex question by saying that I'm the next candidate, which is true. I can simply not give up my place as next in your bed. Their king knows I am the eldest son of another Master of the City, and I have prior claim to your affections."
"And it will get you in her bed sooner," Richard said; he sounded suspicious, too.
Sampson gave him a patient look with just an edge of impatience. "I have been here for months and not pushed my claim. Partly because, until Anita tries to bring me into my siren abilities, my mother will leave my brothers alone. I'm not at all convinced that the ardeur is similiar enough to my mother's powers that Anita can awaken me to that other power. If I sleep with Anita and it doesn't work, then my family is back to the same problem."
"Your mother promised that if I couldn't bring you into your siren-hood, she'd accept that she was the last siren, and she'd leave you and your brothers alone."
He laughed and shook his head. "She's not human, Anita, or a vampire; her word doesn't mean what you think it means. She wants us to be sirens, and I don't believe she'll accept your failure gracefully. But as long as I'm here trying, then she'll wait."
"And she'll leave your little brothers alone," I said.
He nodded. "But my mother won't wait forever, Anita. One of the reasons she traded Perdita to you as a blood donor was so Perdy could keep an eye on me."
"She's a spy?" I made it a question.
"I know she's enjoying dating your Jason, but yes, she's a spy. My father will accept and encourage that I've been a gentleman about everything, but my mother will lose patience with it."
"We can send Perdita back when you go," Richard said.
"She's spying on me, not on you."
"Your mom doesn't trust you not to fudge on this," I said.
"No, she doesn't. She knows how much I want to avoid her doing anything that will force my father to kill her. He adores her, but if she forces sex on me or my brothers he will do what he vowed. He will slay the woman he loves above all others. It would destroy him, and our family."
"You have been most patient," Jean-Claude said.
I wanted to argue, but couldn't. I nodded. "You have been."
"So just like that he gets to fuck you," Richard said.
I sighed. "You've done so well today, Richard. Don't spoil it."
"And how would you feel if I picked one of the women here in the underground to have sex with while you fuck Sampson?"
I looked at him. I thought of several things to say, none of them helpful.
"You wouldn't like it, would you?" he said.
