14

I'D BARELY GOTTEN off the phone from Vegas before my cell phone started playing the theme song to 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 assured 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 sex any more than a pile of kittens sleeping together was about sex.

"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 grass 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 hell 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 sex 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 sex. 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.

"Sex 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 shit in order here, especially after what just happened with Mommie Dearest."

"Then offer him sex if he sends most of the lions home. He's Rex, so he's entitled to keep a couple of bodyguards."

"You really think sex with me will make him send them home?"

"Remember who're you're talking to, Anita. It was all I could do after  sex 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 fucking 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.

"Hell, 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, fuck 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."

"You have to help Jean-Claude get his house in order, Anita, like yesterday. You have to do what needs doing or the Mother of All Darkness is going to eat us alive, and undead."

"That's pretty much what Bibiana said."

Domino said, "What do you want us to do? The lions say they're coming to your rescue. The guards can open the door or they can break it down, but they are coming inside."

"How many men?" I asked.

"Twenty-five."

"Shit, he doesn't have that many soldiers, which means he brought cannon fodder, too."

"If Jean-Claude has sex with one of the female lions at the same time you're doing the Rex, he might be able to bridge the powers without touching Haven," Auggie said.

"I'll be suspicious later that you and Jean-Claude set this up so he could fuck other women, but right now, I have to think what to tell the lions."

Auggie said, "I know to talk to you first."

I looked up at Domino. "Tell Haven we need time to clean up, then we'll meet him and some of his lions."

"How many of them you letting inside?" Domino asked.

I turned to look at Jean-Claude, Richard, and Micah near the door. "Jean-Claude, how many lions do you want in here?"

"As few as possible."

"Which is how many? I'm trying to get a feel for how many is a deal breaker, Jean-Claude."

He looked at me, head to one side as if he were thinking, then he turned to Domino. "How many guards do we have on hand?"

"You mean how many bodies?" he asked.

"Yes, that is what I mean."

"Twelve."

"How soon could we get more? I would like at least a two-to-one ratio."

"Let me ask Claudia. She knows the wererats' resources better than I do."

Asher rolled over in my lap so he could gaze up at Jean-Claude. "We have over a hundred werehyenas that can fight, and twenty-five that I would trust against Haven and his people."

I said, "I thought you were threatening to take your werehyenas and go play somewhere else."

He rolled his head and shoulders in my lap so that Nathaniel helped me keep him from sliding off. Asher gave me those pale blue eyes. "The Mother of All Darkness is after us all. I will not divide our strength, but you know why I was leaving, Anita. You know what I needed to stay, and now I have it." He smiled.

I smiled down at him, because I wasn't just seeing him through my eyes, but through that glow from decades of memories when Jean-Claude had truly loved him. "Then how long for your werehyenas to get here?"

"A half hour, forty-five minutes, depending on how armed you want them."

I looked up at Jean-Claude. "How armed do we want them?"

"Are we allowed to slaughter your lions, ma petite?"

I thought about that. "I don't want them hurt, but if they try to fight us, then they aren't my lions anymore. They're just a danger to us."

"You will miss your Cookie Monster if we slay him."

I smiled at his using my nickname for Haven, but shook my head. "I miss what he could have been to me, but he was never a boyfriend, barely a lover. Tonight either he toes the line, or he has to go. Auggie says if we send him home, the local Rex will kill him. I won't let someone else do my dirty work."

Jean-Claude touched my cheek, then turned me to look up at him. I hadn't even realized I'd looked down. "If you mean that, then we can finish this tonight before all the bad little vampires must be abed." Asher reached out, caressing Jean-Claude's thigh. He moved closer to us, so that Asher could run his hand up the back of his thigh.

I nodded. "I'll call him, if he has his phone on him. We'll clean up and we'll do this."

I didn't want to kill Haven. I didn't want to kill any of them. But he couldn't bring armed men to our house and demand to be let inside. We couldn't let that go, and he had to have known that. As I took a quick shower so that I wouldn't go into the meeting covered in shapeshifter goop, I realized that Haven had decided to end things tonight, too. He'd  even brought his strongest people so that if we slaughtered them all the pride would be back to the way it was before he came. It would be weak, but it would be open to another Rex coming in and building what he wanted out of it.

Haven was doing his version of suicide by cop, and we were the cops.