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Clair’s breath came out in a quiver. She looked dizzy. Micah put a chair under her, and helped Richard ease her into it.

“How long has she been a werewolf?” I asked.

“Three months,” he said.

I looked at him, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Three months, and you took her outside a safe house less than a week before the full moon?”

“Doesn’t your house qualify as a safe house?” he asked.

“You can come here to shift form, but I don’t have a reinforced room.” Most true safe houses had a room with a steel door and reinforced concrete walls. Most people put the rooms down in their basements and just told those who asked it was storage.

“We were supposed to have a picnic today,” Clair said in her small, uncertain voice.

I had to turn around so Richard wouldn’t see my face. You did not take a brand-new shifter out for a picnic, if she was having this kind of trouble.

“She was fine this morning,” he said.

I turned around when I was sure my face would be blank enough.

“She’s responding to your anger, and your beast,” Micah said.

“I know that,” Richard said, a hint of a growl in his voice.

She swayed in her chair.

“Richard,” Dr. Lillian said, “you have better control than this.”

He just nodded.

Lillian sighed. “If there was a way to heal your arm before Monday, your secret would be safe.”

“No,” Richard said.

It took me a moment to get the hint. “If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, not only no, but hell no.”

She put her hands on her hips and actually stamped her foot. “You are both being childish.”

We said no simultaneously.

“Fine, then I’ve done all I can for your arm. I will stay until we are certain that the vampire isn’t going to rise and cause more havoc.”

“His name is Damian,” I said.

She nodded. “Damian, then, but if you won’t let her help you, then I think you and Clair need to go to your house. I would suggest that you take her to the room in your basement, before you shift. She seems very swayed by your power.” She said the last as if she wanted to say something different, but thought better of it.

“I’ll stay until Damian is down for the day.”

“I think you’ve done your part,” Lillian said.

“They needed my help before,” he said.

I couldn’t argue that, but . . “How did you happen to be Johnny-on-the-spot this morning?”

“Gregory couldn’t get anyone here to pick him up. He got worried. On his way over, his car broke down. I was next on the list at the coalition help line.”

I hadn’t actually known Richard was helping staff the emergency calls. “Why didn’t he call AAA?”

“He was more worried about why no one was answering your phone than his car.”

“I didn’t think Gregory cared that much.”

Fredo said, “All your leopards are very serious about your and Micah’s safety.”

I looked at him. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

He grinned, a brief flash of teeth in his dark face. “You don’t like being babied. They know that.” The smile faded. “You are their safe harbor; they value that.”

I don’t know what I would have said to that, but Lillian interrupted and saved me.

“You need to go home, Richard.”

“Micah is here now, and Fredo,” she said, “I think you can leave it to us.”

He started to shake his head again and stopped in mid-motion. “I’ll stay until we’re sure.”

She sighed and shrugged. “You are a very stubborn man. Fine, stay, stay and be in pain.” Then she turned to me. “Is there coffee to spare?”

I had to smile. “I think Nathaniel can fix you up.”

“I’ll just bet he can,” she said, and did a polite leer.

Nathaniel took it in stride, with a laugh.

I don’t know what the look on my face was, but it caused Lillian to say, “I’m over fifty, Anita, not dead.”

“No, it wasn’t that.” I wasn’t sure how to put it into words, but it was more like you didn’t say things like that about someone’s boyfriend, not in front of them, anyway. There was that word boyfriend again in my head, with Nathaniel attached to it.

She was looking at me, sort of narrowly. “By the look on your face, I stepped in something. Is he more than just