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He leaned in, and laid a kiss upon my lips. Then he cuddled me back against him, as we’d been before the questions started. No more personal questions tonight, but there were other questions I wanted answered. “Why did Requiem look like someone had pounded his face into a wall?”

“Because someone had.”

That made me turn enough to look at him. “Who?”

“Meng Die,” he said, voice soft, face solemn.

“Was that the emergency?”

“Oui. Thank you for sending the extra guards, ma petite, it was wise of you.”

I shrugged, and turned so that I was sitting across his legs, my hands against his chest, his arms around me still, but I could see his face now. “How did it get so out of hand?”

“I was called in rather late, ma petite. In truth, I do not know exactly how Requiem and Meng Die allowed their spat to get so terribly out of hand, and so terribly public. Asher, as manager of the Circus, came down to stop it, or take it to a backstage area. That should have been the end of it.” His face was closing down, hiding what he thought of the fight, and the aftermath.

“Why wasn’t that the end of it?”

“Because Meng Die decided to fight them both.”

I sat up in his lap. “Why fight Asher? She’s never been his lover.”

“But he is your lover.”

I frowned at him. “So what?”

“I believe that if a master vampire had appeared who wasn’t in your bed, had never been in your bed, the fight might have calmed instead of escalating.”

“I’m totally lost here, Jean-Claude.”

He looked directly at me, but his face was empty enough that it gave me nothing. “You have not asked the right question yet, ma petite.”

“What is the right question?”

“What the fight was about.”

I frowned harder, and said, “Okay, I give, what was the fight about?”

“You.”

Now I was really lost. “What?”

“They were arguing about you.”

“What about me?”

“Meng Die thinks you have stolen Requiem from her.”

I pushed back enough in the water so I was kneeling, and not cuddled. The water was deep enough that it came to my shoulders. “Requiem isn’t my lover. I’ve worked really hard to make sure he isn’t my lover.”

“But you have fed the ardeur from him.”

“In an emergency, yes. It was to feed, or I was about to suck Damian’s life away. I had to feed, but we didn’t have intercourse, we didn’t even take our clothes off.” I thought about it, and added, “Not all of our clothes. I mean, Requiem was fully clothed.” I started blushing and couldn’t prevent it. I had to stop explaining before it sounded worse and worse.

“He has offered to feed you more completely.”

“I know.”

“Why have you refused him?”

I looked at Jean-Claude, trying to see behind that perfect mask of a face. “I think I was under the impression that I’m having sex with enough men.”

His lips twitched. He was fighting not to smile.

“This isn’t funny.”

He let himself smile. “Ma petite, there have been women over the centuries who traded lands, titles, their honor, everything, for one more night in Requiem’s bed. His master in London used him much as Belle Morte used Asher and me. Though because Requiem only did women, he wasn’t as flexible as we.”

I let that last part go. I still wasn’t completely sure how I felt about Jean-Claude doing Auggie. At the time I hadn’t minded—in fact, I’d liked it. I’d liked us both doing him at the same time. We’d fucked him in every way possible, physically and metaphysically, and it had felt a-fucking-mazing. That last part was probably going to bug me the most. But one disaster at a time.

“Are you saying you’re surprised I turned him down?”

“No, it is typical of you to turn a man down at first.”

“At first?” I said, and sounded a little outraged.

He laughed, and it was that touchable sound, as if it were the sound of pure sex, and it went through my head and all the way down my body. “Stop that,” I said.

He smiled, face lit with suppressed laughter, but he stopped. “To my knowledge, the only man you have never said no to is your Nimir-Raj, Micah. But the ardeur was newly woken, and so I do not think we can count that one completely. It was your exception, not your rule.