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She nodded, and ordered them out, and replaced them with two guards who wouldn’t feel conflicted. She’d understood what I’d meant. If Richard understood what I’d done, he didn’t show it, not even by a flicker of his eyes.

“I’m trying to decide what I can say that won’t piss you off, Richard. That’s all.”

He took in a breath so deep it made his shoulders shake. “Fair enough.” His voice sounded like his own now, not all growling deep. “Did the other master really pick a fight with you?”

I nodded. We’d leave the whole theory as to why he might have picked it until we were alone. “You felt his power, Richard—if it had come down to a fight, a true fight, vampire on vampire, would we have won?”

He looked down at his hands where they lay still and open on his thighs. “I don’t think so.”

“He raised the ardeur. If I feed off him, then he loses.”

Richard nodded. “Food can’t be dominant. I know.” He looked past me to Jean-Claude. “Why would he raise the ardeur? Why would he pick the one way that he could lose?”

“I do not believe he wished to win,” Jean-Claude said.

“That makes no sense,” Richard said.

“He is already master of one territory. It is against our laws to rule a second that does not touch your own. There are lands in between our territories, so defeating me would win him nothing. But losing to the ardeur would give him…”

“Anita.”

“A woman of Belle Morte’s line who holds the ardeur, oui.”

“I thought you said he was your friend,” Richard said.

“I believe he is.” Jean-Claude sighed and said, “We need privacy for this discussion, Claudia, if you would leave us?”

She looked at me, not at the men. I liked Claudia. “It’s okay.”

She sighed. “We’ll be right outside the door, but if the power level rises again, we are back in here.”

“No arguments,” I said.

“I’ll control myself,” Richard said.

“Sure,” she said, and went for the door. Lisandro stared back at us as the door closed, and it wasn’t a bodyguard look. It was a man’s look at a naked woman that he’d never seen naked before. Until that moment I hadn’t even thought about any of the other men in the room. Richard had been all I thought of; the rest of them might as well have been eunuchs as far as I’d been concerned. But with that one look Lisandro broke two rules. First, shapeshifters didn’t notice nudity; they did it too much. It would be like your cat thinking about not wearing pants. Second, it was against the bodyguard code to let clients see that you thought about them in any way other than as a target to keep safe. You did not let a female client see that you lusted after her, even if she paraded naked. That was her problem, not yours. You do not fuck those you guard, because you can’t guard them while you’re fucking. I guess there are exceptions to the above rules, but Lisandro hadn’t earned those exceptions.

I gave him a look that let him know I’d seen his look. He just smiled, not a smidge of regret. Great, just great.

The door closed behind the guard, and we were alone. None of us moved, as if now that it was just us, we weren’t certain what to do.

Richard spoke into the sudden heavy silence. “I need you to put on a towel, at least, Anita, please.” He added the please like it hurt him to ask politely. I guess he was still angry. But he had swallowed all that rage the way he’d learned to swallow his beast. Part of me was beginning to wonder if there would come a day when he couldn’t swallow all the rage, and what would happen when that day came. Once I’d thought Richard would never hurt me; now I knew better. He wouldn’t hurt me on purpose, but purpose wasn’t always what drove him.

Jean-Claude handed me a towel. His face was empty as he did it, nothing to help me, or give me a hint, but nothing on his face for Richard to take offense at either. I guess we were both being as careful of him as we could.

It was a big towel. I ended up covered from armpits to nearly my ankles. I tucked the end of the towel securely under and over, and voilà, I was dressed.

“Thank you,” Richard said.

“You’re welcome,” I said,