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By Root 7416 0

and it was like a lot about Samuel, a very human smile. I realized that he, like Auggie, could be more “normal” than most vamps I’d ever seen. Was it a vamp trick like Auggie’s had been? Maybe. Was it any of my business to mess with it, and reveal his secret? Nope. No more grand revelations tonight, not that were my fault anyway. I wasn’t messing with anyone or anything tonight if I could help it. My goal was simply to get through the rest of this interview without anything bad happening. Why was I so worried? I’d sat back down beside Jean-Claude, but Richard hadn’t. Richard was still standing, arms folded, shoulders rounded as if with pain. I knew the look on his face, it was the look that usually meant we were going to have a really bad fight. I didn’t want to fight tonight, not with anyone, but especially not with Richard.

Jean-Claude touched my hand. It made me jump, and turn startled to him. “What is wrong, ma petite?”

I gave him a look, and rolled my eyes back to our other third. “Ah,” he said.

I gripped Jean-Claude’s hand tight, and tried to head this fight off. “Richard?” I made his name a question.

He turned those smoldering brown eyes to me. “What?” That one word was so angry that even he flinched. “I’m sorry, what is it, Anita?”

“You don’t have to pick a fight with me to leave.” There, that was as honest and as calm as I could make it.

He frowned at me. “What does that mean?”

“It means that ever since we started talking to Samuel about his sons and their problem, your tension level has done nothing but rise.”

“And if we were talking about me having sex with three new women, two of them seventeen years old, wouldn’t you be angry?”

I thought about it, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Then don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

“What am I supposed to do, Richard, apologize? I wouldn’t even be sure what I was apologizing about. Anyway, I’ve told you that my answer was no on the seventeen-year-old.”

“I think, Jean-Claude, Sampson and I will leave you all for the night.” Samuel stood. “You seem to have much to discuss.”

Sampson stood alongside his father. He was about two inches taller than Samuel, as if he’d gained height from his mother’s genetics. I wondered what else he might have gained. I really didn’t know much about mermaids, or sirens. I probably needed to remedy that before I got too up close and personal with any of them.

“Not yet, my friend, please,” Jean-Claude said. He looked at Richard, giving a peaceful face to the unhappy one. “We need some riddles answered before we dare take ma petite among our brethren tomorrow night.”

Samuel nodded, and sat back down. “You’re wondering, if you take her among nearly a dozen Masters of the City, whether the night will be even more interesting than this one.”

Jean-Claude nodded. “Exactement.”

“Are these questions that only a vampire can answer?” Sampson asked.

“It is from a master like your father that I need advice,” Jean-Claude said.

“Then, I could go back to the hotel and check on Mother and the twins.”

“I think they have enough watchdogs, Sampson,” his father said.

Sampson gave his father a look like he was trying to say something with his eyes, and his father wasn’t getting it.

“You’re leaving because you think it will make me less upset,” Richard said.

Sampson looked at him, with that open, honest face, and nodded.

“That’s…” Richard’s face struggled with his emotions, because a friendly gesture, honestly given, always touched him. “That’s really…good of you.”

“You obviously don’t like sharing Anita, and now here I am asking you to share her again. We need her to help us. I don’t want to lose my mother and one, or both, of my little brothers.” Sampson shook his head, eyes staring off into space, but not seeing anything in this room. The look in his eyes was haunted as if he, like his father, had given up on avoiding the tragedy. As if he’d been picturing it all in his head for months, trying to make peace with it, and failing.

He looked up at Richard. “I won’t give up this chance to save my family, but I am sorry that it’s causing you pain.” He came