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“But you tried.” Auggie made it a statement.

Nathaniel nodded. “I wanted her to want me. I didn’t know any other way to do that.”

“It worked,” Auggie said.

Nathaniel glanced back at me, gave me a smile, then turned back to Auggie. “No, it didn’t.”

He motioned at us all. “Of course it worked.”

“Only when I stopped trying to hustle her, and just tried to learn how to love her.”

“Learn how to love her, you make it sound like a class, or a degree. You simply love people.”

Nathaniel laughed. Jean-Claude made a noise like he was trying not to laugh. I looked at Micah. “Aren’t you going to laugh, too?”

Micah shook his head. “I know better.” Though there was the edge of a smile on his lips.

I scowled at them all. “Fine, laugh it up.”

“I don’t get the joke either,” Auggie said.

“You will,” Micah said, and it sounded like a threat.

“Is it really that hard to date me?”

This time Claudia and some of the other bodyguards laughed. I was just amusing the hell out of everyone.

40

“TELL ME THE joke, I could use the laugh.” Travis’s voice came from the far hallway. His face was tight and pinched with pain. Noel hovered beside him like he was waiting to catch him if he stumbled. They both still looked too young to drive. Was it just age that had made Joseph pick them for my feedings, or was there some other reason? I mean, there’s submissive and then there’s cannon fodder. Everyone he’d offered for my selection, even the jocks, had that new-car smell, like they hadn’t been driven around the block enough. There had to be a reason he’d offered me lambs when what I needed was lions.

“Why haven’t you shifted?” Micah asked. He was already moving across the living room toward them, walking past Auggie. The vampire reached out, tried to grab his arm. Micah moved so fast that I didn’t really see Auggie try to grab him, and miss. I saw the vampire reach out, and Micah just wasn’t where he was reaching. So fast, it was like magic. Micah went to the werelions, and started talking to them in a low voice. He ignored the vampire.

Auggie looked angry, and something else, something that was almost pain. “You’ve made your point, Jean-Claude.”

“Micah does not like to be grabbed, that is all the point that has been made,” Jean-Claude said, voice mild. He was still lounging decoratively on the couch. “Do you envy me my cats, Augustine?”

“I don’t envy anyone.”

Even I could taste the lie.

Micah started leading the werelions toward the love seat. He stopped well out of reach, and looked at Auggie. “I really don’t want to play games, Augustine. I just want to get Travis sitting down.”

“If you were in my territory, I’d have to make a lesson of it, of you, but you aren’t my kitty-cat. Sit down, I won’t bother you.”

Micah walked wide round the vampire, but gave him his back. His eyes flicked to me, and I realized he was trusting my reaction to let him know what Auggie was doing. I nodded, like, it’s okay. Micah led the two lions to the love seat.

“Petty games do not become you, Augustine. You are master of a powerful territory. You could have your own collection of lovers, to rival mine.” He left the implication that we were all his lovers, and we let it slide. I was his lover, and neither of the other men was bothered by the rumors.

“I’m not just Master of the City of Chicago, Jean-Claude, I’m a mob boss. The mob allows you a family with a wife and kids, a mistress, whores, but nothing else.”

Jean-Claude luxuriated against the couch arm. “You could never let any of them see you looking at me as you do right this moment.”

Auggie shook his head. “If you were a whore or a hustler, I’d have to kill you if they saw me look at you this way.”

“But your rivals cannot see you now. You can look at me any way you like.”

“Fuck you, Jean-Claude, you’re going to use this look on my face to punish me, and try to control me. It’s just another kind of gun at my head.”

“We are master vampires, we are all about control, but I do not intend to punish