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“How?” I let the word hold all the suspicion it could.

He laughed. “You can put so much menace and doubt into one word, duckie.”

“Answer the question,” I said.

“Feed the ardeur on me and Nathaniel, while I abuse him. If this is a preview, the energy will be amazing.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

“I get to have sex with you, duckie.”

I shook my head. “Try again, Byron. You like boys a lot more than you like girls.”

“I get to have sexual contact with Nathaniel.”

I felt my eyes narrow at him. “You’ve never acted like Nathaniel was your type before.”

“I know that he’s unhappy, and I want my friends to be happy.”

“That’s not all of it,” I said.

“Don’t know what you mean, lover.” He settled into the corner of the couch. Nathaniel and he cuddled like they had done it before, though I didn’t think they had.

“He’s doing it for my benefit,” Requiem said.

I looked at the other vampire, who had never moved from his chair. “Explain,” I said.

“Tell her, Byron, tell her why you’re offering.”

“Where has all your poetry gone, Requiem?” Byron asked.

“‘In chains and darkness, wherefore should I stay, And mourn in prison, while I keep the key?’” Requiem said.

“That’s better,” Byron said. “Have you thought about ending it all, duckie? Is the fact that Anita doesn’t adore you that painful to you?”

Requiem just stared at him, and something in that look made Byron shiver. I wasn’t sure if it was a shiver of fear or of other things. If he wasn’t afraid, he should have been. I’d never seen Requiem look at anyone with that coldness before.

“This has the smell of something that will get out of hand and get people hurt. Since part of my job is to protect everyone who could get hurt, talk to me,” I said.

Byron looked at me. “Nathaniel needs his pain, Anita. I’ll help you give it to him, while you’re in the bed with us. You get to supervise but you don’t have to do the dirty work.”

“Did Nathaniel talk to you about this problem?”

“I know what it’s like, Anita, to want a certain kind of touch and be denied it. I spent centuries being given to masters that didn’t give a damn what I wanted or needed. You love Nathaniel and he loves you, but eventually, needs left unanswered can curdle love like milk left to spoil in the sun.”

“So this little demonstration is out of the kindness of your heart,” I said, and let my tone say how little I believed that.

“He’s tried to tell you, duckie, but you didn’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I understand now,” I said.

“But did it help, my little show?”

I wanted to say no, but it would have been a lie. Most vamps could smell or feel a lie, so why bother? “Hate to admit it, but yeah, it helped. Don’t pull shit like this again, but you’ve made your point.”

“Have I?” he said, sliding lower on the couch, so that he and Nathaniel were more intertwined. If it bothered Nathaniel to be that up close and personal with a naked man, it didn’t show. Okay, a naked man who wasn’t one of our sweeties. Had just a little hair pulling made him like Byron that much? Was Nathaniel’s need that great, or had I just neglected his needs that much?

Byron hadn’t done anything that I wasn’t willing to do. He hadn’t done anything bad. Would it be so bad to just tie Nathaniel up and have the sex we would have had without the tying up? Was that so awful? I looked at the two men, cuddled together, the look of peaceful contentment on Nathaniel’s face, and realized that I’d been arrogant. I’d assumed that if our relationship ended, it would be me doing the ending. That I’d dump him for being too needy, or too something. In that instant I realized that he might dump me for simply not trying hard enough to meet his needs. The thought made my chest tight. I loved him, I really did. I could not imagine my life without him. So what was I willing to do to keep him? How far would I go, and did I need help to get there? I’d had sex with Byron once before. I’d fed the ardeur off him. Could Byron teach me how to dominate Nathaniel? Maybe, maybe not. But his little show had proved one thing: that I needed someone to show me how