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“Strongly? He damn near slit your throat.”

“After I had tried to do the same to him.”

I was shaking my head. “No, no, I don’t . . .”

“What, ma petite, are you truly saying that if someone had torn your throat out, tried for your life that you wouldn’t have shot them?”

I opened my mouth to argue, closed it, tried again, and stopped. I looked at him, then back at Micah, then back to Jean-Claude. “Well, damn.”

“The Nimir-Raj has made his point, ma petite. He is willing to be accommodating up to a point—beyond that point there is no compromise.”

Micah nodded, and the movement looked awkward in his furred body. “Yes.”

“You have the same rule, ma petite, as do I. The three of us merely have different places where the line is drawn. But the line is there for all of us.”

“How can you both be so reasonable about this? You both nearly just killed each other?”

They looked at each other, around me, again, and there was something in that look. It was something masculine and arcane, as if the fact that I was a girl meant I wouldn’t get it, and they couldn’t explain it to me. Which did explain it to me.

“Oh, great, great, you guys nearly kill each other, and that makes you buddies.”

Jean-Claude gave that wonderful Gallic shrug, his face still covered in Micah’s blood. “Let us say we have an understanding.”

Micah agreed.

“Jesus, only men could get a friendship out of something like this.”

“You are friends with Monsieur Edward. Did you not both begin by trying to kill each other?” Jean-Claude asked.

“That’s different,” I said.

“How?”

I tried to argue, but stopped because I would have looked silly. “Fine, fine, so what, the two of you kiss and make up?”

They looked at each other, and again there was weight to the gaze, but it was a different weight. “Shit,” I said.

“I think we begin by apologizing,” Jean-Claude said. “I am truly sorry for my lack of control.”

“Me, too,” Micah said, then added, “and I’m sorry that I had to try and kill you.” It was interesting phrasing, not I’m sorry I nearly killed you, but sorry I had to try and kill you. I was seeing Micah’s ruthless streak. It wasn’t really any bigger than my own, but it bothered me anyway. Wasn’t sure why, but it did.

I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to move on, we had other business. “Are you well enough to help get Damian out of his coffin?”

“I have used up all my reserves, ma petite. I will need to feed again.” He raised a hand. “But not the ardeur, merely blood.”

Merely, he says.

“I offered to let you feed on me earlier. The offer still stands,” Micah said.

“No, Micah,” Merle said.

Micah touched the taller man’s arm. “It’s alright.”

“Are you not afraid I will try and tear your throat out again? I would listen to your bodyguard.”

“You said we had an understanding.”

“That is true.”

They were watching each other, and I could almost feel the testosterone rise.

Micah smiled, or tried to. In the half-leopard form it was a snarl of white fangs in black fur. “Besides, the next time you bite me like that, it better be foreplay, or I will kill you.”

“If it pleases you, my pleasure,” Jean-Claude said. He laughed then, that touchable sound that caressed my skin, made me shiver. Micah reacted to it, eyes wide. He’d never heard Jean-Claude’s laugh before. If he thought the laugh was something special, well, the best truly was yet to come.

“I thank you for your most generous offer,” Jean-Claude said, “but I prefer my food without fur.”

“No problem,” Micah said. Micah released Merle’s arm, and did that magically quick change. His tanned skin seemed to absorb the fur like rocks sinking into water. He stood naked and perfect, no mark of the fight on that smooth skin. Neither his clothing nor the tie in his hair had survived the change. But strangely the hair fell straight around his face, as if it were affected by the fact that he’d pulled it back tight while it was still wet. The hair was still thick, but it framed his face better, was less overwhelming,