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“Jamil’s been filling us in,” Louie said. “Did you and Richard actually raise power in the middle of the Circus?”

I took a sip of coffee before answering. “Apparently.”

“There is no equivalent among the wererats for the wolves’ lupa, but is it common to be able to call power like that?”

Ronnie was glancing back and forth from one to the other of us. Her eyes were a little wide. I’d been telling her what was happening in my life. She’d been hanging around with me and the monsters long enough to meet Louie, but it was still a strange new world for her. Sometimes I thought she’d be better off keeping farther away from the monsters, but like she’d said, we were both big girls. Sometimes she even carried a gun. She could make her own decisions.

Jamil answered, “I have been a werewolf for over ten years. This is my third pack. I have never even heard of a lupa that could help her Ulfric raise power outside of the lupanar, our place of power. Most lupas can’t even do that. Raina was the first I’d met that could call power within the lupanar. She could do small powers without the full moon to boost her power, but nothing like what I felt today.”

“Jamil says you helped Richard raise enough power to heal him,” Louie said.

I shrugged, carefully so the coffee wouldn’t spill. “I helped Richard control his beast. It raised…something. I don’t know. Something.”

“Richard went into one of his rages, and you helped bring him back?” Louie asked.

I looked at him then. “You’ve seen him when he loses control?”

He nodded. “Once.”

The memory made me shiver. “Once is enough.”

“But you helped him control it.”

“She did,” Jamil said. He sounded pleased.

Louie looked at him and shook his head.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I’ve been telling Richard that he won’t get better unless he gets you completely out of his system. I thought he had to forget you to heal himself.”

“You sound like you’ve changed your mind,” I said.

“If you can help Richard regain control of his beast, then he needs you. I don’t care what arrangement you work out, Anita. But if he doesn’t do something soon, he’s going to end up dead. To stop that from happening, I’d do almost anything.”

For the first time I realized that Louie didn’t like me anymore. He was Richard’s best friend. I guess I couldn’t blame him. If he’d dumped Ronnie as badly as I’d dumped Richard, I’d be pissed, too.

“Even encouraging Richard to see me again?” I made it a question.

“Is that what you want?”

I shook my head and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know. We’re bound to each other for eternity. That’s a long time to bitch at each other.”

Richard appeared in the doorway. “A very long time,” he said, “to watch you in his arms.” He didn’t sound bitter then. He sounded tired. His thick hair and muscular upper body were covered in fine white dust. Even his jeans were coated. He looked like something out of a porno movie where the handyman consoles the lonely housewife. He walked over to stand in front of the roses. “Forever to see white roses with your name on them.” He touched the single red rose, and smiled. “Nicely symbolic.” His hand closed around the crimson flower; when he opened his hand, red petals scattered across the table. A drop of blood fell to the pale tabletop. He’d found a thorn.

Ronnie’s eyes were wide, staring at the ruined rose. She glanced at me, eyebrows raised, but I didn’t even know what expression to give her in return. “That was childish,” I said.

Richard turned to me, hand stretched out towards me. “Too bad our other third isn’t here to lick the blood off.”

I felt an unpleasant smile curl my lips, and spoke before I could stop myself, or maybe I was just tired of trying. “There are at least three people in this room that would love to lick the blood off your skin, Richard. I’m not one of them.”

He balled his hand into a fist. “You are such a bitch.”

“Woof, woof,” I said.

Louie stood. “Stop it, both of you.”

“I will if he will,” I said.

Richard just turned away, speaking without looking at anyone. “We changed the sheets on the bed.