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It was my turn to sigh. “How many vampire challenges to your authority have there been while I’ve been off meditating?”

“A few,” he said, voice cautious.

“More than a few I’d bet, because they sensed that your defenses are not complete. You had trouble backing them down without killing them, didn’t you?”

“Let us say that I am glad that there were no serious challengers over the last year.”

“You’d have lost without Richard and me to back you up, and you couldn’t shield yourself without us there to touch. That worked when I was in town with you. Touching, being with each other helped us plug in to each other’s power. It offset the problem.”

“Oui,” he said, softly.

“I didn’t know, Jean-Claude. I’m not sure it would have made a difference, but I didn’t know. God, Richard must be desperate—he doesn’t kill like we do. His bluff is all that keeps the werewolves from tearing each other apart, and with two gaping holes in his most intimate defenses . . .” I let my voice trail off, but I still remembered the cold horror I’d felt when I realized how much I’d endangered all of us.

“Richard has had difficulties, ma petite. But we each have only one chink in our armor, the one that only you can heal. He was driven to merge his energies with mine. As you say, his bluff is very important to him.”

“I didn’t know, and I’m sorry for that. All I’ve been thinking about was how scared I was of being overwhelmed by the two of you. Marianne told me the truth when she thought I was ready to hear it.”

“And are you done being frightened of us, ma petite?” His voice was careful when he asked, as if he were carrying a very full cup of very hot liquid up a long and narrow staircase.

I shook my head, realized he couldn’t see it, and said, “I’m not brave. I’m pretty much terrified. Terrified that if I do this, there is no going back, that maybe I’m fooling myself about a choice. Maybe there is no choice and hasn’t been for a long time. But however we end up arranging the bedrooms, I can’t let us all go around with gaping metaphysical wounds. Too many things will sense the weakness and exploit it.”

“Like the creature you met in New Mexico,” he said, voice still as cautious as I’d ever heard it.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Are you saying that tonight you will agree to letting us merge the marks, that we will at last close these, as you so colorfully put it, wounds?”

“If it doesn’t endanger my leopards, yeah. We need to do it as soon as possible. I’d hate to make the big decision and then have one of us get killed before we could batten down the hatches.”

I heard him sigh, as if some great tension had left him. “You do not know how long I have waited for you to understand all this.”

“You could have told me.”

“You would not have believed me. You would have thought it was another trick to bind you closer to me.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“Will Richard be meeting us at the club, as well?”

I was quiet for a heartbeat. “No, I’m not going to call him.”

“Why ever not? It is a shapeshifter difficulty more than a vampire one.”

“You know why not.”

“You fear he will be too squeamish to allow you to do what needs doing to save your leopards.”

“Yeah.”

“Perhaps,” Jean-Claude said.

“You aren’t going to tell me to call him?”

“Why would I ask you to invite my chief rival for your affections to this little tête-a`-tête? That would be foolish. I am many things, but foolish is not one of them.”

That was certainly true. “Okay, give me directions, and I’ll meet you and your people at the club.”

“First, ma petite, what are you wearing?”

“Excuse me?”

“Clothes, ma petite, what clothes are you wearing?”

“Is this a joke? Because I don’t have time . . .”

“It is not an idle question, ma petite. The sooner you answer, the sooner we can all leave.”

I wanted to argue, but if Jean-Claude said he had a point he probably did. I told him what I was wearing.

“You surprise me, ma petite. With a little effort it should do nicely.”

“What effort?”

“I suggest you add boots to your ensemble. The ones I purchased for you would do very