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“I’m older than I look,” I said.

“Not by much,” he said.

Crispin tugged a little against Alex’s arm. Not like he meant it, but more like he didn’t realize he was doing it.

“I’m almost thirty,” I said.

“You do look younger. I’d have pegged you for under twenty-five.”

I shrugged. “Good genetics.”

“If you say so,” but he didn’t sound like he believed it.

Frankly, with marks of at least two vampires on me, who was I to say that I wasn’t aging a little slower than normal. Not to mention that wereanimals aged slower than human-normal, too. I guess he was allowed his skepticism.

“Please, Anita,” Crispin said, tugging a little harder against the other man’s hand on his arm.

I’d seen that look in enough faces to understand it. Alex could say it was tiger magic, but it looked like what I’d accidentally done to a few of the vampires and wereanimals in St. Louis. It was Belle Morte’s power to be able to roll someone with lust, love, heart’s desire. I had the ability to own someone. Trouble was I wasn’t much into ownership. If I wanted to own something that would give me undying loyalty, I’d buy a dog.

I looked into those blue tiger eyes, and Richard was right, it was the look that Requiem had given me once. We’d freed him, because he was a master vampire, and had enough power, with help, to free himself. The help had been telling him that I’d never touch him again unless he freed himself. Reverse psychology, but it worked. Sort of. Requiem still liked me a lot better than I wanted him to like me.

“Go with Alex, Crispin. When you’re both cleaned up, call first, but I won’t just cast you out. Okay?”

The look of relief in his face made me a little sick to my stomach. I hadn’t done this on purpose. Shit.

“Why aren’t you as affected as he is?” Richard asked.

Alex answered, “I told you, it hits the young men harder. Ones who haven’t been mated before. I’m older than I look, too.”

“I’d say thirty, maybe a little over,” Richard said.

“You’re off by a decade and some change.”

“Do all the weretigers wear this well?” I asked.

“Those of us of pure blood, yes.” He put his sunglasses on, then reached for the doorknob with a firm grip on Crispin’s arm.

“So you shouldn’t have been forced to answer my call,” I said.

He looked back at me, his eyes lost behind the black lenses. “No, I shouldn’t have. Only the head of a clan can call all the unmated males regardless of age or experience. If you were a real weretiger from just one clan, it would be seen as a direct challenge to the clan leader’s authority, and she’d have to kill you.”

“But because I called to all the clans, they don’t know what to do with me,” I said.

“I’d bet that, but then I’ve spent the last two days with you, here. I’ll try to call my family and see what my queen is planning to do. Just like you want privacy to talk with the wolves, I want it to talk to the tigers. So we’ll clean up. I’ll make some calls. We’ll call you, and we’ll go from there. Hopefully, I’ll drop Crispin off here, then go to work.”

“Why hopefully?” I asked.

“I may not be looking at you with big doe eyes, but trust me, girl, I do feel it. You’ve rolled me, make no mistake about that, but I am Li Da of the Red clan, son of Queen Cho Chun. If I’d been female I would have been groomed to lead after her. But even being just a man, my bloodline means something. It gives me certain protections from the powerful bitches. My mother has conspired for years to get me close enough to one of the clan queens to be called to breed. She’ll be thrilled that you managed to get through all my shields. Baby or no baby, she’ll invite you to join our clan, because once you’ve broken a male tiger to your call this roughly, I can’t really say no. Not if you force it.” His voice was so bitter that it almost hurt to hear it.

I don’t know what I would have said to all that, but Shang-Da saved me from having to say anything. “You don’t look Chinese or Korean.”

“We never did. It’s one of the reasons they were able to kill us off. We couldn’t blend in.