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By Root 1196 0

laugh, which, even through the hardest shielding I had, made me shiver, and not from fear. I caught Richard’s movement out of the corner of my eye. He’d shivered, too. For the first time, I wondered how much of Jean-Claude’s abilities worked on Richard. I was terribly heterosexual, and sometimes I just didn’t think outside that box. Richard didn’t like boys, so Jean-Claude didn’t affect him the way he did me. That’s what I’d believed, now I wondered if Richard had more problems with Jean-Claude than I’d thought. If you were terribly hetero, but Jean-Claude’s powers could affect you, you had a problem if you were a man. The fact that it had never occurred to me before, proved beyond a doubt that sometimes I just wasn’t bright about the men around me.

“But before we get up close, I’ve got to get this stuff off of me. It’s flaking, and I just don’t feel clean.”

“That would give us time to have the sheets changed, perhaps,” Jean-Claude said. He touched the drying, caked sheets. “I have never seen a bed where more than one lycanthrope has shifted. It is, how do you say, a mess.”

His English was better than that, even for slang. He was back to being pleased with himself, and I didn’t know why. If I dropped shields enough for him to talk inside my head, I’d also have more of Richard in my head. I didn’t want that, so I’d have to ask him later, or I’d figure it out. Whatever.

“I’ll make the shower quick,” I said, and started for the far door.

“If it was him going into the shower,” Richard jerked a thumb at Jean-Claude, “I wouldn’t believe quick, but you I’ll believe.”

That one comment made me wonder how much time Richard had spent with Jean-Claude when I wasn’t around. I didn’t say it out loud, though, I am getting smarter. Richard was uncomfortable enough with Jean-Claude. I didn’t need to add to it.

“We will be here when you are finished, ma petite. Hopefully with the bed in better order.” He was standing looking down at it, as if he wasn’t sure it could really be fixed.

“Why not use your room?” Richard asked.

“Asher is in my bed. Now he is dead, and ma petite finds that disturbing. If he woke in the middle of the feeding, I think you, Richard, would find it disturbing.”

Richard stood and just huddled in his jean jacket. “Disturbing. You could call it that.” He didn’t sound happy, and I wondered if there was some incident between him and Asher I should know about. Probably not. None of my business.

I had to walk back to the bed and hunt for my holstered gun underneath the pillows. I sort of waved it at them both. “I wouldn’t want this thrown down the laundry chute.”

Jean-Claude waved me toward the bathroom. “Go, shower, ma petite, we will be ready if you are not too quick.”

“We” will be ready, he’d said. Didn’t I have enough “wes” in my life? I went for the shower and left them debating on whether the bed would hold, or whether it would be safer to simply remove the frame entirely. It wasn’t until I closed the door behind me that I thought to wonder why we needed the bed. Jean-Claude could feed on Richard kneeling on the floor, couldn’t he? If this was my first chance to touch both men at the same time in months, then I preferred not to be covered in drying goop. But once I was clean, we could still all do it on the floor. We didn’t need the bed.

I thought about going back out and telling them that, but didn’t. No matter what else, they were both still men, and men feel better when they have something to do. They could straighten the bed and sheets and get everything all neat and tidy. It would keep them from having any more of those awkward silences. Or, that was the hope.

57

WHEN I STEPPED out of the shower, my black robe was hanging on the back of the door. How had I not seen that, or heard it? If Jean-Claude could do that while I was in the shower, and me have no hint, then I was shielding too tight. In shielding this hard, I was losing some of my awareness of my surroundings. Not good.

I dried off, wrapped a towel around my hair, and put the robe on. I’d have given a great deal for clean underwear,