“We haven’t agreed to you staying for the personal talk, but let’s just do the power test and we’ll go from there,” Micah said.

“Just let me say that the next time you have serious reservations about sharing me with more people, don’t be the one who brings the subject up,” I said.

He let go of my hand, and I didn’t try to keep holding on. “You don’t like Envy well enough to be in the bed with her when she’s with Jean-Claude, or Richard.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just pointing out that I compromise a lot better with your male lovers than you do with the only other woman who’s crossed the line to becoming a regular lover for any of us.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight?” I asked.

He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face as if scrubbing something away. “I don’t know, maybe.”

“It is very rare for you not to be the diplomat, mon chat,” Jean-Claude said.

“It’s just Cynric is like my little brother. Nathaniel calls him a brother-husband and I understand that. There’s no weirdness between Cynric and anyone else in our inner circle, but Dev is truly bisexual, as much as Nathaniel is, which means that there are expectations from him that there won’t be from others.”

“Bisexual and male doesn’t mean I want to fuck you, Micah,” Dev said, and he was finally getting angry, too.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“How did you mean it, then?” Dev’s energy was starting to radiate out like a stove being slowly turned up.

“I’m as happy as I’ve ever been in my life, Dev. I don’t want that screwed up because of some ancient prophecy, or anything else. I’ve got two people that I love and that love me; we all want to marry each other, and I’m being forced to include another person that we’re not in love with, and it scares the shit out of me. What would you do if things were perfect between you, Asher, and Kane, but you were being forced to add a fourth person?”

Dev opened his mouth, closed it, and finally said, “I’d be pissed.”

“Exactly,” Micah said.

“But you’re the one who brought it up earlier,” I said.

“I did, because what if by refusing to risk screwing up my own happily-ever-after, I cause the Great Evil to rise again and destroy not only you, Nathaniel, and Jean-Claude, but everyone and everything? The destruction of civilization as we know it seems a high price to pay for not wanting to add another person to our commitment ceremony.”

Crispin pointed a thumb in Micah’s direction. “What he said.”

Dev’s energy had quieted. “I’m sorry, Micah, I didn’t understand it like that. I think if I were in love I might let the whole world go to hell rather than risk my own happiness.”

“I’ve seen you risk your life to save the day,” I said.

Dev gave me a smile that managed to be more sad than anything else. “But that was before I saw Asher after months apart from him and realized just how much I loved him. It was before I thought I had a chance at what you, Micah, and Jean-Claude have. I was raised being told my life was at the disposal of the Master of Tigers once he, or she, appeared, but no one ever explained what to do about love. I mean, they covered lust, because if one of the vamps from Belle Morte’s bloodline was our master, then sex would be a given, but love . . . No one ever talked to us about that.”

Crispin said, “So you’d lay down your life, but not your heart, for Anita?”

Dev shrugged those big shoulders. “I’ll do my duty, but if I had the level of commitment from Asher that Micah has from the people in his life, I’d make that my priority.”

“Love can unman you,” Jean-Claude said.

We all looked at him.

He gave that graceful almost-shrug that meant everything, nothing, or some emotion in between depending on his facial expression, or the timing. “I have loved people more than I loved my duty. It can be wonderful, and terrible.”

“How is it terrible?” Crispin asked.

“Because, mon ami, sometimes if you do not do your duty, then a kingdom can be lost, and you must weigh your love, or even your lover, against the lives of many more. It is a terrible choice.”

“That sounds like personal experience,” I said.

He looked at me with a pleasant but unreadable face. The shielding between us was as tight as he could make it. Whatever memory was behind his words, he didn’t want to share it. I had my own share of things that I’d rather not share, so I’d learned not to pry. Sometimes you really did want the sleeping dogs to keep napping, because once they woke up they tried to tear your throat out.

“Our choice isn’t that hard today,” Micah said. “Right now we just need to figure out if the power rush between Dev, Anita, and me works every time, or if it’s a special-occasion rush.”

“I’ve always admired how you try to keep everyone on track,” Crispin said.

Micah nodded. “Thank you, but let’s test Dev with us, and if that just works, we’ll try it with one of you.”

“It’s a plan,” Crispin said.

“Yes,” Micah said, “it is.”

23

JEAN-CLAUDE OBSERVED THAT the very first time we met Dev it had been the two of us and then Micah had joined us, so we tried it in that order again. Metaphysics wasn’t very science-like sometimes, but now that we knew the phenomenon could be duplicated, we could still use the scientific method to learn more faster.