“Envy,” Domino said.

“No, Domino, we agreed to talk on Jade’s behalf, so let’s talk about it.”

“Talk about what?” I asked.

“Jade is your lover, your only female lover.”

“I’m aware of that.” I tried not to hunch my shoulders or get embarrassed; I still wasn’t completely comfortable with having a woman in my life like a man. Yes, I had metaphysical powers that I didn’t have complete control over, and the power that had attracted Jade to me, and me to her, had been a great icebreaker, but it didn’t help me deal with the fact that I’d never been attracted to women before, or that when I was most into the sex with her, I kept forgetting I wasn’t male. I had centuries of memories in my head from Jean-Claude of the women and men he’d seduced, or who had seduced him, but I didn’t have the equipment to act on those memories.

“She needs sex so good she forgets everything.”

“She hasn’t complained to me,” I said, and tried not to sound as grumpy as I felt.

“She wouldn’t, would she? She’s so happy to be free from the master vampire that tormented her for centuries that anything is a step up.”

“He was an evil bastard to her.”

“She’s happy, Anita. She loves being with you and she’s beginning to trust men again thanks to Domino, Nathaniel, and Jean-Claude, but she still prefers women, and you’re her only woman.”

“I’ve offered that she should find another woman if she wants to.”

“Neither Domino nor Jade has found other lovers. Of all the tigers that are bound to you, they’re two of the few that haven’t gone elsewhere.”

“Is that like a black tiger clan culture thing?” I asked, and looked at Domino as I said it.

“I don’t know. I was raised by the white tigers. Crispin and I were raised together, but he’s found other lovers,” Domino said. He’d been a foundling taken in by the white tigers, and had actually never been with another black tiger until Jade. We’d all believed the entire clan had been wiped out.

“So why haven’t you?” I asked.

“Jade and I both believe that if we find other people, you’ll see it as delegating us to them. You won’t feel you have to date us, because we’ll be dating other people. We’ve seen you do it with others, Crispin included.”

I thought about that for a moment. Was that true? Was my encouraging them to find other lovers a way of getting them out of my bed, if not my life?

“I hadn’t realized I was doing that, but no one person, not even me, can truly date this many people. I can fuck, but I can’t do the emotional stuff, the cute stuff, the things that really make it a relationship; there just isn’t enough of me to go around like that. I’m feeling pressured by everyone to take care of them, and I’ve reached a limit. I can’t take care of this many people as intimately as most of you want me to, I just don’t know how to do that. I asked Jean-Claude and even he didn’t know how to have real relationships with this many people, and he’s been a ladies’ man, and a gentlemen’s man, for centuries.”

“I hadn’t really thought about it from that perspective. I don’t think . . . no, I know I couldn’t date this many people, but they’re all metaphysically tied to you and Jean-Claude and Micah, and there’s no untying those bindings except by death,” Envy said.

“Anita cut the tie between Jade and her first vampire master,” Domino said.

“Yes, but Anita is the Mother of the Dawn, the Queen of Tigers; she breaks servant from master the way that the old Queen of All Darkness did. Even the Queen never broke bonds between herself and any of her own servants,” she said.

“So short of death or a metaphysical miracle, the bonds between Anita and all of us are immobile, unbreakable,” Jason said.

“Yes,” Envy said.

“I’m saying here out loud today that I can’t cope with this many people, not and do a good job of dating them, caring for all their needs. Hell, if I hadn’t been metaphysically screwed over, I wouldn’t have chosen most of the people I’m having sex with, not that it’s not great sex,” I said, kissing Domino on the cheek, “but it’s like I’m suddenly insanely attracted to people I don’t have much in common with, so the sex is mind-blowing, but the conversation in between not so much.”

“The ardeur is like a date-rape drug that doesn’t go away,” Envy said.

“Not my favorite analogy, but yeah,” I said.

“But this drug affects both parties,” Jason said.

“Not always. I talked about it with Jean-Claude, and the originator of the ardeur as a vampire ability, Belle Morte, was never affected by it; she was more like a contagion.”

“Beautiful Death,” I said, “making people sick with desire.”

“More like addicts,” Jason said.

Nathaniel and I nodded. “Addicted to love isn’t just a song lyric,” I said.

I turned to Domino. “Do you crave me like that? I mean, do the others who have found other lovers jones after sex with me like a junkie?”

“Sometimes.”

I felt terrible then.

“Wait, but Anita doesn’t crave them the same way, or she wouldn’t have to ask that question.”

“When the ardeur first came for me I had almost no control over it, so I was bound as tight as the people I fed on, but I got more control of it and I could protect myself from falling in love.”