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Nicky fight him, Haven would still be dead.”

“But Noel wouldn’t be,” I said.

Pity, sorrow filled his face as he took both my hands in his. “Anita, how do you think I feel? Noel died saving me. If it had been one of the guards, I’d be sad, but it’s their job. It wasn’t Noel’s job to die for me.”

“God, Nathaniel, I hadn’t thought . . .” I hugged him. “I’m sorry; I’m being a selfish bastard. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t ask Noel to do it.”

Nathaniel pulled me away from him enough to see my face. “It isn’t your fault, either, and you didn’t ask Noel to give his life for mine.”

We stared at each other, inches away, our hands on each other’s arms. There was pain in both our faces.

“I don’t mean to be callous,” Nicky said, “but whatever you’re feeling, get over it. We need both of you to meet the tigers and be charming and sexy. Guilt is not sexy.”

I gave him an unfriendly look, but Nathaniel said, “He’s right.”

I looked back at him. “How can you just . . .”

“Forget?”

I nodded.

“I won’t forget, but we need to make this city, this territory, as safe as possible. That means we need the tigers, Anita. We need for you and Jean-Claude to be the Master of Tigers.”

“I don’t know if I can do this, be this.”

“Just go make nice with the tigers that Micah picked, that’s all, don’t worry about more.”

“I could have sex with them, I think, but it’s the idea of keeping them. They’re strangers and suddenly they get to be in the bed with us, too. I’m not getting enough alone time with you and Micah now.”

He smiled then and drew me into his arms. “I miss it just being the three of us, too.”

“Should my feelings be hurt?” Nicky asked.

I looked at him, but he was smiling. “Yes, they should be,” I said, “but they aren’t, are they?”

“No, because my primary drive is for you to be happy. Micah and Nathaniel make you happy.”

“Aren’t you allowed to work for your own happiness?” I asked.

“I don’t think that’s what a vampire’s Bride is for,” he said, and he sounded so calm about it.

“What are they for?” I asked.

“Cannon fodder, unquestioning obedience, I don’t know.”

“You were afraid of what I did to Jamil and Shang-Da in the hallway.”

He frowned and looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, that scared me.”

“But if you have to obey me, then if I asked, you couldn’t refuse me, could you?”

He frowned, thinking about it. “I think I’d let you do anything you wanted to me, but I’d rather not. That was so much power and it felt so good when you shared, but I wouldn’t want to be the wereanimal you were sucking energy off of.”

“Is that where all that energy came from?” Dino asked.

The three of us nodded.

“It was more powerful than the ardeur when you share that,” Stephen said.

“I wasn’t feeding off their sex. I was feeding off their lives, their energy. It’s more power because I’m taking more away, I think.”

“Did they understand what they were volunteering for?” Nicky asked.

“They offered it to save their Ulfric,” Nathaniel said.

“They’re his Sköll and Hatí; they’re supposed to be willing to give their lives for their Ulfric,” Stephen said.

“After seeing the looks on their faces afterward, I don’t think they’ll want me to feed from them again.”

“They were scared of you,” Nicky said.

I nodded. “My allies shouldn’t be afraid of me.”

“It’s better to be loved than feared, but if you can’t be loved, then fear will do,” Dino said. “I’m butchering the quote, but I like what it says.”

We all looked at him, and we must have looked surprised because he said, “Hey, I read.”

“I didn’t know you read Machiavelli,” I said.

“He was an interesting guy,” Dino said.

“That’s one way of putting it. But honestly, Dino, even though I do it myself, I worry that when you start quoting Machiavelli to justify your actions, you have ceased to be one of the good guys.”

“No, quoting Nietzsche does that. Machiavelli is just cool.”

Nathaniel said, “Just go meet the weretigers, Anita, no strings, no expectations. Just meet them and we’ll go from there.”

“Sounds fair,” I said.

“But . . . ,” he said, smiling.

I shrugged. “Let’s do this.”

“You’re feeling all monster because you killed Haven,” Dino said.

“I hadn’t thought that, exactly.”

“Yeah, you had,” he said, and that big, dark face had way too much going on in the eyes. He was so big and so much