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good plan. I heard myself say, “Yes, please,” before I’d finished thinking anything.

Envy made a bedroom sound, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her and Jean-Claude kissing. She was pushing his jacket off his shoulders, while she made small eager noises at his mouth.

Jean-Claude drew back enough to say, “Ma petite, the bedroom?”

“I don’t know,” I said, but I did, or I knew what I wanted to do.

Micah’s voice. “The bed is more comfortable.”

I turned and saw one of the loves of my life calmly urging me to take the bed. Nathaniel was on his feet. “I want to watch.”

“Yes,” I said.

Mephistopheles said, “Sure.” He kissed me, and he tasted so good, so right. His hands lifted my shirt out of my pants, and the moment his hands slid around my bare waist it was my turn to make eager noises. It was the way I’d been with Micah from the beginning, and Haven. That thought helped me swim up through all that skin hunger.

I looked for Micah and found him watching with calm eyes.

Jean-Claude said, “Ma petite.”

I turned in Mephistopheles’ arms while he played with my hair and kissed down the side of my face. Envy was kissing her way down the side of Jean-Claude’s neck. Her hands had managed to strip off his jacket, and her fingers were fumbling at his shirt. “The tigers seem eager,” he managed to say.

“Do you want to touch her, like roll around naked on top of her?”

His eyes fluttered back into his head as he answered, “Eagerness can be contagious, ma petite.”

That was a polite way of saying yes. Mephistopheles pulled my shirt over my head and dropped it to the floor. Whatever we were going to do, we needed to do it soon. He dropped to his knees so he could nuzzle my breasts above the black lace of my bra. Yeah, soon.

The big wolf got to his feet growling softly, but even soft it was like listening to the deep, bass growl of some dangerous motor. If you heard that sound in the dark, you’d be afraid.

“Don’t make this harder, Richard,” I said.

He gave me a look out of his wolf eyes that was all too human, and even through the fur and the wolf face I knew that look. He was back to pouting. I so didn’t need this.

I turned to Micah as Mephistopheles bit into the mound of my breast. It made me gasp. I looked down to find his blue and gold-brown eyes staring up at me. His eyelashes were very long, very dark, and framed his pale eyes as if they’d been picked especially to make his eyes stand out, as if whoever shopped for him had paid extra for the pretty parts.

He rubbed his face against my hand, closing his eyes and luxuriating into it as only a cat can. He was gorgeous and I wanted him, but I didn’t know him. I was tired of trusting my life and everything I loved to strangers, no matter how pretty they were. I held my other hand out to Micah. He put his head to one side, sending all those deep brown curls sliding across one shoulder, but he came to me without any questions. He simply took my hand, and the moment he did it was as if every beast inside me looked up at once. My skin ran hot with the brush of every beast I had. The hair on my body rose and made me shiver. I realized why I hadn’t been able to bond with Haven, or any other animal king: because I was truly Nimir-Ra to Micah’s Nimir-Raj. I had my king.

Mephistopheles opened his eyes, and I could see the hairs on his arms standing up in a golden shiver. “You smell like everything at once. What is that?”

“Micah is my Nimir-Raj. We are a true mated pair.”

“Then there is no room for me,” he said, and he sounded sad.

“There is always room,” Micah said.

“But not for another king,” I said. “You can be mine, but I already have a king.”

“He’s only leopard. You need a golden tiger.” Pride said it, from the side where he was hugging his arms tight. I didn’t know if he was getting the goose-bump run of energy, or if he was fighting not to touch one of us.

Envy gave a soft moan behind us. It made me turn to find that she had climbed Jean-Claude, wrapping her long legs around his