Bullet Page 0,27

would be a change,” Micah said.

There was a flash of anger across Richard’s handsome face, and then he nodded. “I deserved that.” He looked at me then and said, “Anita, I don’t know what to say to you.”

I sighed. “You said you came here to make things better; do that, make them better, and we’ll go from there.” I met the perfect brown of his eyes, and he nodded.

He turned to Jean-Claude. “I don’t know what to say to you either, Jean-Claude.”

“Start with what you are doing here, Richard,” he said.

Richard moved into the group of us. Asher actually moved a little closer to Jean-Claude, as if he would block the other man. Normally that would have been enough to stop Richard in his tracks, but tonight he kept coming. He swept his hair to one side to expose the long, smooth, muscled line of his neck. “First, I would greet the Master of the City.”

I felt Jean-Claude go very still beside me, sinking into that stillness that the old vampires could do. It proved that he was as unsure of what was happening as I was, and that he didn’t trust this new, more cooperative Richard. We were both expecting him to come in and try, but in the end he would leave us more hurt than when we started, and he would fail us at the critical moment. He had taught us that.

Jean-Claude let go of both my hand and Asher’s. He would take the greeting offered—the very kind of greeting that Asher had been trying to force on all of us just minutes ago. It was an almost surreal turn of events, because Richard didn’t offer this greeting to anyone, or never had before, not willingly.

Jean-Claude put his hands on the other man’s shoulders to steady himself, and leaned in and laid the barest of kisses on the other man’s neck. Then he leaned back and studied Richard. “Why are you here?”

“I would stand at your side tonight as I will tomorrow. You need your wolf tonight, Jean-Claude.”

“We do not need you tonight, Ulfric,” Asher said, and he came up behind Jean-Claude, sliding his arms around the other man’s waist and putting his face next to Jean-Claude’s. Asher hid his scars with his hair, but the face that showed was arrogant, sensual, and possessive.

I expected Richard to react with disgust, or anger, and he wasn’t comfortable with it, but he said, “Oh, I think Jean-Claude does, and Anita does. I think they need me a lot tonight.”

“They’ve agreed to bed me tonight, Ulfric. Jean-Claude and I will be lovers tonight with nothing denied us.” He smiled, most unpleasantly, at the other man.

Richard smiled back, and his held anger as Asher’s held cruelty. Really, when you came down to it, they could both be pretty unpleasant. I’d never thought of it that way before, but it was true.

Richard had swallowed his power back as he came through the door, being polite to shield. Now the first trickle of warm, vibrating power flowed over us. I shivered where it touched, clutching at Micah’s hand. Jean-Claude didn’t so much shiver as just smooth the lapels of his jacket, but it was a nervous gesture, I knew that.

“I won’t offer sex to you, Asher, but other than that, I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Richard,” I said, “you don’t mean that.”

He looked at me and held his hand out to me. “If you and Jean-Claude are going to do it, then I do mean it.”

I stared at his hand. “What are you offering?” I asked.

“Take my hand, Anita, please, for power, for shared power let Jean-Claude’s triumvirate be everything it was meant to be tonight while he embraces Asher.”

Micah squeezed my hand. I looked at him, and his eyes told me, Do it. I trusted him, and so I reached out. The moment Richard’s hand touched mine, the power rushed over my skin like a warm bath that raised every hair on my head. My head went back, eyes closed, and the power hit Micah’s hand in mine and kept spilling into Nathaniel. Leopard was my animal to call, and Nathaniel was to me what Richard was to Jean-Claude. The last time we’d tried to combine my triumvirate with Jean-Claude’s, Richard hadn’t cooperated.

Jean-Claude’s hand touched my shoulder, and the power spread to him. He moved his hand to the side of my face, and bare skin was always better. It was like the power was a deep, still pool of water, and that last