"Guards, leave us."
"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Truth said.
"I am sure," Claudia said, "it's a bad idea."
"We need to discuss some very personal issues. You are not privy to them, now go."
Claudia and Truth looked at me. Fredo and Wicked kept the vampires in their line of sight, which wasn't easy since they were across from each other, but the men managed.
"Don't look at her," Asher said. "Your master has told you to leave. Didn't you hear him?"
"He's not my master," Claudia said. "I just work here."
"He is ours," Wicked said.
"No," Truth said, "he's not."
The brothers looked at each other and then both of them looked at me. I got a hint of maybe what Asher was meaning. "If Jean-Claude says go, go. We'll be all right."
"Bad idea," Claudia said.
"Very bad idea," Fredo said.
"I trust Jean-Claude and I trust Asher."
That earned me a look from Asher that wasn't arrogant or hostile. It was almost a pained look, and then he was back to being gorgeous and unreadable.
The guards started to move toward the curtains in the direction that Jason and J.J. had gone. Asher called out, "Perses, Dares, I want you to stay."
The two werehyenas hesitated. It was the shorter, dark one, Perses, who said, "We're hired to guard Jean-Claude and his people."
"I'm not talking about who signs your paychecks," Asher said. "I'm talking about who is your master in this room."
"Don't do this," Micah said, and that one sentence let me know he'd seen some danger that I was still oblivious to.
"Will you come over here and offer up your neck to me, leopard king?" Asher asked.
Nathaniel moved in front of Micah. "I will."
"And you are tasty, mon minet, but I know you will not fight me. You and I have no quarrel about dominance."
Micah took his arm and pulled him back. "This isn't about sex; it's about power, Nathaniel. He wants me to acknowledge him as more powerful."
"There were other things I wanted from you, Micah, but wasn't it Machiavelli who said, 'It is better to be loved than feared, but if you cannot be loved, then fear will do.' Well, you don't love me, so I will settle."
"You are not doing all this just because I don't like boys," Micah said.
Asher laughed again, and this one hurt, as if the sound of it had bits of glass to rend the skin. It was an illusion, a vampire power, and I should have been proof against it; that I wasn't meant that Asher had grown in power since last he'd tried shit like this.
"When I believed that I let it go, but I saw you tonight at the dance. I saw you with your kitten, and you like him well enough."
"Wait, are you doing all this because you think Micah is . . . doing Nathaniel, but not you? That's such a girl reason for a fight."
"No, it's not," Asher said. "It's a very male reason for a fight. A man's ego can only take so much rejection, Anita."
"Oh my God," Micah said.
Again he was ahead of me. "What? What did you figure out that I haven't?"