"He can be, but I share as few secrets of the clan with outsiders as I can."
The man was silent for a moment, then said, "That is wise."
"I do my best. What is your name?"
"Why?"
"Because I'm talking to you and it's polite to know someone's name when you address them."
He hesitated and then said, "You can call me Donny."
"Call you Donny," I said.
"It will do until we see how much you can be trusted."
"Okay, Donny, where's Alex and why are you answering his phone?"
"Li Da is with our queen. She knew you would call him."
"She did, did she?"
"Queen Cho Chun said you would not be able to resist the call of each other, and she was correct."
I didn't know what to say to that. I was trying to feed the ardeur, basically a metaphysical booty call, but from the moment I'd accidentally tied Alex to me, his mother had been pushing for it to be more. She'd have preferred he settle down with a nice little weretigress, but she wanted me to choose among the clans and make Alex my official tiger king, which would make the red clan the top cat in the world of weretigers. I had no intention of doing that for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones was that neither Alex nor I wanted it. Not to mention that Jean-Claude and all the other men in my life would probably get pissy if I ever actually married anyone, especially if that one wasn't any of them. But I'd found that all the clan queens were pushy bitches, and serious as a heart attack about bloodlines, power, and marriage.
"Look, Donny, Alex is your clan prince, that's true, but he's also my tiger to call."
"Come to our meeting place, and if you can call him away from our queen's side then he is yours, but if you cannot then you are not the Mistress of Tigers."