Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

“And what way is that?” Crispin asked. He leaned forward, his long arms clasped on the table in front of him. When I’d met him he’d seemed like just another handsome stripper that I’d managed to accidentally attract, but the press of intelligence in his blue tiger eyes, the demand in his face, the set of his shoulders, showed just how much more there was to him than the body that made it rain money onstage. Domino sitting beside him was shorter, looked a little stockier, but it was the extra muscle from working out with the other bodyguards; with his hair mostly white with only a black curl here and there, he and Crispin looked more alike than normal. You had to look past the tiger eyes the color of flames to see it, but it was there in the bone structure. I realized that I didn’t see the two of them this close together that often. Most of the dancers didn’t hang out with the guards, or hit the gym at the same time for the same kind of workouts. They weren’t technically cousins, because Domino had been an orphan found and adopted by the white tiger clan, but centuries of inbreeding in the clans had left its mark on both of them.

Dev answered, “A lot of straight guys will share a woman with you, but they put rules in place about how much touching of each other you can do, and for Micah that’s no touching. We use Anita like a bridge, or a shield between us.”

“I’m not that into men, it’s nothing personal.”

Dev nodded again, then looked at Micah. “You’ve liked me less since you realized that Nathaniel and I would do things together that you won’t do with him.”

Micah’s face darkened and I felt the first prickle of his beast, which meant what Dev had said was true and had pissed him off.

I stared at one of my other halves. How had I missed this whole thing? I had to have been in the bed when things were happening, because Dev and Micah were never in the same bed without me, but then I realized that Nathaniel mentioning Dev earlier as a potential shared husband might have had more behind it than just their shared bisexuality. Had he and Dev had more alone time than I knew?

“Okay, I’m just going to say it, I’ve missed something big. I’m sorry to everyone, but we need to step back and fill me in.”

“We don’t need to be here for this,” Domino said, and stood up.

“But you do need to be here for the power question,” Micah said. He turned to Dev. “Can we discuss the magic first, and then we can let Crispin and Domino out of the personal business.”

Dev nodded.

Micah turned to the other tigers. “I want to see if the power jumps between Anita, Dev, and me again. If it does, then I’ll have us try it with Crispin. If it happens between the three of us, we’ll try with Domino, and I think that may be a big enough sampling that we’ll just assume it would happen with all the tigers.”

“What if it only happens with Dev?” Crispin asked.

“Then the two of you can go, and we’ll discuss the metaphysics and the personal stuff in private.”

The two of them exchanged a look, then looked back at Micah. “Metaphysics first and then we’ll discuss the personal stuff and whether we want to leave Dev on his own.”

Dev looked at them. “You don’t have to stay for me.”

“It’s not for you,” Crispin said, “it’s for all of us. Anita was supposed to look at all the tigers tonight and here we are in an isolated group, caught up in some new magic. It keeps distracting us from what we say is our goal.”

“And what goal is that?” I asked, and knew my voice wasn’t entirely friendly.

Crispin gave me a look that wasn’t entirely friendly either. “To make sure the Mother of All Darkness does not rise again. It should be everyone’s goal, Anita, not just the clan tigers, and everyone should be dedicated to making certain the prophecy is fulfilled as completely as possible.”

“We are,” I said.

“You don’t really believe you need to marry one of us to finish the prophecy, Anita. You’ve made that clear.”

I sighed, and would have let go of Micah’s hand, but he held on. Jean-Claude was just still under my hand so I stopped touching him. If he wanted to “go away” while he was still sitting beside me, fine.

“Jean-Claude and I are willing to let Anita add another man or woman to our commitment ceremony, and bring them into our bed. I think we’re taking the prophecy pretty seriously,” Micah said.

I looked at him. “You’re the one who brought up the whole marrying-a-weretiger thing, not me.”

“I think it’s necessary, but am I thrilled with sharing you with another person, especially another man? Not entirely. I see it as necessary, and that’s not the same thing as wanting it.”

“I’m not going to be forced to marry anyone that I don’t want to marry.”

“See, none of you believe,” Crispin said, voice low.

“We believe enough for Anita to interview more weretigers.”

“Why don’t you just marry Cynric? He’s the one who’s already in the house with you,” Domino asked.

I looked down, fighting not to make eye contact, or to lower any shields between me and the tigers in the room. I didn’t want to share my revelation with anyone, and definitely not with any other tigers besides Cynric, though I wasn’t sure it was a really good idea to even tell him. I was still too confused about it myself.

“Cynric was happy to entertain the idea of another woman added to our household,” Jean-Claude said in his most pleasant and emptiest voice.

Crispin shook his head. “But you didn’t interview anyone, did you? You had a metaphysical crisis and it’s all back-burner again.”

“They couldn’t have planned my fight with Thorn,” Dev said.

“No, but there is always something that can be used as a legitimate excuse to postpone things that Anita, or Micah, or Jean-Claude doesn’t want to address, and there always will be something.”

Domino was looking uncomfortable, as if he wanted to push his chair farther away so it was clear that either he didn’t agree with everything Crispin was saying, or he didn’t want to get included if we got angry.

“It is true that there will always be a crisis to attend to,” Jean-Claude said.

I frowned at him. “We don’t do it on purpose.”

“No, but you admit that there is always something, right?” Crispin asked.

Micah finally said, “I can’t disagree.”

“Good, then test the magic, or whatever it is with Dev, and if it works again try it with me; if it only works with Dev we’ll see what comes next.”

“We haven’t agreed to you staying for the personal talk, but let’s just do the power test and we’ll go from there,” Micah said.

“Just let me say that the next time you have serious reservations about sharing me with more people, don’t be the one who brings the subject up,” I said.

He let go of my hand, and I didn’t try to keep holding on. “You don’t like Envy well enough to be in the bed with her when she’s with Jean-Claude, or Richard.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just pointing out that I compromise a lot better with your male lovers than you do with the only other woman who’s crossed the line to becoming a regular lover for any of us.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight?” I asked.

He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face as if scrubbing something away. “I don’t know, maybe.”

“It is very rare for you not to be the diplomat, mon chat ,” Jean-Claude said.

“It’s just Cynric is like my little brother. Nathaniel calls him a brother-husband and I understand that. There’s no weirdness between Cynric and anyone else in our inner circle, but Dev is truly bisexual, as much as Nathaniel is, which means that there are expectations from him that there won’t be from others.”