“I don’t love Richard, but if Micah killed him, I’d have a hard time getting over it.”

“One of the reasons Richard isn’t my main lover is that he didn’t approve of me being willing to kill to prove my point. He wanted there to be a more civilized way to handle things.”

“Anita and Micah are almost equally ruthless,” Nathaniel said.

“You’re saying they both kill more easily than Richard.”

“Oh, hell yes,” he said.

“But you’re in love with Micah and Anita.”

“I am.”

“How can you say they’re both ruthless, if you love them?”

“Maybe part of what I love is their ruthlessness.”

“That’s just fucked up,” she said.

“Insulting us is not going to win you points,” I said.

“Sorry, but I just don’t understand. How do you really feel about loving people because they’re ruthless?”

“Safer,” Nathaniel said.

I squeezed his hand and we exchanged one of those loving looks. The fact that we did it while talking about the fact that we were willing to kill to defend the people we loved was just part of our special little snowflake of a love.

“The weretigers fight among themselves, but we don’t kill each other for dominance,” she said.

“You’re gold clan, which means there were never enough of you to risk death. You weren’t allowed to kill each other over dominance,” I said.

“There still aren’t enough of us to just kill each other over stupid things like this.”

“But there are lots of werewolves, and wereleopards,” Jason said.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“It’s a difference in culture between the animal groups. Tigers are matriarchal, which means the leaders don’t fight and kill each other to lead; they have champions for that, or enough psychic powers to just overpower everyone in the clan,” I said.

“Leopards don’t kill each other as much as the wolves do,” Nathaniel said.

“So why does Micah kill so easily when he’s a wereleopard?” she asked.

“Because Micah came up through a mixed animal group that was run like lions, wolves, and hyenas, which are three of the most violent subcultures we have,” Jason said.

I looked at him. “You’ve talked to Micah about this, haven’t you?”

“Here’s this new guy in town who’s an inch shorter than me and is everyone’s dominant leader. I wanted to know how he did it.”

“So you could do it, too?” I asked.

He shrugged, grinned, and then it faded to a smile, his eyes not exactly happy. “I don’t want it bad enough to do what Micah and you do. I acknowledged that, and moved on.”

“One of the few reasons that we would kill one of our own was if they picked a fight and killed another golden tiger,” Envy said.

“The wolves allow you to tap out of a fight before you get killed, but it’s up to the winner to grant mercy or take your life,” Jason said.

“How have you survived?” Envy asked.

“Most people in our pack like me.”

“So they don’t want to hurt you,” she said.

“And I’m not high enough in the pack structure, so fighting me won’t gain them anything.”

“And when death is a possibility, there has to be something to gain,” she said.

“Yes, or you have to hate someone enough to risk it.”

She shivered. “God, that is barbaric.”

“Richard prefers fights to be less than lethal, and if he thinks that you killed when you didn’t have to, you get punished, so it’s a softer pack structure than some,” Jason said.

What he didn’t say out loud was that I was the pack’s Bolverk, the doer of evil deeds. I was Richard’s punisher, his threat to bad little werewolves; in effect, I enabled him to keep his conscience and hands cleaner. I hadn’t taken the job to help Richard. I’d taken it to keep my friends like Jason, and others, safe from the other wolves, and from out-of-town werewolves trying to move in on our local pack, because Richard’s reputation was too soft.

Now it wasn’t a problem. Micah’s reputation and mine combined meant that animal groups that wanted to try to take over other cities stayed the fuck away from St. Louis. There were easier ways to die than coming here, and no, I didn’t feel bad about that. I’d seen too many people die because of territorial disputes between animal groups, or even vampires. We’d put a big sign over our territory saying, Nothing here is worth dying over, but if you insist, we will fucking kill you.

Harsh, maybe, but a scary reputation was about what you needed in the lycanthropy community—vampires, too. Publicly, we were all civilized; privately, not so much, or not always.

Domino walked in with his black-and-white curls still damp from the shower. The hair showed his mixed heritage, black tiger clan and white, but his eyes were pure black tiger, the color of fire: orange, red, bright, hot tiger eyes that couldn’t pass for human. They were such a startling color that it took a minute to see that he was handsome in his own right, and not just his bicolored hair and fire-colored eyes. He was five-ten, five-eleven, and was decked out in what had become the unofficial bodyguard uniform: black T-shirt, black pants, black shoes (usually boots), and weapons. Since we were in the house and didn’t have to worry about strangers, his shoulder holster complete with .45, extra ammo, and even his backup gun were all visible, if slightly camouflaged in black on black, like dangerous chameleons trying not to be seen in the bright, sunny kitchen.

He came over to me and gave me a kiss, because the rule was if we were sleeping together we could do the usual kiss as a greeting. The fact that we’d woken up together and already had sex, with Nathaniel joining in, meant we could have skipped the greeting, but I knew Domino wouldn’t. He didn’t get enough time with me to suit him, so he’d take all the attention he could get, and give. I didn’t hold it against him. I didn’t even blame him, but part of me felt the pressure from Domino and some of my other weretigers. A near-constant push to have more of me, more time, more love, more sex, and there just wasn’t any more of me to give to anyone. The sex was great, but I couldn’t be the emotional caretaker of this many people, which was why I’d encouraged some of them to find other partners to date-date. Domino hadn’t dated anyone else yet.

He turned from me and stared down at Envy. “Please, move,” he said.

“Why?” she asked, and took a sip of her tea as if to prove how cozy she was.

“Because until someone enters this room who is more intimate with Anita than I am, I get to sit on the other side of her, that’s what we worked out.”

“I know she’s the Queen of Tigers, even I feel the draw of her power, but really, you would all think she’s the only pussy”—and she put a little too much pause between—“cat in the world, the way all of you chase after her.”

“You’re in my seat,” Domino said, quietly.

“This can’t be your seat; you’re not over here much more often than I am.” Her voice was bland, but the point was sharp, because since it was her first time staying over here, it implied that Domino was even less in my life than was true, which was little enough.