Me walking in naked would definitely not be the style to which Rafael and I had become accustomed. I started to wonder about looking for a robe, or something, or texting Micah . . . and I realized that I’d left my phone in the locker with the weaponry. Sigh.

The door opened and Micah was there. His eyes went a little wide as he saw me, and then he smiled. It was a good smile, and the look in his eyes said plainly that he appreciated the possibilities of the view.

“The shower took longer than I’d planned, and I didn’t want to wake anyone in the bedrooms to get clothes.”

He grinned at my obvious discomfort. “It’s okay, Anita, you just surprised me, that’s all. You usually don’t like walking through the Circus without clothes.”

“Yeah, way too many new guards to say good morning to for my comfort,” I said, frowning.

He reached out to take my left hand like normal and found it full of gun. He switched to my right hand without missing a beat. “You don’t have to explain, or apologize.”

“It’s just a little . . . brazen for me.”

“Brazen?” Rafael said from inside the room, and followed it with a laugh.

“Laughing about this will not make me more comfortable, Rafael,” I said.

“Then I am no gentleman to increase your discomfort; please come inside. We can give you one of the extra sheets, if you truly wish to cover yourself.” See, very formal most of the time.

Micah led me into the dimly lit room. The lights were very low, because shapeshifters could be light sensitive when they were doing major healing. I didn’t hide behind him, but I did sort of make certain I wasn’t revealed completely in a sort of “ta-da” moment. I was engaged to Micah and had been having sex with Rafael for a year; I had no idea why I was this uncomfortable, but I let myself feel what I was feeling. Ignoring emotions doesn’t make them go away; I’d learned that the hard way.

Rafael lay on his stomach, the sheets neatly folded where the body curved down into the ass, leaving the long expanse of his upper back bare. If he had been one of my main lovers it would have been inviting, but he and I weren’t dating. He would never be my boyfriend, or anything I had a word for; we came together so I could feed the ardeur and he could gain a closer tie to the throne. It was like solving political problems by fucking, which on one hand sounded wrong, and on the other hand almost seemed a better system than normal politics.

“You are thinking very serious thoughts, Anita,” he said; his eyes were so dark that only the glitter of them catching the light let me know for sure he was looking at me.

“Would you understand if I said politics makes strange bedfellows?”

He laughed then, hard enough that he winced, hands digging into the covers, as he fought not to writhe in pain, which apparently would hurt more. Seeing him in that much pain took away my discomfort and replaced it with worry.

I went forward, still holding Micah’s hand. “I thought you’d be more healed by now.”

“So did I,” he said, in his deep voice, but there was more of an accent than normal, which meant either he was trying to play to his ethnicity, or he was stressed. He didn’t have to play the big bad Mexican boss for us, so stress it was.

I knelt down beside the bed and had to let go of Micah’s hand to lay my hand on Rafael’s arm. I still had the Sig in my left, though I was beginning to wonder what I was going to do with it, when I needed both my hands. “The doctors cleaned the wound out, right?”

“Yes.”

Micah answered before I could ask the next question. “They don’t know why he’s not healing faster.”

I looked up at Micah, then back to Rafael. “I see why you wanted me to come down and try healing with the ardeur now.”

“Rafael would also be more comfortable with my healing gifts with you here,” Micah said. Since his ability to call flesh, as the wereleopards call it, only worked if he licked and bit the healing into the flesh, I could sort of understand that.

I smiled and patted Rafael’s arm. “It’s a little too much like foreplay for comfort, isn’t it?”

He laughed again, but more carefully than he had before, so that he didn’t move his body as much. “Especially midback from behind.”

“It could be worse,” I said.

“How?” he asked.

“It could be your, um, very lower back,” I said, smiling.

He grinned then, a bright flash of teeth in the room’s gloom. “That is true, much more problematic.”

“Okay, I’ll hold Rafael’s hand while you try to heal him, but can you heal a wound this deep?”

“I’m not sure, but if I can’t it’s your turn to try to heal him with the ardeur, or the wolves’ munin.”

“Sexual either way,” I said.

He nodded. “We’re both aware of that.”

“Remember, Anita, I knew Raina when she was alive. I saw her use her healing gift on the werewolves, and it was very sexual. You carry her munin, her memory, inside you, which means it’s still her healing gift.”

“And you know how the ardeur works for me, better than most,” I said.

He smiled. “I do.”

“Almost all my power is either sex or death.”

“It is an interesting paradox that you represent fertility and death,” Rafael said.

“She raises the dead, so it’s giving life, not taking it,” Micah said.