I turned toward Asher, looked into that beautiful face, remembered the feel of his kiss, his body, his strength. “I don’t know what is broken inside you, but if you don’t work the issue it’s going to get you, or Kane, or both of you, killed.”

“You will kill us?”

“No, not if you don’t make me, but someone will. Narcissus would have if he’d seen you before Jean-Claude talked him down. You’re away from Belle’s court for the first time in a century, and it’s like you think none of us will hurt you.” I stepped up close enough that the oversized blue shirt brushed against me. It was too close, if I really thought he’d hurt me. I stared up at him, tried to see some comprehension in that gorgeous face, but he was hiding his emotions too hard, and it was like staring at a work of art. You could admire its beauty, but you couldn’t talk to it.

He started to put his arm around me; I thought he was going to kiss me, but I put my hand on his chest and stepped back out of arm’s reach. “The last time you kissed me during one of these little disagreements you damn near ate my lips off my face.”

“I am sorrier than I know how to express for that, Anita.”

“You’re sorry now, but in the heat of the moment you don’t think. Because we’re not cruel like Belle Morte you think we’re weak, but never mistake kindness for weakness, Asher. It’s not the same thing.”

“I understand,” he said.

“Do you? Do you really? Because I don’t think you do. I don’t know how to teach you this lesson without really hurting you. Is that what it takes to get you to behave like a thinking person? Do you only respond to cruelty?”

“No, no, that will not be necessary,” he said, voice as empty as he could make it.

“Look around you, Asher; we aren’t vampires that are bored with centuries of life so that we play at cruel games like children pulling the wings off flies. How Belle did her power plays was professional, but how she ran her court was indulgent amateur shit. I have enough memories to know that she wasted so many people, so much potential that could have helped her, and helped people around her. Jean-Claude regrets that waste and works to make his court different, better. Is there any regret in you, Asher?”

“Yes, of course, I regret some of what I’ve done over the centuries, we all do, even Belle.”

“She regrets losing your and Jean-Claude’s adoration, I’ve felt that when she tried to invade my head, but the only other thing she seems to regret is when things don’t go her way. Still, she’s far more practical than you are.”

“She is also more cruel.”

“Yeah, she is, but she never lets indulging her cruelty get in the way of business, and you let everything get in your way. If you had made Narcissus your animal to call you could have really brought something to the table, powerwise, but instead you threw it away on a whim to please your lover, and never gave a thought to what might happen afterward. It’s like you’re stuck at about fifteen and think nothing bad will happen to you.”

“I have had bad things happen, Anita.”

“I know, which makes your behavior all the more confusing to me.”

“Ma petite . . .” Jean-Claude came to us, but I put a hand up to stop him from coming closer.

“No, I’m pissed at you, too.”

“Why?” He looked genuinely surprised.

“Where were your bodyguards? Everyone else had guards with them, but not you. You are the motherfucking king of America, and you know that he’s dangerous when he’s like this. You should have had personal protection with you.”

“He was not allowed guards . . .”

“Stop talking,” I said.

He gave me narrow eyes.

“Be angry with me, that’s fine, but you have to start treating Asher like he is, not like you want him to be. He is childlike, in that throwing-temper-tantrums way. He breaks things and regrets it afterward, but the damage is done. I don’t want you to be part of that damage one day, Jean-Claude.”

“I would like to say that I would never hurt Jean-Claude, but Anita is too right. I do not think when I am in certain . . . moods. I don’t know why I do such things.”

“Then talk to that therapist we found for you, and figure it out, before you force me to kill you. Nicky’s right, Asher, it would kill something in me to do it, and Jean-Claude would never forgive me, but mark me on this, Asher.”

I went to him and touched his face, made sure he was looking down at me with all that golden hair and those eyes, that kissable mouth. I stared up into all that beauty and I said the truth. “Mark me on this, Asher, if you ever do anything that damages Jean-Claude’s power structure, or Micah’s work with the Coalition, without consulting them first, then you will be punished, and if you won’t take good treatment, I’ll find someone to give you bad treatment. If the only way you learn is by having the lesson carved into your skin, or painted in blood, or echoed in screams of pain . . . we can do that.”

“That will not be necessary,” he said quietly, and very slowly, very carefully, as if waiting for me to protest, he put his hand over mine where I touched his face.

“I hope not, because if pain doesn’t work, the only thing left is death. Do you understand that?” I spoke slowly, as carefully as his hand had touched mine.

“I do now,” he said.

“Good, good. Kane’s afraid of me now and that will help, but you aren’t afraid of me. I can’t make you afraid of me without damaging our relationship more than you already have today.”