“Are you upset about having to meet the tigers this soon?”

I took the exit carefully, forcing myself to pay attention. “Yeah,” I lied. Normally he’d be right, I’d be all resistant about having to meet people to be not only a new lover, but potentially someone we’d have a commitment ceremony with, but tonight all I could think about was Cynric and how I’d thought the issue was his age, when it was just an excuse not to look at the truth. I hated that I’d been that blind about myself. I could go have hors d’oeuvres and drinks or whatever with the weretigers and chat, be charming and vague. They could parade tigers all damn night in front of me; I didn’t have to pick anyone, and the moment I thought that, I realized that I was lying to Nathaniel, and Micah, and every important person in my life. Damn it, our relationships weren’t based on lies.

“What’s making you feel so unhappy?” Nicky said.

I didn’t want to explain, but I realized that the one person I really owed an explanation to was Cynric. “Cynric, I should have called him to let him know about tonight. He’s living with us and I didn’t even call him to give him a heads-up about tonight and the other weretigers.”

Nathaniel touched the side of my face, and my thoughts were too close to the surface. He got some of them direct, but the sharing made me swerve the car. “Jesus, Nathaniel,” I said, over the thudding of my heart in my throat.

He’d jerked back. “You usually shield better than this, Anita. You’re worried about Sin, but not just about calling him. I called him and he was pretty stoked at the idea that you’d be willing to look at another woman being added to our inner group.”

“Really, then why won’t he date anyone but me? I know some of the girls at school have been heartbroken about him being all poly-monogamous.”

“He sees it as adding to our family, and the woman would be your lover, too. She’d also be a clan tiger, so she wouldn’t expect her relationship with him to supersede yours.”

I glanced at him. “You and he have talked about it, haven’t you?”

Nathaniel nodded.

“We have to do something when you’re off raising the dead and chasing bad guys,” Nicky said.

I glanced behind at him, then forced myself to pay attention to the road again. I wanted to get angry about the fact that the men in my life had conspired against me to add another woman to our merry little band, but they all shared me with multiple men, and as Nathaniel had pointed out, most of them didn’t even get sexual contact from the rest of my lovers. They really were very good sports about it all, so it would just be churlish to complain, but . . . I so wanted to.

“Now you’re mad,” Nicky said. I shook my head. “I’m not.”

“I can feel it.”

“I’m trying not to be mad, because it’s not logical or fair.”

“Feelings aren’t fair, Anita,” Nathaniel said. “They’re just how we feel.”

“True, but I’m trying to be less bitchy about mine.”

He smiled. “You’re grumpy, not bitchy.”

I gave him a raised eyebrow. “And the difference between the two is?”

He laughed. “If you were bitchy you wouldn’t be trying to do better.”

I smiled, then laughed just a little. “Fine, okay, but I am trying.”

“We appreciate that.”

“We love you,” Nicky said.

“We do,” Nathaniel said.

“But you’d like a chance to love a few more people,” I said.

“If more of the other men were bisexual it wouldn’t be an issue for me.”

“Another woman would be nice, but she’s not going to enjoy sex the way I like it,” Nicky said.

“You don’t do super-rough all the time,” I said.

“No, but even my mild is too much for most women.”

“You had to have vanilla sex with some of the women you pretended to date when you were undercover,” Nathaniel said.

“Yeah, and it’s better than masturbating, but it’s still holding back.”

“When sex is supposed to be about letting go,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“So, you don’t think another woman will do you any good.”

“Not really, but that’s okay.”

“Is it really okay?” I asked, as I turned into the back entrance to the employee parking lot at the Circus of the Damned. I had a reserved spot near the door, because after dark the lot filled up with all the people it took to run the permanent carnival midway, the one-ring circus in its tent, the freak show, and all the things that made it into the Circus of the Damned. Here you could have that summertime traveling carnival experience under one roof, regardless of the weather, if you were willing to wait until nightfall. But then all carnivals are at their best after dark.

Nicky leaned on the back of my seat, his face resting against my hair. “Yeah, it’s really okay.”

“Why is it okay? Why are you content with only me?”

“I’m not content, I’m happy, and sociopaths don’t get to say that very often.”

That made me smile. I reached up and touched the side of his face. He rubbed his face between my hand and my hair and said, “Your touching me like this means more to me than more sex with anyone else.”

I kept touching him, but I was puzzled and said so.

“I get it,” Nathaniel said.