"Nicky for one."
"Nicky was going with us anyway. Name someone else."
"Wait," Nathaniel said. "Why can't the wererats go with us?"
"Can we all agree that Anita has tied more of her animal halves to her through metaphysical emergencies than on purpose?" he asked.
Nathaniel and I exchanged a look, and finally we both shrugged. "Sure, I concede that."
"Okay, then, Rafael says that we can't travel with you just in case you accidentally turn to one of us. He is our king and it's either him as your rat, or no one."
"I've been carrying hyena lycanthropy for months now and I haven't accidentally made one of them my beastie. I'm even taking Socrates with me and Narcissus is cool with it."
"You've already made it clear to Narcissus that he has no chance of being your hyena half. You could do worse than Socrates."
"I'll be sure and tell him you said that."
"Anita, please, this is an order from my king. I can't disobey it, or him." He clenched his jaw and looked like he might even be grinding his teeth.
"Fine. Besides Nicky, who else do you trust to replace you?"
"Kaazim and Jake are going," he said.
"That's a good start," I said.
"You need guards who can double as food, and none of us qualifies since Rafael dictated that he's the only wererat you feed on."
"I'm aware of that, which is why Fortune and Echo are going, along with Magda and her master, Giacomo."
"And you're taking Damian and Nathaniel," he said.
"Yes, but we're not going as just food," Nathaniel said.
Bobby Lee looked surprised, before he could stop himself. He went back to a neutral expression, but the damage was done. "I know you're one of Anita's fiances."
Nathaniel's energy whispered across my skin like a warm wind.
Bobby Lee must have felt it, too, because he said, "I know you're one of Anita's fiances, and that makes you more than just food."
The wind felt hotter, more summer than spring, as Nathaniel said, "I'm Anita's leopard to call, and part of her triumvirate of power."
"I know that," Bobby Lee said.
"Do you?" Nathaniel said, and his power didn't just bleed over onto me and whisper sweet nothings to my inner leopard. It spilled out into the room in a way that I'd never felt his power do before; it was closer to how Richard's energy worked when he was upset.
Bobby Lee's hands clenched. I watched the tension in his shoulders and arms as he fought to relax.
Nathaniel's power swirled through the room deeper, warmer, hot and aimed not at me but the wererat. He wasn't attacking him, but he was letting him know to be careful. It was a type of metaphysical posturing, and totally not how Nathaniel usually acted around anyone, let alone Bobby Lee.
The wererat took a deep breath and let it out slow. He was still fighting the tension in his own body, because a display like what Nathaniel was doing could be a precursor to a fight. It was certainly a metaphysical slap in the face to a wereanimal as dominant as Bobby Lee.
I said, "Nathaniel, I don't know what you're trying to prove, but . . ."
"No, Anita, he doesn't get to dismiss me like that."
"Be careful, Nathaniel. You don't want a new power level to make you forget," Bobby Lee said.
"Forget what?" Nathaniel said, and his voice held a purring edge to it.
"That I'm dominant to you, and I teach some of the fight classes you take."
Nathaniel's power flexed; that was the only word I had for the sensation of the heat expanding and contracting as if the energy were trying to wrap around us.
I looked at my calm boy, the one who never made trouble like this. "Don't do this," I said.
"This is your last warning. I don't care if you are Anita's fiance."
"I don't want to fight, Bobby Lee, but I'm beyond tired of everyone discounting me and Damian."
"You don't want to fight? Ya coulda fooled me," Bobby Lee said.
"I'm going to have to second that," I said.
"I've tried just being nice, but that doesn't get you respected by people like him."
"People like me? What's that supposed to mean?" Bobby Lee asked.
"The big athletic guys who have been big and athletic for most of their lives. The ones who played sports. The natural athletes. Military. Police. All the guy-guys. I can't win points with any of you for cooking, cleaning, because that's wimmin's work."
I was staring at Nathaniel as if I'd never seen him before, and I hadn't seen this side of him. I knew that guy-guys confused him and he'd never fit into their world, but this level of bitterness was a surprise to me.
"You're a dancer. That's athletic," Bobby Lee said.
"But it's not football, is it?" Nathaniel shook his head, his power so thick in the room now it was hard to breathe past it. It wasn't calling my inner beasts like most of the wereanimals did when they started doing shit like this; it was almost more like warm vampire power than wereanimal energy. It was too warm, too alive, to be vampire, but it just felt like power. The kind that vamps threw around to impress or attack each other, and to torment the lesser beings.
"Back down, Nathaniel," I demanded.
"Him first."
"If you hadn't noticed, Bobby Lee is doing his b
est not to throw more energy onto this little fire. His control is admirable, which is more than I can say for yours."
"You heard him, Anita. He doesn't count our triumvirate as important."
"Until right now, only Anita had gained power, and she's gotten the respect that deserved."
"And now?" Nathaniel asked, his voice purring along my skin as if his breath had touched me for real. It made me shiver and have to catch my breath. It was something Jean-Claude would do, but not Nathaniel.
"What are you trying to prove, Nathaniel?" I asked, rubbing my hands along my arms.
"Now you're proving that the only reason you've been nice up to now is that you didn't have enough power to be mean," Bobby Lee said.
The power from Nathaniel faltered as if magic could trip over its own feet.
The door opened without a knock. It was Damian. "What are you doing in here?"
It was while Nathaniel and I looked at the door that Bobby Lee proved that he was as fast as Nicky had been in practice. He went from standing still to being up against Nathaniel with a naked blade against his neck.
We all froze, because any movement could make things worse, so best to think carefully before you act. Honestly, I froze because it was just so damned unexpected that I didn't know what to do. Bobby Lee wasn't a bad guy. He wasn't even one of the guards who were a pain in my ass. Until this moment I'd have trusted him damn near implicitly.
His voice came low and careful. "Power is like strength. It means nothing if you don't know what to do with it."
"You've made your point, Bobby Lee," I said.
Damian started walking farther into the room.
"Have I made my point, Nathaniel?"
Nathaniel spoke carefully with the blade against his neck. "Powers down."
"You powered down because I startled you, not on purpose. It takes time to learn how to use magic, just like muscles." He started to ease the knife back from Nathaniel, then pushed it in tighter.
"Bobby Lee," I said.
"Tell your other man to back off."
I looked at Damian, and he was behind the wererat with a blade in his hand. I'd never seen Damian carry a knife; a sword, but not a knife. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Defending us."
"I'm not the enemy," Bobby Lee said.
"You have a knife at my friend's neck."
"I'm teaching a lesson."
"What lesson?" Damian asked.