close to pain. "She went ballistic. Jean-Claude rips us out of her bed, forces us to sleep with you, and she's cool about it. Losing Requiem bothered her, more than losing us."

I watched the look in his pale eyes. That had hurt him. He really did care for her. Damn. "Some women, especially of Belle Morte's line, seem to take rejection really badly. You guys had no choice. Jean-Claude said bunk over, and you had to do it. Requiem chose to leave her. That cuts a certain type of woman, or man, real deep."

Clay put those puzzled, pain-filled eyes on me. "You mean it hurt her pride."

I nodded. "Trust me, most master vamps have more than their share."

He shook his head. "I know you're trying to make me feel better, Anita, but what you've just said is that her hurt pride means more to her than whatever she feels for me. Thanks for trying to make me feel better."

"But I failed miserably," I said.

He actually touched me voluntarily, rare for Clay lately; he squeezed my shoulder, very guy. "Yeah, you really suck at this whole comfort thing, but thanks."

He had never been very handsy, but after he bunked over and felt the ardeur rise in the bed, he'd touched me only when he absolutely had to. I think he was afraid to touch me. The hints of the ardeur made Graham chase me harder. The same kind of hints scared Clay. One man's heaven, another man's hell.

"We should introduce ourselves to our guests," Micah said, "and you need to change shoes."

I sighed. "So we're on our own for this little cocktail party." I knelt down, careful of my hose on the stone floor, and took off the jogging shoes.

"I'm afraid so," Clay said.

"Great, just great." I stood up and let Nathaniel slip the first high heel on, then Micah balanced me while Nathaniel did the other shoe. Four-inch heels, what had I been thinking? I never did like cocktail party talk, but that wasn't the problem this time. I could fake small talk if I had to. The problem was that the two masters in the other room had brought along candidates to be my new pomme de sang.

It was my own damn fault. I hadn't chosen from any of the local talent. I had also expressed concern about bringing this many Masters of the City into our territory. It just didn't sound safe to me. So Elinore, one of our new British vamps, had an idea. A wonderfully, awful idea. Since Masters of the City were coming from all over the United States, why didn't we have a sort of contest? The masters could bring some candidates for my new pomme de sang.