the towels. I wanted him to wrap his arms around me, but he was probably right. Richard didn't always like to see us cuddle.

"You wanted privacy for this talk, so talk," he said. One of the side effects of the vampire marks was that we seemed to be sharing bits of our personalities. He seemed to have inherited some of my impatience and lack of anger management. A bad combination for a werewolf. But we didn't get to pick and choose what we got.

"Ma petite, if you will tell him, and me, what happened before I arrived." I told the shortest complete version I could of all that had happened before Jean-Claude showed up. Somewhere during the talk, I leaned in against Jean-Claude's body. It just seemed wrong to be this close and not touch. He put his arm along my shoulder.

Richard didn't seem to notice. "I thought this Samuel and Augustine were your friends?" he said.

"They are."

Then Richard said what I'd thought earlier. "If these are your friends, Jean-Claude, what are the other masters going to be like?"

"I'd thought of that, too," I said. "I mean, if tliese are your friends, your enemies are going to kill us."

"One of the reasons for tonight's little meeting was to see how ma petite reacted to other Masters of the City."

"Badly," Richard said.

"Not necessarily,"Jean-Claude said. He leaned forward, curving me more into his arm to keep from knocking me off the edge. Jean-Claude started to tell his part in tonight's little drama, but Richard stopped him.

"I felt most of what happened after you touched Anita. I don't need a reminder."

"As you like," Jean-Claude said, "but the point is we may have rolled Augustine as thoroughly as Belle Morte could have done."

"I wouldn't brag about that," Richard said. He'd moved to lean his shoulder against the marble around the tub, so that he was close enough to have reached out and touched us, but he didn't try to close the distance. And because he didn't, we didn't.

"If Augustine is truly ours in the way that Belle made allies, than none of the other masters will try us. They will fear us, Richard. Fear even the touch of our hands."

Richard frowned at us. I wanted to touch the thick waves of his hair, but kept my hand around Jean-Claude's waist, and the other hand in my lap. "But you told us, before we agreed to this gathering of masters, that everyone would behave. Especially if they thought one of their people would be