Micah touched my arm. "I'm sorry you're unhappy about it."

I smiled at him, and the fact that I could smile at anything was probably a good sign. "How do you feel about it?"

He smiled. "I love you. How could I not love a little piece of you running around?"

I shook my head. "Don't you feel cheated? I mean, it can't be yours."

He shrugged. "I knew I gave up children of my own when I had the vasectomy."

"Why did you have yourself fixed?" Richard asked. "You're not thirty yet, why would you do that to yourself?"

Micah wrapped his arms around me, held me close. "My old alpha, Chimera, liked pregnant shapeshifters. If one of the women came up pregnant by someone else, someone she cared for, Chimera would take her until she lost the baby. He got off on taking her from her lover, from fucking her while she was pregnant with someone else's child, and from her losing it."

I held him tight, held him and listened to his heartbeat speed. His voice never showed how awful it had been, but his pulse did. I had heard the story before, but Richard had not; his face showed revulsion, and something else, anger, I think.

I'd never heard a story about Chimera that made me unhappy that I'd killed him. No, that was one death I had absolutely no regrets about.

Nathaniel came up behind me, and wrapped himself against my back, holding me between the two of them. It felt so safe. Even now, even with Micah's story still horrible and fresh, even with the news about the baby, I still felt safe. That had to be a good sign, didn't it?

Jean-Claude came to our side. We all raised our heads from the various shoulders we were on, and looked at him.

He touched my face, ever so gently, and smiled. "Whatever happens, ma petite, we will not desert you."

Asher walked around to the other side so I stood in a box of the four of them.

"I'm not really included, am I?" Richard said, and his voice held more sadness than anger.

Micah said, "You could be if you wanted to be, Richard. No one excludes you, but you." He held his hand out toward Richard.

Richard stared at that hand, then looked at all the men. "I can't, Anita. I can't be part of this."

"A part of what, mon ami}" Jean-Claude asked.

"All of you together," Richard said.

Micah let his hand fall. "We're not asking you to have sex with everyone,