I nodded. “I honestly was expecting more visual difference, so I didn’t lie.”
“I have only one ball, and it’s more to the side than below, and my penis is lower on the body than any man you’ve ever been with, and between my legs is an opening like yours.”
“Well, that is different.”
“Different, she says. The only reason I still have a dick and an opening is that my penis was large enough that the doctors and my father didn’t want to cut it off at birth and make me a girl, and my mom got pissed that they were going to sew up my vagina, so they waited to decide what to do. They were stubborn enough to get an intersexed baby out of the hospital with no surgeries thirty years ago, unheard of. They listed me as a boy, raised me as a boy.”
“Was that what you wanted to be raised as?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes, I was a boy, a gay boy, and I grew into being a gay man, who occasionally cross-dresses, and I like lovers who pay attention to all my parts, but yes, I feel and think male. I’m just gay and male, but I think I’d have been that no matter what my junk looked like.”
“We’re talking this to death instead of getting up close and personal, because you don’t want me, because I’m a woman, and you don’t do women. You and I were getting along better before Jean-Claude came into the room, because once you saw him you knew what you wanted and it’s not me.”
“But he can’t make me his hyena to call, and you can.”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason to tie ourselves together for all eternity, when we don’t really like each other. I’ve done the whole hate-you-love-you-lust-you with Richard, and you and I wouldn’t even have the lust going for us.”
“The ardeur would force it upon you both, ma petite.”
I looked at Jean-Claude. “I don’t want it forced anymore. I don’t want to tie myself to someone else that I know isn’t a good match for me, and watch the ardeur change them into something that fits, or make me fit them more.”
“Do you believe that is what is happening?” he asked.
“Maybe. I know that Micah and I become more perfectly matched; Nathaniel, too. I think the magic is changing all of us.”
“Couples do that on their own, Anita,” Narcissus said.
“I’ve never had a long-term relationship, outside of Jean-Claude and everyone in my life now.”
Narcissus propped himself up on his elbow and looked at me. “Really, Jean-Claude is your first serious guy?”
“Him and Richard, yeah. Before them it was like six months and then broken up.”
He looked at me, face serious, showing me the mind that had built his group into one to be reckoned with; he was a lot smarter and wiser than he let on most of the time. “You did jump into the deep end of the dating pool, cupcake.”
“Whatever, we’re here now, and you and I don’t like each other that much. We might be work friends, and that would be it.”
“Yes, but I’m willing to let the ardeur take away all my doubts for a chance to be tied to the throne, because that’s what Jean-Claude offered if I spared Kane’s life and didn’t risk killing Asher when his hyena to call died.”
I shook my head. “You aren’t going to kill Kane,” I said.
“Why not?” He lay back on the bed, smiling like a cat who’d gotten into the cream.
“If Jean-Claude were just the local Master of the City, and I were just his human servant, then yeah, we’d have to do something to placate you, but Jean-Claude is king of all the vampires in this country. He’s the first king of America, and I’m not just his human servant, I’m a necromancer and I’m the Executioner. That nickname was earned from the vampires long before I got a badge and became a marshal.”
“What has any of that to do with me and my small army of hyenas?”
“You don’t get to come in here and blackmail our asses into an alliance that gains you a hell of a lot more than it gains us. If we put the word out that I’m looking to tie us to a really powerful hyena, there are cities in this country where the hyenas are the major animal power. They’re bigger and have a hell of a lot more foot soldiers than you do.”
“But they’re not here, I am.”
“Jean-Claude is king of all of it, from sea to shining sea, which means he could just negotiate them coming here and slaughtering you all, or we could just give you the choice of getting the fuck out of our immediate area, because you are a disruptive influence on the peace and power base we have built.”
“And what of your precious Asher?” he asked, and there was no teasing now.
“His death won’t hurt our power base; in fact, he’s a deficit, not an asset, politically.”
“So I can kill him, just like that.”
“No,” Jean-Claude said finally, “no, you cannot.”
I looked at him. “Jean-Claude, we are not going to tie ourselves to Narcissus just because Asher is being a shit again.”
“We will not watch him be killed.”
“No, but we don’t have to bargain like we are still just squabbling over the local territory. Narcissus is powerful here, but outside of here he’s nothing. Rafael, even the swan king, they have ties across the country, people across the country to feed on—they are truly fellow kings. Narcissus is not.”
“I will kill Kane,” he said, still lying there, but now it wasn’t sexy, or flirty. He was very serious, eyes watching me carefully.