“And that may kill Asher,” I said.
“I will not . . .” Jean-Claude started to say.
I touched his lips with my fingers. “You cannot sell us down the river for Asher’s mistake. I love the little shit, too, but that he made Kane his hyena to call without consulting you first says that he has no respect for you as his ruler. He counted on your love and mine, and even Narcissus’s love, to keep him and Kane safe.”
He took my hand in his, and let me see the pain in his eyes. “I know you are right, ma petite, but I cannot stand by and watch him die, not if I can save him.”
I took his hand in both of mine. “Jean-Claude, you did your best for him when the Church took him.”
“Not enough, my best was not enough.” His eyes held the loss of Julianna, their shared love, who had been burned at the stake as a witch, while the Church fathers tried to burn the devil out of Asher with holy water and had scarred one of the most beautiful men that may have ever lived. He was still beautiful, but sometimes he couldn’t see that.
“You bargained your freedom to Belle Morte for a hundred years so she would save Asher’s life. A hundred years of pain and torment, and being her bitch, it’s enough.”
“She tormented Asher, as well.”
“Yes, because she tortures everyone around her in one way or another, it’s one of her things, but you cannot let the guilt of something that happened hundreds of years ago ruin the empire you are building now.”
“Are you telling me to choose power over love? Power and politics over Asher?”
“No, not if it was that clear-cut, but Asher counted on you doing exactly that. He counted on us all valuing him above anything else, and that’s not cool.”
“There is a reason that master vampires are either killed or forced to leave and find another territory by most Masters of the City,” Jean-Claude said.
“Yeah, because they’re an arrogant pain in the ass if you don’t.”
He almost smiled. “Asher has been that for a very long time.”
I looked down at Narcissus, still holding Jean-Claude’s hands. “You’re angry, you’re hurt, and you have every right to be, but you also saw this in all its political ramifications as a way to solidify your place as top animal group here in St. Louis.”
He gave a little shrug. “If we can get a little revenge and solidify my power base, why not?”
I turned back to Jean-Claude. “Even brokenhearted he’s thinking better politically than you are.”
“I know about your little plan to get enough soldiers in the other animal groups so that I won’t be a power here anymore.”
Jean-Claude looked at me.
“He stated it up front before you came into the room.”
“I’m a king, did you not think I’d know?”
“You’re Oba, not king; there is no king as a title among the hyenas, because they prefer queens.”
He growled at me.
“You can be a power here, Narcissus,” Jean-Claude said, “but you cannot keep using your greater numbers to threaten us. Anita is right, I was thinking like a Master of the City, and I am more than that now.”
I said, “Threatening to take all your hyenas and go to another city would have gutted our guards once, but I think you’ve waited too long, Narcissus. I think we have the numbers to be just fine without your hyenas.”
“I’d noticed how few of my men were on your guard duty lately, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t enough of us to start a war here with all of you. That wouldn’t play well in the news, would it? The vampire king of America losing control of his city would undermine a lot of things.”
“No, Narcissus,” Jean-Claude said, “for if you declare war on the rest of the city I will simply turn you in to the human authorities. I will make it clear that you are the rogue, and that most of your people are innocent. The human authorities will kill you before they allow you to engulf our city in a shapeshifter war.”
“You have no proof that I’ve said any such thing.”
“Have you forgotten what my day job is?” I asked.
I watched his face, and he had.
“Don’t let the fact that you woke up naked in a bed with me make you forget what I am, Narcissus.”
“You’re Jean-Claude’s human servant, his pet necromancer.” But I watched his eyes as he said it, and he had remembered.
“I am a U.S. Marshal and a legal executioner of all the bad little vampires and shapeshifters. All I have to do is tell them I heard these threats and I think it’s credible. To save the city from a bloodbath, they will put out a warrant of execution so fast it’ll make your head swim.”
“My hyenas will fight to save me.”
“Your hyenas follow you, but most do not love you or feel the loyalty that Rafael’s rats feel for him,” Jean-Claude said.
“And I’ve talked to them, Narcissus,” I said. “They aren’t so happy with you as leader.”
“I know, you’ve become all buddy-buddy with them in the gym.” He made it sound disdainful, as if he couldn’t be bothered.
“And you’re more a yoga kind of guy, I get that, but I talk to them and to the other guards, and they talk to me,” I said.
He gave me unfriendly eyes, arms crossed over his chest, and I realized that one side of his chest had a little more breast than the other, as if he were almost an A-cup on one side. “Are you looking at my boobie?”