The big lion nodded, his shoulders pressed against the ceiling, back bowed for lack of space as he held my arm, and held hands with Micah. Their tawny and black fur looked like yin and yang curved around each other.
“You are the king, all that you desire is yours to take,” he said, and again I knew there was more meaning there than I was certain of. I would ask Jean-Claude later.
“Fur is not to my liking, mon lionne.”
“We can fix the fur part; the implications beyond that, we’ll discuss,” Micah said. “Feel what I’m about to do, Dev. You have the power to do the same, most of the clan tigers do.”
“I’m looking.”
“With more than your eyes?”
“Of course,” Dev said, as if you always looked with more than your eyes.
The black fur seemed to shrink, as did his body, and his skin rose through it all like a figure trapped in melting ice that just rose to the surface as the spring thaw freed it. Micah stood there nude and beautiful, with his dark brown curls cascading around his shoulders. His hair tie had gone with the rest of his clothes that were scattered ripped around the room. He blinked his yellow-green eyes at me, and I was relieved; for just a moment I’d worried that he’d keep his tiger eyes.
“God, you make it look easy,” Dev growled, and then I felt his body run with heat. The fur didn’t retreat as effortlessly as it had for Micah, but it was cleaner and faster than any change I’d ever seen from Dev. He swayed on his human feet, because rapid shifting between forms takes energy. Micah and I both steadied the bigger man.
Dev looked at Jean-Claude. “No fur here.”
“I see that,” Jean-Claude said, trying for a neutral voice but not quite succeeding. The fact that he couldn’t control his voice meant something about all of this had hit either an issue or a potential happy spot; whichever it was, it moved him.
“The first night I came here, you put me with Asher while you and Richard took Envy. She’s already dumped him, and you’re not happy with her.”
“She does not share well enough.”
“She’s a beautiful woman.”
“She is.”
“Most men are grateful that anyone that beautiful is with them.”
“Beautiful men can be the same way, mon ami.”
“Envy’s never been with anyone who thought they were the pretty one in the relationship.”
Jean-Claude gave that Gallic shrug that could have meant he agreed, or not.
“It’s the girl rule,” I said. “Never date someone prettier than you are. I broke it so long ago, I don’t worry about it.”
Dev smiled, hands still gripping us as he swayed slightly again.
“Maybe you should sit down,” Micah said.
Dev gave a small shake of his head. “Envy thinks she’s more beautiful than you are, you know that, right?”
I nodded. “She’s tall, leggy, blond, and blue-eyed; of course she does.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Women have been doing that math on me all my life, I’m used to it.”
“Modern American women seem to believe that being tall and thin is beauty, but I have lived in centuries when that was not so.”
“But when she enters a room, heads turn and follow all that height and blondness,” I said. “I’ve never gotten that same treatment just walking through a crowd.”
Dev grinned. “Only because you’re so short we can’t see you over the crowd.”
I gave him the look the comment deserved, but truth was truth.
“In a crowd we’re invisible,” Micah said.
Dev laughed and then swayed again. Jean-Claude moved a chair up and we helped sit him down. “How do you do this without feeling tired afterward?” Dev asked.
“I do rapid change better than most.”
“You do, but damn, I feel shaky.”
“You need to refuel.”
“You mean eat something.”
Micah nodded.
“But you don’t?”
“I should, but I don’t have to.”
Dev looked back up at Jean-Claude. “You’re in love with Anita, so Envy let that go, but when she realized you see so many of the men as more attractive than she is, that’s when she couldn’t deal with it.”
“Has she looked at the men in our group?” I asked.
Dev smiled. “She’s not used to having to compete with men and women for someone’s attention, Anita, no matter how pretty they are, because you don’t just value the men for their beauty—well, except for Asher maybe. For the rest you prefer men who hit the gym, and the only woman in your life besides Envy hits the gym as hard as the men.”
“I’ll never muscle up like Richard, no matter how much I lift.”
“But you’ve got more muscles than most women, and a hell of a lot more than Envy.”
“Why is it that most of the golden tigers learned to be good in bed and with fighting, but Envy and a few other men, and women, didn’t?”
“Even among our clan not everyone is great at athletics, so we let people play to their strengths. Adam is an amazing lawyer, but I wouldn’t trust his fighting skills. For some of the females of our clan, the legend says a new Master of Tigers, not a new mistress. I think Envy believed that just being a beautiful woman would win her points with the new master.”
“What if he’d been gay?” I asked.