Bullet by Laurell K. Hamilton Page B

fight.”
    “Fight about what?” I asked, and put my gun up. I wasn’t going to shoot either of them, and they would know that. Unless you’re willing to use it, a gun is just a useless piece of metal. I put my useless piece in its holster.
    “I’m not entirely sure,” she said.
    “One of you talk to me,” I said.
    “We will not come to blows,” Jean-Claude said, and he backed away from the cluster of bodyguards to sit on the big white couch on the far side of the room. He let himself fall into it in that graceful I-don’t-care way, but he ended up looking like he was waiting for some passing photographer to snap a picture of him. He was always beautiful, but this level of care and control over how he looked was usually reserved for guests, and hostile guests at that.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    Asher backed up to the white loveseat with its gold and silver cushions. He put his arms on the back of the loveseat, careless, but in his own way just as posed as Jean-Claude. Asher’s gold hair spilled over the scarred side of his face so that he sat there like some fallen angel, perfect and coldly beautiful.
    “What is wrong with you guys? What’s happened?”
    “Nothing’s happened,” Asher said, “and that is precisely the problem.”
    We all stood in the white and gold room, and I had no idea what was going on. The bodyguards were huddled between the faux fireplace and the two chairs, the silver by the faux fireplace and the gold with its white cushions by us at the end of the room between the couch and loveseat. The huge glass-and-metal coffee table in the center of everything had food on it, but it was also forcing the guards to move around it, having to be careful of the food and the vampires. It seemed like you shouldn’t have to tiptoe around refreshments when you’re standing between two master vampires, but sometimes you end up between the cutlets and the cutlery, with nowhere safe to stand.
    I frowned from one to the other of them and finally turned to the guards. Claudia and her fellow wererat Fredo looked at me. The two newer guards were both werehyenas, one tall and blond, the other a little shorter with skin a few shades darker than Vivian’s, hair tight and curly to his head. They were both looking at Asher. Wicked looked from one to the other of the vampires, but Truth looked at me. I said, “Truth, report.”
    The dark-haired vampire stepped away from the T-shirted security and faced me. “Asher is threatening to take his werehyenas and find another city.”
    I looked at Asher. “What? Why?”
    Micah moved up beside me. “Narcissus’s werehyenas are the third most powerful animal group in this city. He wouldn’t leave and start over.”
    “He would, for me,” Asher said.
    “Have you made him your animal to call?” Micah asked.
    Asher scowled at Micah, and his ice-blue eyes flashed with a hint of glow, a hint of vampire power. “I do not have to answer your question, cat.”
    “Fine, then answer it for me,” I said.
    He gave me an unfriendly look. “No, no I have not done what Narcissus so terribly wants. I have not made him my animal to call, but if I would, and if I would come to his bed as he wants, then he is willing to leave St. Louis and go where I go.”
    I didn’t know what to say to that. Micah said, “Narcissus must love you a great deal to be willing to leave a safe city and fight for control somewhere else.”
    Asher laughed, and as Jean-Claude’s laughter could be sensual and sexy, Asher’s laugh held sorrow as if the light dimmed. My heart hurt for a moment. “I’m not certain Narcissus is capable of truly loving anyone, but he wants me. He wants me badly enough that he would destroy everything he has built if only I will be his in every way.”
    The conversation had the feel of something that had been talked about a lot, but it was totally news to me. I looked at Jean-Claude and said what I was thinking. “How long have you known about Narcissus’s